downpour: caffeine and carbs

for pouring down the schoolish-bookish things on my mind; not developed or interesting, but sort of necessary mental precipitation.  The caffeine is still coursing around my body, after all.

Because that's what I need for end-of-the-year marathon grading: caffeine to keep my mind alert for mornings and late nights, and carbs to keep my body full so I can focus.  And now it's done.  I power through because I can't focus on much else but grading during this period (I twice left the oven on.  TWICE!  I'm so focused on grading that when I'm doing something else, I'm thinking about grading, and then I rush away from that something else to be able to return to grading.  It's best for everybody if I just focus and finish so that I can move on--the obsessive-compulsive tendencies and all), and I'm big on fresh, new beginnings, which summer always offers.

Wise Structure

In my comp class, I made a change and assigned the difficult research paper as the penultimate assignment.  This moved the intensely difficult grading a bit earlier in the semester, so that final grading was a lot smoother.  But there was another surprising effect that may be more important.  In the past I've assigned the most difficult paper last, and recently plagiarism has been a major problem.  It has been a far smaller problem this semester.  I surmise that the stress and time constraints at the very end of the semester make plagiarism on a difficult assignment more likely, and that moving the difficult assignment just a month earlier greatly reduces this temptation.  I think I will keep this in mind when planning future courses.

Return of Health

In the last month and a half I've been far too lax on the mostly veganism (still eating loads of fruits and vegetables, just adding too much cheese and chocolate, too); the start of summer will find me returning to a mostly vegan lifestyle.  I'll also get to return to a more consistent walking schedule; things have been a little too hectic lately (my wife had our second child two weeks ago), but now that the semester is over I should be able to take at least one arbitrary walk per day, and hopefully two to four. 

Enthusiasm

Of course I'll take a few days off, but I am super excited to start preparing for next fall's classes.  I'm remaking a gen ed lit course and a freshman comp course with new texts, and I'm really optimistic and energized about the process.

Summer Reading

I'll probably be reading a lot of poetry this summer; I'd want to for fun of course, but since I'm creating a new lit syllabus for fall, every poem I read could be a poem I teach, too.  I also hope to read a lot of drama, non-fiction, and short stories, probably staying away from novels for a little while.

Work Space

Another task for summer is to create a good home work space.  I grade papers on a card table, and carry other school materials around to wherever I am in the house.  I want to get a desk and start organizing my materials so that I have a good, clean work space.  A clean well-lighted place, if you will.

I do, after all, have a "stupid" tag

I am very liberal; I know this because a Facebook quiz told me so.  But when reading literature, my impulses are sometimes what might be called conservative: in respect for the Western canon and tradition, in a willingness to just go ahead and say a Shakespearean character is evil, in a desire for spiritual fulfillment or moral edification in literature.  I don't know what this means.

torrential downpour

Internet Culture

Given that I've never sent a text message and joined Facebook about three weeks ago, I had assumed my students were much more technologically aware than I am.  However, today I found out a large majority of my students have never heard of Twitter, LOLcats, or Rickrolling.  Since I read a lot online, I apparently keep up with things better than they do--even things some in the media tell me they are experts about.  But certainly there is an internet culture, about which those "in the know" are casually familiar, and those on the outside have never even heard of.

Moving away from novels

Once I finish Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, I'm off novels for a while.  I'll be reading drama, non-fiction, and poetry.  This novel makes me not want to read novels.  Maybe that could be a blurb on future editions: "This novel makes me not want to read novels."  But I have a lot of non-fiction I want to read, and I enjoy reading drama a lot, so it's a fine thing.

Mostly Vegan

It was about a year ago I went mostly vegan with the intent of doing it for a year.  A year later I'm 59 pounds lighter than I was.  I will mostly maintain my current lifestyle, but I'll allow for more exceptions.  Possibly many more exceptions.

The Club

It was about three years ago I started this blog, which I'd mostly call a colossal failure that I continue to work on.  But apparently late March is a time when I do lasting things, so it's a good time for swearing off novels for a while.

