Best $30 I ever spent

This week I made an appointment at my old hair salon. I haven't been to it since I moved away five years ago - partly because I was gone, and then once we came back, there was little need since I was wearing my hair long. Not to mention, it's location isn't very convenient.

This week I made an appointment and when I got there said "My hair is a disorganized mess. Make it better" or something along those lines.

I wish I had done this months ago. Although I've lost some of the length I had last week, my hair can't by any stretch of the imagination be called short. My stylist didn't recognize me, but hey, last time I saw her, my hair was about 3" long, so I can understand. But she is just as fabulous with long hair as with short. I cannot believe how different that cut has made me feel!

It isn't just the hair. I look in the mirror and feel like I look younger, more beautiful, happier. I know it's not just the cut, but eliminating the frustration I sometimes felt when it was a couple of inches longer has worked wonders. I never would've thought a haircut could do that, but it did. Amazing!

Sunshine and wine

The sunshine in California was absolutely wonderful! I adored being able to sit out on a patio, drinking wine, having great conversation with good friends, then eating barbecue, more wine, and a tour of some really gorgeous country. Life could be fun if every weekend included a day like that...

I suppose if I really did get my wish, I *could* get bored of it after a while. Not the sunshine or the wine. But I suspect I'd run out of interesting things to say to interesting people.

I guess it's a bit like what my mother told me when I complained that I couldn't have my favourite meal every night. She told me that if I did, it wouldn't be my favourite anymore and I'd get tired of it night after night. What made it special was that it was so rare.

So I suppose a Saturday afternoon in Napa/Sonoma with good friends (and wine) could fall into that category. But I'm also pretty sure that it would take a lot of Saturdays for me to tire of it! Such generous and wonderful friends I have!

San Francisco

Conferencing is going well - We're about half way through the conference, and so far everything that I wanted to do or to see has gone off without a hitch.

I saw my advisor yesterday - gave her a chapter (which she seemed genuinely glad to receive), listened to her paper (fabulous!) and had dinner together with a number of her colleagues, which was fun. I don't quite think of them as my colleagues, but I suppose if I want to joint their ranks soon, I'll have to get used to that!

My paper went off fairly well this morning too. We had a miscellany of papers on the panel, and I wasn't quite sure how they would all fit together, but it turned out that they fit very nice - and that's always a good thing when that happens. I'm moderating a panel later this afternoon, which promises to be a lot of fun as well if the conversations I've been having with people are any indication, so I'm looking forward to that. Here's hoping the rest of the conference comes off without a hitch too!

Sleepy and fat

I'm not surprised by the latest finding that sleep deprivation leads to weight gain. I've always known that when I'm the most tired is when I feel like I just want to eat! And the more tired I am, the more fat I want in what I'm eating. Though I also tend to drink more when I'm sleep deprived. Not intensely tired, just not getting enough sleep.

It makes sense I suppose that when the body hasn't had enough sleep, it needs extra energy during the day and you feel hungrier. Good thing I've been (mostly) getting enough sleep - otherwise I'd be ballooning!

(Un)forgettable

A few weeks ago, a colleague and I were laughing when we figured out that our boss was confusing the two of us. Before we figured it out, we'd both been confused at various times because he would tell one of us something and think the other one knew it. We had a good laugh.

But I don't feel like laughing any more. Today my boss mistook me for someone else! Now there are three of us who he is confusing... or maybe just confusing me with two other people. I've often been mistaken for someone else before, but this strikes me as a tad ridiculous.

I guess I haven't made a good impression, or at least haven't made a memorable one.

This day in (blog) history

March 13th must be a good blogging day. Since I began this blog, I've written a post each March 13th, so I suppose now is not the time to stop posting...

On March 13, 2007, I wondered what the world needs with another English major. The answer was "a lot!"

On March 13, 2006, I introduced yawp.

On March 13, 2005, I struggled with figuring out what of the mountain of things that needed to get done I would do first. Coincidentally, I'm struggling with the same thing today, except the list of things that HAVE to get done first - the urgentnotimportant - is longer than it was that day.

On March 13, 2004, I celebrated the return of a working computer and the easing of academic requirements for a particular course.

So, what's going on today?

