st. p.

p. has been taking care of me, these past several days. i'm still pukey and nauseous, and can't even bear to walk through the kitchen. so p. has been cooking and cleaning and bringing toast to bed. eating has always been one of our favorite things to do together, but food has lost all it's pleasure for me, and so p. has also been subjecting himself to boring things like bagels when he might otherwise be having mexican or thai or at least something not in the bread group. we cancelled our latin american christmas plans because of me. i feel terrible. yet he is saintly and cheerful and begrudges me nothing.

called the doctor's office the other day, mentioned i had job interviews coming up, asked if there was anything at all they'd be willing to do to help me with the nauea. they refused, on account of the fact that i am keeping some food and liquid down, and suggested i try any of the overthecounter stuff listed on a pink sheet they'd given me earlier, or having toast in bed, or ginger tea, or all the other things i've already been trying which haven't worked. so p. took me to walgreens, where i talked to a fatherly pharmacist who recommended-- "you're going to laugh," he said-- cola syrup instead. 2 tsp. over crushed ice, as needed. surprisingly, it does help a little, but only for a while.

i have seven interviews over the course of 2 days next week. really hoping i'll make it through without puking on someone's shoes.

aplogies... er, apologies

I've had a hard time writing here lately, and have grown tired of my own whiny postings. Apologies to whoever's been reading them. I know that these sick feelings will pass eventually, and I just need to focus on doing the best I can to get through the end of semester, parents' visit, the holidays, in-between-holiday MLA interviews, and preparations for next semester's classes.

I have 6 (interviews) so far, which is more than I've gotten in any other year. Now I just need to prepare for them. I'm naturally a bit of a shy person, and interviews can sometimes be a challenge for me. I need to be able to relax, have some confidence, and just talk about what I do and what I love. It's that engagement that really needs to come across, I think. Wish I could borrow a bit of P.'s charm to take with me, though.

Every time a call comes in (P. has received 3 interview requests for this big math conference in January), we start dreaming about what it would be like to live in New York, in Connecticut, in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and other places. Finding jobs near each other will be a challenge, but when we're not stressing out about that, it's pretty fun to dream.

mortified

The nausea, unbelievably, is worse this morning than it's ever been. I have been trying to nibble on saltines and sip gingerale in the hopes that my stomach will settle down before I teach. And yet this image of me upchucking midsentence in front of the entire class keeps passing through my head. How mortifying would that be? Extremely.

return

Thanksgiving holiday at my brother's house, and with no parental supervision for the first time in many years. Somehow when my parents are around too, I never really get to connect with my brother. Conversation tends to be propelled by my parents, mostly my father, and I somehow get lost in the fray. When I left home for college, I missed my brother most of all. Some of the best memories I have of growing up involve these talks we used to have in his room in the afternoons before mom and dad got home. I'd sit on his floor, and we'd talk about all sorts of things. Often we'd talk about the parents and our frustrations at living in such a constricting environment, but we'd talk about relationships, too, and dreams for the future. However happy I am to be out of my parents' house, I still miss those days.

It was a foursome at my brother's house-- my husband and his wife along with the two of us, but there was a late night when we all sat up talking until we were about to fall asleep right there. My niece is a year an a half now, and adorable. She loves my brother. He'll enter a room, and she'll call out for him, even run to him on her short and wobbly legs. He's so gentle with her, and funny. And looking back on it now, I even catch a glimpse of my own father there.

Morning sickness reared its ugly head while I was visiting... and it hasn't gone away sense. I'd only had mild queasiness in the weeks before, but now it feels like something's squeezing some round ball inside me just below and between my ribs. This discomfort has also made me a bit anxious and even irritable, and now it seems I'm alienated P. This is the down side to pregnancy. I wish I could relax a little, that something could take the edge off of me, make it easier to go to work, to be around, to just be.

now things get complicated

email from birthmother today, wanting to know what my feelings are on her being a grandmother to the baby. She wants to be involved, but doesn't want to presume, since she was never really a mother to me growing up. That's nice on her part, I guess, but it feels pushy this early on, and really I wish she hadn't brought it up. It is uncomfortable to think about, I don't feel like thinking about it right now, and I probably won't feel like thinking about it for a while. Argh. My parents don't even know I'm still in contact with B., or at least they pretend not to know. We haven't talked about that in years, and probably won't, ever again. It would be terrible for my child to mention "grandma B." around my parents, and I don't really feel comfortable drawing her or him into my web of deceit. Of course this entire thread is too early-- I'm not even out of the first trimester yet. Maybe I opened my big mouth too soon? I'm not even sure what my options are. I try so hard to make everyone happy, and in this situation, (as in all circumstances involving my b-family), that's impossible. Clearly my parents' feelings have to take precedence over B.'s, here, but I have a lot more to figure out that I want. I'll probably end up ignoring the email for a few days and worrying B., but I'm not sure what else to do at this point. I could tell her it's still early, that I'll need some time to figure things out, I guess, but it's just easier to pretend it never came up.

