Merry Kissmas
Hope your weekend is happy and healthy, whether this is your holiday, or whether it's just another weekend.
« November 2005 | Main | January 2006 »
December 24, 2005
December 21, 2005
Two Tiny Miracles
After years of Christian inculcation, I am wary of the sentimentality of the term "miracle," and yet I am not surprised that lots of people use the word, and indeed, I just have, to describe my reaction to the vision surgery I just had.
The surgery itself was over in a jif, and barely uncomfortable. The early recovery period was uncomfortable, but I was able to sleep most of it off.
Turns out that while the nation-wide chain, TLC, advertise having performed Tiger Woods' surgery (eyes famous for requiring a certain precision), the tech at my eye doctor's office insists that Dr. Witten, my own surgeon, was the doctor who performed it, and his tech called my doctor yesterday to report that my surgery went remarkably well. So all that is a good sign.
After 24 hours, my right eye sees 20/20; my left eye, 20/35: Healing is expected to continue over the course of the week.
At the moment, I experience my vision as being better than it was with contacts. Tiny miracles indeed.
December 19, 2005
Sight
Tonight will (fingers crossed) be the last night I ever lay my glasses by the bedside table, abandoning the evening to blindness.
With LASIK surgery scheduled for 11 am tomorrow, I will be offline for a few days, but on the other side, I should be glasses-free since 1982.
Wish me luck, and I'll see you (without the aid of corrective lenses) on the other side.
December 17, 2005
How Hard I Rock (If I do say so myself)
Every year now, Ann and I get one another six gifts, each in a different category:
*A purchased gift from the Christmas list
*A purchased gift not on the list
*A gift of time
*A homemade gift
*A gift of charity
*A random gift, in memory of the strange gift giving habits of Ann's mother, Mirene.
What you see here, is the best durn homemade gift I've ever mustered, a homemade "bookbag." I got the idea from a link on someone's blog who coveted such a thing, but online, they cost about $200. I figured, "I could do that," and have been planning and constructing it for a couple of months. No, it's n ot the quality of the excellent items you might actually purchase (since the whole thing is held together with various glues: needle and thread have never been my friends). And of course, there are a few design flaws: the handles are slightly different lengths, the ribbons that serve as clasps were designed too late into the process, after a more efficient and durable design was already impossible.
Anyway, because Ann and I can never wait until Christmas to start opening gifts from one another, we exchanged homemade gifts last evening. She likes it, she says.
*A purchased gift from the Christmas list
*A purchased gift not on the list
*A gift of time
*A homemade gift
*A gift of charity
*A random gift, in memory of the strange gift giving habits of Ann's mother, Mirene.
What you see here, is the best durn homemade gift I've ever mustered, a homemade "bookbag." I got the idea from a link on someone's blog who coveted such a thing, but online, they cost about $200. I figured, "I could do that," and have been planning and constructing it for a couple of months. No, it's n ot the quality of the excellent items you might actually purchase (since the whole thing is held together with various glues: needle and thread have never been my friends). And of course, there are a few design flaws: the handles are slightly different lengths, the ribbons that serve as clasps were designed too late into the process, after a more efficient and durable design was already impossible.
Anyway, because Ann and I can never wait until Christmas to start opening gifts from one another, we exchanged homemade gifts last evening. She likes it, she says.
Percy Shelley to Aaron Sorkin: I Love your Work
I know this is true because one of my students, in her exam, told me of Shlley's famous poem "Ode to the West Wing."
Of course it was just writing too fast, the student earned a very solid grade otherwise, but still. Funny.
December 16, 2005
"Academic Self" Discussion Group on mentioned in IHE
Inside Higher Ed today features a piece by my colleague Donald E. Hall (whom, I know, I mention fairly often here) that mentions the now-quietonline discussion group that read his The Academic Self this summer.
I don't really have the time to tease through this entirely, but the reference, I think, says something about academic blogging and its interstitial situation in the academic discourse. I met Hall last year interviewing for this job, but knew him no further than the job seacrh process until I arrived in July. The online discussion grew up completely independent of me knowing Donald, although I did mention it once or twice. Now, many of those bloggers are featured occasionally on Inside Higher Ed's "Around the Web" feature, while Hall is responding to our comments as part of a serial for that site, a serial that comes out of the book he's currently working on. Books, blogs, professional websites, and colleagues are are circulating here, and blogs in this case seem to be a crucial connector.
