Random Notes

- My writing center shifts have been going well lately, despite having 9 hours/wk these past three weeks instead of six. The CRC shifts have been slow, which is ideal because it lets me do some reading and sometimes give the people who do come some extra time; the Wednesday night shifts have been a good balance of reoccuring meetings with people I've enjoyed helping (an early-30s elementary school vice principal with a great project idea but cutely afraid to start writing his lit review for fear of making a mistake, a cute and incredibly smart Chilean woman doing a PhD in development studies whose English writing skill amaze and shame me), undergrads coming in for various papers, and no-shows. Fridays have been similar. It's a small thing, but it really makes me happy when people come back to see me - unlike working with students, you don't usually get to see the result of your work with WC students, whether or not you actually helped them, so their coming back can be a nice affirmation. I mean, they wouldn't come back if it wasn't helping, right? Except this one kid, poor guy - I keep trying to help him with papers for this one English class, he's been to see me and a few other WC people like 10 times for that class and he's still doing so poorly he needs extra credit. I think that's a personal problem between him and the prof though - and I don't deal with personal problems. (What's that from?)

I love working in the writing center.

- My cats, though I love them still, are beginning to annoy me as well. Polo's gotten really bad about getting up in my business when I'm trying to type. From a recent email to Jamie: "He's got two approaches: The British Colonial Technique, where he just barges right onto it with his enormous self and tries to gain territory with sheer attack power, and The French Colonial Technique, where he lies down riiiight next to it and lolls his head onto the side of it so he's not actually *on* it but his fur is obstructing two columns of keys, then slooooowly edges over. He's like "you don't need that W, do you? Wouldn't you rather have MY HAIR ALL UP IN YOUR GRILL!" Lately he'll even nip our fingers if we try to type while we should so clearly (in his mind) be petting him. Considering the number of pages I have to type in the next...oh, 25 days or so (approx 60, not including student paper comments), this is poor timing on his part.

Also, though he's by no means a glutton, he is causing food problems in our household. Since I'm both lazy and not good at remembering to do things (ie, the VS return sitting all packaged and everything in my closet, ten million other things), I just fill the food bowls and forget about it until I notice they are empty. This seemed to work fine, but for the past few weeks I've been thinking that Polo's gaining weight and Penny's losing it; yesterday I decided this was definitely the case. When he sits up with paws in front, there's about an inch more cat on either side, and Penny is getting Aiko-sized. So, though it is a pain, I'm going to start feeding them seperately. I'm not so worried about Polo losing weight, he's far from problematically fat (he's a *big* cat), but he shouldn't gain more, and Penny should. So tonight I gave them wet food, gave Penny more, and brought her and the food in the office with me until she finished. We'll see if I have the follow-thorugh to keep this up.

- I need to work on final papers. It's not even that I don't want to - I just haven't and must.

- Getting excited for Thanksgiving at Jevin's! It's my first Madison Thanksgiving, and I am looking forward to it suddenly. It's not that I was not before, but I hadn't realized how *close* it was. And then driving Kevin home we got to talking about turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and garlic mashed potatoes and a cheese course and loads of wine and OMG it's in five days. FIVE. DAYS. It's going to be so awesome. I kind of wish I had a t-shirt: "Thanksgiving 2009 - The Last Supper." It being "last" because after that (well, and the post-TG shopping Friday) life ends and lifeless, slavish devotion to school begins. But til then, give me gravy and fill my glass.

- I work late now a lot more than I used to. Meaning now the trick is reclaiming the day, not the night. Why can't I get it right and do both?

- Bought my Xmas tix! NH the 20th - 31st. I am really, really excited, and a little nervous...you can never go home again, after all. It's been 2 1/2 years, I know things have changed there, I've changed...will it be just wonderful or a little painful too? Even the first drive...arriving at MHT, drive past the Executive, get on 93 and take it to the Macy's exit, down Meetinghouse past St. Elizabeth, through the five-way stop, past Jeb's, left on 101 down, right at Vista to Wallace...then past the Benedictine Land (my God, the Benedictine Land), the turn for Adam's house, Shirley Hill (my God, Shirley Hill...) into Goffstown, then on past Sean's and Tim King's and finally to my uncle's house. I've worked hard to miss NH less, to move on and make WI my home, to grow up and in doing so accept that the past can't stay in the present, but damn...it's gonna be good to know that just because it's not around doesn't mean it's not there.

Also - my cousins? Friggin' adorable. I absolutely cannot WAIT.

- Blogging is a great way to procrastinate.

Good Deal

So today is a good day.

I've been feeling kind of "????" about the coming end-of-semester craze. Usually I collect paper ideas for classes throughout the semester, and by around this time know what I'm writing on for everything. This year though, I had zero clue about any of them until recently. I had some vague subject ideas - "Cranford and...foreign things" - but nothing close to focused. And I was getting a little freaked.

