Kaleidoglide: Wholesome TV for kids

Kaleidoglide: Wholesome TV for kids

I haven't seen the show, but WTF?

Which Peanuts Character Are You?
	You are part Charlie Brown. You are always optimistic and persistent, and everyone appreciates your simple sweetness. Sometimes, however, your anxieties get the best of you, and life's mysteries can confuse you.
	You are part Schroeder. You are brilliant, ambitious, and brooding; you tackle tasks with extreme focus. People don't always interest you as much as other pursuits, though, so you can come off as aloof.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Many years later...

Aight. So I haven't written in a while. Of course I have several excuses. And all of them are super-valid.

For those of you who have been wondering, I've grown older, weirder and more in the past few months. I'm no longer funny. I no longer maintain the Bentonville blog. I'm still full of self-doubt.
I have tons of work to do, papers to submit, papers to evaluate and I'm at that point where I'm about ready for the semester to end.

And smack in the middle of all of that I still. want. to. do. everything else.
More, in a bit then.

Such tenderness,
Will kill me as I wait
Counting days
Thinking about three roomed houses
You
And
me.

Younger days of love and intensity,
Love, that corrupt, overrated
word
Of intensity, nonetheless
And now as I’m older
I reminisce, now from a distance,
And wonder where you are
Almost dispassionately
(my passion lies in the past,
where I dropped it,
moved on,
as did you.)

I'm, what's the word now, appalled? stunned? ...un-impressed, perhaps, by the average freshman's attitude to professors, teachers and more importantly, to acquiring knowledge. On the whole, I get the impression that they're just. not. interested.

Okay, granted, it is an English Composition class.
But effort has been made all around to make sure that the class is not about "poetry". The aim of the class is to teach critical reading and writing skills. How can it be hard to see how the class would be useful across the curriculum?

I do realize that this is very traditional of me, but I've come to expect respect in a classroom situation. Now, now... not for me - not even if I'm older (and wiser, ha ha). I concede that I don't know enough - but respect for the work that these kids are (supposed to be) doing. Turns out that kind of attitude is obsolete. Oh joy!

I stay up nights planning out class work, syllabii, grading papers and most recently teaching myself to be less "formal" in my approach to the class. The very least I thought I could expect was attention. Apparently not. Scarce commodity around these parts.

Oh there is one thing that is available in abundance though - cockiness.
This week, I've had the dubious pleasure of hearing, "Yeah, I tend be very profound and look beyond the text" in response to "Good job on picking up on that point" ; "She's so ridiculous" to an exercise and "What do we have to do to write a summary", after two weeks of classes on the topic.

I even had one kid tell me that English was not his thing. In English. American kid. Very telling, isn't it?.

Okay, yeah, I wasn't a perfect under-grad. Far from it, really. I almost always turned work in at the last minute. I did have "opinions" (like all hot-blooded 18 year olds). I was such a piece of work! I'm sure I wasn't a pleasure to be around. But I don't remember saying anything like that to a teacher. Or saying "I don't want to" when called upon to participate in class.

The whole "So what if you're my teacher, I can be where you are" (extending even to "Oh so you have a Phd. in the subject you're teaching me. Big deal. I can do that too, if I want to.") doesn't fly with me. But turns out that for my sanity and my job I should follow my professors. I'm going to have to suck it up and desist from saying, "Yes, you idiot, you can, but you haven't and the way things are going, doesn't look like you're about to".

Ah bon! C'est (apparently) la vie!

To those of you waiting breathlessly for an update - I made it through and am now officially a poor grad student.

That also means, considering I've been out of school for a while - I'm a bundle of nerves and would gratefully appreciate donations of love, affection, hugs and wouldn't say no to some money, if you are so inclined.

I'll, what's that turn of phrase, be back.