It turns out that the real problem with the final essays for the 102s wouldn't be their quality but whether they were submitted at all. About half the students were not in class today and did not submit their essays. This means one of two things, or the combination of the two: either a bunch of students are going to bail now, just before crossing the finish line, or I'm going to get a slew of essays tomorrow just before the "I won't accept it at all past this point" deadline. Neither is a prospect that makes me very happy.
I was almost wondering if I'd given up too soon, too easily on teaching the novel in the 102s next semester, as a number of students have said how much they love it--but those are the good students, the ones who read on their own. If half the students can't get over the hurdle of the reading, that's reason enough to reboot, ditch the beauties of The Left Hand of Darkness and go instead for the more accessible but less aesthetically pleasing (and less profound) The Word for World Is Forest.
That doesn't help me (or the students) this week, however: this week, students are either going to fight through to some kind of understanding or fall flat.
One interesting moment in the earlier section: a student who has seemed to disdain the whole conference process and everything about the novel actively wanted to have a conference time (they're not required this time, given how truncated the time is between versions)--and she was friendly and chatty as she signed up for a time. This may be so much snow, of course, but the interaction was a great deal more pleasant than what I've gotten from her in the past, and I'll take it, even if it's fake as hell.
On a much more positive note, the young man in the SF class that I've been crowing about lately--the one who suddenly has latched on to the books and whose reading notes have suddenly, exponentially improved--wrote on his last set of notes a thank you to me for having awakened in him an interest in reading. I have to share a lot of that with Ursula: it was her books that broke through to him. But I'll hold that little triumph close to my heart as I deal with the students exploding right and left in the 102s.
I will also take a moment here to appreciate the fact that it was mercifully un-busy in Advisement today. Usually at this point in the fall semester, we have students lined up around the block (metaphorically speaking), but there have been chunks of time the last few days when I've been able to do my own work in between advisement sessions. I also had an interesting experience today, being interviewed by a man who is working on his doctorate in public relations and doing a study about conflict management, using our campus as his sample. I think he intends to take his findings to the administration, just to report on what is said, but it was a change of pace to be asked a set of questions about what the conflicts are--from conflicts between students to much larger, more systemic conflicts--and about how those conflicts are managed.
And backing up one more step: this weekend, despite ferocious internal resistance, I did nail down the readings for the spring Nature in Lit. I don't know when I'll be able to make the photocopies of the new readings and get everything pulled together to send off to Printing and Publications (and I need to send the 102 reader materials as well), but ... well, one thing at a time.
If I hadn't already called in sick to Advisement several times this semester, I would have done so today--with more genuine physical reason: I woke up with an incipient migraine, which didn't dissipate until late this afternoon, so the urge to crawl into bed was pretty powerful. I also have had a muscle twitch in my left eye for the last few days. (My ex would have asked, "What don't you want to look at?") I know it's from being tired, stressed, possibly dehydrated--but it's annoying as hell nonetheless. It will go away once the semester is over, if not before, and please heaven, my body won't try to manufacture any other reasons for me to bail on work: I really do need to be here every day of classes through the 21st.
I also really need to get home. It's tired and I'm late, or something like that.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Friday, December 9, 2016
Tired, hungry, done...
So, I didn't get everything done today that I'd hoped. I could stay longer, but I'm too tired and hungry to push it any further. I did a decent whack at the scheduling, though the first hour or so that I was there, Bruce was going over all kinds of things for Cathy. And on his advice, I stopped before I'd distributed all the classes, as we may need options for FT faculty whose class sections don't fill.
I may be among those faculty, in terms of my 102s, but the Nature in Lit has 9 students, which is pretty good for this time of year. I'm still not entirely sanguine about its chances of running, but I'm not feeling morose either.
We'll see.
Of the things I'd hoped to do after I finished scheduling--marking homework (and for the SF class, revisions of their second essay), writing the observation--I managed to mark home work for one section of 102. There is very little for the other section, and I believe I can do the work for the SF class before I meet them again; I'm not holding class on Tuesday but am having conferences instead--for those who want them--so I won't see them until Thursday, at which point I may see them in small bunches, as they race in to hand in their final essays.
I cannot believe how little of the semester is left. It's both wonderful and terrifying. The hardest thing to accept at the moment is how early the spring semester starts--and what that means for my return to campus over the winter break. Usually I have the first week of January and at least half the second week in which to hang out at home, but I'll have to be back working with Cathy January 5. Ye gods and little fishes.
But ah well.
I'll save any further reporting until Monday, I think--because anything else I'd report would be a projection into the future, and those can simply be anxiety producing, rather than productive. I will treat myself to a nice late lunch at a restaurant, then go home and collapse for the rest of the day. Bliss.
I may be among those faculty, in terms of my 102s, but the Nature in Lit has 9 students, which is pretty good for this time of year. I'm still not entirely sanguine about its chances of running, but I'm not feeling morose either.
We'll see.
Of the things I'd hoped to do after I finished scheduling--marking homework (and for the SF class, revisions of their second essay), writing the observation--I managed to mark home work for one section of 102. There is very little for the other section, and I believe I can do the work for the SF class before I meet them again; I'm not holding class on Tuesday but am having conferences instead--for those who want them--so I won't see them until Thursday, at which point I may see them in small bunches, as they race in to hand in their final essays.
I cannot believe how little of the semester is left. It's both wonderful and terrifying. The hardest thing to accept at the moment is how early the spring semester starts--and what that means for my return to campus over the winter break. Usually I have the first week of January and at least half the second week in which to hang out at home, but I'll have to be back working with Cathy January 5. Ye gods and little fishes.
But ah well.
I'll save any further reporting until Monday, I think--because anything else I'd report would be a projection into the future, and those can simply be anxiety producing, rather than productive. I will treat myself to a nice late lunch at a restaurant, then go home and collapse for the rest of the day. Bliss.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
When the Lunkheads catch fire...
