Okay, so I’m feeling a little perilously ungrounded…and also confronting how much I depend on the Internet and email…for work, even more than for everyday life.
Here’s the situation. I am sharing my office at New Uni with another full-time faculty member, since there is a major space crisis here – they’ve never had to do this before. When I initially learned this, I was alarmed because I really inhabit my office, and I also work there a lot…I try to do the majority of my work at the office…as well, I make a mess, and I was worried about trying to manage my mess for someone else. But my very lovely officemate and I worked out a schedule whereby we are each here half days Monday-Thursday. And it’s not as difficult as I thought to contain my mess.
However. Just today I have really seen the limits of this situation. I’m staying with friends for the three nights a week I’m in Uni City – Monday-Wednesday. They need me out of the house by 9:30 every morning because the babysitter/nanny comes. Fine, I think this morning (when my officemate is in the office) – I’ll just head up to the uni and go to my area's faculty lounge for these chunks of time…it’s newly wireless-networked, and I can sit and do stuff – check and reply to emails, etc. etc. – on my laptop. It’s actually a lovely, large, friendly space – not bad.
Except, not so fast, Hilaire. The connection didn’t work, and when I went over to IT to find out why, I discovered that there is this insanely difficult configuration required, and my computer doesn’t have the capability for it. Unless I want to buy a new laptop, I can’t be wireless on campus. I’m stuck. (Jesus, I just bought this thing – new – a little over a year ago! I bought it because it had won awards, for god's sake...why doesn't it have what I need????) If I want to be online when I’m not in my office, I need to go to the library computers, where students are looking over my shoulders and eating oily salad perilously close to my keyboard: both of these things happened this morning.
Whoa, I’m frustrated. All of a sudden I realize how dependent I am on the Internet. And most of that is for work purposes. Library and periodical searches, job searches, calls for papers, student and colleague emails. Even blogs, which are partially a diversion, have a lot to do with work…I use them to enrich my own experiences of teaching and research.
It would be fine if I just had a place to be when I’m in town and not using my office…but I don’t. I’m feeling pretty ungrounded…it’s a feeling I really, really hate. Yes, I could spend my time in one of the two wireless cafes in town, but I don’t really want to waste my money buying beverages I don’t want just to take advantage of wireless.
Really, it’s a little demoralizing to be a full-time faculty member and just plain not have a place to go. I have to admit that.
And I wonder if I may need to look for a new place to stay when I am here. Somewhere I can work when I’m not in the office, and somewhere I can use Internet (which is tricky where I’m staying). Awkward? I’ll say – these folks I’m staying with are my friends.
Ugh.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Success!
So I just had my first class...and it was great! This is the course in my precise sub-subfield, which I taught in a compressed version last spring at last year's university and raved about here. I'm teaching it again this year as a one-term special topics course, a 4th-year seminar capped at fifteen students...to die for.
So I tried out a strategy I'd read about in an article in The Teaching Professor (can't find the reference, sorry). The author always approaches the first day as a way to build interest and commitment by triangulating professor, students, and topic. I decided to go with this. Before everything else, I talked about my relationship to the topic...I gave them a bit of an intellectual history of myself...how I came to be interested in this, as a graduate student. How, in my mind, it speaks to larger issues of the (inter)discipline and other fields. I thought this might be a good idea because I'm interested in what I am realizing is the mystique that undergrads have about the work of their professors (post on this coming soon). I was trying to demystify intellectual work, give them a sense that interest and real, big projects come from somewhere...they are born of tiny observations...they can do this, too! Anyway, they seemed interested - they all listened pretty intently and nodded, engaged.
Then I had them talk about their connections to the topic. I asked them to write for a few minutes about what interests them about the field, as well as to identify one or more questions they would like answered in the course. They then shared those. They had tons to say!!! And it wasn't the usual rote, ten-second answers that people give on first days. Hurrah! Granted, this is pretty easy because it is a topic that most people have something to say about. But still, I felt like we were building some course parameters already. I wrote down many of their thoughts, and told them I'd keep them front of mind as we went along, and try to work out ways to address those questions when they are not explicitly built into the topic selection and readings. I responded to each one, saying a few words about what they'd said - usually connecting her questions to the major ones of the field - to give the students the confidence that comes from realizing that they are already thinking about and asking questions that scholars write about.
It was a long, chatty, and entirely comfortable go-round. Then I handed out the syllabus (see here for Maggie's excellent post on teaching, including handing out the syllabus at the end) and talked them through the weeks of reading. I know this sound boring, but somehow I like to do it - and they still seemed rapt.
I know it's not really me, it's the topic of the course, but damn, it's good to feel that much investment and engagement in a room full of students.
