Bearshorty's musings

I had Folder Review this morning, which went well, I think. It was my first time working with L, one of the directors. We chatted before and we are always friendly, and I did ask for her feedback for my past assignment question. But I never really worked with her. She was perfectly nice and helpful. I've been teaching this class for a while so I'm pretty confident about grading criteria and I don't get stressed with this (which is part supervisor assessment of you), but I still want someone who will respect my experience while giving helpful suggestions. It's nice to have that done.

It was first part of midterm today, so I got to just sit there and do my work. Next week should be less stressful work wise overall.

Before we can do the closing for the apartment there is a last batch of paperwork I had to take care of. It seems neverending. The mortgage people just seem so disorganized and non coordinated. Instead of being upfront with a list of all I need, they send me requests in batches, without explaining clearly some parts. When we got out commitment for the mortgage at the end of August, I directly asked the broker if we needed to sign it to email it back to him. He said no, just to submit to the board. We did. Well, today it turns out he did need a signed copy too. So extra hassle for me to print it, find the email with Bear's signature, scan it, etc. They also don't coordinate with attorneys enough. The attorneys have our board approval but no I had to forward that too. They sent other paperwork to the attorneys. It's like that recognition agreement run around. No wonder this process is taking so long.

Anyway, my Dad took a half day from work so we could go and get me hazard insurance for the apartment. That took about an hour but went smoothly. At least that office was competent. I will be so glad once we actually get to closing.

Book Meme
13. The fictional character you want to believe you resemble and the fictional character you actually resemble

I want to resemble Elizabeth Bennett but I'm kind of a combination of Eleanor Dashwood, Anne Elliot and Hermione Granger.

Thursday was my first day of classes. Since I'm staying at my parents' this week, my Dad drove me to work on his way to work. We had to leave early so I was there by 7am. The offices don't usually open until 8:30am but there are comfortable couches on the second floor by the offices, so I sat there, ate my bagel with cream cheese, drank my tea, and read my book. Grace, one of the secretaries, actually came in early by 8am, so she opened all the offices and, most importantly the printer/copier room. And since it was the first day of class for me, there was a lot of printing (which is one of the reasons Grace came early - there is usually lots of teachers who need to print a lot. I was first and got it all done fast.)

After printing and photocopying everything I needed - syllabi, my semester class breakdown schedule, first day writing sample, reading guide, reading homework for Monday - I also printed two potential essays to choose from to teach as the second essay in a few weeks. Our textbook is being updated next year and the department wants us to pilot a few readings to see how they work and what readings to keep in the old textbook, since after essay 2 the students need to connect two different essays.

The theme of the first half of the semester (first 3 readings) is activism. I'm starting with the intro to Kristof and WuDunn's book Half the Sky about how essential it is to help women all over the world and how that help will elevate not just women but the countries and whole of society. There are a lot of heartbreaking and inspiring stories of women in this book. I love that book; I read it in 2009, and I've taught this intro before. I usually try to introduce the concept of "agency" to my students with this essay. And for the 3rd essay I'm teaching Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted". . He raises concerns with the long term impact of social media "weak tie" activism and questions the ability of this kind of activism to actually change policy. It's a great article to argue with and will lead to second half of the semester about the impact of social media and tech on individuals and the impact of the new communication style.

What I needed is the bridge between these two essay. I was torn between the intro from We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian author, and
"The Matter of Black Lives" by Jelani Cobb, New Yorker from March 14, 2016. So I printed both essays and read them before my classes started at 10:20. And "The Matter of Black Lives" is the clear winner for my sequence. It concerns itself with US activism, social media activism and its impact, and about marginalized groups, which would fit really well with both Kristof and WuDunn and with Gladwell and will build with each essay assignment. And for me it was an educational article since it tries to organize how the movement grew and to give it context. I felt hesitant about teaching this before since I feel like I've only known enough about Black Lives Matter from the periphery and the internet but not the essential things about it. But this essay is good for that and I like the idea of giving my 18 years olds some background too so they can follow the news. I felt like I learned a lot just by reading it. And I'm still thinking about the questions it raised. The feminist essay is good too, but it feels a little too basic to me (I did study women and gender history at a graduate level at one of the best universities in the world for women and gender, so this is probably just my bias, and my students would find good ideas there, but I also want to challenge them a little more).

