Christmas, etc

School starts in about two weeks. I'm working on getting materials prepared for classes. I've changed a few books this semester and it's been interesting getting up to speed on everything. Every year before school starts I just get so anxious. Thinking about how completely well Christmas went is soothing.

This year we did Christmas for my dad's side of the family at our house. It was quite unsettling for a few reasons. One, Christmas is a big deal. Two, there would be 15 people (including us) at dinner. Three, I was sick. Sick!

So Bobby ended up making all of the food for the dinner (didn't want to contaminate the food with my cold). It was pretty amazing of him. The family gave him a standing ovation at one point, which he certainly earned.

We spent pre-Christmas with Patrice & Co. (Joe, Jess, Jim, and Kate). We had a lovely dinner at this charming restaurant in Delray (it's called Dada. We actually play there a lot, so it was fun to go there in a kind of more formal way). It was fabulous.

Christmas morning we were supposed to get together with my mom and sisters, but my youngest sister was sick, so we skipped it and we're going to have Christmas morning on New Years Day instead. This is interesting because I still have some Christmas left to look forward to. I mean, I'm not happy Anna was sick, of course, but yeah. It's kind of exciting.

All in all I can't really believe how well Christmas went. In my experience, Christmas is always the time of the year when people melt down, crises occur, and nothing works out. This is the reason Christmas hasn't ever been my favorite holiday. Things have to be "perfect" and I'm really too well aware that nothing in life is perfect.

That was one of the nicest things about having the dinner at our place. We got our first Christmas tree. We had food. We kept things, I think anyway, rather low key (or at least ish), which isn't to say that my family is formal or anything; they aren't - they are wonderful, loving, warm, effusive people and I'm so happy they've continued the tradition of having everyone get together each year.

But we've got, you know, a bloody hand from Halloween still stuck up on our bathroom mirror. We have weird pictures in the living room (including a painting of a turtle/zombie eating brains above the TV). And none of them seemed to mind (or at least they didn't let on that this stuff bothered them). I guess what I'm saying is that I felt like everyone accepted us in a way that I've never felt before. They loved the house. They stayed late.

And when Bobby missed their first standing ovation, they called him inside and did it again.

This is my brain on grading

Happy Veteran's day, folks. I had today off! Do you know what I did all day? If you do, it's because either a) you are psychic or b) you read my subject line.

Yes. I graded papers. Approximately 35. In seven hours or so. It was a marathon. I eventually got into a strange-grading-mindset. I just stared at the computer screen and it was as if the paper read itself. I'm still feeling that way a bit. I need to go outside.

But first! I thought since I'm in super-computer-mode I'd update this blog. There are only a few weeks left of school. It is insane. How does time move like this? One moment it feels like time is standing absolutely still, like nothing is every going to change, and then suddenly it's two months later.

Example the first: We closed on our house a month ago yesterday.
Example the second: It's Thanksgiving in like five minutes.

Crazy. Speaking of the bungalow, we've gotten almost everything unpacked. This is good because I had a lot of work this week (hence the grading-marathon). And it's also nice because now there are many rooms in the bungalow that look like rooms in a house instead of like rooms in a storage facility (a nice storage facility, but still).

We're going to have Patrice & co. over the week after next. Exciting. Now we just need to figure out what to cook.... Last night Patrice made the most delicious lemon fettuccine. I could never, ever spell that word without the spell check. Maybe we'll make something with lemons, lettuce, and, oh, what's another L food? Legumes. That sounds good. L themed dinner, here we come. With lasagna and linguini. I'm not convinced that that is spelled correctly. Hm. Maybe we'll leave all noodles off the menu so that I don't have to deal with spelling mistakes.

My brain is begging me to turn off the computer, so I must bid you adieu, my friends.

The hamster is a tiny little elderly gentleman

Did you see the subject line of this post? It's absolutely the truth. He's across from me. The hamster, that is (I always thought hamster was spelled with a p. Hampster. But no. No p). In the living room. Of our new house.

Reasons why this is great: 1) He's in the living room! Not our bedroom. Now I can see him more often and he won't wake us up in the middle of the night. Score. 2) We're in our new house! Maybe this should have been number one?

Ha. But I'm trying, you know, to be calm about things. It's entirely exciting, however, to be sitting here in our yellow living room with our new (well, from the thrift store, so let's say "new") yellow couches. Mm hm. When the delivery guys dropped them off they said, "Huh. Yellow couches for a yellow living room?"

YES.

If you'd like to read a story (should maybe be "story") I wrote, go here: http://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/tag/m-r-sheffield/

It's nearing the end of the semester. My kids are working on their finalish (I say ish because there will be one last revision) papers. I have a big stack of grading to do. They just read a new essay called "Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era," by Richard Restak. They really like this one because it's about them. We also watched a PBS special ("Digital Nation," from Frontline, it's excellent, here, have a link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/).

So they love the essay and they loved watching a "movie" (even if it was a PBS documentary. Funny story, one of them asked me when it was produced and I said last February. She responded, "oh, I thought all PBS stuff was old"). I'm anticipating interesting essays from them, so that's exciting, except for the sad reality, of course, of the digital stack of papers I have virtually in front of me, hahaha.

Okay. So that's my composition class(es). The lit and creative writing classes, you ask, how are they going? The lit kids just read "Bartleby the Scrivener," by Melville, and I have to say they were not enthused about it. When I told them it was published in 1853 they all kind of went "Oooooooh. That explains it." I think they don't have the patience for the longer, sort of less plot driven stories. Maybe I should have them watch "Digital Nation."

