Productive Weekend

I am happy to say I had a productive weekend. I was able to edit the first chapter of my diss-- I've had the feedback for a while, but I had put it off because I was working on Ch 4. Tomorrow I'll reread all the changes to make sure I think it's all cohesive before I do anything with it. I've also started an interesting book, Buy, Buy Baby by Susan Gregory Thomas-- As I'm sure you can guess by the title that it deals with consumerism and children culture. I'll write more as I read more of the book.

Progress

I did it! I finished a chapter. I get to turn it in to my advisor today, and while I am sure it will need revision, now I can say 2 down just 3 to go. My goal is to write 2 this semester-- I hope that I can do it.

End of the Semester

So, it's the end of the semester--- it's always amazing how fast it goes and how much there is to do at the end. I don't have any interent at home, it's both good and bad-- it was kind of fun to just focus on unpacking yesterday, but now today as I'm realizing how much of my life is connected to online makes me very anxious for the cable guy to come tomorrow and hook up my internet-- not to mention that my daughter really misses watching Mickey Mouse.

bad grades for blogging

I would be getting bad grades for blogging in my class-- I am not living up to my standards.

We closed on our new house, though, so that's exciting. We've been working tons and tons of hours trying to make it livable-- we're moving in on Saturday-- It will be nice to be settled again and not have to think about moving. I realize it will take me some time to feel "settled" but, it will be nice to develop some sort of a routine.

Guilt

Guilt is a funny thing. I want to keep up this blog-- and I make my students write on their blogs twice a week, but I'm not as good about doing it myself. And really, it is that guilt that is making me write tonight.

This weekend we moved out of our house. That was an ordeal-- I had no idea how much stuff we had-- my husband says that it's my books that put the truck over the weight limit-- I know he was teasing me, but it's probably true. I do own a lot of books. I was looking forward to a couple of weeks of down time before we could get into the new house, but it looks like we're going to be able to close end of this week or early next week, so back to cleaning and scrubbing and disinfecting I will go.

I did finish my book review. I asked my advisor to read it before I send it to the journal. I hope I did a good job.

Book Review

I'm trying to write a book review, and I'm not doing all that well. I liked the book, mostly, but there are all these things I feel like the author should have addressed, and didn't, and I'm not sure how to really address that in a review. I know that I really need to reserve judgment and just say what the book does-- I need to remember that this isn't an analysis paper, it's a review. It doesn't help that I'm distracted by the joys of moving. I think we've found a new place to live, so that's good, but until I see signatures on a piece of paper, I'm not counting on anything.

Crazy Two Weeks

This has been the craziest 2 weeks ever. We sold the house, we surprise, surprise, actually found a different house that we want to live in, made an offer and got accepted-- so life has been a whirlwind of paperwork and phone calls between the agents and the mortgage lenders and the inspectors. Not to mention the chaos of regular life-- trying to spend a good amount of time at the Writing Center, teaching, grading papers, trying to work on my dissertation, and get my book review turned in on time. Oh, and I have 2 weeks to pack up all our stuff and get out of this house and try to keep my daughter from freaking out about all the boxes.

I love my life-- and I feel blessed beyond belief that these are the "problems" I have and not things that are oh so much more serious-- but I'm still looking forward to the non-traditional chaos settling down, some.

Olive Oil

Today I want to express my appreciation of olive oil. It is truly amazing all of the things you can do with this food product. Most people use it for cooking. I've also used it to ward off ear infections, but today I discovered the most useful at the moment use for olive oil-- removing oil based paint. One might ask why I needed to make this great discovery?

