Cereal surprise

Today I was more excited than usual about my mid-morning snack of Frosted Mini-Wheats. Not only was it a brand new box, it was a brand new box with a toy inside! Fumbling with the cardboard lips on its top, I ended up basically ripping them in my haste to get inside (note: I'm also very hungry at this point). Right there, sitting on top of the bagged cereal, was a separately wrapped Star Trek "beam up" toy. I had to pause.

It was too easy. They put the toys on top of the cereal now? What about the warped and mangled bags that won't fit back into the box? What about the Cap'n Crunch binges, the war scars of a scratched hard palate, all in the name of five minutes of amusement from a cheaply designed, Chinese factory assembled toy (probably some kid younger than me made it)?

It was never about the toy. It was about the look of disappointment on my brother's faces when they realized they'd been duped again. It was always worth the whoopin' for making a mess of the cereal, and for the ensuing fight between said brothers and self.

Journal "meme"

I saw this on New Kid on the Hallway's page and felt compelled to repost it, since I've been thinking a lot lately about the difference between my journals and my blog. Specifically, I feel my blog lacks the clarity that I see in so many others; rather than tackling issues and coming up with solutions, it appears to be a series of rants and incoherent ruminations not unlike my private journal. But I digress. On to the "meme"

*warning--I think I'm fairly repetitive throughout these questions. I'm tired, and would rather go to sleep than revise.

1. When did you begin keeping a journal/diary?

Unofficially, when I was nine. There was a lot of fighting going on regarding some of my older brothers' choices, and I was trying not to suck my thumb anymore. Writing was a feasible distraction. Unfortunately, only a handful of entries remain from this journal--but they contain beautiful reflections about the hardships of recess (here's a "clip" of something I wrote ages ago regarding my journals)

Officially, November 24, 1994. I was eleven, and due to too much imagination plus too much WWII research (and a dash of Anne Frank), wanted to record my story in case the world ended--or the Germans invaded.

2. Do you journal regularly or sporadically?

There are years--I'd venture to guess about five or six years--in which I journaled religiously, every single day (what I'd do for that sort of discipline now...). If I didn't write every day, I was sure to backtrack and catch the record up regarding the menial details of my life.

As the purpose of my journal became more cathartic and less of some inexplicable urge to never forget anything, I was able to go a few days without an entry--this lapsed into weeks/months, particularly after I moved out of my parents' house and had to sustain a living. Then, the days of intense, dedicated journaling were replaced by stolen moments with Microsoft Word, or scribbling phrases on pages ripped out of a Gideon's bible (I worked at a hotel for several years). I still find these random entries shoved inbetween books on the bookshelf, or in old closets.

Lately, my numbers are back up. I journal at least biweekly, if not weekly. However, my intention is back to writing for the sake of remembering--going through a brand new experience and all.

3. Which, if any, of the following things do you use your journal for?: recording dreams, creative writing, arguing with particular individuals (your boss, your parents, your lover, etc.), listing books/movies, tracking your weight/diet/exercise, composing unsent/unsendable letters.

• If I have a particularly memorable dream, I will certainly record it--especially lately, cos I've had some craaazy fucked up dreams.
• When I was younger I'd include random bits of poetry, but it seems as though I've long abandoned any affinity for creative writing. I just write.
• I don't know if I necessarily "argue" with anyone in my journal. Complain, yes.
• I have a separate journal for exercise. I haven't really been good about recording anything in it, despite the fact that I exercise regularly (7 months pregnant and still doing Pilates pushups, yo!).
• For a long time, I was fairly religious about cataloguing my favorite bands, songs, and best friends (surprisingly, I never rated my favorite books or movies). I grew out of it.

4. What other purpose(s) do you use your journal for?

Recording the events of my life so I will remember them later. This is a strange obsession. Often I have to remind myself not merely to record, but to reflect as well.

Dance notes.

