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In no particular order:
"Ooh, Las Vegas" (MP3, 6.3MB), by the Cowboy Junkies, from Return of the Grievous Angel: Tribute to Gram Parsons.
(Guess what I'm doing this week.)
MP3 files are posted for evaluation purposes only. Availability is limited: usually 24 hours. Through this site, I'm trying to share and promote good music with others, who will also hopefully continue to support these artists. Everyone is encouraged to purchase music and concert tickets for the artists you feel merit your hard earned dollars. If you hold copyright to one of these songs and would like the file removed, please let me know.
An anonymous correspondent asks me to post the following:
I need feedback on a course that's not going very well this semester. I have a small class of young, very quiet students. Some of them spend the entire class fidgeting and apparently thinking about something else; my perception of their states of mind might be distorted, but I'm put off by the fact that they don't make a lot of eye contact. Rather than ask questions about the content of the course, engaging with the subject matter, they are always (take "always" with a grain of salt) asking the same sorts of questions about assignments: "I'm confused. What are we supposed to do again? I don't understand what you want. Why are we doing this?" I've taught this course a half-dozen times, and I've never had this much difficulty teaching it before. The assignments are explained in detailed handouts and by me in class discussion.
Yesterday, my buttons got pushed towards the end of class when I was trying to talk about one of the projects they're working on, and and a couple of students chimed in with "I'm confused. Why are we doing this? What do we get out of completing this?" I was quiet for a bit, looking down at my hands and then said, with ten minutes left until the end of class, "Okay, I think that's enough for today." I knew I was either going to dismiss them early or I was going to say something I'd regret.
Is there any way to salvage this course? Do I address what happened yesterday at the end of class? We have about 5 weeks left. I've tried to address their engagement (or lack thereof) with the course material before but without success. They're not surly or anti-intellectual, just more obsessed with grades than with actually learning. I'd appreciate any advice.
So...any thoughts?
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently started up a blog called Wired Campus. I wonder what motivated them to do this. Chronicle-competitor Inside Higher Ed adopted a blog-like structure from the beginning, providing accessible, date-based archives and the ability to comment directly on each news entry.
However, by creating a blog solely about technology issues, the Chronicle is not very likely to insert themselves successfully into the blogging fray that now permeates online academics' lives. They do allow trackbacks, though, and this is an important feature that Inside Higher Ed lacks.
It's been snowing for a few hours now. This is clearly against the rules. It's spring!
"Hypomanic? Absolutely. But Oh So Productive!" by Benedict Carey (NYT):
In recent decades, scientists have found that bipolar disorder is widely variable, and that its milder forms are marked by hypomanias, currents of mental energy and concentration that are less reckless than full-blown manic frenzies, and unspoiled, in many cases, by subsequent gloom.
New research helps explain how people with manic or hypomanic tendencies navigate the small triumphs and humiliations of daily life, and provides clues to how some of them quickly shake off the emotional troughs that their ambitious natures should make inevitable.
Here's a link to the archives of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing listserv. An interesting discussion is taking place regarding habits of Bible reading.
"A Minor Place" (MP3, 4.3 MB), by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (aka Will Oldham).
MP3 files are posted for evaluation purposes only. Availability is limited: usually 24 hours. Through this site, I'm trying to share and promote good music with others, who will also hopefully continue to support these artists. Everyone is encouraged to purchase music and concert tickets for the artists you feel merit your hard earned dollars. If you hold copyright to one of these songs and would like the file removed, please let me know.
Good lord, can I write about anything but myself? Here are a bunch of entries from when I had a brain:
I'm sure my brain will return before too long.
I'd unravel ev'ry riddle
For any individ'le
In trouble or in pain
With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln,
If you only had a brain.
I learned today that I'll be getting a substantial summer stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support my research.
Man, I needed that jolt of happiness!
Edited to sound more dignified and less cryptic.
In a comment to a previous entry, fellow army military brat Geoffrey writes the following:
We're obviously at similar crossroads in our lives and approaching things similarly. What academia promises you will not sustain you. Look elsewhere for happiness and let things fall where they may.
