Again...

I'm trying to let you all know that I'm moving. It's not exactly working the way I'd hoped, but we'll see.

...my emergencies...

Anyone who's been a teacher for any lenght of time understands the truism of that old bumpersticker/coffee cup - "Your problem does not count as an emergency for me." Well, it says something like that, but in a snappier wording. Daily, actually hourly, teachers hear excuses that are supposed to stop their world and whatever is happening in it. We grow callous and it rolls off of our backs like ducks and water. (Sorry for the silly metaphor.)

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that my "emergency" generator is the DH. The man is an avowed technophobe and cannot even attach documents (or download them) to emails without constant step by step instructions. I know, I know both Anthypophora and Congolia are out there thinking the same thing about me, but when I remember to do it before I hit send, I can at least attach a file. Why does any of this matter?

It matters when on the one day a week I do not have to get up early, I get woken up by a constant barage of questions shouted across the house.
"How do I turn on your computer?"
"What is your password?" (It was the first clue that something was going wrong. My computer remembers my pass word.)
"My email's not here...maybe they (???) changed your password."
"I need these documents printed before I leave for the 8am class." (Not really, he just hasn't been to class and wants to demonstrate that he is doing something.)
And my favorite thing at the end of it all..."You didn't have to get up."
Really. I didn't have to get up.

This is after I spent an hour at 10:00pm last night explaining to him that he couldn't open docx documents with his Window 2003 account and he kept repeating, "But where's the Chlamydia (read docx) document?"
Don't worry, none of us have STDs. The DH is doing an intership at the health department. Part of his current work is to translate STD fact sheets. Actually, the internship has been good. I'm pretty sure that after watching genital warts get burned off of people he will never cheat on me. Apparently it looks pretty gross and painful. Grown men cry.

My Time...

Although I've resisted the impluse to "live like I am dying" and take of on some bungee jumping, sky diving spree, I am pretty aware of the value of my time.

It's not that I always spend it wisely. If I did, I'd have that stupid prospectus done along with a few chapters. Oh well. The fact is that I am aware of how I need to budget my time and, aside from In-law visits and work men crawling all over my house, I've been pretty good about keeping my teaching time. Right now I'm on a MWF schedule. I've managed to keep almost all my grading and course prep to those times. On the latest schedule this week is set aside for individual conferences. On Friday I put out a sign-up sheet for those conferences. Since it is the end of the semester and I have such a small class, I've been able to alot 1hr for each conference. I asked the students to bring a draft of a part of their project and an ouline for the presentation due next week. I intended to run these sessions like Writing Center appointments - we could really work with anything.

When I got here at 9:30am I checked my email. The student who has today's 11 appointment wants to reschedule because she just found out she doesn't have class until 7:30 tonight so doesn't want to come from Raleigh until then. It's now 10:33 and my first ten am appointment is a now show. Now I don't have anything until 1:00pm. If I had know that I could have taken my time getting ready this morning or taken the dog for a walk or, even, just picked my nose.

Seriously. I am pissed. I have other things I could be doing.

It's raining. It's pouring.

Well, it's not pouring yet, but it did start to sprinkle.

I've never been so glad to see rain because it meant that I could stop mowing the lawn. I've been walking around to work out a little bit, but man I think I'm going to be sore tomorrow. You know, I don't even think I can muster up a, "At least I can still mow the lawn." attitude. There's really nothing good about it except when you can stop.

This morning at the grocery store there was a deal on soda. Buy two cases of Pepsi products and if you spend $25 on anything else you get three more cases of soda for free. It was a good deal because the DH drinks a lot of diet Mt. Dew and I was planning to do a big shop anyway. So, for one of my "free" options, I got diet sierra mist Ruby Splash. It's Sierra mist with Grapefruit flavor. It's really good. I didn't realize until after the DH brought me a can, that I'm not supposed to have grapefruit. First, I don't believe there is any real grapefruit juice in the soda. Also, I checked the lable on the can and there is no real juice of any kind listed. I think I'm safe, but I won't drink anymore until I figure it out for sure. I hope I can still drink this stuff, because I can already tell it's going to be refreshing this summer.

