Chickeny Goodness

Dear friend

2012-02-03T19:04:00.002Z

3 Feb 2012

Dear Friend Jan-

Hello! It's been a bit since I last touched base, so I thought it wise to drop you a letter and both inquire as to how you are and update you with all the news from our corner of the world.

We are all doing well -- busy, flying from one thing to another, and generally making our way through the second half of the school year. Thing Two and The Kat are much occupied with their instruments and have discovered that they can swap music back and forth because they both play C major instruments (flute and violin). I think it's given them new ground on which they can bond. I think, too, as The Kat continues to work on the piano that that will give them one more point of connection.

Thing One is in rehearsals for two productions right now, but that's done nothing to dim his enthusiasm for art and storytelling. He is still working on his stories and has been aided by the gift of a typewriter. You can expect a letter from him soon.

As for me and Michael, this semester is an important one for both of us. This is my last semester of coursework in my degree program. From here I have exams and a dissertation to write -- both daunting prospects. I will also finally! be graduating with my master's degree this May. I will send you an announcement once I have those in hand.

This term is also the point at which Michael needs to make some choices regarding his academic future. Given the year gap between his graduation and mine, he will need to find an internship or something of that nature to stay active in the field while I conclude my degree. It's quite a future ahead and I'm looking forward to it.

The Kat is writing a report on the Gish Sisters for school and would like to request an interview with you. I've included her letter and request. Might that be all right?

Thank you so much for the books for the children. Those have been well-read and enjoyed and the children cherish both the gift and their association with you. I think I speak for all of us when I say we are blessed for knowing you and sharing a friendship with you.

I regret that I must conclude this letter and get on with revisions. Again, I hope this finds you well and that we will see you soon.

With thanks and many kind regards -

Your Host

PS - Might we get together for an afternoon or an evening soon? We would love to have you out again.

*Note: The aforementioned book The Screeching Door: Three Spooky Tales was dedicated to the kids with each child gifted with the dedication of a story of their own. As honors go, it's pretty special to us. Go check it - the stories and the author are utterly charming.

Getting traction on the term

2012-01-24T16:14:00.001Z

"January 12, 2004" (Source: http://www.johndee.com/)

It's incredible to think that this is my last term of coursework. I'm sure I've stated that in recent entries, but it still keeps hitting me over and over again. This is it. Of course, I also have the great fortune of good classes, supportive faculty, and what feels like momentum, so all that helps.

Which means it was the perfect time to take a few days and ignore everything in the interest of renewing and celebrating the relationship with the husband.

We ended up at a bed and breakfast in the middle of southeast Michigan and, while the drive out brought to mind the axiom "if you hear banjos, paddle faster," the location itself could not have been better. We were positively spoiled while we were there: spa time,which was new for both of us; meals delivered to our room, and a surprisingly selection of movies that included the MST3K episode "Fugitive Alien." Our room was lovely,
with a faint villa motif to it, and had a view of the woods beyond that was stunning in the winter palette. Deer or something like it must have passed by in the night, leaving a single file trail behind them. Michael posited that, whatever it was, it clearly "went single-file, to hide their numbers."

I didn't want to leave. I knew the kids were secured at home - Thing One had the bridge for the first time for two straight days - and I knew what was waiting for me when I got back. As it turns out, I was right. I didn't want to come back where an e-mail from the client waited in my in-box with the most recent, not covered under our contract request. I think I might have short-circuited a little bit, even. However, I keep trying to invoke the bliss of those few days when things start to get dicey.

More than anything, though, the recharge with Michael was most welcome and most needed. I was starting to worry that we were verging into roommate territory with our disparate schedules and school. Good thing that worry was soundly put to rest. I'd say "bring it on" or some other inflammatory declaration to the universe to signal my willingness to get back into the tumult of the term, but I know better than that. I think I'd rather just stick with "come what may."

"Mrs. Hudson leave Baker Street? The empire would fall!"

2012-01-17T03:04:00.002Z

There's no secret of my love of the BBC series Sherlock. However, I was a little surprised to learn how much I enjoy it when watching it with friends. That's not to say that there's a problem with watching it with my family, but this was a new twist on an already enjoyable pastime. Thanks for that, ladies.

Performance studies

2012-01-16T14:33:00.005Z

This is my last semester of coursework. From here it's prepping for my exams, taking my exams, and working out my dissertation proposal between life, husband, children, and conference travel.

I'm feeling a little lost in the middle of all of it.

Sour cherry

2011-12-09T13:50:00.001Z

Well, that didn't last long. My cup of care filled right back up again at the prospect of meeting with my thesis chair this afternoon. To be honest, I would not be surprised if he hadn't bothered to read it yet. He hadn't when we spoke via e-mail on Monday and I know that I am not a priority to him.

So where do that leave me? Still in limbo, I'm afraid. I've spoken with a few other history faculty and the picture they've painted isn't pretty. For some reason modern Americanists keep jumping ship (they've lost two in the past five years) and that's left a number of students in the lurch. My case is further complicated by the fact that, technically, I'm in another department but forced to rely on the history department for support in this matter because of the nature and subject of my work. As my department chair has rescinded her earlier offer of support and assistance (it's "not her job," apparently, and I call shenanigans on that one), I find my advocates where I can.

And still the grading and paper writing and so forth carries on. I find myself longing for the holiday break.

It just occurred to me that this will be the first winter break in a few years where I haven't had my thesis hanging over my head. Holy cats. Maybe this situation isn't as grim as I feared.

"Don't wear your furniture"

2011-12-08T22:06:00.001Z

And I've officially hit the point of not caring with this thesis. I just sent off an abstract and summary of revisions. And now, class.

In dreams

2011-12-07T12:41:00.001Z

Miranda seems to flicker in and out of my mind these days. There are some days when I feel her absence acutely and others where I'm better, but I find myself comparing many of Ezri's quirks to those of the lady cat. She must have been on my mind a great deal yesterday as I woke this morning from a dream about her. I'd been grading, as we are wont to do at the end of a term, and she was sitting on the windowsill of the room in which I was working. She slipped out the window, cross the quad, and, after stuffing a dog into a garbage can, melted into the nearby woods. She was there and then gone and I remember calling for her, just wanting my girl back again.

I know, too, that it will get better over time, but I'm not there yet.

"We're only allergic to walnuts and nonsense."

2011-12-07T04:09:00.001Z

Forgiveness is a very helpful thing, as is the gift of being gentle with those around us. I read a quote once that argued that we never know what those around us are facing, so we should be kind. That advice came in handy tonight.

Sing it, Mr. Giraffe

2011-12-05T14:54:00.001Z

Looks like there will be no balm of Gilead for me....at least not coming from my department chair. I'm not sure how this works. She was all on fire to help me get this thing through at the beginning of the term, but now she's reversed course, declaring that it is not her job to get involved. She feels it would hurt my case rather than help.

If it's not her job to help get students through this process, then what is her job, exactly?

The one good point is that my funding for the next term is secured. I'm not sure about the summer, but at least the next few months are okay.

Moment of Zen

2011-12-04T16:37:00.001Z

The kids reminded me this morning that I tend to fall make into making things when I'm stressed or worried. Baking, knitting, graphic design, all sorts of things - anything to get my mind off whatever is eating at me.

So what did I do this morning?

Designed business cards.

Of course, the bigger question at this point is "did it help?" The answer is a qualified yes. Apparently I need to do more to keep my mind and hands busy so I can keep it together.

Wonder if I can find a wreath form on a Sunday.....

Rough night with the committee

2011-12-04T04:28:00.002Z

So....I've got a committee member who appears to be doing her level best to stall my progress in the program (why else sit on my thesis for almost two weeks and then tell me that she can't get around to reviewing it until February?). Given that the acceptable amount of time for a review is two weeks, I was not a little upset by her message. Here's how tonight progressed, if a little out of order and lacking the denial and bargaining phases.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;am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Rack 'em up

2011-12-03T16:12:00.001Z

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy playing pool. I got a reminder last night. Thanks, PopC folks.

Last roundup - for now

2011-12-02T15:29:00.001Z

Img src: http://www.motivationalsmartass.com

Although I'm no longer employed at the Working for the Man Ranch, I have retained one client from that period. I'm just about to wrap up a contract with her and I've been reminded that, while I enjoy the problem solving and design aspects of working in web development, the time isn't right for all of this. As a result I will be concluding my contract with her within the week. This heralds the first time since my undergrad where I haven't had the dueling responsibilities of work and school.

However, this also raises another question: as I'm at the midpoint of the school year, I need to start considering summer employment. I can't depend on my department for an appointment, so that means I'll be back to the drawing board. I suspect I'll be cracking the php books again before long.

Tiptoeing past dragons

2011-12-01T18:29:00.001Z

Grad school is certainly not for the faint of heart. While I've never been faint of heart, I certainly took something of a bruising in the last year. Maybe it's been good to knock some of the edges off and some of the certainty out of me. While I might not have appreciated it, it's served to make me much more aware of those professors who work with and believe in their students as opposed to those for whom teaching is a chore that interferes with their own research schedules.

I have one of the good ones right now. I'm in a public history/local history course and I have to say that this one has been a challenge. Almost every angle that I tried with my topic turned out to be a dead end, but I've been working with my professor to sort things out. I finally went to her last night and declared that I felt I was in trouble with this one and rather than leaving me to my own devices, as other instructors might, she said "Okay, let's see how this can be salvaged." She asked a few questions, made a few suggestions, and let me talk through it and I left her office with a better sense of how to bring the project to completion. At no time did I feel rushed or like I was impinging on her time. I felt that she had an interest in seeing a student succeed.

It's gone a long way toward restoring my dented faith in the University of Sunnydale North professoriate. While I can't look at one difficult, moody instructor and say they're all cracked, the good ones serve to remind me that they're not all dragons.

Three cat pile-up

2011-11-30T16:45:00.001Z

Cats in a recliner

Zee is gradually finding her place in our home. She's a tiny little thing but carries herself with all the confidence and bravado of, well, a cat. The Elder Cats are learning to deal with her, but sometimes she needs a reminder that her ways are not necessarily the Ways of All Cats and Clovar and Daria are more than happy to slap her down from time to time.

She's bonding to me and I'm trying to be okay with that. Thing One reminds me that I should take delight in the present rather than focusing on the past and yet it can be hard with the specter of the Great Grey Lady Cat lingering in our home. I suspect it will continue to be a work in progress.

I'm almost not sure what to do with myself while I wait to hear from my committee on my thesis. My department chair was kind enough to send a "received" message, which helped, but I've heard nothing from anyone else. In the mean time I'm trying to put this semester to bed with a lot more thought and planning than I've been able to apply to any previous term of grad school. I've long been stretched too thin and I'm learning how to be a little less brittle. Again, work in progress.

The Kat is working on learning the violin and, while there are certainly nail on chalkboard moments, I can tolerate them because I know that she's headed for something better. She's put so much enthusiasm and joy into learning that I can't help but feel that, too. She participated in her first orchestra concert just a couple of weeks ago and I can say with certainty that I have never enjoyed the "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" variations quite so much as I did that night. It literally brought tears to my eyes. It was a moment of pure mother pride.

Thing Two is also ticking along in the music department. He and I will be participating with the Doctor Who Fan Orchestra this month and he's thrown himself into rehearsals with utter abandon. He's also adding the piccolo to his woodwind repertoire (he's played the flute for almost five years now) with the stated goal of participating in every orchestra and band that he can fit into. I think it's a safe bet that he'll be in jazz band again this year and he's looking forward to marching band next year. I would not have thought that he would have stayed with it this long, but he's got music in his very soul. It almost leaks out of his pores.

Thing One just completed his first play at the high school and it was a good experience for him not only onstage but also off. The only catch is that he's learning about the need for balance in his life. His grades slipped and, while he may not be able to resolve them all by the end of term, he's taken the responsibility to do what he can. It's a difficult lesson, but one that can have good consequences in the long term in founding better habits.