It's tough for me to sort out all the things I'm feeling, from my disappointment over recent events, to some of my frustration with my institution, to my love for most of my colleagues, my enthusiasm for my students, my fascination with my primary research topic.
I am not certain that academia is failing me, failing to "sustain" me. Everyone faces obstacles: the question is how resilient one is in response. I suppose it's possible that I do not have the kind of resilience necessary for working at this institution. I'm not sure. But given the larger world of higher education that surrounds the particular university where I work (and the larger environment that surrounds the world of higher education), I realize that I don't need to keep beating my head against a wall, assuming that deciding not to continue here represents a personal or professional shortcoming, a dramatic failure of some kind.
As grad students in the humanities, we are told again and again and again that the tenure-track job market is terrible: something like 60% of all English PhDs will not land t-t jobs. As a result, we end up thankful for any job that will have us. It seems clear from my own experience and from the experience of others I know that this message leads to some pretty unhealthy rationalizations. It doesn't have to be this way. We do have a choice.
Having said all of that, I am not leaving my current job. However, I am rethinking my relationship to the place where I work.
There's only so long you can stay wrapped up in your own little worries. That was the river. This is the sea.
Wild times ahead.
We want to extend a warm welcome to everyone attending the 2005 annual conference in Las Vegas later this and early next month. The meeting marks the thirty-sixth gathering of the dix-huitièmiste tribes, and takes place during the centennial celebration year of the city. The programme lists nearly two hundred learned panels promising fascinating discussions of all aspects of Enlightenment culture, ranging from connections between the early novel and the visual arts, to a comparison of Bath and Las Vegas as fashionable venues during certain moments in cultural history, to the place of coffee and alcohol in the public sphere. Nobel laureate and UNLV professor Wole Soyinka will deliver the keynote address. Among the plenary lectures and sessions planned are Margaret Doody’s presidential address, “Play, Time, Chance, Games: The Eighteenth Century Revealed,” and a presentation by the twentieth Clifford Lecturer, musicologist Robert Levin, “Redeeming Mozart’s Vow: The Unfinished Mass in C Minor, K. 427, and a New Completion.” Other anticipated plenary lectures are John Barrell’s “Hair Powder,” Robert Folkenflik’s “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure and the Literary Culture of Eighteenth-Century Britain,” and Colin Jones’s “French Dentists and English Teeth in the Long Eighteenth Century.”
Two delightful entertainments have also been scheduled for the weekend, Peter Kairoff’s lecture-concert “Rediscovering a Venetian Master: Keyboard Works of Baldassare Galuppi,” and a Friday evening concert by the UNLV symphony orchestra. In addition, Margaret Edson’s off-Broadway homage to the literary life, Wit, is being staged at UNLV by the Nevada Conservatory Theater on Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 2:00 pm (please call 702/ 895-2787 for tickets and information). Nor is the larger community without its own diversions, as you may have heard.
For aficionados of fine dining, Le Cirque (702/ 693-8100) and Picasso (702/ 693-8105) at the Bellagio and Renoir (702/ 791-7111) at the Mirage merit mention, as do Aureole (702/ 632-7401) at Mandalay Bay and Bouchon (702/ 414-6200) at the Venetian. A list of restaurants convenient to the Alexis Park Resort not usually requiring reservations will be included in the conference folder to be picked up at registration, along with a map. There are two smaller museums located in the Bellagio and the Venetian. For information on current exhibits treating of impressionism (“Monet: Masterworks from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts”) and of ancient Egypt (“Quest for Immortality”) please consult the websites www.bgfa.biz and www.guggenheimlasvegas.org. For those with the time and inclination to explore the desert, now displaying a rare wildflower bloom, several companies provide day tours (see, for example, www.pinkjeeplasvegas.com). Information regarding the airport shuttle and other activities may be had by contacting the hotel concierge at 702/ 796-3340. The resort is located at 375 E. Harmon, just west of the UNLV campus, and is reachable in minutes from the I-15 via the I-215 airport connector.
It is an absolutely gorgeous day. Weather.com says we should expect "abundant sunshine." Okay, then. I'll do my best. Nobody wants to spend much time around someone in a perpetually crappy mood.
