r.i.p.

I'm not quite sure what or how or if to write about this, but I thought I'd give it a go. Sometime this afternoon, a woman I grew up calling "mamaw shorty" died. She's the mother of my uncle (via marriage), not technically my grandmother, but it almost felt like she was. As the moniker might suggest, this side of my family has some roots in the south, and also a penchant for nicknames. (I also had a great aunt "Scootie.") I honestly can't remember what "shorty's" real name is... or even how she got to be called "shorty" in the first place. Was it a pet-name from her husband? Something my cousins started? A name her family called her? I feel like a jerk for not remembering. What I do remember is that she was one of the strongest, spunkiest, and most positive people I've ever been around. For years she's been suffering from arthritis. Though she'd broken a hip multiple times, I can't remember her ever complaining. I can't recall ever seeing her without a smile on her face. So it seems she caught pneumonia, then had a massive stroke while she was hospitalized. She didn't complain about the pneumonia, either; in fact, if it weren't for a son checking in on her, she probably would have died from it at home. Her husband didn't have a clue anything was wrong, only knew that she was too sick to get out of bed and talk on the phone when the son called that day. It's a blessing she didn't stick around longer-- the family was already trying to prepare for some difficult decisions about ventilators, feeding tubes, etc. I can't make it to the funeral, but I've decided to make a donation here.

Now there's a big question of what happens to Shorty's husband. My aunt and uncle (their son) are already housing my grandmother (mom and aunt's mom, who suffer's from Alzheimer's) with them. Shorty's mate has suffered from some sort of dementia for years. It's uncertain if he was even completely aware of the death when it happened.

The whole situation only stirs up another family conflict about what to do with Grma alzheimers. She can't live by herself any more. My parents think she should go to a nursing home; but my aunt can't bring herself to send her. The problem is that whenever my aunt gets tired and needs a break, she can't really get one. My folks refuse to take Grma in for the weekend; they say they can't handle her; they don't have time with their jobs, etc. Very difficult situation, and more complicated than I'll explain here and now, but the worst part of all of it is this: Grma won't be around for much longer, but her daughters will; and it's very sad that this situation is driving a wedge between them. I suppose these conflicts aren't unique, especially in this country, but that's no real consolation at all.

need a lift?

Check out this guy. I think I'm in love.

where to begin?

My first batch of composition papers are about to come in. I'm dreading it. The students turned in drafts last time-- after looking them over, I told them that they're not ready to turn these in for grades by Monday. I identified what I thought were common problems in many of them, and told them that instead of turning in their papers for a grade on Monday, they'll all meet with me for one-on-one conferences. They're supposed to bring substantial revisions to those conferences.... we'll see how many do. It's not just that many of these essays are terribly written (a disappointment, considering they've all already had one semester of composition), but I'm finding the content of a few of them in particular to be ideologically nauseating. The assignment asked them to think and write about an issue related to human rights that they don't yet know much about-- without doing additional research (which will come later, in a future assignment). Rather than having them present themselves as experts on a particular issue, I've asked them to query where their knowledge about their issue comes from and what the limitations of those sources of knowledge might be. I've also asked them to think through how their own gender, race, class, religion, etc., might position them to view their topic in a particular way. A good number of them get it, and are doing interesting things, exploring why it is they don't know more about X, Y, or Z. But others are still in uninformed expert mode, and are saying some very, very, troubling things like these:

• from a paper on homelessness: "Many people dress as [if] they are homeless, just to get extra money for themselves. They might even live in million dollar mansions and still feel it would be nice to have more than what they need..... Greed is one of the seven deadly sins. It says in the bible that all sins are bad but greed is one of the worst."
• from a paper on the Rwanda genocide: "The fact of the matter is the death total by the time American troops would have entered Rwanda to the time we left would have been likely to be just as high [as the number of Tutsis killed by Hutus]."
• Most troublingly, this from a paper about racisim in the United States: Freudian typo? "In reallity I have friends of all racists and view them all as human beings but some of the actions of the African American Race have lead me to believe that people play the race card too much."