The Stupid Thing I Believe

I sort of believe that if there is no God, then "everything is permitted."  It's not that there aren't foundations of morality away from religion; it's that if the universe is random and nothing has inherent meaning, if death is the end of individual existence and there is no afterlife, then those foundations are built on nothing, and it doesn't matter if you follow them.  I think I only sort of believe this.  My feelings for my son make me think maybe I don't believe this.

It can't be a treat to be married to me

I shared much of the above thought with my wife this morning, about ten minutes after I woke up and while she was brushing her teeth.

Blushing

Why did I not realize that the witticism "A hard man is good to find" is sexual in nature until about an hour after I quoted it to a class?  I had envisioned a "hard man" being a tough, rugged fellow that drinks a lot.  And why did the students not just start laughing at me?  And why did I attribute this quote to Oscar Wilde, when apparently it was said by Mae West?

As my wife said, I've had quite a day.

Torrential Downpour

Teaching fear: rational or irrational?

I usually focus very well during class, but if I'm reading something aloud, and its the third time in the day I'm teaching the same section, and especially if I'm reading aloud something I've written, I admit that my mind sometimes wanders as I repeat the words on the page.

Afterward I'm always terrified: I was standing in front of the class saying words I was not conscious of saying. What if instead of reading the words, I said whatever it is my mind wanders to? What if I said something wildly inappropriate (if my mind wandered to a dirty joke I saw in a movie or TV show the night before, or hell, if I thought of a Philip Roth novel)?

This has never happened--I always apparently do an accurate job reading the text even if my mind is not focused (I do work with the written word for a living, after all). But on the rare times this happens, I'm always relieved when students ask me questions after class (I assume that if I said something crazy, they wouldn't ask me about basic class things like everything is normal).

Is this a rational or irrational fear? I should probably just make sure to focus my mind on the text I'm reading.

Present Tense in The Namesake
I usually find fiction written in the present tense irritating, phony. There's something natural about telling a story in the past tense, something empty and artificial about telling a story about right now.

In Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, though, I am seeing the present tense as a considered and effective aesthetic choice. I'm not far into the book, but so far it takes place entirely in America--at least in the present tense. There is a past tense narration for one anecdote from Ashima's life in India, and a past tense narration for one longer anecdonte from Ashoke's life in India. The form suggests theme: life in India was past, life in America is now. There are few sentences that refer to the Ganguli family in India in the present tense (in one significant passage, the family prepares to take a trip to India, but the narration stops just as the plane leaves Boston and flies over the Atlantic).

But I'm not far into the book, and I have other ideas to flesh out later when I'm finished.

Winter
I feel like I live in two countries, so vastly different is the lifestyle of winter and summer in the upper midwest. The different clothing, the available leisure activities, the necessary chores, the very background of the world is so fundamentally different. The college semester spans these two countries, Fall Semester beginning in heat and ending in cold, Spring Semester beginning in cold and ending in heat.

Books

Most of my family's books are piled haphazardly, cramped for space. I set up a bookshelf in the living room so I could look at beautiful books and be happy. My display choices are on the bottom, my wife's choices on top (if you care, clicking the photo should show an enlarged image).

I'm whole now.

Seeing Wicked on stage was like a Dionysian ecstacy.

Reading and Dreaming

Do you ever have dreams that are clearly influenced by the book you are reading?  I would guess a lot of imaginative readers do so.

My literature-inspired dreams are often pretty twisted.  Last night I had a dream clearly rooted in Peter Shaffer's Equus.  Does anybody ever want to have a dream rooted in Equus?  I didn't.

Disconnect Between the Academic and Personal

My two favorite novelists (by a wide margin) are Fyodor Dostoevsky and John Fowles.  I've still never taught a single work by either author.