Michael is looking ahead to grad school and it's a little strange to see the situation from this perspective. I'm almost done and he's just getting started with it all. Frankly, I never thought I'd see him here because he never really voiced interest in going to college, but I can say with certainty that he's never been happier or more at peace with who he is. He's learned and grown so much.

And so where am I in all this? Oh, the usual. Still teaching, still wanting to snark at the people who sit behind me at concerts and refuse to button their yaps, still waiting, and still learning.

And still writing, which is why I'm back to this again. It's like I was saying a couple of weeks ago: Facebook has lost its luster and I feel that I need to contract my world to better focus on the people who mean the most to me. I censor myself too much on Facebook and I need a space to breathe.

"concerned about the lack of cow continuity"

2011-11-22T08:17:00.001Z

Eighty-six pages. 146 footnotes. Three appendices. Three single-spaced
pages of works cited.
Please let it be right this time.

Your Host's Home for Wayward Drunks

2011-11-20T10:41:00.000Z

Nothing says "Good morning!" quite like finding a complete stranger sitting in your house, playing with the kitten.

When I came downstairs this morning I was a little puzzled as to why 1) Daria was so eager to get into my room and 2) Ezri didn't come to greet me. I headed for the kitchen and, as I came around the corner, I thought I saw Thing One sitting on the stairs, playing with the cats. However, when I saw a beard on the guy's chin I was pretty certain that it wasn't my son.

He was sitting on the stairs by the side door, playing with Ezri.I realise that I could have screamed or something on that line, but I fell back to "What are you doing in my house?" He apparently drank too much last night at a local bar and got a little lost on his way home. I think this guy was too drunk/embarrassed to get belligerent. I then informed him that I needed to see some ID and he handed over his wallet without argument. After whistling for Michael I took the guy's name, driver's license number, birthdate, information from his college ID, and a phone number. After a few more questions and the most awkward small talk I've ever experienced, we let the guy go. We've gone through the house and everything is present and accounted for. I've also looked him up on Facebook and have confirmed that he did, in fact, give me a phone number that matched his profile.

You know, we've had home invasion from bats, birds, bunnies, and cats, but humans are something new. So, if you ever get wasted and need a place to crash, come on by. Just make sure you play with the cats. Apparently Ezri really digs that.

Never too old to cock things up

2011-11-13T17:27:00.001Z

I've hit the point where Facebook just isn't working for me. Aside
from the time aspect and the "do I really need to know that about
someone else?" aspect, Facebook tends to nurture those relationships
that would normally drift apart in meatspace. "Unfriending" is almost
more difficult online with the always-on social media than it would be
away from keyboard.

Maybe I'm just being a grump. However, I get the sense that I'm not
far off here.

Either way, I think it best to just back off from the whole thing.

Losses and gains

2011-11-11T20:07:00.001Z

It's been a busy few months since I posted last. While the big
catch-up post will come another time, I just wanted to jot a quick
note. We took our newly adopted cat, Ezri, to the veterinarian office
today for a check up and I found my eyes welling up with tears. It was
a different vet's office altogether than our normal vet, but I
couldn't help thinking of Miranda when I saw the exam table in that
sterile room. I miss the lady cat more than I can say and that pain
keeps popping up, throwing glass shards in front of me that I walk on
without realising it.

Foreshadowing?

2011-08-01T15:12:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure why, but I've suddenly been subject to a deluge of mail
that informs me I will soon be entitled to Medicare. That would mean
I'm kissing up against 65. I'm guessing there's another Your Host out
there who is in that age bracket and companies like Blue Cross and
Blue Shield are simply casting their net wide. Nevertheless I find it
a little odd. It can't be that difficult to check records, right?

A good day

2011-08-01T00:06:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was a gift. I sorted out more of the Kobiyashi Maru and the
end is finally in sight thanks to the timely assistant of several
colleagues, friends, and kind folk that popped out of the woodwork at
Michael's behest. I'm taking a few moments out right now to work on a
book review for class, but after that it's back to it. It's on my list
and the list is sacrosanct.

One of our dear friends, Kirby, stopped by for a visit last night and
I almost cried when she left. She's one of our adoptees - Thing One
calls her the older sister he never had, I tend to think of her as one
of my sisters, too. We bonded over the Vagina Monologues and Torchwood
and Doctor Who and she's just a part of us now. This is why we will
miss her so ridiculously much when she goes off to France for a year
starting in September.

I was honored that she wanted to introduce us to her best friend. She
described us as her Sunnydale North family and I could not consider
that a higher compliment.

Thing One continues his exploration of the classics - music, movies,
and books. He's cultivated quite an appreciation of Tin Pan Alley's
song book, which led to us singing and dancing our way around the
kitchen to "Puttin' On the Ritz." I think he secretly harbors the
desire to be either Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire and I can't fault him
for either one. Personally, though, I'd love to see him through a
little Donald O'Connor in the mix.

We went into the office and I introduced him to Sarah Vaughn, Nina
Simone, Billie Holliday, and Etta James. He closed his eyes while he
listened, just getting wrapped up in the music. When it ended he
declared "Now this are songs to slow dance to. Not that slow dance
stuff at parties and school dances. Just this."

I asked, for what felt like the millionth time, if I'd utterly ruined
him. He smiled up at me, reminding me of how he looked when he was
small, and said "Yes, you did. Thank you."

Telling tales of the great bumblebee hunt

2011-06-01T01:00:00.004+01:00

We have a new batch of neighbors. There are two apartments in the house next door and, while the downstairs neighbors have a yappy dog named Dwight that deserves a mention, I want to tell you about the boys upstairs. They seem like nice kids – one is an artist and the other recently landed a job nearby – but they have undertaken a task that seems both epic in scope and a little silly in practice.

We have large bumblebees that roam around our yard. They're largely harmless and I tend to ignore them, letting them wend their utterly unaerodynamic ways. However, the boys next door have decided that they
are burrowing into the wood on their porch and, as a matter of self-defense and neighborly good will, they have determined that the bumblebees must go. While I'd use a can of Raid and call it a day, they've chosen a much more hands-on approach. They have constructed clubs of cardboard and masking tape and are swatting them out of the air. Once they are stunned, the boys tie strings around their tiny captives in the hopes that they will lure other unwary bumblebees into range.

While I was more amused by their antics than anything else, I saw something that made me pause: one of the boys heading down the stairs with a different club. It had evolved into a spiked mass of cardboard, tape, and sticks and the neighbor wielded it with, if not glee, than a certain caveman confidence that meant trouble for any bumblebees that might cross his path.

Looks like it's going to be a long, interesting summer with the new neighbors. And woe be unto any bumblebees that might wander haplessly into our neighbors' reach.

And that's that

2011-05-06T12:19:00.001+01:00

Sixty pages, who knows how many footnotes and sources, three classes, four presentations, and all in the last three weeks. I've got chapters off to my committee and I'm putting an incomplete from last fall to bed. I finally (FINALLY) found my writing confidence again. It's funny, but the mantra "honey badger don't care" goes a long way toward defanging the anxiety that threatened to consume me. I found a way to cope. And here I am, the morning after popping out two papers (around 5000 words combined), trying to figure out what to do with myself.

Oh yes. I've got my last meeting with She Who Must Not Be Named today at noon.

After that, though....writing and gardening. And maybe cleaning up the office.

And the race is on

2011-04-09T13:46:00.001+01:00

Michael and I are both on deadlines this weekend as it's that time in the semester again and so yesterday I challenged him to a race to see who could complete their project first. I'm excited about it because I'm just that competitive, but I'm also looking forward to encouraging him and keeping him going even as he keeps me moving.

We had a long talk in the car last night and I realised that it had been far too long since we'd just sat down and talked about something that wasn't connected to school or kids. It was good to reconnect as people and partners and I look forward to this weekend as we keep that in mind.

Peeking out of the bushes

2011-04-07T14:21:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure how this keeps happening, but in the past few weeks it's been lots of drama a good portion of the time. No, it's not the heartwrenching personal kind of drama, but literally stage and screen work. I didn't realise I'd come to acting in my thirties, but I guess it's a better late than never sort of thing.

I ended up being drafted to assist with The Vagina Monologues a week before the show opened. Several participants committed and then dropped during rehearsals and the director was frantic. I was asked to reprise my monologue from last year and I will say that it went really, really well. We raised a lot of money for our county's only women's shelter and I ended up falling in with another band of roving actresses. It's one of the things I love best about theater - once you've been in a production with someone, it's like you're part of the family.

Here's a brief video about our production. I'm the lady in the suit and you can hear my parts of the interview at time mark 3:26 and again at 7:16.

I also had the opportunity to write some brief closing remarks for our performance. It was an invitation to survivors and allies to stand, to be recognized, and to recognize each other in an effort to form a community that helps to protect and support all of us. I really have to hand it to the woman who performed the piece. She did a great job and I'm pretty sure I saw tears in our audience's eyes during every performance. I'll post a link once Michael has extracted it from the recordings.

As for the other bit of acting....I was asked to help with a film major's senior project. They needed an actress who looked like she might be older than 25, so one of my friends from the Monologues recommended me. My scene was brief, but more important than being on film was the opportunity to watch how shots were set up, lit, and how filming works. I also did some off-screen voice work for the film, which was interesting. I never realised how many takes could be done for something like that.

It's a little funny because I'm in a Critical Approaches to Film Studies course this spring (and that's turning into a story for another time) and I'm engaging in performance even as I'm learning how to analyze it. In what has to be an even more peculiar twist, I'm currently reading a book on film criticism that draws a sharp line between academic film criticism and journalistic film criticism. As someone who fell on the journalism side of that line for some time, I'm finding the author's assertions to be somewhat entertaining. It's like my prior experience keeps coming up and I didn't appreciate how varied it was until now.

The needs of the many versus the desires of the few

2011-03-10T15:56:00.001Z

The Working For the Man Ranch: When it was good, it was very good. When it went bad, it was horrid.

I've talked a lot about this firm over the years. The crazy clients, the slowdown on available projects, the pay delays, and some of the great co-workers I've had. However, it all came to a screeching halt on Tuesday when the company abruptly closed its doors at midday, dismissed all the employees, and started frantically clearing accounting paperwork out one of the back doors of the building. It was an image straight out of a movie, with the guilty owners suddenly on the make and trying to take every scrap of incriminating evidence with them. 27,000 clients, some of them long-time clients, some who just barely paid their deposits, dumped onto an unprepared hosting firm, work incomplete and funds now long gone. Employees, both in-house and outsource, cheated out of months of pay. I feel like I'm one of the lucky few - they owe me nothing. No back wages. No accurate 1099. Please note that I make that distinction about accuracy because apparently there's been a rash of 1099s that were misreported to the IRS, leaving the contractors to correct the issue. Mine was correct, unlike so many who were hurt and continue to be hurt by the scandalous and criminal behaviour of the management of this firm.

I've tried to keep a low profile in all of this, gathering information where I can and sending it on to the appropriate entities, but the rage is starting to consume me. It's righteous anger, to be sure, but also largely impotent. I can only hope that, as the authorities start to take action, that there will be a resolution for clients and for employees. Crime shouldn't pay, but I learned a long time ago that sometimes fair is something that only happens in fiction.

When life gives you bananas...

2011-03-10T02:19:00.004Z

You make sauteed bananas. Here's a rough approximation of tonight's experiment:

Ingredients

1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons white sugar
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used baking chocolate instead. I liked it, but the boys weren't entirely sold on how dark it was.)

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon white sugar
4 bananas, peeled and halved lengthwise
1/3 cup dark rum (I didn't use rum. I used vanilla extract instead and didn't measure as I went. I put in extract until I had enough. Use your judgement.)