The title of this post calls up a rather odd visual image, but today I want to celebrate the fact that two students I had pretty much given up on as lunkheads have suddenly started to catch on, to light up, to think and work... and it's wonderful.
One is the student who was in my office on Monday; he hasn't finished the novel yet, but he says it's not confusing--and he found a critical essay that he wanted to talk about. We talked about how to use critical material, and he's very excited about the possibilities. I reminded him that he must have his own ideas first; he can't use the critical material to do all the thinking. But I believe he understands. He asked if use of material like this was done in any other academic disciplines, and I assured him that it is, with slight variations. For instance, I said, in a psychology class, you might read and talk about something written by Freud--but you might also refer to things that others have written about Freud's work, and I used the terms "primary source" and "secondary sources"--and I think he got it. Very cool.
Even more exciting, however, is the student in the SF class I mentioned a while back; he was one who expressed interest in possibly taking Nature in Lit, much to my amazement. To my further amazement, he liked The Word for World Is Forest so much that he picked up The Dispossessed--and he's liking it: "So far, a good read," were his exact words. His reading notes have taken an exponential turn for the better--not only in terms of what he does on his own at home but also in terms of the notes he takes in class--and today, Hosanna!, he actually had things he wanted to say in his group, not only to his group members but to me. And when I asked him to talk about his idea with the class as a whole, he did. He was truly, completely lit up with excitement about the reading, the ideas, getting it, thinking, o such joy!
This, my friends. This is why I teach. This. Yes, the interactions with the brilliant students are great. I met with the student who had to withdraw from 102 but who is my next potential cat sitter--extremely bright, intellectually avid, concerned about the world, all the things we love to see in young people. It was great talking with her, truly a delight. But she'd do fine whether she ever encountered me or not: she's got good strong wings and can take flight on her own. But that young man in the SF class? I did that. It's not entirely my success, of course: if he hadn't done his part, it wouldn't have happened. But the grain fell on fertile soil, and it took time for it to break through, but it's growing--and I created the conditions in which that could happen.
It doesn't get better. It truly doesn't.
I started the day with an observation of one of my most bright and charming colleagues, and I met with the adjunct I observed on Tuesday, a meeting that went well. I just finished writing up that observation, a good solid thing to mark off the "to-do" list.
I'll be back tomorrow morning to work with Cathy and Bruce on adjunct schedules, so I won't stay longer tonight. I have canceled my violin lesson for tomorrow (since I didn't practice at all this week, a lesson seemed pretty pointless), and it will be too cold to ride, so once I finish with the scheduling, I plan to stay in the office and mark the homework I've collected the last two days, write up this morning's observation, and have the decks completely clear for the onslaught of essay grading next week. If I can get all that done tomorrow, I even have the rest of the weekend to work on pulling together the spring Nature in Lit--and the online edition. (I've given up on finding the book and folder; I'll reconstruct what I had to the best of my ability and get all the signatures again next semester.)
It was a good day. I'm happy. Immensely tired, but happy.
One is the student who was in my office on Monday; he hasn't finished the novel yet, but he says it's not confusing--and he found a critical essay that he wanted to talk about. We talked about how to use critical material, and he's very excited about the possibilities. I reminded him that he must have his own ideas first; he can't use the critical material to do all the thinking. But I believe he understands. He asked if use of material like this was done in any other academic disciplines, and I assured him that it is, with slight variations. For instance, I said, in a psychology class, you might read and talk about something written by Freud--but you might also refer to things that others have written about Freud's work, and I used the terms "primary source" and "secondary sources"--and I think he got it. Very cool.
Even more exciting, however, is the student in the SF class I mentioned a while back; he was one who expressed interest in possibly taking Nature in Lit, much to my amazement. To my further amazement, he liked The Word for World Is Forest so much that he picked up The Dispossessed--and he's liking it: "So far, a good read," were his exact words. His reading notes have taken an exponential turn for the better--not only in terms of what he does on his own at home but also in terms of the notes he takes in class--and today, Hosanna!, he actually had things he wanted to say in his group, not only to his group members but to me. And when I asked him to talk about his idea with the class as a whole, he did. He was truly, completely lit up with excitement about the reading, the ideas, getting it, thinking, o such joy!
This, my friends. This is why I teach. This. Yes, the interactions with the brilliant students are great. I met with the student who had to withdraw from 102 but who is my next potential cat sitter--extremely bright, intellectually avid, concerned about the world, all the things we love to see in young people. It was great talking with her, truly a delight. But she'd do fine whether she ever encountered me or not: she's got good strong wings and can take flight on her own. But that young man in the SF class? I did that. It's not entirely my success, of course: if he hadn't done his part, it wouldn't have happened. But the grain fell on fertile soil, and it took time for it to break through, but it's growing--and I created the conditions in which that could happen.
It doesn't get better. It truly doesn't.
I started the day with an observation of one of my most bright and charming colleagues, and I met with the adjunct I observed on Tuesday, a meeting that went well. I just finished writing up that observation, a good solid thing to mark off the "to-do" list.
I'll be back tomorrow morning to work with Cathy and Bruce on adjunct schedules, so I won't stay longer tonight. I have canceled my violin lesson for tomorrow (since I didn't practice at all this week, a lesson seemed pretty pointless), and it will be too cold to ride, so once I finish with the scheduling, I plan to stay in the office and mark the homework I've collected the last two days, write up this morning's observation, and have the decks completely clear for the onslaught of essay grading next week. If I can get all that done tomorrow, I even have the rest of the weekend to work on pulling together the spring Nature in Lit--and the online edition. (I've given up on finding the book and folder; I'll reconstruct what I had to the best of my ability and get all the signatures again next semester.)
It was a good day. I'm happy. Immensely tired, but happy.
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Whee-hawken
(A little Pogo reference is always a good thing.)
I have no idea what to say about today--and I'm not entirely sure why I feel so addled about it. It was too all intents and purposes (or, as my students would say, "all intensive purposes") a relatively normal day: Advisement, classes, miscellaneous bits and orts after classes. Yet I feel like several strands of pearls broke all at once.