Now I'm trying to figure out whether I should let in the enthusiastic waitlisted students who showed up today...why do I want to add to my workload? It's just, it's just...they were so smart and engaged and already committed...it's hard to turn that away. But I like the manaegable size for seminar dynamics, so we shall see..
So I tried out a strategy I'd read about in an article in The Teaching Professor (can't find the reference, sorry). The author always approaches the first day as a way to build interest and commitment by triangulating professor, students, and topic. I decided to go with this. Before everything else, I talked about my relationship to the topic...I gave them a bit of an intellectual history of myself...how I came to be interested in this, as a graduate student. How, in my mind, it speaks to larger issues of the (inter)discipline and other fields. I thought this might be a good idea because I'm interested in what I am realizing is the mystique that undergrads have about the work of their professors (post on this coming soon). I was trying to demystify intellectual work, give them a sense that interest and real, big projects come from somewhere...they are born of tiny observations...they can do this, too! Anyway, they seemed interested - they all listened pretty intently and nodded, engaged.
Then I had them talk about their connections to the topic. I asked them to write for a few minutes about what interests them about the field, as well as to identify one or more questions they would like answered in the course. They then shared those. They had tons to say!!! And it wasn't the usual rote, ten-second answers that people give on first days. Hurrah! Granted, this is pretty easy because it is a topic that most people have something to say about. But still, I felt like we were building some course parameters already. I wrote down many of their thoughts, and told them I'd keep them front of mind as we went along, and try to work out ways to address those questions when they are not explicitly built into the topic selection and readings. I responded to each one, saying a few words about what they'd said - usually connecting her questions to the major ones of the field - to give the students the confidence that comes from realizing that they are already thinking about and asking questions that scholars write about.
It was a long, chatty, and entirely comfortable go-round. Then I handed out the syllabus (see here for Maggie's excellent post on teaching, including handing out the syllabus at the end) and talked them through the weeks of reading. I know this sound boring, but somehow I like to do it - and they still seemed rapt.
I know it's not really me, it's the topic of the course, but damn, it's good to feel that much investment and engagement in a room full of students.
Now I'm trying to figure out whether I should let in the enthusiastic waitlisted students who showed up today...why do I want to add to my workload? It's just, it's just...they were so smart and engaged and already committed...it's hard to turn that away. But I like the manaegable size for seminar dynamics, so we shall see..
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Monster
This has been an anguished end of the weekend. My mother called as I was making dinner; this was a follow-up to a family wedding we were at last night. We chatted briefly about the wedding. And then my mother said, "I'll be thinking of you tomorrow, teaching your first class...what time is it, again? 5:00?" It is indeed at 5pm tomorrow that I'm teaching my first class at New Uni. And it's lovely and sweet that my mother will be thinking of me. I am a lucky daughter - my mother is nothing but kind and loving. But I reacted the same way I've reacted since I was ten. The mother-hating way.
I made my mother cry. As I have before. She said, "I feel as if I don't know how to talk to you. I've tried everything, and that's why I don't call as much anymore. You intimidate me sometimes. I feel as if I embarrass you."
And I have nothing to say in my own defense. She's right.
Why do I do this? I watch myself doing it, the same way I have for so many years, and see myself quite clearly being a complete, appalling shit. Behaving in ways that are so out of character for me. Friends - and GF - who see me interact with my mother are shocked. They laugh at the incongruity between my daughter-self and my everyday self. Except it's really not funny. And I can't figure out how to stop it. It's as if it's a sick force that feels bigger than me (as it surely is, our friend Kristeva would say...) I feel like a monster.
The worst part is that feeling like a monster is a sort of objective reaction to myself. In these moments of discussion with my crying mother, I don't really feel anything. There she is, crying, anguished, and there I am, an emotionless stone. What an asshole. This, too, is so out of character for me - this kind of repression. I'm a crier; I emote, usually. With her, I just apologize, but it's without real emotion; it's apologizing for what I can identify as shocking behaviour on my part, what I recognize as appalling, inappropriate rudeness. But I'm turned off.
These moments with my mother put me in touch with the very worst parts of myself. I think it's time to get me to a counsellor to talk through this one. It's not "bigger than me", and I can't use that sense to excuse myself. I have a responsibility - to my mother, and to myself - to wrestle with this, to understand it, to try to exorcise it.
I made my mother cry. As I have before. She said, "I feel as if I don't know how to talk to you. I've tried everything, and that's why I don't call as much anymore. You intimidate me sometimes. I feel as if I embarrass you."
And I have nothing to say in my own defense. She's right.
Why do I do this? I watch myself doing it, the same way I have for so many years, and see myself quite clearly being a complete, appalling shit. Behaving in ways that are so out of character for me. Friends - and GF - who see me interact with my mother are shocked. They laugh at the incongruity between my daughter-self and my everyday self. Except it's really not funny. And I can't figure out how to stop it. It's as if it's a sick force that feels bigger than me (as it surely is, our friend Kristeva would say...) I feel like a monster.