I feel guilty already, because I know that unless I keep keeping secrets, someone's not going to be happy with the way things turn out.

Somehow I thought that by having a biological child of my own, I could avoid him or her growing up with issues like these. I'm starting to realize it's not quite that simple.

out

Last night I came home to find P., adorably, reading this in the kitchen and trying to make a fruit salad with yogurt (recipe in the book). He read some pages aloud to me. Unlike some of the other books for expecting dads (some of which struck me as extremely misogynistic!) which we saw while browsing the bookstore the other day, this one is senstive. P. is cooking. P. brings flowers home. P. tries to give helpful advice on what I should be eating. P. pours glasses of milk. P. brings me breakfast while I'm still in my pjs. I could get used to this.

Anyway, last night, it was just too much. We called our parents. His cried with joy. Mine were somewhat more controlled, but I could tell my mother was really excited. She called me back twice after we'd first talked. Everyone's excited. I can't wait.

still +

I can't believe this is really happening. I'm having a hard time concentrating. Why do I have to work today? P. and I have been trying to keep things a bit quiet until we know a little more (until I've been to the doctor), but I'm terrible with secrets-- especially my own.

I hope everything goes okay with us. There's so much I don't know.

I'm nervous/reluctant to tell my parents... for a while, at least. I'm not sure I can quite make sense of it.... but when P. and I called home to tell them that we were engaged, their reaction was less than enthusiastic-- they hoped it would be a long engagement, it was no shame to not get married if we decided that wasn't the best decision, cultural differences, cultural differences. Some months ago, when talking about another relative who'd gotten pregant again with her second child, my father said something about how there's no shame in not having kids, that it's not for everyone... not quite sure how I'm supposed to take a remark like that. The best thing to do, I guess, to read generously. And by "read generously," I mean, not read too much into it.

if I don't tell someone, I'm afraid I just might explode. So slowly, the secret is eeking out.

(sigh) back to work.

update

3 out of 3 varying shades of pink and blue lines seem to agree: the pink lines at Planned Parenthood were very, very faint, but the person who saw me read them as a positive. She said that many positive tests look that way--- very faint, sometimes so faint you almost have to squint to see the line. I guess she would know, right? She estimates I'm 5.5 weeks. Somehow I still feel very hestitant about this, though-- unconvinced, even. I want a darker line, darnit. So I'll test myself again tomorrow or the next day, and then must hie me to a doctor to find out if this can really be happening. Cross your fingers for me? I'll feel very silly if this all turn out to be wrong.

yowza. so much happening all at once.

faded blue lines

so it's a bit too soon to tell, but i just might have some big news. we're visiting planned parenthood later this morning to follow this up. could it be? i'm having a hard time thinking about much else.

it happened again

yesterday. up at 7, to work by 8, worked until class, taught, met with 4 students over the course of the afternoon, worked until 8:30 at the office, when P. picked me up, had dinner, worked somemore and graded a stack of midterms. went to bed at 1am, got up at 7, am scrambling to finish prep for the 3 courses i teach today. this is crazy.

the nose knows

I forgot to mention running into the federal building where we had the immigration interview. Literally. It was one of those revolving glass doors. Seems I went past the opening where you exit the revolving door and enter the building... instead I went a few steps further, then tried walking through the glass that was just past the entrance. I hit it hard. In the nose. It really confused me, and so then I was putting my hands out in front of me trying to sort out where the glass ended, until finally the door went around again, and I made it inside. It doesn't seem I hurt it seriously because there wasn't any bleeding, but there were tears and embarrassment, and my nose still hurts. It hurts when P. kisses me, and it hurts when my glasses slide down just a little, and it just hurts in general.

ouch.

good news

So P. and I drove up to Big City yesterday for today's Big Appointment with the INS (which they call DCIS these days). We'd read horror stories about these interviews; had heard of couples getting pulled apart; one sent back to Mexico, the other remaining in the US, five years before they sorted things out. P. got a book of INS askable questions, like "how did you meet?" and "when was the last time you and your wife saw her siblings together?" and "looking up at the ceiling, which side of the bed do you sleep on?" and "what color is your couch?" and "how often do you do laundry?" and "when did you last have sex?" and "what color underwear is your wife wearing?" and so on. In some of these interviews, couples get split up, asked a series of rapid fire questions, the answers to which are then checked for any inconsistencies. The book, written by a Nigerian who immigrated to the US and is now a lawyer of somesort, said, no pauses when they ask questions, said, be sure you and your mate have consistent and coherent narratives about how you met and how your relationship led to marriage, said, it's best you prepare for these interviews.

