Crisis of confidence

While applying for jobs I reread a recommendation letter from a former employer. She asked me to write the letter myself, made some minor editorial changes and signed. What strikes me is the confidence that the letter exudes - it makes me sound like I could do anything.

At the time I thought I could. The letter showed me the extent to which my confidence was utterly shattered by this big change in my life. Judging by the tone of that letter which I wrote before moving, I am only beginning to recover.

Disappointment

According to Princeton University's wordnet, disappointment is "a feeling of dissatisfaction that results when your expectations are not realized". That's about what I feel like. Thing is, the blame for disappointment is rather non-specific. It can happen because your expectations were unrealistic and therefore not realized, or it can happen because someone else who was supposed to deliver on a reasonable expectation, didn't do so.

I got real excited yesterday when my daughter took a message a woman called about a job offer. We played telephone tag only for me to find out that she was a nice lady calling to tell me she's filled all her positions. It was very nice to know she looked at my resume and had the courtesy to call and let me know it. But I can't help but wonder. Did the time it took to play telephone tag mean I missed out on an opportunity? It was a pretty cool job - short term, but with long hours. Don't know what the pay would've been. But a cool job description.

Too bad - it would've been a neat job. In the meantime, I got a two-day offer from the temp agency. It's boring reception/greeting type work, but it's money, right?

And then the Flames lost last night. I never imagined they would.

And then today, I walked into class and cancelled it because no one had done the work I had expected them to do. Usually I tell slackers to pick up the pace and just keep going, but my class is so small that only a quarter of the students were up to speed.

I felt like a parent, having to lecture them about getting their ducks all back into a row and getting back on track, but I don't think I had much choice. Tomorrow, they shall get no mercy from me.

I'm also disappointed that I haven't got much of my own work done in the last little while with all the running people around I've been having to do. Aside from Dwayne's trip to tutoring, and mine to the court to play basketball, I put on 200 kms in the last three days in errands and chauffering (don't worry, there's more yet to come this week as well). And in this town, each one of those kms is hard won.

Happy Michele

Michele is happy, happy today! (despite road work and an unexpected phone call this morning)

Happy Birthday to my birthday girl!

The Flames won game 5 last night, and I reconnected with a friend who I'd lost contact with when I moved. She changed workplaces and emails, and I just rediscovered where she's at. Yeah!

I felt really bad about losing touch too, 'cause the last time I talked to her, she called to ask if we could meet for coffee one last time before I left, and I was pulling the moving truck out of a Tim Horton's on Seventeenth Ave S.E. heading out to the #1. And after I left, I never was able to reconnect - I figured she was probably pissed at me.

But she replied to my email, and now we'll talk (at least electronically), and I can find out what's happening in her life, and she can read this and talk to me on email and find out about the bits of my life that don't make it onto this page. And I won't have lost another friend to moving 'cause losing good friends when you move sucks.

If I knew how to do cartwheels or a handstand or something else equally expressive/impressive, I would do so. I am so, so, so happy to rediscover my friend. *big smile*

The new Me Generation

Is it just me, or does it also strike you that there's something really screwed up about this student who "wanted some time without stress"?

This student disappeared for three weeks after skipping graduation and even though he heard through the media that his family was worried about him, he didn't call home because he didn't want the stress?

Did I miss something? What about the stress to his family? Did he just not care that they were worried? Having survived an undergraduate degree that included a divorce and periods of time where I was also the sole provider for three kids, I think I have the experience to say that the stress of this student's degree was by no means greater than the stress he would have inspired in those people who were wondering whether he was alive or dead.

When people you love are missing, regardless of how capable you think they are, or how likely it is that the rational part of your brain that says they're all right is correct, you can imagine some of the worst possible things.

Granted, this student has got to be at least 22, 23 years old - old enough that his parents shouldn't have to worry about him not being able to take care of himself, but I still read this story in utter amazement at the selfishness that seems to lie behind this student's actions.

I must admit I'm curious about the story that must be behind this - what kind of a relationship did they have? Why didn't he call, when the report says he hugged his parents when reunited with them? What kind of stress could someone be living under that would warrant such behaviour? Was this a case of parents who are too involved in their children's lives?

Very odd.

Working stiff

Yeah! My work permission arrived!

Now I just need to see if there are any decent summer jobs left - wish me luck.

Ebay

I have mixed feelings about the whole ebay phenomena. I first discovered it/used it in March when I needed to replace the hard drive to my computer and found the same hard drive for 1/4 the price the dealer wanted.