So I try to be as tactful and pleasant as possible, rescuing something from their essays they can work with... but papers like these make me wantto throttle someone.

And then there's my decidedly anti-feminist Shakespeare student... Today we were discussing an early modern ballad in which a man tames his wife by beating her bloody and senseless and then wrapping her in a salted horse hide. According to my student, this was an appropriate punishment-- after all, that wife was being pretty bitchy. I'm totally boggled. I can understand those women who, because of their religious upbringing, etc., believe that "wives should submit to their husbands" hooey, but to hear a woman claim that domestic abuse is not just fine, but desirable.... What the fuck?

yippee

Decisions are in, and it seems that both of the two awards for "best undergraduate essay in literary interpretation" are going to students I had last semester-- and for essays they wrote in my class. That's something, I think. Department chair even sent me an email saying "Way to go!" One of the winners complained on my course evaluation (I can pick her out because of her distinctive handwriting) that my expectations were "unreasonable"-- but look what happened! I'm very proud of the kind of work I was able to get out of these students. And I'm excited about the essays I'll get from my Shakespeare students on Monday, too.

In one of my MLA interviews this past January, I was asked about the experience of using travel writings in my early English literature survey-- the interviewers were surprised that students would "get into" that kind of reading, but they did, and it was such an exciting class. I think undergraduate students are sometimes terribly underestimated. They can in fact handle a good dose of new historicism in the classroom. They can use so-called non-literary texts to comment on a work of literature, and they can do it well, too. I'd never heard of new historicism before I got to graduate school, and I'd never really seen it in practice. I can still remember how excited I was by the first classes I took in grad school-- it was as if an entirely new world had been opened to me. And I also remember how much I resented never having been introduced to this way of looking at (and using) texts while I was an undergraduate. It seems I'm trying to give these students the education I wish I'd gotten. I don't tell them this, but maybe I should.

unspring

It's a grey day, today, and dismal. Right now, through my office window, I can see two gray birds sitting next to each other on a branch. One of them seems to be grooming itself. The other, fatter, faces another direction, and starts self-grooming as well... and then waddles, sideways, next to the other one. They move their heads at each other. They remind me of an old married couple.

The tree in which they sit is huge-- I'm in a 5th floor office, and there's plenty of tree still above them and me. And that tree seems to be aching to burst into bloom-- there are plenty of buds, but right now they look spiky and closed. Springtime's been interrupted, but we keep waiting.

update

For now, London trumps baby-making....
and the chocolates were spectacular.

late

I'm late. It's been this way for a few weeks. It could have to do with an increase in stress or with this new drug I'd started taking, but there it is. I don't feel any different... I think. But hubby, having heard me mention the lateness several times now, has decided to go out in the dark of night to fetch a test and some chocolate. The latter, he would have me believe, is nearly the real reason for his trip, but I've never known him to have such cravings for chocolate. I'm holding my breath until he returns.

I'm not sure what I want to happen-- I think I'd be happy either way at this point-- we've been talking about trying to start a family soon (maybe planning for a summer birth in 2006) & in the meantime I'd decided to take a bunch of my students to the U.K. for a summer course. I'm not sure if I can imagine that happening while I'm 5 mos or so pregnant, though, so it'll be one or the other, but not both and hopefully not neither.

He's back.

Of shrews and promise-keepers

Defining image of the weeked: lazy, lazy, lazy morning in bed with P, the 2 cats, & a white fluffy comforter. Of course I've been in bed with said p, cats and comforter before-- in fact, it happens daily (or nightly), but something about that morning was different. Friday marked the end of 2 long and strenuous weeks for p, and it may well be that the decrease in stress level is palpable. The morning itself seemed to sigh with relief. Something of that feeling remains with me even today, too.