Maybe this state of mind explains why I still haven't found that book and the folder. I'm at the stage where--short of making sure I didn't put it in the freezer--I need to just accept that it's lost and reconstruct as much as I can, when I can.
And that's not now. I would dearly love to use this weekend to get a good whack in at constructing both my syllabus for the spring section of Nature in Lit (assuming it runs) and the potential online version, but we'll see whether that's realistic. I have to be on campus Friday to work with Cathy on adjunct schedules, and I do have a life to live.
At the same time, there is not a whole hell of a lot of time remaining for me to get stuff off to the copy center--or figure out a way to limp along for the first few weeks without having everything copied and ready for the students. I did find a really great document online that provides extracts from Of Plymouth Plantation (which is usually where I start the semester)--better, more apropos than what I've taught in the past. I was planning a complete reboot, but I just don't see how I could pull it together in the time I have. It is unbelievably time-consuming to select readings--make sure I have enough material but not too much, figure out how the readings can work for essay topics, know I like the readings well enough that I won't lose my mind teaching them--then make the photocopies, construct the actual reading schedule....
I'm starting to feel waves of panic at the thought. Calm, calm, Dr. P. I can't do any of it right this minute--wouldn't be able to even if I did have the book and folder--so it's a worry for another time. This weekend, I do hope.
This is part of being in the trenches, and I talk about it frequently: the need to balance life maintenance and work responsibilities--and all the things I want to do, personally and professionally, just because I want to do them. Nothing makes me take violin or riding lessons. Nothing makes me reconstruct my syllabi, select new readings. Nothing but my desire to keep things interesting, to expand my horizons, "curiosity, adventure, delight."
And another thing I talk about frequently is the ever-shifting triage list--what comes up to the top of the stack--and trying to clear the space around my feet (metaphorically speaking), crossing off the little things on the list so I don't fret about them (or forget them) when I'm tending to the larger, more important issues.
So, tonight after class, I tried to contact Cathy, to ask her if we could find a time earlier than what she'd proposed to discuss the adjunct I observed last night (which led to a scene that could be comedy: I sent a text to the number I have as hers in my phone--a number I know I've used in the past to contact her successfully--and I ended up getting replies from someone who didn't know who I was (even though I identified myself, twice), back and forth a couple of times, and then the person on the receiving end of my texts said he was "Norman's son" (I have no idea who "Norman" is); when I said I had the wrong number, as I was looking for Cathy Fagan, he said, "It's OK; you may be looking for my father." No: your father, Norman, is definitely not Cathy Fagan. Good lord.) I was trying to explain to Paul what I was doing, and trying to read and make sense of a call for papers that was a paper in itself (and turned out not to be anything I could respond to in any intelligent way) as well as some other e-mails.
One of those e-mails was from the new college president--stating exactly what I feared and what Paul said would be the case: the president sees the vote of last Thursday's committee meeting as his carte blanche to disassemble the committee and establish his own, outside the academic senate--completely removing a huge area of responsibility from the senate. I couldn't just let that go, so I wrote a lengthy e-mail to the chair of the planning committee, the chair of the Academic Senate, and the colleague who wrote up the resolution I read and the committee voted on.
That took much longer than I anticipated. Then there was another e-mail I needed to respond to. This morning, in the parking lot, I happened to run into the new chair of our department's curriculum committee. I whined a bit about the lost paperwork for the online Nature in Lit (which she'll have to sign again, assuming I don't find it), but then I remembered that--as I was getting the original signatures--the dean of our area suggested that I also get it designated as fulfilling the "Western Heritage" requirement. Our departmental curriculum committee would have to handle the beginnings of that process, so I mentioned it to the new chair. She sent out an e-mail to the departmental curriculum committee--cc'ing me--and getting the new designation for the course is on the agenda for their meeting tomorrow. I can't be at the meeting, but--since I brought up the issue--I did a little scrounging around into forms and processes, and wrote a rather lengthy e-mail explaining the process (as I understand it), attaching forms where I could, giving some of the history to explain why the course didn't have the designation to begin with...
(Jesus, did that make any sense to anyone but me??)
Seems like something else came up in there, too: all of this after class.
Classes were OK. Again, the earlier section struggled more with the reading (the introduction to the novel and Le Guin's essay "Is Gender Necessary? (Redux)"), but ultimately, they seemed to be catching on. They're still mostly baffled by the whole idea of what critical research is, but ah well. (That bafflement is true of both sections.) I have no idea what to expect of their essays, but I'm keeping my expectations very low. And we're really feeling the time pressure now.
(Pause while I put together a conference sign-up sheet. If I don't do something the instant I think of it, I'll forget.)
And now here it is almost 8 p.m., and I was trying to get out of here early tonight. Ah well.
But now I really do have to go. I have to be back here for a 10 a.m. observation tomorrow--and I'll be here until at least 7 tomorrow, as I'm seeing a student at 6:30 (or that's what we decided last night anyway). And back here again between 9:30 and 10 (realistically closer to 10) on Friday.
Hold on to the safety bar and scream...
I have no idea what to say about today--and I'm not entirely sure why I feel so addled about it. It was too all intents and purposes (or, as my students would say, "all intensive purposes") a relatively normal day: Advisement, classes, miscellaneous bits and orts after classes. Yet I feel like several strands of pearls broke all at once.
Maybe this state of mind explains why I still haven't found that book and the folder. I'm at the stage where--short of making sure I didn't put it in the freezer--I need to just accept that it's lost and reconstruct as much as I can, when I can.
And that's not now. I would dearly love to use this weekend to get a good whack in at constructing both my syllabus for the spring section of Nature in Lit (assuming it runs) and the potential online version, but we'll see whether that's realistic. I have to be on campus Friday to work with Cathy on adjunct schedules, and I do have a life to live.
