OMG - my Chair just walked in with a young woman and said, "Allow me to introduce you to your new TA!" And she's a grad student!!
I had been told that I would get an undergrad, which I frankly was not thrilled with. I designed the course assignments accordingly, and readied myself for grading purgatory in this 90-student first-year class - I didn't figure an undergrad could do the grading of a lot of the work I would be assigning, especially if I hadn't met them or taught them and had no idea of their skills and abilities.
Lo and behold, Chair turned up with a grad student for me. This lifts the grading burden SO much. In fact, I just roughed out the hours that it would take for her to do most of the grading - with the exception of the critical reading responses and the essay questions on the final exam - and she can, I think, do it ALL within her allotted hours.
I spoke with her for a while and she's very smart and cool.
People, I am so happy. I cannot tell you how much easier I will breathe starting today.
And right after that, I went down to a colleague's office because she'd said she had a whole lot of books she wanted to offer to me. I came with two dozen awesome, current, right-up-my-alley, so-helpful-for-teaching books!!!
Also: on Monday I sent off my revisions on the article that was recently accepted, and just today I sent off the article I've been working on recently. In the end, I opted to send it to a "chemical engineering" journal instead of the "haiku" one. This was because, after taking ten days away from it, I reread it and thought it wouldn't really work in the haiku journal - it was too chemical-engineering jargony. It would require too much revision to really make it haiku-suitable. Next time.
A happy, happy day!!!
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Entertainment
Today was a bewildering day.
It is time for a curmudgeonly post, focusing on a complaint we've all heard before. But I have to ask:
Why the need to constantly entertain students?
This was Orientation Day. I sat dutifully at a table outside, dripping sweat in the glaring sun, with my Chair, doing a song and dance to students who walked by with sno-cones and cotton candy and free pizzas. All they wanted, really, was the melting candy on the edge of our table. Not to hear about our programs, no, not that! Heavens! Programs? Majors? What are those?
The department next to us was throwing free t-shirts into the crowd. Club music was thumping. Kids were playing whatever that game is where you put helmets on and get into a ring and try to beat each other up with giant, soft...oars...? There were more banks than academic departments there.
It's not like I'm down on fun. It's not like I'm against entertainment - hell, I just came home from a long day at the uni and settled down to watch three episodes of Queer as Folk (which I've never seen before beginning Season 1 last night). And contemplated having a drink or four, though decided against opening up a bottle of wine.
But it's as if we are ashamed of ourselves, of what we do, of what a university is fundamentally about. Which is learning. And learning can be fun, dammit. My classes, which are often filled with explosions of hilarity, are some good times. But it's fun in a different way. That's the thing. By starting off the year on this foot, we are not acknowledging the different way of Being that academia can represent.
And it also strikes me that in a way, that's not doing what we're supposed to be doing, which is broadening horizons and encouraging critical thinking 'n' shit. That would require a step away from the entertainment monoculture. And that's a step that the institutions seem almost afraid to take. There's an insecurity, a "please like me," attached to so much of this. I don't know what for. It doesn't seem to me there's any danger of students fleeing the university because it doesn't serve sno-cones.
Sure, I get that we need to "hook" them. But they're smarter than this stuff gives them credit for. I can imagine Orientations that look Fun, that draw students in, but that move away from this branded nonsense. That begin to model, amongst the fun, some of the really intriguing ways of Being that learning might open up for them.
Jeez.
It is time for a curmudgeonly post, focusing on a complaint we've all heard before. But I have to ask:
Why the need to constantly entertain students?
This was Orientation Day. I sat dutifully at a table outside, dripping sweat in the glaring sun, with my Chair, doing a song and dance to students who walked by with sno-cones and cotton candy and free pizzas. All they wanted, really, was the melting candy on the edge of our table. Not to hear about our programs, no, not that! Heavens! Programs? Majors? What are those?
The department next to us was throwing free t-shirts into the crowd. Club music was thumping. Kids were playing whatever that game is where you put helmets on and get into a ring and try to beat each other up with giant, soft...oars...? There were more banks than academic departments there.
It's not like I'm down on fun. It's not like I'm against entertainment - hell, I just came home from a long day at the uni and settled down to watch three episodes of Queer as Folk (which I've never seen before beginning Season 1 last night). And contemplated having a drink or four, though decided against opening up a bottle of wine.
But it's as if we are ashamed of ourselves, of what we do, of what a university is fundamentally about. Which is learning. And learning can be fun, dammit. My classes, which are often filled with explosions of hilarity, are some good times. But it's fun in a different way. That's the thing. By starting off the year on this foot, we are not acknowledging the different way of Being that academia can represent.
And it also strikes me that in a way, that's not doing what we're supposed to be doing, which is broadening horizons and encouraging critical thinking 'n' shit. That would require a step away from the entertainment monoculture. And that's a step that the institutions seem almost afraid to take. There's an insecurity, a "please like me," attached to so much of this. I don't know what for. It doesn't seem to me there's any danger of students fleeing the university because it doesn't serve sno-cones.
