posted 2005/08/31 at 23:12
Since everyone else seems to be doing it, I might as well: As of my drive home from school tonight, $3.09 regular unleaded. At this rate, my planned trip to Dayton next week to see Mary Timony might not wind up happening after all. ;.;
I was hoping today's comp class would go better than it did. As I discussed earlier in the week, today I had them try to look at different literacies in a critical way. We talked about how their generation gets their literacy from popular music and television (I never thought I would ever utter the phrase "skeet skeet skeet," let alone at least half a dozen times in an hour), then we looked at automobile literacy (I'd had them read instructions on how to change the oil in a car during Monday's class) and I tried to get them to see how people in the auto industry use a lot of jargon to try to confuse people (and reap in the profits through "Authorized Repair Centres"), and then to see how "proper" English is a construct of people in power to try to separate themselves from those they consider "uneducated" and thus maintain their positions of power.
A few people in the class seemed to understand what I was getting at, but I was still getting a lot of vacant stares. I think my mistake here was trying to combine the first chapter of our fetid textbook -- a discussion on literacy -- with an introduction to critical thinking skills. I need to get these students thinking critically, but chances are that these students have never really done critical thinking exercises before, and having them apply critical thinking skills for the first time to a topic as vague as literacy was likely asking far too much of them. Thankfully we're only two weeks into the term here, so I still have plenty of time to right the good ship Comp I again.
Or did I just confuse you all with what I just wrote? :/
posted at 11:17
As I mentioned a few days ago, my Grandma Shannon is in failing health (and her spirit seemed to die four years ago when Grandpa Shannon passed away), and my Mom is up with her at the Shannon family vacation home taking care of her this week.
Earlier today Grandma Shannon started turning pale, and a quick investigation by my mother revealed that Grandma Shannon hadn't bothered getting the refills on the prescriptions she was ordered to take after an episode of congestive heart failure a while back.
Keep in mind that the family vacation home is on an island in the middle of Lake Huron, so it took at least a good hour to get Grandma Shannon to a hospital on the mainland. My father is driving up there now to help get a grip on things, and my sister is having to work the home phone line getting updates on Grandma Shannon in addition to staffing the office phones. I could gripe about my own problems here, but in light of what's happening with Grandma Shannon, my problems aren't shit to be concerned with right now.
If anyone could send some good vibes in the direction of northern Michigan right now, it would be most appreciated.
posted 2005/08/30 at 22:55
Earlier tonight in class I peeled the "USED" sticker off of one of the books I bought from the campus bookstore earlier in the week. I thought about sticking it on my forehead just to be really emo and stuff, but I didn't.
Went to see my counselor again today, and tried to squeeze in as much stuff as I could because I won't be able to see her for another two and a half weeks here. I'm amazed at how well I'm starting to face some of the issues that have really been gnawing at me these past couple of years. I still need help dealing with some stuff, but I'm getting better.
I've been looking over the first in-class writings I had my class do yesterday, and I've got some really great writers here. The challenge will be for me to make them into really great thinkers too, and I'm hoping that tomorrow's discussion on literacy will help clarify the things that I sensed some of them didn't understand last class. Unfortunately, I also have to assign the first big paper of the term tomorrow as well, and I can't help but feel a bit apprehensive about that. I want my students to like the class, but I can't exactly avoid giving them papers, you know. Le sigh. It will be okay.
posted 2005/08/29 at 23:04
Today was the first day of my comp class where I really got deep into the subject matter, and I guess I could call it my first real challenge as an instructor. I'd had them read about the idea of literacy for class today, but the textbook we're using (which I don't have a say over and which I don't really think is the best text we could use) only talked about literacy in terms of reading and writing English. I tried to get them to open their minds about different types of literacy by talking about things like computer literacy and cultural literacy, and I challenged them to think about other kinds of literacy, but I'm not sure it was quite sinking in.