The worst part is that feeling like a monster is a sort of objective reaction to myself. In these moments of discussion with my crying mother, I don't really feel anything. There she is, crying, anguished, and there I am, an emotionless stone. What an asshole. This, too, is so out of character for me - this kind of repression. I'm a crier; I emote, usually. With her, I just apologize, but it's without real emotion; it's apologizing for what I can identify as shocking behaviour on my part, what I recognize as appalling, inappropriate rudeness. But I'm turned off.
These moments with my mother put me in touch with the very worst parts of myself. I think it's time to get me to a counsellor to talk through this one. It's not "bigger than me", and I can't use that sense to excuse myself. I have a responsibility - to my mother, and to myself - to wrestle with this, to understand it, to try to exorcise it.
Friday, September 08, 2006
A Friday night meme
Like last week, I have the luxury of being home alone on a Friday night...Like last week, I chose not to accompany GF to a party full of people I wouldn't know, this time annoying film people, which would make me want to poke my eyes out. I know this, having gone to this annual party before and having had an excrutiating time.
Instead, before I eat corn on the cob and clean my floors, I will do this nice little meme I saw at New Kid on the Hallway's.
1. Three things that scare me:
- dragonflies
- bears
- ghost stories
2. Three people who make me laugh:
- My girlfriend
- My best friend, S
- My good friend, A, who should be doing standup instead of teaching pubescent kids - although I guess hilariousness does come in handy in that job...
3. Three things I hate the most:
- People parking or driving in bicycle lanes
- People who pretend they've never met you when they've met you, like, twenty times
- Lying to get ahead
4. Three things I don't understand:
- the theory of relativity
- why people don't get that oil is a finite resource
- hateful opposition to same-sex marriage
5. Three things I'm doing right now:
- looking through my excellent pile of mail from today - new Harper's, my subscription tickets to Dance Company, membership card for political organization I joined almost three years ago, (and never got the card until today)
- deciding what to wear to wedding tomorrow
- fretting about money after pricey vet visit today and in advance of motel stay/car rental for wedding tomorrow (don't get paid for three weeks)
6. Three things I want to do before I die:
- visit New Zealand
- tell my father I love him
- learn not to be mean to my mother
7. Three things I can do:
- several obscure dance forms
- swim fast
- speak French
8. Three ways to describe my personality:
- accommodating
- worried
- enthusiastic
9. Three things I can't do:
- type using more than four fingers (though I still do it fast)
- climb things
- pronounce my own name quite properly (since it is from a language I don't speak)
10. Three things I think you should listen to:
- Neko Case's latest album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
- Stephen Lewis's 2005 Massey Lectures on AIDS in Africa, Race Against Time
- the thoughts of lonely relatives who don't have many people to talk to
11. Three things you should never listen to:
- people who are jealous of you
- the discourses of right-wing extremists
- that song that was out in 2001 that went, "Come my lady, come come my lady, you're my butterfly..." - oh, apparently it's called Butterfly, by Crazy Town. Ew [chokes].
12. Three things I'd like to learn:
- German
- Latin
- how to do handy things around the house
13. Three favorite foods:
- mushrooms
- stinky, soft, ripe cheeses - especially sheep or goat
- mango (and all fruits)
14. Three beverages I drink regularly:
- water
- black tea
- that's all I drink day-to-day...next would be various forms of alcohol, I guess
15. Three shows I watched as a kid:
- Gilligan's Island
- Charlie's Angels
- Hammy Hamster
Bonus round!
16. Three things I have on my desk:
- a map of Home City
- a pile of photos of the dog
- a shocking bill for my new cell phone
17. Three things I am grateful for:
- my GF
- my upbringing
- my wonderful new job
Instead, before I eat corn on the cob and clean my floors, I will do this nice little meme I saw at New Kid on the Hallway's.
1. Three things that scare me:
- dragonflies
- bears
- ghost stories
2. Three people who make me laugh:
- My girlfriend
- My best friend, S
- My good friend, A, who should be doing standup instead of teaching pubescent kids - although I guess hilariousness does come in handy in that job...