The creative writing kids are writing poetry. We're in the middle of a workshop session which means everyone reads certain students' poems for the day and then we discuss the poems as a class. It's entirely fun, maybe the most fun thing I get to do. They have written some pretty good stuff this semester.

And! I finally remembered to change my address today, so that's good. See, I'm getting things, you know, done. Mostly. We haven't finished unpacking, and I do have this stack of papers, but I feel like it's all going to get done.

Probably.

Ha.

Strange lingering scent

Maybe it's because the cleaners came yesterday, but my office smells weird.

It's not really my office. Don't let me confuse you. It's our office. Four instructors share this space (might make a really bad/interesting sit com). We've never all four been here at the same time, however. Usually it's me and one other instructor, I'll call her Ms. Awesome (say it out loud, come on, it's fun).

And Ms. Awesome? She is awesome. Which is good, because the entire English Department is moving to a new building in December, and she and I shall be office mates once again. We are, in effect, moving in together. The new building is also awesome (I thought we'd stick with this adjective, it seems to be working well so far). There is a movie theater (I always spell it the French way first, theatre, and then the spell check admonishes me) downstairs. And a wine bar. It also happens to be awesome-looking (see, I'm not going to let you down. We've chosen an adjective, okay? And we're sticking with it. It's this stick-with-it-ness that is going to get us through this blog post!). I saw it for the first time over the weekend.

For the opening, the movie theatre (I am rebelling! F off, English spell check) is showing Pyscho. Sooo cool. We are going to try to drag Patrice to it with us (and by drag, I really only mean ask her to go. I don't think it will take much convincing. I don't know why I'm exaggerating, except perhaps to give you, dear reader, a bit of a jolt. A sense of action. Of plot. Of awesome).

Are you curious about the house? Me too! However! We are in good hands, so I'm not anxious-anxious, just anxious (in the same sense there is a difference between liking someone and like-liking them [if you're not familiar with this, it's the difference between being in love (the parenthetical is out of control now, sorry), or just being friends ]). Did you follow that? If so, you are officially awesome-for-the-day.

No really. Print out the below award to hang above your desk:

Today, (insert date), (insert name) is officially awesome. This title shall be enforced for 24 consecutive hours after receipt of award.

Ms. Awesome has a "renuzit" thingy on her desk. It's adjustable. I adjusted it so that it would overpower the strange lingering scent. It did. Now it smells like artificial lilacs, which is much much better than what it smelled like before.

What did it smell like before?

Use your imagination!

Goodbye, September

My sister moved out this weekend. Here is a brief list of things she left behind (she might be planning on coming back for them): a box of toys, a broom and dustpan, a mattress, one beach towel, a chiminea, a tv, dust bunnies, broken beach chairs, an almost used up piece of soap, a new piece of soap that everyone is probably allergic to, a little basket of cat toys, a dvd/vcr combo. There might be more. I find her things unexpectedly.

Something else I found unexpectedly is that I miss her. So much.

I have a short story in this online journal (in issue three). You have to open the e-book. Mine is the last story in it, under MR Sheffield. http://www.springgunpress.com/journal

I finally finished my entire first stack of 80 or so papers. While I was expecting a feeling of supreme accomplishment, alas, it never materialized. Instead, I was seized by anxiety.

Reasons I feel anxious: we have to move soon (house or no house, we probably won't stay here in the "bad" neighborhood where the cops will pull you over and search your car for no reason), it's really hard to move in the middle of a school semester, I miss my sister, the house is a mess (partly due to her moving out, and also because we haven't felt like cleaning because everything has been in such a state of upheaval [see: my last post]), I'm teaching five classes...

Now. Although I'm nervous about a long list of things, I'm also surprisingly calm. I have the wherewithal to remind myself that things will work out. And I have incredible family members and friends who support me. So. I find myself often sort of swinging back from panic to calm.

Today I feel good. More grading is in order, but it's not insurmountable. It's, in fact, really do-able, mostly because I finished the big pile yesterday.

Oh! And we made everything-roasted-vegetable soup last night. It was really helpful, because I find that when I'm having trouble sleeping due to anxiety, if I go over a recipe in my head (a bit compulsively, but still), it calms me down and allows me to sleep. Before bed last night I was remembering slicing the potatoes and removing carrot peel.

Looking forward to Wednesday at Patrice's. Bobby and I are making raviolis, but we're not making the pasta or anything; we're using wonton wrappers. This is actually my favorite kind of ravioli. But we shall see, shan't we?

One more thing. Now that I've memorized all 105-110 of my kids' names, I think I've been forgetting other people's names. They've been pushed right out of my head.

Upheaval

This exact moment in my life feel like that sensation when you're falling, but you're momentarily floating, and because it's strange or because you're scared the moment slows down so that you see your hair lifting away from your head, and your skirt floating above your knees. Everything is in motion around me.

Laura is moving out today and tomorrow.

I have chipped and chipped at the papers, and have a mere 14 left to grade. I'll probably need to speed this up in the future, but for now I'm pretty satisfied. It's entirely possible we'll be closing on a house either soon or soonish. Everything is in flux.

Even me. I find it difficult to sit still. Bobby and I have been learning the ukulele. This, for some reason, helps. Not that things are bad, oh, not at all. They are just, you know, changing. And changing in fundamental ways.