Members of my family have encouraged me to compile and arrange these volumes for publication, but I'm not so sure. Midwestern girl, large family. Whoop-te-do. I guess its always our spin that makes it interesting though, right? Then again, my parents and siblings have always seen me as a creative writer, and I've never made that connection. I just write.

Catharsis. It takes a load off of the brain. I understood the concept of a "pensieve" long before J.K. Rowling included it in Harry Potter and whichever book has the pensieve in it. I appreciated the pensieve sequence because the memory scenes offer merely a point of view rather than an interpretation. A lot of my journaling is like this. I preserve a moment in time with my writing. It's meaning changes over time. If I do too much interpretation at the time of writing, it is harder to relate to later on.

5. What kind of material text do you use for a journal? (For example: leather bound hard-cover, cheap spiral notebook, etc.) Everything and anything. Notebooks, pages from Gideon's bible (see above), tiny journals that are 3" x 3", giant sketching journals 14" x 18", pretty ones people buy me, floppy disks...

6. Where do you keep your old journals?

In an under-the-bed bin that I keep in my closet.

7. How often, if ever, have you read through your old journals?

Never made it all the way through. Right before grad school I was trying to transcribe them, though this task was tedious and well, painful for all sorts of reasons. The younger years (11-13) are fairly interesting, particularly from a "hindsight" perspective. I can never quite make it through the high school years, and I'll tell you why: 1.) I had horrible taste in men, and this is often the topic; 2.) I was freaking oblivious, nonsensical; 3.) and effin whiny. It gets interesting again when I use my journal to describe high school/early college experimentation, socially and chemically.

8. Have you ever allowed anyone else to read your journals?

Here and there, certain people.

I often wonder if and when members of my family read my journal. If so, whatever they found in there was punishment enough.

9. How has your journal keeping changed since you began blogging?

Sometimes a blog entry surfaces out of a journal rant; sometimes I cut and paste a blog entry into my journal. I find that I attempt to make my journal entries more objective and argumentative but this frustrates me, as it grinds against the journal habits I've created for myself in the last fifteen yeras. Sometimes, a girl just needs to ruminate.

I worry that I blog too much like I journal and so, rather than having pointed, subjective and focused entries, I have a string of essentially unrelated observations.

10. Upload a picture of your journals (or as many as you can).

Graduate Presentation Pointers

and so I thought I'd warm up with a blog:)

In three years of graduate school, I've taken twenty classes and had ten different professors. Presentations have been part of the final grade In nearly two thirds of those classes (indeed, sometimes they take up the bulk of the semester's classtime). Very often I've learned from my preparation and, despite fretting and moaning before its my turn, in the end that I enjoyed my few minutes in the limelight.

I'm not always so sure my classmatesthe audience learns as much as the presenters, however. I think we spend our time in the audience either politely trying not to cringe or trying not to look overbored. I will admit that I certainly don't look at my peers as experts on their topic, and essentially perk up towards the end when the professor adds the necessary pertinent comments to make sense of the conglomerate of information that was just tossed at us haphazardly.

I have a few pointers-not that I am super amazing and give the best presentations ever (in fact I just gave a doozy of a flop recently!), but that I would appreciate someone giving their advice to me in this matter, because so few professors ever give feedback (out of the twenty classes and ten professors, two presentations have ever gotten feedback, and that feedback was invaluable to me. Otherwise, the presentation took up about 10-30% of my final grade without any explanation or commentary).

--stick to your topic.

While sometimes it is helpful to give some historic background or set the scene a bit, do so as quickly and efficiently as possible. An example of what is not necessary: if you are presenting on a particular work, do not spend time talking about where the author went to college, or what awards they won as a writer. Unless biographical information is germane to the information you're presenting about the work, leave it out--at least don't spend more than a sentence or two on it.

--(related to the first) be as specific as possible.