Directions

In a small saucepan, combine 1/2 cup cream, 1 tablespoon butter and 2 tablespoons sugar over medium heat and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in chopped chocolate until smooth. Set aside.
~~In medium bowl, whip 1/4 cup cream with electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Set aside.~~ I skipped this step.
In large skillet melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon sugar evenly over surface of pan and cook until it begins to turn golden. Place bananas cut side down in pan and pour rum over bananas. Continue to cook, basting with sauce, until bananas begin to soften.
~~To serve, place two warm banana slices on a plate, spoon a little rum sauce over the top, drizzle with chocolate sauce and top with whipped cream.~~ How I served it: the chocolate ended up rather thick, so I spooned that on to the plates and then put the bananas on top. I also spooned a little of the vanilla sauce on top of that.

New Orleans called. They're having a jam session.

2011-03-07T04:37:00.000Z

While at a Mardi Gras party tonight I had the opportunity to sing with an impromptu band. It was "Summertime" and I can't remember the last time I a) sang with a band and b) just let things go freeflow for a little while. My voice bounced and surged and warbled and shifted smoothly from melody to improvised melody while the snare drum, the mandolin, the saxophone, the bongo, the guitar, the keyboard and the trombone wove around me. It was magic.

I've been invited to jam with them again soon and I can hardly wait.

Dinner was lovely, conversation and company were stimulating, and even the kids were able to jam with shakers and smaller instruments. It was an evening about celebration and music and the joy of simply being together. I look forward to the next time we do this.

The committee shuffle

2011-02-18T14:41:00.001Z

Part of the reason I've been so quiet around these parts was the start
of the spring term. A new semester always brings a need for adjustment
and change and a reevaluation of priorities.

However, I also found myself in a bind with my committee. My committee
chair up and went to a different school in the fall, which led to all
sorts of scrambling about and filling out paperwork to keep him in
that position. I have a two person committee and, if one of them
leaves, I'm stuck.

Which is what happened. Not only did he leave for a different school,
but he bowed out of the committee all together not long after, leaving
me to find a new person at a most inconvenient time. This resulted in
the need to get the new guy caught up and to respond to what he wanted
to see in the thesis. I sent out an abbreviated history of the thesis
on 7 Feb, got my marching orders on revisions for chapter one, and
sent out the revised chapter one last night. Work commences on
revising chapter two. It will be shipped on 27 Feb.

I know that I should be more upset over all of this, but I'm not. The
new guy gave me more useful guidance in our first hour-long meeting
that I've received from either of the original committee members in a
year. And I've made progress faster than I thought possible, given the
glacial pace at which the process was moving prior to this. I think
that part of what really helps is having faith in my own work - and a
burning desire to move on to something new. I didn't have either of
those before and now I do.

So it's getting on with it and with a fierceness I wasn't sure I still
possessed.

How my house became a wildlife preserve - and why I won't be in class today

2011-02-16T01:28:00.001Z

Dear Professor-

I am writing to inform you that I will not be in class today, 14
February. I wish I could say it was for something Valentine's Day
related, but it is, instead, due to the sudden intrusion of two flying
critters over the weekend. On Friday I was visited by a bird in my
kitchen; last night it was a bat buzzing around my living room while I
tried the "stun it with sound" approach (in other words, I screamed
like a little girl - my middle son subsequently informed me that
"you've got quite a pair of lungs there, Mom"). In the interests of
finding the point of entry and blocking it off so we can avoid any
more unwanted guests, I will be staying here to wait for my landlord.

In the past 6-7 months we've had a bunny, a bird, and a bat. It's like
the animal kingdom decided that our home invasion was to be brought to
us by the letter B.

I will bring my Strategies of Containment paper on Wednesday.

With regards-
Your Host

What is it with outside animals and my house?!

2011-02-11T17:26:00.003Z

For those of you who have been reading the blog for a while, you might
recall the woeful tale of Mr. Fluffers, the bunny that somehow got
into our basement and then promptly passed on last summer. Well, Mr.
Fluffers apparently left a note for his little animal friends telling
them what a great place our house is and so I had a visitor this
morning. I went into the kitchen to investigate a commotion that would
have otherwise indicated that the cats suddenly decided to live
amongst the pots and pans on the shelves and was not prepared for what
I found.

There was a bird flying around and trying to get out through one of
the closed windows.

My girl cats watched the goings on with great delight, stalking the
bird and leaving great wet streaks of drool in their wake. For my
part, I panicked. I'll admit it. I panicked. And screamed like a
little girl when it flew at me. And left a hysterical voicemail for
Michael who is currently on campus and can't just walk out of class to
deal with our latest episode of Wild Kingdom.

I grabbed a towel from the bathroom and tried to catch the bird, but
my towel-tossing abilities failed me. The bird was stuck between me and an outside door, so I ran for
another towel to try again. The bird flew up on to another batch of
shelves and I was able to get the door open. It exited in a hurry and
I closed the door, picked up the towels, threw them down the laundry
chute, and came in here to have a bit of a moment. I think I can
safely say that I'm not going to welcome birds of any variety in for a
while. Not parakeets, not canaries, and certainly not the woodland
creatures who seem to think that my house is a rest stop!

I think I need to go grab my blood pressure meds.

(and yes, this means I'm back. Look for tales of adventure with She
Who Must Not Be Named, ongoing hi-jinks with The Working for the Man
Ranch, herding cats and children, and my ongoing quest to make
something of myself by means of advanced degrees.)

From the Lord of the Rings marathon

2011-01-03T14:55:00.001Z

Thing One: "I hate it when I forget where I parked my orc."

And the wheel of the year starts again

2011-01-01T00:57:00.000Z

"Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past."

~Henry Ward Beecher

Happy New Year to one and all.

A time for change

2010-12-20T14:01:00.001Z

Well, the end of the term has come and gone. I've survived it all,
more or less, and now I've put paid to one last lingering issue.

No, I haven't yet defended the thesis. That will be in January.

i have submitted my resignation to the Working for the Man Ranch.

I quit emotionally and mentally about two weeks back, but I thought
that making it official would be the right thing to do. I informed my
supervisor via phone and e-mail yesterday. I've been thinking a lot
about whether or not this decision will affect our lives and I
honestly cannot find any negatives. Working for the Man Ranch has not
been a significant contributor to our income in some time, I don't
need the stress or the split focus or the guilt, and I suspect my
family relationships will benefit from me not running at 11 all the
time. I can finally focus on school, as that's what I'm here to do.
It's strange but, in a sense, I feel like I'm finally free.

It's been a heck of a year, but I can only see things improving from
here. I never thought I'd hear myself say that after quitting a job in
an economy such as this.

"I'm just hoping that tree isn't inhabited by the spirit of Kringus"

2010-12-12T04:04:00.002Z

Still alive, at the end of the first term of the doctoral program. Stay tuned!

Rehabilitating Cleopatra

2010-11-20T17:28:00.000Z

As someone who is interested in power relations and the gender divide, I found this article to be rather interesting. I'm hoping to pick up the book from which it was excerpted after the end of the term.

Rehabilitating Cleopatra

Playmate, will you come play with me?

2010-11-10T14:39:00.000Z

Date: 10 November 2010

Thing One, Trench, and the pool hall request
A little come to jesus with Thing Two and finding out that we're both dealing with much the same issues
The Kat's resistance to following a rubric.
For that matter, all of them seem to have a difficult time with rubrics. Why?
My officemate and our mutual love of tea.
Michael's entry in Disasterpiece Theater - slipping down the stairs with an almighty crash

From the notebook archive

2010-11-10T14:15:00.001Z

"I want a mongoose that vomits wealth."

Welcome to the end of the term

2010-11-08T12:32:00.000Z

The Flying Doctors of East Africa

2010-11-06T16:25:00.001Z

We're now well past the dual Halloween/birthday season and it is with a sense of urgency that I look ahead to the rest of the term. Of course, I'm also looking ahead to Thing One's imminent fifteenth birthday with some sense of, if not dread, then at least resignation. He's growing up, a fact of which I am reminded every day.

Michael and I are watching Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices, directed by Werner Herzog, and I'll say that the almost free association of it all seems to be summing up the chaos of the present. I know there's a narrative in here somewhere, but there's so many random threads being inserted in that it can be difficult to sort out what is important and what must be set aside. I think my favorite part of the film was the ending: a cell phone call between mother and son in which the son explains that he'll put the horse away and come home for lunch as soon as the Gesualdo film is over. He ends the call and then stares at the camera as if to say "Are we done here?" The soundtrack swells and then the credits begin to roll. I won't try to draw a comparison between that scene and life at present, except to say that random appears to be a mutual specialty.

Halloween was wonderful. Michael and I attended a party on Halloween Eve and then on Halloween night we went around the area with the kids. It's the first time since I was young enough to go out as a trick-or-treater that I really enjoyed the night. In Utah Halloween was a very different animal. It revolved largely around trunk-or-treat or taking the kids to the homes of those we knew. In contrast, it's a much different experience here. We picked a neighborhood and then just went from door to door, following the path of porch lights. We didn't worry about only going to homes where we knew people - we just trick-or-treated.

Birthdays were very low-key affairs, unless you consider the outpouring of well-wishes on Facebook. My dad and stepmom gave us a gift certificate for a local restaurant and we put that to use last night. Dinner was wonderful. Quiet location, great food, and the company was marvelous. Bringing dessert home and curling up with husband and Futurama made for a good way to celebrate not only birthdays, but to finally have the first date we've been on since March.

Today sees the kids scattered to the four winds: Thing One to a play this afternoon, Thing Two to play with a friend (assuming we can get a hold of the friend), and The Kat with back-to-back birthday parties. As for me and Michael? Work, work, a little reading, and the Netflix queue on in the background.

"You strike me as the 'lower the flag and charge' type."

2010-10-28T14:14:00.000+01:00

This week has been an all-out blitz to get the semester under control. For the most part I'm doing okay with this - I've put everything aside, literally and figuratively, and dealt with one pile at a time so as to not be ambushed by all of them coming at me at once.

I'll say this - I am getting a lot done right now. Part of it is pure stubborn, part of it is necessity. Either way, it's part of grad school and I am grateful that those around me understand that. Michael has been great about it, particularly as he has work of his own. Even the kids have been pretty good about it, but I'm starting to think I need a bigger sign on the door to tell them to steer clear.

This week has been an odd one for familial contact. It seems that all sorts are getting in touch for a variety of reasons. For example, much of Monday was consumed in phone calls with members of both sides of my family. Michael heard from his aunt. It's almost like there's a temporary gravitational field that's pulling them towards us. I say temporary only because these things are often cyclical; we operate in our own orbits and occasionally we align with someone else long enough to make contact.

Sometimes those contacts are better than others, but it's a blessing to know that those interactions in and of themselves do not constitute the totality of a relationship. It's about the cumulative experience. Of course, I can't think of that metaphor without immediately applying that to grad school. Right now my orbit is narrowly focused - need to get to the end of today. And then we start again tomorrow.

No more need for an exit strategy

2010-10-21T17:41:00.001+01:00

After months of bouncing pay checks and internal issues too numerous (and, in the interests of propriety, unmentionable) to ignore, the Working for the Man Ranch appears to be on the verge of declaring bankruptcy. I doubt I will get any further pay from this group.

So....looks like I'm back on the job market. Beautiful timing.

And the penny drops!

2010-10-17T21:13:00.001+01:00

I get it with Derrida and differance! Holy cow!

Benjamin and Adorno's Excellent Adventure

2010-10-17T16:32:00.001+01:00

Available in Literary Theory

I spent much of yesterday with the Gamer Queen as we tried to puzzle through theorists in advance of our midterm. The midterm is supposed to be a rehearsal for our prelim exams in two years, and it was for that reason that we felt attacking it together was wiser than trying to deal with it separately.