Sure, I get that we need to "hook" them. But they're smarter than this stuff gives them credit for. I can imagine Orientations that look Fun, that draw students in, but that move away from this branded nonsense. That begin to model, amongst the fun, some of the really intriguing ways of Being that learning might open up for them.
Jeez.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Labour Day: Goals for the new academic year
Labour Day (that most depressing of days, along with New Year's Day, in my experience) seems a perfect time to figure out my goals for the year. It starts this week; classes start Wednesday, I start on Thursday. I am so. not. there. I have been absent from the university for a good ten days, and can't get myself to think in any real way about my classes beginning. I am actually going to spend all day, Tuesday-Friday, on campus, just to try and immerse myself in the feeling of the place and to show my face like a good little colleague...
So, goals for the next eight months:
TEACHING
1. Learn how to teach classes that meet twice a week instead of only once a week, for three hours. I've never done the two eighty-minute sessions thing; I'm a little worried that I've assigned too much reading in both courses. I need to closely gauge all of that.
2. Employ many small exercises in my 85-90 person lecture, which doesn't have a tutorial. (Boo!!) Resist the urge to just lecture; be creative in there. (Suggestions most welcome!)
3. Learn the rudiments of WebCT so that I can "pilot" its use in one of my winter courses (before they roll out a brand new Web program for next year - ha).
4. Make sure, with my Intro class, that I teach every class with goals in mind: goals for both that particular class period, and for how the class will contribute to the foundation of their knowledge in this discipline.
SERVICE/ADMIN/NEW COLLEAGUE-NESS
1. Learn how this place works, for goodness sake! It has a very mysterious structure (and one that, from what I have been able to piece together so far, is going to royally piss me off).
2. Advocate for my needs and the needs of my program and its students -- some of which are quite urgent -- in the context of this INSANE structure, while stepping on as few toes as possible.
3. Add four courses to the program, change prereqs, etc., on two existing ones, and change the structure of the first-year course to a two-hour lecture with tutorials. (Good.lord.)
4. Then get a guarantee that I can have a graduate student TA for next year (see number 2, above).
5. Perhaps start the process of turning the program into a major - that will depend on a few factors.
RESEARCH
1. Complete major funding application on time and to my own satisfaction
2. Draft first chapter of book project, partly by stitching together conference papers
3. Read in newish area that is very important to overall book project
4. Determine whether to apply for special program at fancy Institute, by January
5. Investigate co-editing a collection of essays
6. Send out article I'm finishing up right now.
BODY/EXERCISE
1. Run at the rate I'm running right now - 4x a weekish, with one long run per week, and ramp up in January to do early spring half-marathon
2. Do Pilates exercises for core stability (which I began yesterday, yay!)
3. Eat more protein
4. Cut down on sugar (a bit! - one has to have some joy, after all...)
5. Find a good doctor in this city, and get checked for recurrent chest pains.
6. Find a way to dance - some of this will involve traveling to do a kind of dancing I can't do here, but that brings me more joy than almost anything ever has.
7. Make sure I get out cross-country skiing lots in the winter (the no-car thing makes it challenging...)
HAVING A LIFE
1. Talk on the phone lots to feel connected to my people in Home City/Area
2. Avoid incessantly talking about work at social occasions
3. Cultivate friendships with people who aren't academics
4. Find a friend here with whom I can sit on my couch and drink wine and chat entirely honestly and comfortably for hours and hours on end (Faux-Girlfriend, I miss you!!)
4. Have lots of visits with my very good friend, C, who has lived in European City That She Researches for years but has landed a Visiting Position in Nearest Metropolis, for this year.
5. Rent videos, even though the video store is a bit of a hike...
6. Blogger meet-ups, dare I hope?
That's plenty to think about, no? So, here I go then.
So, goals for the next eight months:
TEACHING
1. Learn how to teach classes that meet twice a week instead of only once a week, for three hours. I've never done the two eighty-minute sessions thing; I'm a little worried that I've assigned too much reading in both courses. I need to closely gauge all of that.
2. Employ many small exercises in my 85-90 person lecture, which doesn't have a tutorial. (Boo!!) Resist the urge to just lecture; be creative in there. (Suggestions most welcome!)
3. Learn the rudiments of WebCT so that I can "pilot" its use in one of my winter courses (before they roll out a brand new Web program for next year - ha).
4. Make sure, with my Intro class, that I teach every class with goals in mind: goals for both that particular class period, and for how the class will contribute to the foundation of their knowledge in this discipline.
SERVICE/ADMIN/NEW COLLEAGUE-NESS
1. Learn how this place works, for goodness sake! It has a very mysterious structure (and one that, from what I have been able to piece together so far, is going to royally piss me off).
2. Advocate for my needs and the needs of my program and its students -- some of which are quite urgent -- in the context of this INSANE structure, while stepping on as few toes as possible.
3. Add four courses to the program, change prereqs, etc., on two existing ones, and change the structure of the first-year course to a two-hour lecture with tutorials. (Good.lord.)