It felt really good to read though, to read deeply, to take notes while reading, like I was clearing cobwebs from my brain. After being home all summer with my toddler, my brain certainly needed it. I'm read many fiction books but I really needed to get back into work mode.

Classes themselves went well. It was 20 minutes of intro, going over the syllabus pretty much, and then the students had to write a writing sample for me for an hour. So easy day. During the first class I actually worked on my fanfic story for RS Games. I printed what I had so far from Google docs and wrote about Remus and Sirius in longhand. I wrote two full big pages and I felt so incredibly productive. It's due in two weeks so I really need to just finish it. I have the bones, I just need to write it. But it was flowing well, I know where I want it to go and the characters are almost writing themselves, so it's just the matter of finding the time. And during my second class I read the writing samples from the first class. I found two students who had very weak samples, so I brought those over to the director as they should be moved to a section with extra reading help.

My classes were done at 1:20 but I had to wait until 5 for my Dad to pick me up. I tried career center as they were having a workshop at 3 but as I thought it was full. So I decided to go get my school ID updated. It was very, very hot and the school buses between different campuses were very full so it was a bit of the wait. The faculty HR office where they do IDs is a the furthest possible location, so it took a while to get there for about 2 minutes of "here sit for a pic, here is your id". But I got it done and most of the rest of the writing samples so I don't have to think about it anymore.

Yesterday, was very very hot again, but Tanya and I went to the playground in the morning anyway. She being very 2 lately with a lot of not listening and complaining. I think it is a little worse because I went to work. She's definitely having a little more trouble falling asleep. She is staying with my parents tonight while I go back to Brooklyn for Yeva's birthday party at the Russian restaurant. Bear is good with bedtime routine but not actual going to sleep part - she usually wants me or my Mom for that. So we figured she should stay here and my parents would drive her back in the morning. I'm not looking forward to leaving her overnight - I only done it a few times before, and only once when we were not on vacation in Florida with her just a couple of rooms away - I know I'm going to be worried and will miss her a lot. And I'm just not looking forward to this party. But I have to go since there was a whole drama about it.

We still didn't get the Recognition Agreement. I keep calling the mortgage broker, he keeps blaming the bank's attorneys - it is really frustrating at this point. Fingers crossed that this would finally resolve itself next week and we can submit it all to the board.

30 Days of Me Meme

Day 20: Your feelings about education and school

Education and school has always been important. My whole family went to college so it wasn't even a question that I would attend. I always loved school and looked forward to it. A lot of my self image is tied to being good a school and a straight A student. And ever since I was little I was teaching my dolls too and making them learn poetry I had to memorize. School is fun. That's why I'm still in the classroom, teaching.

30 Days of Fanfic Meme

20 – Do you ever get bunnies from other people's stories or art in the same fandom?

Not really but stories in general are influencing and inspiring, just in seeing what works as a story. And certain fandom conventions carry though.

Life

Dark Matter . Last night I checked out the pilot episode since it was added to Netflix. I enjoyed it and I'm curious enough to watch more. I did think it was trying a little to hard to be Firefly with the precocious young girl with mind powers and a tough chick and Jayne like character (only less adorable).

Tomek book 8 I finished the 8th Tomek book. After 25 years this series did not lose its magic. It was certainly amusing, even the awkwardly placed exposition. The first half of the book is all about Smuga and Nowicki' escape and the second part was Tomek's expedition to try to meet the escapees. With geography and ethnography lessons in between. Both parts were enjoyable. The "twist" at the end was very obvious, especially since I could see there was only so much book left, but it left me giddy with anticipation so it was worth it. And this books made me take out my atlas again so I could trace their South American route through Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Brazil where the story takes place. Now I want to read the final Book 9 of the series and at some point reread the first seven books again.

