getting by

Perpetual rejection?

2012-01-26T10:57:00.001-07:00

I've had this sense for a while, but the Chronicle just confirmed it in an article on "The Art of Rejection" (which is supposed to cheer up those of us who are perpetually losing in the job market, but fails to do so convincingly). In it, the authors write:

Over the previous two years, the MLA found that more jobs had been advertised in the spring and summer months than in the fall. In fact, 52.6 percent of jobs in English and 60 percent of jobs in foreign languages appeared after the MLA convention in 2011. Those are welcome opportunities, to be sure, but that statistic also means that the so-called season of rejection now runs continuously from October through September. Under such circumstances, we ask, is there ever a time when a job seeker isn't being rejected?

Indeed. Is there ever a time when I might open my inbox or my mailbox without the vague dread that I will find yet another rejection inside?

Didn't think so.

First Round Two

2012-01-25T21:34:00.003-07:00

freefoto.com

That title is a bit of an oxymoron isn't it? But it's true. I realized the other day that this is the first semester since 2006 when I haven't had a new course to prep. All of my courses this semester are round two or later. That realization really picked me up; last semester was really tiring so I'm hoping that a semester full of round two courses will be less exhausting.

I did change the textbook in one of the courses, so there will be new readings and some new lectures come out of it. The course is also a hybrid one, so there will be some podcasts that I'll need to record for the days that the class meets online, but there won't be new material each week. I also might have some time to build up lecture material in the other courses as well, which will improve the way I can deliver those courses.

The biggest bonus will be to my research and writing; at least that's what I hope. I have three confirmed conferences and possibly another between now and summer, which when I type it, sounds like a lot, but a couple of the papers are based on work I've already made a good bit of headway on. But that doesn't change the fact that I'd really like to carve out a few hours every week to attend to my own intellectual development. Even when my research gains from my teaching (which isn't often since I rarely teach in my research area), it's nice to be able to pursue other paths that have nothing to do with teaching prep.

Don't need an interpreter for this dream

2012-01-22T12:10:00.001-07:00

Had a dream last night that needs no interpretation. It starts as I'm trying to find an address in an urban area because I have a job interview. It's a bit like MLA in that I'm trying to find this place, but when I get there, it's not a hotel but a little house. But I realize I've made it just in time - I'm 2 minutes early, and pretty happy I'm there.

I go in and am greeted by a woman who tells me I need a name tag before I can join the other job candidates who I can see sitting in another room. So I write my name on the tag and prepare to enter. But the woman tells me I've done it wrong and I need to try again. I ask her what I need to do, but she just turns her back on me. So I try again. And again. Repeatedly, the woman tells me I've done it wrong but won't answer when I ask what's wrong and I can't see the other candidate's tags to figure out what it should look like.

This goes on and on until all of the candidates have been interviewed and the interviewer announces the interviews are over. Everyone leaves and I'm left sitting in the little house, still wondering what I was supposed to put on the nametag.

Pretty obvious, isn't it? Something so simple as my name, and I can't get it right and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. It's clear that the constant job applications over the last couple of years are getting to me. I'm doing everything right, and yet nothing has come of it. And as much as I know the market's hard for everyone, it's hard not to see it as a personal failure, hence the problem in the dream is that I can't get my nametag right.

*image source: desdechado's flickr stream

Getting to know students

2012-01-20T19:11:00.002-07:00

We're at the end of the second full week of classes, and for the most part, I think I've got everyone's names memorized. That's about 120 names, so I don't feel bad that there are a few students who I have to think about when I call out their name, but overall, I think I've got them nailed. For some reason this semester has felt harder as far as remembering faces, and I'm at a bit of a loss.

I know one cause. In two of my classes, there are conflicting forces at work to make it easier/harder to remember names. I'm teaching two sections of a hybrid course, which means we meet half the time face to face and the other half online. The fact that I only see students once a week makes it a bit trickier to remember their faces because I've got a lot of time in between to forget who they are. On the other hand, some of the online meetings are through digital technologies (e.g. Google+) that incorporate a picture, which makes it easier to remember who they are. So it's a mixed effect of remembering/forgetting in this class.

But that doesn't explain why matching names to faces this semester has felt harder in the other classes as well. I really don't want to admit that maybe it's just age and/or exhaustion after a hectic Fall term, but it just might be.

e-reading

2012-01-07T15:00:00.000-07:00

I got an e-reader for Christmas and have been happily trying it out. I've been reading both public domain texts (free is always nice) and more mainstream texts. I've been loving it. It's just the right size to hold, and I actually really like the dictionary feature since I don't have to read with another device near me if I want to look something up. (I've been known to take my smartphone out with me when I'm reading a novel, just in case I want to look something up...)

But the one thing that surprises me is the cost of ebooks. I was compiling a list of books I'd love to read this year (a short one, thankfully! - these lists aren't always so) and two of them would cost more as ebooks than as paper versions. And since I always buy enough to get the free shipping, why would I want to pay more for an ephemeral ecopy? This I do not understand. Can anyone explain?

MLA blues... sort of...

2012-01-05T17:11:00.001-07:00

Feeling oddly strange not being at MLA 2012 convention. I've been for the last three years, and while it's not exactly an enjoyable conference in the way that many of the others I attend are, I feel oddly strange not to be there. I haven't been in Seattle for probably a dozen or so years, and then it was a quite fly through, so I wouldn't have minded being there.

I won't complain though. This way, I've got time to prepare for the upcoming semester, which I've just discovered is going to require a bit more planning than I thought it would at the end of last semester, mostly because the scheduling of my classes is less than ideal.

The problem with tenure isn't academic freedom

2012-01-04T23:36:00.000-07:00

The Chronicle yet again weighs in on tenure, and while I don't agree with much of what the article claims (some of which is poorly argued), one sentence stood out:

The fact is that nontenured and non-tenure-track faculty are toiling in undesirable positions at low pay and subsidizing the interests and security of tenured faculty members...

Exactly. The problem with tenure isn't that academic freedom might be under fire. The primary problem is that a shrinking number of tenured positions are subsidized by contingent faculty, who when they are doing research themselves in an effort to change those undesirable ones into desired ones don't have research freedom, or even in many cases, teaching freedom.There are places that attempt to provide comparable wage schemes for their contingent faculty, but others that don't, and as a whole, the discrepancy between what the tenured and not tenured are paid for teaching the same course remains. That's the problem of tenure, not whether or not academic freedom is at stake.

Turing year

2012-01-03T17:25:00.004-07:00

I find it odd how I picked up and read Ted Chiang's The Lifecycle of Software Objects (which I've had for over a year) over the last two days, that is, the first days of 2012, only to realize that Chiang is a bit of a fan of Alan Turing, and this year is the centenary of Turing's birth.

I frequently mention the Turing test in my class on Cultural Perspectives on Science as an introduction to the idea of thought experiments in both science and science fiction because it's one that students find fairly easy to understand. Of course, Turing's codebreaking work was highly valuable during the second world war, which is why the disgraceful charges against him because of his homosexuality are being sought to be overturned. (If you live in the UK, you can sign the petition here.)

I've read mixed reviews of Chiang's book, but I'd have to say I tend to side with those who enjoy it. The link above takes you to an ecopy, but if you can afford the hard copy, it's far more rewarding because of the illustrations and intricate maps included in it.

Running Technologies

2012-01-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about running technologies the last few times I've been out, but I don't mean some kind of fancy new shoe or some type of space-age fabric that's supposed to be more comfortable, wick moisture away, prevent chaffing etc. No, I've been thinking about the music I've taken with me and how the device I use to take it with me has changed over the decade and a half that I've been running.

Take the Walkman. Yup, old school, for certain, but man was that thing durable. The one in the picture isn't an actual Walkman, but regardless of the brand, they could take a beating and keep playing. The very fact that I still have one that works is a testament to that, but so too are the multiple times that clutzy me accidentally snapped the headphones and flung the device to the ground.

In fact, the device itself seemed pretty durable and the only limitation was the cassettes themselves. As any child of the eighties knows, heat and/or overuse can kill a cassette. I recall ruining a whole case of cassettes by forgetting them in the rear window of the car after a vacation. As a lowly burger slinger with a 5 buck an hour job, I can tell you that one hurt the pocketbook severely!

But then of course the CD player came along. The stereo CD player was pretty much a staple by the time I got a portable one, but frankly, it was a bit of a disappointment after the cassette player. The original portable CD players weren't made to handle much movement (somebody apparently didn't look up the word 'portable' in the dictionary before designing the thing...) They skipped and slid across the CD's tracks like a thing possessed. It was a real disappointment, at least until they got wise to the fact that many people wanted to, you know, actually move with the things in hand, and they started building delays and shock absorbers into them.

The portable CD player actually had another downside in that it emerged long before CD burners did, so if you wanted to use one, you were stuck with the CD you'd bought. At least the old cassette players could play mix tapes. I made one after I discovered that my running pace fit perfectly with a bunch of 80s pop songs. Not sure what it was, but David Bowie, the Police and Foreigner in particular seemed to match my stride just perfectly.

At least I got the playlist back when I received a Zune as a present. It was a bit big, sure, but the screen and simple button arrangement made it really east to scroll through. And the graphics were of course really nice given the size of the screen. I suppose in size it's similar to a full-size iPod, though it was about half the cost, which made it a more practical choice for someone on a limited budget (like me!) Unfortunately, the battery on mind gave up the ghost after a few years. It couldn't seem to retain a charge for more than two days, and I was forever finding myself annoyed at wanting to go for a run and finding the battery dead and facing the prospect of only listening to the heavy breathing/wheezing that occasionally characterizes my running efforts. Not the prettiest sound to listen to, that's for sure!

I must say that the most recent device is the one I'm probably the most fond of. It combines small size, with the ability to create playlists, but even more delightfully, it records my workouts as well. I hadn't realized the mini iPod could do that, so you can imagine my delight in finding out that it would track my time and distance as well as provide me with just the right tunes. I was tickled! There's even a voice that tells me how the workout compares to a previous one, and I know it's silly, but there's something rewarding about hearing a little voice tell me I've just run further than I ever have before. It also doesn't hurt that I recently upgraded the software and it erased all the previous records, so now I'm impressing myself all over again!

I suppose the only way to make my music even more running friendly would be to get rid of the device and headphones all together and implant my playlist right into my head. Of course, that seems a bit extreme, not to mention a bit science fictional. I like science fiction. But on paper, not in my body!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

I find myself wondering exactly what we're celebrating as midnight hits on December 31st. Are we celebrating the end of a year? If so, is it a celebration of our survival for one more year? Or is it more along the lines of 'thank goodness that year's over!'? Are we celebrating the beginning of a new one with all its possibilities? Perhaps a bit of both? Maybe if you're a pessimist it's the celebration of the end of the year and if you're an optimist, it's the beginning of the new one?

I suspect it's more-so the beginning of a new year we're celebrating as the clock strikes. Otherwise, how does one explain the jump in gym memberships in January?

Is it ever ethical to skimp on comments?

2011-10-28T20:42:00.000-06:00

I've found myself pondering this question today. Is it ever appropriate to give few or no comments on a student paper? I don't mean for a particular assignment and treating everyone the same. What I'm wondering is whether it's ever appropriate to give extensive comments on most of the papers in a given batch but less on others.

I find myself wondering this because I'm pretty sure I just marked a paper where I spent more time reading, interpreting (a monumental task at times), and making comments on a paper than I think the student did. In this case, this student has also attended only 3 of the 7 weeks of term. The paper shows it too because we talked about each of the elements that were supposed to be present in the paper over the last 7 weeks and most of them were absent from this paper.

I know I shouldn't take it personally and I don't when students decide not to attend class. But I do find myself resenting the time (and brain power) I spent trying to figure out what this student was saying and then trying to provide constructive advice to perform better. I felt like I was investing more in this than the student was. And I was seriously tempted to just slap a letter grade on it and skip any comments.

In the end I did write comments. I hope the student takes them to heart. But somehow I doubt it. I don't feel any better for it though.

Is that a light at the end of the tunnel? The professor's dilemma

2011-09-29T18:12:00.001-06:00

The start of semester is always a bit of a roller coaster ride for me, as it is for most academics. Regardless of how much prep I've started before classes begin, it always feels like I'm falling behind as soon as Labour Day is over. (It doesn't help that the JIL starts a week or two after classes and the research and letter writing for that takes a HUGE amount of time.) But by the end of September, things are usually starting to clear up and the initial rush of preparation lulls a bit before the rush builds again with midterms and other assignments.

So I'm seeing some light at the end of the tunnel and it's a great thing to see. But now I have a dilemma.

If I work through much of the weekend, I will definitely be on top of things and feel better next week. But I've already worked through the last two weekends and am starting to feel the effects. If I take time off and enjoy myself (a hike invite is sitting in my inbox, for example), then I will be no further ahead and run the risk of falling further behind.

Decisions, decisions...

Thoughts (on) Planning and Wandering

2011-09-02T10:40:00.000-06:00

I came across this article on shrinking your carbon footprint: Salina Journal News: Shrinking footprints
(which incidentally says almost nothing about what individuals can do to reduce their footprint, so seems misleading). But it got me thinking. Bear with me, this will take a bit of time, but I should get there by the end of the post.

Yesterday, I drove away from my house twice - to two different high-density areas - to meet two different people for two different purposes. And in contemplating my energy expenditure for both those trips (small, given my car, but noticeable nonetheless), I realized that I could have shrunk that footprint if I had known the details of both meetings earlier than I did. I first drove to one place early in the afternoon, had my meeting, then drove home. The drive took about 25 minutes each way, which means I not only was burning fuel, but also spending time rather unproductively in operating my car.

The second (early evening) meeting was only organized that afternoon (in fact, I made the arrangements as I was waiting for the first meeting to start). It was further away, but actually took about the same time to get there. Once I was there, my husband also came with his car because he was coming directly from work. Which means we drove two vehicles back from the same place. You might see where I'm going with this.

Had I known when/where I was meeting people yesterday, I could have organized things so that I only left once and went from one meeting to the next. Instead, there was enough time between the two that I returned home and worked for a few hours in-between.

In addition, had I known that we would have the second meeting and where it was taking place, I could have used public transit to go to the first meeting, move to the second one, then get a ride home. Of course in this city there's a disincentive to actually go with public transit because it would have cost just as much (and possibly a bit more) to buy two transit tickets as it did to burn the fuel I used in my car. (I realize there are other costs associated with the car option, but it is so ridiculously fuel-efficient that the numbers come out very close. And that's without factoring in the time cost of the less-rapid public transit option.)

What I'm getting at in thinking about this is that it's not just about the car or the public transit. Some of what I could have done yesterday to reduce my carbon footprint depended on very social elements of the day, including waiting for a call from the organizer of the second meeting.

In fact, much of my week has been this way. I did manage on Monday to book the two meetings I had back to back, but on Tuesday, I ended up again going home between commitments because I'd had to book the appointment I had in the afternoon weeks ahead of time and then couldn't change it to a time that made more efficient use of both my time and energy expenditure.

Now, I realize that I can't always organize my week efficiently like that, and I'd hate to be so rigid that everything has to be accurately planned out ahead of time. But it struck me as I was thinking about car travel and footprints, and then about my time and my anxiety that I will not get everything that needs to be done finished in time before the semester starts, that maybe we're not talking enough about behaviour changing when we talk about carbon footprints.

We talk about changing light bulbs, and car pooling and getting more public transit options to encourage people to use them, and yet at the same time, I suspect my week is like many other people's in that we spend a lot of time and energy moving around inefficiently, rather than making it more effective. My teaching schedule this term is an example. Because I teach in two different departments, it's been hard to concentrate all the classes on two or three days. Instead, I teach all five days of the week and for four of those days, I'm only teaching one class on that day. That means I'm going to the school every day, a fairly inefficient use of my time, especially since my job does not require me to be physically present when I'm not teaching. (It also means I will need to spend an hour in my car or three hours on public transit each day. Guess which option I'm leaning toward?)

