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I was going to write a post about growing up and friends and how sharing vulnerabilities cemets friendship. But I fell asleep at the keyboard.
No Joke.
Fell asleep face down.
Pardon me. I am exhausted.
This will have to do until a real, compensatory post appears tomorrow.

More on Teaching, cellphones and students

I've just come out of a tiring, tiring* teaching session.

Teaching, as I've been telling Allison and another friend, is the one thing I've enjoyed and loved about Large Cornfield School. The students are usually on top of their game, they don't hesitate to put in work for their grades and come to class at least 40% prepared**. They make me want to keep teaching and to keep teaching writing courses.

Today however, I walked out of class feeling like it was an unmitigated disaster.
My students kept yawning and one even fell asleep only waking up intermittently to check his phone. (One of the first things I tell my students is that my only real strict rule is "No Using Cellphones/Ipods/Other Fancy Devices In Class". "It is a pet peeve", I tell my them on the first day, "It derails my thought and bothers me to see cellphones or fancy electronic gadgets being fiddled with in my classroom.") Upon being called out, of course, he mouthed "I am not using my phone" to his buddy. This behavior bothers me. Yeah, I know it is just one student and just one class. And it might never happen again.
But, it bothers me to call a student out. And what's buggering me right now is that I might now have to deal with resistance and general button-pushing from said student.
And this is a scenario that I'd much rather avoid.

Bleh. Now onto 100 pages of reading in an hour.


*And not the good kind of tiring where you give thanks for a few minutes of meager fulfillment in hours of slave labor being a Freshman Composition TA.
**To an English Composition class, 40% prepared is awesomesauce in my book.

More passing thoughts about Teaching

On some days, school is bloody fulfilling*.
And that mostly has to do with being in a Rhetoric and Composition  session where my mentor is a fantastic, enthusiastic human being, full of contagious passion for his work. Our discussion over the last couple of weeks in that class has made me think about the way "gut feelings" work in my own teaching and in my students' work, about my body in the teaching space and today, about teaching Freshman Composition as a (somewhat) non-native speaker of the language.

Like several of my friends, I grew up speaking English both at home and outside**. I do speak a couple of other languages, but it is English to which I turn for ease of expression. I read mostly in English. I think and dream in English. I can't write essays, or poems (however terrible), or make involved arguments in the other languages I know and speak. But, I also often turn to these languages for words where my English comes up short. In other words, I'm not the subject at the heart of ESL language acquisition and usage discussions.

And yet, sometimes, in my composition classroom, I become hyper-aware of the chasm between my experience with language and writing and that of my students. In the last three years, I've had a few international students, ESL speakers or (students like me)*** And each time that I feel like I understand their challenges with a particular piece of writing, I go back to the question of my own identity as a (non-native speaking) teacher of comp.

Uh... just so we're clear, I'm not suggesting that my students actively do something to create this effect. I just find it fascinating that being able to empathize with my international students' questions and challenges brings up all these questions for me.

And there really isn't all that much on Comp-Teachers-Like-Me out there - another thing I want to add to my Jack of All Trades basket.

*And no, I don't quite mean Viking invasion
**Yes, privilege, privilege.
***There has to be a word for this - why do I not know it?

*Being* genre and initial gushing about Galactic Suburbia

After years of making fun of The Gaul for watching The Borg, Star Wars and Back to the future, I (relatively recently) now sheepishly admit a love for SF/F.

Indeed. I'm Freeze Dried and I'm genre.

I'm proudly genre.*
I know I don't read nearly enough in the space, but I'm working on it.
But, one thing's for sure, I love being in the space of Science Fiction and Fantasy. And part of my distress in grad school right now is because suddenly, after two years of SF/F conversations (with office mates, friends and professors), I'm entirely disconnected from the area. There are almost no classes on SF/F**, there's one professor working in the area and one other grad student that I know who is associated with it.

And since I don't commute as much any more (a dubious blessing), I'd almost stopped listening to the one  podcast that I find absolutely delightful: the fantabulous Galactic Suburbia Podcast - hosted by Alisa, Alex and Tansy.

More on the podcast in tomorrow's post. I'm off now to fight a fever.

*aforementioned sheepishness is mostly guilt-reflex.
** This semester has been delightful because there is one class in SF/F and I'm in it. Whee!

Instinct, gut feelings and My Classroom

My classroom is an intimate space. A very
And this, (eureka!) explains why every time someone observes my class, I feel like a dancing flea under under a fresnel lens - tiny,  exquisite, improbable. This year, my observer is a kind, wonderful, positive, encouraging soul. His amazingity notwithstanding, I feel a silent, invisible pressure.

And what do I do to combat this pressure? I give in to it.
True story.
My response to this somewhat stressful moment is to buy into the project of observation*. And so, under this stress, I perform (even more self-consciously than usual).

Normally, I work very instinctively while teaching.
I find detailed lesson plans crippling (although I do like to walk into class with a general idea of what I'm going to do, what kind of activities I'm going to have etc.). In the last semester at Big Name Cornfield School, I've learned (whoppee!) that I can actually organize some of the things that I think of as "instinctive" (i.e. because, as my freshman comp students are wont to say, "it just feels right").

I'm a little nervous about how this is actually going to go down. Well, we'll know after Monday, no?

*Okay, I admit, this is my cynical definition of the project of observation. 

Gut Feelings, Grad School and General Gratitude

Since forwarding R.D.P's call to (ahem) arms last week, I am overwhelmed by how willingly some wonderful people have jumped onto the insane 29 Days Project. Links to participating blogs are listed on the right pane. Click through and read them, y'all. These are wonderful, wonderful people and I'm glad these folks are writing with me this month.
And so it is that I begin my post with an expression of gratitude.

I'm also amazed by how some of my own concerns are reflected in some of these posts (Daisy's post on her Internal Snooze button, Australo's on the pain and frustration of grad school, R.D.P's on trying to make sense of chaos and even D.M's post hinting at a whole gut feelings conversation).

I will take on each of these soon, but for the moment - the post of Intention.
This year, once again, I intend to use this month to stop fixating on the things that have bothered me for the last year (hello darkness, my old friend).

Coming up next: The Awesomeness of Galactic Suburbia; An Updated Reading List and the Gut Feelings post.

Things I've missed in the last Six Months

Since moving into this new life in Cornfield Town, a lot has changed. And as much as I'm pro-change, there are things that I miss very dearly. And since we're at this list-making time of the year, here's a list of things (and people, and moments) that I miss very dearly:

16. Short-drive access to decent restaurants that can seat more than twenty people
15. The quaint town-square and its farmer's markets
14. Impromptu Lunches with Her at Petra Cafe
13. The Dickson Street Bookstore
12. Iron Horse Coffee Company
11. Kimpel's asbetos-filled halls (who knew?)
10. My own office space - yegods, old large wooden desk, I miss you.

9. Being able to breathe without the neighbours hearing me

8. Vaulted ceilings (and while I'm at it, in-house washer-dryer systems)

7. Living in a place where pets don't defecate on my doorstep

6. Long, pointless walks

5. Following Galactic Suburbia

4. Writing
3. Reading (yes, ironically)
2. Reading Science Fiction, specifically

And most of all, I miss

1. Having the time to do things for myself without guilt




Clearly, this semester here has been incredibly frustrating, and I'm not even counting the academic stuff yet.*

* Okay, clearly this is not a gratefulness post. And to compensate, I admit that this move has had a couple of saving graces. I've met a few wonderful people here - people that warm my heart. And I've found a awe-bloody-some yoga studio.