So as the "to blog or not to blog" debates rage on, I stick to my guns on why I participate here and in sites like the discussion group on Hall's book; because this is exchange. No, it's not the well-researched, laboriously constructed writing we do for journals and books, but it is part of a deeply vital conversation all the same. And these conversations--in the classroom, in the hallways, at conferences, and now in the blogosphere--are precisely why I am compelled to love this profession.
December 15, 2005
Teaching Carnival for December
is up at New Kid's. In addition to three posts from this site (which you've surely already read), there is much much other good stuff over there.
please go and read all of it, in big open mouthfulls.
December 14, 2005
Exam grading
Grading final exams is downright torturous sometimes. As many have posted recently, the onslaught of grading and commenting in the final weeks of the semester often means that the time pressures overshadow good teaching, and perhaps even thoughtful assessment.
And while that can certainly be true, I am also struck by a kind of human drama that it contains. As I am reading these exams, I understand that for many students, something really important hinges on what gets written under pressure in that two hour window.
In some cases, reading these can be a joy: seeing students make connections and draw out themes that actually go beyond what we discussed in class elicits a joyful "yes!" from me--not only do I derive a certain kind of pleasure from seeing a new connection made, but I am also professionally gratified that I am in part teaching these students more than just the material, but how to handle the material on their own.
And of course there are the students who can spin out 100 words that mention a major theme we discussed in class, but do nothing with it. They make up the big middle of the class, and it's easy to keep an emotional distance from their plights--the work is easy to evaluate because it fits so neatly into the kind of grading rubrics we can construct for ourselves.
It is the test case that gets maddening. I've just graded the exam of a student who struggle through much of the first part of the semester, but just after midterm, seemed to step it up: His final paper was a huge improvement (and clearly HIS improvement, since those kinds of leaps always raise little red plagiarism flags), and his contribution to a solid group project at the end of the class left me hopeful about his exam. So as I read it, I realize that while he's mentioning ideas more sophisticated than many of his peers are, he's not explaining any of them with any thoroughness. Each questtion, then brings a glimmer of hope and expectation based on the right keywords and ideas, but always is followed by this almost unnamebale feeling: the one that inspires amateur bowlers to tilt to the left as the will their bowling balls in that direction. I want to "will" his answers into more detail, but in the end, they're jsut the reight keywords, not an actual thoughtful answer. At the end of his exam, he's earned just a mid-C, and I know he's capable of so much more.
I was once told that while we can try to assess on talent, potential, or effort, the only honest assessment can be based on actual acheivement. At moments like this, when you want to bring a student from potential into acheivement merely with the force of a readerly will, that's a hard pill to swallow, and a hard bit of honesty to own up to.
December 13, 2005
Catch-up: Six Posts in One
I've been quiet lately because, well, my head is likely to explode at any minute. Between a smidgen of poor planning (four sets of major assignments collected over four days, and fifth coming Friday), bad weather that's kept me shovelling snow when I could be doing other things, and unforeseen work, I have been more swamped than I'd like to be. Here's the mismash of what I'm doing/ thinking about right now:
* Finals and final grades: 1 set of portfolios down and that class' grades entered. One set of final papers down, with that class' final exams halfway done. Those grades should be entered by midday tomorrow. One set of paper left to go, with grades on them by Friday at 3, when that class takes their final, which I'll grade over the weekend. By Monday, c'est finis!
*Though the rest of the faculty submit them in August, new faculty must do "annual reports" based on the first semester here, which means I need to do a narrative of all the service, teaching and research I've done since I arrived in August. Surprisingly, my narrative description goes onto six pages single spaced, plus 15-odd documents in support and all the data entry into the database program that swtores this stuff for our file. The bad news is that this is a big pain in the butt. Apparently, though, the good news is that when tenure review comes up, most everything's right there in the file already.
* The London Theatre Tour class didn't enroll well enough to go. I was one student short, and with a slightly looser deadline, I probably could've gotten the numbers. What that means is that this year, I'll likely get a 3/1 instead of a 3/2, and next year teach a 3/3. I can hardly complain about the 3/3, except that it will impact my publication schedule. This means that I need to essentially treat next spring as an early sabbatical, and write and revise a lot.
* Right now, I've got 3 publishable articles to revise, and three conference papers to write. I also want to turn out a CFP and proposal for a book I'm co-editing, and oh yeah, get the diss cleaned up for publisher shopping. Not much to do, really.