But to return to the question of the social influences on energy consumption. What if we started thinking about energy consumption as more than just kilowatts of electricity or litres of fuel? What if we started thinking about it in terms of hours of energy expenditure? Or started talking about efficiencies of movement in our cities? What if we thought not just about how roads or bus lines connect with each other, but also paid more attention to how people really move through our cities rather than some abstract idea of how we think they might move through them?

I know this city's transit is organized on the assumption everyone wants to go downtown. But lots of us don't. And then we don't use transit because it doesn't go where we want to go without taking us through downtown first (this is why transit is 3x longer than driving to get to my place of employment). Maybe that focus on centrality is efficient on paper, but it certainly isn't for individuals users. But maybe if we started thinking about people individually, we could get somewhere (literally and figuratively!) Given the kinds of geographic mapping technologies we have and computing power, should we not be able to find ways of making an individual's days more efficient by creating systems that do more than just assume everyone is going to one place?

And isn't there a way that I, as one of those individuals, can find a way to make my own movement through the city more efficient, both in terms of my time and my energy expenditure by organizing my days and activities more efficiently? Why does it seem like the more technologies we have for organizing things, the less efficient we seem to get? Perhaps our carbon footprint is a result of social inefficiencies as much as it is structural ones? I'll be thinking about how my social connections affect my energy consumption over the next while, for sure. It might not yield any fascinating insights, but, then again, perhaps it might.

It's August!!!

2011-08-04T10:25:00.000-06:00

Those are not exclamation marks of joy. They are exclamation marks of panic. How did it get to be August already?!

What this of course means is that - as usual - I will not have completed all the things I wish to by the end of the summer and need to review my to-do list with an eye to prioritizing the things that absolutely must get done in the next three weeks. But even after I've crossed some stuff off the list (it will have to get done eventually, just not in August), it still seems pretty darn long:

Productive Disagreement

2011-07-29T11:15:00.001-06:00

I'm in the processing of preparing a paper for a conference that came up pretty much at the last minute. Those of you who also write conference papers on short notice know what I'm going through - the great idea, the anguish of trying to translate that idea into words, the endless search for the right way (or at least a good way) of expressing those ideas. Sometimes it gets a bit frustrating trying to translate those thoughts into words that would make sense to other people.

The argument is pretty basic. The abstract I sent in outlines it:

The futuristic (Nano)visions of Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber

Most visions of human technology of the future extrapolate the technological developments of the current moment to suggest that development will continue to penetrate human existence, enabling humanity to accomplish more while it also becomes more reliant upon those technologies. Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber begins on such a world, a world penetrated by nanotechnology to such an extent that the humans living on Toussaint feel it gives them a “sixth sense” even if it really is only a “crutch” (Hopkinson 328). However, as the action of the novel switches to New Half-Way Tree, it ultimately reveals that the interconnectedness that the “Granny Nanny” web of nanomites provides a poor account of the diversity of human experience without the stories and the relationships that also make up the life of humans.

As a technology, the nanomites of Hopkinson’s novel envision one way that the nanotechnologies under development in contemporary technoculture might affect human lives. In Nanovision: Engineering the Future, Colin Milburn suggests that nanotechnology is built on such promises, writing that, “the possibilities opened by the capability to restructure and rearrange matter at the nanoscale are immense…. the world itself can be transformed, our lived realities made completely malleable, guaranteeing that the future will be radically and immeasurably different from the present" (6). Milburn further argues that this vision of the transformative nature of nanotechnology is closely affiliated with the imagination, so that writing about nanotechnology is science-fictional in nature.

What makes Hopkinson’s novel unusual is that it counters the technophillic adulation of nanotechnology often presented within science fiction texts. Like Joan Slonczewski’s A Door Into Ocean, Midnight Robber suggests that enabling technologies do not need to be machinic or divorced from the biological reality of human life. Adopting a Caribbean patois language and attitude, the text provides a refreshing alternate to the masculine, hard science fiction that characterizes writing about nanotechnologies. At the same time that the novel valorizes hard work, relationships, forgiveness, and storytelling over reliance on technology to manage the business of everyday life, the ending suggests a role for nanotechnology that does not unduly intrude or cause dependence for the humans of New Half-Way Tree.

I was doing a good bit of flailing with this one - there's only about a page written so far - so I did what any other writer trying to put together an argument does when stalled: more research! In this case, I found a paper on the same text - Midnight Robber, slightly different idea - web of communication rather than nanotechnology, but still pretty close.

The great thing about reading this paper is that I disagreed with so much of what the writer was arguing. We agree on a number of points, but I felt like this particular writer ignored the entire last half of the book. Which got me thinking about the last half of the book in ways that I hadn't before. And I actually thought some interesting (at least to me!) thoughts about that half of it.

So, I feel reinvigorated for writing this thing. It still needs to get written, and there will be plenty of staring at the screen, tugging at hair, wandering around the house while trying to work out the argument, but I've got a jumping off point now, which is what I really needed.

Productive disagreement, indeed!

When a Bad Experience turns Good

2011-07-23T13:11:00.000-06:00

A little while ago, I presented a paper on a single author's work at a conference and it went badly.

It was scheduled for 8am and not only was the audience only 4 people, the other two presenters didn't show up. So I moderated my own paper. Awkward. Especially since two of the audience members were only there to see the paper of a no show.

As I had recently experienced a major setback just before this, I felt like the whole conference was a bust and was really a bit angry that none of the people who I had begun to think of as friends, not just colleagues, who usually present in this area and might show up were even there. Not even the area chair.

But. A couple of months later, I got an email from that author I was talking about. Apparently the one person in the audience who knew the novel I was talking about also knew its author and told the same about the presentation. The author asked if I would mind sharing the paper. I said, no problem, and sent it as well as some other conference work I'd done on other books. Then we emailed exchanged for a bit, which was really useful because it gave me a chance to find out what the author's perspective was on things I was seeing in the book (not that I necessarily always give that credit; my favourite prof used to always say, 'writers lie' even about their own work). I of course also thought it was kinda cool to email chat with a real author, since I only know a handful of authors, and none of this one's stature (not that it's huge; just bigger than anyone I've met to date). So, yes, I was a bit impressed that an author might take the time to ask about what us academics are writing.

But it also goes to show that even what you think are some of the lows of a career can turn out okay. You just never know....

Ultimate Geek Club

2011-07-21T21:33:00.000-06:00

You know how book clubs are cool?

Okay, maybe you don't think they're cool. That means you might want to skip this post. Or. You might want to read on and hear about what would probably be your idea of the worst possible kind of book club. Well, either way...

A couple of friends and I decided we needed to get our theory game on and put together a theory reading book club.

Yup. Theory and book club together.

We've begun with Elizabeth Grosz's Time Travels: Feminism, Nature and Power.

I've gotta say it's been a really good experience so far. Not the book. There are several places where Grosz sets up strawmen as caricatures of what those ideas really are just to knock them down. And that's a bit annoying (especially since she picked on science fiction and science studies - two things I can say I know a little bit about).

But getting to talk to other people about the book, hearing their understanding of it, has really helped me understand some of the parts of the book better than if I had read it alone. And it reminds me of the best parts of doctoral seminars where you get to share ideas with really smart people. I mean, you get some of that at conferences, but at conferences you have to put together a formal presentation and often people don't know what you're talking about (that's the worst, isn't it? When you've slaved over a paper for months and then no one in the audience knows the book/theory you're talking about and you get no questions whatsoever.) In seminars, or in our academic book club, you all are all the same page and get to share cool ideas.

So. It may be one of the geekiest clubs ever, but I'm liking it!

"Glacial" just seems too fast for such responsiveness

2011-05-24T18:09:00.000-06:00

Got two job rejection letters today. Two. To which I applied, oh, seven months ago. Seven.

For goodness sake! I know that you only sent out all the rejection letters once you had a signed contract in hand with your selected candidate, but really, if I didn't make your first cut, why couldn't you have mentioned so then? That would've been what, November? maybe December?

In the real world when I worked HR, we either advertised that we would not contact unsuccessful applicants, or contacted them after we set the first interview schedule. Because, really, if you didn't make the cut the first go round, we don't really want you. We always first-interviewed 6-8 people for one position, and if you made it into that first pool, there was no guarantee you'd make it to the second interview or to an offer. But more importantly, if, for some bizarre reason, I interviewed 8 people in a first interview and found them all ill-suited to the position, I wouldn't go back to my pile. I'd repost. Now, I realize that's not quite possible in the academy because you risk losing the line if your search isn't successful, but seriously, if you went through a dozen first interviews and then selected three for campus visits, what would be the chances you would return to the original pile if none of those worked?

I'm willing to bet zero.

So, seriously people, it's almost insulting to get a letter this late in the game, like you thought I still had a chance. I'm not that dense. I got the message loud and clear when I didn't hear from you by January (and when the job wiki made it clear you'd contacted interviewees a month before that).

While we're on the topic, don't be so cheap that you send a letter that is on a photocopied sheet of your letterhead. Seriously, how much would it cost to at least use the real deal? I did. Why can't you?

A Different World

2011-05-22T18:13:00.001-06:00

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind roaming this world for a world. Getting a bit tired of the one I inhabit.

Almost over

2011-04-27T16:38:00.000-06:00

Where to begin?

The end of semester is keeping me busy. Our exam period runs for two full weeks, and even though I only have three exams to invigilate (and then grade of course), they started on the first day and will end on the penultimate day of exams. This was actually good because I squeezed in a conference between the first and second exams. I was thankful I didn't have to get a substitute to cover the exams because we had two other faculty members who needed coverage for exams because of family emergencies and I think it took some time to find help for the second one (I helped the first one).

I also learned that I wasn't selected for an interview for a position that I thought was ideal. That one stung, probably worse than any other has because I've worked in the department before and they'd seemed happy with my performance. But no interview.

Nothing like an event like that to get you rethinking strategy. It's no mid-life crisis or anything, but my attitude toward the job market has changed slightly as a result and I've realized that it's going to be a bit harder than I thought it was (and I don't think I harboured any misconceptions about how hard it would be). So I'm mostly stuck inside my own head figuring all this out. Maybe once I do, I'll have more to say.

Happy Blogversary!

2011-04-06T20:46:00.001-06:00

Eight years.

Eight.

Wow. Hasn't seemed that long. But the calendar doesn't lie. It's been up and down lately here, and I know that. Part of it has been deliberate. I've tried not to just use this as a place to complain. And I've felt so tired and frustrated for a number of different reasons this semester (and before, for that matter), that I haven't posted.

I've been trying to follow Thumper's advice in this.

But eight years seems worth commenting. And it's worth reminding myself about what eight years means for many of my students. In fact, this afternoon during a presentation on why Canada should rejoin the ITER project, a student said that we should change our policy because "global warming has gotten so much worse since 2003 when we dropped out of the program."

It was a phrase that caught me off guard, because for me, 2003 feels like it was just a little while ago. But for my student? It was probably junior high, maybe even earlier.

Wow.

Rainbows!

2011-04-04T19:57:00.003-06:00

So much water on the road that I saw rainbows in the spray coming off the truck in front of me. A touch of brightness in an otherwise messy ride home...

How many Robax were consumed this weekend?

2011-04-03T18:03:00.002-06:00

This is a question I'm curious about. We got a big spring snow this weekend - thank goodness it started on Saturday morning and the usual weekday commute was spared the mess. But, boy, was that snow heavy to move because it was so wet.

I took it in shifts, but still feel a bit stiff. I wonder how many other people are feeling the same way this weekend?

Good news is that the sun has been shining brilliantly all day, which not only helps rid us of that snowfall, but also just makes everything so much more cheerful. Which is good. Tomorrow the marking parade begins and won't ease up for at least two weeks. Another kind of drift to get buried in!

Life outside the academy

2011-02-13T20:30:00.005-07:00

I've been realising how different the world looks from within and from without the academy ever since I joined the board of a civil society organization in my city. At first, there were moments when I felt like I was talking a different language than the other board members, or rather, it might be more accurate to say that I felt like they were talking with an accent that I couldn't quite make out at times; like every once in a while I'd lose a word or two. It was a strange feeling.

Things have gotten better since I began - perhaps I've just learnt the lingo, or maybe I'm just listening more attentively and working out the differences.

But there are real differences between the way we do things in the academy and the way things can get done outside of it. Today we spent much of our day generating outcome measures for each of our programs. Our session was partly educational, teaching board members how to do so, which meant the day was quite long and we didn't get through all of them. But that's beside the point.

What was refreshing was the latitude we had, not only in deciding what our desired outcomes were, but also in the kinds of programs we might choose to undertake. So many times when I think of the kind of outcome planning I do in the university, there are a large number of constraints on it. That's probably because most of the outcome planning that I do relates to course planning, or slightly more broadly, curriculum planning. But those kinds of plans are incredibly constrained: by schedules, by class sizes, by institutional goals, by the limitations of time and available space, and by the sometimes limited forms of evaluation available to assess student learning.

In the nonprofit sector, we have limitations (most often financial), but those limitations are transient; we can change many of those limitations by partnering with other organizations or finding additional sources of funding. The academy is far more static, making it very difficult to think about really doing things differently than they are done right now.

Which means that as difficult as it is to interpret the language, the payoff in freedom to imagine how the world can be a better place and how I can contribute to that, is worth it.

Losing my mind?

2011-02-12T14:35:00.003-07:00

In the month since the last post, I'd suggest I've had ideas for about a dozen posts.

So, what's the problem, you're wondering. Why no posting?

These ideas tend to occur in the middle of class or a conversation or the daily commute, in other words, when I'm busy doing other stuff. By the time a computer is in front of me, I either can't seem to garner the energy to post, or I've forgotten what I thought about. I realize the latter might be an indication of the quality of the posts. How many times as a child did I call out 'mom' 'mom' 'mom' only to have forgotten what I wanted to ask by the time I had her attention. And her response? 'well, it mustn't have been that important if you forgot'. Guess so.

1 down; 13 to go

2011-01-15T15:39:00.003-07:00

Wow.

This first week of classes was intense. There wasn't really anything unusual that went on; it's just that I was out of town until the day before, so that even though I'd prepared all the syllabi etc. before I left town, I still felt like I was thrown into things. Hence, it is Saturday, and I'm scrambling to prep one class for Monday in order to avoid the stress of feeling like I had no idea what we'd be doing in the next class as each one would end.

I know people who can teach like that. But I'm not one of them. It makes me uncomfortable not knowing what we're doing in the next class - I like to have a couple planned out at a time.

But if this keeps up, it's gonna be a wild ride (again!) this semester...

Walk fast to live long or live long if you can walk fast?

2011-01-04T21:40:00.002-07:00

This interesting article "If you want to live longer walk faster" describes a fascinating study that found a correlation between life expectancy and the speed at which senior citizens walked. Interesting correlation.

But the title is misleading. The study researchers suggest that the correlation between life expectancy and speed of walking may be because those who walk slowly are in poorer health than those who walk faster. That suggests that the relationship between the two is one in which the ill health causes the slow pace; in other words, those senior citizens who moved slower were already unsteady or in ill health before their pace slowed. It's less likely that these people slowed their pace and then happened to get ill.

Sure, I admit there's probably a connection between walking rapidly and better health - I know when I get moving, I feel my heart rate elevate slightly - it's a bit of exercise without going to the gym that keep my cardiovascular system in better health. But the title is misleading. It seems to suggest that if you walk faster you'll live longer, when walking fast is just an indicator of better health. And this is only in senior citizens, not necessarily in younger people.

Such sloppy titling annoys me. I realize that the title is far more eyecatching than "Slower people die sooner" (though that's not bad), but it really presents the possible connection backwards, suggesting that the reader will live longer by walking faster. Someone who doesn't read carefully might not notice that the actual study suggests something different. Not irresponsible, but this kind of sloppy science reporting does nothing to make the connection between science and everyday life clearer; instead it favours muddying the waters. Such sloppy writing makes the science seem a tad frivolous. Despite the inappropriate title, it's an interesting article. But it still annoys me a bit.

Resolutions?

