Education, memory itself, is but the recapitulation of all the moments of genius in that culture. Education is always breaking down old categories and recombining them in better ways. And who has a better memory, strictly speaking, that the catatonic who resurrects some part of the past in all its completeness, annihilating the present moment utterly? I might go so far as to say that thought itself is a disease of the brain, a degenerative condition of matter.

~ excerpt from Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch, p 59

snow days

As the local news media has been inundated with pictures of the miraculous appearance of snow in December, I will not bore my viewing audience by adding any here. In an unrelated note, I have misplaced my camera.

So, I will attempt to paint a word picture. Nathan and I, bundled up like two Alaskan snow babies, trudged down to Juanita Bay Park through the icy-crusted coffee-tinted snow. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by a MASS of seagulls, eagerly looking over our persons for a morsel of bread. Two trips to Walgreens later, we busily crumbled and distributed 3 loaves of white and wheat bread (not necessarily in that order) to the hungry birds. (For those of you angered by this blatant waste of food, do keep in mind that the lake has been covered in snow and partially frozen since last Mon).

Note: Seagulls have very sharp beaks. There was blood in the snow by the time we were done (from other seagulls, not us). But, they made up for their sadistic, parasitic ways by being highly entertaining - they quickly realized that instead of scrabbling for muddy crumbs on the ground, circling my head and waiting for a large chunk to fly their way was the better option.

There was also a crowd of ducks that mainly stayed around my feet, stepping on me repeatedly, and a gaggle of comparatively sedate geese whose long necks proved to be a disadvantage in getting to the food quickly.

I will post pics if I get to go again tomorrow, and if I find my camera.

Thanks

I'm a bit late with my post on things I'm thankful for, but that does not lessen the impact these often simple, often unnoticed things have on my life.

Nathan
Mom
Angela
Dad
my health
my teeth
my job
my writing ability
teaching
Blush (my cat, not the makeup)
good food
food period
clean water
money in the bank
warm sweaters
dance classes
free time, as rare as it is
cooking with family
various technologies that make my life easier albeit tech-dependent
the Bible and time to study
time to read for myself
did I mention my health?
amazing performances like the one from Crystal Pite last weekend
my students
living in the often wet yet beautiful Pac NW

America has changed a lot in the past few years.

A sampling of nature's glory.

in a middle of a room
stands a suicide
sniffing a Paper rose
smiling to a self

"somewhere it is Spring and sometimes
people are in real:imagine
somewhere real flowers,but
I can't imagine real flowers for if I

could,they would somehow
not Be real"
(so he smiles
smiling)"but I will not

everywhere be real to
you in a moment"
The is blond
with small hands

"& everything is easier
than I had guessed everything would
be;even remembering the way who
looked at whom first,anyhow dancing"

(a moon swims out of a cloud
a clock strikes midnight
a finger pulls a trigger
a bird flies into a mirror)

~ E.E. Cummings

grad school

For the last few weeks, I've been teaching freshman English and reading Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. Surprisingly, my sleep level has remained roughly the same - I've instantly become much better at time management. I do think I will have to become even better come next quarter when both my classes are going to be rather theoretical (this quarter I have one theory and one practicum class).

I've also been able to take about 1-2 dance classes a week - not much, but I'm glad for now I can keep my physical muscles flexing along with my intellectual ones.

What is a rhetorical question?

Vancouver pics

Nathan

Bring on the snow!

Oh so friendly pigeons

Yummy treats

Crazy guy on a unicycle

Love those outfits

O Canada...

This Labor Day (or Labour Day) weekend, my husband and I went to Vancouver B.C. for a much needed vacation. The weather was beautiful, the people were fairly nice, and the food was excellent. (pics to follow soon)

The one bizarre note comes from a morning of people/traffic watching on Burrard and Robson st. Apparently there is an rule up in Canada that buses can run red lights if (a) the light turned red less than two seconds before, and (b) if they honk profusely all the way through the intersection. So, if you need to drive in downtown Vancouver during the morning/early afternoon hours, you are forewarned.

Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen? ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Knowledge is elusive and volatile; it escapes measurement. That's why the conquering god of that era was Hermes, inventor of all trickery, god of crossroads and thieves. He was also the creator of writing, which is the art of evasion and dissimulation and a navigation that carries us to the end of all boundaries, where everything dissolves into the horizon, where cranes lift stones from the ground and weapons transform life into death, and water pumps make heavy matter float, and philosophy deludes and deceives...

