Yesterday, a minute before I was to leave my office, a student stopped in to ask if I could be the third member of her honors' thesis committee, who would be "meeting tomorrow for the defense."
It's a busy end of the term here, not just because of it being my last term, but also because of the workload. I've already served on two honors committees. I'm supervising 17 senior research projects. I've got portfolios from 21 students, and essay exams from 12 others. Also, I have an article to restructure. I've no business on last minute committees.
Naturally, I said yes.
The topic seemed interesting, and I've known the student through some of the causes happening on campus this year. It felt wrong to say no.
And now I've read the thesis, and I realize that there's a reason there was no third committee member. And worse, I don't think they could have been thinking about what my own research and interests are or they wouldn't have asked me to be on this because there's almost no way I can avoid shredding this.
What's frustrating, though, is that I tried to speak with the chair about this, and there seemed to be little recognition of the problems and even less interest in hearing out my difficulties so they might either prepare the student or their own defense of this. Because at the end of the day, a failed thesis defense - and that's what I think this might wind up being - is a failure of the committee.
And While I'm Posting Ridiculous Things...
...media scholars - are any of you media scholars? - tell me what you think about this?
Clearly, I should not be grading finals and watching late night television. Honestly, AMC, who the hell is your after midnight audience?
Clearly, I should not be grading finals and watching late night television. Honestly, AMC, who the hell is your after midnight audience?
Their graduation, mine.
It has been far too long since I've written, longer still since - maybe - since I wanted to write.
The days have been filled with writing, of course. There's a conference to be planned, and I am reminded that I am, however reluctantly, a Type A- personality: not quite type A, but a little too something to settle into Type B. I envy Type B's; I dread Type A's. But the conference begs for it. This is the problem with folks of a particular ideology (I wont say which: you can fill in your own blanks): they mistake organization for fascism. And, so, I find myself answering the e-mails for the conference: dull, banal little things in great numbers like gnats. To put any thought down became a chore, swatting at these things just a little more when I should be resting.
Tonight, I feel like writing.
---
Sometime back, I started writing a letter to our Seniors before they graduated. It was born out of a sort of necessity: herding cats in the graduation rodeo to a place where we could send them off into the sunset, though I have yet to attend a graduation that wasn't cold and rainy (at least for part of it). It became a tradition for me, a touchstone. And so, this year, it took on extra importance.
I'm leaving.
My advisees - many of them, anyway - are leaving with me. Well, not with me, but at the same time, to similar questions. In a strange way that no one ever told me, I walked the same path as those scared little Freshmen four years ago. Their steps were mine, and now, a tiny piece of their parting. The letter this year was much the same - congratulations and a little bit of a wish for them.
And a little bit of thanks.
---
The last two days have been awash in bureaucratic frustration. I find it's process that makes me lose my temper. And these last two days, I've found that a lot: everywhere I looked, there were problems: invitations sent to people who shouldn't have been; people who should have been who weren't. Names left out of programs. Programs out of order. I've found myself very protective of these students here at the end.
In recent weeks, we took a busload of them to a research conference. They rocked it. We took several to the school's research presentation. Most of them blew it away. Even my most problematic students - the ones who gravitate to me - have done well. Pick the student who you thought was the picture of unrepentant, unearned privilege. Remember how they walked into your office two years ago like royalty and made demands. Even that student got it, enough to make a couple of heads turn and faces pause at their moment of lucidity.
I am trying to focus on these things, amidst the chaos.
---
This evening I received a letter from a student that made me think of poetry. It was a letter that made me want to sit down and write. I want to share it, but that wouldn't be right. It was a private thing, but it reminded me of all the things we so rarely know as teachers, and that just because we don't know doesn't mean it isn't there or isn't happening.
It reminded me of the postcards friends used to send me, with haiku of their days on scrawled in thin, small writing. It was true, and tangentially I was a part of it.
Naomi Shihab Nye wrote "No one sees/the fuel that feeds you." Tonight, this term, these four years, I have been fed.