At the same time, there is not a whole hell of a lot of time remaining for me to get stuff off to the copy center--or figure out a way to limp along for the first few weeks without having everything copied and ready for the students. I did find a really great document online that provides extracts from Of Plymouth Plantation (which is usually where I start the semester)--better, more apropos than what I've taught in the past. I was planning a complete reboot, but I just don't see how I could pull it together in the time I have. It is unbelievably time-consuming to select readings--make sure I have enough material but not too much, figure out how the readings can work for essay topics, know I like the readings well enough that I won't lose my mind teaching them--then make the photocopies, construct the actual reading schedule....
I'm starting to feel waves of panic at the thought. Calm, calm, Dr. P. I can't do any of it right this minute--wouldn't be able to even if I did have the book and folder--so it's a worry for another time. This weekend, I do hope.
This is part of being in the trenches, and I talk about it frequently: the need to balance life maintenance and work responsibilities--and all the things I want to do, personally and professionally, just because I want to do them. Nothing makes me take violin or riding lessons. Nothing makes me reconstruct my syllabi, select new readings. Nothing but my desire to keep things interesting, to expand my horizons, "curiosity, adventure, delight."
And another thing I talk about frequently is the ever-shifting triage list--what comes up to the top of the stack--and trying to clear the space around my feet (metaphorically speaking), crossing off the little things on the list so I don't fret about them (or forget them) when I'm tending to the larger, more important issues.
So, tonight after class, I tried to contact Cathy, to ask her if we could find a time earlier than what she'd proposed to discuss the adjunct I observed last night (which led to a scene that could be comedy: I sent a text to the number I have as hers in my phone--a number I know I've used in the past to contact her successfully--and I ended up getting replies from someone who didn't know who I was (even though I identified myself, twice), back and forth a couple of times, and then the person on the receiving end of my texts said he was "Norman's son" (I have no idea who "Norman" is); when I said I had the wrong number, as I was looking for Cathy Fagan, he said, "It's OK; you may be looking for my father." No: your father, Norman, is definitely not Cathy Fagan. Good lord.) I was trying to explain to Paul what I was doing, and trying to read and make sense of a call for papers that was a paper in itself (and turned out not to be anything I could respond to in any intelligent way) as well as some other e-mails.
One of those e-mails was from the new college president--stating exactly what I feared and what Paul said would be the case: the president sees the vote of last Thursday's committee meeting as his carte blanche to disassemble the committee and establish his own, outside the academic senate--completely removing a huge area of responsibility from the senate. I couldn't just let that go, so I wrote a lengthy e-mail to the chair of the planning committee, the chair of the Academic Senate, and the colleague who wrote up the resolution I read and the committee voted on.
That took much longer than I anticipated. Then there was another e-mail I needed to respond to. This morning, in the parking lot, I happened to run into the new chair of our department's curriculum committee. I whined a bit about the lost paperwork for the online Nature in Lit (which she'll have to sign again, assuming I don't find it), but then I remembered that--as I was getting the original signatures--the dean of our area suggested that I also get it designated as fulfilling the "Western Heritage" requirement. Our departmental curriculum committee would have to handle the beginnings of that process, so I mentioned it to the new chair. She sent out an e-mail to the departmental curriculum committee--cc'ing me--and getting the new designation for the course is on the agenda for their meeting tomorrow. I can't be at the meeting, but--since I brought up the issue--I did a little scrounging around into forms and processes, and wrote a rather lengthy e-mail explaining the process (as I understand it), attaching forms where I could, giving some of the history to explain why the course didn't have the designation to begin with...
(Jesus, did that make any sense to anyone but me??)
Seems like something else came up in there, too: all of this after class.
Classes were OK. Again, the earlier section struggled more with the reading (the introduction to the novel and Le Guin's essay "Is Gender Necessary? (Redux)"), but ultimately, they seemed to be catching on. They're still mostly baffled by the whole idea of what critical research is, but ah well. (That bafflement is true of both sections.) I have no idea what to expect of their essays, but I'm keeping my expectations very low. And we're really feeling the time pressure now.
(Pause while I put together a conference sign-up sheet. If I don't do something the instant I think of it, I'll forget.)
And now here it is almost 8 p.m., and I was trying to get out of here early tonight. Ah well.
But now I really do have to go. I have to be back here for a 10 a.m. observation tomorrow--and I'll be here until at least 7 tomorrow, as I'm seeing a student at 6:30 (or that's what we decided last night anyway). And back here again between 9:30 and 10 (realistically closer to 10) on Friday.
Hold on to the safety bar and scream...
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Still lost
The title of today's blog post could apply to me generally or simply to the book and file folder, which I still can't locate. I sent an e-mail to the English department, hoping maybe someone here has seen the wretched thing, but I checked the classroom I was in today, and if it's there, it's well hidden. I checked Bruce's office, the main office, the copy room, my office (again, for the umpteenth time)... Tomorrow I'll check the two classrooms where I teach on Mondays and Wednesdays. I'm running out of places to check. I'll go back to the room where I had the melt-down after the committee meeting on Thursday; that's a real long shot, as I can't think why I'd have had it in the bag I took to the meeting, and if for any reason I had it in that bag, I can't think of any reason I'd have taken it out of the bag. I also just alerted the folks in Advisement; I checked there yesterday, but I didn't dig through cabinets or drawers, so maybe...
What would be absolutely wonderful would be if I either suddenly am visited by a return of my memory--"Oh, of course! That's what I did with it!"--or look up from something and there it is, in a place I either was sure I'd already checked or somewhere completely obvious that I didn't think to check. Or if someone would respond to my e-mail saying, "I saw it in X..."
The fact that I still haven't found it is raising my anxiety levels on a daily basis. I don't know what bothers me more, the awareness that I may have to print out the documents and go get all the signatures again (and revisit with my DE mentor to get the stuff I'm supposed to include before I get the final approval from the VP)--or the concern about what's happening to my memory. I have always been somewhat addled and systemically disorganized (I only seem organized because I'm constantly fighting against my own internal chaos), but this is just nuts. I know there have been times when something--a sweater or cup or something--has gone AWOL for months in my apartment because I put it someplace weird, and it's easy to lose keys or even glasses, which are small enough that they can hide, but this...