Which is good and bad. More good than bad. Bobby got a raise at his job. It's awesome that they value him; I know that he loves what he does. Plus he's good at it. I don't think he'd like this section of my blog, so I'm going to move on.

But this moment? The one where everything around me feels suspended? The one where I'm falling but don't know it yet? It's also exhilarating.

Thursday, Thursday

Today is much better than Tuesday. Funny how that works. I don't think they'll be able to find out who hacked my email. It's okay though. I am no longer angry about it.

What's the point, really, in being angry? It only makes teaching more difficult. This is because it could have been anyone (and possibly one of my students!). Plus no real harm was done. If anything, the students in the class the hacker sent the email to feels bad for me. They were quite well behaved on Tuesday, actually.

I'm working my way through the papers. It's like getting into a very cold pool. I have never been the kind of person to jump into the deep end. I go to the steps and slooooowly lower myself into the water (the stomach is the worst part). Paper by paper by paper. I have a method this time (I have to; if nothing else teaching five classes has taught me to be organized) - I'm going to grade class by class grading the entire class before moving onto the next.

Maybe this sounds obvious, but it has been really helpful. I feel less stressed, too, because I've completed one full class (nevermind that that really only means 20 papers).

My creative writing class is going quite well. I was worried about trying to workshop four students per class (the class is 120 minutes long), but it worked well today. Everyone was focused and into the material.

Last night we had dinner at Patrice's (as is our Wednesday tradition). I made spaghetti from a recipe in Food and Wine. It turned out, which was a very happy moment for me. Lately I have come to really enjoy cooking, maybe because it's a time when I can focus on something simple; follow these steps in this order and taste taste taste. This is pretty much the exact opposite of grading and preparing for classes.

Oh no! Now I've reminded myself; I should go grade more.

Hacked

Soooooo. This semester is going well. I'm in the middle of getting 80 papers to grade (got some yesterday, getting more tonight). It should be interesting.

A few hours ago, someone hacked my school email account and sent out two really inappropriate emails. One to an entire class, and one to a single student. I'm so angry about this that I don't even feel angry. Do you know what I mean? If I allowed myself to be as angry as I am, I would have a tough time teaching today.

Which reminds me. One more class to go. They are reading Virginia Postrel's essay "The Boundaries of Design," and I'm not going to lie to you; they don't love it. Ha. But I think once we go through everything she discusses they might change their minds. They realized once I gave them their next paper topic that this whole semester will be an exploration of how to define art. I don't think I'd call them pleased at this discovery, but it's a topic we can really do a lot with.

In the one mass email to all my kids, the hacker said I was having a party this weekend, but that I was too high to give directions. In the other email, the one to the single student, the hacker said that I am a slut. Really, really fun stuff here.

I changed my password, emailed the kids and told them I'd been hacked, talked to the chair of the department, and contacted IRM, but it's really disconcerting. I wonder if it was one of my students or if it was a random person.

The house is going well, I think. It's going, anyway, with a momentum of its own. My secret (not so much secret anymore, eh?) wish is for it to close before we get any hurricanes. It's poured concrete!

I just feel disheartened right now. Maybe that's why I'm not angry. I don't have the energy.

And a 1 and a 2

This semester I am teaching five classes. I'm teaching creative writing, interpretation of fiction, two sections of freshman comp one, and one section of freshman comp two. So far, so good, but I haven't yet had to deal with the paper flood that is to come. I might take the Writing Programs Director's advice and not comment on rough drafts, which is something I've never done before.

But then, I've also never had 105 students before, so there's that.

We are working on buying a home. We just had an inspection yesterday and it went pretty well. I'm just so happy every day that we have Patrice to help us. Without her, we would feel so lost in this whole process.

One thing that is difficult about teaching so many different classes is switching gears in between them. I just got back from interpretation of fiction where my class had an excellent discussion of "Battle Royal," by Ellison, and now I have to get ready for my 1101 class where we'll be talking about MLA formatting and thesis construction. One thing I've been working on is bringing in similar lesson plans in as many classes as possible.

For example, I taught my lit class and my enc (English comp) classes about how to format and arrange their essays at the same time. I just had to adapt my notes to the readings they were doing. Pretty good.

I can't really do this with creative writing, but then teaching creative writing is like my reward, really.

It's definitely harder remembering all their names, but I'm working on it. Wish me luck.

Vacation all I ever wanted

So! I have a bit of time off in-between semesters, how nice is that, right?

It is nice except I've been sick until today. Boo! But. The good news is I'm better and now I can start both relaxing and working on my syllabi and assignments for the next semester. Fun stuff.

I just finished writing the paper sequence for my ENC 1101 classes. We are going to be focusing on the social construction of beauty for this semester. It should be interesting. They are reading four articles, the first on exploring whether collections of objects can be seen as art, the second on regulating aesthetics and design, the third on the media's sensationalistic portrayal of procedures like sex reassignment surgery and plastic surgery , and the last is about the ways in which our brain is changing due to technology (more ADD/ADHD).

Yeah, that last article is going to be the hardest to work in, I think, because the other three all deal with beauty. I'm going to bring the fourth by focusing on our cultural perception of things like beauty. I think it'll work out.

Today I made "rice krispie treats," only not really. I used a vegan recipe that I altered to fit the ingredients I already have here (I hate having to go out to buy some specialty ingredient I'll only use once).

Bobby made a pizza dough this morning with his new KitchenAid (a birthday gift from Patrice). This is exciting. More pizza is always a wonderful thing. We'll be able to make all sorts of things we wouldn't have been able to before. Fun. Come to think of it, Bobby made out pretty well this birthday. A KitchenAid from Patrice, a Nook from me. I bet that makes it a bit sweeter to turn 32.