I've already ranted here about the idiot who sent the hard drive because he sent a different model number than the one advertised. It had the same specifications, so it worked, but I thought it rather sloppy of the seller.

Okay, so as a first experience, it was so-so. But I've had ebay cancel a transaction because it wasn't listed in the correct category, and I've also not received merchandise I've paid for.

In one case, I needed a book for my book club, and since I was really busy and was having problems getting to the bookstore, I went onto ebay. Imagine my delight to find someone selling an e-book version for only $0.99! I would pay almost nothing for the book, there would be no delivery time, and I would get the chance to try reading an e-book, something I've never done before.

So I put in my bid, waited, won it, and sent my money - within about three hours of the bid closing. And then I waited some more. I sent emails asking where it was. I sent emails asking when I could expect it. I sent emails asking for a refund. I finally borrowed the book from a friend.

The seller was booted off of ebay, so I guess that's a good thing, and it was only a dollar, but I'm still annoyed.

In the meantime, I've had several successful interactions and been pretty much satisfied with the whole process. Until I bid on a semi-hard-to-find Victorian book that I was happy to find at less than $5. So again, I sent off the money right away and nothing happened. I sent two emails asking what was up and got nothing. I figured it was the same kind of whatever it is attitude that the previous bad seller had, but then it got interesting.

I got an email from the seller asking why I had given him a bad rating when he was the one who had never received payment from me. He said he could understand how I thought I'd paid him and never done so and could I please remove the bad rating.

My reply e-mail included a copy of the paypal record of my payment, which I confirmed with the bank, and I told him that if he would send me the book, I would remove the rating. He indicated he would send the book in the interests of good customer service, even though he made it sound like he thought I was scamming him. That was three weeks ago. I'm not getting my book, am I?

Jerk!

Do they congregate on ebay, or just in the bookselling section?

Mundane is beautiful

My god that post on Saturday was long! Congrats if you actually read the whole thing!

I'm amused at myself - that post was probably the most academic thing I did all weekend. But man oh man did the weekend feel good! It felt so normal and weekend-ish. On Friday we did grocery shopping, saw a movie and picked up transit passes for this week. Saturday was full of soccer game, cleaning (my) house and then going to a housewarming party - which was highly amusing - nice mix of people.

Sunday we went out to Walden Pond for a picnic (just Ange, Dwayne & I since the other two were 'working'), did some soccer drills/goofing around (okay, truth be told, it was mostly just goofing around), and watched movies. Today, the girls and I went shopping, I refilled the propane tank on the BBQ, planted the rest of the bedding plants and will watch game 4 tonight.

So I know you're bored by the description of my weekend, but to me it was an absolute delight! There was no intellectual work involved (okay, except for marking student papers that I squeezed in here or there, but that takes more patience than brain power).

Sweet!

The truth is stranger than fiction

This has got to be the oddest story I've heard in a long time - a boy plotting his own murder. Why would he do this, you ask? Good question! Seems to me that more than one player in this story has a screw loose.

I'm makin' a list...

...and checking it twice, and then a third time, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a... well, you get the idea.

This list generating stuff is gonna drive me insane! I feel like I've just been thrown out into library stacks and told "pick good stuff" without any sense of rhyme or reason.

The stacks of books around my desk are piling up as I pull them off my shelves, or borrow them from the library, trying to figure out if they need to be included on a 'comprehensive' list that, if I read it, will presumably make me an expert in three clearly defined areas and give me permission to go on to the dissertation. [And I don't even want to think about the headaches that process will bring with it.]

You know, most of the time, I'm not at all jealous of Dwayne's work - the volume he has to read (and memorize! something I never have to worry about) is prodigious. But at times like this, I am jealous. He may have a lot to read, but at least he knows WHAT he's got to read to pass exams. I've not only got to read and respond to the questions at the end of this year, but I've got to guess right about what I need to read in order to make things profitable.

Grrrrrr. I've felt really unsupported by the department/faculty before, but this really feels like I'm being thrown to the lions.

There is one lining in the cloud - I won't call it silver, 'cause it's probably more like a kind of graphite-grey color (you know, the color of silver when it gets tarnished? or maybe the color of a new car?).

