Saving My Sanity

I want to publically acknowledge that writing here and reading speckedmavens and the fidfam blogs are saving my sanity. Or at least, these things are making significan contributions. I suppose I shouldn't discount yoga, reading Proverbs, or tea.

A Pirate's Life for Me!

Is it OK if I take up scrapbooking? I've avoided it on principle for so long, but lately, I've forgotten what the principle was. And hey, when you were a kid, did your mom tell you that you could remember the difference between "principle" and "principal" by remembering that the school principal is your pal? Did your mom say that too? Did she ever say, upon getting in the car in the evening, "Let's just try to have a quiet ride home"? Did yours say that too?

So here's a pic of me and Polly. And I like this one a lot. I just think she has the cutest, funniest little face that I'v ever seen. In the words of some, "She's just a little bit too goosie!"

Really Good Coffee Maker

I'm posting this, in part, because Dolce Carina requested a review of my new coffee maker.

I've been thinking about coffee quite a lot lately, and it seems to me that if one is going to bother with the time and expense and hassle of coffee, it ought to be a really good cup of coffee. I mean, I can't stand bad coffee. And for some reason, I get really annoyed with what I call Coffee Posers. OK, so really, that's not my coinage, but it works. So in the pursuit of really good coffee, I decided it was time to upgrade to a nicer coffee maker. And I bought this great Cuisinart coffee maker. And it's totally cool. The flavour is much nicer. And it doesn't have a carafe, but all the coffee is kept hot inside the thingy (there's a technical term, "thingy") so it doesn't get all burnt tasting or bitter or anything.

So, I was hoping I could write this really smart review that would let you all know exactly how in-love I am with this new coffee maker (Hey, aren't I always claiming to be "in love" with this or that? Let's see. . .there's the coffee maker, cream tea, Inspector Morse. I really sound unbalanced! Or maybe my priorities are just all crazy.) And it isn't a smart review at all. But I guess it does answer the question, you know? Maybe simply answering the question is good enough.

Why do these things happen to me?

So here's the long-version of the I-got-mooned-and-I'm-too-old-for-this story. All weekend, I was working at first-year orientation. And it was mostly anything but fun. So I'm teaching this First Year Seminar in which, in addition to the academic portion of the course, I meet with new students and talk with them and we do activities designed to help them successfully make the transition to college. For example, we'll have presentations about, say, study skills and time management. Anyway, on Saturday night, we had this presentation on "Equalogy," which already bugs me because it isn't even a real word. But the so-called Equalogy deal is this skit-type thingy designed to get students thinking about the evils of acquaintance rape. Now, I think this is an important topic to cover because acquaintance rape is such a wide-spread problem on campuses. I detest even calling it "acquaintance" rape, as though the fact that the victim knows the attacker makes it less horrible somehow. Or as though the attackers actions are somehow mitigated by knowing the victim. Anyway, the presentation was really bad, offensive on so many levels. Last year, I remember walking out about 1/3 of the way through the presentation, because I found it objectionable. It's this skit, right? And it opens with this scene with 4 college students at a party, drinking and telling all kinds of sexist jokes. The sexual innuendo abounds, and naturally, we, the audience, are enouraged to laugh. I mean, in something that's supposed to open our eyes to the sexist attitudes that lead to the perpetuation of rape and rape-myth, we are supposed to laugh at sexism. Nothing is done to problematize it. This goes on and on, with the students behaving increasingly disturbingly. And by "students," I mean our students, my students, not the actors on stage. They are laughing, asking off-color questions during the question time, and finally, cheering during the final rape scene. I was horrified, horrified, I tell you!

So afterwards, we're supposed to have a sort of talk back session with our groups. Each faculty member teaching a FYS, has 18 first-year students. So only about 2/3 of my group shows up for this mandatory activity. You can imagine that my mood is getting increasinly bad, irritable. I'm angry at having to sit through such an offensive presentation, angry that my students had to sit through it, disturbed that some students clapped and cheered during the rape, yadda, yadda, yadda. My mood, however, begins to improve as I discuss matters with my students. Many of them display remarkable maturity and insight. And many, without prompting, express concern that some in the audience reacted the way they did. So this is going on, in the classroom, and two students are outside the window--we have these large picture windows, and the room is at ground level. So the guys outside walk by, real obvious like. They walk by again. Then a third time. I'm certain they are simply wanting attention, so I studiously ignore them. Until they pull their pants down and press their backsides against the window.

Seriously, should I have to deal with this? Is this what my life has come to? Is this why I got my PhD, only to be "mooned" by a pair of unruly 18-year-olds, when I'm supposed to be discussing acquaintance rape? Seriously, how does this kind of thing happen?

And I Got my PhD for This. . .

So last night, while I was having a follow-up discussion with my students about acquaintance rape, our class was mooned. Seriously. Is this why I'm teaching college instead of high school? I'll post the full story later.

I'm not sure what it is I need to say just now, only that I need to write something. Have you ever felt like you don't know who you are anymore, that lost feeling? Like you used to be someone definite (or have at least a definite sense of self, or maybe just a persona to project to the world), only that person got lost somewhere along the way? I know I'm not articulating this very well, but recently, I hear myself saying things, even thinking things, and I think, "Is this me? I don't remember being this sort of person, someone who says this sort of thing. When did this happen?"

Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, and for a few moments, I think I'm in Riverside, living where I live there and that I'm still with J. And for those few moments, I'm happy, and I think I know who I am and where my life is headed. But, of course, it all comes crashing down, when I realize that I'm the new me, the post-J me, doubtlessly a sadder-but-wiser-me, a less hopeful me. I can't quite decide if I like this new me. I liked the person I was at 19, the young woman who could see hope, who wanted a future. Now, most of the time, I just try to make it through the day without crying too much.

Oh, and One More Thing

Can I just give a yip of joy that, at long last, leggings are again fashionable? Seriously, this open a whole new vista of interesting fashion possibilities that I would never have thought possible. My current favorite being the fashion possibility of wearing a cute micro-mini over leggings. I mean, I get the fun of a mini without the potential immodesty, not to mention embarrassment, that could result from such a fashion decision. And yes, I love the whole dress-over-leggings-or-jeans-look. It seems fun, interesting, yet totally wearable. So hooray for leggings.

P.S. Bought the cutest knee-highs at Old Navy today. I'll have to take a picture soon. I think that I need to get back on the Sock Project Bandwagon.

Susan Cooper's King of Shadows

Last weekend, I read Cooper's King of Shadows. I think her Dark is Rising sequence is just great, so I was excited about this title. It wasn't as wonderful as I was hoping, but it wasn't bad either. So it's the story of a boy, he's maybe 12, who's playing Puck in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1999. But one day he wakes up, and it's 1599, but he's still playing Puck. He meets Shakespeare and what-have-you. What I did think was interesting about the book was the way in which Cooper depicts Elizabethan society, specifically the politics surrounding Shakespeare's theatre. Shakespeare and Richard Burbage are shown having to walk a fine line between appearing to support Essex and still really supporting Elizabeth. It just seems to me that this and so many other cultural elements are forgotten in our misguided attempt to present Shakespeare as high culture. Shakespeare was pop culture, and it seems to me so important to think of him that way. He wrote to make money, writing what he believed the people wanted to see, would pay money to see. None of this art for art's sake business. OK, so enough rant. I make no claim to being a Renaissance scholar. Still, Cooper is saying, especially to young people, something important that it seems that we so often forget about Shakespeare.

I know that I've not been blogging much lately. Isn't it silly that I feel like I need to create a specific post to apologize for not posting? Really, I don't know why I've not been posting much. I think actually that it's something that, for the sake of my mental health, I should do more of. I think I've just been distracted by one thing and another. Not that any of it's all that interesting, mind you. I've had plenty going on, but none of it is that exciting to tell about. Mostly, I've been reading a lot. By that, I mean that I've been reading more fun stuff (as opposed to stuff that I see as necessary for work) than I might normally read. Maybe it's that it's the summer. Anyway, I used to try to do at least a quick post on every book that I read. But I haven't been for the last couple of months, and I rather miss it. I think that posting something, anything helps me think through whatever it is that I need to say about whatever I'm reading. So it's certainly something that I want to do more of, especially as the new school year is starting (my fall semester starts on Monday!)

The other thing I haven't been posting about is my ongoing affair with Inspector Morse and 20th century British mystery generally. So I think that maybe, possibly this is my new academic, research interest. If I were all paranoid, I wouldn't let my ideas get out, for fear that someone would steal them. Seriously, I'm suddenly obsessed with 20th century British detective fiction. Specifically, I'm interested in the ways in which Christian and specifically Protestant understandings of human nature allow the detective characters to be effective. I see that, at least for some of the detective characters, especially P.D. James' Adam Dalgleish, their Protestant understanding of man and of the universe generally allows them the insight that they need to somehow crack the case. Dalgleish is my new favorite, BTW. Wanting to work on this as a research project has given me the conveninet excuse to read all this stuff. So I'm thinking this tradition starts not with Holmes but with Chesterton's Father Brown. This is all rather vague right now, but it's an idea that I'm suddenly excited about. Really, I wonder if the 20th century British detective is this modern (and I mean modern, not post-modern) reincarnation of King Arthur and the Grail Knight and all that.

And I do realize that I've posted far too many pictures of John Thaw as Morse already on this blog. I guess that my only response would be that it's my blog and I can do what I want. But that's rather juvenile, isn't it? Clearly, in the absence of a "real" (don't you love the phrase "in a very real sense. . ."???) oh yeah, in the absence of a "real" relationship, I'm compsentating in silly ways. And, you know, I'm OK with that. If anyone was wondering my last "date" with Morse was Sunday night when I watched the "Infernal Serpent" episode.

I just realized, as I signed on, that I haven't posted anything in over two weeks! In case anyone's worried, don't; I'm just fine. I was out of town for a while, and I guess I have just been busy and distracted with one thing and another. I wish I could say that interesting (or at least funny!) developments in my personal life had been sucking up all my time. But alas, no such luck. I guess that puppy dogs and planning for the fall semester is sucking up my time, or maybe it's just a way to pass the time.

Wow, so I wish I had something really interesting to relate, but I don't. Is that sad? Or is it just OK? I don't know. I'm doing well, I think. I've been enjoying and making the most of time off school: staying up late watching movies, sleeping in, soaking in the hot tub. It's nearly enough to make me not want to go back to work. I say that now, but truthfully, time off seems to have the specific effect of making me appreciate having a job to go to, having structure to my day, having something productive to do each day. I thrive on that sort of thing.

I wish I could think of something more exciting to tell you, but I guess I'm just boring these days. Maybe boring isn't so bad, however; at least I'm happy. Well happy-ish.