Now I'm going to start on those syllabi! Is it really syllabi? Or is it syllabuses? Firefox seems to think it's syllabuses. Hm. Have I been lied to all these years??

Oh! Exciting news. We found a house we really love. Put an offer in on it even. The seller, and I know how much this sounds like a joke, is busy though. It might take him awhile to get back to us. Why, you ask? Oh, well because he's on safari in Africa. Mm hm. So. Good luck us, eh?

Eh indeed!

One to go

We have one more class this summer semester and then it's done. I'll have about two weeks to prepare for the fall semester. This will be my first time teaching a full course load (four classes) because I'm not advising for the entire 2010-2011 academic year; I'm teaching Creative Writing, Interpretation of Fiction, and two sections of Freshman Composition I. It should be interesting.

The kids are reading The Parable of the Sower right now. They seem to really like it, which is why I picked it, mostly. Realized I should have taught it sooner in the semester, however, so that if they'd wanted to, they could've used it in one of their papers. Ah well. You live, you learn, n'est pas?

It's great talking to them about the novel and seeing how excited they get about it. I think some of them are surprised at how much they enjoy reading.

We looked at a few more houses this morning. Saw one we really like, but I don't know if they'll come down in the price enough for us. It's adorable though, really. The first word that comes to mind is charming.

I know that we might have a very long wait until we find a place we like and can afford, but it's my secret (not really now, huh?) wish to find one before classes really get going. It's not fun times a million to move in the middle of the semester. Of course, we'll be able to handle whatever, I'm just saying. Mostly just dreaming at this point, really.

Monday is the last day of class and the quiz is optional. I plan on bringing in doughnuts. Someone's going to be Ms. Popular....

I mean, it could be hotter

I'm reporting live from the second half of the summer semester. Here are a few, brief statements about Summer 3 (it used to be called Summer B, which I think makes a lot more sense, but let's stick with their nomenclature here, okay?) thus far:

1. It's really hot outside (this is not school related, but important nonetheless as the heat has an effect on nearly everything everyone does).
2. Bobby and I are looking for a house to possibly purchase and then, you know, move into. This is a frightening and confusing endeavor, made a lot less so because Patrice is really knowledgeable and (perhaps more importantly?) calm. She makes me feel better about the whole thing. This also is not technically school related, but it affects me as a person, and therefore as a teacher, and is therefore relevant.
3. My classroom right now is a) dark, b) cold, and c) loud (it's loud in a buzzing electricity kind of way). The room is rather like a refrigerator. This doesn't make teaching incredibly easy. My kids are always on the verge of napping.
4. I'm expecting them to read a novel in a week and a half. We start that next week.

Were those four points informative? I hope so. I just read "The Things They Carried," (the short story, not the story collection) for like the millionth time. We're going over it on Wednesday. I've found that students usually really like this short story (although, hm, I think they like stories that deal with violence in general), so I'm expecting the discussion to go well.

It's strange to be done with my work week on Wednesday. I still have work to do Thursday-Sunday, but I can do it at home, and it certainly doesn't take nine hours a day. I'm not entirely sure I've been using my free time as constructively as I could, but then, I think I'd feel this way no matter what I did with my free time. That is to say, I have a tendency to be rather hard on myself, which is perhaps not surprising to you at this point (that is, if you either a) know me at all or b) have read my other entries).

I haven't been writing lately, however, and that's rather distressing. I go through bouts of self-doubt that keep me from writing. In a sense, though, I write constantly because I'm always grading and commenting on student work, but duh, yeah, of course that's not the same thing.

The literary journal Spring Gun is going to be publishing a short story I wrote. This is exciting. Here is a link to their Web site. I'm not sure when my story will be posted, but I'll keep you posted in case you are interested. http://www.springgunpress.com/

Bicycle VS Car

Why the weird title? Because it is about 18 million degrees out, and if I want to go to the bank, the grocery store, the whatever, I have to choose between the bike and the car.

The bike is hot. I sweat. I pulse with the heat. When I have to stop at a red light, I can feel my blood moving. No lie. I can see my heartbeat in my hands. The waves of heat shimmering and the car exhaust and the interminable waiting. If I look up through the top of my sunglasses, it's like the sky is a ceiling, the sun a slow moving coal burning its way across.

The car is not as hot. Except that at the moment it is over-heating. Especially when I run the AC. So not only is it hot in there, I'm afraid to turn on the AC, and also nervous that it'll overheat regardless of my precautions. That's just how I roll.

To get to school I take my bike and a change of clothing. I have an hour or so before I teach, so I cool down by the time I get to class. Which is a good thing, because teaching in the summer is a tightly condensed affair already. I don't need the added frustration of being gross, sweaty. We only get 11 classes in the summer. 11. The first day of class I told them, "okay, so you only have to put up with me ten more times."

On Wednesday I brought in a friend as a guest speaker. His name is Tom Grozan. He teaches journalism at Cooper City High. He also worked for the Sun Sentinel for like ten years. His lecture was about how to apply journalistic techniques (research, establishing an angle for the story, the idea of a narrative thread) to their creative writing. He did a wonderful job and the kids seemed to really like him.