When I first sat down with these lists, I had no clue what to put on them. I would look at the topic and think "I know nothing about this", but then I would start with a title or two, or an author or two, which would lead to another, and then another, and then another,... which was kinda cool 'cause it made me feel smart (or at least well read). But after about a hundred 'anothers', I started to panic again. How do I whittle this huge list down to size? Ideally, I figure about 20 primary texts plus the same number of secondary sources in each of the three areas is going to be the maximum I can read while still taking my exams by next summer.

...Okay, so I checked and the list is actually only about 46, not a hundred... but that's still twice as big as it should be.

And I figure I should have a list of only about 12-15 when I submit it to my supervisor, 'cause I know she'll add to it. And if I give her a list with 30 things on it, I'll get a list with 50 back! [I learnt that lesson with that monster reading course I did last term.]

Speaking of which, I finally got an email back from the prof - something to the effect of "I just read through all of your bibliography and I'm glad I gave you an A 'cause this is good work" - note the past tense of the verb: "gave". Nice to know I'm getting good marks after careful consideration... or maybe he was just impressed by the number of pages I turned in...

There's three lists. The Victorian one, I'm pretty cool with - my supervisor for that area gave me some good suggestions, and with my own interests, I think I've rounded out the list of primary texts. I'll still need to read/re-read them, find secondary sources, read them to decide if they need to go on, and then compile that half of the list, but that will just be time-consuming. I at least know what I've got to do there.

The Narrative theory list will be fairly basic also, though it will take me a lot more time since I've only read a couple of the theoretical works. But I've got a clear plan of action. I'm going to read excerpts of the key writers from two anthologies, and then decide whether I need to read their full book, or just an article - that will then become my list. Straightforward, but a lot of time - even more than the Victorian I figure.

It's the third list that's got me buggered. I want to read and test in twentieth century British prose fiction.

Problem is, there's a helluva lot of British prose fiction written in the last hundred years. Even trying to fashion an area based on a potential thesis on the failures of realism in the British novel still leaves me a lot of categories to cover. I need to include the big names of the post-war period, Amis (both of them), Sinclair, McEwan, Swift, Banks, Barker, Rushdie, Byatt, etc. to name a few, but also can't totally gloss over the modernists like Joyce, Woolf, Conrad, and for continuity-sake with the Victorian, should include the Edwardian period (though I may try to shoehorn them into Victorian to balance out the lists, if I can figure out a way to justify that).

But I also want to look at sf, magic realism, and fantasy... something necessary if I'm going to discuss realist and non-realist text. So okay, maybe I include Lewis Carroll and Tolkien and C.S. Lewis (but you notice the children's lit angle beginning here? not a path I want to go down), but then I also want to include sf, which in some ways is fairly straightforward Aldis, Wyndham Lewis, Lessing,... but do I then also go into utopian/dystopian by including Orwell, Huxley etc.? I'm thinking of putting William Morris on the Victorian list, so if I include a Victorian utopic, do I need to include the twentieth century ones? After all, utopia/dystopia starts to leak into the political, which really has nothing to do with realism [anything you read into that is fully intended...]

But then with the magic realism you get into the thorny question of defining it, and when you start to define it, you start to define a postcolonial/colonial reading list, and then the list really does grow, because you start including Commonwealth stuff like Hulme, Carey, Achebe, Okri, Ishiguro, Lowry, Naipaul etc.... and that could be a list all on its own.

I suppose someone wise might advise me to go talk to my supervisor about all this, right? Right! That would be great advice!

Problem is, I've already talked to her twice about setting up this reading list. The first time, I got the distinct impression she was suggesting I find someone else to supervise this area. Second time, she told me that I needed to decide what I wanted on the list. Umm.. yeah,... that's kinda what I'm trying to do and having problems. Can you help?

Grrrr... for the second time in one post.

Perhaps something fantastical will happen and make this all a moot point... like a jet engine falling through the roof of my bedroom....

Cold

It's 64F in the Writing Centre where I'm working. That's 18C for the rest of the world.

A nice temperature if you're going for a run, or you've just come in from the beach in summer.

Not a nice temperature when you are sitting in it for hours inactive. It's May and I'm shivering.

Time Warp?

There may be a wormhole somewhere over the Charles River.

Today I left home 5 minutes later than usual... and got to work a half hour late.

Wormhole. Definitely. Or space alien abduction... and I just don't want to go there.

Hockey night in Boston

Nope, it doesn't have quite the right ring.

But it will be hockey night in Boston as we watch the Flames and Lightning begin their respective quests for the cup.