When we decided to put our house up for sale, our agent recommended that we paint the garage door-- so my husband sanded it down, primed it, and went to clean up to paint the door-- what we both learned that night was that he bought oil based primer-- and that oil based paint can quickly stain a nice white washtub-- so that night we got out the gasoline and cleaned up our big mess. 5 months go by-- we've now sold our house and we have to get rid of paint so that we can move-- You can't throw away liquid paint-- you have to dry it out-- well, we don't have that much oil paint left, so we poor it on some old cardboard in the garage with hopes that it will dry. So, this afternoon was a beautiful day and I ask my daughter if she wants to play outside-- I open the garage door and she immediately runs in, slips on the not dry paint and proceeds to get paint everywhere-- Well, unlike my husband's hands and my laundry room tub-- I am not willing to bathe my baby in gas-- so out come the holistic treatments. For the record-- olive oil and salt work amazingly well at getting oil based paint off of skin-- It gets it off of denim ok too, but cotton, not so much.

So much for getting any work done today.

Maybe a sold house

I write more mental blog posts than physical ones-- that's not a good way to keep a blog-- much harder to keep track of.

I think we might have sold our house-- which will be cool if it happens, but i'm not overly confident at the moment. We went to Ohio this weekend to visit my sister and her family-- a much needed trip-- and our realtor called us with an offer, that we accepted over the phone-- but then the buyer was having financing issues. So, now it seems like he's coughed up the cash, but we have another couple potentially interested in the house, and since we haven't signed any paperwork yet, we could in theory accept a different offer. It's weird-- I was so excited it was all going to happen, and now I realize how much work it all will be that I'm a little hesitant to believe that it might actually be sold.

Michigan Government Shut Down

The State of Michigan has its priorities out of whack. We are currently under a budget crisis, and so Governor Granholm's brilliant idea is to have a partial shut down of the government. But, she doesn't want to shut down the departments that won't affect people, she wants to make the state unsafe by laying off 85% of the Police. She wants to save $10,000 is salaries and shut down the casinos which bring in hundreds of thousands in revenue. According to the news this morning she wants to double the sales tax and raise the income tax. Is she crazy? Does she think she'll win best Governor award if she successfully chases everyone out of Michigan? Doesn't she realize the government is in this bind because people are moving out of state as fast as they can because companies are fleeing Michigan? Loyal democrats are blaming this on Engler, but Granholm is in the middle of her second term in office-- this isn't someone else's mistake. If this was her first term, maybe I'd listen, but it's not. Every time there's a budget, she cuts funding for education, especially higher education-- which not only hurts universities, it also hurts the children of factory workers who want their kids to have a better education, to have a better job, but now they can't afford it.

I'm not a politician, nor do I pretend to be. I don't' know how the state got into this mess, and I don't pretend to know how to get them out of it. What I do know is this-- you stay out of debt by not spending more money than you make. If you make less money than you think you are going to, then you have to cut some of your luxuries. Maybe Granholm and other legislatures should take a pay cut-- take a week without pay. Maybe Granholm should rent out the Governor's mansion on Mackinac Island to bring the state some revenue. Maybe like all of the universities are being required to do, the state should do some fundraising. I don't know. But I do know that no police and doubled taxes will make Michigan a scary place to live.

GM on strike

I'm personally annoyed that the UAW is striking at GM. I understand the importance of unions and all of the good things that they did when they were started, but right now, I think they are asking for a bit much. In this crappy Michigan economy, I don't know that they can expect what no one else is getting-- there are a lot of things I would like, but I'm not getting them. I just don't want to see GM go bankrupt, because I think that would cause a lot more problems that people just aren't thinking about. Plus, I know most union members just want this resolved-- they don't want to make their lousy $200 a week-- they want to work. I feel like a lot of people are feeling like everything is just on hold-- I'm concerned that if GM stays on strike for too long that people will get tense and act out.

Read for the Record

Every year Pearson publishing sponsers Read for the Record-- It promotes literacy in urban communities through Jumpstart. I'm not sure why there isn't more promotion for it in Michigan, but that's a subject for another day.

The idea is that they try to set a record each year for the most kids reading the same book with an adult on one day. This year's book was -The Story of Ferdinand-by Munro Leaf. It's a fine story-- not one of my favorites, but it's ok-- I think the book is more known for it's drawings by Robert Lawson-- especially the one of the bee as Ferdinand is about to sit on him. That really is a great illustration-- the bee's expression as there is just this huge thing coming down.