New Philosophy

Now that I'm working on the prospectus/dissertation it feels like I can really begin thinking about the job market, which means thinking about fun stuff like my teaching philosophy.

This is hard for me. Remember, I am the girl who went into therapy and said I have no goals. Of course I started teaching without a really good teaching philosophy. About 4 years ago when I did my first year to teaching at the community college I wrote a teaching philosophy. Sure it need to be fixed, but I am surprised at how much it works. You know for someone Facebook says is Sharon Crowley I get alot of mileage out of Mina Shaughnessy.

My teachinging philosophy, like all my syllabi, begin with this quotation. "The experience of studenthood is the experience of being just so far over one's head that it is both necessary and possible to work at survival." - Mina Shaughnessy.

It works for me. Once the students get past the 'weirdness' of student hood we talk about how that sentence gives us both responsibility. They have to work at survival. I have to make sure the bar is not too high or too low. My teaching philosophy throws some jargonistic turns into that mix, but it basicaly says the same thing. Now, I need to look at it again and make sure it is something I want the whole world to see.

Here is a good writing moment for me. I will show you the shitty first draft and you can help me put it all together. Oh, and just so you know, shitty is a technical term. :)

Teaching Philosophy

‘The experience of studenthood is the experience of being just so far over one’s head that it is both realistic and necessary to work at survival.’ –Mina Shaughnessy

My teaching philosophy begins with a statement of studenthood because as a teacher I help to form that experience of studenthood. As a teacher, I am also always a student. As a student my best experiences were always those in which I had to really work to accomplish the goal set for me, but that work was within my abilities. As a teacher, I can control how far over student’s heads I set their goals. It is my responsibility to make that goal realistically attainable. I am responsible for helping to craft the experience of studenthood.

I can craft the experience of studenthood both through the assignments I give and the environment in which I give them. Sometimes ‘being just so far over one’s head’ means that to survive you need the help of others. I strive to make my classroom a learning community, a community in which students work together to learn and help each other reach their goals. In a learning community it is easier for students to ask for and get the help they might need from each other to survive. In a composition class, where many students are new to the university or college setting, it is especially important to establish a sense of community within the classroom so that students do not feel they are struggling alone.

Part of the experience of studenthood is being able to recognize when you have achieved a goal. For that reason, I require students to keep an expanding portfolio of their work. At the end of the semester they will have physical proof of the work they have accomplished. This physical proof can help keep them motivated when they move on to the next semester and the goals seem too far over their heads again.

What you get...

It's never been a good idea to be smug, or to announce that you feel smug. If you do, then the universe knows to knock the wind out of your sails.

I didn't know or follow the Spohrs and I cannot imagine the depth of their grief. I'm in tears just sitting here and knowing and seeing the pain of so many people I read.

Smug

Smug is exactly how I feel. It's ridiculous that I should feel this good about doing something I am actually supposed to do EVERYDAY! Seriously, people I just need to write this damned thing.

Oooh and tonight I get to go see Neko Case. It's the first concert I've been to in 7 years. How sad is that?

Excuse me while I go read some comp theory.

Unsung

Today I realized that I don't give the kittehs enough quality blog time.

The longest day...

There've been longer days. There are days I've spent more time on campus, but man this day feels long. The good part is that when I finally go home...two hours from now I will get to cross a couple of things off my to do list. Woo Hoo.

Today, I actually had time to leave the building for an hour. I'm not sure if that was good or not. Maybe I wouldn't feel so trapped in here if I'd never left.

The love of my life...

I tried to get a good shot of how tall this guy is right now, but he moves to much.





This shot was just too cute. I usually can't get his eyes.

Randomness

There is stuff floating around in my ether, but I don't feel motivated to write whole posts.

• It's impossible to walk two dogs at once.
• Moshe is all legs. It makes him gonky like a teenage boy.
  
• Is there a way to save BYRadio shows to my ipod?
• If I am home all the time, why is the house such a mess? Really.
• Why can't I write what I'm supposed to?
  