P. is working on his dissertation, still, in mathematics. And watching him these past few weeks has rekindled some of my own dissertation stresses, even though mine is completed and deposited. I've yet to get copies to my adviser and committee, though P. very graciously had them bound for me last week. The mere thought of contacting my adviser again, even to say "Here's my dissertation-- thanks for everything" makes me anxious. She's one of the giants in my field, and I admire her work more than I can say. I knew when I asked her about directing my thesis that she'd be tough, but I had no idea how emotionally draining the experience of working with her would be. Near the end, part of what inspired me to finish the diss was just to be free from interacting with her... but even now that's not really the case, is it? I'll still have to approach her for recommendations if I move on from this job, and I probably should work on maintaining friendly contact with her well before then.... but it's hard. I don't think anyone has ever had so much power over my own self-image as she did. When she approved, it was a rush. When she got annoyed, frustrated, or snippy, it was devastating. P. has more even-keel advisers, praise be. At least he has that.

(edited to add that the transition from my thesis director to shrews is fortuitous, but wasn't intended)

Shakespeare was okay today, even though some students are still not reading (or bringing books to class, grrrr). I put them in groups and we had a few mock debates on the relative merits of wife and servant beating according to some early modern preacher-folk and as represented in The Taming of the Shrew. One of the groups was given the task of creating a 12 (or whatever) step program for wife-taming as the character Petruchio might have written it. It goes something like this:

Step one: Learn to see your wife is an object. Be master of what's yours.
Step two: Show up badly dressed to your own wedding. Come late. Curse in church. Embarrass her as much as possible. Leave before she has a chance to enjoy the reception.
Step three: Beat your servants (hard!) in front of her. It's a great way to make your wife aware of how strong you are without having to lift a finger against her.
Step four: Watch your wife (or have someone watch her) constantly. You may not be your brother's keeper, but you certainly are hers.
Step five: Starve her at will. Make her come to depend on you for sustenance.
Step six: Deprive her of sleep. This will make her less likely to resist you.
Step seven: Refuse to let her dress fashionably.
Step eight: Justify doing all of the above because you love her and want what's best for her.
Step nine: Keep using these strategies until you can get her to agree that the sun is the moon, old men are young virgins or whatever other whimsy you might desire. The important thing is that she no longer thinks for herself or questions your authority.

A fun assignment, but also a bit creepy. If this teaching/studying lit. stuff doesn't work out, we could all go on to write for the Promise Keepers. Here are a few gems, gratis NOW:

Promise Keeper Tony Evans stated "I am not suggesting that you ask for your role back, I am urging you to take it back. There can be no compromise here."

A young woman at a recent "Chosen Women" Rally, a female counterpart to the all-male Promise Keepers, stated "Our job is to submit to our teachers and our Professors...even if we know they are wrong. It is then in God's hands."

More disturbing yet? At the end of today's class, a female student approached me with some worries she's having about her first paper. She's concerned that her ideas may seem a bit "unconventional" by the rest of the class's standards-- she believes in defined gender roles, she says; she likes being dominated. So I tell her that her own views on the subject shouldn't really affect her ability to do well on the paper-- that it's asking her to describe the ideology she sees at work in the poem (The Rape of Lucrece), not to defend her own. She seemed satisfied with that answer-- but, woman! It'll be interesting to see what she comes up with.

page 123

Because everybody's doing it:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

Here's Lady Elizabeth Clinton, in The Countesse of Lincolnes Nuserie (1622) on why she didn't breast-feed but thinks that every mom should:

I knowe and acknowledge that I should have done it, and having not done it; it was not for want of will in my selfe, but partly I was overruled by anothers authority, and partly deceived by somes ill counsell, and partly I had not so well considered of my duty in this motherly office, as since I did, when it was too late for me to put it in execution.

Failing to breast-feed when one's not sick, lunatic, or desparately poor, it seems, is sinful. And wet-nurses can't be trusted--indeed, the countess blames "dissembling nurses" for the deaths of two of her own children, and tells her readers that out of all the nurses she'd ever had for her 18 (!) children, only two were "thoroughly willing, and carefull."