My favorite part? After his lecture, I went up with him and we fielded their questions together. Tandem-teaching. I've never really done anything like it, and it was an interesting experience. I think the kids got a lot out of it, because he approaches writing in a different way than I do, so they get his perspective and my own, and also I have a more intimate knowledge of their writing and he was relying on more general writing technique kind of stuff, so with our powers combined, we were super-instructor for a few minutes. I highly recommend it, this tandem-teaching, at least once.

I thought that perhaps by writing this I would be able to come to some sort of conclusion about my bike vs car conflict. Alas, I have not. I did, however, change the formatting of this blog. Pretty swanky, eh? The picture is one Bobby took when we went to the Bok Tower Gardens (http://www.boktower.org/) a really, really beautiful little place. We stopped by there on our way back from the NSAL competition and it was a lovely way to end the trip.

I could also always walk to the store, bank, etc. Slower, but possibly less sweaty. I love walking, incidentally. It allows me to be quiet and lose myself to my thoughts in a way I can't otherwise.

The joys of losing

So, I didn't win the NSAL competition, but it was an interesting experience. I met a lot of really wonderful and talented writers, plus everyone involved in the organization is just so sweet and charming. The judges of the contest were Lauren Groff, Larry Leichman, and Bill Luvaas.

Lauren and Larry had an interesting back and forth going, because Lauren is a staunch supporter of literary writing, and Larry (he works for a publishing company) was more interested in telling us how to make money (even if that means writing genre). They got into it a little bit during the Master Class we took on Saturday morning.

Bill was pretty quiet during the whole thing, but he definitely fell on Lauren's side.

The audience (yes, there was an audience for the class) asked us what we wanted to do with our lives, and how we wanted to fit writing into our lives (this was a question based pretty solidly on Lauren and Larry's argument). I wanted to be eloquent. I tried. I don't think, however, that it came out right.

This is something like what I said (don't worry, for veracity's sake I'm going to liberally sprinkle in likes): My dad's been a writer for like 45 years, and I think that part of me rebelling was like thinking I didn't want to write and trying not to write, but I've always just kind of written anyway. I'm lucky in that I teach and I love it. But like writing for me isn't really a need, it's something of me, like how my fingernails grow?

And then people came up to me later and said stuff like "Oh well, you didn't win, but that's okay because you love teaching!"

And this is true and not true. Of course I didn't think I would win, and at the same time I was disappointed not to win. And yes, I love teaching with all my heart, but I don't love writing any less than that, you know? I think I have trouble being sincere with people, especially when "people" means an audience. I just don't really have it in me to stand up in front of a room of people and say "I love this thing so much" (this, incidentally, is one of the reasons I spent about an hour of my wedding crying; it's difficult for me to make such private things public).

But! I suppose that's what I'm doing now, eh? Making something very private as public as it can be? This is one of the reasons I love writing. I can take my time and say what I want to say in exactly the way I want to say it. I think that's a beautiful thing. Not that I'm so very eloquent, but at least I have the chance to try to say the thing I want in the way I want it to be said.

All in all, it was quite an intense and quite probably life altering experience.

In the summer time

Taught my first class of the summer today and I think it went quite well. I was especially pleased with the class discussion. I gave the kids two short pieces to read (a story and a nonfiction essay) and then we had discussion; they had awesome, insightful, interesting things to say, and on the first day of class! It was great.

I gave them an in-class writing assignment, and one of the prompts they could choose was "remember back to a time when your heart was broken. If you had a chance to take revenge, would you?" Out of 21 students, 13 used this prompt, and only one person- one - said she'd take revenge. The other 12 mostly said things like "god/life/fate will take revenge for me," or "I'm getting my revenge, actually, by being happy now and being the better person" (which totally doesn't count as revenge!).

I wonder if they're being honest. Is it true that most people wouldn't take revenge? Is it strange that I'm surprised by this? What compels them all, when they are allowed to write either nonfiction or fiction (where, in theory, they are especially free to write anything they want), to take the moral high road?

I asked one of them to consider writing her essay from the "bad" point of view, because her piece was mercilessly good. She even calls herself a goodie-too-shoes (sic) at the end. As a result, the essay reads like a string of truisms. I recommended she have the "good" and "bad" self fight it out in essay form, just to see what she could come up with (I'm a big fan of playing around with writing, experimenting, and reshaping to see what happens).

Because, okay, I want to be a good person. I work at it. Hurting someone would devastate me. But. Excising demons (to be trite here for a momentito) through fiction? Oh my yes. When else in life does one get that kind of freedom? What makes my kids afraid to explore this impulse? Or do they really not have it?

I guess what I'm getting at here is that I think most of them have to be insincere about this. Or they want to impress me with their goodness. Or maybe we all construct ideas of ourselves that we use as shorthand to answer questions like this. For example, I think of myself as this kind of a person, so no, I'd never enjoy this or that or whatever. I see myself as a good person, so no, I'd never try to get revenge on anyone. But the thing is, there are so many little choices we make every day that are absolutely devastating to other people. The simple choice of whether to go to this restaurant or that one, or whether to buy our clothes from the mall or the thrift store, or etc etc; all these choices matter. These choices have far flung effects that we will never be able to see or really fully comprehend.

I can hear, for example, like all day long (who would be willing to say this to me all day? Ha.) that the lifestyle I'm living is an unsustainable one that causes suffering and torment around the world. Do I see that suffering? Does it feel like it is of me? No.

It's just an issue of ethics, really, to me. That these kids, right? That they can't conceive of getting revenge, or at least they say they can't conceive of it, but at the same time they are a part of this too-large-for-words killing machine and that would probably never factor into the decisions they make, the person they see themselves as, or anything else, really.