The days have been filled with writing, of course. There's a conference to be planned, and I am reminded that I am, however reluctantly, a Type A- personality: not quite type A, but a little too something to settle into Type B. I envy Type B's; I dread Type A's. But the conference begs for it. This is the problem with folks of a particular ideology (I wont say which: you can fill in your own blanks): they mistake organization for fascism. And, so, I find myself answering the e-mails for the conference: dull, banal little things in great numbers like gnats. To put any thought down became a chore, swatting at these things just a little more when I should be resting.
Tonight, I feel like writing.
---
Sometime back, I started writing a letter to our Seniors before they graduated. It was born out of a sort of necessity: herding cats in the graduation rodeo to a place where we could send them off into the sunset, though I have yet to attend a graduation that wasn't cold and rainy (at least for part of it). It became a tradition for me, a touchstone. And so, this year, it took on extra importance.
I'm leaving.
My advisees - many of them, anyway - are leaving with me. Well, not with me, but at the same time, to similar questions. In a strange way that no one ever told me, I walked the same path as those scared little Freshmen four years ago. Their steps were mine, and now, a tiny piece of their parting. The letter this year was much the same - congratulations and a little bit of a wish for them.
And a little bit of thanks.
---
The last two days have been awash in bureaucratic frustration. I find it's process that makes me lose my temper. And these last two days, I've found that a lot: everywhere I looked, there were problems: invitations sent to people who shouldn't have been; people who should have been who weren't. Names left out of programs. Programs out of order. I've found myself very protective of these students here at the end.
In recent weeks, we took a busload of them to a research conference. They rocked it. We took several to the school's research presentation. Most of them blew it away. Even my most problematic students - the ones who gravitate to me - have done well. Pick the student who you thought was the picture of unrepentant, unearned privilege. Remember how they walked into your office two years ago like royalty and made demands. Even that student got it, enough to make a couple of heads turn and faces pause at their moment of lucidity.
I am trying to focus on these things, amidst the chaos.
---
This evening I received a letter from a student that made me think of poetry. It was a letter that made me want to sit down and write. I want to share it, but that wouldn't be right. It was a private thing, but it reminded me of all the things we so rarely know as teachers, and that just because we don't know doesn't mean it isn't there or isn't happening.
It reminded me of the postcards friends used to send me, with haiku of their days on scrawled in thin, small writing. It was true, and tangentially I was a part of it.
Naomi Shihab Nye wrote "No one sees/the fuel that feeds you." Tonight, this term, these four years, I have been fed.
RBOC: More Catching Up
Attempts at blogging have largely failed. I'm still trying though. I promise.
In the meantime, things worth noting:
In the meantime, things worth noting:
- April snow froze my car shut this morning
- for those wondering about when it would happen, word of my departure has reached the students. It happened largely by accident. The first reveal was intentional - a student asked if I could be the faculty moderator for a student atheist group. The second was my slip-up in discussing an event being planned. And more recently, a candidate was brought in for my position, and the department took them to a restaurant where a number of our students work.
- Surprisingly, the stack of boxes in my office has yet to draw a single question.
- I came in 7 out of 63 and 9 out of 33 in my March Madness pools. Good enough for a little bragging, but no actual financial gain.
- I've recently watched Synecdoche, New York and Gran Torino, and loved them both for very different reasons. I strongly recommend both, but each with a warning: the first is not an easy film intellectually, the second is not an easy film in terms of cultural sensitivity.
Signs of Growth
Spring is here. And gone. And back again. And likely gone again tomorrow.
---
The conference planning continues along, in that way that suggests that the ruling members of the planning committee don't exactly have their feet on the ground. I spent a significant portion of last not looking for my temper which got off leash and access to my e-mail. Drafts were written. Things were quoted - perhaps the worst thing one can do in an e-mail argument. In the end, I found it and reigned it in.
I was tempted to resign, to cancel the things I'd organized and to let them go it alone. I was tempted to give back funding and salute as the remaining organizers were left to twist in the wind.