That kind of pain is definitely best shared. I think we both came away with a better grasp of what we needed to focus on and that, right there, is worth all the time, the caffeine buzz from what might have been a little too much Earl Grey, and the occasional digressions that reaffirmed our mutual oddity. The fact that I'm still processing what we went over last night tells me that it stuck and that is a beautiful, beautiful thing when you're still a theory neophyte.

Thanks to the Gamer Queen!

A change of plans

2010-10-15T14:26:00.001+01:00

Well, that was unexpected.

I've been working on revisions and so forth with the thesis and it's clear I'm going to miss the 1 November deadline for having the completed and approved thesis in to the grad college. There's been some drama with my thesis chair moving to another institution and needing to flip the roles of my committee members for the sake of Grad College bureaucracy and then finding out that not only is my new chair getting married in less than two weeks, but she will be unavailable for a defense until early December. So....I'll have it filed with the grad college by end of term and then I'll walk in the spring.

I'm at peace with this and I've take a much different approach to the thesis since this all came down. Rather than freaking out about the whole project or even a whole chapter at a time, I have one question that I need to answer every day. I'm finding that simpling it up like that keeps me on track, keeps me from being overwhelmed, and keeps me producing. It's kind of a nice way to start the day - "what question will I answer today?"

I need to get away from the Working for the Man Ranch and I finally have an exit strategy. It's something that might not be ideal, but I still think that I've got to start somewhere on the academic ladder. I'm going to adjunct. I know it's work, but I'm already working while trying to do this. Why not do something that will help to build my CV and will allow me to develop my teaching philosophy and portfolio?

My day at the Central Bureaucracy

2010-10-13T23:00:00.029+01:00

Not actual size

About twenty days ago we were notified that there was an error on our 2008 Ohio taxes and that we owed a large amount. I called the tax commission and we hunted down the problem - I'd not filed a part-year exemption, which would have explained that we didn't move here until August 2008. However, the damage was done and to undo it we needed to file an amendment. I was advised that we could get help on this at the nearest local branch of the Central Bureaucracy and so I dutifully wrote down the information and then put the tax file on a flat surface. This was likely a mistake, as flat surfaces tend to attract other objects until there is a pile.

I realised the error about a week later and extricated the file from the now-growing pile. Thinking that it would be safest with the other tax folders in my filing cabinet, I filed it and then largely put it out of my mind so I could focus on other things. This was also a mistake.

And so it was on the occasion of our return from school lunch with The Cat that I panicked, finally remembering not only the file but also the injunction of "you have 20 days to deal with this." I grabbed the file and we headed up to the Central Bureaucracy for a little tax assistance.

Also not actual size

The building was right out of Futurama. Tall, white, and looking very much like a computer punchcard of days gone by. The interior was a little better, but the various bays into which taxpayers were shuttled for assistance made me wonder when Morgan Proctor or Hermes Conrad would wander past. The saving grace was that, while the Central Bureaucracy is a little cold, clinical, and vaguely creepy, the people with whom we worked were not. While the news was a mixed bag - we still owe, but not as much as we thought, and we need to amend our Utah return, too, because I filed that wrong - it's at least in the records that we are working on it.

And we didn't even need to requisition our groove back.

For the record, lunch with The Cat was only made tolerable by the company. School lunches are still just as vile as I remember.

Anything but just another day

2010-10-10T14:21:00.000+01:00

Not Dale Cooper

Thing One went to his first dance tonight and hunting down the requisite dance wear was not as traumatic as I'd feared. My concerns largely revolved around finding things that would fit him, as he's tall but thin. Fortunately we were able to locate everything required and he was satisfied with the options. I made a wrist corsage for the young lady who bought his ticket - oh, did I leave that part out? Let me back up.

There had been a lot of debate about whether or not Thing One would be able to attend the dance. There were several factors: we already had family plans to celebrate a friend's birthday, he hadn't really asked permission before he "hypothetically" asked this young lady if she would be interested in going to the dance with him, and there was also the parental crisis of "ack! first dance!" Michael and I came to the conclusion that, given the cost of tickets, that he would not be able to attend and told him as much. A couple of afternoons later, Thing One came into the office, sat down opposite me, and said "Mom, there's something I need to show you." He pulled a dance ticket out of his pocket and explained that the young lady he'd "hypothetically" asked to the dance really wanted to be there with him - hence the ticket she'd purchased for him.

At that point I understood that it was a fait accompli. The best step I could make was to get over myself and realise that, at his age, I'd started attending dances, too. I think it was the implications of "date" that had me worried, but I think that's my Mormon upbringing talking.

So.....we rounded up his attire, went to the birthday celebration (and had some of the most delicious Italian food along with wonderful company), and took him to the dance a little late. He had a fantastic time and I realised that this was a first step for not just him, but for us as well. Welcome to parenting a teen-ager.

Sesame Street: Smell Like A Monster

2010-10-09T12:40:00.000+01:00

And this, among many other reasons, is why we love Grover.

A moment for pause

2010-10-06T21:00:00.000+01:00

It's been a big week for Thing Two. Since Saturday he has run in two cross-country meets, played in a band concert, and made a pasta dish as his contribution to the team's end of season potluck.

And tonight I found him reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy out loud to Miranda and Clovar while Daria listened from the hall.

The kid is growing up, but he's still Thing Two, thank goodness.

Finding a usable context

2010-10-03T02:00:00.001+01:00

I've been watching through my 1930s Warner Bros. cartoons while I wrap up any loose ends that might be lurking in my thesis and The Kat decided to sit with me tonight. We came to 1932's "Crosby, Columbo, and Vallee." She didn't quite grasp who Columbo and Vallee were (she knows Bing Crosby, fortunately) and she thought about it for a moment. "Are they a little like Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, and......Michael Jackson?"

It's not a bad comparison, really.

I've been running almost all day. Thing Two's penultimate cross country meet turned out to be a cold, soggy, muddy slog and while it was not his strongest finish, he kept going until the very end. He refused to give up and I was proud to see that determination in him. My dad and stepmother came down for the meet and to spend the day with us and I have to say that, while it was extremely low-key, I had a very nice day. As we shuttled from one location to another, I worked on those loose ends and pushed my cartoon selection back from the late 1930s to the early 1930s. The findings are very useful and help to strengthen my position in a lot of ways.

Of course, I also understand that the only good thesis is a thesis on file with the grad college. I was reminded of this while helping a friend with some video retrieval and it for that reason that I'm going to file this entry and get back to work. The kids keep telling me to slow down, but right now, I just don't dare.

You can always count on him

2010-09-29T20:11:00.001+01:00

Thing One came home today, all a-twitter about Homecoming, and when I asked him who of his friends would be attending, he started listing names. When I asked about a friend whose name was absent from his list, he explained "Well, she's on the 'no talk to list' at the moment. There was a messy break-up and I'm just trying to steer clear." He chuckled a little. "J was hoping that I'd be able to offer moral support, but I told him that the support would be amoral at best."

I'm really hoping that he's going with the definition of "neither moral nor immoral."

"Nightingales and bombers"

2010-09-29T15:15:00.002+01:00

I don't usually care for history programs. I'm not sure if it's a consequence of being a historian or perhaps being just stubborn enough that I don't want people telling me what to think, but I find the mediated nature of "here is history, let me show it to you" to be less than helpful. I try to find primary sources where I can and that search has been made all the more intriguing by a site called How to be a retronaut.

Today's entry, Nightingales and bombers reminded me of the power of primary documents. The background for the clip, the wheres and whens and whys, certainly set the stage, but it's the audio clip and the knowledge of what is about to occur that I found most affecting. I'd be interested in hearing what youall thought about it.

Last night's theory class left me with a lot to consider when it comes to blogging and the way in which we present ourselves online. One of the presenters talked about feminist and anti-racist blogs as having a great deal to contribute to intellectual discourse, but there are also the questions of who is writing on these blogs, how does their identity/social location affect the reader's perceptions, and how do these presentations of identity place the writer in a position of "authority". I believe the questions were being asked more in context of group blogs, but I think that the question is applicable to individual blogs even like this one. In my bio I tell you who I am even though I don't give you a name. I identify myself as an educated mother and wife and cat owner. I tell you that my vision isn't great and is likely to consider sliding downhill as I pursue my education. The pictures I've posted tell you my racial classification and the surroundings seen might even give hints as to my socio-economic status. When I shifted this blog from a public, everyone knows my name, forum to the more anonymous Your Host, I thought I was going underground and keeping myself off the radar. I think that, to a degree, it's been successful, but I guess I will always wonder.

I have no illusions that this blog contributes to intellectual discourse. It's just a blog - a collection of anecdotes and family milestones. It's a way of sharing our world.

Sorry about the lack of focus in this. I have a number of things on the plate that require attention and I needed to get these two off to make room for something else.

Behold the power of Ok Go

2010-09-27T19:59:00.001+01:00

The director just rushed into my office, frantically trying to recall something. "What was that video, you know, the one with the dogs and the music?"

I opened up Firefox and waited, ready to run a search at the first hint of something I could grasp.

"Okay, something, something," she fretted, obviously distressed.

"OK Go?" I asked. I have long since checked incredulity at the door with this job.

Her face lit up. "Yes, that's it!" She flew out the door and I could hear her vest flapping as she lit off down the hallway.

And I went back to my to-do list - but only after making certain I wrote this down.

All you need to know about opera

2010-09-26T18:00:00.000+01:00

This has long been one of my favorite explanations of opera.

So we showed it to the kids again and Thing Two's reaction was interesting. He declared that he didn't like seeing all those people dying. After pointing out that that means no more Star Wars or Star Trek or pretty much anything media-related, he paused to consider. Michael probed a little more and then asked "So you're okay with people dying so long as they don't sing about it?"

Thing Two shrugged. "Pretty much."

The Kat piped up from where she sat snuggling with Clovar. "But it's not real. They just take out a bunch of goat's blood and spray it around," she said. It's another in a long series of things where her sweet voice and off-the-wall comments just don't match up.

"And then they sing about it?" Thing Two sounded hopeful.

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Oh. Okay then."

Exit Thing Two.

Bats: Nature's Little Bug Zappers

2010-09-24T16:24:00.001+01:00

I've been feeling very virtuous because I've been using my bike to get around as opposed to relying on the car, but today's trip really made me question my sanity. There's nothing like riding into a 25 mph headwind to remind you that this might be problematic.

They Rolled, They Shouted, and Barked Like Dogs!

2010-09-24T00:59:00.001+01:00

This class is now in heavy competition to become one of my favorites. Love, love, love Public History.

Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce

2010-09-22T13:01:00.001+01:00

Monday kind of fell into a black hole. I could feel the cold creeping back in and, sure enough, by mid-day yesterday I wanted to curl up under my desk and hide. I begged off on class last night - an indicator that I really am ill - and stayed home where I could read Foucault and Butler in peace.

Thing One and I have been gradually watching our way through the first series of Torchwood and broke up the dysfunctional office dynamics with Shaun of the Dead on Saturday night. His comment on the experience? "I've seen more people shot through the head in the last three days....." It's given us a new level of in-jokes and I'm coming to appreciate the shift in our relationship. I'm still willing and able to pull the mom card, but right now I'm more concerned with creating a space for dialogue and confidences should he choose to use them. So far he's done just that. He plants himself in the big blue chair in my office when he gets home and we talk. He tells me about his friends and the quirky things that he's seen through the day. It's led to hearing about his friends exploring sexual identifiers and where he sits on that spectrum. It's also allowed me to hear how he's incorporating some of the media that we've been watching.

I think my favorite moment happened during dinner last night. He announced that he wants to write an analysis of superhero parody in Warner Bros. animation, examining the fine line between parody and homage. He's fourteen. I could not be more proud that he's not afraid to use his brain.