If you are expected to present on how a particular theorist contributed to a new theory, do so. It is not necessary to refer to the individual's other work (again, unless it is germane to the information you're presenting). Talk more about their theoretical contributions and less about their expulsion from X university.

--if you've been asked to present on an article or set of ideas, be sure to state the main argument first and foremost in your presentation and on your handout, if you've provided one.

--if you're going to use a handout, use it wisely.

Make it easy to follow. Posting a few various pictures or quotes on there does not impart information. Your audience should be able to use the handout to follow along; don't make them question where you are in terms of the handout (i.e. your presentation should work with the handout). I personally prefer a brief outline which, on your (the presenter's) version, has the more fleshed out script included. In my opinion, you should not provide a handout that is essentially a copy of your paper, and read straight from it. Cite your sources on your handout and in your presentation, so your audience is clear what parts are your thoughts and what parts are paraphrases or quotes.

--stay within your alloted timeframe.

This is important, particularly if you think of classroom presentations as preparation for conference panels. Anyone can blather on about a topic. Be succinct, get your point across, and get out of there. In the end, it is more impressive to make your argument clear in a short amount of time, rather than filling up the entire class period with miscellaneous tidbits about some topic. *This also means practice your presentation before you begin.

--make sure you can pronounce all the words you are using. Please. Practice beforehand and if you've got any 4-5 syllable doozies in there, make sure you can say them correctly. If you do find yourself stuttering or slipping over a word in the heat of the moment, don't respond by getting frustrating and saying "bleah, I can't talk today" (this is always a pet peeve of mine). Pause, get yourself together, and move on.

--don't apologize through the duration of your presentation for being unclear, or taking too much time.

The more flustered you get, the more awkward it is for your audience. Put your game face on and pummel through. Of course, if you'd practiced beforehand you'd know how long your presentation was, and if you were more prepared you'd be less unclear. But things happen. If you feel unclear about your topic, visit your professor beforehand and attempt to gain clarification. The more specific your questions are, the more helpful this session will be. Do not repeatedly refer to said conversation with professor in the hopes that they will explain the topic for you.

--oh, and--it doesn't hurt to look nice.

I'm not saying go buy yourself a new suit. But get rid of the baseball cap, the sweatshirt, and--regardless of what you're wearing--the slouch.

Anything else?

There's always one rotten apple

I read through my teaching evaluations from last semester--with some trepidation, I might add. They were in my possession for about a week before I finally opened them and looked through them.

Last semester my academic performance took a dip for various reasons, but I can recover from this. I can make it up to myself (and in fact am doing so by rewriting the papers I turned in). However, I worried about traumatizing my students, or wasting their time--this is not as easily made up.

To my surprise and relief, the vast majority of my evaluations were positive, and enthusiastically so. I got some great feedback on what assignments worked, what readings were helpful, and was even told that my occasional profanity "made lectures more interesting."

There was of course, one smarty pantsed kid who sneered how often I cancelled class. My attendance policy is pretty much "someone is paying for this, so make it worth your money's while and show up to class." This is exactly what the kid targeted, despite the fact that s/he gave me perfect marks everywhere else. S/he felt that they didn't get their money's worth. I am indignant, and frustrated because I'll never get the chance to defend myself! So please, allow me to explain:

• When I held student conferences (once at midterms, again at finals) I cancelled class.
• When I had car trouble on ONE occasion, I was forced to cancel class, as my classroom was located on red-headed-stepchild campus.
• There was one time that was a bit extraneous, I admit--but they'd finished their peer reviews earlier than I'd expected and I didn't have anything planned (except for a giant stack of grading and my own papers to write). So I told them to take the day to work on polishing their papers.

Since we're in the arena of "getting our money's worth" I'm tempted to resort to the fact that I taught the course for free. OK, maybe not quite. It's a pretty sweet deal to get my tuition paid for, I won't lie. I will note, however, that the stipend, whether I am teaching one course or two, doesn't budge. At least someone's getting their money's worth in this scenario--grad students work cheap!

