Nothin' much doin' of an afternoon.

Just working my way through essays, stopping to check Facebook and updating the blog. Nice day today, and "cold" for us--it lingers in the 40s. We haven't had even a rumor of snow this season, while all around us it falls without mercy. All I want is one snow day, and preferably not on Fridays when I don't teach anyway.

Tonight looks like homemade fried chicken and mac and cheese and then a taking-in of Slumdog Millionaire at the local cineplex. Anyone out there seen it? Some of the scuttlebutt has it as a surprise leader for Best Picture.

Last year, according to my careful records, the two of us saw a movie together in a theater exactly twice: Juno on New Year's Day and Australia over T-giving. For whatever reason, we don't go much anymore. One reason is that Netflix and DVR and On Demand have spoiled us; another might be that we don't want to pay 9, 10, 11 bucks to see a current movie in prime time. Even matinees are fewer and farther between--one has to go to the frackin' 11:30 a.m. showing on weekends to get the matinee rate, and it's not even that cheap anymore.

John Updike (1932-2009)

RIP.

Rabbit, Run is worth the price of admission. I know a handful of his short stories but not many of the novels. His prose on the craft of fiction is also worth your time.

Is progress possible in 15 weeks?

Today my learning support students write their first in-class essay, one of four such beasts they will write this semester (one other essay will be composed outside of class time). I expect to see the usual variety of skill levels; many coherent, a few perhaps brilliant in spots, but many many with serious and multiple problems: incomplete sentences, punctuation irregularities, confusing or awkward wording, subjects and verbs not talking to each other. And the list goes on.

The most frustrating thing about teaching, without a doubt, is somehow finding a way to address these multiple deficits while laboring under the knowledge that every one of us has a unique hang-up with writing and may or may not need what I'm offering at that moment. For example, I will, until the end of time, always do a unit on comma placement, because they're tricky and frequently intuitive. Until the end of time, I will always do a unit on verb tense shifts and verb forms, because I am seeing more and more of those irregularities, even (especially?) among native-born speakers. But things like spelling and word choice are hard for me to generalize and "present," because they're idiosyncratic and really hard to improve--sometimes I feel all I can say is for them to read more than they do. Conferences help, but they don't do enough.

So in answer to our title question, yes, progress is possible in 15 weeks, but I long ago abandoned the idea of consistent forward progress with remedial writers, because every assignment is different, and each one of us is a different person every time we sit down to write. If I can get a student (admittedly, a motivated and somewhat self-aware student) to see his major types of errors and become more aware when they happen, that's a kind of progress--I hope.

Can I make someone love (or like) to write in 15 weeks? It hasn't happened much in my teaching life.

The inaugural poem.

Much has been written about it, so I as always try to wedge in my two cents. As a poem, it's not bad; as an oration, less impressive. Alexander's delivery style didn't bother me too much--I've heard plenty of poets declaim much more trivial sentiments in such a style--but the net effect of this halting, stop-start style is to cover up less-than-fresh language, which this poem has in places. Still, is it any worse than Maya Angelou's poem for the first Clinton term?

Too, Alexander had the unenviable task of going on after Obama, which must be the political equivalent of following James Brown.

The text of the poem is available on Ed Byrne's One Poet's Notes. (Scroll toward the bottom of the post.) It scans and "reads" rather well at times, I think. What do you think?

A look back.

Spring semester has been going for two weeks now, and this go-round promises to be much saner than the fall. In December I washed my hands of the college success course which I had so eagerly anticipated in August. Of the horrible evening section, all I can say is I gritted my teeth and made it through.

Looking at two or three posts ago, I'm not sure how apparent it was that my anxiety and helplessness was exacerbated by that section of students. It was the most volatile and resistant group dynamic I've ever encountered, just the most improbable mix of attention deficit disorders, class clowns, stubbornness, and laziness. Around mid-October, I was counting down the remaining meetings after every class meeting, and I cancelled a couple of meetings, simply because I either didn't have enough to make it through 50 blinkin' minutes or I didn't want to face them.

I had another section which was much quieter and (mostly) more respectful, but no more interested or interesting, and that was a whole different set of problems. But the evening section contained many individuals who were unmotivated and had no problems letting everyone know how unmotivated they were. The word that comes to mind is "shameless."

