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February 27, 2006
she will be missed
Via That Tuba player, Octavia Butler has passed away.
Octavia Butler was one of the first "real" writers I ever met. She came to speak when I was an undergrad at Norfolk State and our honors seminar was on violence and retribution. We read Parable of the Sower, and it was my first encounter with what I would call "important" science fiction. We also read stories from Bloodchild. Both were books that I passed to my mom--and I only ever bothered my mom with the *really* good stuff.
I got to have lunch with Ms. Butler at a fancy restaurant in downtown Norfolk, and I remember how soft-spoken she was, so humble, and how I was afraid to ask her any questions because anyone who could write like that must be thinking worlds ahead of any silly writing question my puny brain might have been stuck on at the time.
I'm sure the whole gig she had at our school--the keynote and reading she gave, the quick lunch--was probably pretty forgettable to her. But I, and I'm sure most of the students in that seminar, will remember Ms. Butler. Fondly.
Posted by mryonker at 08:42 PM | Comments (1)
February 22, 2006
what is STIFF?
The answer: the way that you feel after you've run ten miles and then sat at your desk, first IMing with an exam committee member for over an hour, then writing a rec letter to support the nomination of a prof for a teaching award, then overhauling a unit assignment sheet for your research writing class, AND THEN sitting for a few more minutes reading a few blogs.
Sheesh. Note to self: don't SIT ALL DAY!!
Posted by mryonker at 03:36 PM
February 18, 2006
how this day has been crap
Well, most of it I won't talk about, I guess. The stuff I can talk about:
I'm losing one of my best friends today. We said goodbye last night in the only way we know how; B went to help move the heavy stuff, and I stood around feeling sorry for myself as her house became increasingly empty. We shared a really great meal, the kids played and visited, and I kissed her a bunch.
This morning in a flurry of misunderstanding, confusion, and busy phones, I missed running with D.
This morning we scrambled to clean the house for B's brother, who at the last minute announced he was coming to visit, and then called at the last last minute to say he wasn't. I don't blame him--he got caught in a band of lake effect south of Syr and being a SE Virginia boy, was not interested in navigating a white out on the interstate. And I suppose I should be happy that the house is clean. But that's like being happy when the little boy I babysit pees *all over* the toilet, walls, and bathroom floor and I have to bleach the entire room, and I'm grateful for the necessary opportunity to disinfect the bathroom. Or something.
And of course there is the snow, the cold, and the GS cookie booth sale that I have to look forward to in a couple hours.
I just want to crawl back into bed until spring.
Edited to add: And the catalyst for this post in the first place: Rebecca's mom has passed away. There's just nothing to be happy about today.
Posted by mryonker at 01:11 PM | Comments (5)
February 16, 2006
:shudder to think::
As a runner, I will *never* be able to pull off shoes like these. Not only would my usually-cranky and on-the-verge-of-arthritic toe joints complain voraciously about such confining straps, but my arches and heels would protest the lack of cushion and the (very minimal) rise. Further, my feet would be *ugly* in such shoes. It's gotten to the point where even sprucing up my toenails with a little color isn't enough to make them passable in sandals; I have developed huge crusty callouses on the tips of many of my toes.
I wonder, frequently, what I will do when I have to go to job interviews. I'm thinking some nice, doddy-looking (and plenty expensive) Birks will have to do it. Until then, though, I'm boycotting all other shoes except runners. Nice wide toebox, cushion-y ride, stable heel. I'd rather spend $100 on some Brooks *any* day.
Because really. I couldn't chase a kid in shoes that didn't have some sort of strap across the back! They'd outrun me in a heart beat. And for now, I can still run faster than *all* of my kids. For now, anyway.
PS: This post is simply me attempting to feel better about the fact that I cannot wear or collect totally cool dressy shoes. This post stands as the excuse for my owning 6 pairs of running shoes, and my excuse for planning on buying another pair very soon.
Posted by mryonker at 10:29 PM | Comments (5)
February 15, 2006
cruel irony
Two problems stymie (gah. Moveable Type needs spell check!!) me as I *really* *really* try to do this exam prep business.
The first: I cannot quit adding crap to my lists (no! none if it is crap!! but y'all know what I mean!!). I keep coming across great stuff that I feel like I cannot *not* read (like this interesting study by Susan Herring), so I read it, and then add it to the list, and don't really get anywhere in terms of "checking stuff off." I'm treading water, at best.