That's the zen way, right? Focus on your present, rather than your past or future. My present is tolerable, but not great. It's my future I get excited about.
As an army brat, I grew up feeling the need to reinvent myself to suit whatever circumstances presented themselves as we moved from place to place: Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Belgium, California, Italy. Throwing out whatever had seemed to work in the previous location when it no longer worked in the new (or when I assumed it would no longer work in the new). Trying to make other people happy all the time. These patterns continue into adulthood: grad school in Maryland and then tenure-track job in the American midwest. What do people want? How can I focus on giving them what they want?
John Locke be damned, it's time to think differently about my life.
The break is over, and a mere seven weeks separate late winter from mid-spring, when the term ends and I take a research trip to England for several weeks. What does the second half of the semester hold? A grant application to write, third-year review to complete, papers to grade, papers to write, a trip to Las Vegas, meals eaten out, meals eaten in, research on microfiche, considering the future, trying to get to the gym regularly, clearing out the material things I no longer need and finding them good homes, volunteering at a local animal shelter. It's only life.
Speeding motorcycle, the road is ours.
Speeding motorcycle, let's speed some more.
"Speeding Motorcycle" (MP3, 2.9MB), by Daniel Johnston and Yo La Tengo.
MP3 files are posted for evaluation purposes only. Availability is limited: usually 24 hours. Through this site, I'm trying to share and promote good music with others, who will also hopefully continue to support these artists. Everyone is encouraged to purchase music and concert tickets for the artists you feel merit your hard earned dollars. If you hold copyright to one of these songs and would like the file removed, please let me know.
I've had the four-gigabyte version of the iPod mini for about seven months now, and I have to say that it's really brought music back into my life in a big way. While in grad school I did not listen to much music because I couldn't afford the necessary time or money. I don't have any more time now, but I am able to listen more often because I take about 700 songs with me wherever I go. In high school and college, my friends and I used to buy new music constantly, taping it and sharing it with each other. I do the same thing now, except that digital media have replaced magnetic. I don't really think the music industry has much to worry about from me.
Having a Powerbook running iTunes means not only that the Apple aesthetic governs the appearance of both devices, but also that the integration with the iPod mini is pretty seemless (though that's not really the case with other devices). I'm a little anxious about what my happen when the battery dies, but mostly I'm quite happy. When my iPod mini began acting funny a few weeks ago, I took it to the local Apple store and they replaced it, free of charge. Now that's customer service.
Spring keeps playing peekaboo with us. School resumes tomorrow, and the previous week has brought a few very nice, sunny days. However, this morning the temperature hovers just below freezing. I'm trying to find the motivation to get myself to the gym this morning, neeeding only to put on a sweatshirt and some shoes and walk a couple of blocks. It's time to take seriously the need to maintain my health, physical and mental. Worrying about money comes so easily, but worrying about staying healthy seems a luxury. Clearly these attitudes need to be switched.
A moody funk has tailed me all week, but this morning I feel pretty good.
You know that song "Bring the Noise," by Public Enemy and Anthrax? This (MP3, 3MB) is not that song. (From this album.)
MP3 files are posted for evaluation purposes only. Availability is limited: usually 24 hours. Through this site, I'm trying to share and promote good music with others, who will also hopefully continue to support these artists. Everyone is encouraged to purchase music and concert tickets for the artists you feel merit your hard earned dollars. If you hold copyright to one of these songs and would like the file removed, please let me know.
...with a bunch of people who study the eighteenth century.
I'll be going to ASECS 2005 in a few weeks; I'm chairing a panel and giving a paper. If you're going, please let me know. I hope to make the most of this trip. Sometimes it seems I miss out on networking opportunities when shyness kicks in. Any suggestions for overcoming this?
Also, for some reason the only flight home I could get leaves at 1:00 in the morning on Monday, so I'll have all day Sunday in Vegas to entertain myself. Any suggestions? It's a far cry from Boston.
Don't take my word for it. Just ask Heather Armstrong. If you're going to mock someone and call them stupid for expressing themselves on the Internet in a way that puts their job at risk, don't do so on the Internet (using your real name and telling people where you work) in a way that puts your job at risk. Moron.
