Adventures in Academe, Vol. 2

Battery

The Mutt woke me up at 4:00 this morning, because her tummy was apparently bothering her to the extent that she needed to be taken outside. After seeing to her GI needs in the yard, I decided to not crate her again, so I got my phone and settled down on the sofa so I could keep her from waking The Runner up. When I woke up again, at 6:00, the little white phone was burning hot and utterly unresponsive.  Well, you know how that goes:  once you have an iPhone or other smartphone, it's awfully hard to be without one.  I felt all discombobulated and ill at ease all morning, worried that I would have to go spend $250 plus on a new one and all the associated fees, etc., etc.

Imagine my relief that the thing showed feeble life at around noon and then responded once I was able to get it plugged in and charged.  Imagine my frustration with myself that I was so wrapped up in whether or not this piece of glass, metal, and plastic could so derail my mindset and concentration.

Adventures in Academe Vol. 1

Tomorrow or the day after, I must fill out some evaluation forms.  I am afraid that I will not be able to assign particularly high marks.  This makes me sad, and I doubt that problems will be forthrightly and constructively addressed, but if no one ever points out the weaknesses, how can it possibly get better?

Good news today: the education college at my institution was blocked by the faculty senate in its attempt to do away with the GRE writing portion requirement for admission to its graduate program.  Mind you, the threshold for admission is a score somewhere in the neighborhood of the 23rd percentile.

Monday Update, Pollen Edition

Just trying to get the semester finished with.  All the same challenges remain, but I will admit that I am having a better time confronting them since I decided to stop being so afraid.

I do not know what the next 18 months will bring me in terms of my career, but I'm determined to go down swinging if indeed I have to go.

Monday Update, Lessons Learned Edition

"Open your eyes":  Something clicked this past weekend, and I am not in any better a situation now--but I feel better about where I stand in terms of my attitude and decisions.  I will look for another place, and decide to trust the Providence that supplied the right job and right town at the right time for us.  It is tempting to mistrust my impressions--to resist the hobgoblins of fancy, as it were--but it cannot hurt to do my best at my present work in the trust that I will be given the means to work out my vocation.

"Go! St. Louis":  We visited St. Louis over the weekend--the first time for all of us.  Had a really good time, and I actually loved it.  I loved the city and its architecture, loved the downtown area where the ballpark is, loved taking the children down to the Gateway Arch and letting them run around like hooligans on the lawn directly underneath.  The view across the water--into Illinois--is as ugly as hell, but apparently that's the situation in that state.  The Runner finished her race feeling fresh and happy.  I told the boys to look for her teeth, cause she runs with a mile-wide grin on her face.

"Attack the day like birds of prey":  While in St. Louis we had to step onto the campus of SLU, the home of the Billikens.  It was nice to step on a campus like that and imagine myself in a more urban situation, at a college with a more defined mission and identity than the one I'm at now.  I recognize that no place is perfect, but that doesn't mean it's not time for a change.  Anyway, I got to work today and sprang into the office, into action.  Put in double the energy and good humor.  I think it worked out better.  I've been acting like I'm defeated...time to dish out rather than take the punishment.

"Heyyyy battah battah swiiiing battah":  Number One Son declared, while we were staying at a hotel a stone's throw away from Busch Stadium, that going to a Cardinals baseball game was his life dream.  Well, okay, we can probably manage that.  Never been a Cardinals fan particularly, but I do like going to baseball games.  Speaking of which, it looks like little league games start next Monday.  And word from practice is that Number One Son is not only making contact, but actually getting hits.  Little Red, of course, hit a home run his first tee-ball practice at bat.

400 years ago

Good-Friday, 1613, Riding Westward

by John Donne

Let man’s soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th’ intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl’d by it.
Hence is’t, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul’s form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die;
What a death were it then to see God die?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our soul’s, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg’d and torn?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God’s partner here, and furnish’d thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom’d us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They’re present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and Thou look’st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang’st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I’ll turn my face.


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The New Normal revisited

We continue to adjust to the realities of the here and now; there will be more frequent trips to Nashville and a sense of distraction as chemo treatments for The Runner's mom begin next week.

Driving home from Nashville this past Sunday was very difficult.  I have to admit:  I did not want to return to work, or to return to this town or this region.

On that drive, The Runner encouraged me to start looking for possible places to move. I don't know if I like the idea, because I don't particularly want to go through the hassle of moving, don't want to feel like I wasn't able to make NWTN work long-term, don't want to leave the people here I really appreciate. 

The Runner says that maybe the restlessness of my heart (which, in all honesty, I've suffered from for a couple of years now) is a providential sign that it's time to move on.  I wonder if instead it's part of a brutally painful process of learning humility and patience and self-sacrifice.  I would not claim any special dispensation--I am not a prophet--but I do know that Providence is not always gentle or soothing in what it metes out.

The Life of the Mind(ers)

That's right: we work hard around here. 

At least at creating committees with names that sound like they could come from an episode of The Office.  Or from Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Workforce culture?  The culture of the people in the workplace?

Make the workers more cultured?

Improve the force of the work done in this culture?

Is there a kind of subculture of workforce that we need to tap into, like hipsterdom?

Perhaps we ought to suggest that they break into sub-teams:

a. Workforce Improvement Team

b. Culture Improvement Team

c. Workforce Culture Team

d. Improvement Team

...there's enough administrative chair-shuffling for everyone!

Monday Update, the new normal edition

What we are now experiencing as a family can only be described as a big change in what we expect. Honey is facing a major medical challenge; I am having to admit some painful truths about my workplace and career; and our real income has contracted significantly. No longer certain of what the next few months will hold, we are guessing at what might be.

"Don't let them see you"--

About five years ago, I sat in my back yard and remarked to The Runner that we have an excellent life, and that I was so content.  Within six months I was suicidal.

This past December, I remarked to my family that we have been so fortunate to avoid major illness, or accidents, or other mishaps of that sort.  Within three months:  an ovarian cancer diagnosis.

Next time I'm feeling thankful, content, or secure, I'll make sure to keep that to myself.

Little Red is 5

Surface Tension

So much up in the air right now. 

But especially this:  my mother in law is having surgery tomorrow . . . there's a serious health concern. We will know more later this week, I assume.  But as for now, we are trying to remain flexible and reasonably positive.

I also have no idea what I'm doing this summer . . . my income and my schedule for two of the three summer months are literally waiting on decisions from other people.

I did receive good news, which also falls into the category of tension:  I have a research leave approved for the Spring semester of 2014.  This means a semester free of all faculty responsibilities except producing some scholarship results.

In which Piers Discovers a Gem

It's absurd to be looking at this bike at all, considering i just left the old one at the shop for an upgrade/tune up...but of all the bikes I've wanted for a step up from the trusty Scott Speedster, this is the one I've wanted the most. At $1300, it's even within reach. Sigh.

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