4. Then get a guarantee that I can have a graduate student TA for next year (see number 2, above).
5. Perhaps start the process of turning the program into a major - that will depend on a few factors.
RESEARCH
1. Complete major funding application on time and to my own satisfaction
2. Draft first chapter of book project, partly by stitching together conference papers
3. Read in newish area that is very important to overall book project
4. Determine whether to apply for special program at fancy Institute, by January
5. Investigate co-editing a collection of essays
6. Send out article I'm finishing up right now.
BODY/EXERCISE
1. Run at the rate I'm running right now - 4x a weekish, with one long run per week, and ramp up in January to do early spring half-marathon
2. Do Pilates exercises for core stability (which I began yesterday, yay!)
3. Eat more protein
4. Cut down on sugar (a bit! - one has to have some joy, after all...)
5. Find a good doctor in this city, and get checked for recurrent chest pains.
6. Find a way to dance - some of this will involve traveling to do a kind of dancing I can't do here, but that brings me more joy than almost anything ever has.
7. Make sure I get out cross-country skiing lots in the winter (the no-car thing makes it challenging...)
HAVING A LIFE
1. Talk on the phone lots to feel connected to my people in Home City/Area
2. Avoid incessantly talking about work at social occasions
3. Cultivate friendships with people who aren't academics
4. Find a friend here with whom I can sit on my couch and drink wine and chat entirely honestly and comfortably for hours and hours on end (Faux-Girlfriend, I miss you!!)
4. Have lots of visits with my very good friend, C, who has lived in European City That She Researches for years but has landed a Visiting Position in Nearest Metropolis, for this year.
5. Rent videos, even though the video store is a bit of a hike...
6. Blogger meet-ups, dare I hope?
That's plenty to think about, no? So, here I go then.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Can't resist a meme...
Making the rounds, most recently seen at MaggieMay's...And perfect for the end of a day filled first with much too much gravitas and then lots and lots of laughter.
4 first names of crushes:
1. Simone (my first real "love"...at 16/17...one of my best friends around then, and for many years after. For a long time, Simone was to be the name of my daughter. Now I know there will be no daughter! BUt she would still be Simone!)
2. Peter (16-year-old giddiness)
3. Lilia (danger - no comment)
4. Julie (a current friend, with whom I started out by wildly crushing out on her...)
4 Pieces of Clothing I wish I still owned (and/or that still fit):
1. vintage green crushed velvet cocktail dress (from some super-skinny days)
2. spring green featherweight long-sleeve t-shirt, which I've recently lost
3. grey nubby wool mid-season jacket - why did I give that to the Goodwill a few months ago???
4. pink and grey, very thin, hooded sweatshirt I lost at dance camp in 2003 (to be precise!)
4 names I've been called at one time or another:
1. MC Ileola
2. Puppy
3. Fucksy
4. Eep
4 Professions I secretly Want to Try:
1. professional dancer
2. novelist
3. policy analyst for an activist organization
4. proprietor of pretty, much-loved urban cafe
4 Musicians I'd most want to go on a date with:
1. Neko Case
2. Lucinda Willliams
3. Feist
4. Roger Daltrey circa Woodstock
4 Foods I'd rather Throw than Eat
1. horseradish (including wasabi)
2. marshmallow
3. custard of any sort
4. chicken (I'm a longtime vegetarian. But not a meat-loathing one. Even when I was eating meat, though, I was SO over chicken.)
4 Things I Like to Sniff
1. sun-warmed cedar forest
2. berry-scented things
3. an orange being peeled when I don't expect it
4. the steam from dryer vents
4 people I tag (but, uh, no pressure):
1. Heu mihi
2. Medieval Woman
3. Squadratomagico
4. Psychgrad
4 first names of crushes:
1. Simone (my first real "love"...at 16/17...one of my best friends around then, and for many years after. For a long time, Simone was to be the name of my daughter. Now I know there will be no daughter! BUt she would still be Simone!)
2. Peter (16-year-old giddiness)
3. Lilia (danger - no comment)
4. Julie (a current friend, with whom I started out by wildly crushing out on her...)
4 Pieces of Clothing I wish I still owned (and/or that still fit):
1. vintage green crushed velvet cocktail dress (from some super-skinny days)
2. spring green featherweight long-sleeve t-shirt, which I've recently lost
3. grey nubby wool mid-season jacket - why did I give that to the Goodwill a few months ago???
4. pink and grey, very thin, hooded sweatshirt I lost at dance camp in 2003 (to be precise!)
4 names I've been called at one time or another:
1. MC Ileola
2. Puppy
3. Fucksy
4. Eep
4 Professions I secretly Want to Try:
1. professional dancer
2. novelist
3. policy analyst for an activist organization
4. proprietor of pretty, much-loved urban cafe
4 Musicians I'd most want to go on a date with:
1. Neko Case
2. Lucinda Willliams
3. Feist
4. Roger Daltrey circa Woodstock
4 Foods I'd rather Throw than Eat
1. horseradish (including wasabi)
2. marshmallow
3. custard of any sort
4. chicken (I'm a longtime vegetarian. But not a meat-loathing one. Even when I was eating meat, though, I was SO over chicken.)