The second: the olde blog thing [here's the bare bones exam blog], used for keeping track of reading and note-taking, just ain't doin it for me.
I *cannot* remember what I've read, or what I've written, or what I've thought when I simply post to the blog. I CANNOT. What is wrong with me?? I've not given up, but I am going old school for now. The past couple of weeks, I've been simply keeping notes in a regular old spiral, using my different colored felt tips, and feeling much better about what I'm reading and retaining. I planned to go back and post a lot of what I've written in those notebooks (yes, plural!), but now I might be too far behind.
What irony.
Posted by mryonker at 09:48 PM | Comments (8)
February 12, 2006
it seemed like a good idea at the time...
...to teach Hannah how to play "Heart and Soul" on the piano. She plays it constantly now...and I want to heave my piano into the bushes out front.
Time for her to get some "real" piano lessons, I suppose.
Posted by mryonker at 10:49 AM | Comments (4)
February 09, 2006
a funny
A small boy sits on my couch and watches Sesame Street. He and his baby sister come to my house two days a week so their mom can study.
He eats Corn Pops from a small ziploc.
He says to me, "Emily [baby sister] can't eat Corn Pops."
Except he transposes the first letters of the words "corn" and "pops" and sends me into gales of laughter.
Posted by mryonker at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2006
the students have spoken
and they don't like blogging. Yesterday I got evaluations back from two FY comp classes I taught last semester. While*all* the students I had last semester were required to keep individual invention blogs, these two sections were required to read blogs and online media (of their choice) on a weekly basis and post regular responses and links based on that reading.
The second unit essay was an extended blog post, where they were to offer a mini-analysis of blogs as genre. What do blogs look like? What is the writing like? etc.
The kicker here is that those essays were, for the most part, quite good. And while this might be as a result of the *required* readings (they read Mortensen, O'Baoill, Blood, and others) and not their own blog-reading, they still did more in these essays than I expected. Some of them even talked about "informality" as an actual "form" with rules. Several students also received comments from authors they had cited (Mortensen was one generous commenter), which I was thrilled about.
But they hated it. I mean *hated hated* it. While none of them was particularly articulate in their hatred of blogging, nearly three-quarters of both classes (and maybe more, since I'm guessing) listed "blogging" under "Please name two things about the course you DISLIKED." Some of them listed blogging AND blogging so they could list two things.
Gah.
Because none was forthcoming with WHY they disliked it so much, I can only guess:
It was too pervasive--both materially pervasive (as it was time-consuming) and personally pervasive (as I encouraged them to read and write about things for which they would need no external compulsion).
Along with it being materially time-consuming, it also seemed (to them) that the amount of reading and writing (because I did not designate word counts or page lengths for the weekly blogging activities) was excessive. That is, it was clear to them how much writing they were doing, as everytime they logged in to post again, they would see *just how many* posts they had already written. (Some did mention in their evals that the course was "too much work.")
It was boring (one person did cite this as a reason for disliking the blog work). I encouraged them to read what they'd like, and one can only read so much about women's professional softball. I guess I mean that when you're 18, and your interests are the sport in which you participate, your girlfriend, and finding someone to buy you beer, the sorts of things you're going to choose to read might not be compelling or thought-provoking. And I know this sounds like I'm having a little snit, but I'm trying to wrangle through something here. Blogging--a certain kind of blogging, I guess--requires that the writer have some level of investment in either learning or communicating something--something, anything. And this is not a personal attack against any one of these students, or traditional students generally. But there is something cool about being disaffected, uninterested, bored. About not caring. If you don't care, you can't be disappointed or hurt. And a blogger (a writer!!)--one who is internally-driven--cares about something. Is interested in something.
So maybe this is a function of a pervasive obstacle in writing classes, blogs or no blogs: writers are engaged when they find something that piques them, but it is difficult to allow oneself to be piqued when she's worried about grades, and what she looks like, and how she'll get home this weekend for her best friend's birthday party, and when it is NOT cool to worry about anything.
Blogging, in all it's virtual electronic splendor, is material. It is a material production of identity--a material production of work. That I can go back to any one of those students' blogs and get a sense of who they were then and whether they actually completed the required number of posts is...threatening? Not threatening. But...scary to them?
The same thing happened the first time I used LinguaMOO. It seemed to be going really well during the semester, and then the evals at the end made it sound like I was a tech nazi, making them perform electronic acrobatics to learn how to log in and use punctuation to speak and emote.
>sigh<
Posted by mryonker at 08:50 AM | Comments (7)