Today was a teaching day. I started Dante's Purgatory on the train. This week will be busy with grading so I took advantage of the commute to read and relax a bit. We started discussing memes in class today. The students know "Internet meme" but they can't really define it - to them it's a funny Internet picture. After I got home, Bear was just leaving for the playground with Tanya (Monday is his day off so he watches Tanya). I had an hour and half to myself so I could cook in peace. I made a cauliflower casserole with cheese and also turkey meatballs (both baked and boiled).

My semester is officially done!

Well, I still have to turn in the electronic gradebook, which I usually do waiting for students to pick up their folders, but the computer in the office wasn't working. But I can do it tomorrow. The main thing is the grades are officially in, the folders are out of my hands and it's done.

It's a bit anticlimactic as usual but it's nice not to grade anymore. This year the end of the semester was unusually not that stressful. I was done with final exams on Saturday, with Paper 5 on Sunday and had 3 late Paper 4 to do this morning on the train. But there was not the usual last minute rush to finish everything. Maybe it's because I'm only working part-time this semester and don't have two history classes to finish too or maybe I just got more organized, whatever it is, it was nice not to be frantic.

I started with 44 students in 2 classes. 4 withdrew for personal reasons. Everyone else passed, including all my jocks. I had 5 As, which is pretty typical, 3 Cs (the lowest passing grade) and the normal variation in between. It's really amazing that every semester the grade spread for the classes is pretty much the same. This holds for other professors too in the writing program, for the most part.

After I met with one of the directors for Folder Review and all the grades were in, I passed by D's office, who is one of the big directors for the program. She actually called me to chat because it turns out she was tutoring two of my baseball jocks. She didn't tell me before because she didn't want the knowledge to affect anything. I'm glad she didn't, not because I would have done anything differently but because it would just be stressful to know that one of the directors is seeing all my assignments and all my comments etc. I'm pretty confident in my work and grading fairness and in my comments. I've been doing this for 10 years; I mastered that grading criteria but still, knowing a boss is looking carefully is not relaxing. She was really happy to hear that the boys passed (with a C+ and a C) and we talked about them for a bit. She said they enjoyed my class. I know Mike, one of the jocks, would be so happy with his passing C. So it's all great.

The best part is when students come to pick up their folders and get the final grade. Not all come but many do and the relief on the faces of many that they passed is fantastic. And some are ecstatic to get a C+ or a B. One girl, who was so serious all semester, just lit up with a big smile when she heard she got B+. My A student was thrilled. Most were relieved they passed the final, which is not difficult but you have to pass it to pass the class. One girl gave me chocolates as a thank you. (which I'm allowed to take since the semester is over and the grades are in)

It's so gratifying to see how far they've come during the semester. There is a big progress. Most got Cs or failing grades on the first paper. I wish I could keep teaching it but they rarely hire full time positions; part-time is cheaper for them.

One of my former students stopped by who needs a recommendation for Medical school. It was nice to chat wit him.

Today at work, we discussed the new reading - Ethan Watters "The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan". As part of the homework, the students had to make up a vocabulary list of words they don't know and post it in a Drop Box on the class website. The most common words not known to 18-19 year olds college students in this essay - inkling, vulnerable and bureaucracy. Sigh. I was also worried that this essay was too similar to Michael Moss' "The Extraordinary Science of Junk Food," which we read first and which the students will have to connect to Watters. And yet one girl (a jock, though) was all surface level with it: "This essay is about depression. How are we supposed to connect it to junk food?" Let's see: both are about corporations and marketing which changes culture; in both science is used to advance the corporations and to justify the marketing in the first place. But I guess that requires too much thinking.