4 Things I Like to Sniff
1. sun-warmed cedar forest
2. berry-scented things
3. an orange being peeled when I don't expect it
4. the steam from dryer vents
4 people I tag (but, uh, no pressure):
1. Heu mihi
2. Medieval Woman
3. Squadratomagico
4. Psychgrad
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Bye-bye, R.
Hello. I know it's been a long silence. I was really just spending time with R. - aside from the day I went to a research orientation, we were together for eight days straight. I kept up with blogs a bit, toward the end of the week, but really was just oriented toward time with her.
It was mostly just us, too - we had a dinner at someone's house on Tuesday night, and I hosted my first dinner party in my place on Thursday night (and pulled off quite a cooking coup, I must say...) But otherwise, it's been a lot of intense together-alone-ness.
She left a couple of hours ago, and it's a strange feeling. I won't see her, probably, for three and a half months. I cried when she left. But now I feel oddly impersonal and papery and unemotional, again. Ugh.
There is no more clarity on anything, really. I think there is in her mind, but I'm just so reluctant to commit to anything. I don't know what to make of this. I love her a lot - that much is clear to me - but I am so nervous about the differences between us that led to our demise the first time.
When she was here, we talked - as we sometimes nostalgically do - about our first kiss. Both of us remember it so well. It was one of those magic, electrical moments, oh so intense. Then R said, "I still feel like that, you know. I still get that crazy, swirly feeling in my stomach."
And what did I do? I didn't say, "Me too." I grinned at her for a moment, and then said - and I quote - "Can I tell you something about my toenails?" Classy, eh?
The thing is, I don't really have that feeling anymore - that feeling I had in that first kiss moment, or in the first month or two of the relationship. I didn't think that lasted. Christ - not after everything we've been through. Which doesn't mean I'm not attracted to her, or that we don't have a great connection. But it's just that I don't have the starry, silly, ascendant feeling of those summer weeks five years ago. I wouldn't have imagined she did, either. Or that anyone would, after five years of a challenging relationship.
And that makes me feel bad...as if I'm failing her somehow.
I can't figure out how much of this has to do with my overall weird emotional space. A lot, I suspect. But how to piece it all together when she's not even here, when I don't even see her for months at a time??
For now, though, I'm just sad. I miss her already, and I will be sad sleeping alone again. And back in my emotionless place - because she did rouse feeling in me, if not as much as I'm used to.
Tonight, though, what promises to be a debauched birthday party. And then a barbecue with my Couple-Crush and D, tomorrow night. Some distraction is good.
It was mostly just us, too - we had a dinner at someone's house on Tuesday night, and I hosted my first dinner party in my place on Thursday night (and pulled off quite a cooking coup, I must say...) But otherwise, it's been a lot of intense together-alone-ness.
She left a couple of hours ago, and it's a strange feeling. I won't see her, probably, for three and a half months. I cried when she left. But now I feel oddly impersonal and papery and unemotional, again. Ugh.
There is no more clarity on anything, really. I think there is in her mind, but I'm just so reluctant to commit to anything. I don't know what to make of this. I love her a lot - that much is clear to me - but I am so nervous about the differences between us that led to our demise the first time.
When she was here, we talked - as we sometimes nostalgically do - about our first kiss. Both of us remember it so well. It was one of those magic, electrical moments, oh so intense. Then R said, "I still feel like that, you know. I still get that crazy, swirly feeling in my stomach."
And what did I do? I didn't say, "Me too." I grinned at her for a moment, and then said - and I quote - "Can I tell you something about my toenails?" Classy, eh?
The thing is, I don't really have that feeling anymore - that feeling I had in that first kiss moment, or in the first month or two of the relationship. I didn't think that lasted. Christ - not after everything we've been through. Which doesn't mean I'm not attracted to her, or that we don't have a great connection. But it's just that I don't have the starry, silly, ascendant feeling of those summer weeks five years ago. I wouldn't have imagined she did, either. Or that anyone would, after five years of a challenging relationship.
And that makes me feel bad...as if I'm failing her somehow.
I can't figure out how much of this has to do with my overall weird emotional space. A lot, I suspect. But how to piece it all together when she's not even here, when I don't even see her for months at a time??
For now, though, I'm just sad. I miss her already, and I will be sad sleeping alone again. And back in my emotionless place - because she did rouse feeling in me, if not as much as I'm used to.
Tonight, though, what promises to be a debauched birthday party. And then a barbecue with my Couple-Crush and D, tomorrow night. Some distraction is good.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Food blogging
I have had a lovely couple of days away in Little Town. Long drives on Saturday to get there, and today to get back, - much longer than the way the crow flies, because of some geographic features in between CwP and Little Town - but since it was so spectacularly gorgeous, there is no complaining.