3. Three things I hate the most:
- People parking or driving in bicycle lanes
- People who pretend they've never met you when they've met you, like, twenty times
- Lying to get ahead
4. Three things I don't understand:
- the theory of relativity
- why people don't get that oil is a finite resource
- hateful opposition to same-sex marriage
5. Three things I'm doing right now:
- looking through my excellent pile of mail from today - new Harper's, my subscription tickets to Dance Company, membership card for political organization I joined almost three years ago, (and never got the card until today)
- deciding what to wear to wedding tomorrow
- fretting about money after pricey vet visit today and in advance of motel stay/car rental for wedding tomorrow (don't get paid for three weeks)
6. Three things I want to do before I die:
- visit New Zealand
- tell my father I love him
- learn not to be mean to my mother
7. Three things I can do:
- several obscure dance forms
- swim fast
- speak French
8. Three ways to describe my personality:
- accommodating
- worried
- enthusiastic
9. Three things I can't do:
- type using more than four fingers (though I still do it fast)
- climb things
- pronounce my own name quite properly (since it is from a language I don't speak)
10. Three things I think you should listen to:
- Neko Case's latest album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
- Stephen Lewis's 2005 Massey Lectures on AIDS in Africa, Race Against Time
- the thoughts of lonely relatives who don't have many people to talk to
11. Three things you should never listen to:
- people who are jealous of you
- the discourses of right-wing extremists
- that song that was out in 2001 that went, "Come my lady, come come my lady, you're my butterfly..." - oh, apparently it's called Butterfly, by Crazy Town. Ew [chokes].
12. Three things I'd like to learn:
- German
- Latin
- how to do handy things around the house
13. Three favorite foods:
- mushrooms
- stinky, soft, ripe cheeses - especially sheep or goat
- mango (and all fruits)
14. Three beverages I drink regularly:
- water
- black tea
- that's all I drink day-to-day...next would be various forms of alcohol, I guess
15. Three shows I watched as a kid:
- Gilligan's Island
- Charlie's Angels
- Hammy Hamster
Bonus round!
16. Three things I have on my desk:
- a map of Home City
- a pile of photos of the dog
- a shocking bill for my new cell phone
17. Three things I am grateful for:
- my GF
- my upbringing
- my wonderful new job
Friday Recipe Blogging: Two Salads
Still following Medieval Woman's footsteps, I am going to post a couple of "recipes" today (see here for her awesomely rich and creamy zucchini casserole).
These were two salads I had this week that knocked me out. I love salad, and I eat it most days, but my salads are pretty much the same old, same old...So I was happy to be served, on two occasions this week, salads that were very different from my usual...
This is Jamie Oliver-style recipe blogging, since I don't actually have exactrecipes for these simple salads that I did not make myself...
RADISH AND APPLE SALAD
This first one is the invention of M., one of the friends I'm staying with in Uni City. He made it for dinner on Tuesday night, and it woke me up with its deliciousness...
Chopped apples
Chopped radishes (i'll bet it would also be good with daikon radish!)
Loads o' fresh mint
Dressing: maple syrup and rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar.
Pour dressing over apples, mint, radishes. YUM.
RADDICHIO AND ROASTED RED PEPPER SALAD
I had this today at my favourite Italian restaurant in my neighbourhood, for lunch. It was the salad special, and I admit that I didn't really notice the "radicchio" part in the description because I was interested in the nut-encrusted baked goat cheese that was to come on top. I don't really like radicchio that much - its bitterness - and was a wee bit dismayed when it came. However, this was such a great combo, with the sweetness of the roasted peppers cutting the bitterness.
2 parts finely sliced (lengthwise) raddichio
1 part finely sliced roasted red pepper
Dressing: Balsamic vinegar and olive oil
Toss everything into a lovely, purple and red tangle. Perhaps you will choose to put baked nut-encrusted goat cheese on top, on a crostini. Or not. It will be delicious without it, too.
These were two salads I had this week that knocked me out. I love salad, and I eat it most days, but my salads are pretty much the same old, same old...So I was happy to be served, on two occasions this week, salads that were very different from my usual...
This is Jamie Oliver-style recipe blogging, since I don't actually have exactrecipes for these simple salads that I did not make myself...
RADISH AND APPLE SALAD
This first one is the invention of M., one of the friends I'm staying with in Uni City. He made it for dinner on Tuesday night, and it woke me up with its deliciousness...
Chopped apples
Chopped radishes (i'll bet it would also be good with daikon radish!)
Loads o' fresh mint
Dressing: maple syrup and rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar.
Pour dressing over apples, mint, radishes. YUM.
RADDICHIO AND ROASTED RED PEPPER SALAD
I had this today at my favourite Italian restaurant in my neighbourhood, for lunch. It was the salad special, and I admit that I didn't really notice the "radicchio" part in the description because I was interested in the nut-encrusted baked goat cheese that was to come on top. I don't really like radicchio that much - its bitterness - and was a wee bit dismayed when it came. However, this was such a great combo, with the sweetness of the roasted peppers cutting the bitterness.
2 parts finely sliced (lengthwise) raddichio
1 part finely sliced roasted red pepper
Dressing: Balsamic vinegar and olive oil
Toss everything into a lovely, purple and red tangle. Perhaps you will choose to put baked nut-encrusted goat cheese on top, on a crostini. Or not. It will be delicious without it, too.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Random week's-end observations
No, it's not really the end of the week, but it's the end of my week in University City, which will, until December, see me there from very early Monday morning until very late Thursday night...