~ Umberto Eco in Foucault's Pendulum

Katherine

I find I must agree with the feelings in this article - quite a good job of pointing out the multiple double standards of Hollyweird.

babies

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one's youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.

Psalm 127:3-5 (NASB)

The above passage is often used to explain why it is a Christian duty to procreate, and procreate often. As a recently married woman, I am steeling myself for the inevitable questions about when and how Nathan and I are going to reproduce ourselves.

Now, I like kids. I've had to teach a lot of little kids and big kids in dance and at Sunday School, and most kids are cool once you get to know them (some are spoiled terrors, but that's another post on parenting issues). I see no problem with people having biological children.
However, I know several females whose life goal is essentially to have lots and lots of kids, based largely on the fact that they think it's Biblical.

I regret for once the necessary brevity of blogging, as I could easily start a twenty page, cross-referenced paper on why I feel the above is not true, but I'll settle for a few pertinent examples.

In looking at Psalm 127, one sees it is labeled "A Song of Ascents, of Solomon." It was a song of praise, probably sung in a public parade, for David's favorite son. What father watching a favored son growing up wouldn't feel the more the merrier, especially a king in a patriarchal society? From a more pragmatic viewpoint, a king with strong princes would be in a stronger tactical position against enemies. This is even referenced as "when they speak with their enemies at the gate" - litigation used to be performed at city gates, and the more sons a man had, the more powerful he appeared. I don't see how this is relevant enough to today's society to base one's entire lifestyle around it.

Even more striking than this is all the references to adoption.
In Romans 9:25-26, "As He says also in Hosea, "I will call those who were not my people, 'My people,' And her who was not beloved, 'Beloved.'" "And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' There they shall be called the sons of the Living God."
Ephesians 1:4-5 - "just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will"

The above is not to say that people shouldn't have children, especially if it is their dream to do so. But I am saying that those people should take a step back and take a hard look at that dream to see if is originating from a God given purpose or from a possibly misguided sense of religiosity.

First of all, why is it so important that you have children? Do you really have something important to pass on, or do you want to play at being a parent for a while? Secondly, if you do honestly feel you are supposed to be a parent, does it have to be biological? I've had people tell me when they find out that I am adopted that they couldn't possibly have loved an adopted child as much as a biological one. Why? Being a parent is not a walk in the park - it doesn't take having kids to realize that. So parenting, biologically or via adoption is a choice that you as a future parent make. You make a choice to love that child whether or not he or she grows up to be a doctor or a football player or a slacker. You make a choice to try and guide that child to the best of your abilities, to fulfill your responsibility as a parent even in the times that you don't like the child (e.g. adolescence).
And if you do decide to have children and are open to the idea of adoption, there are lots of kids out there that need parents.

two quotes

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm’d—see here it is—
I hold it towards you.
~ John Keats

We're married now; we can't get rid of each other.
This is awesome!
~ my husband

Paulo Freire

Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication.
~
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Friere
p64

traveling is now possible

I now have a passport, and the picture looks horrible.
Oh well, I am now free to move around the world. *grin*

traveling

Today I am going to get started on my passport application materials. I've been increasingly hassled by friends about my passport less state. In my defense, I have never really needed one. No study abroad, no relatives in France/Thailand/Mexico, etc... (although I have been and lived throughout southern LA) = a passport not being a necessity. However my recent marriage has resulted in my husband and I talking about all the fun trips we want to take in the future, hence me now needing a passport.

In my browsing online today, I was nudged again when looking at this most fabulous academic travel opportunity. Now, I do have quite a lot of time before I could even think of applying to this academic month in Rome (one of the requirements for writers is a sample of a published book), but it's fun to anticipate, even so far in advance.

More realistically the passport will be used for a quick vacation. Panama anyone?

I was looking over the last few months worth of blog posts, and the paucity struck me as rendering my blog somewhat ineffectual, which is kind of silly since I didn't have a direct effect in mind when creating Mind Splotch. However, one's presence on the web is measured in posts/responses/im's, so I will attempt to briefly explain my seemingly sporadic postings.