2011-01-02T16:48:00.002-07:00

'Tis the season for New Year's resolutions, but I just can't seem to come up with any. Just like I couldn't seem to come up with a Christmas wish list when my family wanted one, but I sure started thinking of stuff I wanted only a couple of days before the holiday. Too late to do any good for the holiday, but maybe I'll come up with resolutions in another couple of weeks when I've had time to think about it.

I do know there's one thing I ~~want to~~ need to do this semester though: I need to go back to a reading schedule like I had when I was in the research phase of the dissertation. I got almost no research work done this fall and that can't continue. I know part of the reason why I didn't get much research done was the 4 course/3 new prep schedule and the applications, but part of it was also I think because I didn't set a schedule. I tried to research after everything else got done, which meant that a lot of other things just expanded to fill the available space, leaving nothing for research.

Since I've got two conferences already scheduled and both are preliminary work on the new direction I'm taking to move from dissertation to book, then I'm going to have to get the reading done that I want done. That will require a schedule.

So there. One "resolution" I suppose. Job done.

The hiatus

2010-12-30T18:26:00.002-07:00

Ah, the wonderful week between Christmas and New Year's is now restored to its rightful work-in-pj's-if-you-work-at-all state. MLA is next week, and at the end of it to boot, so right now, I sit happily at home working in comfy clothes and taking lots of breaks to do fun things. As it should be.

This Christmas was the first one where all the girls had to come home for it (even if coming home just meant driving across the city) and it was a very different Christmas for it. It seemed the day was set apart a bit more because it wasn't just that we all came downstairs that morning and voila! there were presents under the tree. This time, there was a distinct sense of pre-holiday - no girls around - and holiday - everyone here.

I liked it.

That might be because I have the coolest, most wonderful daughters ever. And a wonderful husband who tolerates our tendency to collectively giggle once in a while!

I hope you had a good holiday too.

Dear winter solstice, please come soon...

2010-12-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

The worst part of December is sitting down at your desk in the dark to begin working, then turning off lights as the day progresses, and finally having to turn them all back on before you're finished...

'Tis the season(s)

2010-12-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

The biggest problem I have with December - especially this year - is that several seasons converge within the month of the year that features the least amount of sun. And while I don't think I suffer from SAD, I find the lack of sun much harder to take than the cold weather. Having said that, today's December is a trifecta of intersecting seasons:

#1 There's Christmas of course. Which I never seem to think of until at least late November, and then it feels like I have no time to devote to it because of season #2. The outside lights are up, and thanks in part to my wonderful spouse, all the gifts are purchased (as long as I didn't forget anyone!). But the tree isn't up yet. Yes, I admit it. The tree's not up. It will be up by the end of the weekend (and the Christmas wine will be bottled by then as well), but not yet. Perhaps I'll even do some food preparation - to date, all I've managed is to buy a turkey...
#2 End of semester is the biggie that's taking up a lot of time. It's not just the exams either. I've been asked to take on two new classes for next semester during December here as well. Both are new preps, though in one I'm taking over for another instructor, so most of the texts were already chosen. Even taking the easy route and teaching things I already know, it will be a lot of work next term. More importantly, it has meant that I've spent time during the period when I'm usually writing and then marking exams, deciding on book orders. My exam schedule kinda sucks too. Of the four courses I taught, the first two exams were the first day of exams and the last two on the last two days of exams. So they're weirdly spread out. But that's good because part of reason #3 kept me busy between.
#3 Job market season makes the whole fall semester busy, and if you're lucky enough to get an interview, you need to start preparing just after you finish sending out letters (and sometimes they even overlap, like they are for me this year). I had a first interview earlier this week by video hookup because it was a good distance away. I suspect they did many of their interviews long distance, so I don't think I was disadvantaged by the virtual presence, but I did find that couple seconds lag on the video feed hard to navigate at first. And I of course walked out thinking of things I should have said - some are lessons learned for next time. I think I could be happy working at the institution, though it's not a dream job. But maybe the dream job isn't what you want to aim for straight off the PhD. We'll see. There's another to prepare for in a few weeks, so I hope I can take the lessons learned in this one and perform well in that.

So, the intersection of so many competing needs is meaning my December is super-duper busy. I'm not complaining. I expected all of these things to meet in December, though it is a bit tiring. But I'm hoping that by the afternoon of the 23rd, I should be able to catch my breath and maybe start wrapping gifts!? Maybe.

Well, that didn't turn out quite like I imagined it would

2010-12-13T15:07:00.002-07:00

I marked a mixed bag of final exams on Saturday, and honestly, I thought they would have been more uniformly good.

In that poetry class I was teaching, I decided that the final exam would be open book and that the students would have one task: create an anthology, selected from poems we studied, accompanied by an introduction that demonstrates what they learned during the class.

Frankly, I thought it sounded like a fun assignment. They would get to look over everything they'd done, think about it, and come up with an explanation of why we studied some of the things we did (i.e. why they are important things to learn).

I told them ahead of time it was open book and warned them that it would require them to think creatively. I even told them it would be to their advantage to insert tabs or use some other means of being able to quickly identify what we did in class. I also warned them that planning their response would be important and that they should give themselves enough time to plan rather than just diving into writing the exam when they got it.

Then they walked into the exam room (on a Saturday morning - how cruel!)

Some of them got it. They realized that the task was designed to test their knowledge and that they would need to demonstrate it by specific reference to the poems they chose to include in their anthology. They did a great job of selecting poems that served them well in highlighting several important features. Actually, many of them got it. Some ran out of time because they got caught up minor details, but most got it.

But some of them really missed the boat on this one. They tried to write about just about every poem we studied (and we studied more than 40 of them). Consequently, they did a horrible job of it. Some of them really got hung up on obscure forms like the villanelle and sestina, when we spent ten times as much time talking about figures of speech or sound structures, or even the use (and abuse) of poet biography when talking about poetry. No one failed the exam because they all were able to talk about some of what was important in the course. But some of them did a poor job of connecting what they'd learned to actual example. That was disappointing.

I get that the kind of meta-commentary on the course inherent in the task is difficult to undertake and that students often aren't asked to produce it. But they were English majors taking an elective poetry course - I guess I expected a bit more because they obviously very consciously choose to take the course. I would think that would have produced some more conscious learning on their parts. Their other assignments seemed to indicate they were thinking critically about the material.

Another weird thing that happened is that a couple of students wrote the introduction to the anthology as if they were planning syllabi, saying things like "Students should read this poem to..." I was so confused by this I went back to see if I'd inadvertently said something in the instructions that would lead them to think I wanted them to plan a mini-version of the course. But no, there's nothing there. Then I found myself wondering if those students didn't know what an anthology was? Perhaps. Then again, maybe they were just so focused on their own experience in the class, they steered toward course planning rather than anthology planning without really being aware of what they were doing.

What was probably even more surprising though was that some of them seemed to not understand the possibilities and perils of open book exams, leading me to think my colleagues are not offering them very often. I had one write a note in the margins that he/she wasn't sure of a spelling for a term when the glossary of terms in the back of the book was right there on the desk. Look it up! It's there for you to use. We'd even talked about this and I'd suggested that any annotations, sample scansions etc. they'd done in the text did not need to be erased before the exam.

What disappoints me the most in the poor showing is that I decided to make the exam this way because I thought such a task would not only assess their learning, but also be a final opportunity for learning. I wanted it to be not just evaluative but also a chance for the students to reflect critically on what they learned and how they learned it (i.e. which poems were most demonstrative of the skills they've developed). That didn't happen to the extent I thought it would. So I'm disappointed.

Looks like it's not just the students who learned a lesson here!

I couldn't have planned it better myself

2010-12-03T12:28:00.003-07:00

In the poetry class I'm teaching, we began the first "real" class by reading William Butler Yeats' "Adam's Curse" because of its pairing of hard labour and creative production:

We sat together at one summer's end,

That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,

And you and I, and talked of poetry.

I said, 'A line will take us hours maybe;

Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

Better go down upon your marrow-bones

And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones

Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;

For to articulate sweet sounds together

Is to work harder than all these, and yet

Be thought an idler by the noisy set

Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen

The martyrs call the world.'

. . . . . . . . . And thereupon

That beautiful mild woman for whose sake

There's many a one shall find out all heartache

On finding that her voice is sweet and low

Replied, 'To be born woman is to know-

Although they do not talk of it at school-

That we must labour to be beautiful.'

I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing

Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.

There have been lovers who thought love should be

So much compounded of high courtesy

That they would sigh and quote with learned looks

Precedents out of beautiful old books;

Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;

We saw the last embers of daylight die,

And in the trembling blue-green of the sky

A moon, worn as if it had been a shell

Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell

About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears:

That you were beautiful, and that I strove

To love you in the old high way of love;

That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

1903

And the poet who we're studying in the poet study? The one that the students chose*? William Butler Yeats

Couldn't have planned that better myself.

*Actually, there were two proposals tied for the highest number of votes. But as brilliant and interesting as the proposal to study Dr. Seuss's poetry might have been, I broke the tie by picking Yeats, thus reinforcing conventionality. But for a second year course, a survey, it seems to me that conventionality is entirely appropriate.

Reprieve

2010-11-25T20:54:00.001-07:00

The weather finally broke this week - the relief was almost tangible. But before it broke, we were the second coldest place on earth for part of Tuesday; the coldest was one of the research stations in Antarctica!

There's also a collective sigh of relief in the university as many of the major projects are being turned in, we've got only a handful of lectures left to prepare, and the seasonal gatherings/last seminars of the semester take place. I, at least, felt much happier with the way the semester was progressing this week, which I attribute to some interactions with colleagues, a marathon marking session that got a quarter of the major end of term projects out of the way, and the realization that everything except writing the final exams (and more marking) has been done for two of the four courses.

This got me thinking about the nature of academic life and wondering what it will be like to be a seasoned teacher. I know that everyone - from tenured folk down to first year adjuncts - feels a good deal of stress and anxiety during the semester that peaks mildly at the beginning of the semester, but pretty majorly in November. Such is the nature of the coursework; since you can't have students handing in assignments until later in the semester, after they've actually learned things, there's no getting around the bulge of marking that happens. And the beginning of the semester anxiety, though mild, is part of that whole 'getting to know you' phase that a particular class goes through where both the instructor and the students are figuring out how they'll work together. So some of the pattern seems inevitable.

[There are ways of lessening the end of the term marking bulge though. Presentations are often easier to mark since you mark while the student performs and then write up your comments at the end. Similarly, eliminating the ubiquitous research paper helps ease the marking load - in my poetry class, they have three poem analysis assignments scattered throughout the semester and a poet study proposal where they propose a short study of one particular poet, justifying their choice of poet by referring to his or her period/output/position etc. That's actually made it quite easy to mark for that class.]

But I wonder if I'll feel those ups and downs as intensely as the years pass. (Frankly, I kind of hope they won't be as intense, because they can be pretty exhausting.) For the first four years of teaching as a grad student, I taught writing in a fairly structured environment, so once I got past the first three semesters or so, things were just more of the same each semester after that.

Then the first two years after I left that program and taught, I was still teaching writing, just at a couple of different institutions, which meant I had some standard pieces that just needed to be adapted for different institutions or programs.

But over the last two years, I've started teaching literature as well - which I'm absolutely loving! - and in most cases, I'm developing everything during the semester from scratch. That's been pretty intensive. Rewarding. But intensive. This term in particular, I've been teaching 3 new preps, one genre course (the poetry one), a general education course (which has required me to present philosophical arguments as well as social science research in the classroom) and an upgrading course (which requires a huge breadth of material but also features some of the least prepared students). All of these have meant that I've felt a little overwhelmed more than once. That's why I wonder if I'll feel less stressed in subsequent years as I have all those experiences to draw from.

This coming term I was originally assigned just writing classes (though my favorite kind - tech writing). But now it looks like one might not run because it's underenrolled, so I was asked if I would take on a lit class. Another new one. I said yes, of course, because I'm a joiner, but also because I could see having some real fun with the class, even though I'll be pushing my boundaries yet again. Nothing's carved in stone yet, but it might happen. If so, I suppose I'm bringing some of the stress on myself, but also a challenge in developing yet more materials for presentation within the classroom.

But regardless of what happens next term, I do find myself wondering what it will be like 5, 10, 15 years from now when I've taught the Brit Lit II survey for 7, 12, 17 years. Will I be able to enjoy the facile expertise in teaching it because I've already done so so many times? Will I still feel stressed (aside from the marking bulge)? Will I get bored? What is it like to walk into a classroom knowing that you've done this successfully many, many times before? Is it reassuring? Or does it just seem repetitive?

Then again, the most important question might be: does it matter? Asking such questions presupposes that I will be teaching in that many years. Without a permanent position, it's hard to say where I'll be in x years. Maybe that's the only question I should be contemplating.

How did that happen?

2010-11-20T14:55:00.003-07:00

I'm in a weird place right now. It should be good, but, pathetically, I can't relax and enjoy it because the slightly-paranoid voice in my head keeps telling me it can't be this good and either something's going to go wrong or I've forgotten something and will only remember at the last moment.

What's giving me the willies is the fact that it is a Saturday afternoon and I have everything prepared for this week and nothing left that needs to be marked.

Yes, I checked. It is the middle of November. If I was any doubt, I could look out the window at the big snow dump that doubled my commute all week.

That's what's making me a bit paranoid. How is it that I'm prepped several days ahead without any marking hanging over my head in the middle of November? I don't know that's happened before.

At the same time, I've had a very busy semester until this point, so maybe I should relax and enjoy it. What d'ya think? Yeah, I thought so too. But of course the cold and snow make me want to sit inside (or inside the hottub) rather than going out and enjoying the sudden relief from work.

Of course, as I think about it, there's a book review to do for December, a seminar to prepare (high-stakes and utterly different than anything I've ever done before), and a coursepack to revise and submit to the bookstore for next term. So I've got stuff to do.

But these things don't need to be worked on this weekend. Time to relax!

Two weeks too long

2010-11-13T17:50:00.002-07:00

So many partial blog posts either partially composed in their little draft boxes, or still floating around the ether between my ears. Either way, I've not been writing.

Good news is that I'm finally caught up. In fact, that's why I'm blogging without guilt right now because all my lectures for Monday and Tuesday are prepped, and all I really need to do is finish reading the novel we'll be talking about in the one class. It's a re-read, so if I suddenly went blind tomorrow (or got some more of that horrible eye-jumping vertigo), I'd still be able to deliver. So I'm feeling good.

Of course now that I'm caught up we have out of town guests for two days plus a birthday party, which means I'll not be caught up for long. But it's good for now.

On other fronts, I've sent off the last of job letters and now the only thing that remains is trying not to stress about whether I'll get a call for an interview and continuing to check the job lists to see if anything new pops up. But for now, I've done what I can. I did find out someone googled me and found my academia.edu page, which I take as a hopeful sign that at least one search committee member didn't toss my application automatically into the rejection pile, but took twenty seconds to punch my name into a search engine.

Pathetic, yes, to be grasping at such straws. But I'm doin' it anyway. Hard not to.

I'm also looking forward to next semester when I'll only be teaching two courses and both of them are late in the day, so I'm hoping the exhaustion that's been dogging me will dissipate since I always feel better when I don't have to get up before 8am. Doesn't matter how much I sleep, but pre-8 am waking seems to tire me more than it should.

Can't even start thinking of the holidays, though I should, since ordering things sometimes needs several weeks lead time. So I suppose next week when I catch up again (after company leaves), it's time to start thinking about it.

I'm realizing these paragraphs are all terribly scattered and probably not very exciting. But that about sums up where life is right now. Getting by seems so appropriate at this point!

Grading denial

2010-10-29T10:01:00.003-06:00

There's an excellent post at Not That Kind of Doctor on the Five Stages of Grading which begins:

Everyone is familiar with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and her stage model of coping with grief popularly known as the five stages of grief. What you may not know is that Kübler-Ross actually developed her theory as a graduate student, basing her conception of the process of loss on the experiences one goes through over a grading weekend.

