Thanks to Edi for sharing Santogold’s “Lights Out” video with me. The zebra print is fabulous, as is that funky hip-roll-in-a-circle dance.
Tomorrow is my last day teaching summer school. I’m looking forward its inevitable conclusion, but not the start of the Fall semester.
Because I can never leave well enough alone, I am fine tuning my English 102 assignments from the Spring 2008 rather than trying to make sense of the prefabricated syllabus I was given by the Writing Program.
Designing my own course means I have no time for even fun things like Derek’s carnival. Teaching for two hours a day, five days a week is grueling. What can I say? Compressing 15 weeks of assignments, homework, and daily lesson plans into five weeks is more challenging than I anticipated. I only have 16 students, but that’s more than enough in an intensive writing class.
Today I’m grading papers. Spending my weekends grading student writing will be my routine from now until August 15th. I can think of ten other things I’d rather be doing, but none of them fulfill my contractual obligations for Summer Session II.
I’d post a video, but I have had to limit my Internet time to the bare minimum to get anything done these days. It’s a sad state of affairs, really. Though I have been pretty good about going to the gym on a regular basis to exercise.
I finally got signed up at the gym today. I then proceeded to: do 30 minutes on the elliptical machine and swim 20 laps. I biked two miles going to and from campus. And, tonight I will bike around five miles on the Tuesday night ride. May my exercise extravaganza be something that’s maintainable.
I have to go to the dentist tomorrow after I teach, so that’ll thwart my attempt to establish the habit of exercising shortly after I teach. I have writing group with my cohort on Thursday afternoon, so that’s out too. Who knows—maybe I’ll have to start going to the gym in the mornings. I’ve spent the last two mornings planning for my 11:00 a.m. class, so maybe that not a viable time either. I’m sure I can find at least half an hour somewhere in my day for myself.
I’ve vacuumed and run Scoobie in the kitchen and living room. Moving all the furniture from one room to the next is the hardest part. Only the bedroom and the office remain. The laundry will have to wait until tomorrow and/or the weekend. Can you tell my syllabus is due on Monday and the new instructor’s companion is also coming due? Obviously, I’m procrastining.
Here’s some workout music for those who appreciate novelty. I’m buying a gym pass on Monday, which is the day summer session two begins at UA.
The band is Yelle. The song is “Je veux te voir” and the album is Pop Up.
Which leads me to another song that has enough pep to listen to while working out…
It’s Hercules and Love Affair—the song is Blind. That’s Antony Hegarty on vocals.
Last night Ryan and I met some neighbours as we all were headed to the Tuesday night ride. They live in a palatial home one door down from our small duplex. They’re moving to the San Francisco Bay area next week. She practices corporate law. The two of us talked about travelling, Tucson, rhetoric, writing, and our love of Lululemon sales. We chatted the whole ride, which made the time seem to fly by.
Tonight I’m taking care of a friend’s dog while she’s out of town. He’s a pitbull and dog aggressive, so I’m a little nervous. After walking Buster Brown I would like to see Mr. Lonely at the Loft. There’s something compelling about a commune of celebrity impersonators who all strive to become less ho-hum by mimicking someone else and in the process discover more about themselves.
I just baked a loaf of cardamom bread and some muffins. The muffins are still warm and very tasty.
Since I always appreciate cute furry animals, here’s a belated picture of the wild bunny I found while mowing the grass at my parents’ house in Virginia. Yes, he really was smaller than mom’s hand. No, he didn’t try to get away while I was taking pictures. He must have been too frightened to move.
Completely unrelated to wild animals, I decided this morning that it was the meta-issues in rhetoric that attracted me to it in the first place. To this end I’m starting a general reading list for my comprehensive exams. Steven North’s much criticized book The Making of Knowledge in Composition is the first one on my list. Strangely even writing the title makes me feel like I’m committing to a project in composition.
Why all this disciplinary rumination? I found a glaring typo in the leading journal in my field. The typo is one that makes me call into question how said journal could publish such obviously poorly researched scholarship. Mostly I don’t like to point out these kinds of errors, but it’s so sad for the field that I’ve got to blog about it at least. It’s one thing not to read some theorist or another. It’s another thing to borrow from a field, in this case philosophy, and to incorrectly spell the name of the theorist you’re supposedly borrowing from and claiming some familiarity with. I’d expect an error like that from a graduate student term paper, but not from a published author in the leading journal in the field.
A few things I’m clear about: 1) the field let a philosophy refuge like me into it in the first place, so I will always play nicely with others; 2) there is increasing pressure on graduate students to publish before they are ready and so some of what’s out there is undercooked; 3) writing studies is a lower prestige field than philosophy or English literature and so the bar for published scholarship is lower.
We walked, dined, shopped, and went to shows. Vegas is a wonderful city. It’s nice to be able to drive there from Tucson in about seven hours. The only downside is that Vegas never seems to sleep and we didn’t much either.
Ryan went back to work today exhausted. Unfortunately, I have less than one week left to finish this companion for new teachers before I begin teaching summer school. It was so nice to be able to get away before my contract begins with the writing program.
but instead i’m fantasizing that i’ll actually be awake enough to go out dancing upon our arrival in Vegas. Erica suggested espresso shots and walking the strip before bed. Note to self: must go to Vegas with Erica.
Updated note: this video was made by David Neevel entirely from VHS tapes found at garage sales. It is entirely unrelated to the song and strangely compelling with fragments of aerobics and cosmetics application instruction, a motivational speaker/televangelist, and WWF wrestling. The song is “In the Morning” by Junior Boys.
I’m bringing pumpkin cheesecake pie to Erica and Rob’s tonight. I have a very limited dessert repertoire. I promise the taste makes up for what it lacks in the way of seasonal appropriateness.
Shark attack survivor. Read the rest of this entry »
Ryan and I are travelling to Vegas with friends from Phoenix for the 4th of July long weekend. I can’t wait to see all the neon and catch a few shows.