Adventures with Students, vol. 29

Here is the list of terms I wrote on my little "joke" whiteboard to take out under the big tree in the quad and teach the last little bit of Paradise Lost outdoors:

• Prevenient Grace
• Intercession
• Immanence
• Temperance
• Liberty
• Typology
• Conscience

I'm not a theologian by training, but I don't do too badly.

"To do what is difficult all one's days / As if it were easy, / That is faith."

Joseph

Through cracks, up ladders, into water deep,
I squeezed, I climbed, I swam to save
     My own true Love:
Under a dead apple tree
I saw an ass; when it saw me
     It brayed;
A hermit sat in the mouth of a cave:
     When I asked him the way,
He pretended to be asleep.

Chorus (off)

Maybe, maybe not.
But, Joseph, you know what
Your world, of course, will say
About you anyway.

Joseph

Where are you, Father, where?
Caught in the jealous trap
Of an empty house I hear
As I sit alone in the dark
Everything, everything,
The drip of the bathroom tap,
The creak of the sofa spring,
The wind in the air-shaft, all
Making the same remark
Stupidly, stupidly,
Over and over again.
Father, what have I done?
Answer me, Father, how
Can I answer the tactless wall
Or the pompous furniture now?
Answer them . . .

Gabriel

No, you must.

Joseph

How then am I to know,
Father, that you are just?
Give me one reason.

Gabriel

No.

Joseph

All I ask is one
Important and elegant proof
That what my Love had done
Was really at your will
And that your will is Love.

Gabriel

No, you must believe;
Be silent, and sit still.

--from Auden, "For the Time Being" (1942)

Easter Sunday

Easter Wings
by George Herbert

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
        Though foolishly he lost the same,
              Decaying more and more,
                      Till he became
                        Most poore:

                        With Thee
                      O let me rise,
              As larks, harmoniously,
        And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
  And still with sicknesses and shame
        Thou didst so punish sinne,
                  That I became
                   Most thinne.

                    With Thee
                Let me combine,
      And feel this day Thy victorie;
    For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Good Friday.

George Herbert

REDEMPTION.       

HAVING been tenant long to a rich Lord,
            Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
            And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancell th’ old.

In heaven at his manour I him sought :
            They told me there, that he was lately gone
            About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.

I straight return’d, and knowing his great birth,
            Sought him accordingly in great resorts ;
            In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts :
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth

            Of theeves and murderers :  there I him espied,
            Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.

In which Piers counts the reasons

Here's how I know it's almost the end of the term:

1.  I come home and sit down and almost immediately start thinking about sleep.
2.  I'm eating A TON of junk food.
3.  I'm ignoring work email.  Just outright ignoring it.
4.  I can't remember the last time I got any exercise.
5.  Did I mention the sleep part?
6.  Oh, and the grouchiness, impatience, etc.

Adventures in parenting, vol. 23

Strepto--Little Red
Strepto--Vulcan Baby
Strepto--Kindergartner

We had to make some adjustments today, as The Kindergartner gave evidence that he might be sick from something or another.  Sure enough, he has strep--according to the doctor, for the fifth time in a year.  Which means two things:  either The Runner or Piers is carrying a strain, and he may need to get his tonsils out.  He wasn't pleased about that possibility when the doctor mentioned it.  I got him some strawberry ice cream to help it go down more easily.

Monday Update

The boys enjoyed the rodeo on Thursday night.  Yes they did.

Mid-April Allergy edition.

• The past week was pretty rough on Piers . . . all day in bed on Sunday, and then all day in bed on Thursday--hoarse and coughing in between.  At first, I was pretty sure that I was just having allergies . . . now I'm wondering if it's some sort of bug.  Yeah, yeah, everyone says "go to the doctor," but no one is going to help me carve out the time to do it, so I'll just suck it up.
• The Kindergartner had a chorus part in the church's Easter program, so his schedule went thusly:  Monday--school & taekwondo; Tuesday--school & choir practice; Wednesday--school, taekwondo, and choir practice; Thursday--school, afterschool, and rodeo; Friday--school & 1st choir presentation.  I went and saw the show last night; it was good in parts and rough in parts--and he looked most small and serious up there singing.
• We finally took the time to dig up a strip along the back of the house in order to make it a flower bed.  Took us three hours on Sunday afternoon and some extra time today to finish tearing up the sod and then to spread the mulch.  Phlox and Irises are in the plan . . . not yet quite sure what else.
• The two outdoor kitties (yes, Simon has been permanently installed outdoors) really enjoy it when we're out playing and working in the back yard.
• Sad development: Little Red is now saying "puppy dog" rather than "puppy gog."
• The Runner keeps running:  she started Saturday with eight-plus miles, then finished with the Brian Brown 5k (and came in second in her division).  The Country Music Half Marathon is in about 12 days.