Things at the Institute are moving in unexpected directions. It looks like I have become the designated writing partner for the director, which is a role I was kind of hoping would be allocated to my fellow research assistant. Not that I'm ducking work, mind you, but I'm starting to feel that I'm the go-to girl on a lot of the projects we do. I also understand that part of that is due to the cultivation of a strange skill set, but it's still a little strange.

And now, working on my course and designing assignments. Woohoo!

Refrigerator of the gods

2010-09-20T17:45:00.001+01:00

I've taken the last three days to work on thesis revisions and ended up with the vocabulary that I've been seeking for the past five years: official culture versus vernacular culture. Thank you, John Bodnar.

My beloved Minnie Mouse watch (round 2) passed on without warning about two weeks ago. I was sure it was the battery, as the watch was rebuilt in 2007, but a check of the battery proved that it was fine and the watch had ceased to tick. I've worn that watch for 22 years and, while letting it go was something of a pinch, I replaced it with something that I think might last for another twenty years. The face is rectangular instead of round, the typeface looks like it's right out of the 1930s, and even the case has the feel of something from the late 1920s/early 1930s. I could not be happier with this and I look forward to getting the Minnie watch overhauled for The Kat when it's time to hand it over.

We've been prepping for winter: putting up insulated drapes, cleaning out the garden, clearing space in the garage so we can put the car in when the weather goes unpleasant. Part of that seasonal observance is putting up the leaves that we've been using for several years. We had company over last night and she was gracious enough to help with the leaves and I think she had a good time.

It's definitely the right time of year for gathering. Gathering stores for winter, gathering friends close, generally steeling ourselves against the cold and the damp. I'm just glad that we have the space, both in our home and in our hearts.

Next up on the maturation train: Thing Two

2010-09-17T16:46:00.001+01:00

When Michael and I went upstairs last night for bed, we were a little surprised to find Thing Two's light still on. I'm pretty sure we startled him when we opened his door, but I wasn't prepared for what came out of him after the apology for breaking the bedtime rule.

He looked up at me, eyes brimming with tears, and blurted out "I keep looking at girls and I'm afraid I'm going to annoy them! I can't stop looking at girls and it's starting to annoy me!"

I drew him into a hug, stroked his hair, and told him that he was absolutely normal and welcome to puberty.

I'm also very glad that Michael was standing behind me at that point because I'm pretty sure that, had we made eye contact, I would have lost my composure.

Pearls of Wisdom from The Kat

2010-09-16T13:01:00.001+01:00

"Don't be weird."

"But I am weird! That's just the matter of me."

New tricks

2010-09-16T12:44:00.001+01:00

The graphic designer at the Institute left us rather abruptly about two weeks ago and I've stepped up to take her responsibilities. Stop me if this sounds familiar: I'm responsible for the website, the flyers, the brochures, and event photography. I feel like this position makes use of almost my entire skillset and that's saying something. My larger question at this point is how it's going to work on a CV. Is it service or just another position? I'm sure that youall who are up in the academia can advise.

Our first major Institute event was yesterday and I must say that it was a success. We had a great audience for the first talk of the series and the speaker reinforced why I am grateful to have her on both the thesis committee and the dissertation committee. I spoke with her about the diss committee yesterday and she just smiled. "I kind of figured I signed up for the long haul on this," she said. Now if my thesis chair hadn't high-tailed it out of here for another school, I'd be set. But he did and now I must adapt.

As I've mentioned before, I work with some interesting personalities and one of those is, to quote a friend, "lacking in some of the softer skills", which is to say that interpersonal skills are still a work in progress. The Director snapped at me during a fellows meeting about a week ago and, while she apologized in private, her actions left an impression with the fellows. One of them approached me at the start of the talk yesterday and gave me a side hug, expressing solidarity and support. To be honest I'd forgotten about it, as an apology had been given and accepted, but it served as a reminder that these people have long histories with one another. I am merely the new girl in the office and am trying to navigate my way through the morass of academic politics.

I think that, because I don't know that particular fellow beyond the most basic of introductions, it was a little uncomfortable when she invaded my personal space. However, I appreciate the sentiment and look forward to working with her in the future.

My classes continue to be wonderful and I could not be more excited about them. Last night's pedagogy class was all about technology and I couldn't help but feel right at home. Granted, a lot of the "at home" feeling is generated by that particular professor, but I must give credit to the presenters as well. The only downside is that part of the presentation was about tracking grain movements in New Spain and, while the mapping technology looks like it could be useful, my brain checked out just a little during that segment.

The portion I found most useful was the importance of vetting sources and the idea of lending authority by using various items (video, photographs, websites) in the classroom. Some of the examples of retouched photos were a little obvious, but I think that the point made was a good one. We were reminded that, to maintain an honest and useful classroom, that we should be as skeptical of online sources as we are of texts and articles. Taking anything at face value could just be asking for trouble. I suppose it's the check and check again approach, as that verification process keeps us honest.

The only downside was my late arrival. While I didn't miss much information, I did miss a place at the table and sat along the side instead. This along the side position didn't foster inclusion in the conversation, but I have to give credit to the presenters. They seemed aware of my predicament and did a good job of catching it when my hand went up.

As for why I was late.....cross-country meets usually start around 4pm, which gives me ample time to travel there and back again. However, this one started an hour later, which put me in a crunch. I let all of my instructors know about this day one of class and they all agreed that I needed to be there for the kids. However, I still dislike being late.

Thing Two was anything but late. He's shaving time off his races and he's slowing inching up the pack. I'm really happy for him as I know that he hit rock bottom last week (he came in last). He's not willing to be "that kid" and I have to really give him credit. He refuses to give up.

Now if I could just get him to go to sleep at a reasonable hour......because he refuses to give it up on that one, too.

Alas, Mr. Fluffer

2010-09-15T14:38:00.002+01:00

Our basement smells funny on the best of days, due in no small part to the fact that the house is over one hundred years old, but I noticed a definite funk when I went downstairs last night to put jars away.

My first thought was "we've had potatoes go bad", so I sorted the potatoes and threw out what I thought were the culprits. On a return trip, the smell came up to meet me as I hit the bottom stair and so I sorted through again, hoping I'd gotten all of them.

It was still there this morning, an almost palpable presence, and so this time I thought it might have been some bedding that needed washing. I started a load and then did a little reorganizing of the food storage area, but as the washing machine ran, the smell wasn't getting any better.

I'm known as the power sniffer in my house - I can tell if Thing One forgot his deodorant at almost fifty paces and I'm the designated nose for testing if the milk has gone off or if a spice balance in cooking is right. So I put my rather odd superpower to use and found the general area from whence the Stench (by this time it had acquired a name that demanded a capital letter) was situated. I called Michael down and he confirmed my suspicions. He then asked for a flashlight and it was at this point that all the questions were answered.

A bunny, who we have posthumously named Mr. Fluffer, had somehow gotten in and then passed on. While we regret the passing of Mr. Fluffer, we're a little more concerned with how he got in there. We don't need our basement to become Pet Cemetery, you know?

All up in the Benjamin

2010-09-14T23:53:00.001+01:00

I wasn't really wanting to come to class tonight, but the conversation with Liz and Gen made me realise that there was no other place that I really wanted to be. Thank you, Walter Benjamin, John Fiske, and Michel di Certeau.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Owen Harper

2010-09-14T20:11:00.001+01:00

Thing One and I have been watching Torchwood and he made a connection today between an episode we watched last night ("Day One") and a scene he saw at school. I will only say that his response to this incident was "happy birthday to me!"

If you've seen the episode, you'll catch on.

It's a little odd to hear from my oldest child, but I'd rather he talk with me than to let me find out he's grown up without me knowing at all.

My idea of a good time

2010-09-14T00:54:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure where this is coming from, but I seem to be on top of my readings, dealing with my clients, and keeping my head together with regards to the Institute. It's like I suddenly getting traction or something.

So as a reward for working my brain to a nubbin, I spent a little time with Thing One this afternoon. He and I are watching Torchwood and it was nice to sit for an hour and just.....

read more theory.

Not at my best

2010-09-13T15:27:00.002+01:00

I can feel myself getting sick, but even at that I'm normally able to function at least a little. However, I'm starting to wonder after my little misadventure in tea-making.

I put the water on to boil, put the tea bags in the pot, and then listened for the click so I could start the brewing. I heard the click, went into the kitchen, started the timer, and waited for the timer to go off. The timer eventually went off, so I grabbed a fork to pull out the tea bags and opened the pot.

Only to find that I'd forgotten to add the water.

The tawny scrawny lion

2010-09-13T12:37:00.000+01:00

Thing Two has acquired a new nickname. He's taken to running without a shirt during practices and that has led to a rather nice golden tan. However, he's also easily one of the scrawniest boys on the team and so, while I'm glad he's comfortable enough to go without a shirt (Thing One was never able to really do that), I'm always left with the feeling that no matter how much he eats, it's just not sticking.

I suppose it will stick once his height levels off. He's hit a growth spurt and is sneaking up on me very quickly.

The tawny and scrawny parts of that nickname are fairly evident, but it was at the meet on Saturday that he came to own the lion part. To date he's not been performing up to his expectations, but on Saturday he took off and ran his heart out. I was jumping up and down on the sidelines, cheering at the top of my lungs as he went by and every ounce of it was joy in seeing him dig deep and pass runner after runner. He finally found that drive and yet I think a part of him also understands that he is his own best competition. While the person ahead of him makes a tangible goal, it still comes down to him.

This is part of why I am such a big advocate of running. While there is a team aspect, there's also a need for the individual to make peace with himself at the finish line. Did he do enough? Did he push until he had nothing left and then find a little in the tank at the end? So long as they can answer yes to either of those questions, then they've learned what they needed to.

I ran last night for a little bit. I don't run often these days because I've been warned that high-impact exercise could contribute to more back surgery, but last night as I was taking a book back to the library, I couldn't help it. It just needed to be done and I'm glad I could re-engage with the feeling that seems to be driving Thing Two forward right now.

A new year

2010-09-09T14:42:00.000+01:00

Let it be known far and wide that I have successfully applied for graduation. Commencement is scheduled for 18 December. There will be much rejoicing (and there already is much rejoicing, but I suspect the intensity will pick up as I start getting things like robes ordered).

I've been in communication with both members of my committee and we are sorting out the details on wrapping this up and getting it defended. It's so strange but the end of this appears to be in sight. Of course, this also overlaps with a new school year and a whole new program. I started the doctoral program almost three weeks ago and, so far, haven't tripped over myself just yet.

I'm a little surprised as just how much I'm enjoying my classes. Yes, there's the expectation of work being completed and coming to class prepared, but the tone of the classes is different. It's more of a seminar atmosphere and, while there's a lot of learning going on, its as if we're being treated more like potential colleagues than wet behind the ears undergrads. It's kind of amazing, actually.

Of all my classes, I do have a favorite. I'm in the history pedagogy course and feel for all the world like I've come home. I'm the only ACS person in the room and that gets me a fair share of ribbing, but I don't mind it. It's just part and parcel of being from a different (albeit related) discipline.

Thing Two's cross-country career has not been as blazingly successful as he might have hoped. He's find during practices, but he tenses up before meets and it hurts his performance. We talked a little about it last night and we're going to work on helping him find some relaxation techniques so that he can really enjoy the race instead of it being a source of anxiety. He tries so hard and wants it so badly and that, of course, makes me want it, too.

Thing One has entered the semi-angsty teenager phase and that has resulted in the production of a "bad relationship" song cycle. He's also been developing his own sense of style, where dark clothes are the thing, and that sense of style includes a recently acquired black fedora and rimless reading glasses. I must say that the glasses are kind of awesome - they look very much like a throwback to another era and all the more impressive when he's curled up in the recliner in my office, reading 1984 and wanting to know more about Foucault and the panopticon. I'm not sure what we've raised, but if I were pressed for a description, I'd say he's likely to be a hell-raiser in the classroom, but in the nicest possible way.