I need go grade Paper 1s but Tanya seems to want my attention more during the days. I will try to do 8 to 10 papers tomorrow somehow. Tonight, she had a problem going to sleep - maybe it were the pears she ate this afternoon, or maybe she just needed to cuddle - so that was an extra hour I wanted to use to grade. Ah, well. I'm not really stressing about it too much.

I started to read Thomas Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd" again - I was at 20% on my Kindle a few years ago. I really wanted to read the whole thing but I think I got distracted. So I started again now and reread those pages, which seemed to go faster. But now I paused again in almost the same place because Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" came through on the library hold and I need to read that before the hold ends. But I definitely want to get back to Hardy. I enjoyed "The Mayor of Casterbridge" a lot and I really like his characters and the general flow of his prose.

I've read a lot of Asimov's short stories and his autobiographies when I was a teenager. He deserves the acclamation as one of the best sci-fi writers; I adore his stories. And I read a few of his books. But I never read the Foundation series and this year I thought it was time. It is an easy read; I'm already a 3rd way through. But it suffers from being written in 1950s. It is technologically silly in many ways because Internet exists now. And most glaringly, there are absolutely no women. I haven't met one yet. 50,000 people - scientists - move to this planet, "with their wives and children" - no girl scientists ever exist, apparently. I know this book is a product of its time and I have the same problem with the collection of classic sci-fi short stories, but it gets a bit much sometimes.

This morning I left the house to go to work orientation for the new semester. It was only a half day and I wasn't teaching or anything - but it was the first time leaving the house for work in a long time. I haven't ridden the subway since June. It was really nice. I didn't sleep to well, which happens when I know I have to wake with alarm clock. I had to get up at 6:30 - sneak out of my room so as not wake Tanya, and pump. Then she woke up at 6:50, I fed her and started getting ready. Bear made me a sandwich and my parents came over at 7 too. My Mom was babysitting and my Dad worked from my place. I left at 7:30 and was back at 1:30 and it was really nice.

I met up with Rosemary who drove us to University. It was fun to discuss new readings and other pedagogical methods with other teachers and to use my brain. I was happy to come home too to see Tanya but 'mommy guilt' is not for me - I think its silly. I think it is really healthy to have a professional focus. She didn't even miss me that much :) . She did refuse the bottle after eating her quinoa cereal so my Mom had to give her milk by spoon. I guess she wasn't hungry enough since she had the bottle fine before. When I go to work next week, I will have to leave before she wakes up so that makes me a bit nervous, but I think we'll adjust, especially since it is either going to be my Mom or Bear taking care of her.

She is sleeping right now - she is having a nice long stretch since 8:15 (before that she does her pre-sleep half an hour nap and needs a bit of reassurance). I think she knows Mama wanted to watch "Glee" and to just sleep nicely! I'm really enjoying this season of "Glee" - it's hitting the right notes, so to speak. And I'm ok with the angst since I know there will be a happy ending. Can't wait to see it. And there is great fic coming out of all the angst.

So by Thursday night I'm so tired from my week that I don't want to do much other than lounge on the couch and catch up on Internet. And I'm writing this on Friday morning. Having a cold on top of this didn't help.

I left the house early to meet up with Rosemary to commute together. I don't really need to be at work that early this semester for Writing classes, since they are in the afternoon but I needed to do some copying and I had to grade history papers, which I do better not in the house.

It is easy work day - the students turned in first Rough Draft so they were doing peer review while I could just do my own grading. This weekend would be full of commenting on Rough Drafts, so that's a fair trade.

My Dad picked me up from work, as he wants to do once a week on Thursday so he could both spend time with me and go visit his parents too. So that was super easy. And then Bear made salad for dinner (we had quinoa and salmon burgers left over) and cleaned up everything because of my cold. And then we watched "Community" which had Bears!

So nice day overall, but the week accumulates and I'm glad I get to grade from home on Friday.