The Secret of Kells

The "Chi-Rho" page, partial focus of the film.

I watched this last night, thanks to Netflix.  And it was fascinating!  I'm not sure it would hold the attention of my children, but it sure held mine, if for no other reason than the gorgeous, highly stylized animation:



It also points out, sort-of as a side note, that there's a rich tradition of Celtic Christian history that most of us don't really know much about . . . and that's a pity.  The tradition that gave us the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, etc., is worth knowing about.

There's something about this kid.

In which Piers surveys his current efforts

Current efforts are not overly pleasing.

I've been looking over some changes I need to make, and there are too many to go over here, not to mention the fact that just thinking about them is disheartening.  With the end of the term, however (which isn't that far away now), comes the end of certain professional responsibilities, to which I can only say "huzzah!"

That doesn't undo the difficulty of making some of these necessary changes, but it does at least simplify the picture a bit. 

Adventures in parenting, vol. 22

Today's schedule:

6:40--awakened by Little Red.
6:55 - 8:45--tend to two younger boys while The Runner goes running.
9:00 - 11:00--frantically prepare for Milton class.  Make office coffee. 
11:00 - 12:15--teach Milton class. 
12:30--arrive back home to relieve The Runner of Streptobaby duty.
12:35 - 1:30--eat some lunch, catch up on emails, read.
1:31 - 3:15--tend to Streptobaby, who has awakened from his nap too early and is a mite crabby.
3:20 - 3:30--leave Streptobaby with sitter (KE), drive back to campus, blasting Rush.
3:35--arrive at afternoon meeting 35 minutes late.  Give report.
3:36 - 4:20--experience rest of meeting.
4:21 - 4:30--drive home.
4:55 - 5:20--tend to Streptobaby while The Runner picks up his older brothers.
5:20 - 8:00--mayhem.  Apparently Little Red has lost the ability to understand spoken instructions.

Monday Update.

1.  This was the Weekend of Allergic Attack.  Apparently, Cedar pollen likes neither Little Red nor I.  An indoor quarantine helped to some extent, but I still feel like I have the flu today.  And that's saying nothing about how I sound!

2.  Speaking of Little Red, we are definitely in a new emotional/cognitive stage with him, and it has to do with his Will.  One manifestation:  he will repeat the same statement 10-15 times in increasing levels of volume until you answer him.  Another manifestation: he has discovered that he can outright refuse and even throw fits when we instruct him to do something he doesn't like.  The Vulcan Baby has learned to say "djuh djuh" to The Kindergartner and "maaaaoooww" to the cats.  Even in the middle of the night last night, when he woke up with a fever of 103.6 (!), he looked at Sir Philip Sidney sauntering by in the hallway and said "maaaoooww."  

3.  I chose not to get angry yesterday when JH, one of the gentlemen who lives across the street (and whose mother also lives across from us...their lots adjoin each others'), came to the door and inquired whether or not we were planning to mow our grass, and whether or not we were sick or something and couldn't get to it.  In all fairness, it was looking shaggy . . . but it just so happened that we were working on the mower over the weekend and had just gotten it ready to go.  The Runner was about to set out in my place (due to my being quarantined).  I declined to offer any explanation, just told him that as a matter of fact, we were about to get to it.  It's a good thing that I answered the door and not The Runner...when I told her about the conversation, she got livid.  On the upside, Little Red was really friendly to the guy.

4.  I overheard a colleague a few minutes ago talking about how he wasn't thrilled with the participation in the class visits (there's a committee of my colleagues who visit composition classes to pitch sophomore- and upper-level courses) . . . but he also expressed surprise and delight that we picked up over ten majors this past couple of weeks.  I want to shake them sometimes:  students sign up for majors because they come across professors who inspire them!  If we show them in real life the value (not to employers, but to them as people) of what we do, then they will sign up for our classes!  Good lord, nobody more boneheaded than a professor, sometimes.

5.  That said, I'm increasingly convinced that the profession is headed for a major change in this next decade--I may have joined up on the tail end of the old system, which means I may have to live through a painful and radical transformation of this work.  Seeing things this way, I can't in good conscience advise students to enter traditional humanities graduate programs unless they know exactly what they want to do and are a match for the smartest people I knew at Carolina.  Instead, it's about developing a toolkit of skills even as they store their minds with a whole selection of knowledges.

6.  This has been a brutal semester work-wise, and that's with a couple of things having fallen through.  Thank heavens, in retrospect.  I'm ready for some rest.