R hasn't been in CwP for long - about 24 hours, because of our little excursion to Little Town - but she feels an ambivalence about it that matches mine, I'd guess. So far, she says she thinks it needs to have a sign that says "Sponsored by Viagra." Too, too true.
Anyway, there'll (maybe) be more about that later. For now, I feel the need to food-blog, since I have eaten so, so well over the last four or so days. Beginning with the dinner I made on the first night R was here, which involved everything fresh and local: a salad of spicy greens and roasted beets and local lavender-and-other-herbed goat cheese we'd picked up at the goat-cheesery (where we visited goats), and really spicy puttanesca sauce using some of the best tomatoes I've ever eaten.
But really, what needs to be blogged is the meal we ate on Saturday night in Little Town. It was at one of the best restaurants in the province. I tell you, my friends, it was surely one of the meal highlights of my life. First of all, we sat on this hidden little patio under an enormous, gently covering tree...For an appetizer, I had goat cheese and pear baklava (I'm all about the goats and their cheeses, apparently...) Oh. my. freaking. god. I ate it so slowly, ever so slowly, trying to make it last forever. There was a hole in my life when it was gone. For a main course, I had some kind of "risotto" involving fresh peas and orzo and wild rice and loads of the most aged parmagiano. And then for dessert this insane pecan pie that was, basically, a maple orgasm. I don't even know what to say about it. It was lewd, it was so delicious.
So, yes. Oh so good food. Happiness.
Everything we ate, in fact, was good. Even cheap dinner in Little Town last night, which we ate at a diner, and which involved this crazy-good mint-infused spanakopita and really spicy caesar salad.
And right now I'm having a gin and tonic with cucumber instead of lime, which is my new favourite thing, I must say...
So this is food-blogging. Everything is good...Tomorrow I have a day-long research orientation (so they can really drill into us how important that is at this place...) and then R and I have dinner with a colleague and her partner. It is nice to be back here, to be able to just have a few days of regular life in CwP, so that she can see it...
Hope you are all having good weeks of first days and last days and all the rest!
R hasn't been in CwP for long - about 24 hours, because of our little excursion to Little Town - but she feels an ambivalence about it that matches mine, I'd guess. So far, she says she thinks it needs to have a sign that says "Sponsored by Viagra." Too, too true.
Anyway, there'll (maybe) be more about that later. For now, I feel the need to food-blog, since I have eaten so, so well over the last four or so days. Beginning with the dinner I made on the first night R was here, which involved everything fresh and local: a salad of spicy greens and roasted beets and local lavender-and-other-herbed goat cheese we'd picked up at the goat-cheesery (where we visited goats), and really spicy puttanesca sauce using some of the best tomatoes I've ever eaten.
But really, what needs to be blogged is the meal we ate on Saturday night in Little Town. It was at one of the best restaurants in the province. I tell you, my friends, it was surely one of the meal highlights of my life. First of all, we sat on this hidden little patio under an enormous, gently covering tree...For an appetizer, I had goat cheese and pear baklava (I'm all about the goats and their cheeses, apparently...) Oh. my. freaking. god. I ate it so slowly, ever so slowly, trying to make it last forever. There was a hole in my life when it was gone. For a main course, I had some kind of "risotto" involving fresh peas and orzo and wild rice and loads of the most aged parmagiano. And then for dessert this insane pecan pie that was, basically, a maple orgasm. I don't even know what to say about it. It was lewd, it was so delicious.
So, yes. Oh so good food. Happiness.
Everything we ate, in fact, was good. Even cheap dinner in Little Town last night, which we ate at a diner, and which involved this crazy-good mint-infused spanakopita and really spicy caesar salad.
And right now I'm having a gin and tonic with cucumber instead of lime, which is my new favourite thing, I must say...
So this is food-blogging. Everything is good...Tomorrow I have a day-long research orientation (so they can really drill into us how important that is at this place...) and then R and I have dinner with a colleague and her partner. It is nice to be back here, to be able to just have a few days of regular life in CwP, so that she can see it...
Hope you are all having good weeks of first days and last days and all the rest!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
A Time-killing meme
You know what I feel like? I feel the way I felt when I was about six, and it was Christmas Eve. Wanting so much to be tired so that I could go to sleep, which would eat up the hours until, ta-da, it would be Christmas morning!
I feel this way because R is coming tomorrow morning. And yet it's 9:13pm, and I'm slightly tipsy, from being at a department party, and the house is all cleaned and ready, and I just need something to pass the time.
So, a meme! Perfect, right? Even though I know it's a very oldie, I saw it today at it's probably me. And so I shall do it, in the name of Christmas Eve time-killing...
4 jobs I've had in my life
- hardware store clerk
- executive assistant
- nanny
- advertising department gofer
4 places I've lived
- Calgary
- Ottawa
- Chambery, France
- Lyon
4 favorite foods
- cheese
- mushrooms
- peaches (this week's Fruit of the Week)
- tarte au citron
4 places I'd rather be
- Berlin
- remote Ontario cottage on deep water with many, many trees
- Lyon
- Yorkshire countryside
4 movies I can watch over and over
- The Hours
- Truly Madly Deeply
- Lost in Translation
- Mary Poppins
4 TV shows I like to watch
- The L Word
- The National
- ?? I don't really watch TV - honestly. My TV doesn't even work at the moment, and I haven't thought about it in the month since I realized that. I download the L Word, and watch the National when the TV works...