I shouldn't let one silly remark like this get to me, but it does. What I ought to focus on is that, for as useless as I feel in directing discussion or teaching in general, my students approve of me. Funny that a part of me thinks: but on what authority do they judge my teaching? How do THEY know what makes a good teacher? I'm not sure who I'm looking for a pat on the back from, if its not from my students.

The purpose of these evaluations is not clear to me. One of the big-gun composition program people told me point blank that they are useless. I don't know who sees them, and what impact they have on my future. It sounds silly to admit, but I'll do so here, in pseudonymity.

When do the evaluations come back to haunt me, or help me?

So this is gross

and easily one of the more inconvenient aspects of pregohood (says the fat lady who just stood through a 2 1/2 hour seminar, preferring sore feet to the breath-inhibiting rib pain that comes with sitting):

I can't touch cat litter. Well, used cat litter--specifically the pooed in type. Some would think this a nice vacation from a yucky job. But no. The kitten, hellspawn that she is, seems to know this about me.

She times her poop.

That's right. Little 3 lb meowmix converter will land a tanker of a turd in that box the minute she hears the Wrangler leave the driveway (note: not when the door closes, as she has become aware that often the poop-shoveler returns shortly, having forgotten his lunch or some other pertinent item). And so there I am, attempting to eat my breakfast, when there is no where I can run, in the whole house, to escape the fumes. (Her other favorite time to do the poo is when the poo-removal-committee has gone to bed for the evening, and the non-poo-removing-party is still up reading or grading papers.) They say smell is the sense most strongly attached to memory. Well, I will remember my readings of Derrida, de Man, and Saussure as eternally effused with eau de [cat]toillette.

What kills me is that there's a lot of scratching around during the process, and I hear the litter being dispersed in every direction but one--that of the actual pile of poo. Somehow, it remains completely nude, that is, not covered by one single kernel of the uber-expensive smell-reducing litter I purchase solely for this recent poo-timing conundrum. I am desperate for any method of reducing the putrid stank of fresh catdoody and so I buy cat litter beyond my means. And yet the poo sits triumphantly, curled on its throne of crystal step 'n fresh.

Oh, and the other thing? Pregnant women have an exceptionally heightened sense of smell.

Sneakpeek into academic job candidate process

If my academic life is anything like my leaky basement, sitting in on the presentation of a job candidate this morning raised my water mark. I highly recommend it to any graduate student, whether or not you're interested in making a career in academia, and whether or not you choose to compare it with your leaky basement.

For starters, it is always exciting to watch one's professors banter over a given subject which is not necessarily the specialty of any one of them--and I'm not talking awkward Christmas party banter. This was like a coffeehouse on steroids, except that in place of feigned intellectualism it was pure--uncut--academic zeal and rigor. Maybe a little busting of chops, but no more or less than was necessary.

I felt akin to someone learning a new language who is suddenly immersed in a crowd of fluent speakers, and there was a thrill of self-congratulation* and increased enthusiasm each time I felt myself putting noun phrases and verbs together into coherent entities, and even more so when I found myself following the general direction of conversation!

This is where it got silly. When the words "synchronic" and "diachronic" were uttered, and I fully understood them in their usage and application to the discussion at hand (which, incidentally, I likely could not reproduce a sentence of here--it was fleeting perspicacity)--I jumped up and did a little victory dance.

Well, no, not exactly. But I did begin to daydream just a bit right around then. Not the kind of daydream that leads me completely out of the room and out of my head--this was akin to one of those waking dreams, in which I'm just conscious enough to have some semblance of control in whatever avenue the dream might take...I was entranced, so to speak, by the whole situation--as a newcomer, an observer of a very unfamiliar (and yet standard) ritual, and a neophyte by comparison with just about anyone else in the room. And so I watched the candidate tread water, change lanes and splash back with every question and comment that came her way. I thought, with excitement, of being able to volley questions ideas while maintaining an exterior of such absolute calm. She seemed more comfortable in that room than I was!