- That constitutes observation #1. I'm tired. I got home at 5:30 (about 6 hours earlier than I will, once classes start) and slunk down in front of the TV, and now am having a nightcappish drink at 7pm. Not exactly how I normally live my life. And I haven't even taught yet! I have to say, I'm apprehensive about four long days in a row - and they will of necessity be long days because of my bizarre all-evening teaching schedule (yes, three nights a week, two of them in a row) - in University City, staying in someone else's home. Especially because I'm always lugging shit around - my neck hurts, too. I don't think this year is going to be easy on the body.
- Really, though, I am so lucky. Going into next week - the first week of teaching - I reflect on the logistics of my year. Last year, my first, I had 130 students, three new preps at a time, and completely alarming first-year students in an Intro to the discipline. This year, I have 50 students, two preps because I teach the same class twice, one class per term that I've taught before, and only third- and fourth-year students. I wonder if I will ever have such a good teaching year again.
- One of my new departmental colleagues pulled me into her office for a nice chat the other day. She is, as is everyone, lovely. She brought up the tenure-track posting the department will have this year, telling me again I'd be well-positioned for it. I did make a wee blunder - I told her I prefer teaching upper-year students, which prompted her to tell me that I'd have to teach the Intro if I were here in the long term. Of course, I said - I would expect to have to teach the Intro wherever I end up. And I mean that - I wouldn't expect to be exempt from that as a junior faculty member. Anyway, anyway, I hope she wasn't put off by that. They keep telling me about this position. I can't help but get my own hopes up. Eee.
- As per my decision to take up another form of dance now that I'm not doing The Activity - a dance form - anymore, I looked into a bunch of options. There are many more choices in Home City, but they don't really work with my schedule, since it would have to be on the weekend and I'm going to be away constantly in the fall. So I was leaning toward the default, adult ballet (ballet not being my first choice) in Uni City on Tuesday nights. I was waffling, though, because of my fatiguing schedule. In my waffling yesterday - just before I was about to leave the office to go and register - I noticed for the first time the directive on the dance school's website that in the teen and adult ballet classes, you must wear a black leotard, pink tights, and pink ballet slippers.
That made my decision for me. No way. And it's not really a question of what I'd be wearing (though I really, really don't relish a leotard), but rather that I can't stand having a uniform dictated like that. For beginner classes, for chrissakes. For adults. I'd rather wait till my schedule opens up and be able to take dance at what is really the best possible place in the country, in Home City, with no sartorial requirements whatsoever. Down with dance fascism!
Off to finish my nightcap and read some blogs. I'm so liking reading blogs these days - all about the first days back, new roles, old roles redefined...
- That constitutes observation #1. I'm tired. I got home at 5:30 (about 6 hours earlier than I will, once classes start) and slunk down in front of the TV, and now am having a nightcappish drink at 7pm. Not exactly how I normally live my life. And I haven't even taught yet! I have to say, I'm apprehensive about four long days in a row - and they will of necessity be long days because of my bizarre all-evening teaching schedule (yes, three nights a week, two of them in a row) - in University City, staying in someone else's home. Especially because I'm always lugging shit around - my neck hurts, too. I don't think this year is going to be easy on the body.
- Really, though, I am so lucky. Going into next week - the first week of teaching - I reflect on the logistics of my year. Last year, my first, I had 130 students, three new preps at a time, and completely alarming first-year students in an Intro to the discipline. This year, I have 50 students, two preps because I teach the same class twice, one class per term that I've taught before, and only third- and fourth-year students. I wonder if I will ever have such a good teaching year again.
- One of my new departmental colleagues pulled me into her office for a nice chat the other day. She is, as is everyone, lovely. She brought up the tenure-track posting the department will have this year, telling me again I'd be well-positioned for it. I did make a wee blunder - I told her I prefer teaching upper-year students, which prompted her to tell me that I'd have to teach the Intro if I were here in the long term. Of course, I said - I would expect to have to teach the Intro wherever I end up. And I mean that - I wouldn't expect to be exempt from that as a junior faculty member. Anyway, anyway, I hope she wasn't put off by that. They keep telling me about this position. I can't help but get my own hopes up. Eee.
- As per my decision to take up another form of dance now that I'm not doing The Activity - a dance form - anymore, I looked into a bunch of options. There are many more choices in Home City, but they don't really work with my schedule, since it would have to be on the weekend and I'm going to be away constantly in the fall. So I was leaning toward the default, adult ballet (ballet not being my first choice) in Uni City on Tuesday nights. I was waffling, though, because of my fatiguing schedule. In my waffling yesterday - just before I was about to leave the office to go and register - I noticed for the first time the directive on the dance school's website that in the teen and adult ballet classes, you must wear a black leotard, pink tights, and pink ballet slippers.