So, take heed, you moms and moms-to-be. You just can't be too careful.

student evaluations

So today I finally got a glimpse at my student evaluations from last semester. The first-year writing ones were for the most part (and as expected) horrible, but the comments I got from my upper-level lit courses were a delightful surprise.

I loved my early English lit. survey last semester-- I'd never felt so excited about a class, and I felt I did a better job teaching than I ever had before. And while in some of the comments, students complained about the quizzes or my "unrealistic" expectations, I also had comments like these, the first of which I'm hanging on the wall next to my desk.

• "Dr. Z is a tough professor. She doesn't indulge in any uneducated whining and when we haven't read the material, she notices and marks us off for it. I probably learned more in this class about thinking critically than I have in three years of taking similarly structured survey courses. For this reason, Dr. Z is amazing. She sometimes says unintentionally hilarious things that I write in the margins of my lit. notebooks. I have a long-established and pronounced disdain for the subject matter of this class, and it may have been my favorite all term. (!) Dr. Z is creative, brilliant and difficult to please. It was a wonderful challenge."
• "Dr. Z is a complete joy. She is very knowledgeable and entertaining."

There were a lot of other nice ones, too. My confidence is up, a lot, today, and I'm feeling not-so-nervous about addressing the not-reading problem in today's class. I can be tough, raise the bar, and force them to meet it, while still keeping a positive attitude and a sense of humor about it. I think I can turn this around.

Looking back (it's now later, after class), it feels a bit strange to read some of these comments... some of them, like the last one above, seem very Roger Ebert-y (ebertesque?): " A complete joy!" "Knowledgeable and entertaining!" "Creative, brilliant and difficult to please!" I'm not sure how I feel about that-- even when the comments are affirming instead of soul-shattering. More on this in weeks & months to come.

all i wanna do...

is stay home and hang out with the cats all day. Alas, it's not to be.

!

Tonight, for the first time, I see someone's posted a link to my blog from their site. You know who you are. After a day I feel more disconnected from my department & myself than ever, it's encouraging to think someone cares what I might have to say.... at least to the extent that that caring might be measured in the time required to post a link to this page. I'm terrible with html code. Everytime I type in a new link I get something wrong, have to go back and fix it again and again. html is so unforgiving. You, fellow blogger, are generous. Now if only I could start writing something worth reading.

This is my first year out of grad school. I'm one of the lucky ones who landed a job my first time out... but it's a 4-4 load with 3 preps. Last semester was tough... I spent a lot of time just trying to keep my head above water. I came from a Research I state school to a small liberal arts college, the kind of place I've been wanting to teach since I began graduate school years ago. But the students I have here are so different from what I was expecting... the writing classes last semester were a definite shock... but so are these problems I'm finding in some of my upper levels, where the students (majors!, many of them) just aren't reading. These students are needier, and, horrible as this sounds, sometimes they seem to have such a sense of entitlement. I had this romantic notion liberal arts students would want to learn, not just get a degree, but that's just not the case for the majority of them... State U. kids were much more independent, and a lot less whiny. I thought once I started teaching courses in my major field, things would be exciting. I do have good days, when I come out of the classroom feeling invigorated, but I'm having more disappointing days than I'd like. In short, I'm having a very hard time doing my job when the students aren't doing theirs. And some of my anxieties about this situation and teaching in general are waking me up in the night. What's wrong with me?

helluva day

I'ts been one hell of a day. I'm running on little sleep as it is, then find my Shakespeare class conspicuously silent. Seems four, maybe five people had done the reading. This has happened a few times, and I think-- this is a 300 level course, to be taught at the junior/senior level, and these people don't think they have to read. What the... ? A few classes ago someone said she didn't bring her book to class because it was too heavy. I hate being the bad guy-- and we have had some good discussions-- but it's evident that not everyone is pulling their weight, and that needs to change, and soon. I'm discouraged. So much of how a class will go depends on how much effort the students put into the course. When they're not reading, I have a terrible time just doing my job.