Rube Cred

I collect sports cards: mostly football, but also basketball and a little bit of baseball. So when I was tooling around amazon.com searching for books, and discovered that Topps made a card of Fyodor Dostoevsky for its 2007 Allen & Ginter's set, I thought, "You know, if I'm not going to get a card of Fyodor Dostoevsky, what's the point of even collecting cards?"

The card came in the mail today--I danced around gleefully.

Not coming up Milhouse

I was happy. But because I ordered an obscure disk, instead of getting it on Wednesday, getting it back in the mail Thursday, and getting a new disk to watch on Saturday with my wife, the disk I ordered specifically to watch while she's away won't get here at all until Saturday. So I guess she will get to watch Treasures of the Twilight Zone with me.

I just thought you deserved the update.

Torrential Downpour: a lot of really stupid stuff

My image of Dostoevsky
When I think of Dostoevsky, I don't picture the slight, refined man you see on the right. I picture a big, burly fellow, with long wild hair, an unkempt beard, and mad, crazy eyes. The sort of man who stands up to roar. The sort of man who moves with heavy, powerful motions, whose passion and energy exudes from his very being. It's the only way I can picture a man who writes characters so consumed with passion and ideas.

But as a reader, do I really need a real Dostoevsky? Oh, I know of the mock execution, of Siberia, of conversion. But for the creator of the characters that burst across his novels, do I need the real man, or do I only need the metaphoric image of his soul I've created in my head?

Unforgivable
So the creators of Across the Universe make a musical using Beatles' songs. And they have a character named Sadie. But..."Sexy Sadie" is nowhere to be found in the film.

The Stupid Thing I Believe (about Animal Rights)
I believe that by committing to animal rights, one stands further to the left. As a vegetarian, I'm more left-wing than my liberal but meat-eating friends.

Now, I'm guessing most left-wing folks see animal rights as a completely separate point from progressive attitudes on human issues. I think I'm taking the principles of a progressive worldview further and applying them to animals. What do you think? This is the stupid thing I believe: is it really stupid?

For more, see my two posts on a moral link between pacifism and vegetarianism (1 and 2).

The sort of conversations that occasionally occur in my house
PV: I don't need therapy. Dostoevsky is my therapist. Shakespeare is my therapist. Milton is my therapist.
C-FM: How delightfully pretentious of you.

PV: You spilled there too.
C-FM: No, that was the work of one rogue olive.

PV: What did people do in the Middle Ages?
(this is my response to just about anything that I don't want to do. Usually the answer is something bad).

Another victory for the way of all flesh
I heard a reporter refer to Fidel Castro's resignation as a "symbolic victory." Victory for whom? Time? Age? Illness? No individual or group resistance and no government policy was able to force Castro from power for nearly 50 years--I'm not entirely sure whom we're supposed to assign "victory" to, even a symbolic one.

Links
Timothy Egan in "Book Lust:"

"For most of my lifetime, I’ve heard that reading is dead. In that time, disco has died, drive-in movies have nearly died, and something called The Clapper has come and gone through bedrooms across the nation.

"But reading? This year, about 400 million books will be sold in the United States."

Scott McLemee and Kim Paffenroth in "Zombie Nation:"

"Q: In the New Testament, Jesus dies, then comes back to life. His followers gather to eat his flesh and drink his blood. I am probably going to hell for this, but .... Is Christianity a zombie religion?

"A: I think zombie movies want to portray the state of zombification as a monstrous perversion of the idea of Christian resurrection. Christians believe in a resurrection to a new, perfect state where there will be no pain or disease or violence. Zombies, on the other hand, are risen, but exist in a state where only the basest, most destructive human drive is left — the insatiable urge to consume, both as voracious gluttons of their fellow humans, and as mindless shoppers after petty, useless, meaningless objects. It’s both a profoundly cynical look at human nature, and a sobering indictment of modern, American consumer culture."

"Baxter, you know I don't speak Spanish."

But I'm going to learn. My wife and I share a fairly large DVD library, and I've begun watching with Spanish subtitles.