Friday, December 10, 2010
Dec. 10th, 2010 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshorty Teaching.
Today were the last classes of the semester. I will still see most of my students on Monday when they will come to pick up their folder with their grades for final office hour but today was the official last class. It was also the final exam day. As I was walking to the first class this morning, it really hit me that this is the last time I would have to walk to this particular classroom for a while. Usually, since preparing for folder review is intense and lots of work, I don’t even think about the last week that much, but it did occur to me today. This was a good semester in terms of teaching. I liked my students and while I did prefer the first section because of the room and the types of discussion, I never dreaded the second class (this did happen in the past). And this semester, I felt so comfortable in this course. I finally have a good solid handle on how to teach it.
I graded six papers throughout the day and all the final exams for one of my classes. For some reason I’m sluggish in grading papers – they are taking me longer than they should. I think I’m just leaving too many comments.
Final exams really reflect how the students are doing in their last papers – it is actually fun to see. Their exams reflect their personalities too. One person will fail because of his final exam, damn it. He was starting to pass the papers. But he is so not ready for Expos. (He won’t really fail – the students who gets a NP – non pass, get deregistered and the school pretends they took a lower lever class and then they retake this class next semester).
The best quote from a final exam: “Similarly, yet at the same time completely opposite..” Yeah.
National Geographic
With breakfast and with lunch to distract myself from all the grading I read the December issue of National Geographic. There was a nice pullout poster of the construction of Barcelona’ Sagrada Familia Cathedral. Great detail about the natural influences that Gaudi used to inspire him in the design. I visited the cathedral in the spring of 2000 and it was very impressive. (Barcelona impressed me in general and I just loved all the Gaudi work). It is fun to read about a place where I actually been.
I also read two articles. One article was about Afghan women and one was about the archeology in Israel that is trying to uncover sites relating to King David and King Solomon (1000 BCE). (I also read an article on swans but that was short and rather silly.
The article on Afghan women, which was mostly photographs, made me very emotional. I’m very grateful that I was born in the country that always portrayed women as equal to men and capable of doing any job. And while the former Soviet countries have many gender expectations and issues that I don’t really have any more since I came to America and studied women and gender and feminism, I am grateful that I was born there. When I grew up, I didn’t know any mothers who stayed at home with their children after one year – all had to work (the maternity leave policies were more generous). There was not a culture of perfect motherhood as the end all of womanhood. And all women in my family and my environment were educated. I just can’t imagine growing up in such a restricted culture as Afghani women do.
I really liked the article on state of archeology in Israel. Archeological discoveries that examine the time of David and Solomon are complicated by the political implications. Right-wings might want to use any discoveries to claim more territory and left-wings might ignore archeological discoveries or want to disclaim them for the same reason. There are also those who take the Bible very seriously and want to find the sites that really proved the existence of a large kingdom in 10th century BCE and others who think Bible was more reflecting of a later Assyrian age and that if David and Solomon really existed they were not in charge of a sophisticated large civilization. (The was a discovery in the 90s of a stone that included “House of David” in its inscriptions – it is the proof that David was a real person.) Basically this article recounts the archeological disputes between Israel Finkelstein, the proponent of “low chronology”, who thinks that there wasn’t a great united kingdom in the 10th century BCE (personally, he values the myth of David, despite this) and three archeologists who make recent discoveries: Eilat Mazar who thinks she found Palace of David, Yosef Garfinkel who claims to have found a 10th century BCE Judean city found in the Bible near where David and Goliath fought and Tom Levy who thinks he discovered Solomon’s mines. This article is an interesting look at the profession of archeology and religious and political forces driving work and interpretations.
TV
“Community” I watched the stop-motion animated Christmas special as told from Abed’s perspective. It is really disturbing to think of why Abed is seeing the world in stop-motion animation and wants to discover the meaning of Christmas. But I did love it. The pterodactyl and random songs. The stop-motion eye roll of Jeff when Professor Duncan talks about his psychology credentials. I love this show for just pulling something like this.
This is link to a very smart college essay (posted online) that uses “Community” to examine how we use pop culture in 21st century relationships. This is a fun essay even you don’t watch the show since it assumes that the reader never saw the show and explains who the characters are. (and more people really should watch this show, I highly recommended. It is definitely my favorite comedy. Lots of snarky stuff. This show is awesome and hits all the right buttons).