I realize that more than likely there are several things--either damaging or to her credit--that I was completely unaware of. My perception remained in the superficial, even aesthetic arena, and I had no qualms about letting it remain there (let the big dogs do their job. You know, like Olympic judges versus the uninformed onlookers). And this is where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers came in...the ease with which they present their task to their audience is a precise indication of their skill level. The enjoyment of the presentation is made richer depending on the audience member's own skill and familiarity with the dance. I am excited by the prospect of being so well-studied and academically mature that I could tap-dance with the material!

This clip of "Swing Time" about sums it up, if you're interested (it even has gratuitous fencejumping at around 2:15):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxPgplMujzQ



*I know it sounds petty, and yet this is the only description I can give the thrill. I don't intend it as a grandiose pat on the back; rather it serves as affirmation of all the reading/studying I've been doing for some time now, and incentive to continue this forward trek despite setbacks in circumstance and persuasion.

Expounding on the super smart Honors undergrad...

...if you recall my weak little post from the other day (here) I was venting a bit after a particularly frustrating day in class in which a very intelligent undergrad showed up all of the graduate students--yet again. I mean, he busted out with some Hebrew vocab! A student of this sort has been in every one of my graduate classes, it seems, and I'm going to venture to say that this has happened to just about every gradstudent out there--getting shown up, consistently, by a know-it-all undergrad.



What really bothers me is that I used to be one of them. My hand would shoot up before the question was even fully formed and my answer, even if half-baked, would be enough for the professor to lead me into its fully fledged form. (Recalling my undergrad days, and my pompous self-assuredness, I shudder to think what my fellow students thought of me. )



I've had this in my own classroom, of course. Sometimes it's a relief (at least someone is entering discussion) but oftentimes I want to finish my questions with "anyone other than...?" It can be a frustration as well as an excuse for other students:



frustration: I really want to say something, but I'm not sure how to articulate it. By the time I think of a decent sentence, the question has been answered and we're moving on.

Excuse: Why do I need to bother talking or adding my two cents, when dude will do it for me?



Depending on the day, I can include myself in either category.

* * *



My final undergrad semester, I took an upper level English lit course with my sister. On the first day, she leaned over and whispered: Look at all the grad students--they always sit in a pack and no matter what they say, they're just repeating what the teacher has said, or some critic.



And four years later, here I am. Front row: Grad students only. I am frantically searching in the extra notes I took for the sole purpose of outdoing this kid (though I'm trying to look thoughtful and deliberate as I do so). In the meantime he raises his hand, sounds out his answer on the spot without eventhinking about it*, and its a go. On to the next stanza...



*well, I'm sure he thought about it. But he wasn't racking his brain for the best way to articulate it, and coming up with back up defenses just in case...





Where is my own head? What happened to my own thoughts? Didn't I come into this with genuine questions and lots of curiosity? What am I so afraid of? It's possible that I have been contorted by my own competitive zeal, and now, rather than being self-confident, I am overthinking everything.



But why? This is embarassing...[allow me to digress for just a moment]



I have the teacher evaluation sheet nearly memorized. When I talk in front of my classroom, I keep it in mind almost constantly. I have this paranoid (okay, delusional) fear that my students do, too. Yes, I know--half of them don't even realize that teacher evaluations exist (despite the specific entry on the course schedule). Some of this has translated into my life as student. I imagine my professors tallying up my comments in discussion (okay, delusional), making notes here and there "Beeyotch unable to recognize simple pronoun antecedent..." or "completely out of touch with the text..."



I don't know where it came from, but I do believe I've got a genuine case of discussion anxiety. I don't mind expressing my thoughts and interpretations on paper (er, screen); the process is often exciting and rewarding. But when I've got to just spout out answers and defend the holes that are poked in them, I crack up into little stuttering pieces of nonsense.