Fall 2018 Grading: Done!

14 December 2018: Just hit "submit" on my final set of grades. Commence chair-dancing...

Last day of GWST...

13 December 2018: What an inspiring final session of GWST we had today! The students discussed their overall experiences in the class and their reflection papers. Our main aim in our revisions to the class this semester was to get them to see themselves as agents of change in the world. We added a service learning requirement to the class and made some other changes. And today? Well, it sounds like it worked as student after student talked about seeing herself as someone who could make a difference, no matter how small And rather than stay discouraged by setbacks, they are determined to keep going. Amazing.

Your "weirdness"...

12 December 2018: I got a lovely hand-made thank-you note from a wonderful student in my ENGL 204 Honors class. This class has had a lot of (good, innocent) fun with my weird comments this semester, a fact verified by her P.S.:

I am also okay being "hands down, the wokest professor [she's] ever encountered."

Nasreddin

11 December 2018: On my walk with Amy today, she told a little story about Nasreddin (who she called Hodja, another name for the character. This one involved giving a good tip for a bad haircut, and then, after a great haircut (by the same guy), giving a small tip. His answer: "That tip last time was for this haircut. This tip right here is for the last time." Ha! Quite a character! Here are some of his hits.

Marshmallow World

10 December 2018: A busy day today, with a couple of meetings, a final exam, grading, and countless other tasks. But boy, I am feeling that holiday break vibe approaching. It is in the air.  And that vibe was typified by this song, which ran through my head all day. So if this was the soundtrack of my day, it must have been a good one.

Stained Glass and Midnight Breakfast

9 December 2018:

[Catch-up post...]

Sunday was a pretty great day. I got work done in the morning, took a walk with Amy in the afternoon, and then had two great events in the evening.

First, I participated in "Stained Glass Night." Organized by a former student of mine, the event featured artists and musicians sharing their work, each illuminated by lights that turned on while they performed. (I read two poems.) It was really lovely.

Second, Midnight Breakfast! This time, since she's an official full-time Shepherd employee, we got to have Hannah on our line. Midnight Breakfast with two of my favorite people? What's not to love?

Boy Erased

8 December 2018: Saw this powerful and important movie today. I am a big old movie crier so it got to me a lot, but even for you non-criers, I suspect it will be quite moving. Terrific performances, too.

Holiday Party 2018

7 December 2018: It's that time of year: the Sigma Tau Delta holiday party. It's also the one time a year Bing and Wes wear their Christmas bow-ties. They stayed downstairs the whole time, even when there were like 25 people here. Photos courtesy of Hannah.

The last guests left at 11:08. I checked my watch. By 11:11, look who was under the dining room table.

"The Last Thing"

6 December 2018: As someone who a) worries she talks too much, b) worries she talks about things people find insignificant way too much, and c) makes lists of seemingly minor things to tell my favorite people every time I see them, I really feel this poem by Ada Limón. Here's the ending:

"...I know
you don’t always understand,
but let me point to the first
wet drops landing on the stones,
the noise like fingers drumming
the skin. I can’t help it. I will
never get over making everything
such a big deal."

Last set of capstones...

5 December 2018: "Was there anything about writing from the perspective of a sock puppet that was especially difficult?" --a question one of my colleagues asked a student who presented her creative writing capstone today.

What a great variety of presentations we had this year! Tonight's were no exception.

"Iceberg" students...

4 December 2018: I've been thinking most of the day about a student who came to talk about her status in my class. I know this student has been struggling with "outside of class" stuff all semester long, but only today did she fully explain it all. What she's dealing with--not just classes, but a job, a new baby, and a very sick older child--is staggering. And she has been moving through the semester trying to do it all without telling us.

Some students will make every excuse in the book for failure to do the simplest things. Some will make a mountain out of a molehill and expect us to move heaven and earth to accommodate them. But then there are students like this one who are like icebergs: we sense something is going on, but they keep the whole truth hidden, not wanting to share with us or burden us. Or they think we think they are playing us.

"You all [professors] don't want to hear it. You probably hear it all the time. You don't want us to dump it on you," she said. This even after I repeatedly told her to let me know if I could help. Sometimes you just can't do anymore. They have to come to you on their own time. But I also think I could have tried a little harder.

"Drown," again....

3 December 2018: Almost a year ago to the day, I posted about teaching "Drown" and how I almost replaced it but was glad that I didn't. And a semester before that, I wrote a similar post. With all the controversy around Diaz, I really considered not only moving it so it wasn't the last new piece we discussed  but even just dropping it from the syllabus

I didn't and today it was the last new piece we read for my ENGL 204 classes. I am still not sure if I should have included it or if I will include it again, but darn it, did it go well today. Playing it all over in my mind, I hear the voice of one student, who in his discussion of the unnamed narrator said, "It worked for me because this guy? I know three guys just like him." I love that connection: Diaz is writing about Dominican American men in New Jersey and this student is talking about white folks in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. But there's a poignant, painful, and important connection there.

Sunday calm before the grading storm...

2 December 2018: Actually had nothing to grade or prep this weekend. All the papers start coming in tomorrow. So--besides answering some panicked emails from students and reading one Honors Capstone proposal--I spent the entire weekend without doing any work. Today I cleaned the house a bit, finished decorating for Christmas, read the paper, paid the bills, baked some cookies, tried a new recipe, and did a walk, dinner, and a few rounds of Pandemic with Amy.

Like I said, tomorrow the craziness starts, but I feel as ready as I can be for it.

Beautiful

1 December 2018: As part of the package we got to see five musicals at the National Theater, Jane and I saw Beautiful today. I had seen it before, a couple of years ago at the Kennedy Center. It was so nice to see it again, this time with my BFF. Afterwards we took in the holiday market by the National Portrait Gallery and ducked into the museum itself to check out the (kind of) new Obama portraits. A wonderful day!

"Dreams"

30 November 2018: