June 02, 2008
so close, and yet so far
After I finish the introduction today, which I should, considering its close-to-completion, I will have written an entire first draft of my dissertation.
And boy, is it still a mess (hence, the title of this post).
I'm back drinking coffee to ward off the yawns, eating to avoid the boredom of sitting in the same place all day, and running in the morning to make sure my body is tired enough to fall asleep at night.
The house, now that a contract is in the works, is slowly regressing back into a state of cluttered messiness, especially as I've taken back my favorite end of the dining room table.
Lucky for me, the kids have a new hobby:
Killing the planet with two-stroke engines.
It's only interesting for about the first minute.
Posted by mryonker at 04:43 PM | Comments (2)
May 03, 2008
skip this unless you're writing a diss
As I've been working through this PhD, I've noticed a bit of a pattern: I like each phase a little better than the last. I thrived in course work, but suffered a little at the end of each semester when I had to spend a couple of weeks trying to make sense of 14 weeks of discussion and reading notes to build a paper.
Then came exams, and I decided that I liked exams better than course work. My rationale was this: the exam phase was all reading. That is, I could read, and read, and read as much I wanted to, and I was reading what I was interested in because my exam areas were *mine*. I made them, and I was invested in learning about them, and I reveled in the reading. Of course, at the end of it all (and it took me about a year-and-a-half from start to finish) I did have to write, but it was like ripping a band-aid off super-fast. The writing of the exams inhabited such a small time-portion of "the exam process" that it isn't what I remember about it. I remember, fondly, the reading.
Now it's the dissertation, the book-length researched argument. I've been writing on it for almost a year now (holy crap. I'm going to ignore that small detail). And I do love it. Because I feel like this is what I've been waiting to do since I got here: to revel in some thick writing-making.
To be sure, I didn't always know that I've been waiting to do this. In fact, I think I just realized it in the last few days, when I was given a small directive by my advisors: make a little more sense, please--the chapters are not fitting together yet.
And after some mildly-frantic heuristic-making and outline building, I realized what the problem was: I'd been hoping that all the stuff I'd written so far would fall logically, neatly onto the minds of my readers in such a way that the argument would delicately but obviously appear in their brains without me having to actually, uh, argue it.
I had no thesis. No over-arching claim or theme even, to show readers what I was getting at.
Part of me said, "Well, you were saving it for the end!! Here's four chapters of interesting material, here's chapter five that is the grand finale of 'How It All Fits!!'"
And the other smarter part of me said, "Hello? Is anybody in there?? You've been trying to get your OWN STUDENTS to EXPLICITLY ARTICULATE their own claims for weeks."
So: what have I learned?? Dissertating is about making an argument. And it's about NOT making an oblique, creatively meandering maybe-argument. It's about a little bit of structural repetivity, a little bit of data-making and data-analysis, a little bit of gathering and summarizing existing scholarship, and a whole lot of showing how it all fits together. It must fit together.
And then: whatever the fit is, or however the fit works, is the argument.
I imagine that partially why I've resisted articulating an explicit argument is that attendant to such writing is responsibility. If I'm going to make an argument, I have to stand by it. I have to be invested in it. I have to allow it to be important to me. I must connect myself to it. I must commit to it.
And as a student (and my profs and advisors will all concur), I'm not much for commitment. There's an authority move that happens when one commits to an argument that I'm only now becoming a little more comfortable with. I have to acknowledge that I am smart enough, entitled, even, to make an argument. And the humility of my student-hood, the presence of a bunch of really brilliant people that I work with and among, sometimes make my being "good-enough" a hard thing to admit.
What I realize now, just now, is that I have to make that allowance (even if it requires a little pretending) in order to get this project finished. I have to allow myself to be able to do it; I have to admit that I'm smart enough to do it.
I am, dammit. I am.
Posted by mryonker at 09:09 PM | Comments (4)
March 13, 2008
I've got to find another place to work
Aside from the fact that I am constantly bloated with muffin carbs, and from the fact that I really am in no position to be buying a $3 chai and a $1.50 muffin every day, I should really find another place to work because I always invariably end up, somehow, next to a couple who bow their heads to publicly pray--outloud--before they eat their grilled focaccia sandwiches.
I end up feeling equally annoyed and ashamed. In circular fashion. Annoyed that I feel ashamed that I didn't give thanks for my own muffin--though god knows he'd just be telling me not to eat it, anyway. And annoyed that I would feel such a thing in the first place. Ashamed that I feel annoyed--ashamed that I would expect anyone have to censor themselves in my presence.
I should just go to the library. Their server blocks iChat, which keeps me off the IM. No one is really talking at all there, so I won't have to worry about eavesdropping and hearing stuff that isn't meant for me. I only have to walk quickly past the new releases* section and NOT look to see if they've got the new _Runner's World_.
I just can't drink coffee, or anything at all, there. And I need something to do with my hands and face intermittently while I'm writing, or else I can't think of anything to say.
*The last time I worked at my public library, I walked out with an armful of books, one of which is Hack , a book written by a woman my age who quit her office job to drive a cab in NYC. And she started blogging. And she got a book out of the deal. It's a fairly quick read (1.5 nights for me, and I'm slow), and it gets a little repetitive near the end, but I'm fascinated by the new phenomenon that is "blog-then-book-deal."
Posted by mryonker at 10:39 AM | Comments (5)
March 12, 2008
word count + whinge
24,851/60,000
41%
My Zokuto word meter, somehow, does not work anymore. I put my numbers in and hit "enter" and nothing happens, except that the fields reset. It makes me a little sad, because I loved to impress my non-writerly, non-dissertationing friends with numbers and progress.
It is spring break this week, and I've kept my sitter hours as well as enlisted the kind help of some other friends so that I've gotten a few large hunks of hours to write and work. I've also re-instated the nightly writing whilst H is at the studio.
Progress, while it is not what I'd like it to be--not what it feels like it should be given the hours I'm devoting--is apparent. Chapter 3, the data analysis chapter, has taken three different iterations at this point, and I've finally settled on what I'd like to see happen (or on what I think will be an approachable set of arguments based on my findings). Part of my problem in writing this chapter early on was that I felt like I should know and be able to anticipate every claim, and that as I began (and began again), I needed to properly set the chapter up to essentially foreshadow those claims. What I found myself doing, though, was writing paragraphs full of thesis statements, something I have been overly-conscious of ever since cgb noted that I'm inclined to do so.
I finally took the think on paper advice and made it my own, which is not only keeping me writing, but also keeping me from feeling like I have to know what I'm going to say (fully, unequivocally) before I say it. It's helping.