Well, enough fretting about it. Fretting doesn't help me find it.
Paul and I had another round of immersion into our fears and rage over what is happening, or might happen, to the campus (not to mention the nation)--and together worked on a reframe. All my soothing words that I share with him are meant as much to soothe me as him. I need the reminders too: that I am not my career, that I am a person with something valuable to offer the world even when it seems the world can't see it or doesn't want it, that nothing is forever--neither joy nor pain--that I can only do what I can do as one human being, one flawed mortal... And so on. It does help.
What also helps is meeting with students one-on-one. I love the classroom dynamics as well, but those individual meetings are just great. Before class I met with the remaining female student in the SF class (apart from the senior observer). She has great ideas, but her essays are somewhat problematic, both in terms of focus and in terms of some of her sentence structures. But our talk about how she can revise her essay quickly changed into a conversation about books, authors, reading, processing written language, Le Guin, book publishing...) I asked her if she likes cats--but unfortunately, she's not potential cat-sitter material: she cares for a disabled mother, so she can't stay anywhere other than home. It was just a thought, better to have several possibilities than to rely on one (who has allergies), but I'll have to keep looking.
The second meeting of the day was after I observed an adjunct's class. (Side note: some problems with the class, but my rating is probably going to be "needs improvement" rather than "unsatisfactory.") The student is from 102, and in class yesterday, he seemed completely despondent over the novel. I was anticipating something much more fraught than what happened; he said he hasn't read far in the novel, but that's because of a lack of motivation--and sleep, and food. He's on the wrestling team, and that is where his heart and soul obviously live. But when we talked, he said he actually finds the novel pretty easy to understand, and he was a bit baffled about the essay topic because it seemed too easy and obvious. Maybe the gender stuff is easy and obvious, but making an argument about it may not be. Still, by the time we finished talking, he was laughing and relaxed--and ready to go get the work done, no matter what. And we'll probably meet again on Thursday to talk about using critical material. Cool beans.
Now, however, I need to tie this up and head home. I didn't think I'd be here so late tonight, and I have much to do in the next few days--all the way through Friday, when I'll be on campus to work with Cathy and Bruce on adjunct scheduling. I haven't practiced the violin since my last lesson, and I won't practice when I get home tonight (I don't like bothering the downstairs neighbors with it after 9 p.m.). But tomorrow is another day, as we all know. And maybe I can make a really nice frock out of some green velvet drapes...
What would be absolutely wonderful would be if I either suddenly am visited by a return of my memory--"Oh, of course! That's what I did with it!"--or look up from something and there it is, in a place I either was sure I'd already checked or somewhere completely obvious that I didn't think to check. Or if someone would respond to my e-mail saying, "I saw it in X..."
The fact that I still haven't found it is raising my anxiety levels on a daily basis. I don't know what bothers me more, the awareness that I may have to print out the documents and go get all the signatures again (and revisit with my DE mentor to get the stuff I'm supposed to include before I get the final approval from the VP)--or the concern about what's happening to my memory. I have always been somewhat addled and systemically disorganized (I only seem organized because I'm constantly fighting against my own internal chaos), but this is just nuts. I know there have been times when something--a sweater or cup or something--has gone AWOL for months in my apartment because I put it someplace weird, and it's easy to lose keys or even glasses, which are small enough that they can hide, but this...
Well, enough fretting about it. Fretting doesn't help me find it.
Paul and I had another round of immersion into our fears and rage over what is happening, or might happen, to the campus (not to mention the nation)--and together worked on a reframe. All my soothing words that I share with him are meant as much to soothe me as him. I need the reminders too: that I am not my career, that I am a person with something valuable to offer the world even when it seems the world can't see it or doesn't want it, that nothing is forever--neither joy nor pain--that I can only do what I can do as one human being, one flawed mortal... And so on. It does help.
What also helps is meeting with students one-on-one. I love the classroom dynamics as well, but those individual meetings are just great. Before class I met with the remaining female student in the SF class (apart from the senior observer). She has great ideas, but her essays are somewhat problematic, both in terms of focus and in terms of some of her sentence structures. But our talk about how she can revise her essay quickly changed into a conversation about books, authors, reading, processing written language, Le Guin, book publishing...) I asked her if she likes cats--but unfortunately, she's not potential cat-sitter material: she cares for a disabled mother, so she can't stay anywhere other than home. It was just a thought, better to have several possibilities than to rely on one (who has allergies), but I'll have to keep looking.
The second meeting of the day was after I observed an adjunct's class. (Side note: some problems with the class, but my rating is probably going to be "needs improvement" rather than "unsatisfactory.") The student is from 102, and in class yesterday, he seemed completely despondent over the novel. I was anticipating something much more fraught than what happened; he said he hasn't read far in the novel, but that's because of a lack of motivation--and sleep, and food. He's on the wrestling team, and that is where his heart and soul obviously live. But when we talked, he said he actually finds the novel pretty easy to understand, and he was a bit baffled about the essay topic because it seemed too easy and obvious. Maybe the gender stuff is easy and obvious, but making an argument about it may not be. Still, by the time we finished talking, he was laughing and relaxed--and ready to go get the work done, no matter what. And we'll probably meet again on Thursday to talk about using critical material. Cool beans.
Now, however, I need to tie this up and head home. I didn't think I'd be here so late tonight, and I have much to do in the next few days--all the way through Friday, when I'll be on campus to work with Cathy and Bruce on adjunct scheduling. I haven't practiced the violin since my last lesson, and I won't practice when I get home tonight (I don't like bothering the downstairs neighbors with it after 9 p.m.). But tomorrow is another day, as we all know. And maybe I can make a really nice frock out of some green velvet drapes...
Monday, December 5, 2016
Completely maddening...