I laughed at the post, especially one of the comments that attempts to explain how one might assess the Staircase Method scientifically.

Unfortunately, that's the only laughing I'll be doing in regards to grading anytime soon. I'll be struggling to get through the grading that I have this weekend, which is frustrating since I'd worked hard this term to avoid grading jail.

For the first time ever, I created my course schedules - including due dates - all at the same time before the term began. I lined them all up side by side and adjusted assignment due dates so that I had no more than two things due each week for the four classes I'm teaching. This meant that starting at week 3, I had 1-2 assignments coming in every week except for the one after Remembrance day where nothing is due.

I was staying on top of the marking too, handing back assignments either the following class or within a week.

Except for this week.

I had intended to hand back one set of assignments yesterday (Thursday) after getting them in the Thursday before. I marked a midterm that also came in last week over the weekend and was ready to start marking the assignments on Tuesday. But on that day I started feeling terribly dizzy so went to bed after only marking a couple. Then I spent most of Wednesday undergoing tests to figure out why the vertigo was getting worse (I couldn't see straight at that point), which meant I missed two classes, one of which was to hand in yet more assignments.

On Thursday, I could see straighter, but couldn't read for more than five minutes before starting to get dizzy again and lose my ability to focus on the page. Even today, although I can read for a little longer, I need to take long breaks on a regular basis in order to let the dizziness dissipate.

So I've got a stack of papers that should and would have gone back already that have yet to be marked, and a blizzard of additional marking coming in next week because the regular marking will come in as well as another assignment that the students would have handed in had I been able to see straight enough to go to work on Wednesday.

It's a bit frustrating since I'd planned to avoid this weekend grading marathon until the last couple of weeks (when it's inevitable because those big research papers come in at that point). It's even more disappointing since I'd been very disciplined in staying on top of it and was feeling really good about how things were going up until this week. Now it's falling apart because I lost a couple of days of work.

I think I'll start the five stages with depression...

What's up, doc?

2010-10-22T20:34:00.004-06:00

What's up, is that this semester is kicking my ass.

It's hard to believe that we're barely at the halfway mark of the semester. It sure feels like it's been going on for a very, very long time. So the thought that there's just as much of it still to complete as I've already done, is making the semester stretch in that weird way that film makers do when they zoom in/pull back at the same time. It's an eerie feeling that almost makes it seem the world is no longer obeying the rules of physics.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying a lot of it. The Cultural Perspectives on Science course is developing pretty nicely. We've had the usual drop-off of students who've decided they no longer want to attend, but the ones who are regularly coming to class have been participating in some really interesting discussions, which regularly leave me satisfied and occasionally exhilarated. And the other classes are interesting too - there have been some really eager and productive discussion and some interesting assignments too.

But I do have to admit I'm finding it a bit of a rough haul right now.

Brilliant! but oh, so hard!

2010-10-09T18:15:00.002-06:00

So, I'm teaching this poetry class. That's the first of the brilliant-but-oh-so-hard parts of this story.

I don't study poetry. I have one publication about a poem, but it's a long poem, and my work on it was in identifying its connection to the poet's biography and to the myths that are invoked in the imagery of the poem. So that's the first problem - I'm working outside of my comfort zone.

I'm teaching a second year poetry course. It's actually the first half of our university transfer course, leftover from the days (just over a year ago, in fact!) when we weren't offering degrees ourselves, only university transfer. Because our students can stay with us now, this is the last semester it'll be offered. (It is also the equivalent of the poetry class I took as an undergrad since my alma mater is where most of our students transferred to.) But since it's my first time teaching it, and the last time it'll be offered, I figured I had nothing to lose.

That's where the second brilliant-but-oh-so-hard part comes in. In considering how to teach this course, I figured a topical approach might be more interesting than a simple chronological one. I do find as I'm teaching the course, that a lack of chronological structure is difficult for me because we are bouncing around the anthology quite a bit, but I still think it's pedagogically sound, so we've been troopering along fairly successfully I think.

This means we have four units: "sound and structure" where we attend to alliteration, rhythm, meter and such, "forms and figures" where we examine sonnets, villanelles etc. as well as satire, monologues and figures of speech (yes, it's a bit of a hodgepodge), "periods" where we'll touch on some major periods and examine their features e.g. metaphysical and modernist poets, and finally a "poet study" where we'll examine the work of one poet for the last two weeks of class.

This is where my biggest brilliant-but-oh-so-hard part comes in. I decided that one of the assessment pieces would involve having the students propose who that final poet will be. They will need to write a proposal, which will need to include some information about the poet, which poems we should read, and a rationale for why we should study this poet's work. The class will vote on which proposal they want to adopt (I'll retain veto power if it seems that the vote is going in a really bad direction for whatever myriad of reasons it could). Then we'll study the poet in the last two weeks.

Yeah, I know. I'm not exactly making this easy on myself. I will have to generate two weeks of lectures based on the recommendation of a student, and in short order. But the assignment is due in mid-November, so we'll have almost three weeks before we will start studying that poet. Which should be enough time. (At least, I hope.)

But right now, I feel like I'm writing some kind of huge legal document in trying to describe this assignment to the students, since it is so different than anything I've done before and I'm certain very different from anything they've been asked to do before. There's logistics of access to the poet's works that we have to wade through, not to mention the politics of the class voting and trying to reassure students that votes don't correlate with grades (though in reality, they certainly could!) I am requiring them to provide scholarly criticism on the poet and/or his/her works, so they should still have to do some research in order to complete the assignment. And in order to really be persuasive, I think they'll have to develop a good rationale for the study as well as read a good deal of poetry.

I really like the idea of this assignment. It's just that it's looking like there's a lot of explanation that's going to have to go into the assignment sheet, and it's a bit overwhelming right now.

So I guess I oughtta get back at it instead of whining on the interwebs.

I may be insane

2010-10-03T16:11:00.002-06:00

Given the heavy teaching load (and I mean heavy... some days it feels downright unmanageable), my intention to present at three conferences over this year, and the need to take the dissertation material in an entirely new direction in order to make it into a workable book, I'm insane to have agreed to join our re-started fiction writing group.

Insane.

And yet.

I'm buying myself a little time by sending off material that's already been roughly drafted (though not completed by a long shot). Which means that I spent some of the last part of this week running through a first chapter draft, trying to eliminate the most awkward prose (not worrying so much about story at this point - that will have to come later).

Weird thing is, I really, really enjoyed it.

I also found myself becoming interested in the story again. I had started it quite a while ago, but got stuck after the fourth chapter (they're long, so it's about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through a book-length manuscript). And so I left it. And left it.

But I'm actually getting interested in it again. I still don't know how to get out of the fourth chapter and into the final one(s). But I'm beginning to suspect that in the process of editing what I've already got, I'll figure it out. And that feels pretty good.

Now to get back to the conference paper that has a real and hard deadline that's rapidly approaching, rather than the agreed-upon deadline of the writing group!

Lazy professors

2010-09-24T13:21:00.003-06:00

The Chronicle writes today about the myth of the lazy professor in an attempt to debunk it, and the responses are interesting in that they tend to simply reinforce it.

Much of the counter arguments against the lazy professor focus on how busy professors feel their jobs to be (not something I'm arguing with, though I find it interesting that this was the dominant form of evidence produced). In response, one commenter suggests that professors feel overworked because they have no idea what life is like in the "real" world. Another suggests that the only way to not feel overwhelmed as a professor is to learn to let unimportant deadlines lapse and to accept doing a "mediocre" job in most things, while yet another suggests that the myth arises because people who have bosses imagine what they would do if their boss wasn't watching all the time and then suppose that professors slack off the same way they would.

The first one, of course, makes me laugh. I've worked in the "real" world at a similarly high-motivation job, and although I always had way too much work to do there, I still felt much less compulsion to work evenings or weekends to compensate. I just prioritized and kept going, which meant that things got done when they got done. As a professor, I am far more invested in the job because I see it as an extension of myself, it's my identity, and so I am far more inclined to put in extra hours because it reflects back on me. (Interestingly, adjusted for inflation between that job and my current one, my compensation was roughly the same...)

The second one about doing a mediocre job is a bit disturbing, but only because it sounds like "mediocre" is less than excellent. When one understands that the "mediocre" mentioned is probably what a perfectionist means by mediocre (since in my experience, as a profession, academics tend toward perfectionism), then a perfectionist's "mediocre" might be pretty damn good. Then again, the writer may be one of those "deadwood" professors we always hear about. But giving the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that the writer feels like his/her output is mediocre, but those looking at the product probably think it's pretty stellar.

The last observation struck home with me though because from an outsider's perspective, the life does look pretty easy. First, there's little direct oversight (or at least very little that's directly observable from outside the institution). What little performance evaluation the public might see is on sites like RMP, in which even professors identified as "bad" by students remain in a job for years. Of course, the evaluations of students on RMP are problematic, which is why they aren't always a good indicator of effectiveness.

Second, even when oversight seems to be in place, the visible portions of a professor's job - the time spent in the classroom - seem minimal. Six hours a week? Doesn't seem like much, does it. Even the 13 hours a week I'm in the classroom sounds pretty small. But of course imagining that's all there is to the job is similar to imagining that the time spent on stage by any performer is all the time spent on the job. So U2 make millions for a few hours work three or four days a week while they're on tour? Not really. Then again, maybe a rock group like U2 isn't a good example since what they make for all they do is proportionally still much larger than a professor. But even an actor in the local playhouse, who makes much less, puts in many, many more hours than those spent on the stage. The job involves much more than just the performance itself.

Third, if indeed the myth is believed by people who imagine what little work they'd be able to get away with doing if they didn't have a boss, then we're talking apples and oranges when it comes to mindset. If you can imagine you'd do much less work without a boss, then you don't have the same mindset as a professor, who tend as a group to be highly self-motivated. In fact, I would suspect that if as professors we had bosses looking over our shoulders every day, we'd actually do less work. The work I do, I do because I'm motivated to do it, not because I know someone else is watching. If someone else was watching, I might not do as much because I'd probably resent the implication that I was not the best judge of what I should be doing with my time. That's what years and years of post-secondary education will do for you. There's so little structure in place to monitor professorial output because they don't need it, not because they are lazy and are avoiding it.

Personally, I don't know that the myth of the lazy professor is that prevalent, though perhaps the people I meet just are too polite to express it to my face. But it nevertheless serves as excellent fodder for Chronicle articles so that those both from within and without can reinforce as well as counter it.

Tech school saves the day!

2010-09-17T21:15:00.000-06:00

I keep thinking up blog posts when I'm in no position to blog (driving, walking to class etc.) but they don't get written because my life is pretty full of being a teacher right now.

Those three new preps are keeping me busy, but I'm also keeping on top of them, so it's good. So far.

But since time's the source of non-blogging, it seems appropriate to blog about saving time.

I have a non-credit upgrading course for students who aren't ready to take university level English. Foolishly, I thought something that looked like a grade 12 curriculum would be fairly easy to organize (not to teach mind you, just to put together) because I'd be able to use a lot of material from different periods, genres, and places. I figured I'd then be able to use nothing but texts with which I'm already familiar.

That of course turned out to not be the case since there are some pretty strict requirements for the structure of the course. But I did figure out how to make the prep for that course easier.

I've discovered that the first year writing course I taught at the tech school I was at is actually at the right level for an upgrading class, which means that at least the assignments and exercises we did will be suitable. Hooray! I fairly danced when I figured out I had a set of in-class exercises that would do what we needed to in this class already prepared from the previous one.

Now, it should be obvious at this point that there's something amiss here. Materials that I first developed for students in a post-secondary first year writing class will be useful in teaching students who perhaps have not even finished high school. But yes, the level of preparedness of the students at that tech school and the one I'm at now are radically different. And what I can expect from my students (even the non-credit ones) here is slightly higher than what I could expect from my students at the other school.

In theory, one would hope that an introductory English class at one school is relatively similar to that at another. But in reality, that's not always the case. On that level, this observation is a sad one.

But, boy, am I glad to have found some ready-made materials that just need a little tweaking to help me prep for this class!

De-feet and teaching

2010-09-12T18:08:00.002-06:00

I'm looking through my shoes, trying to decide what to wear tomorrow so that I'll survive the day. I have 5 hours solid in the classroom, and that pretty much means 5 hours of standing, so I need something with a bit better support than last week. After the first day of teaching, my legs ached from the unaccustomed standing.

I did walk a lot over the summer, but I also sat a lot. I didn't stand in one place (or relatively one place) much though, and the 3 hours of teaching last week made my legs and hips sore.

I realize you might be thinking, "why don't you just sit down while you teach?" but frankly, that's always struck me as a bit odd. It seems too casual somehow, and I wonder if students at the back of the room might get distracted because they can't see me properly.

I know some of my colleagues regularly sit during lectures, but that just feels too casual. I also move constantly throughout the room during exams. I don't want to catch cheaters - I hope none of my students feel the need to cheat. But I also think that many students cheat because it's an opportunity crime. They see someone else's answer sheet and copy. Or they see that the teacher isn't watching and pull out their phone. I figure if I'm constantly moving through the classroom, varying the pattern of my movement, I keep them on edge and less likely to be tempted.

Besides, I've been in a class as a student where others were blatantly cheating because the prof was seated at the front of the room with his head in a book. That really ticked me off, and there was no way to even catch his eye because he didn't look up at all. I can't help but think that if he had circulated through the room, those students wouldn't have cheated. /rant

I actually had a student comment on my standing last semester. He seemed surprised that I never sat down during class - apparently many of his other profs did.

But I like to move around at least a bit, so I end up standing a lot. I do sometimes sit on top of a desk while we're having a discussion because I often don't need to actively participate in them when the students start talking to each other. But when I'm lecturing or leading the discussion, it seems necessary to be able to maintain eye contact with anyone in the room, and being on the same level as they are would make that hard.

Perhaps it's odd, and maybe at some point I'll find it too hard and have to sit. But right now, I need good shoes to stand in for 5 hours...

I LOVE teaching!

2010-09-09T17:31:00.002-06:00

Okay. I have to say it, and I have to say it now, because I know the bloom will be off the rose very shortly.

But I had a *great* first day!

This, despite the fact I have an 8am class (Brit Lit II survey... some strange scheduling there!). I don't like mornings. 9am classes are good. I'm not one of those people who complains if I have to come in before noon. But there's something about getting up that one hour earlier that gets tougher and tougher as the semester progresses.

But today? I had a fabulous day. I met the survey class students bright and early, and all but one were there are ready at 8am. And I had two former (non-major) students signed up. The course is open enrollment as long as you meet the pre-reqs, but I was still a bit surprised to see their names on the roster. I wonder if they realized they got me? As part-time, my name doesn't go into the calendar, so they might not have known originally.

Then again, maybe they knew it was me and came for that reason. Who knows?

My GenEd students in the afternoon looked kinda sullen for much of the class - you know, the syllabus explaining, schedule distributing part - but at least some of them perked up with the brief discussion we had at the end of class. I can see some potential conflicts between strongly held beliefs ahead though.

But I also got some interesting responses when I had them fill out a short questionnaire indicating why they chose this class. I had a few of course who said it was the best of the three horrible options they had, but I also had some who seemed genuinely enthused and thought it would relate back to their majors, which is what GenEd is about after all, so by the end of the class I was pretty excited (but tired!)

I actually had to cut off the discussion to end the class, so we might get some good give and take going, as long as I can keep some of the dominant ones (I can see some of them already) in check to allow other points of view.

But it was a very satisfying day overall.

Only problem is, now I have to get ready for the other two classes. Here's hoping they're as enjoyable (at least in this first week) as this one was!

Bad rhetoric

2010-09-07T08:24:00.005-06:00

A recent article at the CHE on teaching got me thinking about rhetoric, so I thought I'd share. From the opening paragraph:

With lavish recreation centers and sophisticated research laboratories, life on college campuses is drastically different from what it was 100 years ago. But one thing has stayed virtually the same: classroom teaching.