That made my decision for me. No way. And it's not really a question of what I'd be wearing (though I really, really don't relish a leotard), but rather that I can't stand having a uniform dictated like that. For beginner classes, for chrissakes. For adults. I'd rather wait till my schedule opens up and be able to take dance at what is really the best possible place in the country, in Home City, with no sartorial requirements whatsoever. Down with dance fascism!
Off to finish my nightcap and read some blogs. I'm so liking reading blogs these days - all about the first days back, new roles, old roles redefined...
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Driving and advising
So what of the first-year advising I wrote about the other day? (Thanks to folks for your suggestions, by the way – especially Bardiac!)
Well, I needed to get up at an ungodly pre-dawn hour, after very few hours sleep (due, I guess, to subconscious nerves that I have been unable to source) to get my way to the Greyhound station yesterday morning, which would get me to New University City (NUC) with plenty of time to get to the university and plan out what I would say to these poor new students. Except as it turned out, the bus schedule changed on Tuesday, and I missed the bus to NUC by 5 minutes.
There was sobbing in the bus station, let me tell you. This was my first real obligation at this new job where I want to keep options open and show them what a valuable and committed faculty member I am, and I was going to miss it!
Then I remembered that there was a car rental place around the corner. Now, you may remember that last Tuesday, I was unwilling to make the rented-car drive to NUC on my own – I’ve never really driven alone, and certainly not on the highway! – and so made someone come with me to drive the terrifying, fourteen-lane part. This time, there was no such person on the horizon. The clock was ticking, and I needed to get there, dammit. So I waited, still teary – this time more from fear than anything else – until they opened, and then rented myself a small car and drove here!! By myself! Granted, I didn’t use the major highway until I got lost on the back-road highway that was slowing me down, but I did use it, in the end (when it was down to six lanes)! And I even sped a lot (naughty me) and I got here in one piece, and with three minutes to spare.
The funny thing was, I entered an unprecedented Zone of Calm on this drive. Normally I am such an anxious driver that it becomes, potentially, dangerous. I think something in me knew that I would die – or at least not make it – if I didn’t calm the hell down. So I did. I demonstrated grace under pressure, which I didn’t, frankly, know I could do. In fact, I drove a thousand times better than I usually have – I usually do some erratic things. Those were banished. Forever, I sense.
This might sound like nothing to those of you who’ve been driving since you were sixteen. But it was a huge triumph for me. Yay, me!
The bad part was that because I arrived three minutes before my advising session began, I had had no time to plan what I was going to say. And the nerves and adrenaline that I had suppressed during my entry into the Zone of Calm all flared up as soon as I got out of the car and realized what I had just done. So I was, ahem, not at my best. And anyway, half my group didn’t show up to this supposedly mandatory session. But I’m taking Bardiac’s advice and maintaining regular contact with them over email, and I have strongly urged them to come and meet with me one-on-one over the next week. I could tell a couple of them were really scared – one looked to be on the verge of tears – but not wanting to admit it in front of each other. Seeing me alone might make it feel easier to talk about that.
And my department and little hallway continue to be glorious places of fun and chat and loveliness…
So it’s all good…And I’m a Real Live driver, now.
Well, I needed to get up at an ungodly pre-dawn hour, after very few hours sleep (due, I guess, to subconscious nerves that I have been unable to source) to get my way to the Greyhound station yesterday morning, which would get me to New University City (NUC) with plenty of time to get to the university and plan out what I would say to these poor new students. Except as it turned out, the bus schedule changed on Tuesday, and I missed the bus to NUC by 5 minutes.
There was sobbing in the bus station, let me tell you. This was my first real obligation at this new job where I want to keep options open and show them what a valuable and committed faculty member I am, and I was going to miss it!
Then I remembered that there was a car rental place around the corner. Now, you may remember that last Tuesday, I was unwilling to make the rented-car drive to NUC on my own – I’ve never really driven alone, and certainly not on the highway! – and so made someone come with me to drive the terrifying, fourteen-lane part. This time, there was no such person on the horizon. The clock was ticking, and I needed to get there, dammit. So I waited, still teary – this time more from fear than anything else – until they opened, and then rented myself a small car and drove here!! By myself! Granted, I didn’t use the major highway until I got lost on the back-road highway that was slowing me down, but I did use it, in the end (when it was down to six lanes)! And I even sped a lot (naughty me) and I got here in one piece, and with three minutes to spare.