Well, I've got way too much marking to do. We're only in the second week, and I feel a little overwhelmed. Already. I think it's mostly because I didn't get a break between the last term and the start of this new modified term. And I've got to create a podcast for one class next week that I'll be missing for the PCA conference.

At least the conference paper is mostly there. It needs some theory in the middle, and I'll need to trim up the plot descriptions in order to stay under the time limit, but I think it's doing what I want it to - that is, to provoke conversation about the definition of the vampire. At least I hope it will. The conference schedule itself is getting really hectic with meetings, dinners etc., so my down time will be minimal, but if it's at all like other PCA's I've attended, I'll enjoy myself immensely.

The good news is that I think I circumvented the virus that was trying to take me down earlier this week. On Monday I started feeling that heat and itchiness around the eyes that usually signals a cold and on Tuesday, my cheeks (sinuses) started aching too. Today, neither area is feeling any worse, and if I can take good care of my body for the next few days, I may have dodged the worse of the bug. Here's keeping my fingers crossed.

So this March 13th post is pretty boring. But it's not like it's the first time I've posted a boring post. Thanks for suffering through oh my faithful reader.

I have no idea what to title this post

Writing has been very challenging for me lately. I've felt the absence of writing peers desperately lately and could really use some encouragement as I slog through my current phase of writing.

It's not that the writing's bad. It's just that there's so much going on right now that prioritizing is becoming a problem. You know, that feeling when you have so much to do that you don't know where to start? There are just so many things that are "urgent" and "important" or even just "urgent" and "not important".

I really do try to categorize things according to that cross section, where urgent+important gets done first, urgent+notimportant and important+noturgent get done in various combinations next, and noturgent+notimportant get done last. But it's interesting how both noturgent and notimportant can so quickly change into urgent and important when you don't get to them.

Lately,

• a job application
• taxes

have been urgent+important

with

• student marking

always taking up the urgent+notimportant category.

Yes, you heard what I said. My student's writing is not as important as mine. Mine will dictate what kind of job prospects I have. Theirs is loose, casually constructed and sometimes done under duress because they have to take the course. But I am paid to respond to their writing and they need that feedback in order to complete the course in time, so it gets categorized as urgent. But it takes away time from what's really important to me.

I've actually made some progress, but most of it has been of the rearranging/editing kind for the dissertation, so it isn't really growing. Harder to see the progress when you're shuffling things around, though the shuffling is a really good thing. I was trying to pack way too much stuff into my introduction, and by distributing key sections of it to other chapters, I managed to chop its monstrous size in half. Now I can build up the parts that need building without feeling like the introduction's becoming a two headed monster!

But before that oh-so-important task of dissertation editing, I need to finish writing the conference paper for next week. It's about half there, but it's really unstructured right now and needs some form to hold its bagginess together.

The Tomorrow's Professor blog has had some interesting posts on writing lately, particularly about how to unclutter your writing, but I find that much of their advice is to do things I already find myself doing. No help there. Apparently I know what to do, and I'm doing it fairly efficiently. I'm just not doing enough of it. Simple.

Sometimes I think the frustrations I have writing the dissertation are similar to the frustrations dieters or smokers have. I can read all kinds of books, get all kinds of advice, but when it really comes down to it, I just have to write. When you're trying to lose weight or quit smoking, you can spend all the time in the world talking about it or reading about it, but it really comes down to action. If you want to lose weight, burn more calories than you take in. If you want to quit smoking, stop putting cigarettes into your mouth and lighting them.

If you want to write a dissertation, quit whining and start putting words on paper.

There. That's my advice to myself. Do you think I'll take my own advice?

Being mom

The other day I walked past a storefront at the mall called "The Mom Store" and although I didn't look in, as I walked past, it didn't seem like it was a store for moms per se, but for babies because it was filled with strollers, cribs, toys, bath aids etc. And I found myself thinking what a misnomer the store was - it should've been called "The Baby Store" (though I suspect that name had already been trademarked, hence The Mom Store).

Then this week, I came to the realization that the gradebook I'm using is running out of room and I'll need a new one.

Yes, I know there are online gradebooks, but I prefer to record attendance and grades on the spot in an actual book. And if you're going to accuse me of being a luddite for doing so, you haven't been paying attention to this blog.