So on the drive up, we tried to remember everything... he met my parents for the first time in November of 2001. I met his in September 2002. Our parents met each other in June??? 2004. We met each other June 12, 2001. We were embarrassed about the fact that most of the time we do laundry every 2 weeks and not once a week, and considered whether it might be okay for us to just SAY we do it (and clean the house, too!) every Saturday. We got outraged about the personal questions. My parents don't even know the real story of our meeting-- why must I tell it to some suited bureaucrat?

Our interview lasted less than 20 minutes. We produced photographs, birth certificates, our marriage license, pay stubs and dozens of forms. We were asked very few questions, and none of them were personal. We left with a red stamp approving us for a green card. It comes in two weeks.

Funny I say "us," when really it's only P. who gets the green card. But after all we've gone through, I kind of want one, too.

on the market

Someone's sure to understand what I mean.

D'you ever get the feeling, when you're reading a job ad, that THIS is the job that you're PERFECT for? The stars seem aligned, and everything the ad mentions wanting is something you have, something you already DO. You have the experience to prove it. And yet, the job's in such a lovely, sunny place that surely tons of people want to work in. It starts to seem like really, in the end, no matter how perfect you are for the job, the people behind the job just might not interview you anyway.


(sigh)..... if only.

today

at 7:00 am, woke up to alarm and mewing cat. Made groaning noises at cat and violently slapped alarm clock for about 30 minutes. Prepared for class, taught class, met with two students, copied material for one of these students (who's asked me to direct an honors project), returned work-related emails, did some work for a program I'm heading, ate (finally, at 4:30 or so), did more committee-related stuff, came home (after 8pm), did some reading/planning for class tomorrow, wrote up a paper assignment.

It's 10:44 p.m. now. I'm still not ready for tomorrow's 3 classes. Before 9 am I MUST:

• finish creating unit syllabus
• make photocopies
• finish reading play/ planning my Shakespeare class
• finish planning 2 other classes

I would like to, but may not have time to:

• grade response papers so I can hand them back (I'm behind)
• shower
• sleep
• cry
  

This is utterly insane/impossible. How on earth did this happen? Where did the time go? Clearly I should've let the committee stuff slide for another day... I was just feeling so excited/ energetic about it at the time...

I'm so, so tired.

what the... ?

In class discussion today, a student very suddenly got up and bolted out of the classroom. I'm not at all sure what was going on-- my back was turned when he stood up-- but it seems like something offended him. We've been talking about conversational styles, using the Tannen material I mentioned earlier, and how we've been able to see some of them playing out in our classroom (which is predominantly male). Mike (we'll call him) always has something to say in class-- many times, it's something with substance, too. Near the start of the semester, he would just blurt out his ideas, and since I instituted a hand-raising rule, he'll do the thing where he sometimes raises his hand and starts talking without waiting for me to call on him. Today he had his hand up for more extended periods of time. I noticed him, but would call on other students who hadn't said as much in class. When he'd blurt, I think he could tell that I (and other students in the class) weren't responding to him in perhaps the way he'd like.... he said something about feeling like other students were "looking at him funny." Maybe he felt singled out somehow? I don't want to shut this guy up; I only want him to be a bit more aware of his surroundings, and especially of the fact that other people in the room have things to say.

I've had a hard time with this class all semester, and while the hand-raising rule has improved things, it's not always being followed, and discussions still aren't running as smoothly as I wish they were... so we'll come at it again on next time and hope things go better. I'm trying to approach this problem in a calm and constructive way, and I'm trying to get them to think about the way they're interacting with each other. What I hope is that, as a class, we can draft a set of rules for how discussions are going to work from here on out. Maybe hearing their classmates' persepectives will make the problem folks more considerate?

And yet... enough is enough, really. I'm tired of having to yell over people when everyone starts talking at once. I'm tired of having to stop the interrupters from interrupting. I'm tired of students carrying on private conversations when others are addressing remarks to the entire class. Frankly, a number of people are being quite rude. I've tried to address this several times, and maybe they need a lengthier Come-to-Jesus lecture, too, like the kind Professor Bastard describes well (in a very offensively-titled blogpost, though, I must say).