I guess I still had some kind of romanticized notion that somehow I would speak a few words out of my mouth and suddenly all of my students would understand everything I was trying to get at. It took me a little while there to realize that things aren't going to be that easy, that I'm asking them to stretch their minds and that they're not going to instantaneously grasp everything I talk about. If anything, we'll still have most of the next class period to discuss this, as well as get to more interesting (and likely more challenging) notions of how different literacies are created, who gets to create literacies and why those people get to create them. (Critical teaching. Gotta love it.)
I've also got their first in-class writings to look at here, as well as a whole bunch of readings to do for my other classes (you know, the ones where I'm a student), so if you'll excuse me ...
posted 2005/08/28 at 19:37
My paternal grandmother (my only living grandparent) broke her arm recently, and it's kind of been up to her sons to help take care of her. Her condition isn't getting much better, mainly because when her husband died a few years ago, she never really found a reason to keep living.
It's kind of been up to her three living sons (she lost one -- my Uncle Sanford -- to a heart attack a couple of years ago) to take care of her, although owing to things with the family business, right now my Mom is up with her at the family vacation house in northern Michigan tending to her needs. This led to an interesting situation, as everyone else went up to the house for the weekend, leaving me home alone for yesterday and most of today. (Unfortunately, with all of my close friends living in the Dayton/Cincinnati area, and gas prices being what they are, it wasn't like I could have some wild party in the absence of other family members here.)
Ever since the family business moved into the house last year, it's been rare for me to have the house to myself for even an hour a month, but being alone here for over twenty-four hours wasn't quite as fun as I would have thought. Taking care of all the chores I normally don't take care of wasn't so much of a problem, but just being alone in this big house was a bit disconcerting. When I had to leave the house last night to go to the store, I got really worried just because we never leave this house unattended.
Knowing how I seem to rise to the occasion in the event of an emergency, if I were suddenly forced to fend for myself, I think I'd do okay, but the thought of living on my own is still kind of scary. I guess that's one of the reasons I've been thinking a lot about companionship lately. Not like I need more of a reason to have a partner than all the usual issues (including a near-maddening level of sexual frustration at this point), but as much of a loner as I tend to be, the thought of being truly alone like that literally gives me the chills.
posted 2005/08/25 at 23:09
I had my first one-on-one counseling session in nearly a year today, and it went well. I think after my whole "I don't know how to have fun" trip a month or so ago, I started to do a good job of pin-pointing exactly where some of my deeper issues are coming from, and with my counselor I'm hoping I can start doing things to work on those issues. That, and starting my teaching career here has really given me a bit of a lift; I'm taking well to it, and I feel like I'm on the right track with things.
One of the things I discussed with my counselor is how I do have that annoying tendency to come on here and just go all super-depressive with every little thing that goes on in my life. After some talking about it, I realized that I don't seem to have that limit that most of you must have on people you know talking about what's depressing them. I always want to hear about that, at least from my friends and people I know. (Show me some pseudo-emo kid's LiveJournal and I'll retch, but I never tire of hearing bad news from my friends.) I guess it's because whenever something goes wrong for one of my friends -- no matter how small or trivial -- I always want to do everything I can to help him/her. I like being of use; helping others gives me the validation I can't give myself that easily.
posted 2005/08/24 at 23:05
Two classes into my first teaching experience, and I'm feeling good about it. We haven't been doing much -- Monday was just a syllabus review, and today we made name plates, ate cookies, and did a bit of freewriting -- but it's the first week, most of these students are new to college, and I don't want to bombard them with much stuff. My concern at this point is that once we get to the real big stuff starting with Monday's class, they won't be quite so easy to get going since we really took it easy this first week. The key, as always, is going to be keeping things interesting within the framework of what we have to cover in class, and I just hope all that Ira Shor I read this summer can help me there.
Still no word from anyone about the Mary Timony show in Dayton on the 10th, and I really don't want to go by myself. Just as a reminder to my friends down there, I don't drink, so I can pick you all up and drop you all off and you can get as hammered as you want at the show. I'll even behave myself afterwards and everything. ^.^
posted 2005/08/22 at 12:25
Syllabus printed: Check.
First day's reading assignment copied: Check.
Survey of student questions/attituded printed: Check.
T-minus ninety-five minutes until my teaching career begins. Wish me luck!
posted 2005/08/21 at 19:36
Over three months of no classes, no work, no (real) responsibilities ... it all ends today. I'd thought that today would be a day where I'd be eager to go and cram a whole bunch of stuff in before tomorrow, but I've been spending most of the day just lazing in bed and surfing a bunch of silly Websites. Well, it's not like I'll have much time for that over the next sixteen weeks, so maybe I am putting my time to good use here today.
I actually start the day tomorrow with the class I'll be teaching. Normally I'd probably be really nervous about this, but after all the personal changes I've been through these past couple of weeks, it just doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. If anything, hearing all the other TA's talk about their plans for their classes this semester has me more convinced than ever that I'm on the right track with what I have planned for my course.
One of the issues I've been dealing with in regards to all the personal changes I've made recently is that even though I like that I have a newfound confidence, I've always felt like confidence was largely indistiguishable from arrogance. I'd like to project a certain measure of confidence, but of course I don't want to project any arrogance. Ah, I'll figure it out here soon enough, I'm sure.
posted 2005/08/20 at 23:29
Mancino's and Dairy Queen for lunch = good.
Fresh out-of-the-oven cookies at dinner = real good.
I caught myself in an old pattern of thinking just now as I was baking the cookies. Of course most other instructors on campus don't bring cookies for their students during class, let alone make homemade cookies, but there was a part of me that felt I wasn't lavishing enough attention on my students because I was only using basic recipes, and not going all-out with some super-fancy secret cookie recipe. Ah, I don't have any of those recipes anyway.
I ran into a bit of trouble while I was out earlier, though, because I had to go get money from a drive-up ATM, and when I pulled out of there my window wouldn't roll back up. Basically the whole time I was out I had my window all the way down, and even though I was staying in relatively nice parts of town you still worry about leaving your car open like that, you know? Anyway, Mark helped me fix the problem when I got home, although I have to say that I'm still taken back a bit sometimes when he uses words from his native country, like when he referred to the car's "bonnet." Given that I was an Anglophile there for quite some time, you'd think I'd not notice those things so much.
posted at 12:24
As I indicated over on my diet log yesterday, I'm going to be taking today for one last real fling before the semester starts. However, in the midst of all of that I'm also going to have to perform a rather painful ritual while I'm out. I'm going to be letting go of a huge part of my past here, and even though this is something I've "moved on from" long ago, finalizing it like this will probably be very hard for me. I'd originally intended to write a poem that I was going to post here today about it, but in the end I really can't let myself get into the details like that.
Anyway, any good vibes you could send me for today would be appreciated. I'll be back tomorrow to talk about my feelings about becoming a teacher, I'm sure.
posted 2005/08/18 at 15:07
I swear, I am such a night owl that when I have to go driving when the sun is still in the east, it totally throws off my orientation. Seriously.
Anyway, the TA training session was supposed to go from 0900 to 1600, but it ended around 1130. Not that I can complain about getting out so early, but if they knew it was going to end that quickly then the least they could have done was start it later in the day. There's a reason most graduate English courses are held late at night: we are, for the most part, creatures of the night.
(Speaking of late-night English courses, on both Tuesdays and Wednesdays I'm going to be stuck on campus until around 2200. Tuesday I don't have to go in until late afternoon, so I guess I'll try doing yoga before going into class, but Wednesdays shall, in all likelihood, have to become my day off of exercise. Oh well, I don't have classes at all on Thursdays and Fridays, and it's not like I'm going to be doing anything with my Thursday nights at this point, right?)
During the training session today, I went ahead and said that the class all the first-time TAs take -- which I took last fall despite being an RA -- just didn't do me a whole lot of good. Thanks to being exposed to critical teaching and liberatory pedagogy in my undergraduate career, I already had strong ideas on how/what to teach before I even started grad school, and in all the teaching-related courses I've taken so far it hasn't been covered by any of my instructors. Tomorrow morning I have to go back to campus to have my syllabus reviewed, and I'm guessing that will be when any fireworks between me and the higher-ups in the English Department will be ignited. Thankfully I've done all my reading up on the subject of pedagogy, and after some of the personal stuff I've been dealing with lately, I'm not going to sugar-coat my opinions or try to please people. I've been charged with making twenty-three students into better writers and better citizens, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
posted 2005/08/17 at 12:59
Tomorrow I have to be on campus at 0900 for an all-day training session for the second-year TAs. (Which I am expected to attend even though I was an RA last year, not a TA.) I just have a real bad feeling about this, not only because trying to get me awake and functioning by that hour of the day is a losing proposition, but once they get to the syllabus review and they see the kind of stuff I'm going to try out in my class, I have a feeling that some of them are going to raise some red flags, and I mean red in the Red Scare sense.
I am in a very tender position right now. In addition to a fair amount of trepidation about teaching for the first time (although I suspect no more than any other first-time teacher feels), I'm having to surrender two important parts of my past here in the next few days. One of them will probably be noticed here more by the lack of things said here these next couple of weeks (for those of you who've been reading the .org for a while), and I'd appreciate it if you could all just not ask questions about that when the time comes.
The other big thing is that I'm going through a whole new wave of emotions regarding what happened with Spectrum. "Angry" is definitely the best way to describe about that mess, and while I know that anger is a tool that's supposed to be listened to, I just get pissed off because there isn't really anything I can do about what happened. In the past when stuff like this has happened I've done really stupid, petty, and hurtful stuff (just ask Don B. or Jeremy about that), but I refuse to stoop to those levels any longer.
The worst part, though, is that being nice and letting things slide is exactly what got me into all this shit with Spectrum in the first place. I'm awful at asserting myself when things go wrong, and now it's cost me a huge chunk of my interpersonal safety net, and could conceivably cost me a whole lot more than that. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that society raises us to think that women can't be assertive or aggressive. (Think about it: Simon Cowell is praised in our culture to no degree just for being a boorish asshole, while Anne Robinson, who at least had a Don Rickles-like sense of humour in the criticism she dished out on The Weakest Link, was universally condemned as a "bitch.") More than once in the past, people have used that as a wedge against me, saying (and trying to make me feel like) I was less of a woman because I dared to assert myself.
To borrow a phrase from the generation I'm about to start teaching here, fuck that noise.
I've always had this saying I've told other people: "Do whatever the hell you want to me, I don't care, but if you mess with my friends, then Goddess help you, because no one else will." I think it's about time I started caring about what other people do to me. It's time for me to stop being such a pushover, and start standing up for myself. I may have conceded an awful lot of battles, and even a few wars, but I am still here, and I'm not going to let people fuck with me anymore.
posted 2005/08/16 at 21:01
You know, I wasn't the only one at the Toledo Botanical Garden with a camera a week ago last Sunday. As if I weren't amazed enough with Penny already, she actually managed to take a picture of me I'm not thoroughly repulsed by.
So after close to eleven years on the Internet without posting a photo of myself ... here you go.
(Watches as all the wrestling Websites scramble to be the first to post an "exclusive" of my picture.)
And yes, I know, my boobs are sagging, shaddup.
posted 2005/08/15 at 14:10
Okay, so I wound up sleeping through most of yesterday thanks to Benadryl (stupid seasonal allergies), and when I got up this morning I found out that Penny was in a hotel in Ann Arbor. I figured I should invite her to stop here in Toledo again, maybe grab a pizza together. Penny said that she had to check out of the hotel by noon, and that she was going to grab some breakfast before leaving the hotel, so I figure 1030 is a good time to call her to ask if she has time to stop over, right?
WRONG.
Penny was still asleep, I woke her up, and she didn't have time to stop here anyway. So now I feel like a big jerk for calling her and waking her up, and I've been acting super-emo all day today. I know Penny will read this and probably tell me it was no big deal, but still, I feel so fucking stupid right now it's not funny. Fuck.
posted 2005/08/14 at 09:46
Okay, I'm awake, and after careful consultation with my mother I have determined that I am, in fact, capable of counting to ten today. I don't even have to use my fingers or nothin'. Hopefully this bodes well for the rest of the day.
Anyway, the real reason I'm posting here right now is because I just got this off the tour page on marytimony.com:
Saturday - 9/10/2005
Elbows, Dayton, Ohio
Doors: 9PM; $6; 18+
Penny, you are going with me. This is not an option. I don't care if I have to tie you up and throw you in the back seat of my Camry, we are going to this together. Christina and Milena, you are more than welcome to join us as well (and Christina, I'll tie you up and throw you in the back seat of my Camry if you want, just for fun ^.^).
posted at 00:50
Correction to last post: Four-day weekend every weekend. I swear, I'm not drunk or anything like that, I just seem to be exceptionally stupid today ...
posted 2005/08/13 at 23:19
Uh, you know how in my last post I said it was ten days before classes started back up? Actually, it's nine. Eight in just a few minutes here. Not to mention that I have to be on campus all day Thursday for TA training, plus I have to stop in on Friday to have my syllabus gone over. Yeesh.
Speaking of classes, I still don't know whether or not I'm going to be able to take Japanese next semester like I was hoping to, and my sensei hasn't gotten back to me on that front yet. If I can't get Japanese taken care of this coming semester, then that's pretty much going to doom me to at least one extra year at UT. Honestly I think I could use the extra time to complete my degree (not to mention apply for doctorate programmes, if I decide to go that route), but at the same time it would be nice to just have the UT chapter of my life over and done with at this point.
There would be one other advantage about not taking Japanese next semester: All of my classes would fall from Monday to Wednesday. Five day weekend every week. Yeah.
I miss Penny. ;.;
posted at 17:09
Ten more days until classes start up again. Insert every emoticon connotating sadness you can think of here.
Yesterday I went to main campus to check out my new office. I go from having my own enclosed area with computer last year to sharing a tiny-ass cubicle with an incoming grad student, with two tables jammed so closely together there's no way both of us can fit in that space at the same time. The rooms with all the English TAs are known as "the stables" because they use old wooden half-walls to separate the cubicles, and you don't want to know how many horseshit jokes I could make using that premise.
Oh, and it was nice to see that no one has bothered returning my stuff to the English Department office like I asked a couple of months ago. You know, my two keyboards, my Iron Chef tape, the props from the '03 Halloween party? I'm trying to be nice here, but if I don't get my stuff back here soon then I'm calling the family lawyer. Seriously. English Department office, fifth floor, University Hall.
posted 2005/08/11 at 15:56
I'm just chilling in my room here, waiting until it's time to go to the dentist to get a tiny cavity filled here. I can't say that I'm particularly nervous or anything like that, but certainly this isn't exactly something you look forward to, you know? I always seem to find an excuse for a bad mood, don't I?
Anyway, I've decided that once I start getting paid again in a few weeks here (insert obligatory groan about school starting up again soon), I'm going to get an MP3 player for myself. Especially since I've been doing a lot of reading here lately, I've found that having all my new age piano songs on shuffle on my computer here is a great background to studying, and I won't even have access to a computer in my office come fall semester. (That was one of the good things about being a research assistant last year: my own office with my own computer. Now I'm stuck in a veal pen with the other grad students who teach.) This is the player I'm looking at right now; I like the small size and purported long battery life, and I don't want a hard disk player because I've heard too many horror stories about the HDs on them burning out. Anyone have any thoughts on this player, or recommendations for other players?
On a related note, I think that before I go to that conference in November to deliver my first "professional" paper, I'll need to pick up a laptop to use while I'm up in Wisconsin "conferencing" and "networking" and all of that bullcrap. I already know about Pricewatch (thanks Don B.), but when it comes to getting a notebook I think I'd rather shop at one store exclusively. Anyone have any recommendations for places to buy used/cheap notebooks from? (My budget for the notebook will maybe be $600, tops.)
posted 2005/08/10 at 14:40
Band on the run over 'fat' insult (timesonline.co.uk)
Of course, I just love how in an article about how careful selection of words can lead to big dust-ups, the first word of the byline to this article refers to the Magic Numbers as "chubby." Irony, thy name is British journalism.
I got this link from the Huffington Post, which I've been meaning to write about for a while here. Whenever I scrutinize the success of right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly (among others), I always wonder if maybe the left-wing hasn't been succeeding in politics this past decade or so because there's a certain segment of the population that really doesn't have opinions one way or the other when it comes to politics, but will listen to (and vote for politicians who agree with) the loudest, most obnoxious voices out there.
When the Huffington Post launched, it was clear that they were setting up to be a combination blog and left-wing version of the Drudge Report, and I thought both those things were needed. However, when I saw the comparisons in format between the Huffington Post and the Drudge Report, I didn't expect the Huffington Post to engage in some of the same questionable tactics of the Drudge Report, such as using misleading language in links (always to the detriment of right-wingers or big businesses mentioned in the linked articles) or linking to inane bullshit having nothing to do with politics. (Does Arianna have some sort of Tom Cruise fetish? Granted, I hate Tom Cruise and scientology as much as the next person, but Arianna's really taking it too far.) As far as the blogs go, I stopped trying to comment on there because for all the personal vitriol that's allowed to seep through in the comments, my reasoned writings on why principled progressives need to leave the Democratic Party and go Green just never seem to make it past the censors over there. As the kids of today would say, fuck that noise.
I guess this really points out one of the conundrums that I, and I'm guessing other progressives, face these days. I want to belong to the party of principle; I want to belong to the political movement that has sound thinking, compassion, and honesty going for it more than any other group out there. At the same time, though, it seems like being dishonest, loud, mean, and abusive is the only way to get any headway in politics these days. Especially given how quickly this country is going to shit, I'm worried that if we progressives are more concerned with being principled than "winning" (for lack of a better term), that there could come a day, very soon, where I will imply not be welcome in this country any longer. At the same time, the obnoxious left-wingers out there -- like Mike Malloy and (sometimes) Ted Rall -- just turn me off. What is a principled progressive supposed to do, I ask you?
posted 2005/08/08 at 15:11
New in .photography: 2005.08.07 at the Toledo Botanical Garden. These were the shots I took before Penny got there; as I mention on the page with the photos, I'd wanted to shoot the other half of the park with Penny as we were walking, but after Penny showed up I put my camera away because I didn't want me taking photos and stuff to distract me from my talking to Penny like I wanted to. Hey, at least I finally got some new photos up here.
posted 2005/08/07 at 11:45
Before: Sad pony.
After: Happy pony. (And happy Penny.)
I think she 0wnz me ... *sigh*
posted at 06:10
I should have expected that I wouldn't get much sleep last night. What I want to know, though, is why I'd become so preoccupied with thoughts of teaching -- including a nightmare where I somehow wound up teaching at the private school that fucked me up so much when I was younger -- when clearly I'm so nervous right now about seeing Penny again?
Anyway, Penny is packing up now, and I'm going to take care of all of my early-morning rituals here and then try to hit the Toledo Botanical Garden early just so I'm there early and I don't have to worry about Penny showing up before I get there. I'll use the extra time I have there (if any) to shoot some photos for the .org; I tried to talk Penny into letting me take some photos of her, but she never gave me a response. Whatever the case, at least now I'll finally have some new photos to put up here after over eighteen months of not updating my photo site.
Everything is in place: my camera has fresh batteries, Penny's present is wrapped up, and before I leave here I'll pack a cooler full of ice so that the water I promised Penny on her way up here is ice-cold. Now to see if I can actually get some other stuff done while my head swims with thoughts of Penny. Wish me luck.
posted 2005/08/06 at 10:38
You know, I remember when I was young I would actually get up earlier on Saturday mornings than I did the rest of the week. I'd bring my Popples out to the living room with me at around 6 in the morning to watch the weekly Australian Rules Football show on ESPN, then watch a bunch of cartoons (Popples and Rainbow Brite were my favourites), then finally catch the old WWF syndicated shows (Superstars of Wrestling and Wrestling Challenge) before my father would take me to the mall to shop and play video games at the arcade.
Now, well, usually I'm sleeping in until well into the afternoon on Saturdays, I can't see any footy anymore because the only show I know of is on Fox Sports World (which I don't get), I find most cartoons being produced today are insipid, no need to ask about the wrestling, the arcade at the mall closed years ago, and I hate going to the mall because some of the people there genuinely scare me. I'd like to think it's because I have higher standards than most people, but I have a feeling the real reason for all this is that I'm just getting old and cranky. Sigh.
Anyway, I'm a little less than twenty-four hours away from seeing Penny for the first time in over four months here. We're not going to have that much time together, so I'm going to have to do everything I can to maximize that time together. I have to say, though, I'm having entirely too much fun playing with Penny's present here, and I may need to pick one up for myself after Penny leaves here.
I should also mention here that while I was out shopping yesterday, I finally had a chance to stop at Steak n Shake. While I didn't go crazy trying out all of their desserts -- on that front I only had a (very tasty) chocolate malt -- I had a Coke with cherry syrup, and I fell in love with it almost instantly. I had a couple of fountain drinks like that when I was really, really little, but this was the first time I'd had one in forever. I'm guessing I love old-fashioned fountain drinks because my mother worked in a pharmacy back when she got out of high school, and of course back then pharmacies had the old soda counters and all of that fun stuff. I swear, I must have sublimated a whole lot of my mother's tastes for things when I was in the womb.
Anyway, I'd better go figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my day here. Seriously, how does anyone wake up and function at this hour on a Saturday?
posted 2005/08/05 at 15:01
You know, there's something about going back to your college campus for the first time in over two months that's just so ... what's the phrase I'm looking for ... oh yeah: totally fucking depressing.
In all seriousness, it was interesting to be back there, even if only to take care of some peripheral business. I did get a chance to tour the classroom I'll be teaching in this coming semester, and it spawned some mixed emotions in me. On the one hand it's going to be fun being able to help turn young minds onto the joy of critical thinking and critical teaching, especially now that I've got a whole lot of reading under my belt and I have a pretty good idea of what I'm in for in my new career here. On the other hand, well, this is an awesome responsibility, and if I screw it up then I could send a bunch of students into Composition II totally unprepared. I think I'll do okay, but all the same I think I need to have my two "mentors" in the English department look over my preliminary syllabus here to see if I'm on the right path.
While I was out just now I took care of some shopping I needed to do, including getting Penny's present for when I see her this weekend. I don't want to give away too much, but I'm sure this present will net me at least one big hug. :) While I was out I also picked up Mary Timony's Ex Hex, and I'm kicking myself for not picking up her solo stuff here sooner. Mary formerly fronted Helium in the 90's, and is unfortunately known to most people as "the chick that destroys that overhead projector in that one video they kept showing on Beavis and Butthead." Mary's a tremendous songwriter with an absolutely dreamy voice, though, and for those of you who tend to pooh-pooh the music I like as being "too soft," Mary definitely knows how to rock, and Ex Hex takes me back to listening to my Helium CDs non-stop back in the day when I needed a break from listening to lots of Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan. Definitely check her stuff out if you get the chance.
posted at 07:10
*Yawn* ... geesh, I am so not with this whole "get up with the sun" thing. The only reason I'm getting up this early is because I'll have to be up early to catch Penny as she's driving through town on Sunday for our trip to the Toledo Botanical Garden. It's not that I have anything against morning people, mind you, but I just don't understand that whole impulse. Night is so much better for thinking and creating, anyway, since the world gets so quiet then. (Although maybe all these years of living with I-475 in my backyard has me thinking strange things about how noise levels.)