My point is, I've been searching for a replacement and every place I look, the only record books I can find have little hearts, or teddy bears, or stars plastered all over them. Ugh! What do high school teachers use? Are you seriously telling me that they ALL just use Excel? Nobody uses paper anymore? In not being able to find a plain record book suitable for adults, I'm a little offended that "teacher" seems to equal "grade-school teacher" only. Just like the "mom" in the store name mentioned above really translates as "woman with a baby".

-----

There have been several times over the last few years... okay, actually, the last couple decades... when I've come across various arguments about being a mother and identity.

Often the article (or more lately, blog post) has been written by a woman who is about to become a mother, or who has recently become one. These writers often worry that their careers will be damaged, that they will talk endlessly of their children (much to the boredom of others around them), or that they will somehow lose their identity.

Their arguments all just feel so disconnected from the reality I live in.

I've been trying to work out why. Am I defective? If everyone else feels their identity is forever changed by having kids, why don't I feel the same way? Did I miss something? Does that make me a bad mother?

The nearest I've been able to figure out is that having children when I was young meant that I skipped over all that worrying about identity and careers and such. Not that I'm advocating having children young. Or advocating not having children young. It's just that I think having children young inherently skips over this question. After all, when you're in your early twenties, you have yet to establish the career that could be potentially damaged by having children. Not having had a career before the kids came along, meant that my worklife post-kids couldn't really be compared to worklife pre-kids since the pre-kids part was so short (and was what I would define as "work" as opposed to "career").

And how do you worry about eroding your "identity" when you've barely begun to develop it yourself? I can see how living as an adult for a decade or more before having children, could make the decision to have children feel like an entire change of identity. I understand those kinds of changes that make you wonder who you will be without ____ [fill in the blank with whatever is relevant] I suppose when you've only been an adult yourself for a few years, becoming a parent gets mixed up a bit with becoming an adult, so that being a parent seems like a natural extension of adulthood. No traumatic change here, just part of the package. Not that mixing up adulthood and parenthood isn't without its (potential) pitfalls, since separating them again after the children grow up could create problems.

I think it's telling that whenever I might try to do so, I have great difficulty imagining myself as not-parent. Some people can remember not being a parent. For me, there never really was an adult me that wasn't a parent - what adult years I had that were childless were short and so close to adolescence that they sometimes don't even seem to be adult. Adulthood and parenthood are really one and the same thing for me - they're synonymous in my vocabulary. Again, not a good/bad thing, just the way it worked out.

All this isn't to say that having children at a young age is a good thing. On the contrary. There are a lot of things that I did the hard(er) way because I was doing them with the kids. For instance, it would've been nice to be an adult student without balancing family life the whole way through. And I know there are things that more financial stability (which older parents usually have) would've provided my children that they didn't get. Then again, we simply lived the lives of a family living at or below the poverty line. There were plenty of other people in that boat with us, both with and without kids.

So it's not a matter of good or bad, just that for me, I never experienced an identity crisis in becoming a mom. But I do feel like we generally forget that "mom" isn't a cookie-cutter label. It isn't just "woman with a baby" or "woman who gives up career" or "soccer mom" or any of the other labels we so easily slap on it. I'm still a mom even after my kids can get their own breakfast (ah! sleeping in again on the weekend), dress themselves, drive a car, fall in love, live with their boyfried, have kids of their own etc.... It never ends. My mom is not only a grandmother but still a mother as well.

So why do I feel like I'm being pushed out of the category of "mother" now that mine are growing up? If there's an identity crisis here, it will be learning to be an adult without being viewed by society as a mother at the same time.

Articulating a teaching philosophy

I've been trying to write a teaching philosophy over the past few days. It's an interesting exercise fraught with what seem like numerous pitfalls. Advice ranges all over the place and the lists of "do's" and "don'ts" seems endless. I've decided the only real solution is to focus on what I do and let the advice go its own way.

But when I think about how I teach and why I teach the way I do, I find that my teaching philosophy seems to be a result of negotiating between contradictions.

On the one hand, it's important for students to see the relevance of what they do in the classroom to their lives.
On the other hand, they need to learn basic terms, ideas, and critical habits whether or not they're "relevant" to their lives.

On the one hand, post-secondary students are adults.
On the other hand, especially junior post-secondary students are not experts in the conventions of their field or the academy and they need to be taught the behaviours expected within the post-secondary educational setting.