..."What's goin' on?"
The blogging has been sort of light here lately, I realize, but I have a perfectly good explanation. I'm just not sure how much of my life I can blog right now. The fact that Somebody got a great job is really good news, but it's not as good as if the place where I work had seen fit to give Somebody a job. You see, we were hiring in Somebody's area, and Somebody is eminently qualified for the job: published, grant- and award-winning, networked, and connected. But the job went to another person (who I'm sure will make a wonderful addition to the university). However, now my life has just gotten a lot more complicated, what with the travelling and the two places to live and the long-distance relationship and the video conferencing and...well, you get the idea. It's hard not to be angry that this decision was made the way it was made. Mostly I'm feeling a complicated mix of emotions that are hard to sort.
People I work with read my blog, and that means that in this situation there are just some things that I cannot write. In fact, much of what I write about my new life might be stuff I'd rather not have associated with my real identity. I'm actually considering closing the chapter on this blog and starting up a new, truly anonymous one. However, doing so would mean that I cannot write about my research or teaching the way I have in the past. So do I maintain two different blogs? That just seems like more trouble than it's worth.
In short, I'm still here, and I'm still reading blogs, even as I do not comment very much on what y'all are writing.
It's spring break, by the way, and today we got a little snow. Yippee.
This is how cool our neighborhood Thai restaurant is: Last week, they were playing the Feelies, and I said, "Hey, is this the Feelies?", and the waitress said, "Why, yes it is," and I said, "Can I borrow the CD when it's done playing? I own this on vinyl, but I don't have a record player," and the waitress said, "Sure," and so I stuck the CD into my laptop and ripped it into iTunes, and then a little while later I burned a copy of the Arcade Fire's CD Funeral and gave it to the waitress, and she immediately stuck it into the restaurant's stereo, and we listed to it while eating tempurah vegetables and pad thai and drinking whiskey. That's how cool they are.
I believe that you'll know within the first 15 seconds of the following track if you love this band or not.
"Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" (MP3, 5.7MB)
MP3 files are posted for evaluation purposes only. Availability is limited: usually 24 hours. Through this site, I'm trying to share and promote good music with others, who will also hopefully continue to support these artists. Everyone is encouraged to purchase music and concert tickets for the artists you feel merit your hard earned dollars. If you hold copyright to one of these songs and would like the file removed, please let me know.
Okay, academic blogosphere, correct me if I'm wrong. Here's an email I sent to my students:
On Tuesday, we talked about incorporating quotations into your papers. Many of you thought that a quote could be a complete sentence within quotation marks, without being incorporated into one of your own sentences.
I said, instead, that you should make a quotation part of one of your own sentences, and that your sentence should introduce, explain, or provide context for the quotation.
Take a look at section 3.7 of the MLA Handbook (6th edition), which says, "You must construct a clear, grammatically correct sentence that allows you to introduce or incorporate a quotation with complete accuracy" (109). Look also at all of the examples of the use of quotations in that section.
I'm not dreaming, am I? When quoting someone else in an essay, you do not simply plunk the quotation down between two sentences of your own composition, even if those sentences explain the importance of your quotation. You have to incorporate the quotation into one of your own sentences in a grammatically correct fasion fashion...right?
My students were adamant that I am wrong.
I've been blogging for two years now. What's a blog for? Why, "It's Only Life" (mp3, 3.6MB, from the Feelies' 1988 album Only Life).
I went to SCSECS 2005 this past weekend at St. Simon's Island, off the coast of Georgia. A paper was presented, beaches were walked, an ocean was waded into, and a good time was had by all.
Still mulling over all the big changes on the horizon of my life.
What does it mean?
What can you do about it?
What can you say?
You don't even know about it.
It's only life.
MP3 files are posted for evaluation purposes only. Availability is limited: usually 24 hours. Through this site, I'm trying to share and promote good music with others, who will also hopefully continue to support these artists. Everyone is encouraged to purchase music and concert tickets for the artists you feel merit your hard earned dollars. If you hold copyright to one of these songs and would like the file removed, please let me know.