Oh, damn it all. I hate having to discipline college students.

on parkinson's rule and gendered (?) teaching styles

Parkinson's rule, according to a bunch of folks over at the Chronicle (I can't recall which forum) means that tasks generally expand to fill the time available. So, if you've got one hour to prepare for class, you'll take the whole hour. If you've allotted yourself five hours, you'll find a way to fill the five.

Last week my division chair came to observe my teaching. In anticipation, I insanely spent at least six hours preparing for a fifty minute class. After all that, the class didn't go so well. I had too many ideas and felt like I jumped too much from topic to topic... the students were a little less engaged than usual.

Today, I gave myself a break, and spent less than an hour preparing for class (beyond reading the material), and things went swimmingly. It figures.

I think my big mistake was deciding to manage a more teacher-centered classroom the day the chair came to observe, when often, chair-less, I use a lot of group work, etc. to get things going. I can give a good lecture when I have to, but I like using groups in this class in particular because it forces the students to engage with the text in ways that they don't with full-class discussion (where more people can remain passive) or with lecture.

Today I brought in silly "Hello, my name is" nametags with characters' names (from the play we started to day) written on them. I assigned each group an act and scene, handed them the necessary nametags, and gave them 15 minutes to prepare a two-three minute version of their scene to perform for the class. Today was their first day back from fall break, and I anctipated not everyone had done the reading, so when I assigned groups, I made sure that each had at least one person who I was sure had done the reading (and usually does the reading carefully). Once in groups, they decided who'd play which part, then went to work trying to summarize their scenes-- they all seemed pretty involved, even those who hadn't read-- perhaps because they knew they'd be presenting in front of the entire class and didn't want to be embarrassed any more than necessary.

Turns out they did a great job-- the scenes were hilarious (especially thanks to the deadpan way several of them delivered their lines), and by the end of the activity, I felt sure that everyone in the class had a good sense of what was going on-- who the characters were, what their relationships to each other were, what the major conflicts/ threads were. What's even better is that I think most people were curious about what was going to happen next-- I think the activity helped convey to them some of what's interesting and fun about the play, and I'm hoping that will make for more readers next time. When their scenes were over, I sketched out a bit more information on the board, we talked about what the title might mean, and then class was over. Some of them left the room still wearing their "Hello my name is Alibius," etc. nametags. It was a silly activity, really, but I feel very good about how things went and about what the students were able to get out of the class.

In another class, my students are reading a bit of Deborah Tannen on gendered communication styles. And as much I as wince at some of the ways she characterizes "male" and" female" styles, a lot of what she says rings true to me. Tannen claims that in conversation, men often like to lecture/share information while women listen/ work to build connections. When women find themselves talking for extended periods of time, Tannen says, women often find themselves uncomfortable.

I know this is true for me... in the classroom as well as in my personal life. 50 minutes feels like an awfully long time for me to be center stage. And yet Tannen might say that teachers who don't take center stage for the majority of classtime may be looked at as less intelligent or less capable than commanding lecturers. It was this fear, that my own style might be devalued, that prompted me to try to put myself in the center last week, even when it didn't feel quite right. But if the chair (he's male-- and that probably matters) had come today, and seen my students in groups and then in front of the room for the majority of class time; had he heard me in lecture mode for maybe 15 minutes max, I wonder what kind of write-up that would have gotten?

When I first started teaching, it was fear of being at the center that would prompt me to have students in groups for a bit. But now that I'm more experienced, and I've had to teach one mostly lecture-style course, I think I'm much better at using them. They have a purpose, and they work for me. But would their effectiveness be easy to recognize by an outsider? I just don't know.

This is strange...

My dissertation is for sale via Amazon.com. I have no idea how or why.

fall

I've been absent for a while. It's been a stressful several weeks, and it doesn't look like it's going to end soon. But thank god for fall breaks.

I've spent far too much time stressing out about work, but the afternoon walks home have been quite pleasant-- especially now that the leaves have started changing. Yesterday I saw two kids playing in a leaf pile under the most gorgeous yellow and red trees you can imagine. Gorgeous. In the past weeks, I've also seen a green millipede crossing the road, at least a dozen monarch butterflies alight on a flowering bush, a squirrel carrying a nut of somesort almost bigger than its head, and, my favorite thing of all, geese in flight, coming together to form a perfect V.

It's fall.

stupid spammers

Is there a way to delete those pesky comments? Can anyone tell me how?

drowning

so much anxiety this past week. i can't calm down. i am teaching and going to meetings and preparing for classes and trying to write annual reports and job letters and to finish finally this article... I feel like I'm rushing around even when I'm sitting still.

sometimes I really think I'm just not cut out for this job.