In all fairness, the quote does go on to talk about how the work of the professor, to design lessons and evaluate has stayed relatively the same, but the parallelism of the first sentence: "lavish" recreation centers and "sophisticated" research labs implies resources have been poured into these two areas. And by resources one gets the sense that the structures that house recreation and laboratory activities have gotten the latest upgrades, including the latest technologies possible.

Then the third sentence contrasts teaching with recreation and research, which by implication suggests that teaching has not had money lavished upon it or the latest technologies installed in classrooms. That's where I have a problem with this introduction because it sets up a false comparison. It pits recreation and lab equipment against teaching "equipment" and technologies. But most teaching is still the interaction between teacher and student, an embodied, sometimes visceral, most often corporeal interaction. And even in online learning, the use of language by the student and teacher, even when facilitated by electronic rather than face to face means, is still intensely personal.

I don't mean that student and teacher become friends, or even that their language use is colloquial and intimate (though the colloquial does occasionally emerge (and I hope the intimate does not)), but that the process of teaching is one human being sharing knowledge and experience with another. There's little need for fancy doodads and gadgets to make that happen.

And yes, it's not like teaching doesn't need support through resources and technologies. But the crux of the relationship - a mentoring one many times - is still one human being talking to another. And all the bells and whistles in the world won't change that.

That's what annoys me about these kinds of false oppositions. They lose sight of the very different kinds of activities that research (labs), recreation, and teaching/learning encompass.

This is gonna be some ride!

2010-09-02T09:52:00.002-06:00

After being yanked rather reluctantly from my own research back into the realization that the semester is soon upon us, I realized that it was high time I started prepping courses since there's lots to do yet. I may be in for quite a ride this semester.

I only have one conference this semester, unlike some when I've had as many as two conference papers to produce, so I've been trying to finish off that paper. It's roughly sketched out, but still needs a really good draft completed before we get to the point where classes start.

Speaking of classes, because I have three new preps in the four courses I'm teaching, I have a lot of new material to develop. I'm teaching the survey class again, which is good and the only thing I changed was the novel. I switched from Doris Lessing's The Antheap to R.L. Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, which I'm much more conversant with, so that's not a big deal. But I also have the poetry course, my gen ed course in "making humans" (which I'm VERY excited about!) and an upgrading course. This means I have to:

read and develop lectures/discussion activities questions for 4 novels I've read before
read and develop lecture material/activities for a novel I've never even read before (thank goodness it's a short one)
read a Shakespeare play - Othello - that I haven't read in years and develop a drama unit for the upgrading class
write 9 new assignments - of these, two will be versions of a research paper, so I only need to tweak existing research assignments, but that still leaves 7 new ones (this doesn't include exams unfortunately)
prepare about 4 dozen poems for discussion/lecture materials
read and prepare lecture/activities for half a dozen short stories

The biggest challenges are actually coming from the upgrading class, which I said I'd take on only in the last couple of weeks. This was before I realized the sometimes strict limitations that the class imposes, like the approved reading list for novels, the required assignments, the Canadian content requirement and the need for a Shakespeare or a 'modern' play (defined pretty much as 20th century). Oh, and a limitation on the cost of the textbook, which meant that my original plan had to be scrapped because I would have gone $5 over the limit.

When I sat down to put together the syllabus for the upgrading class, a lot of the material that I had in front of me from which to fulfill the requirements was material that I haven't taught before, so a lot of the new reading comes from this course alone. I'm still looking forward to most of that reading and the challenge of developing the material, but it will be a lot of work!

The bright spot in all this is that my two lit classes - poetry and the survey - are not full, so I should have fewer papers to mark in those than usual, and the fact that I'm not teaching any composition also means I'll have less marking to do than I usually have. In fact, the upgrading course - which will probably require the most handholding on my part - consists of a number of unit tests as well as a couple of shorter writing pieces, so the marking in it should be fairly light as well.

Summer, where are you?

2010-08-29T20:37:00.002-06:00

I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September. I refuse to turn on the furnace before September.

Finished... sort of...

2010-08-26T18:38:00.002-06:00

Finished all 4 syllabi for this semester - hooray!

I say I sort of finished them because although the actual syllabus is finished for each class, there are many, many assignments yet to write - I think I've got about a dozen new ones this semester - and I don't feel like I've finished the syllabus until I've at least drafted what I want those assignments to say.

Funny how I don't feel the same need to write exams ahead of time, but writing assignments and presentations I do.

Academic Sponges

2010-08-19T20:28:00.000-06:00

When I think of a metaphor to describe my academic career, I sometimes think of a sponge.

I know that's not terribly pretty, and depending on your experience with sponges, it might even be slightly disgusting, reminding you of clean up jobs that you'd rather not remember. But think of it as a nice clean washing sponge or the sort that one might have used before the advent of the ubiquitous loofah sponge. You know, the ones the size of small dinner plates with all those lovely big holes in them.

Anyway. I sometimes feel like my academic career to this point has been like a sponge, soaking up other people's ideas. In classrooms, at conferences, reading books and articles, I feel like I always know so very little about what people are talking about that I just soak it all in.

As a sponge, every once and a while I get a poke, and some of what I've soaked up comes back out in the form of a conference paper or an article, and a really big poke (by my committee to some extent but mostly a self-imposed impatience to finish things) resulted in the dissertation.

Of course this creates a problem that I think I've mostly shed at this point, but that haunts me nevertheless. Because some of what I read wasn't necessarily smart or useful. Especially during my undergraduate career, some of the things I chose to read for research papers and the like wasn't always good.

Which has me wondering how I might integrate more critical analysis of sources into my classes so that my students don't base their research on shoddy sources. I'm thinking of incorporating a research proposal into my lit classes and maybe even the gen ed one so that I have the opportunity to engage in conversation with students about the sources they are considering useful to their projects and steer them away from the superficial or less useful ones. If nothing else, such an exercise should result in better research papers, even if it does little for the student's understanding of quality scholarship and ability to critically analyze sources.

At least, that's what I'm thinking.

Forecast: flurries

2010-08-18T15:38:00.002-06:00

No, the Great White North is not going to be getting snow in August... though the way the weather's been so changeable this summer, I wouldn't be surprised. Not that I want it to snow...! *knock on wood*

No, it's a flurry of emails over the last three days that I suspect will just continue to snowball.

It's our first week 'back' at the university, even though classes don't start for another three weeks, and suddenly my daytimer is filling with events/meetings and I've gotten emails from pretty much every department on campus, welcoming me back.

Not to mention the emails about contracts that still need to be drawn up and signed over the next few weeks, and last minute class assignments that now need syllabi and textbook orders. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the bookstore can get them in on time, though they should have plenty of time)

It feels like I went from merrily working away on my scholarship last week to a sudden need to finish syllabi (actually, it's mostly just finishing schedules at this point) and start teacher-thinking mode instead. It's a bit of a jarring transition, and the urgency of some of that email flurry isn't helping matters!

Going back and seeing familiar faces

2010-08-12T18:14:00.002-06:00

I've been thinking about the 'going back' phase of summer. It's that time when August is in full swing and I start to think about the upcoming semester.

Sometimes there's a sense of panic because I haven't gotten as much done over summer as I had hoped. Sometimes it's with anticipation at teaching a new course.

This year, I've both got new courses - including one that is essentially teaching the dissertation (and I'm not even on the tt track!) - and the panic isn't manifesting since I had almost no expectations for work this summer and what few ones I did have are fulfilled.

I am a little confused and dazed as I try to figure out where to go next with the dissertation. But that makes the prospect of focusing on teaching for a bit pleasant as it will be a distraction from the problem of what to do next and I suspect sometime during that distraction an idea will emerge that will be worth following up on.

I'm also eager to meet my students this year. The class list for one of my classes isn't posted yet, but of the other two, I spotted a few familiar names, and I'm looking forward to getting to know these students in a new class.

Recognizing names on a list is one thing. But I've also been running into my colleagues in some of the most unexpected places. I met two colleagues - one from my department and one from another one - when I was on the coast for vacation. They weren't together, so seeing familiar faces in two different places on the same day was odd. Then two days later and 300 kms away, I bumped into another colleague when we stopped in a small town for lunch. Apparently we all like vacationing in similar places! Finally, I met another colleague last night at a restaurant in town that just opened two weeks ago.

Familiar faces and familiar names. Frankly, I can't wait to go back!

(I know, I know, remind me of this post in a couple of months and I won't believe I wrote it, but there it is!)

When did the twenty-first century begin?

2010-08-10T17:25:00.001-06:00

At a recent conference - the first I'd ever seen on twenty-first century literature - I found myself surprised by how many speakers referenced 9/11 as one of the markers for the beginning of the century.

Hmmm....

I was frankly a bit surprised by it and so much so that I feel the need to blog about it by wondering at the markers that signal literary periods. Aside from the gloominess of defining a century by its disasters, what really surprised me the most is that almost every person who mentioned 9/11 in the context of a marker of the twenty-first century was not American.

That surprised me because I guess I hadn't thought of the disaster as being indicative of the century. This is of course partly because I work in representations of science and technology (and by extension, science fiction), so I tend to think in timelines that involve technological change or scientific paradigm shifts and such. But falling so soon after the beginning of the century, the 9/11 event does seem an ideal marker.

But at the same time that it makes it easy to mark off centuries of literature according to the calendar, there are exceptions.

Of course there's the long eighteenth century... Although I'm not a specialist in this area, I realize that there are long discussions (often at the curricular level) about what constitutes eighteenth century literature.

And the nineteenth century often gets chopped into two separate sections because a "long" nineteenth century is really, really long, so that we have the Romantics and the Victorians (at least on the English side of the house).

Even the twentieth century has been divided fairly consistently between the early part of the century, sometimes defined as pre-WWII, but more often associated with the modernist style that developed shortly after the century began, and the post-WWII or "postmodern" period. (There are problems with the label postmodern, but I don't want to take that detour right now)

So then, where does this post-WWII period or postmodern period end (i.e. where does the twentieth century end) and where does the twenty-first one begin?

Standing so close to that line, wherever it might be drawn, makes it difficult to see it, and certainly most of the lines we've drawn through the literature of the past have been assigned to those periods long after they were over. The benefits of hindsight operate healthily in this respect.

But where does the twenty-first century begin?

Y2K?

1989?

9/11?

Now you might be wondering, 1989? What's up with that?

Well, there were several events in 1989/1990 that might make it valid to include the last decade of the twentieth century in the twenty-first, depending on how things unfold as we continue into this century, of course. 1989 was the year of Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall, both events that changed the political landscapes of the East and the West

On the literary front, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, although not the first case of attempted censorship through violence, was certainly widely reported and the upsurge of anti-Western sentiment that has built since then certainly attests to the critical effect of such beliefs in the world.

On the scientific front, the Human Genome Project was conceived in the late eighties, with an official start date of 1990. Although it seems somewhat anti-climactic now, at the time, the promises of genomics seemed endless and the project was hailed as a marvel that would allow us to cure all kinds of diseases. (Even though the promise of the project seemed to offer more than it delivered, it was that promise and the envisioned new future that seems to me to be a marked break with the more mundane visions of science in the post WWII period. But I can be wrong.)

So, when did the twenty-first century begin?

It's a question whose answer I'm hoping to watch unfold over my career. And that's exciting to me.

Organizational woes

2010-08-02T12:27:00.002-06:00

I think I've mentioned before that I signed up for Library Thing in order to keep track of my books (and because I suspect if I ever have to make an insurance claim, the company won't believe me when I tell them the number of books I own). I also signed up for Movie Collector Plus for the same reason.

But I've had to juggle book space a lot in the last few years, which means I sometimes know that I own a book, but can't figure out which bookshelf it's on! Which means I need to spend long periods of time scanning shelves looking for something that's not where it used to be.

So, the question is: would it be extravagant to buy a RFID system to keep track of them?

Just wondering...

Addressing website audiences

2010-07-31T10:59:00.004-06:00

Gearing up for the fall semester and the job hunt, which means cruising university websites on a regular basis, this illustration seems absolutely appropriate:

It also reminds me of the kinds of things clients have wanted on their opening pages for elearning projects: statements of purpose, information about the genesis of the project, almost-vacuous statements about what this elearning project will do for you. The latter I really doubt as being useful since people will end up on the page because they've been told to, or because they know what advantage it will provide.

At the same time that I take the point the illustration is making, that there's a kind of generic expectation of websites that their first pages will be filled with this kind of fluff. And it makes a certain kind of sense, just like the acknowledgments page is often the first one in a book, but of limited interest to many readers (or the copyright page for that matter).

Besides, how would one fit all of those things in the right-hand circle that people are looking for on to one page? The difference between the right-hand circle and the left, is that the left is written for a generic kind of reader - an ideal one - who doesn't really exist (or if they do, it's only a few individuals who are looking for this information). Actually, as a job seeker, those statements of purpose can be very handy for getting a grip on what the university thinks of itself and what kind of teaching will take place there, so perhaps the information in the left-hand circle really is more useful than the illustration implies.

But the problem with making the information on the right-hand circle the primary page is that it addresses at least three different audiences: staff and faculty of the school, students at the school, and outside parties interested in attending/visiting the school. That's a lot of audiences for one page to address and address effectively.

The way webpages are conventionally set up, there's a large space near the middle, intended to address the audience interested in the page. But when you've got several audiences, which one would you privilege? This is why those primary pages often include navigation that separates users into functions, i.e. "for students" "for alumni" "for faculty" etc. in order to then address that audience and only that audience in that next level of webpage.

So I take the point of the illustration that much of what's on the left-hand side of it is information few are interested in. But given the number of different users of a university website, it seems that such general pages are by default the best use of the first page.

Empty

2010-07-28T09:51:00.000-06:00

My house is feeling quite empty these days. It has been moving toward that state for a while, but more so this last week after youngest daughter moved out.

It's odd. I realize that objectively, the house is not really changed since her departure. Yes, she took a couple of small pieces of furniture and her personal items with her. But my sense of the house being empty is more subjective. I realize there are no children in house anymore and they won't be living with me again.

They visit. In fact, two called on Monday to say they wanted to come over, so we had dinner together (the third was out during the day and too tired to come by, or everyone would've been here). That spontaneous get together was nice. But it also reinforced that they are gone. At the end of the night, they both left for their own homes.

Some days I don't notice it. But on others, I feel like a ping pong ball, bouncing around inside the shell of the house.

Archive Fever

2010-07-19T08:43:00.003-06:00

"Contemporary culture is increasingly conscious of its own present as the object of a future memory"
Mark Currie, About Time: Narrative, Fiction, and the Philosophy of Time

The Masterworks Meme

2010-07-17T14:41:00.005-06:00

The Masterworks Meme, from The Speculative Scotsman via The World in a Satin Bagcharts some of the must reads of a science fiction education. So. In bold, the books I've read. The books I own but haven't yet read are italicised.

NB: Some of the SF Masterworks were released in a line of special hardcovers - denoted by roman numerals - as well as the paperbacks we all own a few of, so there are a few duplicates in the list.

I - Dune - Frank Herbert
II - The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
III - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
IV - The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
V - A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.