What's not helping is March. I am ready for sunshine and blue skies and daffodils. Instead, I'm at the kitchen table in the only natural light of the house, and even that is meager and grey. I have my legs wrapped in one blanket, a second draped around my shoulders. It has, I think I can say, snowed every single day of March so far. T, my brother who recently moved south into the city of Syracuse, came over for dinner and to help us with some drywall last night. He couldn't believe how much snow we still had piled on our streets and both sides of the driveway (there's not much snow left in the city).
While I did run in the Tipp Hill Shamrock race last weekend, I still have very little motivation to go outside and run in the cold nasty. And I'm feeling the effects of sitting in a chair for 5 hours a day: my right thigh is sore from where the hard edge of the chair presses into my hamstring. My neck is stiff, and my wrists are cranky from leaning on the laptop keyboard. I know. Wah wah.
I suppose I could be happy that the weather is crappy; if it were nice I'd most assuredly be complaining that I couldn't be outside to enjoy it more.
Posted by mryonker at 01:41 PM | Comments (4)
November 19, 2007
no word count?
It's hard to write anything, even a blog post, when you're barfing your guts out.
I'm just sayin'.
Posted by mryonker at 07:48 PM | Comments (1)
October 30, 2007
and counting
| |
20,447 / 60,000 (34.1%) |
I am happy that I was able to be as productive as I was, considering I was sick as a dog over the weekend.
Posted by mryonker at 08:18 AM | Comments (1)
October 25, 2007
daily word count
| |
17,720 / 60,000 (29.5%) |
FYI: I'm catching some kind of disgusting bug. My throat and ears are throbbing; my shoulders ache and I'm freezing.
But still writing, dammit.
Posted by mryonker at 07:13 PM | Comments (2)
October 23, 2007
daily word count
| |
17,145 / 60,000 (28.6%) |
Posted by mryonker at 07:54 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2007
a slow weekend
It was a slow writing weekend, in part because my brother is re-roofing the back part of our house, so attendant to that comes stuff I have to do (mostly cook him a hearty dinner), in part because I brought home 60 papers to grade on Friday (and finished them!), and in part because I spent my writing hours this morning at a race--and when I came back I felt kind of ...blah. Ah, also, we just got cable TV. So if I'm walking through the living room, and the TV is on, I end up standing in front of it transfixed like a zombie as HGTV shows me all the great things I need to do to sell my house in the spring.
Mostly, it shows me that I have to get rid of all my kids, my cats, all the books and papers that litter flat spaces...oh, and I should probably not live in the house myself at all, either. All that should be in my house is a few well-placed pieces of furniture and a nice table setting. Which I don't own. *sigh*
I now have one full-chapter drafted and another entire chapter due next week (it's well on its way, so I'm confident I'll make that deadline). I say this to ameliorate the shameful word count I generated today:
| |
16,074 / 60,000 (26.8%) |
Posted by mryonker at 09:24 PM | Comments (1)
October 18, 2007
shit... shit shit shit.
What happens when you read something--probably something you should have read YEARS ago--that makes you realize that your DISSERTATION TITLE is WRONG??
*sigh*
| |
15,884 / 60,000 (26.5%) |
I am lucky, though, that it is really only my title that needs changing, and that the major difference to the work I'll do is simply have to deal with one more argument. Which is good!! Right??
**edited to add**
I may have over-reacted. I may be able to leave my title. Maybe.
Posted by mryonker at 06:58 PM | Comments (5)
October 17, 2007
numbers are scary
November is a month for writing. It's the National Novel Writing Month, as well as National Blog Posting Month. Apparently last year November was also the International Dissertation Writing Month, and a whole bunch of people on my blog roll (but mostly this is Krista's fault) are stepping up to the plate.
There is something about being accountable to a huge public.
I am IN. My goal for the month of November is to break 40,000 words. (The overall goal of 60K words is for the end of December.) I've got several pressing weekly deadlines that will help that goal, but seeing it here will encourage me even more!
| |
15,137 / 60,000 (25.2%) |
Posted by mryonker at 08:29 PM | Comments (4)
October 15, 2007
prompts promptly
Monday nights for me are Blackboard nights. I spend about 4 hours reading student work, working up assignments, sending email, and posting discussion board forums, announcements, et cetera.
I spend various other hours during the week responding to work and IMing with students, but Monday night, that's Blackboard night.
Until I spend 15 minutes writing a discussion board prompt that gets promptly (sorry) eaten by the server when I try to post it. GRRR. Then Monday night becomes "blog about Blackboard disappointment" night.
Maybe I should change my night--maybe EVERYBODY's Blackboard night is Monday, and that's why the server is flaking out.
Well, it just means I'll get to go to bed early tonight. Goodnight!
Posted by mryonker at 10:46 PM | Comments (1)
October 12, 2007
where have *you* been?
I have been nostrils-deep in html, that's where.
However, as usual, my love for web-writing and creating is again renewed. I love it when stuff works, and looks like I want it to, and etc.
Two pages went live earlier this week: 1)my professional site (and no, I don't know why it's taken me so long to have one!) and 2) the still tentative article on network literacies for Computers and Composition Online.
I am happy to take comments on both. I should mention that when I put together the netlit piece into html, it became glaringly obvious how skinny the "implications" section (essentially, my final argument) is. I will be futzing with it a bit more, to be sure.
But now, I must prepare for a sleepover. H's 11th birthday sleepover, to be exact. Which means the house must be cleaned, which means I must find the vacuum. Which is ironically buried somewhere in the mess. *sigh* How's that for a conundrum?
Posted by mryonker at 02:05 PM | Comments (2)
July 18, 2007
what I'm doing...and doing...and doing
Oh, the camera works again. Apparently I had the battery in backwards, or something.
I blame stuff like that on the lack of RAM in my brain. Clearly I need some kind of upgrade.
Posted by mryonker at 01:16 PM | Comments (3)
March 27, 2007
for abby: find a boss
Before I left for Cs, I got a rather frantic email from Abby, a PhD student who is stagnated in her program, unable to take the first bite out of that elephant:
I am so afraid or unwilling to get started and I don't totally understand why. I try to break it into do-able pieces. Like I tell myself, today I am going to do an outline for the intro section. or today I am going to list the articles I know I have for my lit review... How did you get over the getting started hump? Do you have any advice?
The problem is here is that it's clear Abby already knows the answer to her own question. That is, the advice I have, the advice that was given to me, is to make big nouns and tasks into small verbs: make an outline, make a list.
Although as I go back through her email, I think what she needs to do is to start WRITING. That is, if the outlining and listing is not making forward motion, than she simply needs to force the motion by making herself sit down a write a paragraph. Just one paragraph.