But these past 4 or 5 days, things have really been coming together. Turns out that when I get myself in gear, I can do things! My Russ abstract got the go-ahead; yet again I'm writing about the issue of children and agency - but this time through propaganda! (Analyzing it...not writing it.) As so often happens, I wrote myself into an idea, and then into being excited about it. I was dreading that paper, but less so now. I picked and read a bunch of my review book for Susan. I wrote a short paper for class tomorrow that I'm pleased with - it's different from how/what I usually write for classes, and that's a nice feeling, doing something new. My meeting with Deb, Tim and Leigh today was miraculous - I went in with like, almost literally nothing, and by talking through what I'm interested in doing and getting ideas and feedback, I ended up leaving with a solid idea for my project. (I'm going a proposal for a study about how students' tacit learning of written genres is affected if they feel that the genre in question has an expiration date for being useful in their lives. And Deb is so cool - I asked her if there might be a way to frame it so I could carry out the study as my project for her class next semester; she said she didn't think it was really related to literacies, but that she'd definitely be happy to have me do it if I wanted to, if I thought it would be productive. Yay supportive teachers excited about my research!)

I bought tickets to NH today! I am so excited. It's like...there are definitely specific people and places I want to go, but I'm almost more excited about just driving around and seeing the places that were once so much a part of my daily life. Elm Street, South Willow, Meetinghouse, the Vista Foods plaza, the drive down Wallace Road between my uncle's and Bedford...man, it's been so long. I was there very briefly in July '07, so it's been 2 1/2 years. It'll really be great.

So yeah. I'll probably be back to freaking out tomorrow or something, but right now things look almost doable.

Change of Opinion

This is relevant in no way I can think of to anything, but it's interesting to me, so ha. The benefits of running one's blog like a dictatorship never end! Though I prefer to think of it as a non-parliamentary monarchy.

Anyhow. I'm sitting here eating Ramen noodles, drinking a beer and watching Coupling - standard Saturday night when Andy is out. Coupling, for those not in the know, is like British Friends, except with lower production values and slightly more explicit jokes. It's one of my favorite shows, and I've been savoring the remaining few I've never seen.

...actually, the rest of this post was going to be too inane for words, so we'll drop it.

In lieu of that - description of my cats battling. Polo's been hanging out inside a paper bag we leave out for the purpose lately, and right now he and Penny are having it out over rights to said bag - she'll run into it and stare out at him, then run at him suddenly, they'll slap hissily at each other, and then it repeats - only with a lot of seemingly purposeless dashing about. Sometimes it looks boring to be one of my cats, but tonight it looks friggin' sweet. I want to engage in bi-weekly Battle Royales for supremacy over my domain! And I'd also like to do it with a clawless opponent so I always win. Though his enormous size advantage evens it out some.

Grading: Pt 4

32.5/35

Thoughts: Okay, I'm ready to be done. I have done almost literally nothing for any of my other classes since I got these things, I had a plagiarism alert that took an age to settle, and I am tired of writing about the same issues in 32.5 different ways.

Also, I hate my prelims list. And all books. And blah. Who am I to maintain optimism in the face of grad student life?

Grading Pt 3

18/35

Okay. I'm beginning to sour on this process. Not so much because of the act itself, but because it's fucking up my life. Did I do any reading for this week yet? No. Not even the classes I had today. Because I was grading. Have I edited my list? No. Because of the grading. Did I have a good lesson plan for class today? See above.

On the plus side, this section will go faster because I made up a handout off the problems in the first one, and now I can say "see handout on this" rather than explaining 15 separate times that a good thesis is one that's not obvious the first time through the text.

Grading: Pt 2

15/35

Current thoughts: Still not hating it. I think only having two sections helps with that a lot - since the overall task is manageable, I don't dread it as much. Patterns are developing for sure; there are three main problems I keep seeing over and over again. I'm making notes for a handout that talks about the things (why or why did I not go over the MEAL plan before this?), and for another that gives examples of good theses, readings, etc from their peers' papers. I've just started assigning grades to them as I go, and need to go back and give grades to the others. So far there are probably two or three As, and only a handful of out-and-out Cs. One of which I feel no compunctions about giving, too, which is nice. The last paper I did was astonishingly good - also nice.

I'm beginning to flag though...not thrilled about the last three in this section, which I want to finish before dinner at 7:30. And then the other section. Though I am interested in comparing the two, I suppose.

On an unrelated note - still a bad idea to mix wine and liquor. Just in case anyone was wondering.

Grading: Pt 1

8/35.

Current thoughts: Grading is incredibly time-consuming, but so far pretty interesting. It's interesting to see what Tim's lectures, my teaching, the handouts I gave and their own ideas give rise to. And honestly, though most of them (quite naturally) don't grasp how to write a literary analysis, I'm surprised by the extent to which they touch on valuable and thoughtful points - even if they lack the ability to develop them.

More to come. If reports are true, almost certainly downhill. But I remain hopeful that my current obsession with pedagogy will pull me through.