VI - Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke

VII - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein

VIII - Ringworld - Larry Niven

IX - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

X - The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham

1 - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

2 - I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

3 - Cities in Flight - James Blish

4 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick

5 - The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester

6 - Babel-17 - Samuel R. Delany

7 - Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

8 - The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe

9 - Gateway - Frederik Pohl

10 - The Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith

11 - Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon

12 - Earth Abides - George R. Stewart

13 - Martian Time-Slip - Philip K. Dick

14 - The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester

15 - Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner

16 - The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin

17 - The Drowned World - J. G. Ballard

18 - The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut

19 - Emphyrio - Jack Vance

20 - A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick

21 - Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon

22 - Behold the Man - Michael Moorcock

23 - The Book of Skulls - Robert Silverberg

24 - The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells

25 - Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

26 - Ubik - Philip K. Dick

27 - Timescape - Gregory Benford

28 - More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon

29 - Man Plus - Frederik Pohl

30 - A Case of Conscience - James Blish

31 - The Centauri Device - M. John Harrison

32 - Dr. Bloodmoney - Philip K. Dick

33 - Non-Stop - Brian Aldiss

34 - The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke

35 - Pavane - Keith Roberts

36 - Now Wait for Last Year - Philip K. Dick

37 - Nova - Samuel R. Delany

38 - The First Men in the Moon - H. G. Wells

39 - The City and the Stars - Arthur C. Clarke

40 - Blood Music - Greg Bear

41 - Jem - Frederik Pohl

42 - Bring the Jubilee - Ward Moore

43 - VALIS - Philip K. Dick

44 - The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. Le Guin

45 - The Complete Roderick - John Sladek

46 - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick

47 - The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells

48 - Grass - Sheri S. Tepper

49 - A Fall of Moondust - Arthur C. Clarke

50 - Eon - Greg Bear

51 - The Shrinking Man - Richard Matheson

52 - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick

53 - The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock

54 - The Space Merchants - Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth

55 - Time Out of Joint - Philip K. Dick

56 - Downward to the Earth - Robert Silverberg

57 - The Simulacra - Philip K. Dick

58 - The Penultimate Truth - Philip K. Dick

59 - Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg

60 - Ringworld - Larry Niven

61 - The Child Garden - Geoff Ryman*

62 - Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement

63 - A Maze of Death - Philip K. Dick

64 - Tau Zero - Poul Anderson

65 - Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke

66 - Life During Wartime - Lucius Shepard

67 - Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm

68 - Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

69 - Dark Benediction - Walter M. Miller, Jr.

70 - Mockingbird - Walter Tevis

71 - Dune - Frank Herbert

72 - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein

73 - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick

74 - Inverted World - Christopher Priest

75 - Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle

76 - H.G. Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau

77 - Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End

78 - H.G. Wells - The Time Machine

79 - Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren

80 - Brian Aldiss - Helliconia

81 - H.G. Wells - Food of the Gods

82 - Jack Finney - The Body Snatchers

83 - Joanna Russ - The Female Man

84 - M.J. Engh - Arslan

*I'm in the process of reading this one, but just about finished

Since I've begun to read science fiction again, it seemed appropriate to play along and wonder about how many of these I'd read, owned, and have yet to read. Not bad.

Peripatetic estrangement

2010-07-15T14:43:00.003-06:00

One of the civilizing effects of travel is often thought to be the exposure to different cultures in order to develop an appreciation for the global and realization that the local is, well, indeed, local, and not the only way to skin a cat, so to speak. Hence, the Grand Tour that the gentrified encouraged their (male) progeny to embark upon before settling down to run their estates, or the updated "year off" or "year abroad" backpacking through Europe that is supposed to perform a similar function for the more nouveau gentrified classes in North America.

I won't argue that time in another country is not valuable. It certainly helps to remind you that there is indeed more than one way of doing things and whether the cultural differences you encounter are only mildly odd or downright baffling in their strangeness, they can be enlightening.

[Having read that last sentence, you'll notice that I used the word "can" rather than "are" since in this age of all-inclusive resorts and whirlwind Europe-in-a-week (complete with tour guide) travel options, one can remain blissfully unaware of those differences if one so desires]

But there's also an estrangement that happens when you return home. I know my parents spoke of the "reverse culture shock" they experienced when we returned from our two year stint in Brasil. Since I was young, I certainly noticed differences (though the things I noticed were no doubt very different than the ones my parents did), but for the most part, there was little "shock" in them.

When we returned from living in the U.S., I certainly noticed cultural differences, particularly in the media and in accents, but even traveling to the Caribbean last year or Europe, there was a moment - when I first got into my own car actually - when I felt estranged from my own culture. Most of that seemed to be centered on the enormous size of our vehicles here, which seemed bloated and bullyish as I navigated streets near my home.

But there's also a sense of a shifting pace that contributes to that estrangement as you move from the pleasure- and transport-centered activities of travel, to the more circumscribed and sedentary activities of work and house maintenance. The vivid everyday activities of the other country are slowly replaced by the mundane and repetitive sameness of the same city, job, and house as you slip back into the ordinary. It's not a bad thing, just a strangely transitional place to be.

Placeholder

2010-07-14T09:55:00.001-06:00

First google decided I was some kind of spammer and blocked me out of all my accounts. Then I left for vacation. That's my explanation for the radio silence.

Yes, it's a touch pathetic and pedestrian. But such is life.

More anon.

Editorial snafus... con't

2010-06-24T11:44:00.003-06:00

So I've finally gotten through the comments for the one solitary, strident reviewer for the r&r I was talking about a few days ago. I think I've done what's necessary to make him (and the editor) happy, so we're in the final stages.

But then I get an email from a journal editor who tells me *I* will miss the deadline for this year's journal. This is because apparently I was supposed to know that when an email came out in spring with a deadline for submission attached, it was the deadline for the edited version (i.e. after reviewers), not my deadline for submitting it.

So then I get a followup email that finally clarifies it (apparently, I'm not the only submitter who didn't realize the deadline was for the post-edit version when we're still in submission stage). So I hustle my ass to get the paper polished up and sent off. And I did send it off, in the midst of all kinds of other dissertation defense/conference presentation work.

Three weeks after sending it off, I finally get an email from the editor indicating receipt (apparently said editor was not checking email while out of town?!) and that it will be sent to reviewers. I just got an email this week saying, 'like the article, but oops, not enough time to revise before the deadline at the end of the month... perhaps you'd like to wait till next year to submit?'

No, I'd not like to wait till next year. I wanted it on the cv for this year, you know, when I go on the market? What good will it do next year?

I'm really frustrated right now, which is why I haven't crafted a response yet. But I'm seriously considering reworking it for a different journal and sending it out in the hopes of getting it accepted before October when I need to start sending my cv out. It's well placed for this particular journal, but it could be slightly reworked for a different one.

More decisions.

Wading

2010-06-22T10:47:00.001-06:00

It's amazing how much can pile up when you haven't filed anything for the last ten months and have produced at least two drafts of a dissertation!

I've spent way more time analyzing the comments than addressing them

2010-06-18T15:58:00.003-06:00

I have. I have spent more time... no, correction, probably not more - but far too much... time analyzing the comments on the r&r that is due next month than addressing them.

Part of why I say that is because the described weaknesses of the paper fall into two primary areas, both of which are actually fairly easily addressed by revision of my prose and clarification of what I'm already saying, rather than having to go do additional research or reading to add to the essay. But a bigger part of it is because the comments struck me as so bizarre.

When I opened the file with the comments, my first impression of the summary comments was of someone yelling and jumping up and down, trying desperately to get my attention when everyone within eyesight and earshot knew what was going on. No, honestly, I had the recurrent flash of vision, almost as if I could see it out the corner of my eye, or a leprechaun or midget, fists clenched, veins popping, jumping up and down in the corner, yelling "listen! listen! listen!" Not a word of a lie. It's an image that I'm having real trouble shaking as I continue to work on the comments.

And I've had these comments for two weeks now. This isn't my initial run through. I've read them again and again, trying to get over the tone of the comments to get at the substance.

I think I've gotten to the heart of the substance, and that substance is fair and a good evaluation of the weaknesses of the paper. But the tone of the thing is really, really off.

I've had harsh comments before. One of the professors in my doctoral program was well known for harsh comments on papers, and some of the harshest of those are still remembered and routinely quoted when we convene over drinks. I've also gotten comments on a few publications, including one that rejected the article entirely (which hurts of course). But neither the quotable harshness of that professor or the harsh reality that my writing didn't measure up to the journal's expectations can match the off-putting nature of these comments.

Like I said, the criticisms are legitimate, and I'm finding them useful in shaping the piece into a better essay. But the tone is strident and hyperbolic in its insistence that THIS IS A PROBLEM!

Okay, dude! You don't have to shout. I sent this article in knowing it would be peer reviewed and knowing how peer review works. I send the article, two to three people read it and evaluate its strengths/weaknesses, the editor sends it back to me, I address the weaknesses and then send it back again to the editor with an explanation of how I addressed the reader's comments. This is the way the process works. You don't need to yell at me to get me to listen to the weaknesses - I want to produce quality work that will be accepted as valuable by my peers.

But it's this question of quality work that is now making me wonder if I should not send the article back.

When I submitted to this edited volume, I checked out the editor, who seemed to be doing interesting work at a good school. And the topic of the edited collection was novel and provocative. So I submitted an abstract.

They rushed me to get the full article in, but I made the deadline and then waited. Their own deadlines for review came and went (twice), but I finally got the reviewer's comments at the end of May (the day after my conference presentation - how convenient!)

When I opened the comments, I read through, noting the strident tone, but realizing that those comments might be mitigated by more reasonably-toned second reader comments.

But there were none. I had expected at least two readers, even if they couldn't garner three, but I only got the one reader's comments, which meant that I would now have to rely on my own sense of how to tease apart tone from content, rather than being able to start by finding places where both reviewers had agreed (which is usually a good sign that those are the changes to start with!)

I also started to worry and wonder. First, I worried whether I'd gotten enough feedback to produce a quality product. But I also started to wonder about the one reviewer chosen, since he indicated in two places that he has a) not read the novel the article discusses, and b) is not an expert in the theoretical area that largely governs the reading of that novel. Then as I continued to read, it seemed that the reviewer also didn't have a clear idea of the conventions of the genre under discussion as well.

So I began to wonder: why was this reviewer chosen?

The answer seems to be either proximity or desperation.

See, one of the things about electronic editing, is that Word very nicely labels the comments entered into a document with the name of the registered user of the computer they're created on. In this case, a quick google of the name on the comments turned up a graduate student in American literature at the university where the editor works. A graduate student. Who studies American, not British literature. Whose only conference presentation I could find works in a genre and period that are both very different from mine.

Now do you see why I'm wondering if I should do the r&r?

I'm having doubts for two reasons:
1) I haven't gotten feedback from an expert in the field (or text, or genre) in which I'm writing. That means I'm really relying upon my own sense of the validity of the research. I'm a pretty junior scholar (though not as junior as my reviewer) so I know I can use the help of more senior scholars. My ego's not that big that I don't know my own weaknesses and having someone who has less experience than me give me the only feedback just makes me a wee bit nervous.
2) The editor did not/could not find someone in my field to review the paper, let alone two or three people. Which of course makes me wonder why the editor could find so few reviewers. Was it just a matter of timing? Is mine the odd-man-out and didn't fit well with the reviewers they'd lined up? Is this just sloppy editorial work? Did someone back out of reviewing?

I do realize that although the publication could be listed as peer-reviewed, it is essentially the same as a non-reviewed edited collection. So it's not going to be prestigious or count a lot toward the development of my cv. And it's not like I have a reputation to uphold. But I hope to have one at some point.

Will I be making a fatal mis-step if I let this publication go ahead? Or will the potentially inferior status of the edited collection still look better on my cv than nothing at all?

Decisions, decisions.

Keeping the momentum going

2010-06-16T22:09:00.001-06:00

Perhaps I could say something clever about energy and buckballs, which is what this Montreal museum is modeled on, but I don't have anything clever to say.

It was only a few weeks ago, but the trip to Montreal feels like ages ago, probably mostly because it was nice and warm there most of the time while here it's been raining off and on for the month. Rain always seems to make days drag for me.

And that's part of my problem right now in keeping the momentum going - I've got lots of projects on the go, but I'm also finding the days and days of time spent mostly at home in front of my computer really drag the will to work out of me. So I've been resurrecting all those tried and true methods for keeping myself motivated when I'm the only one around. So far they're (mostly) working. Actually, they really only ever work most of the time, so I can't complain.

At the same time, the isolation of working from home is tough to deal with sometimes. Although I can have very productive days, at other times, I feel restless and uninspired in ways that don't seem to happen as often when I'm at a workplace (even if that's only part time).

My summer will be nicely broken up with one long trip (to the UK) and a few shorter ones planned, so the reward of getting to do fun things on vacation is part of that motivating strategy. But on a rainy day like today when I'm struggling to address a reader's comments on an article that needs to be revised, they seem very far away!

Relativity

2010-06-15T16:56:00.003-06:00

I was tooling around the internets because I'm putting off doing any serious work and getting tired of filing papers that need to be filed when I came across something that stopped me for a moment.

A blogger described turning 39 and finally realizing that he/she had reached adulthood.

Hunh??

I realize my biography is a bit unusual, but I felt the full weight of adulthood somewhere in my early twenties when I realized that life was no longer a game, and the things that you did had really long term consequences. I don't mean that I first learned to really regret at that point. But I did realize that you only get one chance at this, and if you piss it away by screwing around with your life, then you have no one but yourself to blame. And then later you will regret that you pissed away your time and energy on things that didn't count (and I don't just mean careers or money; I mean people and relationships too).

To me, that's what realizing you're an adult is about. It's not about managing your own money or having your own place, or buying your first car. But it is about realizing that there's no one else in the world who has the responsibility for what you do. No one to blame or praise but yourself.

It was also in my early twenties that I realized that me screwing up could screw up other people's lives too, because none of us are isolated, even when it seems that we are, and you're responsible for thinking not only about your own life, but the lives of those people you interact with. I don't mean that you have to worry about what kind of day the grocery clerk is having. But you do have to consider how your actions will affect your family members, friends, or even your coworkers.

I'm not talking altruistic sacrifice. Just an awareness that every action you take has a ripple effect in the world. Some of those ripples are small, but some can cause effects that you can't possibly anticipate. So you want to make the right choices and making the right choices includes considering that you're not the only person who those choices will affect. Sometimes the best choice will hurt other people. That's to be expected at times. But like in many other things, awareness seems to me to be an important feature of decision making. You make the tough choices, but make them as fully aware of the consequences as you can.

So I was surprised that someone who has been around for several decades already felt the revelation of adulthood at 39. And now I'm curious. What does his/her biography look like that we might come to the same understanding at such radically different ages in our lives?

Maybe I just misunderstood. Maybe the revelation of adulthood was something that I have yet to understand. Maybe I've just been playing at adulthood all along and I'm a little slow on the game and will reach the same stage soon (hopefully). Perhaps my understanding of adulthood is different or not quite complete and I haven't really "got" it yet.

But this little story also made me realize how very different life is for every one of us. It reminded me that my story is not yours; and yours is not mine. And if I'm going to understand your story, I need to listen to it without trying to impose mine on it. Food for thought.

Anyone up for a bonfire?

2010-06-11T14:45:00.003-06:00

I sorted through the drafts, and drafts, and drafts! of the dissertation today. Now I have a big pile of paper that I can either recycle or burn.

Good thing we just reworked our patio and firepit. If you bring the marshmallows, I have the fuel!

Two forward, one back... or is it one forward and two back?

2010-06-10T17:35:00.003-06:00

Alien on a street corner. Yup, that feels about right these days.

To say that things feel weird since the defense would be accurate and yet doesn't quite capture what life feels like these days. It's weird as in not normal but not weird as in alien. And that's got me feeling a bit off.

See, when I look at life, I'm doing the same kind of stuff I was doing before the defense. I'm still writing conference papers and planning syllabi (which is usual between-semester activity). But without that big project in the background, I feel a bit directionless.

I know, I know. Everyone says how lucky and nice it is to have the luxury of not having that big project hanging over my head. And I should be happy that I have time to figure out what I want to do in the next big project.

It should be a luxurious time to just read whatever I want and think about what kinds of things I'd like to do next. But it hasn't felt like that, and I think I finally figured out why today. I packed up my work office this afternoon - in the move from f/t back to p/t, I'll have to move from a solo to a shared office. That left me a little down - nothing serious - just a little sad at what feels like a step backwards.

And I think that's why I've felt so rudderless after the defense. I finish this big huge project, and what happens? I move a step back. The first thing after the defense and I'm sliding two steps back instead of moving forward. And that makes me wonder if that's somehow indicative of the kind of progress (or lack thereof) that I'll make now that I'm on my own.