Something that I did not learn (about myself, or about writing) until *very* recently is that it is enormously difficult to do something if there is no "presence" to be responsible to concerning that writing task. When I was preparing for my exams, I had a moment where my chair essentially sat me down in his office and didn't let me leave until I'd revised it. Actually, he was much kinder than that, giving me time and space to work that freed me from negotiating countless distractions. However, there was one distraction: him sitting in the office with me, being a presence that I was accountable to.
Abby, I would try to construct some kind of accountability structure. What we sometimes need is someone standing over us, waiting for the thing we're doing to be done.
Some of us don't need much external structure and discipline--and those of us who are like that can thrive once finished with coursework in the world of exam-taking and diss-writing. Those same people among us will get up every day and run without the pressing responsibility of having someone WAITING for us at the end of our driveways, too.
This person is not me. I do have self-discipline, but it comes in fits and starts, and sometimes the multiple (and important) draws on my time and attention make it easy for me to procrastinate. I have a whole menu of choices when it comes to excuses for not getting stuff done.
This may or may not be Abby's case, but in my case, the fix for getting started was to be frank with my advisors about how I worked best with external pressure. That is, my advisors know I need deadlines, and meetings, and goals. They set them for me. And while I knew at the back of my mind that the deadlines and goals were imaginary, to an extent (because often I did have to push them back or change them), they were also real enough that I could write them on the calendar in the kitchen and the other people in my house could see them.
I talk in the past tense here about my exam process (which I believe Abby is still working through), but it translates into pretty much any project. I'm using this strategy right now for my dissertation. Find someone who will boss you around some--make your advisors schedule you some deadlines. This seems simple but for me it really was the answer. And in setting deadlines with your advisor, you'll necessarily break your large noun (dissertation) into small verbs (write one page [paragraph, sentence] of the lit review).
Posted by mryonker at 03:14 PM | Comments (3)
February 17, 2007
diss reading
The great and not-so-great thing about my diss work is that I "get" to read blogs.
There are 19 blogs in a bloglines folder called "diss blogs." The great thing is that to gather my data, all I have to do is open my bloglines account in one window, my notes.doc in another, and see what the writers are saying.
The not-so-great thing is that everytime I open my bloglines account, the number of bold entries nearly bowls me over, and I feel this enormous compulsion to keep on top of them and not let the entries pile up unread.
Another thing that I haven't categorized as great or not-so is the fact that these are writers I am generally unfamiliar with; I set up the corpus selection essentially to be as random as possible (though still admittedly not-random). So I don't know these writers; none of them is uber-famous or from my own personal daily reads.
Even though I don't "know" them, I'm beginning to have relationships with these writers. I have made it a policy to not comment on their posts--if I did so, the project would take on ethnographic qualities that I'd like to avoid. For that same reason, I've decided to not link to the writers here, either. But I am learning these writers, some of them I am developing a kind of affection for, some of them annoy the crap out of me. As I read and code, I'm working to make myself aware of these personal judgments. For instance, I had to resist the urge to create a category called "Non-critical use of Biblical verse"--and that was the kindest of several other category titles I'd cooked up (one actually had the word "ignorant" in it--how horrible AM I?). I'm learning that I have to think harder, and think past my own values and trappings, to be able to make this project work.
Though I can't link to what these writers are posting, I will give you a sampling of those more interesting posts I came across this morning. I learned:
of a theory that Anna Nicole's daughter's father is Anna Nicole's son (ew).
strategies for purchasing Preparation H in the most subtle possible way (block it with the cereal boxes).
that one should be extremely careful about mixing up one's own lunchbox, which contains needles for Heparin (must look that up?), with one's daughter's lunchbox.
that the new iPhone is "aescetically pleasing." *sigh*
that Pep Boys will charge one $5 for "Miscellaneous Tools"--and if one asks to be shown those miscellaneous tools, the $5 charge will be taken off the bill.
that dooce's Monthly Letter to Leta has pervaded mom blogs with memetic vengence; essentially, Heather Armstrong has invented a genre that other mom bloggers follow to a 'T', even the smallest details (like signing the letter "Love, Mama").
and that a dog named Ollie has a penchant for barfing in unusual and hard-to-clean places.
Posted by mryonker at 08:24 AM | Comments (2)
December 10, 2006
for my students
A funny extended metaphor + advice about studying on the show with zefrank.
Get some sleep.
Posted by mryonker at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2006
things I've let go
Geeky Mom posts today about what she's given up to dissertate.
Her list looks A LOT like what mine would look like.
Laundry, and virtually all major house cleaning projects.
Social stuff. I'm NOT inviting anyone over to my house this winter. NO ONE. I love you all very much, but I'm not having any get togethers this winter. My poor little-J, who turns 3 on Halloween, will NOT be getting a birthday party. I'm not going anywhere I don't absolutely have to (and of course "absolutely have to" is up for liberal interpretation on my part--but I am sticking to it, dang it).
My hair. It's getting too long, but I admitted to Runningburro today (during an "absolutely have to" lunch date) that I have a secret deal going with myself that I will only cut my hair after I am done with my dissertation. Rb said, "OK, but you're gonna look like Crystal Gale."
Thanks for the vote of confidence, there, Rb.
Running. Aside from the fact that B is taking a class that meets on Sundays and this prevents me from registering for any races, I am only going to "run for fun." Which means, I may not ever go at all.
Blogging. I plan to be judicious in my posting here. That post I conjured yesterday while frying tofu ("the only food I'd eat if I lived alone": fried tofu, Ramen, Doritos, margaritas, cream cheese and salsa, cream cheese on bagels, carrot-zucchini soup [w/ cream cheese]...), will never be written, nor will I post the pictures of big-J "Bread Box" in his hockey get-up, nor will I ever post about the antics of Lucky George Muttley, the Reversible Deaf Kitty...
I may have to let go of the sitting co-op next semester. I'm finding that even though I love my co-op friend, and that her kids are often great distractions for my own kids, the smallest hunks of my schedule that it takes up might actually help me out if I had them to myself. We'll see.
There's also a list of things I will not let go.
Eating. Duh.
Friday night movie nights with the kids, and other essential hanging out with my mugwumps. Tonight it's She's the Man.
Showering. And I may have passed on my penchant for showers-so-hot-you-can't-breathe to H. I got in as she was getting out this morning (yes, we play the great shower relay in my house every morning. Fun Stuff, Man), and I couldn't believe how hot she'd made it. Or, it might be that her skin was numb from how cold it is in our house, and she was trying to revive her corpse-like body...
Yoga. The only problem is that yoga is *really* hard to do in a messy, cluttered room. And I don't have any rooms that aren't. Not only does the clutter make it hard because there isn't really any space for you, but also the clutter kind of works against the whole "calming" purpose.
Teaching. Of course.
***
So, say it with me. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.