The New York Times sports writers filled a page and a half in anticipation of the series beginning tonight. From their article, they discuss the economics of a league that's grown radically in the last 30 odd years: "[Ignila's] team with a relatively low payroll in a relatively small city, is one of the 12 clubs to have made the conference finals in the last three seasons. More than some sports, hockey's competitive balance offers championship possibilities even for frugal teams in small markets.
On the other had, franchises in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles failed to make the playoffs this season. For the Rangers, it was the seventh consecutive season without postseason exposure..." The Rangers? Where do they belong in an article about the playoffs? I mean, I realize this is the New York Times, but its the Boston version - if they want to at least mention a team that made it to the post season, they could mention the Bruins (even if they didn't last long). There's more to hockey than the Rangers.

But wait, it gets better...."Although neither the Lightning nor the Flames are familiar to the sports world at large..." What? Which sports world? Oh, right, the sports world of the Yankees and the Knicks. In Hockey world, rest assured, the Flames are well known. You know, the Hockey world that supplies half of the NHL's players.

New Link

So instead of boring you if you don't give a damn what I'm reading, I've included it as a link on the left. If you're curious about what I read and what I think of it, you can read it.

If you're not curious, you can avoid scrolling through the periodic, and sometimes long, posts about books I've read.

Because I intend to continue rambling on about books.

Kinda makes sense given the sheer volume of time I spend "with my nose in a book" as my family puts it. Personally, I don't think that's a terribly dignified description of what I do, but I can only argue with the semantics, not the sentiment, of the phrase.

Morning music

Okay, so for the last couple of weeks, I have occasionally woken up with a song running through my head.

Why might I make note of this?

Because I realized that the song that has played in my head this week in the early morning is off an album that I listened to on the weekend. And I know it's from the album because the one this week is from an old album and there's no way that song got airtime or I heard it from somewhere else.

Weird. Of course I like the songs - I wouldn't have listened to them otherwise, but it's awfully weird.

Pictures finally

The girls at Niagara falls during our cross-continental trek.

Obsession

Still waiting for my work permission. I'm almost obsessive about it. Ok, well, yeah, I am obsessive about it. I'm like a dog when I hear the mailbox lid clang. I almost run to the door.

I'm starting to wonder if I'll even get the permission. I'm starting to lose hope.

And even if I get permission, can I get a job?

The really good jobs, the teaching ones, are all gone by now. That's bad 'cause they pay real good and that's what this whole thing is about. But since I teach all year, it would be kinda neat to get a different job.

The other kinds of jobs that I might like to do are starting to dry up as well though. Pretty soon it's gonna be nothing but landscaping and retail, neither of which really float my boat. Or I'm really very good at.

Did I mention I'm not a very patient person?

I like English, but...

I'm not trained in teaching English as a Second Language. As a native speaker of the language (despite having to provide the secret "eyebrow" password to be allowed to teach last year), I know how to use it, but I'm not always good at explaining why the phrase is "obligated to" and not "obligated for", and other such interesting ESL confusions.

My university, in its infinite wisdom, and despite complaints from our department, has decided to integrate ALL freshmen, including ESL students into the regular English classroom. And since the English courses I teach are both required courses for EVERY undergrad, that means they're landing in our classrooms. I just spent an hour and half trying to figure out what this student was trying to say, when I only spent 15 to 20 minutes reading everyone else's papers.

It's gonna be a long semester... even if it is a condensed one. I need a drink.

Same-sex marriage

Yesterday, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in the U.S. - not civil unions, but marriage.

Protests seemed rather tepid - perhaps people just expect that this is inevitable. But this is from the same state that only just this year made it legal to purchase alcohol on a Sunday.

And that's about as political as I'll probably ever get on this blog.

Time

Time really annoys me some days.

The worst part about it is that something that is so abstract can actually be so annoying. Rude drivers are annoying, pop cans that spray when opened are annoying, screaming children are annoying, junk mail is annoying. These are all very tangible things.

Time is not tangible. Yet we treat it as if it is. We talk about spending it, saving it, stealing it, "clocking" it, having it (whether good or bad), marking it; it can both fly and crawl, it heals all things, we designate particular segments of it to die, to live, to reap, to mourn, to sow, we divide it and multiply it, add and subtract it... we even average it. We try to match it, to beat it, and usually are unhappy with the amount we have - we either want more or less of it.

Right now, I have too much... so I blog.

It's gonna be a hot summer

Ack! We hit 31 c today but I can't find the storage bin with my shorts or summer tops. I'm gonna cook this summer if I can't find them soon!