The funny thing was, I entered an unprecedented Zone of Calm on this drive. Normally I am such an anxious driver that it becomes, potentially, dangerous. I think something in me knew that I would die – or at least not make it – if I didn’t calm the hell down. So I did. I demonstrated grace under pressure, which I didn’t, frankly, know I could do. In fact, I drove a thousand times better than I usually have – I usually do some erratic things. Those were banished. Forever, I sense.
This might sound like nothing to those of you who’ve been driving since you were sixteen. But it was a huge triumph for me. Yay, me!
The bad part was that because I arrived three minutes before my advising session began, I had had no time to plan what I was going to say. And the nerves and adrenaline that I had suppressed during my entry into the Zone of Calm all flared up as soon as I got out of the car and realized what I had just done. So I was, ahem, not at my best. And anyway, half my group didn’t show up to this supposedly mandatory session. But I’m taking Bardiac’s advice and maintaining regular contact with them over email, and I have strongly urged them to come and meet with me one-on-one over the next week. I could tell a couple of them were really scared – one looked to be on the verge of tears – but not wanting to admit it in front of each other. Seeing me alone might make it feel easier to talk about that.
And my department and little hallway continue to be glorious places of fun and chat and loveliness…
So it’s all good…And I’m a Real Live driver, now.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Advise me on advising?
Tomorrow I have to Advise. I have to advise first-year students in a group, and later in the week, one-on-one. I’ve never done this before, this formal advising thing, nor did I ever have to participate in it myself as a first-year undergraduate student. But New University has an intensive first-year advising system in place, which requires all full-time faculty and staff to be responsible for a handful of incoming students, tracking them through the year.
Now, I have tips on what to talk to them about tomorrow, but I’m interested in starting to think about what this role means, represents, and how I should approach it in a larger sense. Last year, in my first year of full-time teaching, I had a goodly number of my own students come to me informally for advising-ish functions – students told me they feel comfortable talking to me about their lives. But that was haphazard, and I never felt as if I knew quite what to do or what to say, or just what my function was supposed to be. It seemed to work; they were happy, and gave me grateful cards and such – but I didn’t like that I was doing it without clarifying a sort of philosophy of advising for myself.
If any of you who are more experienced advisors have any tips for me on the kinds of things you see as central to this advising experience, from the perspective of professor, I would love to hear them. Also, if you have a sense of what I might say to terrified first-year students tomorrow – besides “it’s important to go to class, do the readings, hand in work on time, and drop courses instead of failing them,” as I’ve been instructed – bring it on.
I’m sure I will post on this again, as I develop the role throughout this week and the year, and figure out what it means to me to be an advisor…
Now, I have tips on what to talk to them about tomorrow, but I’m interested in starting to think about what this role means, represents, and how I should approach it in a larger sense. Last year, in my first year of full-time teaching, I had a goodly number of my own students come to me informally for advising-ish functions – students told me they feel comfortable talking to me about their lives. But that was haphazard, and I never felt as if I knew quite what to do or what to say, or just what my function was supposed to be. It seemed to work; they were happy, and gave me grateful cards and such – but I didn’t like that I was doing it without clarifying a sort of philosophy of advising for myself.
If any of you who are more experienced advisors have any tips for me on the kinds of things you see as central to this advising experience, from the perspective of professor, I would love to hear them. Also, if you have a sense of what I might say to terrified first-year students tomorrow – besides “it’s important to go to class, do the readings, hand in work on time, and drop courses instead of failing them,” as I’ve been instructed – bring it on.
I’m sure I will post on this again, as I develop the role throughout this week and the year, and figure out what it means to me to be an advisor…
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Clothing-Related Issues
Some random clothing observations from my week:
- What was with that awful outfit Jennifer Lopez was wearing at the MTV Awards? Good lord. I practically had to shield my eyes...what was that?
- I went to a faculty event at New University on Thursday at lunch. My Dean was there. She was wearing Birkenstocks, capri pants, and a very deep tan. I was so surprised that I had to go back and look at her picture online to be sure that was really her (I didn't meet her). Sure enough, it was. What can I say? Though I like dressing up a bit myself, I find it heartening to see a Dean at a faculty/staff event in clothes like that. Talk about approachable.
- GF and I went out shopping for a couple of hours yesterday. She wanted to buy me some new clothes, as she has often done as a kind of back-to-school gift. Such a sweetie. Anyway, I found the early part of this trip distressing. I hate, really hate, the 80s thing that is in full swing now. I know many of you love it, skinny jeans and all. But I can't stand it, especially the skinny jeans. And all I was seeing, at these cookie-cutter stores, was 80s fashions in this grey, black and white palette. Ugh. I mean, I like grey, white and black, but I also like some colour - and not red, which reminds me, when in combination with black, grey and white, of 1986! I descended into bitchiness until we got to an area where there were finally some different kinds of things by local designers. Lo and behold, colour! References from decades other than the 80s ! I came away without finding badly needed new pants, but did pick up these two tops by local folks, both of which were inexpensive, and which I love a lot:
This pink one is fairly casual, but I think I could pull it off with either the pants or the skirt of a pink suit that GF had custom-made for me as my 30th birthday present. And hey, if the Dean goes around in Birkenstocks and capris, why not me in this shirt?