On the one hand, I am not an entertainer.
On the other hand, I need to gain and keep the attention of my students if they are to learn what I am trying to teach them.

On the one hand, I am the one expert in the room.
On the other hand, collaboration with peers can be a powerful way of learning.

On the one hand, students need to know how to use available technology in order to succeed in their fields.
On the other hand, I need to use the best tool available to convey an idea, even it its one of the simplest tools available (like say a pen and piece of paper).

On the one hand, course objectives are there to set ou the minimum expectations for everyone in the class to achieve.
On the other hand, each student comes into the class with their own strengths, experiences, weaknesses, and goals, and I need to be able to recognize and respond to those differences.

On the one hand, the semester is very short.
On the other hand, what I teach can last a lifetime.

See what I mean? The way I teach and the reasons that I teach the way I do seem to arise out of these conflicts. I use technology, but only when I think it will be the best way to convey information or to facilitate learning. For example, I've always like to teach film. But films are between 1 1/2 and 2 hours long usually, and unless you have a three hour time block, it's difficult to show a film in its entirety in one session and then have a significant discussion about it. But showing a film and then discussing it several days later also tends to be less dynamic because the students don't have the experience of watching it immediate to mind. But the last time I taught a film, I required the students to log onto a threaded discussion and continue discussing a film we watched earlier that day, which provided an immediacy that you can't get by waiting for the next class meeting and generated a good conversation. In this case, the technology is a tool that helps me provide the students with a richer learning environment.

But at the same time, I also often use a comprehension exercise with my students that requires them to graphically represent one of the readings they've done. I supply the markers and colored paper - they supply the interpretation. It's simple, but students regularly tell me that having to visually represent a written text helps them understand the text better.

So where do I stand on technology in the classroom? Well, it's nice to have (when it works!) but it isn't the solution to every pedagogical problem.

So what do I write in the teaching philosophy about technology? I suppose I'll just have to say "it depends". But I think the tension produced by all these conflicting ideals is what produces my explanation of how I teach and why I teach the way I do.

It just seems unsatisfying to say that my teaching philosophy emerges out of contradictory impulses.

Church Bulletins

Thank God for the Church ladies who type them. These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services:
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The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
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The sermon this morning:
"Jesus Walks on the Water."
The sermon tonight:
"Searching for Jesus."
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Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
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The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been cancelled due to a conflict.
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Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.
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Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
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Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
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For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery down stairs.
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Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir.
They need all the help they can get.
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The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: "Break Forth Into Joy."
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Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
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At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?"
Come early and listen to our choir practice.
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Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
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Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
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Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
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The church will host an evening of fine dining, wuper entertainment and gracious hostility.
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Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.
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Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. is done.
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The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
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The Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
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The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
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Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
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The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours”

Out of control

Stress is most often caused by a person's feeling that they are not in control of the events in their life.

I am currently struggling mightily to re-gain control of my life from people who have taken it, while simultaneously letting go of the things that I can so that I don't feel like I'm out of control.

It's not easy.

I've been having troubles with a particular company that holds one of my student loans (okay, actually two - that's where the problem lies). They have in general been uncommunicative, and have lost at least two key forms over the last couple of years. This has created problems. I have had to solve these problems.

Their latest communication with me was to indicate they had sent one of my loans to collections. This was a big surprise to me, since I had been paying the loan regularly over the last year. I suspect this might surprise any other person in my position.

I made many phone calls to many different departments. I even went to my local office. Near as I can figure out, they sent the 2 payments I was making on 2 accounts to only 1 account. So even though I have receipts saying I've paid into both accounts, they think I've only been paying one account. The other account of course became delinquent.

Now, a reasonable person would think "Oh, that was a mistake. This customer was making double payments on one account and no payments on the other. That makes no sense. And this customer says she was paying both accounts. So we made a mistake. We'll fix it".

Nope.

No one who I have talked to has been willing to take responsibility for making this mistake. No one. So I have had to request a formal investigation be launched. Meanwhile, a credit agency is calling trying to collect on the account it has been forwarded.

Right now, I've done all that I can. All I can do is hope the "investigation" department isn't just a whitewash department. But I'm not holding my breath. At this point, I've received nothing but belligerance from the responsible department, which doesn't inspire confidence that their "investigation" people will be, what shall we call it,... human?