Posted by mryonker at 05:00 PM | Comments (6)
October 13, 2006
social software symposium
OK, I need to figure out a way to get
The event will be a two day exploration of two burgeoning areas of social software: folksonomy and social networking websites. Drs. David Weinberger (Cluetrain, Small Pieces Loosely Joined), Nicole Ellison (MSU) and Cliff Lampe (MSU) will be featured attendees.
Dang. I really should try to go...somehow.
x-posted @ zerodraft
Posted by mryonker at 11:25 AM | Comments (5)
July 16, 2006
dun
As the smartest person I know told me on Friday when I drove to campus to turn in the last exam,
I'm dun. D-U-N, dun.
So, we left campus. I had all my crazy kids with me, and for whatever reason, it was all I could do to keep from crying as I walked away from the building.
And really, I'm not done. I still have to actually PASS.
So as we get into the car, the kids are hungry and begging for burgers. They plead for McDonald's, and I acquiesce, simply because it's been for damn ever since they've had some nice greasy cheeseburgers and played some DDR.
We get our artery-clogging meal and we eat, and I'm beginning to feel a little better. I'm sitting at a table, not reading a damn thing, and watching the kids go up through the human-sized hamster tubes and coming down the slide.
Until Jack comes down the slide one last time and says to me: "Mom, I think someone pooped in the slide."
I pause, not really thinking he could be serious. Thinking someone probably farted, or some baby had a diaper full, but not thinking that someone actually left turds in the hamster tube.
But nooooohooo. Some kid HAD ACTUALLY SHIT in the slide, and both my boys ended up with someone else's crap all over their shorts.
OH MY GOD. It was the most disgusting thing I've EVER had to deal with. Since is Josh full-fledged potty trained, I do not carry a diaper bag or a change of clothes for ANY CHILD anymore. I had nothing to put on either of them.
The rest of the story is a blur. I know I ended up throwing Josh's shorts and socks in the trash in the bathroom, and I stripped Jack down in the parking lot before he got in the car. Jack was especially traumatized, and gets VERY upset when I recount the story for anyone.
So the day I finished my exams ended up being, all in all, NOT relaxing at all.
We came home and I hosed the boys down in the driveway. Then I went inside and lay on the couch and watched _The People's Court_.
Posted by mryonker at 09:48 PM | Comments (8)
June 15, 2006
a different kind of camping
Derek posted today about getting ready to get ready for his exams, and the chore of organizing and amassing books and materials.
He's got a nifty pic up of his bookshelf devoted to exams stuff. Not to be outdone, I thought it would be interesting if I posted similarly, and explained my different(ly) way about getting ready for my exams.
Since they're in, like, two weeks. And right now it's all I think about.
I started out with a bookshelf devoted to "exam stuff only." However, there were two problems with that system (for me): first, bookshelves are kind of static, flat surfaces that crap gets put on, right? If there is ANY flat place where crap can get put in my house, then, inevitably, crap gets put there. What I mean to say is, that bookshelf was NOT my own. As it was in the office, B decided to co-opt half of the bottom shelf for his binders. Hannah came home from our village library this spring with a handful of discarded historical romance novels (like Harlequinn, but not--and btw, what was our librarian THINKING?? those things are definitely for ADULTS not 9-year-olds!!). They immediately went on my shelf. Since it was adjacent to my desk in the office, I was guilty of piling crap onto it as well, mostly teaching books and stuff I needed to grade and etc.
It was a mess. The second reason the bookshelf didn't work: I had family in this month, we needed to clean the office out so someone could sleep on the futon and use it as a bedroom. I wasn't going to be able to *really* get to my stuff for over a week, which was NOT acceptable (see above, where I tell you how SOON my exams are!!). I needed to be able to make my exam prep mobile. What I really needed was a nifty library cart (much like the ones in the reshelving room in our library, where I spent an hour today looking for a book that the catalogue SAYS was in the stacks and AVAILABLE but wasn't anywhere *sigh*). But I don't have a nifty library cart.
What I have are laundry baskets. Three of them, chuck full of books and notebooks and articles and stuff. And if I had any sense, I'd have one basket for each area, but I'm not even that organized. They move from the bedroom to the living room back to the office. I'm getting a decent upper body workout, too.
But my favorite spot to camp right now is in the dining room, which is the geographic center of the house. I have a window I can stare out occasionally, the fridge is only a few steps away, I can hear/see the kids where ever they are in the house, and the natural light is good enough to read by, but not so bright I can't see my screen.
Posted by mryonker at 03:15 PM | Comments (2)
April 06, 2006
fragmentation
I know I've written about this here before, seeing as this blog is *supposed* to be about motherhood and academia.
I rarely get sustained, uninterrupted time to work. Yesterday at a meeting with my exam chair, he says (after reading the katrillionth draft of my exam proposal) "It's like every sentence is a thesis statement."
Probably because everytime I sit down, I get to eek about one sentence out, so I'd better make it a good one. :) The good chair, in his infinite and kind wisdom, gave me the rest of our meeting to sit quietly and revise--without ever having to get up a to wipe a heinie, pour someone a bowl of cereal, break up a fight, or otherwise fend off small hands grabbing at my arms while I typed.
I'm not sure how long I sat there. It didn't seem like long, but I can't begin to describe how valuable it was. And the value was not simply in the fact that once I was finished with the revision he deemed it ready to go to the graduate committee. The value was in an important lesson, one that I should have learned earlier that day when it took me from 9am until 2pm to write ONE assignment sheet:
I *can NOT* get any real decent work done at home. This is a lesson that I don't think we working moms take very kindly to--which might be the reason I've been here working for nearly 4 years now and it's only REALLY occurring to me right now. I don't think it's a welcome lesson because it undermines what we (or what I, anyway) take great pride in: the ability to juggle the two most important and competing components of our lives. It makes me see clearly those trips to McDondald's, me with a backpack full of books, for what they really were: me reading a sentence, then opening a ketchup packet. Reading a sentence, then rescuing someone from the top of the slide. Reading a sentence, then wiping up a spilled drink. Etc, etc, ad nauseum. Or I'm writing, and it's, of course, the same. Fragmented. Lurching. Painfully slow.
Posted by mryonker at 08:34 AM | Comments (7)
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 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 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)
December 10, 2005
LOVE! BLOGS!
This is why I love blogs. So. Much.
(lookit. I KNOW I've got the "so" with out the "...that." Just deal. I've been reading student papers for two weeks straight; gimmee some slack.)
People are posting reading notes for me, and they don't even know it.
Much obliged, Chris.