So what is my point? I don't think I have one. I don't know why I'm comparing Creative Writing essays and short stories to worldwide suffering and globalization. But I am. In an obscure way, this question reminds me of the hypocrisy of living in the US. I.E. "I'm a good person! I would never hurt anyone! But I don't want jails/mental institutions/trash dumps/etc in my neighborhood. And I don't want to have to give anything up in order to get more $ and more $ and more $."

Whoa. Okay. Thanks for hanging in there with me. It was a really good class. And I'm impressed with their work for the most part. I think this semester is going to be fun.

Paper Skin Glass Bones

I'm coming to you live from my week off in-between semesters. Ah, the joys of being a teacher.

I'm happy to report that one of my short stories is going to be published in an online journal. Check it out: http://www.paperskinglassbones.com/index.html

I'll be in their June launch issue.

Also, I'm going to the National Society of Arts and Letters Literature Competition in Short Story Writing next week. Scary! Here is a link to the competition: http://www.arts-nsal.org/competition.html

If you'll recall, I won first place for my local chapter. This is all just too exciting/nerve wracking.

So, a week off from teaching, but not really. We're doing grade norming in the English Department, so I have to read and grade a set of creative writing papers. I also have to get lessons prepared for the coming weeks so I'm not scrambling. It's going to be a challenge to fit an entire semester's worth of creative writing stuff into six weeks.

And then Interpretation of Fiction for the second half of the semester! Like a crazy person, I've decided that we are going to read a novel (in a week and a half!). My kids are going to have to really buckle down, but I figure that as long as I alert them to this fact, we'll all be okay.

Right?

Time keeps on ticking ticking ticking

Recently I realized that I have a whole week off in between spring and summer semesters. That week deserves the italics, I care not what you think! A week! Precious, glorious, wondrous week off!

This is exciting. This is. Unexpected? I've been so busy I didn't even think to let it sink in that there are days between this semester and the next during which nothing is expected of me.

This is partly due to the fact that I will not be advising this summer. It should be nice to have a break, although I do enjoy advising (possibly little known fact: at parties/get-togethers/public event type things, I can always fall back on my advising knowledge when talking to people, especially in those lovely little awkward silence moments. Seriously, maybe it's because I'm around students a lot, but there is always someone who needs to know something about college or grad school or the GRE, etc etc. It's great).

Soon enough my kids will be clambering to explain to me that I've graded them wrong, that I missed the point of their essay, that they weren't actually absent from class on 27 occasions, that they did in fact turn in the assignment(s) I'm missing from them.... But not yet, folks. That will probably start on Monday.

I just have to be firm with them. Yes, this is your grade. Yes, surprising as it seems, I do know what I'm doing. No, you are not the first student I've ever had challenge me. And finally, no, I am not going to back down on this! You missed 27 classes, for heaven's sake.

Okay, that's a bit of hyperbole, but still. You get the general idea. This is one of the reasons I'm happy for the week-without-work. One of myriad.

A quick fix

Three more classes to teach before this semester is over. I cannot believe it. Summer semester starts pretty much right away, so there isn't much time for me to be standing frozen, mouth hanging open (yes, this is how I would spend my free time [or at least what sounds best right now]: standing immobile, silent, eyes slowly losing focus), but still.

I don't understand why some kids wait until the end of the semester to discuss their grades. "You're being unfair," they say, or maybe something more like, "wtf's up with my paper grade?!"

I tell them the obvious; that if they'd talked to me about this sooner, maybe even a mere two or three weeks ago, we could have worked together to address whatever issues they were/are having. But with three classes left? I am no god, friends, and I don't pretend to be one! Maybe it's a compliment that they think there is still time to fix things?

I hate that term, by the way. The idea that things, people, anything, everything, can be "fixed." This suggests that with some effort whatever is wrong with the world, a person, a class, etc, whatever the problem is could be removed and the world, person, class, etc, would revert back to however it was before the problem surfaced. Back to something more like perfection. In my thinking, this would involve time travel, because whatever happens to us cannot be undone. We're permanently altered by the people, things, diseases, places, that touch us, and there is no "fixing" that. There is no clean reversion back to an antiseptic norm.

We are messy, confused, failing things, and there is no fix for us. If I could help my student "fix" the problems that resulted in her B- (which, lest you forget! would take much, much longer than three class periods, but anyway); if I could fix the problems, she'd still have other problems rise to the surface and bubble there.

Which is, I guess, my point here, although I'm more than a little wary of saying there is a point to this blog, maybe other than stating my exhaustion (hence the desire to stand unmoving for days).

Maybe I'm wrong and the idea of a fix doesn't imply a return to a previous state of idealized being, and I'm not sure what in the idea suggests this to me, except that I see it on TV all the time. People want scar cream to not only fix, but remove evidence of the scar. We are advertised products that will fix our faces by deleting wrinkles, smoothing pores, etc etc.

But these are false promises, duh, like I have to tell you that. Nothing is fixable. Even the best scar cream can't totally remove all evidence of scarring. We are permanently altered by the people and events that surround us, and no amount of surgical fillers, low fat foods, exercise regimens, spiritual experiences, long contemplative walks, or personal triumphs/failures can undo what we've been through.

Swoosh

Hello there, trusted and admired friends of mine. This semester is coming to end, and as such, it's also speeding up. It's funny how that works. My classes are nearly in fast-forward right now, and I feel like I have to run to keep up (metaphorical running, of course... Although honestly a rather embarrassingly hefty amount of literal running is also involved).