I'm experiencing a tenuous peace about the whole process. After all, I've now done all I can, and the results lie in someone else's hands. But it is tenuous at best.

But just after I launched the claim, I ran into another autonomy-stripping event.

The school I teach at uses an LMS for course management, as do most post-secondary (and even some secondary) schools. [LMS stands for "learning management system" and in its most simple form is a web portal that allows teachers and students to exchange files, post content, and manage grades] This term I'm switching from teaching full semesters to condensed ones, which means the courses are also switching from fully face to face to hybrid - half online/half classroom.

I like the idea of hybrid classes. I've always enjoyed teaching them, and one of the things that I find difficult in the online work that I do is that there is no face to face interaction to supplement it. So I've actually been looking forward to delivering these hybrid courses.

With the changeover, there's no break between terms though. I proctor my last exam Friday morning and distribute the syllabus for a new class on Monday morning. So being human, I worked hard to clear the exam week of any additional duties other than exams. In other words, for the new courses, I translated all the course content to hybrid format, created a coursepak, and wrote the syllabi and schedules all last week.

Foolish me.

I created all this material and uploaded it into the generic "inventory" shell for the course. We keep inventory shells so that you don't have to roll over the course in the next term, instead you just reload the inventory shell for a new class.

Unbeknownst to me, the powers that be decided I needed the content for the online version of the course (not the hybrid one I'm set to teach) and replaced my inventory shell with the online one.

Poof! There goes all my advanced preparation.

My first thought was "WTF!?!" Followed by "?Am I supposed to use this stuff instead?" Followed by "Is there anything useful here I can pilfer use as I erase all this content I don't want and RE-upload my stuff?" (btw: the answer is pretty much "no")

So now I'm erasing all that stuff that isn't useful but is in my course on the LMS, while having to re-load all the stuff I do want there.

To top it off, I have no control over access to the site, so 2 students have already sent confused emails saying they can't find the textbook listed on the site (you know, the online one, not the one I selected AND ordered) in the bookstore.

It's gonna be a long semester...

First IT Professional

In Bruges

Sometimes the trailer of a movie just doesn't really do it justice. Sometimes this is because the trailer consists entirely of the good parts of the movie, leading you to think (erroneously) there are more good parts in the whole thing. Sometimes it's because the trailer seems to be for a different movie than the one that is actually made. Sometimes it's because the trailer works so hard at not giving anything away that it actually tells you nothing at all.

The trailer for In Bruges doesn't give anything away - which is good - but it also highlights only a small part of the film. That small part captures the characters in the film very well. But it doesn't capture the delightful black comedy that that the film consists of.

I went to see the film because of Brendan Gleeson and Colin Ferrell. And they were great. But the film itself is more than just a couple of great acting performances. It has you laughing and gasping in horror at your laughter, and then just somberly contemplating the horror, then laughing again. It's an intelligent film with realistic and witty dialogue, but it's the nonverbal acting abilities of its characters that carry it beyond just witty to a truly fascinating film. It's not the most intelligent film I've ever seen, and there are some scenes that left me feeling a bit hollow. But it was definitely worth the price of the ticket (not like Jumper last week that was a slick, swiss cheese plotted affair).

But don't go see it if you don' like black humour.

And don't go see it if you're American and are easily insulted (not that the Canadians fare any better - in fact, I think they come off as much less savory characters than the Americans, but they're at least taken seriously).

Blood sucking creatures

My reading over the last several days has consisted of vampire lore and theory. It's been productive, and even impressed one of my daughters who had trouble believing that I was actually studying vampires.

You might remember my question last month about what constitutes a vampire and the excellent responses I got. I was asking the question because I have a conference paper to deliver next month on vampires and posthumans. The argument I will be making is that essentially their similarities outweigh their differences and that vampires haven't cornered the market on the biological need for blood in order to reproduce.

I'm still working through the argument, which I now realize is going to be far more complex than a 15 minute conference presentation is really designed to handle. I suspect I'll end up with a seminar length paper that will have to be chopped in half to make it work.