Posted by mryonker at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2005
samlanta
Greetings from sunny Atlanta, where I will, in T-minus 1 hour and 40 minutes, present on a panel on Maternity and Mothering. :)
So far my "vacation" has been pleasant. I flew in yesterday and ("boy are my arms tired!!") found my way to my hotel via MARTA. The place I'm staying is a swanky Regency, and I have a WHOLE king-sized bed to my little self. (I may keel over with delight.)
I met with a friend from undergrad last night and we walked a couple blocks to a great Indian restaurant, had some curry and sag wala and some merlot. We caught up, laughed a whole lot, and I realized how OLD we both are. Her son, who was 2 when we first met, is now in middle school.
Also and indicator of how old I am: I got back to my room at about 10, and after talking to B on the phone for a while, could barely keep my eyes open long enough to watch any TV. And I slept fitfully, somehow unable to get comfortable without having a toddler kicking me in the back and whumping me with his forehead.
B reported this morning, however, that Josh SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT. WTF. Geez.
This morning I walked the 6 or so blocks to the hotel where SAMLA is to scope out my room and make sure I could work the projector. Of course, the room had no projector, and the organizer lady, who was calm and not NOT unfriendly, told me there was never a request for one. She then said, after I smilingly showed her the emails I sent, that she would see what she could do. Whew. And now I've got what I need, and I'm set up to go. Now I just wait, and wish away the butterflies.
Posted by mryonker at 02:07 PM | Comments (1)
October 19, 2005
two reasons
The title is a conscious objection to Nielsen's Top 10 Design Mistakes in Weblog Usability.
I don't have two reasons. I don't have two of anything.
What I do have is a mutli-modal post, wherein I not only use my blog to MIX TOPICS but to MIX THEM IN ONE POST!!
I am:
Wishing I had time to knit something.
Wishing I had $$ for new running shoes and time to use them.
Wondering how on earth I will read what I need to in the time that I have to prepare for exams.
Realizing that it could snow, now, and no one would be that surprised.
Holding small group conferences for three classes, and frantically reading drafts to keep up.
Ignoring the housecleaning. Utterly.
I am:
Laughing, hard, about turning heels while knitting socks. ["No!! I TURNED THE HEEL, DAMMIT! AREN'T YOU PROUD??"]
Experiencing true, forward motion in the march toward exams. Having that motion include hyper-forward motion, in that as the exams shift, my reading lists begin to include books I've actually read before. [YES!]
Planning a trip to the orchard to pick apples and buy pumpkins and make pies with LARD. :)
Holding small group conferences in the lounge with couches and coffee and being able to compliment a student's "flair for narrative."
Spending a morning with little J, reading his books. I say "Duck!" He says "Da-BAH!" I say "Fish!" He says "Gup-BEE!"
And BTW: little J has discovered Mr. Rogers. He's mesmerized on the couch right now watching Mr. R, who's playing with string and cardboard. That man was a genius.
"Everybody's fancy; everybody's fine. Your body's fancy, and so is mine."
Genius.
Posted by mryonker at 11:37 AM | Comments (4)
September 20, 2005
god knows i don't have time for this
A student of mine today told me, "I just know that what I write for this unit will be bad."
Ugh.
I introduced the new unit today, one that models Wendy Hesford's family photo analysis (no link, sorry).
He said, "I have no photos."
I said, "Any photo can be subjected to close observation and analysis. ANY photo."
He said, "I have no photos."
I said, "None? None of you graduating? Playing sports? Hanging out with friends? Birthday parties when you were younger? Call your mom, she'll send you some."
He said, "Yes, but I couldn't write anything about them. They didn't have any meaning behind them. They were just football games, parties. Those things don't mean anything."
Ugh This is the point. They do mean something. This will be a hard unit, I guess.
In other, better news: I came across this gem at kottke.org:
"everything i do always comes back to me""trying to look good limits my life"
"everybody thinks they are right"
"money does not make me happy"
"thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. i have to live now"
"complaining is silly. act or forget."
"having guts always works out for me"
I love every ONE of these. I need to put them on stickies stash them in places I'll find them frequently. Not sure who Sagmeister is, but he's onto something. If only I could get my freshman to worry less about how they look.
Posted by mryonker at 08:47 PM | Comments (2)
August 22, 2005
a little panic (and a couple keelings over)
well. the perfunctory entry so that the white space doesn't encroach:
This week is the week before classes start.
Today [was]: CCR Community Day. I generally enjoy this function, as it is a rare opportunity for the grad students and faculty to peek in on what one another is doing. Tasty free lunch, too.
Tomorrow and Wednesday: New TA orientation. I enjoy working with the incomings, just because they are full of verve and vigor (and venom, too, which makes things interesting).
Tomorrow night: I'm freeloading on a friend, ganking both ticket and ride to Tori Amos concert. For a rare night out. I may keel over with the thought of it.
Thursday: Writing Program Fall Conference.
Friday: Drive to Erie PA to meet my mom halfway--she's got my Hannah and I MISS HER!!
Saturday: Return home from PA
Sunday: Back-to-Brownies kick-off BBQ
Monday: Classes begin.
Must finish before Monday: tweak WRT 105 syl and calendar. Put up blog for WRT 302 (Digital Writing). Readings, schedule, etc are all compiled I just need to post the entries and downloads, etc. AND must flesh out syl and calendar for EN 101 courses I'm picking up at another local college. And get to said local college to fill out HR paperwork. And prep for meetings with Exam Chair.
Still nursing (at night, only) that crazy baby. I swear, when I get that first full night's worth of sleep, again, I may just keel over.
Posted by mryonker at 08:58 PM | Comments (1)
June 22, 2005
I (heart) Merlin and other nerds
43 Folders finds solid tactics for understanding (and beating) procrastination in a technique called the pull method.
The blurb Merlin offers jives (and I do mean jive, as in grooves with, not jibe, which might mean something similar, but when I say JIVE I mean it, I'm not being ignorant--I just save my jibes for sailing) with my position on fear feeding procrastination.
Another tidbit from dear friend (who does not blog yet, but will soon, I bet!) who offered her favorite productivity tactic: making short specific lists with VERY achievable, doable items. "Write two paragraphs for big project" is much closer to being crossed out (and more apt to be crossed out) than "BIG project" would be.
**In other news**
Brian is one class meeting away from finishing the initial foray back-to-school. It is an algebra class for which he studies too often, worries too much about, and has earned more than 100% on each test.
I haven't told him this, but he is the kind of student that would drive me batshit. He emails his prof after each class, with concerns about notes and whatnot. She (prof) finally began emailing him his test grades immediately after grading, because he would worry so.
D, dear running partner, whose husband is also back to school after time away, assures me that B will relax once he realizes that he *can* do this.
I think I'm just married to a nerd. Which is fine by me.
Posted by mryonker at 11:22 PM | Comments (2)
June 16, 2005
a little wanna-be geek in me
Found this:favelets.