4 websites I view daily
- Bloglines
- Environment Canada's forecast for my city
- Fastmail
- my family website at myfamily.com
4 computers I've owned
- some ancient Mac
- an expensive something-or-other PC
- A used Dell desktop
- Averatec laptop
4 reasons I love what I do
- I feel challenged, daily
- getting to know amazing students
- learning can be transformative (for people, for the world)
- flexible and self-directed
4 reasons I don't
- University/department politics!!!
- productivity pressures
- incestuousness
- unprepared students
4 books I want to read again
- Persuasion
- The Virgin in the Garden
- The Passion (Winterson)
- Beloved
4 books I never need read again
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (stolen from It's Probably Me - I wholeheartedly agree!)
- The Sufferings of Young Werther
- The Last Spike: The Great Railway 1881-1885
- Maria Chapdelaine
(These are all books I had to read in order to teach them as a TA...)
4 things that make me laugh
- dogs
- R
- my (long-lost?) best friend, S.
- Stephen Colbert
4 things that make me cry
- sad stories about animals
- The Hours (Every time I view this film, I cry. A couple of weeks ago, when I was feeling particularly distant and papery and estranged from myself, I watched it for the sole purpose of making me feel emotionally connected again.)
- leaving students
- The song "Changing Colours," by the Great Lake Swimmers, which happens to be playing on my CD player right now
4 things I'm going to do this year
- write lots of paper letters
- dance
- read fiction
- sort thousands of photos into albums, structures...
I feel this way because R is coming tomorrow morning. And yet it's 9:13pm, and I'm slightly tipsy, from being at a department party, and the house is all cleaned and ready, and I just need something to pass the time.
So, a meme! Perfect, right? Even though I know it's a very oldie, I saw it today at it's probably me. And so I shall do it, in the name of Christmas Eve time-killing...
4 jobs I've had in my life
- hardware store clerk
- executive assistant
- nanny
- advertising department gofer
4 places I've lived
- Calgary
- Ottawa
- Chambery, France
- Lyon
4 favorite foods
- cheese
- mushrooms
- peaches (this week's Fruit of the Week)
- tarte au citron
4 places I'd rather be
- Berlin
- remote Ontario cottage on deep water with many, many trees
- Lyon
- Yorkshire countryside
4 movies I can watch over and over
- The Hours
- Truly Madly Deeply
- Lost in Translation
- Mary Poppins
4 TV shows I like to watch
- The L Word
- The National
- ?? I don't really watch TV - honestly. My TV doesn't even work at the moment, and I haven't thought about it in the month since I realized that. I download the L Word, and watch the National when the TV works...
4 websites I view daily
- Bloglines
- Environment Canada's forecast for my city
- Fastmail
- my family website at myfamily.com
4 computers I've owned
- some ancient Mac
- an expensive something-or-other PC
- A used Dell desktop
- Averatec laptop
4 reasons I love what I do
- I feel challenged, daily
- getting to know amazing students
- learning can be transformative (for people, for the world)
- flexible and self-directed
4 reasons I don't
- University/department politics!!!
- productivity pressures
- incestuousness
- unprepared students
4 books I want to read again
- Persuasion
- The Virgin in the Garden
- The Passion (Winterson)
- Beloved
4 books I never need read again
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (stolen from It's Probably Me - I wholeheartedly agree!)
- The Sufferings of Young Werther
- The Last Spike: The Great Railway 1881-1885
- Maria Chapdelaine
(These are all books I had to read in order to teach them as a TA...)
4 things that make me laugh
- dogs
- R
- my (long-lost?) best friend, S.
- Stephen Colbert
4 things that make me cry
- sad stories about animals
- The Hours (Every time I view this film, I cry. A couple of weeks ago, when I was feeling particularly distant and papery and estranged from myself, I watched it for the sole purpose of making me feel emotionally connected again.)
- leaving students
- The song "Changing Colours," by the Great Lake Swimmers, which happens to be playing on my CD player right now
4 things I'm going to do this year
- write lots of paper letters
- dance
- read fiction
- sort thousands of photos into albums, structures...
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
A visitor
R is arriving on Friday, for eight days. I am full of excitement, cut with a little bit of apprehension.
When we started sleeping together again in May, four months after I'd moved out, there was no sense of what this would mean for us in the long term. Then we watched ourselves slip into a familiar togetherness. What I mareveled at, though, was that - for the most part - even though the togetherness felt familiar, there was something changed about it. A certain tension was gone.
Even more amazing was that R was willing to talk about what was going on between us - almost more willing than I, who didn't know how to make sense of it, and felt worried about that. (Worry...do we sense a theme in Hilaire's life?) Our old, tired pattern had involved R, playing a Brick Wall, and me in the role of Let's-Share. That has shifted in some fundamental way.