I mean, I don't really wonder. But it does seem terribly ironic that I work fulltime and defend in one year, then the best I can manage is a part time position and no idea what project I want to undertake next. When you put it that way, it sure feels like a seismic shift, a sliding backward, that I don't really believe is a portent of things to come. But somewhere in my guts, there's an uneasy feeling of discomfort with the situation. That's not making me happy.

Of course, all this rain isn't helping either - it's June for crying out loud! Where's the sun?

Why does it have to be this way?

2010-06-09T16:57:00.002-06:00

So the conference paper is mostly written. It needs some tweaking because it's probably 2-3 minutes too long, and I don't doubt that there are some sentences that I'll discover are awkward once I read them aloud.

But it was so hard to get it put together!

I knew what I wanted to say, and as I indicated before, it was actually easier than what I thought I was trying to argue, but it still was a struggle to get it together. I had a terrible time forcing myself to work through the material.

So even though it's done and that's good, I ask you, why does it have to be so hard??

Well now I'm just confused

2010-06-04T14:44:00.002-06:00

So the conference paper went well and I had time to do some additional revision work on an article that I sent off to a new publication source. Let's hope they're either interested, or at least send back some useful reviewers reports. The confusion I'm experiencing isn't related to the work completed, but to what's to come.

So the conference paper and revision week were last week where I 1) presented the conference paper, 2) revised an article and sent it out before the deadline for the special topic issue, and 3) drafted a conference paper proposal.

As I indicated in the first paragraph, the first two tasks were accomplished in reasonable style and timeliness. The third - the conference paper proposal - was slow in coming together and I was struggling with the wording really badly the one evening while I was there.

So instead of struggling through - which is the strategy I tend to first when I encounter trouble with writing - I left the abstract and went to bed. That was a good thing, it turned out. The next morning I awoke to an email invitation to submit to another conference. An invitation! That's kinda cool. Yes, it was an invitation to a conference that my university is hosting, which means they were just looking for someone nearby. But that conversation with one of the members of the department (who happens to be on the conference committee) the other week paid off. When they needed someone to round out a panel, my name came up, all as a direct result of just chatting with someone about the work I was doing.

So I submitted to the home university conference rather than far-away-and-in-a-different-country conference. Which is all kinds of nice.

What I'm confused about though is what happened when I got home.

I knew that I would spend most of June on an R&R (which came via email later on the day of my conference presentation) and on the conference paper for the July conference. But a weird thing happened between my submission of the abstract and getting the time (now) to write it.

See, I thought the paper proposal I'd sent in was about literary representations of nanotechnology. That's what has been in the back of my mind every time I would think of the conference over the last several months. But yesterday I pulled out the actual abstract I sent. It was about autonomy and identity in literary representations of future technologies. Not quite the same.

I can talk about nanotech in this paper if I wish, but given the scope I laid out when I first proposed the paper, there's little to no need to go into any detail about nanotech.

In some ways, this makes the paper an easier one to write because I don't have to do as much reading (and re-reading) as I thought I'd have to.

But I'm having a terrible time adjusting to the new topic. It's thrown me for a bit of a loop, frankly; hence, the confusion. I'm just not sure where to begin. I know I'll find it, but right now, it's just not coming to me.

What I can't figure out is why I was so terribly sure I was going to have to read Feynman and Sargent and a bunch of other stuff on nanotech, when I didn't originally propose that, and what I did propose is a far better topic for me to try to tackle. Odd.

Better than expected, yet weird

2010-05-30T07:24:00.002-06:00

The conference paper went over better than I expected it to - I really had expected to be challenged about my work, and although I saw a few puzzled faces, there were also a few smiles, and the questions/comments after were encouraging. One other presenter said he liked my style, which was pretty nice to hear since style is something that I've struggled with developing over the last few years.

It has also been weird being here. I found myself contemplating going to the graduate caucus meeting two days ago, then realized that I was no longer a graduate student. So those concerns, although still important, are not directly my concerns anymore.

That felt weird.

And I still find myself gravitating toward talking to graduate students at meet and greets and those kinds of things. Part of that is because graduate students are usually more open to complete strangers approaching them and they attend these things without having an already built-in network of buddies to hang out with.

It means I meet interesting, new people. But unless we both show up at the same conference a few years in a row, it usually doesn't amount to an ongoing connection. Not that those kinds of professional connections will actually be useful. None of us as grad students (or now as a newly doctored but untenured underemployed sessional) have any power in this game. So connections are comfortable, but their networking power will only emerge several years down the road.

There's a sizeable contingent here from my alma mater, and they are all quite intent on sticking to themselves, which unfortunately means that the people who I know from previous encounters don't seem interested in expanding their circle at this conference. So I find others to talk to.

I've talked to some very interesting people, including an international scholar whose name is the same as a very famous actor and who consequently has even better stories than mine about border crossing guard questions. It's been a productive conference so far and the bigger meet and greet is tonight, so I'm interested in meeting other new people as well.

But it will be nice to get back home again, as always.

End of May RBOC

2010-05-25T19:46:00.003-06:00

In the last week:

three weeks after the defense and I finally feel fairly normal again. Not that this will last long (see bullet #4)
we doubled the size of our patio this weekend by pulling up part of the lawn and installing flagstones. It happened without any major glitches and looks great! There are a couple of hours of additional work that should still be done, mostly because by Monday I was too sore to keep going, but we've just effectively doubled the usable space, which will be really nice this summer.
youngest daughter is graduating this week! She's pretty happy with the state of affairs, as are we, though it's really hard to believe that she's going to be finished soon! When did I get this old?
I head off to a conference just after youngest daughter's grad. Due to inattention on my part (I booked the flight during a particularly hectic point in the semester), I am flying red-eye to the east coast a mere 3 hours after the grad banquet. Also, I don't sleep well on planes at all, so it's not going to be a pretty arrival. Luckily, I don't present till the second day, which is better than the time I spent the night on the Toronto airport floor and then presented later that morning. Don't want to do that again!
the paper that I'm delivering came together unlike any paper I've ever written before. It seemed easy, which of course scares me a bit because I suspect it seemed easy only because it's simple-minded. But I felt like I really knew what I wanted to do and just pulled it all together. There was some flailing as I mentioned before, but it was actually much shorter-lived than usual, and I'm inexplicably impressed with the state of the paper. I guess I'll have to see what audience reaction is like to find out if I indeed nailed it, or missed the boat entirely!

So that's what's going on in our neck of the woods. It'll be nice to see June roll around since April and May have seemed really full of activity!

Flailing

2010-05-20T14:00:00.004-06:00

After blogging about my excitement about being a doctor now, I'm mired in a mess of writing that feels just like it did when I wasn't yet a doctor. How's that for a shower of cold water on that delight?

The flailing around in this writing project is a bit urgent. The paper needs to be delivered next Saturday at a conference, and I have several meetings, small projects and travel that have to also happen before then. So I've got a little less than a week to turn that flailing in the muck of this draft (very drafty!) into an elegant swan dive (or perhaps just a dog paddle....) [Yes, the metaphor is breaking down]

The time frame makes me a bit anxious in the way that flailing within a dissertation chapter didn't because the time frames there, even though I set many deadlines, were a bit more flexible.

But the great thing about that long and drawn out process of writing (and completing! hehe) a dissertation is that it taught me that the flailing seems to be a necessary part of the process. (At least, it's necessary for me. Perhaps there are people out there who don't flail/just write, but I'm not one of them.) So I know it won't last. If I keep typing/erasing/retyping, and re-reading, and thinking (usually by wandering around the house muttering to myself), I'll get it pulled together.

Knowing I'll do it doesn't make the discomfort of flailing any easier though....

Still tickling my fancy

2010-05-19T22:01:00.002-06:00

It's now been two weeks since I passed the defense and officially became a doctor. It still does not fail to delight me to be reminded of that.

I know it'll get old after a while, but right now, hearing someone call me doctor always puts a smile on my face. Can't help it - I'm just so tickled by the fact that it's finally finished!

2010-05-09T17:57:00.006-06:00

What know they of cricket who only cricket know?

wrote the great West Indian Marxist CLR James.

Good, Bad and Ugly

2010-05-01T18:39:00.003-06:00

THE GOOD:
... is that I have a section of the new GenEd course that I'm going to teach (and am very psyched about) as well as a section of the survey course for fall (whoopee! Got my first choice!). A third course would be good because then I would be able to keep my benefits but we'll see what happens. I might get the poetry survey, since the chair and I figured out it would work nicely into my schedule and it may need to be covered. Two new preps and one second-go-round (which means I'll be revising the course outline), but that's a nice load.

THE BAD:
... is that because of the ugly below, I am all out of sorts today and only just beginning to get my head back into the space it needs to be for the dissertation defense in three short days! I know I can get back into it, but it's a bit disturbing how little concentration I've been able to harness over the last several days.

THE UGLY:
... is the 26cm of snow we got overnight on Thursday (that's almost a foot for you non-metric people). I had an exam at 8am that morning. I left the house at 6am for what is usually a 25 minute drive and yet I was over an hour late for the exam AND had to abandon the car on the side of the road.

This picture was actually taken a few kms from my house but several hours later. When I was leaving the house, the snow was much, much deeper. I dug myself out twice on the way, but the third time, I just couldn't get out and had to abandon the car for the bus. Little did I know that road closures meant the bus stop I was waiting at wasn't going to be serviced. I'm grateful to the good samaritan neighbour who told me the buses weren't getting through and drove me the kilometer to a place where I could catch one!

I managed to get someone else to start the exam, but it still started an hour late, so some students had to leave at the scheduled end time, which meant I spent the rest of Thursday arranging an alternate writing day/time for those students. The last of them finished the exam this morning. So for the last three days, it's just felt like one loooong exam. Very tiring.

Weird part is, it's been gorgeous since then and there's only the tiniest of snowbanks left. Very little proof of the madness that was Thursday morning.

Involuntary changes

2010-04-28T20:39:00.003-06:00

This year has been an exciting and interesting year at work with the temporary full-time position I've had. I've learned a huge amount during the year, had some great conversations and gotten a really good idea of what it will be like to be an assistant professor.

But I had harboured a hope that this would be the first step to a more permanent position or at least a first year that would lead in to a second and then perhaps on to something more stable.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I will finish off this year and then go back (hopefully) to a part-time position. Which really feels like a bit of a step back. When I first realized my secret hope of progress wasn't going to pan out, I got really bummed. But I've been coming to grips with it, and most of the time, I'm okay with this change of plan. I realize that I shouldn't think of it as a step back. It's just something different.

I'm doing okay with that for the most part. But the hardest part is attending meetings. I can participate in planning, but every conversation like that reminds me that I won't be part of those same kinds of decisions next year. And that's not my choice. Sometimes that's tough.

The Old and the New (and the Dead I suppose)

2010-04-21T19:02:00.005-06:00

I recently marked two student papers on Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" (1951) and in re-reading the poem myself, I was struck in both cases at the sheer skill and beauty that Thomas employs in this villanelle, one of the more challenging poetic forms to use.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas 1951

I was reminded of the poem and its expertly conveyed sentiments when I was later listening to Great Bit Sea's "Here and Now" (2007) which parrots Thomas's line about raging against the dying of the light. Of course poor or substandard song lyrics can be sometimes partly rescued by a great sound track, and I do like the one that Here and Now is set to. But when looking at the lyrics more closely, I was surprised at how poor a job those boys from Newfoundland do at capturing the sense of passing time that Thomas captures so well.

Here and Now

The sun must set to rise
The light will leave your eyes again
Then breaking like morning's dawn
Does summer feel the winter come

The hardest part of life
Is to live while you're alive my friend
So sing an unwritten song
Or repent for the deeds you left undone

This is Here
This is Now
It's the moment that we live for
And we just can't live without
It's all clear to me now
We've already started dying
And our time is running out
Oh, Right Now

Time is ours to steal
She's a secret to reveal my friend
And when your children have all grown
You'll wait by the window
And wish them all back home

Walk a little further off the beaten path
And we'll drive on even if we get there last
Our backs against the wall
And we will lunge and bite
And we'll rage, rage, rage
against the dying of the light

Great Big Sea 2007

Don't know that I had anything profound to say about the two - just that I was struck by the difference. Perhaps my appreciation of the Thomas poem is simply because I've been writing about zombies lately, and the sentiment to "lunge and bite" or to "live while you're alive" just seems to cliched to really express the agony of a death that comes too early or unexpected. Maybe it's just because I'm just an old, crusty English prof. Maybe I'm just tired. Who knows?

Doctoral sabbatical?

2010-04-21T17:30:00.002-06:00

So at places that offer them, professors get a sabbatical once every, what, 6, 7 years, right?

I began doctoral work in 2002.

I'm just saying...

Classes are over!!

2010-04-17T16:15:00.002-06:00

I have not met the end of a semester with such relief in a long time. But come to think of it, last time I was so relieved to see the end of a semester was one where I was also teaching 4 classes. I suppose that tells me that 4's my limit.

Note to self: 3-3 would be ideal; 4-4 manageable (but you will be exhausted come April).

There's a huge stack of marking sitting on my desk, but it's my work desk. I deliberately brought none home this weekend. I figured with the yard in desperate need of springtime attention, two social functions (one full day one) and an R&R that needs to be completed in the next couple of weeks, I had more than enough to worry about.

And it's immensely satisfying to not even have the marking hanging around. Of course it will greet me Monday morning - four large piles of marking sitting right there, front and center when I open the office door - but it's really nice to have left it and to not have it hanging over me for two days.

Hmmm. Must remember how good this feels and have grading-free weekends more often.

Here and There

2010-04-11T13:07:00.002-06:00

The "here" being blogging and the "there" being facebooking, I feel like I'm neither here nor there these days. When the productivity on this blog fell off, I thought it was due to facebook. Which to some extent it probably was.

But I've realized also that I was far more prolific a blog writer when I was in the researching/reading stages of comps and dissertation than when I was writing my material up. So maybe it's just that spending days writing - editing - writing has meant I have less energy for the blog writing.

I suppose we shall see, since I submitted the final version of the dissertation last week. Now I just need to wait will the defense rolls around.

Sure, I need to write up something to present during the defense, but I've pretty much chosen what I want to present and moulded it to fit the allotted time. So it really just needs tweaking.

At the same time however, I am experiencing a convergence of previous work - some of it older (i.e. pre-doctoral research that I'm continuing to work on) and some of it coming out of side projects I've inevitably undertaken during the doctoral work. What this means is that I have two pieces of published writing to undertake - one R&R and one revision of a conference paper to article length for consideration. Both have looming deadlines.

There's also the matter of two more conference papers to write up. One is an exploration of a side note in a dissertation chapter, so the foundation is there. The other consists of applying some of the arguments I made in the dissertation to a new area/set of texts. So both are material I've worked with, but pretty significantly modified for a new venue/purpose, which means there's a good bit of work to do there yet.

What I'm saying is that now that I'm not writing the dissertation, I may have more time/inclination for blogging. But then again, I've got enough other writing to do that I won't clear off my plate till mid July, that it might not make a difference.

We'll see. I suppose.

Never Ceases to Amaze

2010-03-27T10:23:00.002-06:00

I've experienced this before (and probably blogged it before as well), but there's this strange moment as a developing scholar when you read something you wrote and think, "who wrote that?" with a sense of admiration only to remember that you did. It still blows me away.

(You'll just have to take my word for it that I'm erudite in print. This blog certainly does not indicate that I'm even competent with the language, let alone proficient)

Moments like that never cease to amaze me, but they also make me realize that all the years of training, and all the hours spent thinking, writing, revising, were actually doing something other than just taking time. I haven't been working for years just to reach a goal - PhD - but I've also been developing a vocabulary and academic style that really is different from everyday speech.

It's a strange skill to develop (and mine is by no means WELL developed), but I guess it's one that I'm on my way to having.

Cool.

Busy days ahead

2010-03-25T23:18:00.003-06:00

I've got a dissertation date set. Which is very good news.

It also means I've got an awful lot of work to do before the end of April. There are revisions that need to be made in order to get the final version to the committee in time to read before that date. That's the first thing on the list. The good news is that I'm almost finished those revisions.