So I fretted over that course, and it doubtless colored my attitude toward my other courses. But they turned out okay. And just between you and me, I hope to never teach the college success course again. It's a valid course to teach, and so many of our students really do need tips on studying and taking tests and managing time, but I'm just not the man to do it.

Facebook and fighting nostalgia.

Well, I'm back for more of this stuff. I won't promise (as before) how often or timely my posts will be, but I'm gonna attempt it again.

Happy belated '09. So far, mine is shaping up well. Plans for the wedding proceed apace. Now that we have our reception venue nailed down, the other elements can start to fall into place. (Did I just sound like a bureaucrat? The lack of freshness in the above is disconcerting.) Still to come: the invitations, the food/catering, the logistical challenges ahead. Oh, and I need to pick up my tux soon. But before that, I need to find an appropriate pair of shoes.

I, like many, have now been sucked into the Facebook nation, and it has opened up many cans of worms--mostly positive ones. Last night I hung out with a college roommate I hadn't seen in six years, thanks to FB. I have struck up e-conversations with people I'd long written off or forgotten about, thanks to FB. Thanks to FB, I've found out one good friend from high school and college relocated to NC six years ago after his first wife died. He's since re-engaged.

Does Facebook convince me, a la Faulkner, that the past is never over, that it's not even past? Does it bury me even more in a time I foolishly think was more innocent? Partly yes. But it also lets me see that our lives have second, third, fourth acts, that we aren't buried by the labels we've created for ourselves or others create for us.

One of my favorite things about some novels of the late Carol Shields is how the chapters dip into the great well of time, and you see the arcs of lives in 200-300 pages. In Larry's Party, for example, you just get little slices of the pie, a year here, a year there, but in a sense you see the whole pie too. Facebook's like that. One gets to fill in the gaps. (There's also the vaguely unsettling ability to eavesdrop, which I won't get into here.)

But from what I can tell so far, Facebook is really a social network in the best sense. It's also a scarily easy way to fritter away time.

Absence makes the writing grow worse.

Hi again, all. I am beyond overwhelmed this fall, and the blog has been low on the totem pole. I have had several days the past few weeks when I've felt like jumping up and down and whining like a kid, because I don't want to do all that I must do.

The college success course I'm teaching has occupied my time to an extent I didn't think possible for a 2-hour credit. In trying to emulate our college-success guru by scheduling too many projects, I've ignored my basic need for survival. So one of my personal projects this weekend is to revisit the class schedule, already revised once, to see if I can revise it again. I've also been struggling with my confidence in teaching it, and one might say I'm struggling with my confidence in general. I am also shocked at some of the behavior I see in those classes, but that's another rant.

I have two classes' worth of library projects and two stacks of composition essays to grade, and another stack of learning support essays comes in next week. Luckily, this upcoming Tuesday there's no class; it's called discipline development day. Faculty are supposed to meet and discuss exciting curricular and legislative business of various stripes. I may go for one meeting of a committee I'm supposedly on, but after that I'm Audi.

My memoir class goes okay; I'm getting some surprisingly good writing out of it, but it's also a lot of work. It ain't no leisurely adult-ed class. We have oral reports, two shorter out-of-class papers, and a 30-page project.

I'm still tutoring and foresee giving that up come the beginning of '09.

Since I suffer from occasional (lately, more frequent) anxiety, the feeling is that my life has spun out of control and I'm never going to get it back. And since control (or the illusion of control) is important to me, you can imagine how much that freaks me out. So everything I must do becomes equally important, even when I know not everything has to be done perfectly. And I can't stop thinking about everything I have to do. It feels like a big wave constantly rolling over me. The way I'm feeling now, it'll keep rolling over me until December.

The clincher is that I know this is all out of proportion. I know it doesn't matter one whit if I can't complete 30 pages for the memoir class, yet it feels like a moral failing if I admit that. I know I don't have to grade all the library projects this weekend, yet something in me won't let me rest unless I do.

So of course, this makes me worthless as a fiance, and not much fun at dinner. In the fight-or-flight battle, I'm flight. I just want to walk (run) away for a day from all I've committed myself to. Even two.