1. I was married to a wonderful man just over one week ago. Even with a very small wedding, there's a lot of planning that goes into such an event. I'm mainly glad I ordered enough food.

2. A few weeks before said wedding, I quit my job. Now, I hate typing this, because I feel very slackerish in my unemployed state (although planning a wedding did preclude normal job searching). The main reason I write this is because I should not have waited so long to end what had turned into a horrible interpersonal situation between my boss and I. I love what I do for a living (teaching in and for various formats, styles), but in the end I was dreading going into work not because of my students but because of the other nasty politics flying around.
A weight was verily lifted off of my shoulders once I had made the decision to leave. So don't be like me! If you are in a job that is suffocating your soul and destroying the love you once had for your work, the inspiration for all that you do, then leave.

Life is now good. I have a new husband and a much better mindset for a summer job search.

As of this afternoon,

Nathan and I are going to be married!

tech in the classroom

The article on this page describes what happens when students run amok in an experimental online classroom/chat room. The theory is that by involving technologies that are viewed in conjunction with "leisure" activities, effective learning is castrated. The authors of this study do have some pertinent points, but it does seem as though some gray area has been blacked out rather heavily.

Essentially, after the students logged on, the male students in the classroom started cracking homophobic jokes, jokes that the females largely ignored. According to the authors,

The early interventions by two male students set the framework and modality for the majority of their fellow online contributors. The usual power dynamics of a seminar setting, facilitated by the lecturer, were immediately transgressed and became impossible to re-establish.

How did it become impossible to re-establish boundaries? Another thing that is troubling about the article is that the reader is not given a sense of what boundaries were set into place before the students entered the online classroom. Did the teachers, perhaps with the notion that students obsessed with Facebook would immediately grasp the idea of an online classroom, give minimal instruction and expect the students to just "get it"?

Another section of the paper that is troubling reads as follows

The greatest gift that a
life of the mind provides is awareness that we are
responsible for our own failures, inadequacies and laziness. The greatest gift that chat rooms, blogs and Facebook provide is the construction of endless cycles of displacement where others – writers, teachers, politicians, boyfriends, girlfriends, (ex)best friends and mothers – can block the knowledge that we are accountable for the decisions we make in our lives. Homophobia is not a legitimate strategy or method for creating an empowered identity.

Where does the jump happen that allows the implicit comparison of homophobia with using online technologies? Instead of using the experience and searching out other possibilities with students using technology, the authors seem to have given up, tarring online discussion with the brush of homophobia and laziness forever. It did seem as though a chat room was too closely related to "leisure-based platforms" to be useful for ongoing class discussion, but it would be interesting to see the class layout reworked to see if a chat room can be a viable tool. What if the students didn't know each other and were given completely anonymous, gender neutral pseudonyms? Would that remove some of the gender based insults, or would that merely leave everyone open for flaming? What if the students were actually in seperate locations instead of packed together in a classroom where they could still talk to one another face to face?

What feels most important that the authors have failed to realize, or at least account for in their article, is that the online world has the same people that the real world does. The students that speak up in class are still going to speak up online. Unfortunately, if one is a slacker/homophobe in one's day to day interactions, those nasty traits do not disappear just because of a computer screen. The only difference is the words are in pixels instead of in sound waves. Such students need to learn to moderate their communication style in order to more fully deal with the learning issues at hand. And this needs to happen with some sort of online technology given how prolifically everyone uses it. Perhaps blogging instead of chatting, giving the students more time to process their thoughts while removing the ability to react as informally as in regular conversation?

blogging in academia

I wonder how much the buzz in this article will affect academia's view of blogging. "blogging and blugging" can work for graduate students who want a forum for their ideas without having to go through a major publisher; news feeds list prominent blogs in addition to the regular opinion writers, and many of those have switched their methodology to blogging. Yet this really great tool still seems to be on the outskirts when it comes to teaching.
The Ed Techie says:

At this stage, it is more about the social networking than establishing a profile around ideas. The relative importance of a blog may depend on who you are and where you are in your career.

He's saying that the people moving 'beyond' blogging are the ones already established within their field of expertise, perhaps why they feel more comfortable moving to a more plastic flow of information on Twitter or FriendFeed.