- What was with that awful outfit Jennifer Lopez was wearing at the MTV Awards? Good lord. I practically had to shield my eyes...what was that?
- I went to a faculty event at New University on Thursday at lunch. My Dean was there. She was wearing Birkenstocks, capri pants, and a very deep tan. I was so surprised that I had to go back and look at her picture online to be sure that was really her (I didn't meet her). Sure enough, it was. What can I say? Though I like dressing up a bit myself, I find it heartening to see a Dean at a faculty/staff event in clothes like that. Talk about approachable.
- GF and I went out shopping for a couple of hours yesterday. She wanted to buy me some new clothes, as she has often done as a kind of back-to-school gift. Such a sweetie. Anyway, I found the early part of this trip distressing. I hate, really hate, the 80s thing that is in full swing now. I know many of you love it, skinny jeans and all. But I can't stand it, especially the skinny jeans. And all I was seeing, at these cookie-cutter stores, was 80s fashions in this grey, black and white palette. Ugh. I mean, I like grey, white and black, but I also like some colour - and not red, which reminds me, when in combination with black, grey and white, of 1986! I descended into bitchiness until we got to an area where there were finally some different kinds of things by local designers. Lo and behold, colour! References from decades other than the 80s ! I came away without finding badly needed new pants, but did pick up these two tops by local folks, both of which were inexpensive, and which I love a lot:
This pink one is fairly casual, but I think I could pull it off with either the pants or the skirt of a pink suit that GF had custom-made for me as my 30th birthday present. And hey, if the Dean goes around in Birkenstocks and capris, why not me in this shirt?
Friday, September 01, 2006
Friday Recipe Blogging: Best Banana Muffins
OK, so what is it about being at home - cleaning floors, and doing laundry - on a Friday night that I like so much? I think it's that I'm here alone...GF is out at a party to which we were both invited, where neither of us really knows anyone. I said, "uh gee, sounds like a barrel of laughs, but no thanks", knowing that I always like the Friday-night-at-home-alone thing -- even with housework, which I don't generally like. Although I don't have a regular 9-5 workweek, the world's appreciation of Friday nights definitely factors in to this - it feels like stolen time, or holiday...
So I'll also blog tomorrow's breakfast, these muffins This is my standby muffin recipe - when I first discovered it, I made it at least once a week. So, so delicious. It takes about two seconds and uses things I always have on hand (including a freezer full of bananas). It's adapted from The New Lighthearted Cookbook, by Anne Lindsay, which is generally a pretty blah and uninspiring "heart healthy" cookbook - but for these.
WHOLE WHEAT BANANA BRAN MUFFINS
NOTES: I always use three good-sized bananas, and always from the freezer (I thaw them in fridge overnight or microwave on the day). I think this ends up being a fair amount more than the recipe calls for, and is what makes these so moist and yum! Also, my oven bakes these in 18 minutes, not 25. Watch out!
3/4 cup wheat bran
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup mashed banana (remember, 3 bananas!!)
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk or plain, low-fat yogurt
1/2 cup canola oil
In bowl, combine bran, flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda; mix well. Add bananas, egg, buttermilk or yogurt, and oil; stir until just combined.
Spoon batter into paper-lined or nonstick muffin tins. Bake in 400 degree F oven for 25 minutes or until firm to the touch.
Makes 12 muffins.
So I'll also blog tomorrow's breakfast, these muffins This is my standby muffin recipe - when I first discovered it, I made it at least once a week. So, so delicious. It takes about two seconds and uses things I always have on hand (including a freezer full of bananas). It's adapted from The New Lighthearted Cookbook, by Anne Lindsay, which is generally a pretty blah and uninspiring "heart healthy" cookbook - but for these.
WHOLE WHEAT BANANA BRAN MUFFINS
NOTES: I always use three good-sized bananas, and always from the freezer (I thaw them in fridge overnight or microwave on the day). I think this ends up being a fair amount more than the recipe calls for, and is what makes these so moist and yum! Also, my oven bakes these in 18 minutes, not 25. Watch out!
3/4 cup wheat bran
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup mashed banana (remember, 3 bananas!!)
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk or plain, low-fat yogurt
1/2 cup canola oil
In bowl, combine bran, flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda; mix well. Add bananas, egg, buttermilk or yogurt, and oil; stir until just combined.
Spoon batter into paper-lined or nonstick muffin tins. Bake in 400 degree F oven for 25 minutes or until firm to the touch.
Makes 12 muffins.
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