Apart from the fact that, in my personal life, I am in a Verizon hell, I am also being driven mad by the fact that I cannot find a book I was looking at for the Nature in Lit course--nor the folder with all the information for the Distance Ed Equivalency, including the signed approval forms. I have looked repeatedly around the house, around the office, the house again, the office again... Over the weekend I thought, "Oh! I know! I left it in Advisement!" I sailed cheerfully into the Student Services Center this morning, sure I would see the book and folder there in my little cubicle ... Nope. I haven't looked in my car (though that's a real long shot), but I truly cannot imagine anywhere else it might be. I know I had it last week at some point, as I was debating whether to take it as my lunch-time reading, but now I can't remember if I might have had it with me somewhere else and inadvertently left it behind. A while back, I left my folder of Advisement information out in the waiting area (and was going nuts trying to find it; if the office administrator hadn't stumbled across it, I'd probably still be looking), which makes me worry that I carried it somewhere and now can't even remember having it in my hands. I haven't looked behind the bookcase or under the bed: it's getting to the point where one starts looking in all sorts of unlikely places (closet floor? file cabinet? some restaurant or other?).
Right now, I'd rather have lost my mind than have lost that folder. I do not want to have to go through the process of getting all those signatures all over again....
There are moments these days when my absent-mindedness is so profound that it scares me. I'm not quite as alarmed as I was a number of years ago, when I would periodically realize I had no earthly idea where I was: I'd be on a bus, or walking down a street, and I'd have no clue where I was or where I was going. I mean that literally: no clue. I could tell I was in a city, and generally assumed it was New York, but further than that, I was completely unable to ascertain. I'd have to stop moving for a few minutes (get off the bus or subway, stand still on the street), and slowly the awareness would seep back in. I know that when I'm deeply engaged on interior work of any kind, I can get lost--and apparently I'm doing more of that interior work than I'm aware of, as there are moments when I suddenly "wake up" in the middle of a sentence and don't know what I was saying--or the time when I held my violin bow in my hand and had no idea how to hold it, had to carefully reason it out: "The hairs on the bow have to go over the strings, so this side has to go down..."
I am grateful, however, that most of the profound moments of bewilderment don't often take place during class. I can come to class without needed materials; I can forget to relay important information, but when I'm in class, I'm usually present in the moment. I joke with my students all the time about my being the absent-minded professor, but it's no joke when I lose track of something very important--and a rather large physical object to boot.
Well, I can do nothing about it until I get home. I looked through the office again to no avail; I'll check the car and the apartment. I trust both the book and the folder will turn up eventually, but I'm hoping they turn up before I decide to start all over from scratch.
Shifting gears to something I completed: I managed to get all the assignments for the 102s marked and back to them--including a small batch that I had missed bringing home with me over the weekend. I got the bulk of those last bits done in Advisement (a stream of students but with occasional breaks) and the rest marked between classes. I haven't yet looked at what I have for the SF class; that will happen tomorrow morning.
Today's classes were not as reassuring as last week's were. The later section did much better again--but in both classes, a frighteningly large number of students have not finished the novel. Today I did a relatively significant reboot of the essay assignment: I told them that finding critical material through the library is highly recommended but not required--despite the fact that I'm supposed to do an assessment of "information literacy" that includes their ability to find and evaluate relevant sources. They do still have to include something in the way of "critical analysis" from an outside source--but they can use either Le Guin's intro to the novel or her essay "Is Gender Necessary? (Redux)," which I provided in their class readers. I am trying to get them over the finish line, even though I know I'm not doing as good a job preparing them for literature electives as I should. And I'm making zillions of mental notes about next semester--among those notes a return to scheduling a library information session. My little quick zip through how to locate sources left them more baffled than anything.
That statement led me on a little side jaunt: I decided to do a little more test driving of how to locate sources from my stuff on our databases, and I made a little headway ... not a lot, but a little. If I have time on Wednesday to go over the research paths again, I'll do that, but mostly, I'm just letting go for this semester.
I'm sure there are things I should be tending to that I'm forgetting (pearls bouncing around all over the place), but I'm going to allow myself the delusion of feeling relatively caught up for tonight. I may be in for a rude awakening, but I'll take the moment of serenity and milk it for all it's worth.
Right now, I'd rather have lost my mind than have lost that folder. I do not want to have to go through the process of getting all those signatures all over again....
There are moments these days when my absent-mindedness is so profound that it scares me. I'm not quite as alarmed as I was a number of years ago, when I would periodically realize I had no earthly idea where I was: I'd be on a bus, or walking down a street, and I'd have no clue where I was or where I was going. I mean that literally: no clue. I could tell I was in a city, and generally assumed it was New York, but further than that, I was completely unable to ascertain. I'd have to stop moving for a few minutes (get off the bus or subway, stand still on the street), and slowly the awareness would seep back in. I know that when I'm deeply engaged on interior work of any kind, I can get lost--and apparently I'm doing more of that interior work than I'm aware of, as there are moments when I suddenly "wake up" in the middle of a sentence and don't know what I was saying--or the time when I held my violin bow in my hand and had no idea how to hold it, had to carefully reason it out: "The hairs on the bow have to go over the strings, so this side has to go down..."
I am grateful, however, that most of the profound moments of bewilderment don't often take place during class. I can come to class without needed materials; I can forget to relay important information, but when I'm in class, I'm usually present in the moment. I joke with my students all the time about my being the absent-minded professor, but it's no joke when I lose track of something very important--and a rather large physical object to boot.
Well, I can do nothing about it until I get home. I looked through the office again to no avail; I'll check the car and the apartment. I trust both the book and the folder will turn up eventually, but I'm hoping they turn up before I decide to start all over from scratch.
Shifting gears to something I completed: I managed to get all the assignments for the 102s marked and back to them--including a small batch that I had missed bringing home with me over the weekend. I got the bulk of those last bits done in Advisement (a stream of students but with occasional breaks) and the rest marked between classes. I haven't yet looked at what I have for the SF class; that will happen tomorrow morning.