I do have some things to do today that are being helped by my getting up so early, though. For one thing, I'll be going to pay my bill for the upcoming semester at UT in a little while, and then I'll be heading off to one of the satellite campus where they've stuck me for my first teaching gig. I've had classes at that campus before, and I want to check my assigned classroom out because I fear it's one of the classrooms where the tables are all bolted down and I won't be able to have the class sit in a circle like I need them to. (It's teaching methodology, I won't bore you with the details.) I hardly think I'm in a position to ask for a change of rooms given how low I am on the seniority scale, but I'm kind of tight with the interim chair of the English Department and maybe I can get a favour here. We'll see.
I suppose the big question is DDR/ITG today, because I haven't played for a while here and I need to start getting back into the flow here. (I think all the time off of playing has helped me deal with some of the psychological issues I had going, at least.) Marc is heading up to Ann Arbor this afternoon, but last time I was up there the ITG machine was the only one that was working properly, and if I'm going to drive that far then it only makes sense for me to drive a little further up to suburban Detroit to try out ITG2 and (with any luck) run into Jessi again. I kind of get the feeling that I'd rather stay in town, though, and put off any big travel plans for a while.
posted 2005/08/04 at 10:32
Penny asked me to post, so here's the forecast for when Penny comes to see me on Sunday ...
Partly cloudy skies, with temperatures approaching the lower 80s. There is a 10% chance of precipitation, and 100% chance of hugs.
posted at 00:49
Here are a couple of links I've gotten from my LJ friends in the past week or so, and I can't really tell if I think they're 1) great entertainment or 2) wholly offencive. Click on them yourselves and tell me what you think.
posted 2005/08/03 at 19:58
I finally spoke to the folks about all that had happened recently with them locking me out of the house four times in a row, plus all the other slights that have happened lately. There was always a part of me that knew that this was just an exceptional run of bad luck on my part, but still, when these things keep happening in spite of me raising a stink about the earlier, it makes you think that there's something more going on than that. Hopefully these next few days I'll see whether or not things get better here.
Earlier I think I mentioned that after all the problems I had a couple of weeks ago, I did some freewriting that helped me to identify some of the underlying psychological problems triggering my compulsions to always be serious and not have any fun in my life. Although it'll still be a few weeks here before I can get professional help on this matter, I've still been digging down, trying to uncover the problem as best I can. One thing I've realized, that really plays into what's been going on with my family, is that I'm just obsessed with maintaining this image of me being this ultra-nice person, and as a result I tend to let people use me, for lack of a better word, as a doormat. I need to get better at asserting myself here, even if I stop being this perfect little angel in some people's eyes.
Anyway, I've got other issues I'm dealing with here, especially as I draw closer to the start of school. I've got mixed feelings about beginning my new role as a teacher -- after all the reading I've been doing I think I've got some great ideas for making my class effective, but at the same time I'm still a bit nervous that I could screw things up -- but I've still got a lot of lingering anger over the whole Spectrum situation that's beginning to resurface here. When I go back to campus in a few weeks, I'm going to be back in a situation where I have no real social support net on campus, and unless I manage to get Un/Gagged back off the ground, I won't even have any hope of making new friends on campus. I'm incredibly angry at the people who have put me in this situation, but at the same time there's not a fucking thing I can do about it, so getting angry just feels like a big waste.
On the subject of this being August and all, you're probably going to notice a certain lack of messages that I normally send out this month. I can't say too much about that, but I'm in the process of moving past a part of my life here, a part that will be more painful to lose than almost anything I've ever done before. Penny/Christina/Milena: If you're reading this, sometime over these next two weeks I could use some advice on constructing a ritual.
posted 2005/08/01 at 22:55
Each of the last three times I've gone out to the garage to play DDR, someone has locked the back door, preventing me from coming back in. Last night I even made it quite clear to everyone that I was tired of being locked out, and what happened? They locked me out. Now tonight I have to wait until after midnight, when everyone's gone off to bed, just to go out and play DDR.
As if that weren't enough, earlier today when I was fixing lunch, my sister turned off the oven for no good reason. Think the other members of this family are trying to send me a message?
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