Through misfortunate timing, I also have a conference paper that I'm presenting next week. It was modified from an article I had been working on, so I got it into pretty good shape during Reading Break. But it still needs some trimming and shaping, which I suspect will need to be done on the plane.

I know people who do that. But I've never had enough confidence in my ability to get something done on such a short schedule to try it. Guess there's a first time for everything!

Wish me luck...!

Does Anyone Actually Watch Survivor Anymore?

2010-03-24T20:54:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Rejection Row

2010-03-17T18:07:00.004-06:00

I'd like to say I've been feeling like I'm on a roller-coaster, you know, up and down. Because there are days when I feel like I'm up and then down.

But if I was on a roller-coaster, it would be one that's really, really close to the ground. Disappointments seem to abound in my life these days and it's starting to get hard to ignore.

A few weeks ago, the tt-position I had applied for as an internal candidate (and which I figured I had at least a good shot at) was cancelled because of budget cuts. Then the full-time temp position that the department would normally offer (same position I'm in this year) was also cut for the same reason. So I've got part-time work at best next year.

Being resourceful, I started talking about teaching another course for another department. When I spoke to the coordinator last week, he suggested they would definitely need people. Now it's not clear that they will have as many sections of the class (again, the budget) so there are fewer to go around. Which of course means that if you only have enough for current faculty, you won't hire any new ones.

Bummer.

In the meantime, I'm thinking I need a plan B and I need to do as much networking as possible. So I make contact with some people I've done contract work with in the past, reminding them that I'm still around, available, pleasant to work with etc. So that's all to the good.

As part of the networking plan, I register to be considered as a volunteer board member for local non-profits. And I get a call from a place. I'm a little puzzled because although they say they want someone in education, they seem to cater more to K-12. I tell them this. They say, that's okay, we think you'll be good. So I forward my resume and wait for a call for an interview. Then they call and say, no, actually we will go with someone in K-12.

So why did you tell me otherwise first?

And I'm still waiting after two weeks for my committee to agree on a defense date. And I can't get an answer.

Awfully frustrating...

Edited to add: Just after posting this, I got a call from a colleague about some freelance work, so maybe my networking hasn't all been a waste. Then I finally heard this morning from my committee and we've set a date! Nice that things at least aren't all bleak.

Convergences

2010-03-11T18:23:00.002-07:00

Earlier this week I had two students in two very different classes mention the same film on the same day. That was a bit weird.

But then I started thinking about it and the more I thought about it the less weird it got. The film was The Invention of Lying. One class was a technical writing class where we were talking about ethics and technical writing. The other was a literature class in which we were talking about Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Seems to me that ethics, wit and lying probably do have a good bit in common after all.

So much time - so few words

2010-03-05T19:58:00.002-07:00

Lots of things going on in the last month. Some good. Some not so great.

The highlights are that the dissertation is on track to be complete in another month or so. That's great news. But it means a whole lotta work in the next little while.

The lowlight then I guess is that the provincial budget means we need to cut our budget at the school I'm working at. That means I now have no idea what kind of work I'll do next year. That's not so great news.

I have yet to decide the fate of this blog. I have enjoyed it so much in the past - it's just been so terribly busy lately and I've been so unhappy about the job situation that I haven't had the motivation. But I'm feeling better about it now, so perhaps now's the time to revive it.

Struggle... wait... struggle... wait

2010-01-30T09:51:00.003-07:00

Struggling through dissertation revisions.

This whole doctoral degree thing-y has sure been a long haul. Most of the time it hasn't felt bad, but the last half year has been extremely frustrating.

Part of that frustration is my difficulty in making sense of what I'm trying to say. So the revisions continue, ad infinitum it seems, and I see the product of those labours. But they're labours nonetheless.

Most of my frustration comes from the slow pace at which I'm getting chapter revision suggestions however. One reader was fabulously quick. Another surprisingly slow. And another (not unsurprisingly) even slower yet. Which means we're going on six months of waiting.

Did I mention I'm not good at waiting?

The auto industry puzzling? Naaah...

2010-01-19T21:15:00.002-07:00

Question: Why is it that car commercials these days seem to focus almost exclusively on gadgets? You can change the colour of your cupholders, talk to your CD player to choose which song to listen to, or call someone by pressing buttons on your steering wheel.

All wonderful little things.

But why are these the main selling points in ads today? What happened to discussions of fuel efficiency or safety or even cost? The primary purpose of the automobile is still its mobility, no? So why is it the perks that suddenly seem more important?

Holiday leftovers

2010-01-08T19:34:00.002-07:00

Usually holiday leftovers consist of turkey and stuffing, but in my case, the leftovers consist of editing work that needs to be done.

I finally have feedback from one of my readers at least and can begin editing the dissertation draft in earnest. But I've been away from it for so long that it seems almost unreal to return to it. Remembering what I was doing is a task that seems to be much more difficult than it should be.

But the holidays were good and the end of last term (and December more generally) seemed hectic, so it was good to relax and do very little writing. But now it is time to get back to it. I'm still waiting for one reader's comments, but idealistically, I'm hoping that a full edit before those comments might make them more manageable, and might actually anticipate some of those final comments.

Here's to a new year and the hope that I'll add three letters to the end of my name!

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-24T13:29:00.002-07:00

Even if your holidays are a mixed-bag of events and activities like mine, I hope that you enjoy yours as much as I do mine! Merry Christmas.

Whoa!

2009-12-21T16:52:00.004-07:00

What a roller coaster of a few weeks it's been.

Thing is, it's been busy, busy, but not exciting, exciting. Well, maybe, annoying, annoying. But that's another story for another day (I don't think I can blog about the elearning job till it's over or my head will pop off. Let's just say I'm seriously considering quitting)

But academia went off the rails last month. Part of this was because this term I agreed first to a book review (easy, right?) but then to submit a paper to a collection. The article for the collection was one I'd been really stoked about earlier this year and then it seemed to have dried up, so when the opportunity came to resurrect it, I was excited! But it meant a lot of work at the end of the semester. Not really stress-inducing (that was the elearning stuff), but a lot of extra work.

On top of that, I had to head back to grad institution for a weekend in order to keep my student visa active. I made the most of my time there, but I really could've much better used that weekend to write the book review!

So I'm finally at the end of the semester. The review is still in pieces but the article is submitted. The last exam was on Saturday, so it's graded and final grades are calculated. They just need to be entered into the system.

But then the syllabi need to be written. And in a pique of frustration at both my introductory comp and tech writing texts, I changed them both for this upcoming term. BOTH! What WAS I thinking??

And I've got a new prep, with majors.

I am my own worse enemy.

So that dearth of posts lately? It will either continue because I'm working like a madwoman. Or I'll post more because I'm burying my head in the sand about just how much work needs to happen over the break. Which it will be remains to be seen...

Teaching Collaboration

2009-11-29T15:52:00.000-07:00

I know it might sound remiss to suggest that I've not really collaborated with others in teaching before, but I think it's nonetheless fair to say that I haven't done much collaboration before.

I did receive teacher training in the introductory writing course that I was required to teach in my first year of the doctoral program, however it wasn't what I'd call collaboration as much as instruction. We did compare papers and did some group marking, but it wasn't collaborative in the way that everyone contributed equally to the process.

Over this last week, I had the opportunity to talk about tech writing with another instructor. I've always felt like my course is a bit different from others because I don't require the students to write a resume. Just about every tech writing textbook I've ever reviewed includes a chapter on resume writing, and I never really could figure out how I justify the writing of one to be an academic enterprise since there are so many other people out there willing to teach the skill. (I also have come to realize that my experience working in HR means that I often disagree with a lot of the advice that floats around out there, so I wonder if I would do the genre justice.)

But the other tech writing instructor told me she uses the resume as a way of starting to talk about the report project. I hadn't thought of using that way before. But it makes some sense. I don't know that I'm convinced that I should incorporate resume writing into my course, but I can see a use for them that I never have before.

I was excited about talking with another colleague who said she was teaching the Brit lit II course for the first time this coming semester. She is far more comfortable in the first half of the course, while I am in the last, so it seemed absolutely beautiful to talk with each other and use each other's strengths.

Unfortunately she is no longer teaching the course, so we won't have the same incentive to collaborate, though she did give me some suggestions for the pre-1900 material, which was helpful.

All this talk of collaboration makes me wish that I was in one of those disciplines that placed a higher value on collaboration, but perhaps I'll just have to keep my eyes open for opportunities when they do emerge.
*brit lit II - different strengths

I'm tired. How tired...?

2009-11-19T21:47:00.002-07:00

I'm so tired that words fail me.

Or, to put it another way. I've doubted my ability to perform the scholarly work that I've undertaken in the PhD more than once during the process. I don't doubt I have the academic chops to do this work anymore. But I am starting to wonder if I have the stamina...!

Whew!

RBOC: Light at the End of the Tunnel Version

2009-11-17T22:27:00.002-07:00

Three weeks to go.

I have six more 8 am classes to teach. Not that I don't like my 8 am class - the students are great! and they're the one group that is still mostly all working and attending. But I really hate getting up early enough to get there for that class. So it will be nice when I don't have to do that any longer.
I've had three 'date to withdraw' conversations with students. Two will probably stay, and one is deciding. Two more who should have the conversation with me are avoiding class and email contact. Their loss.
I am saddened and depressed by the thought that the days will continue to get shorter for another five weeks. As much as I love those loooong summer evenings, we sure do pay in the winter.
I am attending a conference for the first time in many, many years just as a participant. It's in two weeks, and although the timing is less than ideal, I will get to see some friends and hopefully pick up the draft of my dissertation from one of my readers. That means I can see how bad the state of things are, and get cracking on revisions. Good news.
In another three weeks, I have to finish a book review and polish off the draft of an article. The timeline's tight, but doable if nothing goes wrong. Here's hoping the pigs don't infect me!
I'm learning to juggle! I'm really, really bad at it right now. I can only manage a couple of passes with two balls without losing them. But it's kinda neat, and I'm sure with practice, I'll get much better at it. Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

Joy of Teaching #16

2009-11-11T12:13:00.003-07:00

One of the best things about teaching are the conversations you have with students who have made a conscious decision to attend.

The students I'm talking about are usually a little older (but sometimes only a year or two out of high school). They usually haven't tried something else and are now in their plan B position, but sometimes they are.

The students I'm talking about are the ones who are absolutely delighted with the idea of learning. They have decided to attend school for deliberate reasons (which do not involve 'getting a job' or 'making money') and they know what they want: an education.

I've had several of these students before, but this semester I have one who is eager to learn (but with enough wisdom not to monopolize classtime like some eager-beavers).

That's why it almost broke my heart to grade this student's last paper at a 'C' level because it failed to properly cite sources. It was a brilliant paper, well-written, nicely balancing the different tasks assigned for the paper. But it totally blew the citations. So I had to grade it down.

I hated it, but I couldn't in good conscience give it a higher mark with citation problems. Then I'd have to let everyone slide a bit, and then they'd never think it was important. And it is. I'm not just towing the party line on this one - I think citation is critical to academic work. So I lowered the grade.

The student got it. Although disappointed with the mark, the student told me it was a mistake that would not be repeated, which is a kind of learning I suppose. I hated that it came with such a high price tag - an 'A' paper earning a 'C' grade - but it was a lesson learned. And sometimes those tough lessons are the ones that stick with us. But it was a hard grade to assign.

The student? Absolutely engaged, eager to learn, and understanding that sometimes the mistakes we make cannot be overlooked and they have to hurt in order to be remembered. A student like that is one of them that makes teaching worthwhile, knowing that what you are saying and doing is not just interpreted as 'what the teacher wants' but 'what the expert says I need to do'.

Perhaps I enjoy such students because they validate my own sense of expertise in the classroom. I admit that could very well be a big part of what joy I get from teaching such students. But I'd like to think I enjoy teaching them because they get why I do what I do in the classroom, that it's not about me, but about showing them the way to their own expertise.

The students who are there, wanting to learn, not just pass the course, are ones that bring joy to teaching and make all the other grade grubbing, complaining, plagiarizing ones worth while. Not that there are many of those, but they do drag you down, especially since they tend to come in waves...

You know what's the worst thing about grading?

2009-11-08T14:38:00.001-07:00

We talk a lot about how much we dislike grading. I have yet to meet someone who likes that part of the job.

But the worst part about grading?

The sneaking suspicion that despite everyone else's grumbling about it, they still are able to do it faster than you. Oh, and of course they write more erudite comments than I ever seem to be able to.

I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Halfway there!

2009-10-27T21:21:00.003-06:00

Yes, we're halfway through the semester. Even if you count exam period, you can pretty much say the semester is half over.

Unfortunately more than half of the work of the course still needs to be completed, especially when I consider the mountain of papers that will still cross my desk before it's over.

But we're halfway.

The other thing that's halfway is my job letters. Yes, I'm almost halfway through my application list.

Of course, if additional postings come up over the next few weeks, that list might grow (that would be good!), but right now I'm halfway through.

But, boy, oh boy! do those application packages take a loooong time to assemble! When every posting wants something slightly different, and each letter needs to be tailor-crafted to the school, there's a lot of time that goes into these things.

The worst part isn't the time though... it's that niggling voice in the back of your head that tells you all these hours of work will come to nothing because no one will call for an interview and you'll be scratching around for work next year.

Man! I hate that voice.

I tell it to shut up all the time, but it just. doesn't. listen.

Today it's practically shouting. I'm thinking sleep might help, but wonder if it might just invade my dreams instead.

Here's hoping it doesn't!

Being pulled in multiple directions

2009-10-25T13:17:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted in ages.

It's not that I don't have interesting things to say... I just don't seem to have time to organize my thoughts. Or more precisely, that the only thoughts I have time to organize are the ones directed squarely at clear and measurable aims that have nothing to do with blogging.

It's been a really strange feeling over the last month to be searching for a new job at the same time that I've been trying to throw myself into my brand-new job and do really great at it! But such is the nature of the academic market. I have a ten month term job, but if I want one to follow it once this one ends, I need to start applying right now.

Strange.

At the same time, there's the rather ironic observation that I've been making that throwing myself into a full-time position has actually given me a better appreciation of the kinds of positions I'm applying for in the next academic year.

Doesn't make it any easier to keep two mindsets going at the same time. The only way I can do so is to think of my new job during the weekdays, and my potential job for next year on the evenings and weekends. But it's still a weird division that clashes in my mind occasionally (and has led to some really, really strange dreams, but that's another story!)

I am loving my new job and even survived the week in which 85 papers had to be marked and returned. (It wasn't a pretty week, but I managed it.) We have some really interesting things going on at the school which are exciting, though of course being neck-deep in the middle of the semester sometimes makes it hard to focus on them.

But I wouldn't trade this for a lighter load - I'm learning way too much about how things work to wish the experience away! Here's hoping I find a bit better balance in November so I can return to posting.

Buried

2009-10-19T22:12:00.002-06:00

Pick your metaphor, but the long and short is that I'm buried in work and writing letters. It's all so very important, all so very demanding, and all so (just sometimes) disheartening.

I promise to emerge soon... I'm hoping later this week!?

The benefits of just sitting on it

2009-10-03T17:13:00.005-06:00

Last year around this time, I submitted a paper proposal on the social effects of zombies in Fido to both a panel at a conference and a call for chapters in an edited volume.

It didn't get picked up. This fact took me a while to get used to - I'm only human, and no one likes rejection - but I got used to it and started brainstorming which journal might suit it. I didn't get very far in the brainstorming because it is an article that doesn' really readily fit into a single category, and really seemed best suited for a special edition (or an edited collection!)

Well, I just got an email from the people I originally proposed it to, telling me they'll be putting out a second related volume, and would I be interested in contributing to that one?

Yes. Yes, yes, yes!

So my sitting on this, trying to figure out where to place it instead actually worked out well, since now I have a venue!

(I also have a two month deadline, but at least I have a venue...!)

Maybe a little procrastination isn't so bad after all!

Best to be prepared

2009-10-01T19:46:00.002-06:00

Apparently the University of Florida has a disaster preparedness plan for zombies!