More when the mood has improved.

It's all about meme.

Hi again--another lame excuse for posting, perhaps, but it's all I can muster these days. Thanks again indirectly to seabird78, and as before, I will not tag; please steal the guidelines and do 'em yourself if you're interested.

* Each blogger starts with ten random facts/habits about him/herself.
* Bloggers whom are tagged need to write on their own blog about their ten things and post these rules.
* At the end of your blog, you need to choose ten people to get tagged and list their names.

1. I made straight A's in math until my high school freshman year, when algebra came into the picture. Then, it was mostly B's and the occasional A. (Though I took biz calc in college and made an A.)

2. Yard work is not my forte, yet I find peace and relaxation in mowing the lawn and pulling weeds.

3. I haven't written a new poem or revised an old one in nearly a year.

4. I bite my fingernails, but only when they get long.

5. Once in a while (say, once every six months), I wish I were more of a typical male: beer-pounding, curse-word-spewing, dart-throwing, something. I resist my feminization even as I'm glad for it.

6. I miss my friends in western Kentucky, those who are still there and those who have moved on.

7. I'm getting married in May (provided we have a venue!).

8. I'm a closet fan of Game Show Network and know more about The Hollywood Squares than is healthy.

9. The last book that stirred me was Concerning the Book That is the Body of the Beloved, poems by Gregory Orr.

10. I'm way too hard on myself and at times don't know what to do about it.

What are we reading?

For me, it's currently Rick Bragg's All Over but the Shoutin', which I'm dashing through in time to do an oral report on for my memoir class. And in a word, the book's frustrating. I wait for it to settle down, but apparently it won't. Actually, now that he's into his dashing-around job-changing years at various newspapers, I'm just sorta rolling with it. I guess it's a memoir, but it sure is loose--not with the facts (I presume), but with the development.

I looked up Bragg on the lazy man's dream, Wikipedia, and found links to other places which limned his resignation from the New York Times a few years ago, because he'd taken credit for, or written himself, a story based on a stringer's notes and observations without giving credit to the stringer. Doesn't sound very sporting, and Bragg was apparently nonchalant and upfront about it, claiming to have done nothing that other writers haven't gotten away with. So since learning this, my estimation of him has gone down slightly.

The book is just ah-ight. The man had an amazingly hardscrabble childhood, and his mother sounds like a saint. I could read a whole book about her. Dare I say the book is more telling than showing? I extremely liked the chapter about when he went to the Baptist church; it's one of a few times where the writing is stopping to take a breath.

I don't really know how to focus this oral report I'm to do, yet, but I imagine I'll figure it out. I have two degrees in English, after all.

A new leaf, turned over.

Yes, I appear to have returned, but who knows, I may burrow deep again soon.

I proposed to the lovely lady on 8/28 and got a yes, so that's been the biggest deal of my life, so far. It was done just right, if I do say so myself. We went to one of our favorite local restaurants, I got down on one knee, and I was nervous. And dinner was just lovely, and the couple at the next table bought us each a glass of wine! I thought we were in a Frank Capra movie.

So plans proceed apace. We're this close (already) to nailing down the venue and the band, and the photographer may not be far behind. The date isn't until May next year, but why wait, especially when you're hyper-motivated?

I'm just trying not to think about the money...

On another note, and to reference the title, I've made a vow to spend less time grading essays this fall. I *must*, to stay sane. I have more students this fall than ever before. So far, so good: I churned through 18 short essays (1.5-2 pages each) in 2 hours this afternoon, roughly 9 per hour or 6-7 min. per essay. I'm forcing myself to write less or not at all on the essays themselves and just on my rubric sheet. Because you know, how many students really read what I write or care to delve into why they received the number they did? The ones who care are the (few) ones who sought me out in previous semesters and will do so again.

Everyone in this course has to revise two essays and re-submit them. Maybe, just maybe, my new method will force them to really re-read what they turned in.

In any case, it's a survival technique. And I finally don't feel guilty about it, after 10-plus years of full-time teaching. Wow. Maybe tomorrow I'll go bungee jumping.