Cooler moods prevailed. It's been awhile since I've found myself pushed to that point. Had it not been for the love I have for this organization, which has been kind to me and instrumental, I might have.
---
The other day, coming out of the gym, strangers were talking in the hallway. They were circled, and sprawled across the corridor, so no one could easily pass. There are boundary issues at play here. It's one of the things I won't miss - that sprawling lack of awareness that others might also - must also - pass through space. But I digress.
One man said, "As you can see, I have a problem with shrinkage."
The others laughed. And as I squeezed through, I suppressed the reply that raced automatically to my lips. Ten years before, it would have slipped out before I'd seen it coming. Growing up, my friends and I made jokes on each other whenever they came up, whatever they may have been. It was hard to ignore the urge.
But I couldn't help laughing a little on the way to my car, and wishing I'd only known one of them so I could have let fly.
"You can't call it shrinkage if it's always that way."
---
The conference planning continues along, in that way that suggests that the ruling members of the planning committee don't exactly have their feet on the ground. I spent a significant portion of last not looking for my temper which got off leash and access to my e-mail. Drafts were written. Things were quoted - perhaps the worst thing one can do in an e-mail argument. In the end, I found it and reigned it in.
I was tempted to resign, to cancel the things I'd organized and to let them go it alone. I was tempted to give back funding and salute as the remaining organizers were left to twist in the wind.
Cooler moods prevailed. It's been awhile since I've found myself pushed to that point. Had it not been for the love I have for this organization, which has been kind to me and instrumental, I might have.
---
The other day, coming out of the gym, strangers were talking in the hallway. They were circled, and sprawled across the corridor, so no one could easily pass. There are boundary issues at play here. It's one of the things I won't miss - that sprawling lack of awareness that others might also - must also - pass through space. But I digress.
One man said, "As you can see, I have a problem with shrinkage."
The others laughed. And as I squeezed through, I suppressed the reply that raced automatically to my lips. Ten years before, it would have slipped out before I'd seen it coming. Growing up, my friends and I made jokes on each other whenever they came up, whatever they may have been. It was hard to ignore the urge.
But I couldn't help laughing a little on the way to my car, and wishing I'd only known one of them so I could have let fly.
"You can't call it shrinkage if it's always that way."
Checking In
I'm sitting here, sore from the gym, tired from the whirlwind of the term, reading "Joe Gould's Secret." Lurking at the back of my head over the last few days has been the fear that I am not the academic I thought I was.
I am thinking about writing, which isn't what I do, and thinking it is something I might like to try more. I'm thinking about how the research I do isn't the thing that my students connect with. Shouldn't it be? Why is it when I teach the things around the edges of my part of the field, trying to define it, that it is those things the students connect with?
I'm feeling guilty as my department is slowly descending into panic about my departure. It would help if, when people asked me about the new job, they didn't always begin with "So, you're abandoning us...." A friend mentioned wanting to throw a party for my departure, and I immediately thought of 40 people all starting their celebration for me that way, followed by loud demands for a speech.
Earlier this week, I looked at an ad for an apartment that said tenants could get use of the washer and dryer in the basement for $50 in additional rent, provided the use was limited to one load per week. Everything about looking for apartments depresses me.
All of this is funny as I'm still excited about the position.
I am thinking about writing, which isn't what I do, and thinking it is something I might like to try more. I'm thinking about how the research I do isn't the thing that my students connect with. Shouldn't it be? Why is it when I teach the things around the edges of my part of the field, trying to define it, that it is those things the students connect with?
I'm feeling guilty as my department is slowly descending into panic about my departure. It would help if, when people asked me about the new job, they didn't always begin with "So, you're abandoning us...." A friend mentioned wanting to throw a party for my departure, and I immediately thought of 40 people all starting their celebration for me that way, followed by loud demands for a speech.
Earlier this week, I looked at an ad for an apartment that said tenants could get use of the washer and dryer in the basement for $50 in additional rent, provided the use was limited to one load per week. Everything about looking for apartments depresses me.
All of this is funny as I'm still excited about the position.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts (Atom)