• I want money to open a drive-through coffee stand. (I know the perfect spot.)
• I read all day yesterday and still feel like I could put the book down at any moment.
  
• In my head I've cast myself and Noah Wylie. Watching the ER finale made me remember how cute he is.
• I need a themed-day, but I don't know what yet. You know, like Wordless Wednesday or something, but no pictures- at least no pictures of me.
  
• My own professionalism or lack thereof.
• What do I really believe about my little corner of this profession? How would I articulate myself to search committees?

Late to the Conversation....

Dr. Heidi posted a link to Thomas H. Benton's Chronicle article about turning prospective graduate students away from the humanities. While I agree with Dr. Heidi that Benton's dismissal of emotion is problematic I would NEVER encourage anyone to go to graduate school.

The woeful state of the job market is just the most rational reason not to enter this profession. Every other reason has to do with the fact that at one point in my life I loved to learn for the sake of learning. During the MA portion of my program that love was fostered and grew. During the last four years the life has been slowly and surely sucked out of my love of learning.

Sure, I went in to this project a little naive, but everyone does. It's impossible to understand the realities of graduate school until you live them. What Benton doesn't seem to realize is that the "rhetoric of sentimentality" is not about the "love of graduate school" and does not stem from a position of naivite or privilege.

As I believe I've discussed before Ouiser and I are working class girls. Getting to this point in our lives was neither easy nor expected of us. We routinely sit on my deck and talk ourselves out of throwing our hands up and quitting. We are torn because this pursuit forces us to make painful choices regarding our family, choices no one 'privileged' would have to make. We stick with it because we are stubborn old Cajun women (one of us truly Cajun and the other adopted). We stick with it because we enjoy at least part of what we do. We are not naive. We are not privileged. We cling to 'loving' what we do because it is all we have left. We speak about it all 'sentimentally' because it is the only lie we have left to tell ourselves.

Sunny Days...Chasin' the Clouds Away

Yesterday was beautiful.
The amazing thing about yesterday, only one person was absent. Go Figure. Friday. Beautiful Weather. Tough Material.
Not so amazing was the girl who sat through my class visibly bored out of her mind and rolling her eyes. This is the same girl who sent me an angry email last week.
Everyone else in the class was with me, so it shouldn't matter. However, when your teaching it doesn't seem to matter if you have 99% of everyone's interest and attention, you physically need that one percent even if you loose the other 99% in the process.
I know all of that and still I felt like a dolt when class ended.

It was so nice last night, and there is no food in the house except for string cheese, I walked up to the bar for dinner. I took "The Historian" with me and slogged through another few chapters. Am I the only one who just cannot get into this book? That's not important.
What is important is the quality of mullet at the bar. It was truly a sight to behold. Dog the Bounty Hunter without gel. Minding my own business, reading and ignoring the 65 year old men, the mullet called to me. It forced me to look up and behold it's blond glory.

My special mullet radar stems from a former bar tender. He was the king of all bartenders. Perfectly tan, orange, with bleach blond hair he wore shorts all winter (in MN) and bartended like it was a jazzercize class. You might think I'm being mean, but he made the best cosmo ever and always gave me the extra. You see my bartender didn't just have a mullet. He had a duckbill that was ever so slightly grown out to include a collar length mullet. It's difficult to describe, but a wonder to behold.
In case you can't quite picture the duckbill, here is a visual aid.


The mullet really wasn't the highlight of the bar trip. Next to the bar is a great little middle eastern market. After dinner I stopped for some imported cream soda and almond nugat. The almond nugat is the highlight of the trip.

The best part of it all was to come home, drink cream soda, eat a couple of pieces of almond nugat and watch "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," which is a heck of a lot better than "Dollhouse."

6 Months

How is it that the last six months of my life feel like they've been at least 6 years?

It probably has something to do with learning to walk and pee by myself again.
In fact, my recovery has been amazing. I think becuase my recovery has been so amazing, it's easy to forget where I was six months ago. The forgetting happens for myself and for everyone who sees me everyday. As I begin to do more and take on more, I look more like my old self and there is an expecatation that I should be doing even more.