Which reminds me. Yesterday or the day before or maybe even the day before that, I was riding my bike to school, and as I started going down that little hill that means I'm nearly on campus, I realized that that rushing-down-hill-feeling is something everyone should feel every now and then. I think it's good for people. It's good for me, and I'm a person, right? My logic is infallible, admit it.

Well, it really kind of is. My kids are reading an essay called "Reporting Live from Tomorrow" from the book Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. The essay is about how in order to accurately predict how you'll feel in any given situation (for example, how happy you'd be as a train conductor), you should ask someone who's already doing that.

He goes on to talk about how we are much more alike than we are different. This is in a section of this essay titled "The Myth of Fingerprints," which is really a lovely title, eh? But anyway, he describes his idea in a funny and engaging way, so I'll quote him here. "Because we spend so much time searching for, attending to, thinking about, and remembering these differences [between people], we tend to overestimate their magnitude and frequency, and thus end up thinking of people as more varied than they actually are. If you spent all day sorting grapes into different shapes, colors, and kinds, you'd become one of those annoying grapeophiles who talks endlessly about the nuances of flavor and the permutations of texture. You'd come to think of grapes as infinitely varied, and you'd forget that almost all of the really important information about a grape can be deduced from the simple fact of its grapehood."

I love that explanation, and the kids really grasp it as well. In addition to these two lucky little facts (look, in CRW we're talking about sound in poetry, so if some alliteration, etc, sneaks in here, you just have to bear with me), the quote above serves to substantiate my claim.

We are, dear reader, quite more alike than we are different, and if this fast-swooshing-down-a-hill-thing can make me so happy, I humbly submit that it will affect you in a similar way.

So what I'm suggesting, really, is that you, from time to time, get on your bike and ride down a hill. The feeling is luscious. If you are one of the poor unfortunates who has is lacking access to a bike or a hill or (gasp) both, just roll down the window next time you are on the highway, preferably while someone else is driving, and put your head out the window, at least a little.

I think it's necessary for survival. It helps me feel like I can keep up with the fast-forwarding of this semester anyway.

Burgled

In other news, this week has been interesting, in like, a bad way. Our house was broken into on Monday. It was scary, but everything is fine. They didn't even let the cats out. They only took a couple laptops, my sister's Ipod, and our digital camera, so it could have been way worse. I was the one who discovered the break in. Let me break it down for you.

These are the steps I went through to realize we had been burgled. Please note that the entire process probably took less than five minutes, but it seemed much longer than that.

1) Upon opening the front door, I realized that the house smelled like beer. "That's strange," I thought, "maybe Bobby spilled when he took out the recycling last night?"
2) Opening the sliding glass door onto the porch I noticed a piece of cement brick on the rug. "Huh," I thought, "now why would Bobby leave that there? That's weird."
3) Upon discovering the utility closet door was closed, and so the cats wouldn't have been able to get to their litter boxes. "Why would Bobby leave that door closed? What a jerk! What about the poor kitties?"
4) Going over to the door to get my bike, I realized the door is not locked. "Oh man, that guy's on a role today! Bobby was supposed to lock this and he didn't. Man."
5) Upon turning around and realizing there is glass everywhere and the cat door is shattered. "Ohhhhhhhh. Not Bobby. Ha. Burglar."

The whole time it was Bobby's fault. I just think that's funny. But anyway, the cops came with the crime scene guy. The most annoying part was cleaning up the broken glass. Bobby makes home brew beer, and he had some in the closet. Apparently when they were rifling through our stuff, the burglar knocked a big bottle of home brew down and it shattered all over everything. There were even pieces of glass in my shoes.

So. I'm about to go teach my last class before spring break. I'm trying to think how I can incorporate this whole burglary into my lecture. Because I think it might be funny. And it speaks to the importance of point of view; imagine this story from my point of view, then from Bobby's, Laura's, the cats, the hamster, the burglar....

Okay, you win this time, Dentist

So, it's been awhile, eh? So sorry about that, things have been very busy here for me. I know you've been on the edge of your seat, wondering what I have to say about teaching in a circle? Am I right?

I'm right, right?

Thought so!

Or not, but either way, dear reader, please forgive my inattention to this dusty little blog. Okay! For the record, teaching in a circle is interesting. I think it's better for workshopping (yes, it is a verb, you must, you know, learn to deal with that) creative writing than it is for actual lecturing. And it's funny, my kids said as much. We'd been workshopping their creative nonfiction essays for a couple weeks and were returning back to lecture. "I like it better in rows for this," I heard one of them say to another.

And you know what? I agree. It's easier to command their attention, I think, and to get them to focus. This is a bit of an unhappy realization for me, however, as my favorite classes as an undergraduate were taught in a circle.

Maybe after teaching for a few more years.... So, why the weird subject line? It's because today is Bobby and my three year anniversary, and we celebrated in the time worn fashion of getting cavities filled together. So romantic. But now my mouth is k-i-l-l-i-n-g (it's more dramatic spelled out I think) me. To death! So I called my dentist, and he said I might need a root canal instead.

Oh brother. Does he know that next week is spring break? That I hate dentists? That I have so much work to do and no time for mouth pain to distract me? What about me, dentist? Why don't you ever think about my needs?!

Ahem. But yeah. If it's this pain now verses a root canal which will hurt like crazy and then actually stop hurting, then I'll take the gosh darn root canal.