There is one that allows you to "view style sheets." Yay!
Ok, I might be so far behind that everybody else knows about this. But I was quite thrilled to find that I could look at others' sheets!!
The only quibble: these ones only work in IE, which I have abandoned for Safari. But I can swing both ways. :)
Posted by mryonker at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2005
fear
Look. I know this about myself. But I should make it clear to you all, dear readers:
I am a procrastinatin' bitch.
I try to make excuses about not having time. Not having resources ($$ for sitter) to make the requisite time.
And actually, my excuses fly. But there's another reason I don't get stuff done expediently:
I spend a good deal of time worrying about whether I'll be able to do it or not. Or worrying that I'll eff it up. I am afraid. Frequently.
And then, of course, everytime I finally sit down to *do* whatever it is I'm expected to do, I'm always THRILLED TO PIECES with myself that I didn't crash and burn. This has proved to be a marked trend since I began my work here at SU.
As a writer, though, this procrastination shit just doesn't fly. I gots to find a remedy.
Posted by mryonker at 10:19 PM | Comments (5)
May 26, 2005
lacrosse skirts
A phone call from an old friend tonight.
Yes, I'm aware that's a fragment.
Anyway. We talked for a while. She always reminds me (indirectly) that I used to be more gentle, more patient, more mindful than I am now. I've kind of devolved. In my "old" age, I've become harsh, quick to judge, and self-important. In fact, my interest in goodness (and being good) in general has waned. I'm not sure if parenthood has made me hard, or if being in school for so long has sharpened my edges. My bright idealism has left me.
I am a cynical bitch. I tell my kids, "Nothing's fair, ever," whereas I once would sit Hannah down to explain karma. When Hannah was little, she never heard me raise my voice. Now, she and the boys hear me screech on a daily basis.
I'm probably overstating the case. But the point is I'd like to get back to something that is less concerned about superfluity and more interested in things like calm, lovingkindness.
Why on earth do women's lacrosse teams wear skirts? How ridiculous.
The problem is that in calm acceptance there isn't any place for the question. If I were practicing something more mindful, I wouldn't ask about the skirts. I'd notice them, and notice my reaction, and then come up with something like "How pleasant it is that those women can choose to wear whatever they want." Or something wussy like that.
Yeah. Being calm is kind of wussy. There's something vulnerable in being placid. I found myself listening to Talk of the Nation today, where they were talking about the military and that this war on terror will have us actively engaged in some kind of defense (offense) for damn near ever. And I was thinking, "Yeah, so what? It's all we know. It's what we do. To change the rules now would be just as ruinous."
And then I'm arguing. Ahimsa. Non-violence. Remember? Don't you remember who you were? What you believed in? But wait: there's Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, who is also the goddess of rebirth and renewal. Violence is necessary. Violence is natural. Look, I'm arguing MORE.
Have I squelched the non-body, non-brain (here, I even avoid using the word) part of me because the academy doesn't really welcome acute discussions of ontology and morality? Or does it?
What has killed my spirit?
Posted by mryonker at 11:07 PM | Comments (5)
May 16, 2005
a little good news to temper the last downer
I had a paper accepted for a panel at SAMLA (South Atlantic Modern Language Assoc) in Atlanta this November.
The title of the panel is _Maternity and Mothering: Rhetoric and Representation in Popular Culture._ My paper is "The Mom Blog: Rhetorical Strategies of Self-Representation."
Yeah. I should probably start writing it. :)
I've got a friend in Athens. Maybe she'll come and visit.
Posted by mryonker at 10:32 PM | Comments (4)
paying dearly
A particularly odious part of continuing education is the cost. Now, some people are simply infintely wiser than others, or they had parents* who educated them on the horrific black hole that is "credit" and did not allow them to borrow money for college, and those people escape the hell that is the student loan. Or loans, if you live the hell that is my life.
I used to lay (lie? yeah, I've been in school, studying WRITING for 9 years...gah) awake at night, heart racing and forehead sweating. How will I, in god's good name, ever repay what I have so foolishly borrowed? Why didn't somebody tackle me and wrest the shovel from my hands to save me from digging my own sad, early grave?
Now I have come to peace with the debt. Well, sort of. It still plagues me, though I lose less sleep. Mostly because I found that if I DIE, the debt will be forgiven. But that peace is interrupted as, on a near-nightly basis, some (zitty, I'm sure) teen-ager at a noisy call center in San Diego or Clearwater or where ever calls me to ask me would I like to consolidate.
It sure sounds nice. They promise me lower rates, even lower rates if I pay on time, and the ease of one bill and one lender and one balance (that, when they tell me what it is, scares me all over again).
Brian is certain that they are all vultures, out to screw us for all we've got. It makes a little sense to me, though. I mean, it's like they're buying any large loan (mortgage, car loan) and giving us a smaller interest rate, but still making out like bandits because even a SMALL interest rate on an assload of money will get them a stellar return.
Twice now I've been talked into allowing different companies FedEx me their application, which looks frightening because I have to 1) see the balance in black and white and 2) sign a waiver that says my loans must come out of deferrment before they can consolidate them. I stall, and then they call me back again and again to see if I have questions and did I send the paperwork back yet and why haven't you sent the application back yet!!??
A consolidation application sits on my desk right now. I'm terrified of sending it, but terrified that if I don't do something, the unsubsidized portions will grow like furious demons, choking me as I attempt to purchase another house or as Hannah starts college.
All I want in life is to make enough to pay off my loans (and maybe hire a housekeeper). Then I'll be able to sleep at night (in a clean house).
*Actually, this is probably unfair. My original college plans, to attend the US Coast Guard Academy, were paid in full, half by my mom, and half by my dad. A whopping 2K. Which, when I un-enrolled, they refunded and I bought a car with so I could commute to a local school.
Posted by mryonker at 09:54 PM | Comments (3)
May 13, 2005
I was afraid of this
I posted about getting a sitter for Josh while Jack is in pre-school so I could get some *real* work done now that Brian is back full-time. A sitter that I'm paying dearly for (this is mostly my fault, as I insist on overpaying my sitters considerably).
And here I sit in the library parking lot, reading freaking blogs. And now posting. Instead of working. >sigh<
So, a quick note about sunshine, getting a little tan, and THEN having that overdue eyebrow wax. Don't do it, man. You'll look MORE ridiculous with a big white space between your eyebrows than you do with all that hair connecting them. And yes, this attests to 1) the enormous need I have for waxing and 2) that I neglect that need horribly.