Dang you, you trees and your reproduction.

This stuff right here: Oak pollen.  It even looks nasty.  It has waylaid Little Red but good, and is making me miserable.  Apparently, the Oak trees decided to bloom in the middle of this past week, and the pollen count in the air is quite heavy.  Even after a little more than an hour outside today, Little Red was wheezing to the point where he asked for a breathing treatment (and we're glad we don't have to use Albuterol).  I just have a burning throat...I'm getting off relatively easily. 

Thank heavens we didn't have to do the hospital thing with Little Red.  I was making plans, but all that medicine on Friday did enough to get us through last night.  We're not letting him outside at all tomorrow.  

It's hard to do good work when the tools you have make it hard to do good work.

Two cases in point:

1. Blackboard 9
2. "SkyNet," the wi-fi connection on my campus.

As for Blackboard, the new version of the software is now so kludgy, so bloated, so hard to navigate, that after one semester using it, I'm seriously considering not doing any more with online stuff until they find a better solution.  It's really atrocious.  I know that our support people are committed to helping us learn all that there is to know, etc., but in 2011 there really isn't any excuse for developing, shipping, or using an e-learning platform that doesn't just work.  Mark Hurst has a lot to say about this sort of thing...I'm not sure that he's weighed in on Blackboard, but I can guess what he would say.  I don't have time to spend futzing around with settings and modules and the teeth-gritting work of figuring out what a menu means or does.

SkyNet, the new ultra-secure campus wireless network, is so secure that I can't connect to it, and apparently neither can anyone else.  The Powers That Provide the Intarwebs to us have sent around detailed instructions on logging in--but those instructions tell us nothing of the double-secret settings and pixie dust and magic incantations we need to employ in order to make the login even possible.  I need to spend time at work in the library--I really do.  But I don't want to go without wi-fi for things like, I don't know, using the library catalog, etc.  Apparently I can take the computer by the help desk and wait for them to mess around with it.  But why?  Is it not possible for them to set up a network that is actually accessible by the people who actually do the work around campus?

Difficile est satiram non scribere*

"service learning."
"The First Amendment is a good idea, but..."
"Please offer your students extra credit for x..."
"please provide a doctor's excuse."
"sorry for the inconvenience."
"you're a nice guy."
"kinetic military action."
"the more you buy, the more you save!"


*(title from the famous line in Juvenal's First Satire:  "it's difficult to not write satire!")

Vintage

Arrived in the mail today:

An Esterbrook Model J Re-New Point fountain pen from 1948;

A Sheaffer Balance fountain pen from c. 1940. 

cool, huh?  Can't wait to put ink in them & try them out.

Adventures with Students, vol. 28

It seems to have taken hold especially dramatically this year:  my students are weather hawks, and if any kind of storm is predicted, they panic and want to know if we're having class.  I seriously had a student email and ask if we were holding class at 1:00.  It was hard not to respond with something sarcastic, but I simply told her that if the university is open, we're having class.  I'm not sure some thunder & rain, combined with the possibility that there might be a tornado somewhere in a 300-mile radius, is reason enough to cancel class. 

I know that TV stations have to make money, and I know that it's good to know if a terrible storm is heading your way, but there's nothing to indicate that this is anything other than a garden variety spring thunderstorm . . . such as this area has seen every year for at least a millennium or two.

Adventures in parenting, vol. 21

tentative title:  "The Adventure of Rest-Time Movies"

Here (in no particular order) is a partial list of movies we have recently watched with the children (or that the children have watched on their own):

Despicable Me
How to Train your Dragon
Mulan
Cinderella
Megamind
Aladdin
The Lion King
The Lion King 1-1/2
Sleeping Beauty
Wall-E
Kung-Fu Panda
Robin Hood (they got bored with it quickly and asked for The Lion King)

We had been using Netflix for a while, but we've gone back to DVD's and (yes) VHS tapes (many of which we need to replace with a more--erm--21st Century option.)

I seriously want to show them Star Wars!

In which Piers makes an extra effort

I wasn't actually late--I was right on time, of course!

One of my colleagues, MEC, has a son who teaches English at some college in upstate New York.  He recently published a book on a famous murder case from this county, and has been doing something approximating a minor book tour.  He was here on Saturday, signing copies of the book at our local coffee shop.  She mentioned something on Friday about me going over there to meet him.  I sort-of absently said I would.  When the time came, I grumbled to The Runner that the last thing I want to do midday on a Saturday is spend it doing social niceties...but I went.  MEC was thrilled--nearly jumped out of her skin--when I showed up.  I was glad I had done it for her sake, just to see how glad I made her.  I like to do things like that when I can.