I need to come up with something next time that will stick.... a way to encourage them to think about the class as a collaboration, in the same way that theater itself is. I'm half a mind to ask at the start of the next class who's done the reading and then to tell everyone else to leave. Can I do that?

Long, drawn out deparment meeting this afternoon--we went nearly two hours, and it seemed to take ages to get even the smallest things taken care of.

I just want to go home, but sinceI forgot to bring a house key today, I'm stuck at the office until P. arrives home, whenever that may be.

on a happier note, a student told me she liked my writing class today.

votes of self-confidence...

It seems students need them, too. A student from my British literature survey last semester wrote a wonderful paper on Donne's Elegy To his Mistress going to bed. When I gave her back her paper, I asked her if she'd email me a copy. Today, out of the blue, coming out of Shakespeare, she asks me "What is it that you liked about my paper last semester?". I told her, then asked her about how she felt about it, and she said she never knows how to look at her own writing when it's done; she usually thinks there's got to be something wrong with it. I'm exactly the same way.

anonyms, pseudoyms, flotsam and jetsam

Theres some discussion happening on Cut-rate parasite about the prevalence of academic blogs written under pseudonyms and why there might be so much desire for anonymity among academic bloggers. My own decision not to reveal too much is inspired by several things, but mostly by the chance that my students or fellow colleagues might find me... and the problem with each of those scenarios has to do with the fascades I've been writing about, the ones that inspired me to start blogging in the first place. Who I am with my students, who I am among (many of) my colleagues, who I am in my academic writing don't and won't and can't jive with this person here. I feel compelled to project an air of confidence and competence to my department and to my students. I can't tell my students or my department colleauges about the stage-fright I still sometimes get in the classroom. I'm hesitant to admit to either that certain things in my classes aren't working. I can't worry publically about not having an official contract for next year yet, or about my students not liking me.

I think gender, too, plays a part here. I wonder if there are more pseudonymous academic women blogging than there are men. Discussing pregnancy or childbirth or finding time for either are practically taboo subjects in the academy. Say too much and they just might not rehire you. Say anything about wanting to start a family soon and the deparment might start making plans to replace you. Of the female profs under 40 in our department, none have kids (yet). Of those over 40, I've only heard one talk about her children. I know more about the male profs' kids. Bizarre, but commonplace.

untitlable

This morning I spent a half hour just sitting in the office with a couple colleagues, talking about who's leaving, our dismal salaries and about a summer course in London two of us our trying to get together. Suddenly, in the middle of conversation, one notices a ring on my finger and asks, with a bit of surprise, "did you get married? when did that happen?" He even seems a tiny bit disappointed. I'm flattered. back during my campus visit, months and months ago, we spent an hour or so together on a campus park bench between planned activities/interviews with various folks on campus. There was some sort of energy to that encounter I'd sort of pushed to the back of my mind until now. How does one describe it? The strange sensing of someone else's possible attraction? It was there again this morning. It'll pass, I'm sure.

This morning was a rush, though, 3 (and at one point 4) of us in the office, all the professorial fascades (at least mine) laid aside. These are people I'd hang out with outside of work. Maybe I should.

but then...

I ended the last post at the sound of the key in the door, husband arriving home. I'd thought that would be the end of posting for at least a while, that there might be some sort of checking in and conversation over dinner. I'd thought. It's not to be, it turns out. A bigshot prof from europe has arrived & p. is very busy working on his dissertation each day so the next he talk & work more with bigshot. I understand the pressure, I do, but no "how was your day?" or anything else for that matter makes me feel like an unliked roommate. You know the one. You live for those times when she's out and you have the whole space to yourself. When she's home, you ignore her the best you can & try to read & do your homework. Seems I'm her. & it just doesn't feel good. But I'm most likely too darn sensitive. He did bring me a taco.... but then sat down immediately with his math book. It feels bad and weird, but I know my saying anything about it when he's in this state will only cause bad feelings.