The Kat is starting to sprout, which means she's got long legs to go with that long brown hair. It's like she's turning into a Jet song right before our eyes and that's a little strange. Fortunately she's as sweet as she is pretty and twice as smart. She also fully embraces her nerd/geek binary heritage, so I find that to be a relief as well as a joy. She hasn't gone too far into clothes and hair and all that yet, but we'll see what the future brings.

Recordkeeping

2010-09-05T21:51:00.001+01:00

In the interests of both time and keeping some sort of a journal, the entries for the next while are likely to be short and without a lot of exposition. However, I am firmly of the opinion that the notes are worth the effort if only because I'm the family scribe.

A few nights ago, The Kat came into the office with a flyer in her hands. It was from the University of Sunnydale North's continuing education program and at first I thought she was asking to take a class. It turns out that her motives were a little more altruistic.

She'd seen a listing for a ballroom class and thought that it might be nice for Michael and me to do together. I couldn't help but appreciate the thought.

All about a little GTA

2010-09-03T12:41:00.000+01:00

Original location : http://xkcd.com/788/ Courtesy of XKCD.com

Pressing questions

2010-08-25T12:55:00.000+01:00

From last night while sitting in my first doctoral level class: "Oh lord. I'm a doctoral student. When did this happen?"

From this morning: "Why is there a tricorder in my kitchen?"

Tractor pulls and undergrads

2010-08-24T04:18:00.000+01:00

What are the two things brought to us by the last weekend?

The Sunnydale North celebration of tractors and all things loud rolled into town on Friday in a Winnebago hijacked from the 1970s. It then proceeded to blare from the fairgrounds to all points surrounding, even going as far as our house which is probably two miles from the happenings. The sensory overload that came along as part of the package deal was not helped by the sudden and inexorable influx of undergraduates. They arrived in two waves: the first, the fresh meat, arrived on Friday and the second, the jerky, arrived on Sunday. This was soon accompanied by much honking of horns, no doubt in response to cardboard signs that promised to reward a honk with a swig of beer.

The one sign that I could really appreciate was the sign for the University of Sunnydale North Waterskiing Team. While the yard might have been swarming with undergraduates in various states of dress and with a rainbow of plastic cups gripped in sweaty mitts, I tried to just appreciate the spirit of celebration.

This was a lot easier when I couldn't hear the tractor pull.

Biff Manchops

2010-08-15T17:19:00.000+01:00

First things first: I am nearly done with the thesis. At least, I am nearly done with it in my head. I have the conclusion to tackle and a few lumps and bumps to clear up, but I'm getting there. I won't celebrate until it's put to bed, which means everything needs to be good. Please note I don't say perfect. A member of my committee told me once that perfect is the enemy of good and, at this point, I'll take good over perfect. The one concession I will make to that little aphorism is that I want chapters that I can work over into articles. That's the goal here. Oh, and to lay the foundation for my dissertation, if my committee is to be believed.

School starts on Tuesday for the children and the following week for Michael and me. However, we've already gone through orientation for Thing Two's move into middle school and Thing One's move into high school. The Kat will meet with her new teacher tomorrow after which time Thing One will meet with his teachers. It's all very exciting and yet a little strange. Middle school and high school are big markers and they seem to have arrived very quickly.

Both boys are in choir this year and Thing Two has band as well, so it's going to be concert after concert this year. However, it's going to ease up a little in the athletics department. Thing One has opted out of running this year to allow his ankles time to heal and to focus on getting his academics where he wants them to be. Thing Two, on the other hand, is running cross-country this year and it looks like that kid has finally gotten in touch with his competitive nature. The difference between Thing One and Thing Two in this is that Thing One had his peers with whom to compete. Thing Two, on the other hand, has someone more important than his peers with whom he is competing: his older brother. He's already bested Thing One's evaluation time from this same point in the season and when I asked him how it felt, he grinned up at me. "I want to go faster," he said with an intensity that thrilled me to the core. That kid is a force to be reckoned with and he's beginning to learn that for himself.

Thing One has made tremendous strides in art over the summer. He's starting to go with us to the market on the weekend so he can watch people and get some sketching in, which is an activity of which I heartily approve.

Jazz ensemble, Farmers Market, 7 August 2010

Thing Two's lightpost

Not to be outdone, Thing Two countered with a steampunk rendering of a nearby light post.

I love seeing the different approaches that the boys take to drawing. Thing One is more interpretive, Thing Two is more technical. It matches their personalities perfectly.

The Kat is starting to pay a lot more attention to her appearance. That often means a necklace and a watch as well as making certain her hair is brushed and groomed. This is a fairly new development, but it's been good to see. I was beginning to wonder if we'd need to cut her hair short for ease and then just brace for puberty. As it is, she's not incredibly girly girl, but we are starting to appreciate shopping together a little more. It also helps that she's not afraid to look at a second-hand item and see the possibilities. We've got two skirts right now that, with the judicious application of a drawstring around the waist or a few buttons down the front will be just right (and might stand a chance of staying on her rather slender frame). She's starting to develop who she is and I'm glad I get to be a part of it.

Michael is bracing for the term to start and really, so am I. The good news is that we'll be in it with friends and colleagues, so we're not alone. I'll be in Methods and Theories with one of my dearest friends (and frequent dinner buddy), Gen. We trade off houses with Gen and Paul for dinner/sanity breaks and we have committed to doing so throughout the term. We've fallen into using themes for dinner as there's a little less guesswork on what to bring or what to cook and it's been a good time to date. Last night we had Breakfast for Dinner and as much early Doctor Who Barrowman as we could squeeze into the time allotted. Gen and I also went out to the garden and picked tomatoes and cleaned a little dead plant life out of the way.

It was a good way to start winding down from the summer and gearing up for school.

Also, in Working for the Man Ranch news, things there have been most interesting. There's been a pile-up of clients, but they've been great to work with for the most part. However, I have Brother of Dr. Jackwagon to cope with. They're not biological brothers, so far as I know, but they are certainly cut from the same cloth. I can honestly say that, while I don't normally derive such intense satisfaction from seeing the back of a client, I'll make an exception in this case.

More writing to do, as per usual. Welcome to the next four years, I suppose.

Tonsured chickens

2010-08-04T04:54:00.002+01:00

We're currently house-sitting for some friends and we have been invited, nay, implored to make ourselves feel at home while we're there. For me that's largely accomplished by playing with their cats, but its also been recommended that we make use of their pool and the hot tub. I've been using the hot tub rather gratefully over the past couple of evenings, even with the sudden appearance of a bat that likes to skim the surface of the pool for a drink.

However, there's little that disrupts the peace like the occasional sounds coming from the henhouse in the yard.

There are six lady chickens and while some of them look quite respectable in their feathers, a few are sporting sunburns due to a lack of feathery coverage on their backs. It's almost like they were tonsured by some chickeny religious authority. We have also found that they will eat almost anything and that corn fresh from the field just over the fence is, in the words of their owner, "like crack cocaine."

Michael gathered three eggs this evening. We'll see how they are when we finally open them.

The thesis is going well, almost in spite of the unprecedented workload at the Working for the Man Ranch. What I've lost in pay I've made up in volume and variety of work, so I can't complain about that. I'm writing on a daily basis and have observed one of Page Smith's Historian's Rules when it comes to writing: "My rule of thumb is to do a third of my research before I begin to write, a third while I am writing, and a third when I have finished (to see if there are any loose ends to be tied up)." I'm currently doing a little reading to fill in a gap that I've found in a chapter and it helps to draw a stronger parallel between my two "opposing" forces. It is good. There is no other word for it.

It's also been fun to read about some of the genre examples and be able to say "hey, I recognize that idea from Daffy Duck in Hollywood or Porky's Road Race or Let It Be Me." It lets me know that the years of work "ain't been in vain fer nothin'" as Lina Lamont might say.

I realised tonight that this summer has been so much more full than I would have expected. The Kat got over her fear of water and now we can scarcely keep her out of it, the boys have roamed the neighborhood together, gathering bits and pieces for the big project, I've almost completed a master's thesis, and Michael has successfully kept me alive while also picking up a useful skillset by way of learning interview transcription.

It's not over yet, but it is quickly drawing to a close.

One last thing before I forget: I had a strange dream a few nights ago. I was married to someone I knew a long time ago and we just couldn't get things right. I woke a little unsettled and with a lot on my mind. A good portion of what was on my mind was gratitude, as I wouldn't trade Michael for anyone, but I can't help but wonder why I kept seeing this person over and over again in my dreams. We haven't spoken in years.

Maybe it's just what my brain does to avoid working on the thesis while I sleep.

"Mothra, don't go toward the light!"

2010-07-24T20:34:00.004+01:00

There's an update a'brewin', but for the moment I pose the following question:

Would "The Sound of Music" be considered a nunspoltation film? What about "The Flying Nun"? Thing One asked and I wasn't sure what to say.

As for other assorted tidbits to come:

1/4 of the thesis in to my committee, 1/2 in process (the next 1/4 will be out the door by the middle of next week), and I just keep writing. It isn't easy, but it's getting easier.

A Mediterranean feast with Paul and Gen and the discovery of Star Trek:Online. Ah, the potential for addiction. Also, looks like the dinner meet-up will be continued in the following edition: Breakfast for Dinner: Waffles, Grits, and other assorted Morning Munchies

Succumbing to the spread sheet, or organizing my client list for the Working at the Man Ranch

The end of this side of the Great Institute Migration of 2010

The tale of the blue recliner

And Flash: The do's and don't's, part one.

Searching for the courage to move on

2010-07-15T09:45:00.002+01:00

Remember last October? With the back surgery and the 25% pay cut (the latter brought to you by our fine friends at the Working for the Man Ranch?)?.

The Man has decided to make it a total of 30% lost from my paychecks. I was notified yesterday that my pay was to be dropped to $20/page, which is the pay rate at which I was hired almost three years ago.

There hasn't been a single week since last October that has involved some sort of drama from the Working at the Man Ranch and that drama has really intensified during the last two months. I need to plot an exit strategy immediately. I can't keep doing this.

House of Jam

2010-07-14T13:48:00.002+01:00

Michael is restocking the jam cupboard. So far this year we've added strawberry, strawberry-peach, and apricot jam back into the stash and he's eager to try mint jelly next. He's also figured out pork carnitas (make certain to use a slow cooker) as well as the lime-cilantro rice that draws us back to Chipotle from time to time. Our house smells delicious on a regular basis and that has been most welcome.

The Institute move is picking up steam. We're moving boxes at this point but I suspect that it will not be long before the furniture starts to go and we get everything cleared away. I'm there for twelve hours a week right now and, while I'm glad I can help and coordinate and bring in free labor (Michael and the boys), I'm a little torn. I still have many things to do here. My sole consolation is that my writing has picked up speed and I'm far more engaged and focused that I've been before. It helps, but I wonder sometimes if it helps enough.

Thing Two and the Director appear to have formed some sort of a bond. I suspect it is a case of like attracts like, as they seem to have similar personalities, but it has been both a wonder and a pleasure to see them working together. I've been utterly charmed by watching them together.

The Kat is working on her sewing skills and is currently on a tear of producing cloth bookmarks. I should get a picture of the one she made for me last night. At this point I'm glad that she's found a creative outlet and that it's something that could lead to bigger and better things as she continues to explore those possibilities.

The big weird (or awesome)

2010-07-11T12:22:00.003+01:00

I'm not sure why things like this happen. I declare a moratorium here and then my world blossoms into an ever-expanding bouquet of weird (or even of awesome).

Working for The Man is hitting a fever pitch in the stress department. Not only is it enough to have very little work available, but I'm hearing rather distressing tales of paychecks bouncing repeatedly. This is a stressor I could very easily be without.