One of the books I read - Blood Obsessions - makes an interesting argument that the serial killer and the vampire perform similar literary functions. The repetitive nature of the vampire's continuous need to feed and the serial killer's continuous need to kill are cyclical in nature and represent the Freudian 'compulsion to repeat'. Usually I'm not big on Freudian theory, at least as it is applied to literature, but I do find the argument that the serial killer and the vampire are figures performing similar functions quite compelling. I would suggest that instead of Freud's compulsion to repeat though, that the compelling nature of the two figures lies in their unhuman activities. Not only do both undertake activities not considered human(e), but they both also represent the threat that any human might become one of them - either through the bite, or through trauma, bad genes, atavism, or whatever other reason one might use to explain the production of serial killers.

Not that I'll be talking serial killers in the paper, but posthumans do tend to embody a similar threat to the human - that any human might become one of them and that they are unhuman in their activities. In that way, the posthuman challenges the vampire on its own turf, threatening to become the monster-du-jour and displace the vampire from that position.

Or at least that's the argument.

Not that you really wanted to know, but I need to start writing out the argument to work it out - as you can tell, it's pretty sketchy at this point.

Tired and wired

I just got an email from the tech people at an organization I'm a member of saying essentially "we had problems with our internet connection this morning, but now it's fixed. If you continue to have problems, please contact us"

An email.

And I thought my brain was scrambled from the weekend!

Last week was busy as I prepared to go to Boston for our second annual! grad conference. The weather last week was great, as is the weather this week, but on Friday, as I was preparing to leave, a storm blew in. It didn't seem like that bad a storm, and when I got to the airport, my flight was listed as delayed by only 15 minutes. No problem. I had two hours to connect in Toronto.

Two hours later, we finally lifted off, and even though the pilots made up time in the air, we got to TO airport with only a half hour to spare. I would've made the connection too if customs hadn't decided to close five minutes early that night. Yep, I missed my connection because the border closes at 9 pm in Toronto.

So I spent a mostly sleepless night on the Toronto airport floor. But I arrived in Boston about 45 minutes before the conference began, so at least I made it.

Travelling always tires me out, but spending the night in an airport really did me in. In my twenties, it would've been no problem. Even through most of my thirties I think it wouldn't have been a problem. But this time, it killed me.

I think I finally caught up on sleep last night!

Good news is that my paper went over quite well, and I had some great questions, which is always a lot of fun. And I got to have dinner with friends who I hadn't seen for a very long time. I have some really wonderful friends who helped out by adjusting their schedules to my wacky travel schedule and by driving me places. You know who you are and I appreciate it!

The icing on the cake? When I walked into Logan Sunday morning to come home, the first thing I see is that my flight has been cancelled! I thought I was in for the whole rigamarole all over again and was tempted to scream. Luckily they found a way to get me where I needed to go so I still got home at a decent time so that I could crawl into bed and finally sleep!

Hi, ho, the merry-o, a conferencing we will go

This conference is probably the worst timing possible! But of course I can't really complain since I was part of the committee when we set the date. For someone on a regular semester system, it's probably absolutely ideal. But with our wacky term schedule, we're in crunch mode.

In two writing classes, there was an assignment due this last week and 1/5 of each class just hasn't turned it in. I really gotta wonder what they're thinking, since the drop date has passed and they're stuck in the course now.... It's really hard as the conscientious-student-type to understand what other students are thinking of when they do stuff like this.

Good news is my conference paper is all there - in fact it's too much there. I need to trim at least 3, ideally 4 minutes off of it. I've trimmed it down considerably to this point, but it's still over the time limit. Problem is, I may have to fundamentally change (damage?) the argument to squeeze it into the time limit.

The other option to decrease speaking time might be to create a powerpoint to go with it. I can offload some of the explanation to visual images instead, you know, a picture's worth a thousand words and so on. But that will require probably more time than I have. I can imagine how a powerpoint would look, it's just that storyboarding it, finding images, designing slides, and timing it would probably take more time than I can afford. If I did it, I'd want to do it right after all...