Really, Mary? Really? Gosh darn? So that's where we're at today. It's good that I know this now. You see, it's the mouth pain. It' s worming its way into my brain.

Guess what! I get to teach creative writing again in the summer and then in the fall. I am so happy. And I continue to be happy and grateful every day that I have this job that I love so. Yesterday I was talking to my creative writing kids:

"Are you excited to be going back to the workshop format?"

They all express differing levels of delight and apprehension.

"But, like," one of them says to me, "can I write something weird?"

"That's what we've been talking about, remember? Nontraditional stories and more traditional ones? You can do whatever you want in your short story, as long as the story has earned it."

"What if I want to change the perspective half way through?" another asks.

"Same thing. We learn the rules to better understand writing, but it doesn't mean you can't break them."

"And do I have to, like, use dialogue if I don't want to?" asks another.

"For heaven's sake. No, you don't have to, you can pick from the narrative modes that you want to incorporate, and dialogue doesn't have to be one of them as long as the story works without it."

They are so afraid to break the "rules," and at the same time so excited. I'm looking forward to this second round of workshopping. I know that many of them took the class because they want to write fiction. It should be fun.

That is, if I can enjoy it. If this pain would please-and-thank-you-very-much go away.

In the middle of January

It is the second week of classes. Funny how much it feels as though we are much farther into the semester than just two weeks. I guess it's easy to get back into this routine. Well, hell, I've been in school longer than I haven't by now, so I suppose it ought to feel fairly familiar, even though I'm on the other side of the desk.

My creative writing class is more fun than any number of adjectives I could use to describe it to you. It is wonderful to teach students so interested in learning. My 1102 class is also quite good; they are more willing than most composition classes I have taught to engage in class discussion. I'm not sure why this is, and it puzzles me because last spring (2009), I taught in the same classroom I'm teaching in now. That class was one of the least responsive I have ever taught. I thought that this was due in large part to the way the classroom is set up.

It's a computer classroom with attached desks arranged so that two people sit facing me and two sit facing away; a square cut into four parts. This works well mostly, except for the students in the back who face me, but who also face computer screens that I can't see unless I hike back there and peer around their desks to find out what they are looking at (or who they are friending on Facebook).

So last year when my class wouldn't talk, when I had to basically beg them to discuss, I blamed the room. The unfettered access to Facebook. My inability to monitor them. The fact that half the class was facing away from me.

But, apparently this was not the case. Because my comp kids this semester do not suffer the same room related malaise. This is fantastic, but it also makes me realize how much the composition of a particular class affects how and how much students learn and interact. A quiet, distracted bunch will encourage each other to remain quiet and distracted. A loud, passionate group will also affect (and infect? Like with passion? Is passion communicable? I'm arguing yes, I suppose) each other. Huh.

I guess I knew this, but it still seems strange to me. Next up for mediation: how classroom dynamics are changed by putting everyone in a circle. Sounds exciting, right?

As a brief note, the soup I made was quite okay. It was even quite possibly good. Thank you for your interest in my culinary (lack of) skill. Also, Bobby is better. I think he got better, ps, by infecting me with his cold.

Trying to make a soup

School begins on Monday. Well, it technically begins this Saturday, but happily I am teaching no Saturday classes. As such, today is my last weekday off. Bobby is working, and I am home alone, trying to make a soup.

I say trying to make a soup instead of just making a soup because I am not a good cook, for one, and for reason the second, I've been having issues with said soup. The first, and most pernicious, issue I've been having is that I don't know how to cook. Okay, so I looked up recipes online. The difficulty with this is that I did not find one that I liked, I found several, so this leads me to issue number two I'm having, which is that I'm combining several different recipes, oh! And the third? I'm using different amounts of ingredients than any of the recipes call for. Plus I added too much cayenne.

Okay. So, now you see my struggle with the soup? It's been interesting. It smells good, and I think it's possible that it tastes good, but I'm not sure. I've tasted it too many times to be able to tell.

I need to make this soup because Bobby is sick. I also want to make the soup to prove to Bobby that I can make the soup (there has lately been some questioning of my soup making abilities). Another reason I'm making the soup (today is a day of lists of reasons, apparently) is that it's my last real day off, like I said, and making soup is so opposite teaching that it seemed appropriate. It is also something that I would not have even been able to conceive of doing ten years ago.

Ah, yes, here we come to the drive of this blog for today. It's tiny, pulsing heart, if you will. Never, ever did I expect to be where I am today ten years ago. To be completely frank, I was an entirely different person then. And I think (this is actually something I've thought about a lot, so it's probably more true than you might believe) that if I had been going for my life right now as a goal ten years ago, I would have failed and failed and failed.

What I mean is, if I had had this career and life in mind, I would not have been able to achieve it. Ten years ago I would have totally messed up my chances for it, somehow; this is the kind of girl I was. I'm happy to say that I have morphed or changed or perhaps transformed into someone who isn't constantly shooting herself in her own feet, tripping over her own idealism, and generally working on failing at life. That sounds harsh, maybe, but I think a lot of people go through that phase.

In fact, I see it in my kids all the time. Really smart young people who seem to do everything in their power to fail. I've even talked to them about it before. But then, I think when someone is at that place in life, there is really no talking them out of it. They have to want to change.

So, for what it's worth, my soup (whether it actually tastes good or not, I'm just working on actually getting the soup finished here) is evidence of my own butterflyness or however you would rather imagine this whole transformational thing that happens to people, and which has happily happened to me.