But to the more official point of this post:
I'm finding, as I try to "grade" weblogs, that in order to grade something, you must first offer expectations about that something so that the producers of that something can be expected to fulfill those expectations. What I mean is (and this, for all us teachers out there, is a big no-duh but this is how my life always ends up: NO DUH, madeline) that this rubric that I'm trying to create in order to assess the blogs that the digital writing students occupied this past semester should have been written 16 weeks ago and provided to them as a guideline.
This is totally my bust. It occurred to me early on, and only in passing, that these blogs would be murder to assess. But I resisted trying to make the writers write them a certain way, or follow a particular model, or whatever, simply because part of the idea about blogs is that they are fairly writer-centered. You can do pretty much whatever you want with them, and the reader has much more responsibility to make sense of and use what the writer is putting out there than we traditionally require of readers. I'm not saying that the blog allows for sloppy, incoherent writing, but wait--yes, I am. And I'm saying that sloppy, incoherent writing can be generative and productive and useful for writers AND readers.
Not that what we've got in these student blogs is sloppy or incoherent. Most of them are actually quite well-composed, with few-ish typos and minor erros of that nature.
But how do you assess? Here's the problem. The problem is that the work done in and around blogs is not the entries themselves, but in the larger interaction between writers and readers that isn't explicit in posts or in comments. The success of blogs is in a much more holistic experience that exists as a result after sustained engagement, over time, with writing and reading and discussion.
The parts of a blog (entries, comments, etc) when taken together with the parts of other blogs with which that blog interacts, make up much more than what the material whole (many posts and many comments with many links) constitutes.
So here I am, with a spread sheet open, reading entries and making note of comments and checking things off and arbitrarily giving and taking points for things like "depth of discussion" and entry length. This sucks big time.
I can't dock for grammar, incomplete expression of ideas, too short or too long entries. I can only count posts, match them to the appropriate prompts, and note comments to see whether the requirement is fulfilled.
I'll still be finishing the rubric, but it won't really be applicable to this semester's project. And I'm not sure if I want to apply it to next semester's, either.
Posted by mryonker at 11:09 AM | Comments (5)
April 26, 2005
not sure what bupkis is...
...but apparently it can't be any good.* Rana posts a mini-mini-rant with that title, bemoaning the fact that a PhD really doesn't get anyone rich. There's a little back-n-forth in her comments, people mostly agreeing with but also qualifying her rant.
I remember when I was telling Brian's family we indeed were going to move to NY so I could get one. My then-brother-in-law, who always thought in dollar signs, said something to me about "being able to write my own ticket" when I was done. Even then, I knew I wasn't going to be doing brain surgery or rocket engineering--I knew very well that there would be no ticket-writing in the sense that he meant. So I smiled and said something about having a lot of academic freedom and opportunity, and didn't say anything about money.
Why didn't I disuade him of this idea? Mostly because I was still feeling as though I had to convince everyone we were leaving behind that it would be good for us in the long run.
We had the annual "Job Seekers Reveal the Secret Hell that is the Job Search" colloquium this afternoon, where those who are finishing up their search come and reveal the secret hell that is the job search. SU has been fortunate(?) in that so far, all PhD CCR grads have found some kind of gainful employment upon finishing (or near-finishing [ABD]) the program. Many of them have found better than decent gigs at fairly decent schools.
I sat in on their talk thinking of a time in the not-so-distant future where I, too, will worry about excessive perspiration, cheek-soreness from constant smiling, and stomach cramps from stress and multiple-rejections. God, I thought. What if I don't get a job AT ALL? What will the family think THEN?
And THEN I thought: shit. I'll work for Lockheed Martin. They need tech writers. I'll just NOT TELL THEM that I have a PhD.** Because, as the comments in Rana's post confirm, the PhD makes you so un-hire-able that Taco Bell will LAUGH in your face if you apply. [She can't use a caulking gun to shoot sour cream! She's been sitting in a basement for 5 years reading books and drinking fair trade coffee!!]
No, no. I like what I do. I like teaching, I like reading, I like writing. I like getting money (what little I do now, and what little I might get in the future) for doing things that I would be doing anyway. I will get my crap together. I will organize my desk. I will finish my reading lists and proposals. I WILL.
And since I had my IT band kneaded, stretched, and impossibly contorted today by a woman who shall remain nameless but is now an angel in my heart, let the training for the Boilermaker commence!
*via dictionary.com: Bupkis: something worthless; nothing. I had to look it up. I hate not knowing.
**And I won't tell any of my school friends that I've accepted a job with a company that builds planes that carry bombs, either. I gotta feed my kids, right?
Posted by mryonker at 09:51 PM | Comments (11)
April 16, 2005
lived to tell
A thing I have been avoiding since I began graduate work: the academic conference. Things are still a bit fuzzy, but I'm alive, so apparently it wasn't too awful. But I survived my first today.
Mostly I remember forgetting that I changed, at the Nth hour, the beginning of my presentation with the intention of coming full circle, and forgetting to circle back. Oops. Reminder to self: next time, don't get any bright ideas at the last minute, and if you do, ignore them.
A quick thanks and shout out to Derek, who so graciously chauffeured the trip to Albany (he's posted photos from the outing here). Also thanks are in order to Collin, who made the early trip with us to serve as our groupie. He ended up playing an instrumental role in our FINDING the building we belonged in as well.
Of course, I come home to find a new sailboat in the driveway, a new stone firepit in the backyard, the garden ready for planting. I just can't leave anyone alone for one minute.
And of course: the baby is cranky, the house is a mess, and Jack just came in bleeding from his head (he fell out of a tree) followed by Hannah who got skewered in the eyeball by a marshmallow-roasting stick.
Conference? I went to a conference today?
Posted by mryonker at 07:29 PM | Comments (4)
April 08, 2005
monologues, radio essays, podcasts!
Dr. Write offers up a way into a new genre for the writing class: the monologue.
Dr. Write comes at this assignment, I believe, from the creative writing class, although I'm certain that it could be just as worthwhile in a "regular" (urgh) FY writing class as well:
What I learned from this assignment is that requiring students to contextualize their own experiences and to perform their own work in their own voices had inspired students in ways that exceeded the usual assignment to write an essay (or a story or a poem).
Indeed. New media does JUST THAT. It makes us see things differently (new-ly). It requires us to come at things from angles we wouldn't normally take.
It also compels our students to do things we've been telling them to do for years: have trouble anticipating that ol' AWK mark? READ THE DAMN THING ALOUD. But this, I do believe, is secondary, really. Because if students are writing in order to have the product be a "sound essay" or what have you, (hopefully) they'll be "hearing" it as it's composed.
Further, Dr. Write offers me another tidbit to chew:
The energy of the monologues derives from combining two disparate narratives: the personal and the public.