I'm glad I can attempt to participate-- my daughter wouldn't sit through the whole book this year-- maybe next year we'll have more luck-- I did buy the Read for the Record edition though-- so all of the proceeds will help jumpstart, and I think that's cool.

Gas Main Breaks

This morning while driving downtown to go to class, I got a phone call that Wayne was on the news-- there was a gas main break and buildings were closed. As it turns out, the Writing Center was closed, so I had to call all of the tutors and tell them that they wouldn't have to be to work on time, but that I wasn't sure what was going on. So, then I had to spend time chasing down information about what the plan was on getting this gas line fixed. At 2 p.m. the word on the street was that the building would be closed until 5, so I closed the Writing Center for the day and went home. Then at 3 p.m. they sent an email saying that it was all fixed, so now I feel badly for students who might have wanted to get tutored. I understand that people like to have a good sized buffer for themselves when they are trying to complete a project. However, I would like it if they would keep people informed through normal means of communication. For instance, an email this morning when it happened would have been great-- rather than a friend calling because they heard it on the news. Or, it would be great if they could post info to the main page of the website. Oh well, as it is, the tutors got a day off, and I got to go home early. Sorry to the students who needed tutoring.

TWISTED

Last night I finished reading Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. This will have SPOILERS.

I'm working on my diss chapter that uses Speak, so I had to check it out of the library-- you'd think I'd buy it-- I own all the other books I'm working with, and I think it's a great book-- but I saw Twisted, and I thought I'd check it out and read it when I finished my chapter-- well, I cheated because it's due back at the library and I'm finding myself reading more secondary sources than I thought I would be. Anyway-- enough rambling.

Twisted-- Tyler Miller-- a tortured soul if there ever was one. I think there are a lot of guys who could really identify with him. I have to admit-- I was hooked by the catch line-- Everyone told me to be a man-- no one told me how. I like that Tyler seemed so normal-- For me, the text had immediacy-- he's a kid who isn't popular, who wants to be popular, and when he does what he thinks it will take to become popular, it backfires on him. Then, that almost does make him popular, but being a "good" guy with his love interest doubly backfires, and he's in much worse shape than he was before the book started. This sort of comedy of errors, without cheesy humor, forces him into manhood. I like Anderson because she usually has good metaphors and analogies running throughout her text-- She uses English teachers to introduce fitting texts, Dr. Faustus, Paradise Lost-- the idea of motif and analogy-- things she is using. Tyler is also playing his video game that has him descending farther and farther into hell. He doesn't even realize how connected these texts are-- that would be an interesting paper for his English teacher-- How his video game is a modern day version of Dr. Faustus. or How he too must decide if he will sell his soul to the devil. Happily, I must admit I was happy when he beat the demon, when he didn't kill himself. For a while I thought he was a goner, and I wondered how Anderson would end the first person narrator text. There are too many young men who have taken that out-- not known what to do, reached the end of their rope, and signed the paper. Although it makes the text slightly didactic, Tyler's recovery is powerful. Custodian Joe's challenge to run away somewhere warm becomes a catalyst for change. Does he have to run away to take charge of his life or can he do that while remaining at home. I didn't think his dad's response was overly realistic, but I was glad to see Tyler become a man--to fight his demon--to win.

Hectic Week

This week has been an extremely hectic week. I think the 2nd week of the semester is always the busy-- especially the fall. I always feel extra busy because this is the week we open the writing center.

I've been pleased to see how many students we've seen this week. I really expected it to be pretty dead this week, but right now we've got 3 tutees meeting with all 3 tutors. It's exciting to see people caring about their work so early in the semester.

Everything Costs

I know that everyone needs to make a living, support their families, blah, blah, blah BUT, why do all of the good, used-to-be free resources on the web require subscriptions.