I agree with his view that blogs are not just archives . Technology hasn't moved quite that fast. The relative slowness of blog comments and feedback (compared to instant messaging or other networking sites) are part of what make blogs a really great space to think out ideas and interact with other minds. Face to face and real time mediated conversations are great, but there is a definite difference in dialogue when there isn't the immediate pressure to sound 'smart' in your response, when you can read the posted ideas and go away and process your thoughts and eventual response.

I know that when I was an undergraduate I enjoyed listservs and class forums, but there was a problem with members of the class not participating. Blogs however, are definitely more open to being injected with one's personality. There's room to add pictures, font choices, which blogging service you use, etc... With the removal of the university as supplier, one of the layers between the student and posting goes away. It feels like less of a chore set up by the institution (with the university's logo ever present) and more like an demonstration of one's personal intellect. This is not to say that new tools like Twitter wouldn't help with such an exercise, but there is too much unexplored potential in blogging at the undergraduate level to move forward quite yet.

truth

If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

Across the Universe

Last year, when the trailer for Across the Universe came out, I was ecstatic. Acid tripping through Julie Taymor's reinvisioned 60s with a wicked Beatles soundtrack. And dancing!

Through one scheduling mess after another, I didn't actually get to watch the movie until last week. I am glad I did not pay full price.

Although I think this review sums it up nicely, there are a few other random bits that I wonder if anyone else noticed. I seriously think this movie was funded by various advertisers hoping their 'subliminal messages' would bring in more cash.

Seriously, does this scene not remind anyone of a Microsoft infomercial?
How about this one? Coca-cola anybody?
I'm torn on this one - I thought Gap when I first saw it, but after subsequent youtube views I'm thinking an Eternity commercial, or some other brand that relies on skinny, pretty, reclining people for its image. The main difference is that there are actually nonwhite people in this clip, as opposed to the commercials.

I know I Am Sam gets ripped on for the Pavlovian usage of the Beatles, but I'm still not entirely sure how that's different or worse than using amazing pieces of rock art as mere backdrops for random bits of visual imagery.

my favorite Irish curse

With St. Patrick's Day fast approaching...

"May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the hills of damnation that the Lord himself can't find you with a telescope"

No offense meant to any reader, just some food for thought and some inspiration perhaps for creative naysaying instead of relying on four letter words.

This is probably one of the best posts on why Wikipedia and academia don't mix.
It does seem that Wiki goes beyond a typical encyclopedia in detail, especially on certain entries that have twenty different subheadings, yet I can definitely see the need to put limitations on how and where students should use Wiki tidbits.

I was finally accepted to the University of WA English graduate program. Now I just wait and see if I was also accepted as a Teaching Assistant.

*huge grin*

The author of this post seems to be the type of person now voting for Obama. It's interesting seeing how much he correctly projected in terms of the general debacle still currently playing out.

technology

Thanks to my internet being down for a couple of weeks, I was forced to become reaquainted with that seething mass of yellow paper and black ink otherwise known as the phone book. It's a funny instrument, highly useful when Google is off limits, and perhaps even when I do have internet access. The miracle of search engines is not to be belittled, but one does have to have a general idea of what one is looking for. Wheras with the phone book, one might be browsing through looking for, say, a dance clothing shop, whereupon that said person realizes those shops are sandwiched in between 12 dairy suppliers and 4 dart board makers. You can't really find that variety with just one search on Google. I suppose you could look up the Yellow pages online, but that would just be silly.

teaching

About a year and a half ago, I was speaking with one of my professors about graduate school. He was writing me a letter of rec, and he queried why I was just applying to the English grad program and not to Communication (as that was my undergrad degree). I responded off the top of my head (not a safe place to grab stuff from generally) that I didn't want to spend my life performing statistical studies. He seemed somewhat disappointed in my answer and iterated how that really wasn't the focus of the department.

I think I have a better answer now. The more I think about it in this long interim, the more I realize that my true love is teaching. I want to teach college kids to write and how to write well. Now of course I want to integrate what I learned about new technologies and the like, different texts = different ways of writing. But even then in my professor's office I knew on some subconscious level that I was interested more in the structure rather than the content.

It's really the teaching. In my current part time job as a writing tutor, I love it when the kids finally "get" something and when I see their writing improve. Even if it takes a long while, at the very least I seem to be good at helping them see that writing is not the horrific behemoth they once thought.

Hopefully the above ideas come across not quite as cheesy but just as heartfelt as they would in person.