Today were the last classes of the semester. I will still see most of my students on Monday when they will come to pick up their folder with their grades for final office hour but today was the official last class. It was also the final exam day. As I was walking to the first class this morning, it really hit me that this is the last time I would have to walk to this particular classroom for a while. Usually, since preparing for folder review is intense and lots of work, I don’t even think about the last week that much, but it did occur to me today. This was a good semester in terms of teaching. I liked my students and while I did prefer the first section because of the room and the types of discussion, I never dreaded the second class (this did happen in the past). And this semester, I felt so comfortable in this course. I finally have a good solid handle on how to teach it.
I graded six papers throughout the day and all the final exams for one of my classes. For some reason I’m sluggish in grading papers – they are taking me longer than they should. I think I’m just leaving too many comments.
Final exams really reflect how the students are doing in their last papers – it is actually fun to see. Their exams reflect their personalities too. One person will fail because of his final exam, damn it. He was starting to pass the papers. But he is so not ready for Expos. (He won’t really fail – the students who gets a NP – non pass, get deregistered and the school pretends they took a lower lever class and then they retake this class next semester).
The best quote from a final exam: “Similarly, yet at the same time completely opposite..” Yeah.
National Geographic
With breakfast and with lunch to distract myself from all the grading I read the December issue of National Geographic. There was a nice pullout poster of the construction of Barcelona’ Sagrada Familia Cathedral. Great detail about the natural influences that Gaudi used to inspire him in the design. I visited the cathedral in the spring of 2000 and it was very impressive. (Barcelona impressed me in general and I just loved all the Gaudi work). It is fun to read about a place where I actually been.
I also read two articles. One article was about Afghan women and one was about the archeology in Israel that is trying to uncover sites relating to King David and King Solomon (1000 BCE). (I also read an article on swans but that was short and rather silly.
The article on Afghan women, which was mostly photographs, made me very emotional. I’m very grateful that I was born in the country that always portrayed women as equal to men and capable of doing any job. And while the former Soviet countries have many gender expectations and issues that I don’t really have any more since I came to America and studied women and gender and feminism, I am grateful that I was born there. When I grew up, I didn’t know any mothers who stayed at home with their children after one year – all had to work (the maternity leave policies were more generous). There was not a culture of perfect motherhood as the end all of womanhood. And all women in my family and my environment were educated. I just can’t imagine growing up in such a restricted culture as Afghani women do.
I really liked the article on state of archeology in Israel. Archeological discoveries that examine the time of David and Solomon are complicated by the political implications. Right-wings might want to use any discoveries to claim more territory and left-wings might ignore archeological discoveries or want to disclaim them for the same reason. There are also those who take the Bible very seriously and want to find the sites that really proved the existence of a large kingdom in 10th century BCE and others who think Bible was more reflecting of a later Assyrian age and that if David and Solomon really existed they were not in charge of a sophisticated large civilization. (The was a discovery in the 90s of a stone that included “House of David” in its inscriptions – it is the proof that David was a real person.) Basically this article recounts the archeological disputes between Israel Finkelstein, the proponent of “low chronology”, who thinks that there wasn’t a great united kingdom in the 10th century BCE (personally, he values the myth of David, despite this) and three archeologists who make recent discoveries: Eilat Mazar who thinks she found Palace of David, Yosef Garfinkel who claims to have found a 10th century BCE Judean city found in the Bible near where David and Goliath fought and Tom Levy who thinks he discovered Solomon’s mines. This article is an interesting look at the profession of archeology and religious and political forces driving work and interpretations.
TV
“Community” I watched the stop-motion animated Christmas special as told from Abed’s perspective. It is really disturbing to think of why Abed is seeing the world in stop-motion animation and wants to discover the meaning of Christmas. But I did love it. The pterodactyl and random songs. The stop-motion eye roll of Jeff when Professor Duncan talks about his psychology credentials. I love this show for just pulling something like this.
This is link to a very smart college essay (posted online) that uses “Community” to examine how we use pop culture in 21st century relationships. This is a fun essay even you don’t watch the show since it assumes that the reader never saw the show and explains who the characters are. (and more people really should watch this show, I highly recommended. It is definitely my favorite comedy. Lots of snarky stuff. This show is awesome and hits all the right buttons).
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-12 08:12 pm (UTC)