I think everyone needs access to a good grammar handbook. I also think that grammar handbooks are ridiculously expensive for what they are-- rules and examples. I will agree with publishers that some are much better than others. Some are "pretty." Some truly are handbooks for dummies they are so easily laid out. But still, they are over-priced. There used to be a couple of pretty good e-handbooks that were online, and so I would refer my students who couldn't afford a paper copy to those resources, but alas, now one must subscribe. Honestly though, what's the point of giving someone an ebook when they buy the paper book? Either the student will only use the e-book, and the paper book will sit somewhere on a shelf lamenting the trees that died so it could collect dust, or the student will never bother with the e-book because he/she will get familiar with the paper book and experience doubt or hesitation toward the e-book. When I asked a publisher about just buying the e-book-- he said that it's the same price as the paper book-- that doesn't seem right-- no trees, no ink, no shipping-- A student can buy just the paper book, but not just the e-book, but it doesn't matter because it's all practically the same price.

So, now I'm looking for company that lets students view a grammar book, and uses advertisements like every other commercial site.

ps-- yes, I know about Purdue's OWL-- I just like having multiple options, and I would like to find an online book.

Smores

I didn't realize how badly I'd been slipping in the blogging department. In my defense, I've been making some decent progress in my writing though :)

But, I'm not being academic this morning. I've been looking online at houses, because I am begging God to sell ours, but I know I can't look in person until I've got an offer on this house, so I look online. It's a terrible waste of time.

Over the weekend, we went camping with friends. 16 adults, 12 children-- a little chaotic, but fun. We've been doing this for a couple of years, so it's fun watching the kids get older and more get added to the mix each year. We've made making Smores a fine art form. I'm wondering if there's a way to publish a smore cookbook.

The newest creation of the weekend was a 2-18 MC coconut samoa pie-- 2 coconut marshmellows, 18 squares of milk chocolate, a samoa girl scout cookie, cooked between 2 graham crackers in a hobo pie maker. (No one took the time to add up the calorie intake of that bad boy.)

The biggest hit is our traditional 2-3 MC PB -- 2 marshmellows, 3 squares of milk chocolate, a Peanut Butter cup-- all smashed between 2 graham crackers.

Ah, but since calories and sugar count when not sitting in front of a fire, I should probably quit thinking about smores and go back to writing my disseration.

Fall is coming

Today I ordered my textbooks for fall. I've decided to mix up my syllabus. I'm using all new books-- except for the one on tutoring, but that doesn't count. I've also decided to use a Children's Lit book for my novel this semester. I don't usually do that, but I really want to teach this book, so I've decided to give it a try. I'm teaching Ellen Levine's _Catch a Tiger by the Toe_. It's such a great book. I think it will fit with the theme of my course as I'm looking at media and people's responses to it for my dissertation-- that can't help but creep into my course theme too. I've taught books I needed to read for my research before, but this is the first time I'm really putting some of it in my syllabus. I just got tired of teaching the same stuff, and I don't have time to be researching other stuff, so this is what's going in. Now to structure the syllabus.

Collective Intelligence

Ever since I read Jenkins' book Convergence Culture, I have wanted to read Levy's Collective Intelligence, and I havent' made the time. I've been trying to write-- I had to read Harry Potter-- putting the house up for sale. Well, now, I'm finally reading it, and it's really interesting.

Jenkins uses his ideas of knowledge-- that the knowledge space is a valuable one and that it in and of itself is a position of power, but the thing that is striking me so far in Levy-- and I'm not that far into it, is Levy's position on the other. For him, there is no "other" there are only people who possess knowledge that we don't have that we should try to get. I think his ideas are much more idealistic, where Jenkins is probably more realistic. I think Jenkins is more based on subject research and Levy is more based on theory. But, as someone who doesn't want to fill out 7 million pieces of IRB paperwork, I appreciate the idealistic theory-- In a realistic sense, I see how Levy's theory is reflected in children's literature. When authors are trying to accomplish the blending of others, they often use a polyphonic text to attempt to disguise didactic moments. They are trying to live out Levy's vision.

Oh, if only there was more time in a day.