Other stressors I could happily skip involve former clients like the one I have named Dr. Jackwagon. Friday morning I opened my work e-mail to find that I was not only be blamed for the incomplete work of others, but that he would "start an aggressive campaign to complain about you as a designer if you do not reply to my email." He capped it all off with "THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. OTHERWISE YOU WILL FIND COMPLAINTS ABOUT YOURSELF ON THE INTERNET..." I haven't had his account in my hands for over two months, so I'm sure you can imagine my discontent at hearing from him like this. The most amusing part to me was, when I mentioned to Thing One and Thing Two that this client had contacted me, their comment was "again?!?"

It's never a good sign if the kids know a client by reputation as well as by name.

While The Man falls down on the job in many ways, I will say that my immediate supervisor and our legal representative stepped in and made it clear to Dr. Jackwagon that his threats to me were unnecessary. I also received an "off the record" e-mail from the legal guy in which he again expressed his support and sympathy for me. It was a nice touch given the other doings at the Working for The Man Ranch.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but Thing Two is a flute player. I have the good fortune to accompany him sometimes and we took a brief moment on Friday to practice Erik Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1. It was an absolute pleasure; he's easy to work with, he keeps going back to make certain things are right, and he's cultivated an excellent ear for keeping his instrument in tune. He has music in every fiber of his being and it's beautiful to see that in him.

Yesterday was a mixed bag that ended up on the end of the positive. I'm nearly done working over the intro and I can't tell you how many iterations I've gone through with that. I also know that it's likely to change a little at the end of the process, but the good news is that the intro is going out to my reviewers today and I can resume writing chapter one. Chapter two is nearly complete as well, but with the re-rewrite on the intro it will require a little new framing. I think the part of the intro that gives me a smile that only a few will understand is the imagery of "the map of the heart". As maps are tools for direction and for orienting ones' self, it seemed an apt metaphor for the search for identity. Many different groups wanted to redraw that map and working with that idea helped the whole point of my thesis finally settle into my brain. So, to the one responsible for introducing that line in a long-ago log from the Fearless, thanks.

The mixed part of the day came when, during the usual Saturday stock-up, I paused at an Oil of Olay display. The woman standing there approached me and asked "Do you have a daughter getting ready to start college?" I was flabbergasted. "Excuse me?" I responded, hoping she'd been addressing an older woman who had materialized behind me. She repeated her question and at that I started to get a little annoyed. "Do I look like I have a child starting college?" She shuffled her feet. "No, but we're supposed to ask everyone." When I assured her that I had no college-aged children, she lost interest in me immediately. "Then is there something you want?" she said, looking past me for some other target.

I have to say that, as I have been forever mistaken for appearing younger than I am, it was a curious turn of events.

The events just got more twisty as the day went on. We stopped at Savers to try to find a copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and instead found a beautiful 1970s Polaroid camera. While I can appreciate the aesthetics of it and, as a photographer, can appreciate the qualities and possibilities with Polaroid photography, I am also very aware that the film is no longer in production. However, when we got home I did a little research on it and found that there is a market for them. We went back for it and I will be putting it up on eBay later today. I'm not wanting much out of it - breaking even would be good, but making a small profit would be ideal. The funny part to me is that when we went back to pick it up, there was an older gentleman at Savers who kept interjecting himself into the conversation between Michael and I. He wouldn't back off. It was as if he didn't want us to leave the store with it.

But we did, we tested the camera to the best of our ability, and have determined that it does, in fact, work. So off to eBay it goes.

Back to the thesis and work, but before I go, I hope you'll enjoy the whimsy of this video.

AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

Off until September

2010-07-08T17:22:00.001+01:00

I don't anticipate a lot of activity on this account until September and the start of the school year. If any of you wish to contact me for updates, please contact me for an e-mail address.

The story of The Kat's Lil' Cthulu dress

2010-07-08T14:14:00.005+01:00

Some time ago we discovered The Adventures of Lil' Cthulu. This is a charming rendition of H.P. Lovecraft's characters (charming and Lovecraft seldom appear in the same sentence) and we spent a good amount of time giggling over it.

Fast forward to this summer and the need to come up with summer-friendly clothes for The Kat. I undertook a project to make her a sun dress and, in going through my fabric stash, I found this.

If you look very closely, there are islanders on that fabric.

And the end result is this:

Their souls make her tummy happy.

"Paging Dr. Benjamin Moore!"

2010-07-05T04:31:00.004+01:00

Good: wrapping up the Intro that I'd Rather Forget so I can refocus my thesis chapters.

Better: Recovering a load of files that date back over fifteen years.

Best: Attending a panel discussion with and viewing back to back performances of Cinematic Titanic and meeting the original MST3K cast. Of the group we spent the most time with Trace Beaulieu (Dr. Clayton Forrester and Crow T. Robot), but everyone else was pleasant and seemed like real people instead of celebrities just putting it on.

We first spoke with Trace after Thursday night's panel discussion. During that encounter Thing One explained a little about his spin-off project and Trace was very nice about the whole idea. He and I also talked briefly about the short A Date With your Family which became an important part of teaching the "family" chapter last year and the short that Trace identified as his favorite. On Friday night we stopped by the autograph table and Trace greeted each of us and said to me "Well, it looks like I'm part of the family now. How much is my allowance?" I replied with "Oh, it's based on chores. It's paid as earned in our house," to which he said "I don't do much with chores. I'm more of a sit on the couch type." I nodded. "You just lend your presence to the situation?" He chuckled. "That sounds about right."

We waited until the lines had abated and then requested a picture with the group. You can see the results up and a little to the right.

I wouldn't have traded that experience for much of anything. Tired as we all were, it was worth it.

It's a book

2010-06-29T12:07:00.003+01:00

Lane Smith writes children's books, but that's not to say that his books aren't good for adults, too. This one seems particularly relevant.

It's A Book will be available on 8 August.

Via Cartoon Brew

"I am proud of what I am, Mr. O'Connell. I am a librarian."

2010-06-25T12:53:00.003+01:00

I started my summer assistantship a few weeks ago and I must say that it's been an adventure in filing so far. Upon being introduced to my office space and my desk, I immediately went to work on excavating a filing cabinet not touched for over five years. It's been a surprisingly good way to learn the ropes.

The cast of characters in this place is pretty small, at least during the summer. We have the director of the institute, who will just be Mapmaker, my current officemate, The Dude, and the secretary, Ginger. In the fall I'll be trading The Dude for my permanent officemate, Bob (a lovely Indian girl).

The Institute has a long and proud tradition that Mapmaker is insistent that we document. This has led to a long series of binders being produced. Binders for reports. Binders for speakers. Binders for recommendation letters. And so on and so on, ad infinitum. What I bring to this party, aside from what is apparently an undying urge to organize things, is an understanding of technology and the ability to develop a digital archive and database that none of my predecessors have had. At times I realise that's a little daunting because Mapmaker is deeply attached to hard copies and a titch technophobic. But the good news is that we're all trying.

We've certainly got some quirky personalities but, oddly enough, I feel that working for The Man has actually been training for this. It's something of a relief, because if Mapmaker has a mood swing, all I need to do is remind myself of a client from Hell and, by comparison, she seems manageable.

Surprisingly enough, this job isn't a distraction from the thesis. It allows me to channel the procrasti-cleaning urge so that, when I'm done for the day there, I can go back to the thesis and get down to business. You'd think that adding more to my plate would be a disaster at this junction. I suppose it's all relative and, in this case, a little organizational Zen in one part of my life helps to make the rest level out.

Just a tip

2010-06-25T12:48:00.002+01:00

Don't drop your laptop. Things get cracked and occasionally those things are rather important - like the screen. This leads to my second point: read the warranty closely before you purchase anything. I was informed by Toshiba just yesterday that my screen isn't covered unless there's a complete failure and no cracks.

I cannot say I was pleased to hear this, particularly when the Toshiba rep, after processing the repair request, said "I need you to calm down now. The repair will cost $400."

If he would have said "I'm sorry to tell you this" or "Here's what I found out" or some other variant, that would have been a different matter. However, I was not strung out or even freaking out before the "I need you to calm down now". That, right there, set off a rather unpleasant exchange. I cannot recommend Toshiba support and am now loathe to need to deal with them again.

I have ordered a new screen and will install it myself. I will also make absolutely certain that the laptop pouch on my bag is zipped shut before I pick it up.

Father's day

2010-06-21T12:33:00.001+01:00

It was quiet around here, with the exception of the Running of the Blueberry Lemon Muffins and a few small gifts given. The Kat was determined to make a napkin holder for Michael, as she'd had a kit for weeks, so we spent most of Saturday constructing and then painting this napkin holder. It has hearts and is painted blue. Michael loved it.

We spent the afternoon and well into the evening with our friend Uncle Mouse. We first met Uncle Mouse during the fall of 2008 at a viewing of Metropolis and have had the good fortune to have many lovely gatherings either at his home or at ours for meals and movies. He is a sweet man and I think somewhat lonely. He's lived a fascinating life and he tells wonderful stories about living in Mexico and interacting with now obscure stars from the early days of film. He seems to take great delight not only in sharing his rather startling collection of films, but he seems to enjoy that we enjoy them about as much as he does. Michael summed it up as "he's excited to show his 'toys" to those who appreciate them" and we really do. Sunday's program was Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. in "The Black Pirate" (1926, silent), "Bosko's Party", and several Harmon/Ising films from their early days at MGM. He has a projector and screen set up in the basement and shelves and shelves filled with these films. I think sometimes that he's run out of room for them; he's got a row of Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Roscoe Arbuckle, and Charlie Chaplin films in one of the bathrooms.

There's something about hearing the mechanics of the projector that makes the whole experience magical for me, but then hearing the reactions from the children and Michael really help to capture a small glimpse as to what that film experience might have been in the 1920s in a neighborhood theater. I found us all being drawn into the films, and particularly "The Black Pirate" that had neither voice track or music track.

Uncle Mouse dotes a little on the children and we, in turn, dote on him. I can only see good in allowing a little kindness into our lives.

Fireflies

2010-06-12T12:27:00.001+01:00

There is little as magical to me as watching Thing Two catch a firefly and then gently hand it over to his little sister so she can share in the experience.

The Decline and Fall of Working for The Man

2010-06-08T13:09:00.002+01:00

Dareclovar
Originally uploaded by navaren

I debated on writing this entry, if only because it will preserve a record of the poor decision making and kneejerk tendencies of my current (and possibly soon to be former) employer. The debate is whether or not I want to remember, but I think this might function as a cautionary tale for future contract endeavors.

The Man was on the receiving end of some bad press regarding their business practices. To be specific, it was a matter of their rather draconian Terms of Service, which are designed to not only retain as much money from clients as possible in the event that something goes wrong with the process but also works to silence them with the threat of lawsuits should they complain. Since the airing of this expose The Man has radically altered the business structure and is, in essence and in the words of one of the in-house employees, "starving out the outsourcers". The work has, for the most part, dried up because the projects that used to pay my bills have been taken in-house. Furthermore the company developed a software program that is essentially WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) design that allows sites to be built quickly but without the actual custom work that the design team provided once upon a time.

On one hand I can understand the decision to do this. In-house means overseen and control of what's going on. Outsource requires trust that you've hired the right people to do the job. However, The Man got greedy, as businesses sometimes do, and expanded the outsource pool far too fast. They weren't as selective as they should have been - they were only looking at the volume of sites that could be created and what that would mean for their revenue stream. The concern for the customer wasn't really there and that's where designers like me had to step in and make certain that the customers' experience went as smoothly as possible. Again, though, not all designers were as committed to this sort of care and things started to decline.