It doesn't help that I've not really formed friendships with anyone at work yet, let alone in this small town. I feel like crying.

home alone

it's nearly 8pm, I am home, alone, with cats. it's quiet, I've been traveling through the blogosphere & I'm feeling calmer and more relaxed that I have in quite a while. I've felt so lonely in this new job at this new place where I have to concentrate so much on maintaining/creating a good image... I've not had a serious and truly honest conversation with anyone aside from p. (my husband) in a long while. Somehow I emerge from my blog-reading feeling as if I've just connected with old friends, though. There's been no conversation at all-- I've just been reading, and yet, I feel strangely understood and intimate with these folk, particularly the womenfolk, many ofwhom seem to be struggling or to have once struggled with the same kinds of self-esteem, life-purpose, family-planning concerns which I myself can't seem to get away from.

To all of them. Thank you.

woe

I'm having problems with this writing class. The students are good natured enough, but they just won't talk to me. I'm sure I'm part of the problem. It's the questions I choose to ask, but also, sadly, the material I've chosen for them to read. They're just not getting into it. I'm not sure what to do about the situation... but soon, soon, soon, I'm hoping to have them come up with the next topic we'll examine in class as a group. I need to find a way of getting them to take a stake at what's going on.

It's the strangest thing. When I taught this novel last year, somewhere else, it went over really well-- we had great discussions, everyone was engaged. This year-- they like the novel, but for some reason or other, can't talk about it. Something's just... off.

Meanwhile, I'm have a wonderful time with this Shakespeare class I'm teaching. There's a core group I can always count on to have something to say about what we're reading. They respond to me well, they're interested and intrigued, they ask questions, they try out new ideas. One third of the class seems to be just floating along, though-- don't or won't talk... and several aren't bringing the book to class. These are juniors and seniors... and yet these few seem to think that"the book's too big to lug to class" or "I haven't gotten the book yet" are valid reasons for not participating in class or completing assignments. I've been focusing on the engaged folk, but I'd like to draw the rest of them into the conversation, too.

I'm rambling, and in a way that may or may not be that useful, since I'm hesitant to reveal to much on the off chance that some student stumbles upon this here blog. I expect I'll become more daring as this goes on. But having had the experience of stumbling upon the blogs of some of my students-- one which even mentions me by name-- I'm a little more cautious than I might have been.

starting over

So. Having decided to make my writing students blog throughout the semester, it seems only right I should take the plunge in myself. The proper, academic, okay-for-students-to-read posts can go somewhere else. This space is mine, apart from them. It's a bit strange, parcelling myself out this way, but if I haven't been doing this in writing, I've been doing it nearly all the time now that I've started this new (first) job. I like my work... often... but I seem to have lost myself somewhere in the process. I feel like I'm play-acting much of the day, and these parts I find myself playing with my colleagues and with my students can be quite a lot to keep up. Sometimes I feel closer in sentiment to some of my students than I do with my department's faculty. I'm young enough I still get mistaken for a student, by students, faculty, maintainence people. I become nostalgic about my own years in college that ended seven years ago now when I see some of the majors light up in the classroom or when I see them together outside of the classroom, up to some thing or other. Other times, especially with my first-year writers, I find myself disappointed and even a bit shocked at how little knowledge, curiousity or will they bring into class with them. Last week I wented the Abu-Ghraib scandal in relation to some happenings in this novel I'm teaching, and at least 2 of the students (maybe more) had no idea what I was talking about. "Aboo-what?" Gazuntite.

At any rate, it's gotten harder and harder to hear my own voice in my head. It's gotten harder to slow down. I need to stop these frantic movements of body and mind. I need more time to just listen and to hear myself think.