While I joke all the time about using my "brain injury" as an excuse for stuff, the joke masks the fact that there are still somethings for which I still want an excuse. It's nothing concrete like not being able to add, or walk, or anything like that, but there are times when I want the consideration I used to get.

Of course all of that is at odds with my own need for independance. The point is that at six months the hardest part of the recovery is wanting to have my cake and eat it too.

Wouldn't you think that if you are the one who needs to be to work; the one who thinks it takes half an hour to fill up the car, you might actually get your ass out of bed in time to do these things.

You don't know what you've got....

I just got home from attending a talk by Dr. Chat. It was fun. Listening to him read from his latest book made me realize how much I miss coursework.

Well, let me rephrase that, I don't miss the seminar papers, but I miss seminar discussions. One problem I've faced as I try to put together a prospectus is that I am a social learner. I get my best ideas in conversation with others; and, try as you might, writing the dissertation is a lonely job.

This evening it was interesting to see Dr. Chat not do his best work. His presentation was rushed and dense and his delivery was terrible. Once the floor opened up to questions it was better, but man. I thought he knew better.

Changes...

It's official; a Facebook Quiz told us so. The Cajun Princess is Ousier and I am Clairee. From now on we will be known as such.

It's time for a new name anyway. Someday is just not really name and since I will, hopefully, one day have my phd it's time it begin the name change. So, just call me Clairee and I will do my best Olympia Dukasis impression. As you've probably noticed I'm great with color commentary. The only small hang up is that I'm not a widow yet. Most of the time I'm happy about that, but these days my patience is being tried.

Lately the only good news to come out of these parts is that Moshe loves me best. Really. It's true. I'm the one who is usually home so he loves me best. Ha! He is the cutest dog ever. When he sits in my lap, he looks up at me like I'm the love of his life. I remember a time when the DH would look at me like that. Now it's all "Woman, fetch me my slippers."
Don't worry it's not all that dire. The DH and I are just still adjusting to our new situation. It takes time people.

The truly sucky news is that I applied for jobs at Starbucks and Borders today. I'm really hoping Borders will take me back. I liked my job there. It just sucks that I need two jobs right now. I'm supposed to have time to write, but it's just not possible. I know our Borders is struggling, so keep your fingers crossed for me. Starbucks is Starbucks. There are certain places I want to work in town and if I can't get into those stores, it's just not worth it for me.

I know, I know. I'm not supposed to say that on the internet, but it's true. I worked there long enough to know who the different store managers are and which of them has a management style I can work with and which doesn't. It's about knowing myself, not a reflection on the company.

Surprises

The kids did alright. Of course they were a little freaked out by the vocabulary, but really they did okay.

One student, even mentioned having Dr. Snarky before. I miss her.

Sogginess

Apparently it's raining outside. I wouldn't know. I've been in this building since 9:00am. Sure, it had started to rain by then, but it was definitely hanging around. It's too bad I don't have a window, because I could enjoy a day like this.

First, what was I thinking?! I assigned a book that is too hard for my students, which means now I have to teach it. Yuck. Plus, I think many of the 12 students took my advice not to buy the book in the first week as advice to not buy the book ever. Now they are all up in arms becuase the bookstore doesn't have the book anymore. Oh yeah, I am looking forward to pulling teeth this afternoon.

Second, there is a meeting today about grading. I should be there to find out what the new DC is thinking, but I just can't handle it. I got a copy of the pretty circles representing all of our grades and that was enough to make me vomit in my throat.

Trust me, I am not a fan of grade inflation. It kind of irritates me that the grade were so high my courses from last semester. But, really, what were my surrogatres supposed to do? "Hey, I'm not your teacher, but I'm going to fail you anyway." Nope, they did what they could with what they had and I'm grateful for that.

There are just other issues surrounding this meeting that bother me. They bother me greatly. Also, I've said it before and I'll say it agian. I am no longer doing ANYTHING for this department, even if it's just attending meetings that are not mandatory.

On a more positive note, I did write a little today. I just had to stop when I found myself typing the word "miscreant." It's not that the word didn't fit; it was just the pomposity of it all.