I think what's bothered me most about this situation is the way in which it's been handled. There's been very little communication from the company directly - almost everything I've gleaned on the situation has come from friends who are in-house and able to communicate with me. The only messages from the higher-ups have been to the effect of "there's not as much work now" and then the "oh, we've taken everything in-house" that came across the company interface last week. No explanations as to why, no apologies, no nothing.

So where does that leave me? It leaves me learning PHP programming so I can switch to a different department - for as long as programming is outsourced - and adds one more roadblock in writing. It also leaves me developing a site so I can do my own freelancing.

All stressors not needed at the moment.

Ladies in red

2010-06-04T02:07:00.001+01:00

Ladies in red
Originally uploaded by navaren

That's Kate, circa 2002. She's changed so much, but I still love that smile.

Pearly whites

2010-06-02T17:33:00.001+01:00

Trinities
Originally uploaded by navaren

When I was fourteen I suffered a mouth/banister collision that resulted in a broken right lateral incisor. My grandfather took me to the dentist and the dentist built up what was meant to be a temporary crown on the tooth. It was not a good way to be introduced to restorative dentistry, but the guy did work that lasted far past the time frame usually considered for "temporary".

The tooth itself lasted until about two years ago when a root canal was required. However, with a root canal the tooth starts to die off, which has left me on borrowed time while I screwed up the courage to go get it properly cared for. I finally took care of that today and I have to say that it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. A little novacaine, a lot of nitrous, and a little music to cover the sound of the drilling made it go a lot easier.

I'm rapidly accumulating a series of "if I can do this, I can certainly manage my thesis" items. Now on the list: overcoming twenty years of fear and finally getting my smile repaired.

Silence broken

2010-05-31T18:42:00.001+01:00

Dance picture
Originally uploaded by navaren

There's a number of new pictures up on the Flickr account.

I know I've been quiet and part of that was deliberate - focusing on the thesis, you know - but the rest of it has been for slightly more painful reasons. I've dealt with depression and anxiety off and on as an adult and it has most certainly been on for the past two months. It finally hit the point where I cried uncle and went in to see my doctor for diagnosis and a little help of the pharmacological sort. I've also been working through some of my avoidance techniques, learning to recognize and either disarm or work through, depending on the situation. Needless to say it's put a crimp in writing, but I'm still trying. While I may not accomplish much at a time, a little progress every day is the only way I'll get to more progress at a time later.

Part of working through the anxiety is eliminating all the little projects that I distract myself with: sending things out on Bookmooch, paying the bills, updating Flickr, and working for The Man. Please note that I said eliminate - once a project is complete, I do not look for ways extend it. However, I'm finding that the constriction of my focus is sometimes hard to work with.

Hard or not, here it is.

I'll try not to hide so much and will write here a little more often. Maybe this outlet will be a positive and manageable one.

Still kicking

2010-05-16T02:09:00.004+01:00

Well, it's either the Zoloft making me break into a rash or it's the stress. I'm not sure.

I'm working on my thesis right now and it's been made a little easier by filing my grades last week and trying to clear clients out of my queue as quickly as I can. However, it's still work and that takes time.

The kids are all doing well. Thing One's track season ended two weeks ago as he was on the home team rather than the travel team, but I think he was okay with that. Thing Two performed in his last band concert for the year and I can say that it's surprising just how much the students have improved. The Kat participated in a "wax museum" where she dressed as Anne Shirley. She was very sweet about it.

And now, unconsciousness as invoked by the Benedryl. I'll try to keep this updated a little better from this point forward.

Fly boy

2010-04-20T16:48:00.003+01:00

Thing One's first competitive hurdle run. I think his nerves got the better of him in the 100 meter hurdles, but by the 200 meter hurdles he was ready to eat the guy ahead of him for lunch. Runners have such high metabolisms, you know.

The Heathrow Museum

2010-04-17T15:02:00.002+01:00

"In a future world without aeroplanes, children would gather at the feet of old men, and hear extraordinary tales of a mythic time when vast and complicated machines the size of several houses used to take to the skies and fly high over the Himalayas and the Tasman Sea."

-- Alain de Botton, "A world without aeroplanes", BBC News.

While I can certainly commiserate with those who have found their current travel disrupted, the questions raised about the ubiquity of air travel and how our lives might change if it were suddenly more rare are intriguing. What would life be like if plane travel was no longer feasible? Would we still venture out to find new vistas or would we revert to being more like our ancestors, those for whom travel was a luxury available only to the wealthy?

Jab, jab, jab

2010-04-15T02:21:00.003+01:00

If I am to be completely honest, yesterday could have been a much bloodier mess than it turned out to be. Of course that also had more to do with the drama of blood donation than teaching a rather ticklish lecture on two readings on religion. We ended up talking through the material and it was well-received. No one made any comments that were offensive and it was as if we were all trying to be aware of who might be in the room. It was the best possible outcome I could have asked for and I'm glad that it worked out that way.

As for the blood donation, that was interesting and something I am not as likely to do again for a while - at least not in conjunction with the university. While I normally don't have a problem with a wait, I do have a problem with having an appointment that is in no way honored. According to the phlebotomist who worked on me, this is indicative of a pattern on the part of the organizer. She is more concerned with boosting her numbers than recognizing that those of us who volunteer our time and, ultimately, our bodies, are worth more respect than she was willing to dole out while keeping an eye on her tally sheet.

So yes, while one jab was unpleasant at best, another potential jab was dodged quite nicely. Thank goodness.

Saving it for a rainy day

2010-04-11T12:30:00.004+01:00

After the work and waiting for revisions for the Disney chapter, I was informed that, while I was on to something, there was not enough time to undertake the substantial revisions required to make the piece suitable for the collection. As such, my chapter was cut.

The problem in a situation like this is that I can't fault the editor, who did what was best for the publication as a whole. In the end I wrote something that was a mismatch for the collection and that happens. I've even tried to be optimistic, as the editor said nice things like "this is the start of a great journal article" and "You really need to pursue this - I haven't seen anything like this in the field before" and "I look forward to seeing your piece in print in the future." However, he was right. It needed work and I knew that when I sent it. I was relying on the editing process to help bring it into line with what was wanted and my timing was off.

This situation has led me to a couple of decisions.

First, while I do have a rather nice CV built up now, I'm going to put at all aside and proceed from this point as if I have nothing in the publication section of the CV. I will be ignoring any and all CFPs until June at which point I can start to select conferences and journals more strategically than I have to date. Frankly, I've been driven largely by my journalism history in which "publish or perish" is a matter of day to day survival and I'm ready to make more of these decisions to cultivate the image I want to have once it's time to go on the job market. A list is nice. A list that has more cohesion and steadiness is better.

Second, I've been reading and reading in preparation for the free write requested of me by my committee. I'm finding joy in this. I find that I'm easily delighted by new bits of information that I come across, particularly when it fits in with the puzzle I'm trying to put together. I'm hopeful that, by the time this is all done, I will have a more complete picture - I can't hope for an absolute here, because I am working with history. But the difference in feeling on writing this and writing the Disney chapter have taught me that I need to follow my gut and only write on what is not only interesting to me but is also something I feel something about. By feel something I mean it's got to be excitement or anger or passion or something strong. With the Disney piece it took forever to get a firm footing and, in the end, it wasn't firm enough. I will not have a repeat of this.

No flights, no tights

2010-04-09T11:54:00.002+01:00

At the start of yesterday's class on religious freedom in the US, I asked what I thought was a fairly simple question. I wrote "Common American Values" on the board and asked my students "All right, to get this started, what are the three values that Superman stands for?" One student tentatively said "Justice?" and then we ran through a litany of power, righteousness, and order before someone declared "We give up!" When I gave them the truth, justice, and American Way list, it was as if they'd never heard it before. I was utterly floored.

We eventually got around to other things like equality, loyalty, compassion, and order, but I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't use cultural references that are more than ten years old.

Some days it just works

2010-04-08T01:36:00.003+01:00

We've hit a spate of record spring heat here in the Ohio and, while it's wonderful to let my calves experience sunlight and warm breezes, it has been less delightful in my classroom. I currently teach on the second floor of a 1960s relic and it should probably have "sacred to the memory of" written across the entryway rather than South Hall. It should be condemned - the elevator no longer functions, which makes a cruel joke of reaching the Disability Services Office that is located on the fourth floor, the heating and cooling are substandard, and as I've learned over the last two class periods, when the heat rises, it has nowhere to go. It cooks the students, whose enthusiasm and involvement seems to melt as fast as my confidence when I look out into a sea of wilted, dazed faces.

And so it was with this in mind that I took it into my own hands to find a new classroom about mid-way through the period yesterday.

I think it shocked them a little when I came back to our sunny little corner of the upstairs and told them to pack it up because we were moving to a room downstairs. The room to which we were shifting was my classroom last term, which would, conveniently enough, be where we would land if the floor were to suddenly drop out from under us. Once there I left the lights off and taught by the half-light coming in through the windows. There were no sleepers and everyone seemed to recover, for the most part.

I'm wondering if the heat might account for last Thursday's utterly disheartening class. I keep telling myself that something must have been at work, because when one student, who is known for outrageous statements, proposed that "slavery in the South was just cost of business" and that slavery, "collateral damage", and the human cost of the global economy are just those messy little details that don't deserve to be remembered in history, I was the last one standing in the room that challenged him. No one - not one of the twenty four other students - said a word, which was as heartbreaking as it was infuriating. I spoke with one of the students about the incident after class yesterday and this student observed that the silence in response to this kid's statement was as telling as the statement itself.

It it wrong that I was relieved when Mr. Mouth announced that he would be absent from class all this week?

I've heard the heat will break tonight and we'll have rain and cooler weather settling in for a few days. I hope that it will help to make the classroom more tolerable, although I worry that student apathy will get the better of them and the better of me.

Forgive me, but I refuse to give up on this. I'll just keep trying.

Skateboarding, good. Falling, not so good.

2010-04-04T21:42:00.002+01:00

Thing Two obtained a new skateboard and we have been taking turns learning how to ride it. While he was riding his bike this afternoon, I took a turn and, for quite a while, was doing just fine. However, as will occasionally happen, the board slipped out from under me and I landed hard, creating a rather remarkable road rash pattern under the skin of my right hand and twisting my right ankle to the point of benching me for the rest of the day.

However.....I'm looking forward to trying it again. Heal up first, then try again.

Things learned

2010-04-04T17:29:00.003+01:00

So far the weekend has been full of many interesting things. Among them are learning how to make my own freezer hash browns (parboil, then cool, then grate, then freeze), having a cultural exchange day with a friend in which we taught her about dyeing Easter eggs and the ins and outs of Mormonism and she taught us how to make matzo ball soup and about kosher laws and the matrilineal traditions of Judiasm, and revisiting how to ride a skateboard without falling off.

I'm about to go tackle soil amending with humus and manure....I'll let you know how that one goes. Gloves, for certain.

Spring cleaning

2010-03-28T13:53:00.004+01:00

I've decided that waking up without the alarm beats being jolted awake. I think it's part of why, for the moment, I far prefer the weekends. This may change, however, as we slip back into summer and the need for an alarm recedes with the school year. I suppose we'll just see.

I found that I was surprisingly productive today. Rather than looking at the Big List of Things I Must Do, I chose instead to focus on a few of the little things that I wanted to do. They were still matters of priority, mind you, as I don't do frivolous or relaxing very well, but I couldn't help but enjoy them. I played in dirt with my daughter, starting the garden for this summer, helped her learn to ride her bike (this turned out to be a two-day process), and FINALLY cleaned up my garage.

Yes, I know that this spring-like burst of warmth is a fake-out designed to lull us into a blissful state of unawareness until it rebounds with more winter, but just for a little while I want to take advantage of the motivating power of a little sunshine and pleasant weather. My office is often a little Batcave in its lighting levels and general sense of warmth, so a change-up is a most welcome thing. Also, as approaches go, this one was well-timed, I think.