Here is an idea that I've been considering ever since I began blogging: that the use of new media requires 1) writers to be able to incorporate multiple spheres of discourse (most importantly that of the public and private) and 2) the audience to somehow be more receptive to genres that reconcile several voices simultaneously. More on this later.
I am ALL OVER this, as I think toward the fall semester, when I get to drive my own digital writing class. This will be a stolen (shared) assignment, for sure.
Posted by mryonker at 01:41 PM | Comments (4)
April 07, 2005
disintegration
Thank you, whoever is sharing P's music on iTunes here in the WP today. You've reminded me that I love The Cure.
The last time I listened to Disintegration, I was probably in junior high. I owned it on cassette. Its dark melancholy went well with being 14. Even Fascination Street, which might be misinterpreted as up beat, has a certain pungent scariness, a certain lush instability.
It goes well with being 29 and unable to eek out one coherent sentence.
I remember who turned me onto Robert Smith and his tatooed lips (before he had tatooed lips): a girl named Sarah who was goth before it was cool to be (and probably before it was called "goth"). She began 7th grade getting on the bus with funky hair and dark eyeliner, and by the end of 8th grade the eyeliner was stylized into teardrops on her cheeks (and it colored her lips, too, I think).
Oh. Sweet reverie. Back to writing. Or trying, anyway.
Posted by mryonker at 04:16 PM | Comments (1)
March 30, 2005
holding pattern
I've got pretty much everything on hold right now as I attempt to draft out my exam proposal. I thought I was getting some generative writing done, and then a friend sent me *his* proposal draft, and now I find that what I've been hacking at has been crap all along.
Crap, I tell you.
This exam stuff is strange. As far as I understand it, the proposal outlines the area(s) from which your examiners construct questions. I've been trying to work it backwards, so that I can better focus what questions might be, but my writing feels stilted, novice, trying-too-hard, and completely audience-unaware.
So frustrating. What a strange genre. Maybe I should attempt to construct the draft as a letter:
Dear Exam Committee:
The questions I'd like you to ask me concerning rhetoric and technology should deal with issues surrounding ideas of authorship/ethos, readership/pathos, style/perspective, and public/private spheres as such issues are transformed and shaped by social software (weblogs and wikis, mostly, but I'm open to others as well).
The questions I'd like you to ask me concerning action research are: what the heck is it, how can composition as a field use it both in the classroom and in professional scholarship, and how can/does it broach/bridge the academic- and pop-culture divide?
The questions I'd like you to ask me concerning feminist methodologies are: what do feminist methodologies in composition and rhetoric look like, what do they mean for the academic- and pop-culture divide, how can we reconcile them with traditional "scientific" methodologies, and how do such methodologies shape and inform product genre?
Thanks for asking me the questions I wanted to answer.
Sincerely,
Madeline the lame-o can't-write-a-proposal-to-save-her-life student.
Posted by mryonker at 06:41 PM | Comments (4)
January 06, 2005
getting some stuff done
1. Wrote another page toward a reflective essay for my exams. The kids were out full force, as they enjoyed an early dismissal today (freezing rain this afternoon), but I was able to ignore them for about 20 minutes.
2. Started thinking HARD about this semester coming up (I refuse to say "spring"--it is so grey and cold that it is anything but the spring semester). I let George know that I will simply TA for his Digital Writing course; originally I wanted to get my hands a little dirtier than that (ie take over the class ;), but I have too much on my plate and really cannot be thinking about teaching anything. Instead, I promised to hang out, be available to bounce ideas back, help with tech stuff during/outside of class, and other underling TA duties.
3. Registered for the Shamrock. Here's D and I making sure the other doesn't put down a crazy finishing time.
4. Made reservations at the Holiday Inn Sunspree for one night, the Friday before the race. I think I will go ahead, if I haven't already lost out, and reserve Saturday night too. We're trying to be frugal, but this will be the FIRST TIME I've ever done anything that even looks remotely like a spring break (and granted, it will still be chilly-ish in VB mid-March), so I'm feeling a bit frivolous. Plus, what's the point of getting a hotel with a hot tub unless you can sit in that hot tub AFTER you hoof 26 miles?
5. Continued to belly ache about Josh and nursing. Oh, how I don't want to drive 10 hours with him!! Oh, how aware I am of the fact that he is MY LAST BABY and how fulfilling it is to feed a baby. OK, I'll let this rest for now.
6. Thought about ditching this typepad account, getting a domain, and setting up shop through MT so that I don't have to F with typepad. All the new crap with the wysiwyg is crapping up. Some browsers support it, some don't; now the scroll bar for this field is stuck and I can't scroll up to the top all the way.
7. Found George's copy of _Technopoly_, which I meant to read over the break. It was MIA for a while in VA and ended up in the baby's suitcase of all places. Maybe some reading tonight?
8. Did NOT: make dinner (Tucker, thanks), do dishes (Tuck again), or run laundry (Brian, thanks). I think Tucker's got a lady friend, so he's feeling a little spritely lately. He took the trash to the curb tonight, too.
9. Watched _Without a Trace_ and cried my eyes out at the end when she kept the baby. I'm such a sap.
Posted by mryonker at 11:52 PM | Comments (5)
November 30, 2004
more help for writers (but not writer-moms)
Via 43 Folders, a fun list of tactics for battling writer's block .
Funny, though: I'm reading this, seeing some larger strategies as "take a break" and "come at it from a strange place."
Moms (and chime in, moms) don't need these kinds of strategies. Our lives are FULL of writer's block busters.
In fact, our time is so pieced together and interrupted that the block for us is the inability to get that chunk of time where the block can develop.
My block is having to return to a piece that I spent 20 minutes on and not being able to take it up where I left it because I had to leave it so abruptly (come get your kid from school, she barfed in the library, being the most recent).
We need to compile a list of strategies for writing in a disjointed lifespace. I'm thinking one of those strategies might involve something like Ulysses, or Tinderbox, or OpenMind. The problem, though, is that these "strategies" cost money, and since I'm saving for an iPod (strategy #2: if you can't hear them, they won't be *as* distracting), I'm not coughing up dough yet.
Any feedback on these or similar applications are greatly appreciated. I'll probably be doing some trial downloads here shortly as well, and will offer my own feedback.
Posted by mryonker at 10:41 PM | Comments (2)
September 16, 2004
huh?
I came across this quote:
isn't the university primarily a place for the unfettered expression of ideas? The answer is no. The university is primarily a place for teaching and research. The unfettered expression of ideas is a cornerstone of liberal democracy; it is a prime political value. It is not, however, an academic value
here by Stanley Fish.
How does teaching and research categorically exclude the expression of ideas? I just can't make it work in my head. Can't make it work at all.
Posted by mryonker at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2004
the cluetrain manifesto, media.org
Posted by mryonker at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)