R is extraordinary in her willingness to change. Where she felt intransigent before - we both did. We spent a year and a half in counseling, and if I had to pinpoint THE issue between us, it was a kind of unwillingness to compromise. That is no longer the case - at least for her. She has undergone a certain quiet transformation. And I don't know if I can say the same. I don't know if many of us can say the same. It's quite something - she is willing to examine and quietly, selflessly work on almost every bit of herself. I hadn't seen that before - maybe she wasn't willing before. I see it now. I also see how much less willing I am to change, a fact of which I am not proud.
A couple of months ago, she delivered a line to me that floored me. We were out at some dark, noisy, alcohol-saturated event. Having a talk about us - shouting at each other over the music. She said that she had realized that she was willing to give up place - Home City - if it meant she wouldn't have to lose me. I didn't know at that point if I could say the same.
Now I am surer of my feelings. I thought that we needed to see what it was like to be apart, before we tried to make any kind of decision about the future. I wondered if I would push her away once we were so geographically distant. I've found it's not the case. I've found I feel closer to her, and I imagine a future for us. As much, I mean, as I can imagine under the circumstances - we're living thousands of miles apart, in a situation where we will go for months without seeing each other. But I am, I think, willing to explore what it would mean to be together again. Planning life together.
Anyway. Yes. She arrives on Friday morning. We're driving to another town on Saturday, for a couple of days - a place I'm really excited to visit. Will do some hiking and some wandering and some eating there. Then we'll be back here for the rest of her stay, and with a rental car for most of it - so we can explore the area. I'm curious to see what she thinks of this place. As much as it's been an adjustment for me, it will be much more of one for her. Gendered in the way that she is, and with her prickly personality, it could be a disaster in this conservative place. If it's a disaster - if she hates it - that will affect the way I think about my future here.
So it's potentially loaded, this visit. But mostly, I just can't wait to see her.
When we started sleeping together again in May, four months after I'd moved out, there was no sense of what this would mean for us in the long term. Then we watched ourselves slip into a familiar togetherness. What I mareveled at, though, was that - for the most part - even though the togetherness felt familiar, there was something changed about it. A certain tension was gone.
Even more amazing was that R was willing to talk about what was going on between us - almost more willing than I, who didn't know how to make sense of it, and felt worried about that. (Worry...do we sense a theme in Hilaire's life?) Our old, tired pattern had involved R, playing a Brick Wall, and me in the role of Let's-Share. That has shifted in some fundamental way.
R is extraordinary in her willingness to change. Where she felt intransigent before - we both did. We spent a year and a half in counseling, and if I had to pinpoint THE issue between us, it was a kind of unwillingness to compromise. That is no longer the case - at least for her. She has undergone a certain quiet transformation. And I don't know if I can say the same. I don't know if many of us can say the same. It's quite something - she is willing to examine and quietly, selflessly work on almost every bit of herself. I hadn't seen that before - maybe she wasn't willing before. I see it now. I also see how much less willing I am to change, a fact of which I am not proud.
A couple of months ago, she delivered a line to me that floored me. We were out at some dark, noisy, alcohol-saturated event. Having a talk about us - shouting at each other over the music. She said that she had realized that she was willing to give up place - Home City - if it meant she wouldn't have to lose me. I didn't know at that point if I could say the same.
Now I am surer of my feelings. I thought that we needed to see what it was like to be apart, before we tried to make any kind of decision about the future. I wondered if I would push her away once we were so geographically distant. I've found it's not the case. I've found I feel closer to her, and I imagine a future for us. As much, I mean, as I can imagine under the circumstances - we're living thousands of miles apart, in a situation where we will go for months without seeing each other. But I am, I think, willing to explore what it would mean to be together again. Planning life together.
Anyway. Yes. She arrives on Friday morning. We're driving to another town on Saturday, for a couple of days - a place I'm really excited to visit. Will do some hiking and some wandering and some eating there. Then we'll be back here for the rest of her stay, and with a rental car for most of it - so we can explore the area. I'm curious to see what she thinks of this place. As much as it's been an adjustment for me, it will be much more of one for her. Gendered in the way that she is, and with her prickly personality, it could be a disaster in this conservative place. If it's a disaster - if she hates it - that will affect the way I think about my future here.
So it's potentially loaded, this visit. But mostly, I just can't wait to see her.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Random bullets of weekend
I feel much better than I did at midweek...much better. In fact, I feel somewhat embarrassed for so publicly - if anonymously - having a meltdown. After all, when I can get a grip, I see that in fact, things are going very well. I don't have much to complain about! So, sorry about that. My capacities for a) hysterical worry, and b) expecting far too much of myself, are my big downfalls.
So, the weekend?
- As I do religiously every Saturday, I attended the farmer's market yesterday. And now am completely overwhelmed by fruit and vegetables. I get a bit delirious over fresh things (hence the line up there at the top of my blog) but good god, I really do seem to have lost my mind! I don't know how I'm going to get through the stores I've accumulated...what was I thinking? That I have an eight-person family to feed, obviously.