Ah, well. The end of the week will come whether I'm ready or not, and the conference paper will get delivered one way or the other. I just wish I had an extra day to work on it. *sigh*

New rules for living

NEW RULES FOR ENTERING ALBERTA :
1. Bring your own house.
2. If you are going to the Oil Sands, bring your own house, school, and hospital.
3. If you are going to Edmonton, wear your flak jacket. This is the murder capital of Canada .
4. If you are driving to Edmonton , note that it is also the auto theft center of Canada .
5. If you are bringing drugs, head straight to Fort McMurray, the drug capital of Canada ..
6. If you are looking for work, look no further. Minimum wage is $5.60 per hour.
7. If you work downtown, note that parking costs $5.00 per hour or more.
8. If you are able to buy a house in Edmonton or Calgary , why not spend the money on a 15 year holiday.
9. If you drive a Hummer, look out. Alberta has the highest gas prices in Canada [The Alberta Advantage].
10. In Edmonton we have 5 hospitals. 10 years ago we had 7. Don't come here sick.
11. In Calgary the population has exploded. The last road was paved 12 years ago. Calgary is a no parking zone.


NEW CALGARY RULES OF THE ROAD:
1. You must first learn to pronounce the name correctly -- it is: "CAL-GREE". The second 'A' is redundant.
2. The morning rush hour is from 5:00am to noon. The evening rush hour is from noon to 8:00pm. Friday's rush hour starts on Thursday morning and ends on Saturday night.
3. The minimum acceptable speed on most freeways is 130 kph. On the Deerfoot 500, you are expected to match the speed of the airplanes coming in for a landing at the airport. Anything less is considered "Wussy".
4. Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Calgary now has its own version of traffic rules. For example, cars/trucks with the loudest muffler go first at a four-way stop; the trucks with the biggest tires go second. However, Calgary , SUV-driving, cell phone-talking moms ALWAYS have the right of way.
5. If you actually stop at a yellow light, you will be rear ended, cussed out, and possibly shot.
6. Never honk at anyone. Ever. Seriously. It's another offense that can get you shot.
7. Road construction is permanent and continuous in Calgary . . . Detour barrels are moved around each night to make the next day's driving a bit more exciting, but nothing ever gets finished, and more new construction starts everyday.
8. Watch carefully for road hazards such as drunks, skunks, dogs, cats, deer, barrels, cones, cows, horses, cats, mattresses, shredded tires, garbage, squirrels, rabbits, crows, and coyotes feeding on any of these items.
9. In Calgary, 16th Avenue, TransCanada, and "Hwy #1" are all the same road.
10. If someone actually has their turn signal on, wave them to the shoulder immediately to let them know it has been "accidentally activated."
11. If you are in the left lane and only driving 110 in a 80-90 kph zone, you are considered a road hazard and will be "flipped off" accordingly.
If you return the flip, you will be shot.
12. For winter driving, it is advisable to wear your parka, toque, fur lined mittens and mukluks. Make sure you have a shovel, food, candles and blankets in the vehicle, as snow removal from the city streets is virtually non-existent until the spring thaw.

Writing sucks

No, I'm not going on a rant about the dissertation - it's actually progressing along fairly well, given my heavy work schedule.

Perhaps a more accurate title would be that teaching writing sucks. Evaluating student progress in a writing intensive course - like composition - involves great amounts of time. Marking student papers by making useful comments on them, providing suggestions for improvement and solutions to problems just feels really overwhelming sometimes. It takes so very long. It's one of the downsides of teaching in a discipline that emphasizes writing.

I've come to this realization because of the course I took over last week. It's a psychology course - yes, it's a bit of a stretch for me, but I have studied the discipline, so most of my challenge is remembering what I studied many years ago.

The instructor for whom I'm taking over had scheduled 2 quizzes over the next several weeks, and I've been writing the first one. It's a nice change of pace from designing writing assignments. In fact, it's quite enjoyable making up the wrong answers for the multiple choice! Some of them are quite sneaky, while for others, I've thrown in options that are way out in left field. I'm intensely curious to know how well the students will perform on it, and whether the questions will trip up any who don't know the material well enough.

I'm sure that writing quizzes eventually gets quite dull. And there's probably an art to it that I'm missing the finer points of, but overall, I'm having a great time!

Top that off with the fact that the marking will be a breeze, and you can see why I'm loving it. Too bad it's just a one semester experiment...

How to know the weather is messed up

You know the weather is messed up when you head to work in -30 degree weather and actually think to yourself "oh, it's nicer this afternoon" as you walk out after work into -26 degrees!

Emergency backup

I've never thought of academia as a high turnover industry.

But twice in the last year and a half I've been asked to take over partway through a semester for an instructor who's left.

What I'm wondering is: Is this a fairly common occurence? Or is it just coincidence?