Today's classes were not as reassuring as last week's were. The later section did much better again--but in both classes, a frighteningly large number of students have not finished the novel. Today I did a relatively significant reboot of the essay assignment: I told them that finding critical material through the library is highly recommended but not required--despite the fact that I'm supposed to do an assessment of "information literacy" that includes their ability to find and evaluate relevant sources. They do still have to include something in the way of "critical analysis" from an outside source--but they can use either Le Guin's intro to the novel or her essay "Is Gender Necessary? (Redux)," which I provided in their class readers. I am trying to get them over the finish line, even though I know I'm not doing as good a job preparing them for literature electives as I should. And I'm making zillions of mental notes about next semester--among those notes a return to scheduling a library information session. My little quick zip through how to locate sources left them more baffled than anything.
That statement led me on a little side jaunt: I decided to do a little more test driving of how to locate sources from my stuff on our databases, and I made a little headway ... not a lot, but a little. If I have time on Wednesday to go over the research paths again, I'll do that, but mostly, I'm just letting go for this semester.
I'm sure there are things I should be tending to that I'm forgetting (pearls bouncing around all over the place), but I'm going to allow myself the delusion of feeling relatively caught up for tonight. I may be in for a rude awakening, but I'll take the moment of serenity and milk it for all it's worth.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
The term "whipsawed" comes to mind
Man, what a day.
I read the final promotion folder before the meeting today--and realized I'd read it before but lost my notes. God knows what I noticed last time around; this time, I didn't notice much...
Then the strategic planning committee meeting. It was very heated and confusing--a lot of talking at cross-purposes, unclear language, frustration--and I tried to play my usual role of clarifying what was going on, including trying to point out that we really were in agreement about much of what people thought were points of contention. As the newcomer to the committee, I don't feel the same level of "Jesus Fucking Christ can we stop talking about this and do something" as most members of the committee feel--but ultimately we did need to do something definitive right that minute, before the end of the meeting, so direct progress can be made on the concerns of our accreditation review. Specifically, many areas of the strategic plan need to be brought into alignment so there are clear systems and structures by which decisions are made about what we do, how we do it, and why we allocate our funds as we do.
Ultimately, I ended up proposing a resolution (or something: I don't speak good parliamentese) that essentially said that we support the work of the new president in creating the new institutional committee he wants to create and we agree that members of the existing committee will serve on that new institutional committee. I didn't come up with the language; that was created by the colleague, Pat, who was in Active Learning with me. I think she didn't want to propose the language herself because it would be heard better coming from a new voice. In any event, I proposed the resolution and it passed--but the chair of the academic senate, Evelyn, whom I respect and admire and want to support without hesitation or categorization, abstained. Note she didn't vote against, but she abstained--because, as she cogently pointed out, there is still the possibility that existing structures for governance will be undermined if not completely eradicated in this plan to go forward. When I proposed the motion, I said that we should bear in mind that the wording makes zero mention of what would happen to the already existing committee--and there had originally been talk about possibly putting the committee on hiatus for a while, or even disbanding it (which, Evelyn pointed out, we do not have the authority to do: that would have to be done by a resolution of the Senate). But the language our president used to frame the purview of the new committee is extremely problematic, as it suggests that the Senate has no role but to "comment." That I cannot agree to--but forming the committee in order to break the deadlock seemed the only available compromise. But when the meeting ended, hearing Evelyn restate her reasons for abstention, I started to feel I'd sold my own integrity for the sake of expediency--and that I've now had a hand in undermining the senate and specifically the heroic battle that Paul and Evelyn are involved in. I started to cry. Evelyn assured me that she abstained because of her role as chair of the senate. Pat tried to comfort me. Kim tried to comfort me. They were very concerned that I was so upset--and I couldn't quite articulate why I was. But now it's clear: I feel I leaped before looking and betrayed my ideals and people I care about. It may have needed to be done, but I wish I hadn't been the one to do it.
I ended up talking in the hall for a good while with Pat, and we were joined by a former officer of the senate executive committee; he also was consoling. But it took a while for me to calm down enough to go to class.
And class was great. Class was great. We're at the point now where I feel we're all just having a conversation. I may hold forth for a while, because I have a wider frame of reference than the students, but I wasn't making connections back to things we'd talked about earlier out of a deliberate, pedagogic decision: "Repetition is good: let me repeat this." It just was what happened in the conversation. In one particularly lovely moment, a student brought up the ways in which the story parallels the Adam and Eve story. Precisely, I said--but note that the title has a plural: Paradises Lost. Milton's Paradise Lost is about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden and the fall of Satan. So, if Eden is the first paradise lost, what's the second? One student said, "The ship"--and almost at the same moment, the student who had brought up the Adam and Eve idea said, "Earth." Ah! Good! Debatable! (Of course, it now occurs to me that perhaps the first paradise lost isn't Eden: perhaps the two paradises are Earth and the Ship... Hmmm. I'll have to remember to bring that up.) Most of the faces had an "oooh, cool! maybe I can use that" expression. Beautiful.
I left class thinking, "I really do love this job. I do." But then Paul and I started talking about the bigger picture, not just on our campus but what might occur under a Trump presidency, and I found myself clinging rather desperately to the thought patterns I have had to construct to keep myself from sliding into depression: reminding myself that we do not know what could occur in the future--and there is no benefit to thinking only about the negative things that could occur. And there are always reasons for gratitude.
Paul and I both acknowledged that there is enormous richness in our lives that arises from the fact that we are fully engaged, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually, in our careers--but that the price we pay for that rich engagement is that we feel deeply when things go wrong. We can't just shrug it off when the integrity of our institution is threatened, when our society devalues what we have built our lives around, when our students can't or won't reach for the goals we know will be most beneficial to them. In today's meeting, I had the tiniest taste of what Paul has been dealing with for a year and a half now, and no wonder he seems shell-shocked. But I also know that my tears today were only partly a response to what happened in the meeting. This is a difficult time of year for me, personally, and my personal vulnerability seeps into my professional life as well. After all, I am a person, not "just" a professor.
