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/
Monday, July 26, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
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 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.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, May 17, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
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?
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?
Friday, April 30, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
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.
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.
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