*I'm getting LASIK surgery done next Tuesday. I've had glasses since I was in the 2nd grade, and probably should've had them years before that: I failed "throwing and catching" in Kindergarten, but am not a particularly uncoordinated person. Since I kind of read for a living, I am a little nervous about this, but most people I know use words like "miraculous" to describe their experiences with it, and apparently, besides being misshapen, my eyes are otherwise very healthy.
*Guests for the holidays: Because we're new here, and haven't had opportunity to make lots of new friendships, visitors have been a godsend. The holidays will test that notion. From the 23rd to the 8th, we will have 5 guests in three shifts, and only about 2 days off in between. Fortunately, our friend Erin is coming in last, and she's hardly a guest anymore. We ask her to make herself at home, and then hold her to it.
So there it is. What could've been six posts in one. As the holidays get closer, if I can both think and see, I may have a post on our family gift practices, which involve several specific categories of gifts. But I'll save that for later.
December 6, 2005
Dear Friends,
I have just read and signed the online petition:
"Letter from Scholars to NYU President Sexton"
hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition
service, at:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/tosexton/
I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might
agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider
signing yourself.
NB: the above language is generated by the petition site itself, but I though this is the best way I have to disseminate it right now. Go on over and check it out.
December 5, 2005
Teaching Cloud 9
It's a far cry from Wordsworth, to be sure.
As much as I struggled with teaching certain texts this semester, I found that others, like T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" were everything I had hoped they'd be.
Here at the end of the semester, I had my favorite play of all time perched--a little beacon of hope for me. But teaching a piece with that much personal weight is not an easy task, to be sure.
When I first read Cloud 9, I was 18, and at the end of my fall semester of my freshman year. I had been raised in a conservative Christian household by excellent, caring parents, but my value system was in flux.
For those that don't know the play, the first act is a highly theatrical--even campy--Brechtian critique of Victorian sexual repression, patriarchy and imperialism. Part of the way it does that is to throw a whole range of taboos on its head, and so the play is very "racy."
My first class, true to form, couldn't stop talking about it. Running that discussion was like steering a runaway train. And as guiding a lively discussion is what I am best at in the classroom, this was great--a joyous experience. My second class, which I am coming to understand is usually following along with me, just not talking about it, was dead silent.
That day 13 years ago when first read that bombshell moment when the intrepid explorer asks the African houseboy whtehr the barns are clear so they can go f*ck, I felt punched in the stomach. This erotically charged taboo moment forced me to make a whole lot of choices: Do I close the play now in protest? Do I choose to close my mind to its rhetoric, even as I continue to engage it dispassionately? Do I allow myself to be swayed by its potent rhetoric, and trenchant critique? Do I let myself get turned on by it frank, playful sexuality?
I had forgotten that these students would be grappling with many of the same choices (many of them, I know, are practicing and devout Christians), and while I have an idea of how I might like them to respond, I am not interested in mandating a response--Indeed, I'd much rather conservative students muster a defense by engaging these explosive questions maturely than to just shut down, as I considered doing 13 years ago.
In the end, I switched course quickly, and had what seemed a very productive class, but was reminded that plays that are designed to make people uncomfortable in the theatre can have precisely the same effect in the classroom.
December 3, 2005
Mxyzptlk as expletive
My friend Jenn and I were talking today about words that needed to develop a larger place in the lexicon in newer forms. She reminded me of her post declaring "Shiraz!" as "Australian for awesome," a usage I will surely be adopting.
My suggestion is to introduce the word Mxyzptlk as an all-purpose expletive. As many know, Mr. Mxyzptlk is the name of one of Superman's enemies who occasionally makes his way into our world from the 5th dimension, and wreaks havoc on our world. The only way to defeat him is to get him to say his name backwards to transport him back to his own universe.
This vilain seems so nefarious that his appearance can only be occcasion for cursing. So next time you shut your fingers in the door, or spill a glass of water, you should yell, without shame or fear, "Mxyzptlk!"; When you are angry at another driver, or perhaps your own archenemy, call him or her "Mxyzptlk-er"; or perhaps when you are surprised and chagrined by a bad piece of news you've just received, you should mutter "Mxyzptlking-A!" as you rub the back of your neck in that concerned way that you do.
Join me in starting one hot Mxyzptlking national trend! Will you join me? Mxyzptlk yeah!