So I didn't get any work done between and around my meetings with students from the SF class about their revisions--but I don't mind. The meetings with the students were good, and the conversation with Paul was necessary for both of us. True, I do not know how I will get everything marked this weekend that I need to have marked--but I'll just have to work that out, whatever it takes. But the emotional highs and lows of today--and the rapid switches from one to the other--have taken enough of a toll on me that I'm going to consider retreat as the better part of valor. I'll be brave tomorrow, when I face the enormous stacks of 102 assignments to wade through. Tonight, I can creep home and hide under the sofa. And maybe Scarlett is right: tomorrow, one is stronger. God willing.
I read the final promotion folder before the meeting today--and realized I'd read it before but lost my notes. God knows what I noticed last time around; this time, I didn't notice much...
Then the strategic planning committee meeting. It was very heated and confusing--a lot of talking at cross-purposes, unclear language, frustration--and I tried to play my usual role of clarifying what was going on, including trying to point out that we really were in agreement about much of what people thought were points of contention. As the newcomer to the committee, I don't feel the same level of "Jesus Fucking Christ can we stop talking about this and do something" as most members of the committee feel--but ultimately we did need to do something definitive right that minute, before the end of the meeting, so direct progress can be made on the concerns of our accreditation review. Specifically, many areas of the strategic plan need to be brought into alignment so there are clear systems and structures by which decisions are made about what we do, how we do it, and why we allocate our funds as we do.
Ultimately, I ended up proposing a resolution (or something: I don't speak good parliamentese) that essentially said that we support the work of the new president in creating the new institutional committee he wants to create and we agree that members of the existing committee will serve on that new institutional committee. I didn't come up with the language; that was created by the colleague, Pat, who was in Active Learning with me. I think she didn't want to propose the language herself because it would be heard better coming from a new voice. In any event, I proposed the resolution and it passed--but the chair of the academic senate, Evelyn, whom I respect and admire and want to support without hesitation or categorization, abstained. Note she didn't vote against, but she abstained--because, as she cogently pointed out, there is still the possibility that existing structures for governance will be undermined if not completely eradicated in this plan to go forward. When I proposed the motion, I said that we should bear in mind that the wording makes zero mention of what would happen to the already existing committee--and there had originally been talk about possibly putting the committee on hiatus for a while, or even disbanding it (which, Evelyn pointed out, we do not have the authority to do: that would have to be done by a resolution of the Senate). But the language our president used to frame the purview of the new committee is extremely problematic, as it suggests that the Senate has no role but to "comment." That I cannot agree to--but forming the committee in order to break the deadlock seemed the only available compromise. But when the meeting ended, hearing Evelyn restate her reasons for abstention, I started to feel I'd sold my own integrity for the sake of expediency--and that I've now had a hand in undermining the senate and specifically the heroic battle that Paul and Evelyn are involved in. I started to cry. Evelyn assured me that she abstained because of her role as chair of the senate. Pat tried to comfort me. Kim tried to comfort me. They were very concerned that I was so upset--and I couldn't quite articulate why I was. But now it's clear: I feel I leaped before looking and betrayed my ideals and people I care about. It may have needed to be done, but I wish I hadn't been the one to do it.
I ended up talking in the hall for a good while with Pat, and we were joined by a former officer of the senate executive committee; he also was consoling. But it took a while for me to calm down enough to go to class.
And class was great. Class was great. We're at the point now where I feel we're all just having a conversation. I may hold forth for a while, because I have a wider frame of reference than the students, but I wasn't making connections back to things we'd talked about earlier out of a deliberate, pedagogic decision: "Repetition is good: let me repeat this." It just was what happened in the conversation. In one particularly lovely moment, a student brought up the ways in which the story parallels the Adam and Eve story. Precisely, I said--but note that the title has a plural: Paradises Lost. Milton's Paradise Lost is about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden and the fall of Satan. So, if Eden is the first paradise lost, what's the second? One student said, "The ship"--and almost at the same moment, the student who had brought up the Adam and Eve idea said, "Earth." Ah! Good! Debatable! (Of course, it now occurs to me that perhaps the first paradise lost isn't Eden: perhaps the two paradises are Earth and the Ship... Hmmm. I'll have to remember to bring that up.) Most of the faces had an "oooh, cool! maybe I can use that" expression. Beautiful.
I left class thinking, "I really do love this job. I do." But then Paul and I started talking about the bigger picture, not just on our campus but what might occur under a Trump presidency, and I found myself clinging rather desperately to the thought patterns I have had to construct to keep myself from sliding into depression: reminding myself that we do not know what could occur in the future--and there is no benefit to thinking only about the negative things that could occur. And there are always reasons for gratitude.
Paul and I both acknowledged that there is enormous richness in our lives that arises from the fact that we are fully engaged, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually, in our careers--but that the price we pay for that rich engagement is that we feel deeply when things go wrong. We can't just shrug it off when the integrity of our institution is threatened, when our society devalues what we have built our lives around, when our students can't or won't reach for the goals we know will be most beneficial to them. In today's meeting, I had the tiniest taste of what Paul has been dealing with for a year and a half now, and no wonder he seems shell-shocked. But I also know that my tears today were only partly a response to what happened in the meeting. This is a difficult time of year for me, personally, and my personal vulnerability seeps into my professional life as well. After all, I am a person, not "just" a professor.
So I didn't get any work done between and around my meetings with students from the SF class about their revisions--but I don't mind. The meetings with the students were good, and the conversation with Paul was necessary for both of us. True, I do not know how I will get everything marked this weekend that I need to have marked--but I'll just have to work that out, whatever it takes. But the emotional highs and lows of today--and the rapid switches from one to the other--have taken enough of a toll on me that I'm going to consider retreat as the better part of valor. I'll be brave tomorrow, when I face the enormous stacks of 102 assignments to wade through. Tonight, I can creep home and hide under the sofa. And maybe Scarlett is right: tomorrow, one is stronger. God willing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