- Also at the market, I am a huge fan of this Chinese vegetarian food vendor...They make these little sweet and sour crispy/chewy soy things that are like little morsels of chicken skin that have been fried for a week and doused in delicious sauce. Though I've been a vegetarian for 17 years, I still loves me the meaty textures. These things are my new favourite treat. Every time I open the fridge, I Must Eat Some.
- In yesterday's Globe and Mail, there was this article by Jian Ghomeshi on Prince that was positively hagiographic. It was ridiculous - and not because I have anything against Prince. On the contrary, I like him very much. Aaaanyway, Ghomeshi talked about Prince's stellar performance at the Super Bowl halftime show in February. Which was apparently some famously amazing phenomenon. (How did I miss hearing about it? I didn't think I was that disconnected from the world!) So I went and looked up videos of it online, and that was one fine performance, it's true. I was surprisingly heartened by it, actually. As an example of somebody's sheer energy and creativity and brilliance cutting through a dead corporate spectacle. (I know, I know, this is very old news...what can I say? This is my weekend, here in CwP.)
- Last night I went to a party. I really dragged my feet getting there - I am not particularly comfortable at big parties, especially where I know almost nobody. But I'd been invited and said I'd go, so I thought I ought not be rude. The first while was excruciating, but it ended up okay. A woman came and talked to me - she's a bit of a well known academic, actually, and had been one of the few non-committee members at my job talk, and had asked me a question that totally threw me, in part because of who she was. So I've always been worried that I looked like a complete airhead around her. But she was wonderfully welcoming, introduced me to her partner, said that R and I should come over for dinner when R's in town so she can see that there are other queers here!, and overall felt like a good new person (and neighbour - lives about three minutes' walk from me) to have around me. Also, she asked me what I was working on and when I gave her a one-sentence description, she told me that she's the editor of a relevant series at a university press and that if I wanted to submit a book proposal to her, she'd love to see it. OMG!
- Today, work. But that's feeling less daunting now - audacious article is coming together (I think) and I finally have some successful SSHRC apps to look at, so that helps a lot.
So, the weekend?
- As I do religiously every Saturday, I attended the farmer's market yesterday. And now am completely overwhelmed by fruit and vegetables. I get a bit delirious over fresh things (hence the line up there at the top of my blog) but good god, I really do seem to have lost my mind! I don't know how I'm going to get through the stores I've accumulated...what was I thinking? That I have an eight-person family to feed, obviously.
- Also at the market, I am a huge fan of this Chinese vegetarian food vendor...They make these little sweet and sour crispy/chewy soy things that are like little morsels of chicken skin that have been fried for a week and doused in delicious sauce. Though I've been a vegetarian for 17 years, I still loves me the meaty textures. These things are my new favourite treat. Every time I open the fridge, I Must Eat Some.
- In yesterday's Globe and Mail, there was this article by Jian Ghomeshi on Prince that was positively hagiographic. It was ridiculous - and not because I have anything against Prince. On the contrary, I like him very much. Aaaanyway, Ghomeshi talked about Prince's stellar performance at the Super Bowl halftime show in February. Which was apparently some famously amazing phenomenon. (How did I miss hearing about it? I didn't think I was that disconnected from the world!) So I went and looked up videos of it online, and that was one fine performance, it's true. I was surprisingly heartened by it, actually. As an example of somebody's sheer energy and creativity and brilliance cutting through a dead corporate spectacle. (I know, I know, this is very old news...what can I say? This is my weekend, here in CwP.)
- Last night I went to a party. I really dragged my feet getting there - I am not particularly comfortable at big parties, especially where I know almost nobody. But I'd been invited and said I'd go, so I thought I ought not be rude. The first while was excruciating, but it ended up okay. A woman came and talked to me - she's a bit of a well known academic, actually, and had been one of the few non-committee members at my job talk, and had asked me a question that totally threw me, in part because of who she was. So I've always been worried that I looked like a complete airhead around her. But she was wonderfully welcoming, introduced me to her partner, said that R and I should come over for dinner when R's in town so she can see that there are other queers here!, and overall felt like a good new person (and neighbour - lives about three minutes' walk from me) to have around me. Also, she asked me what I was working on and when I gave her a one-sentence description, she told me that she's the editor of a relevant series at a university press and that if I wanted to submit a book proposal to her, she'd love to see it. OMG!
- Today, work. But that's feeling less daunting now - audacious article is coming together (I think) and I finally have some successful SSHRC apps to look at, so that helps a lot.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Hurrah!
Just got acceptance for journal article about teaching in the area of my research, which I submitted back in the spring - yay! And the readers' reports are thorough and good. One seems to be smitten with the article, is very effusive, and doesn't suggest much in the way of revisions. The other is more moderated, but also positive. And very smart. Best of all, the revisions aren't that extensive. Worst of all, I have about 2 1/2 weeks to do them - ha ha - along with all the other work I'm doing right now. But still!! Hurrah!!
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