I had to get up at 6am so Papa could drive me to work and I didn't sleep too well. So by the end of the day I was just exhausted. We stopped by Dunken Donuts for some breakfast and I went to the building I worked on last semester to do copying and also to say hello to many coworkers. Since I was too early for the offices to open I sat on the couch on the second floor, first reading with breakfast and then grading Writing Samples from one of my classes. I managed to get a lot done and came up with few extra handouts like "List of Forbidden Words" (like 'always', 'you' 'throughout time" "things" - students love to use those in essays).

Then after 11 I made my way to the Student Center to grab some lunch and catch the bus to my new building. It was so very cold, I'm thankful for my fuzzy warm furry coat.

In class, we talked about active reading and various class expectations. Next week the proper work starts with the discussion of the first reading. I really like the class with half of my "Basic Comp" students. I fell I joke a little more there.

Papa picked me up at 5 and drove me back to my apartment - finally. Bear came home from his parents' too (their house is closer to his work, and during snow days he needs to shovel all the snow on their property). But I was too tired for much after dinner. Leftovers are wonderful. I went to sleep early.

Today is a really cold day all across the US but at least in New York it wasn't as bad as many other places. We had 7F (-14C) in the morning and maybe 15F (-9C) in the afternoon. Not that I had to go outside but we did get ice on the windows inside the bedroom. And Bear had to go to work and I was trying to get him to dress warmer - but he didn't want to sweat in the car.

I still have my two weeks before the semester starts on January 21 so I get to be home. I did work a lot on my syllabi today, mostly figuring out the reading breakdowns and types of lectures for history classes. I'm teaching 4 classes next semester:

a. Two writing classes (Expository Writing) at University where out of 44 students I will have, 17 were my Basic Comp students from last semester (which is a great number to carry over. All students at this Uni have to pass Expos and Basic Comp is for those who need extra prep to get to Expos, based on text scores.) I don't know which six articles I'd be assigning yet - I need to see if there will be a new edition of the textbook which has new essays. But I know I'm going to start with Beth Loffreda's "Selections from Losing Matthew Shepherd: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder." My students were mostly born in 1995, so most of them don't know it. I think they should.

b. Two history classes at Local College: "Global History: 1500-present" and "Sex, Power and Identity in Europe before 1800". I've taught both before two years ago, so I have most prep done, but at least this time I can do the gender class properly - two times a week, not a three hour seminar. Today I worked on syllabi for the gender class mostly (I'm adding a new book and changing it up a little), but I also worked a bit on the readings for Global. Another professor who is teaching a section of his course likes a textbook focused on colonialism and imperialism so I'm going to use that too. I needed to figure out what chapters from it I would assign.

On a non-working time today, I spent time after breakfast watching a new episode of "Teen Wolf." That show is such a silly crack. And nice views of shirtless boys. I did like the dreams and creepiness of the episode. Also I've been reading my mystery book more. It is coming along nicely. And January 11th for get together is back on, since Yeva changed her mind and can make it. So Friday and Saturday I will actually be social.

I haven’t written in a bit mostly because I’m in the middle of the semester and I’m just too tired on most nights. And also not too much is going on. It is mostly teaching history classes, teaching writing classes, grading, and tutoring. And cooking (which I love – I made cottage pie the other week).

Well, I did have to get oral surgery a week ago. I needed extraction – one wisdom tooth and one other tooth. That wasn’t that much fun, as you can imagine. I’m actually pretty good with pain – I managed with two Advils and an ice-pack and only took Vicodin the first night, just in case. But I wasn’t handling the antibiotics particularly well last week. On Tuesday, I felt so weak that my Mom actually drove to pick me up from work so I wouldn’t have to commute back. I don’t like those days. Hopefully, now it will settle in again.

This weekend I was grading the writing papers. I did go outside to go to the store and since it’s Purim, we got hametashen.

I did take a break from “Doctor Zhivago” to read John Green’s “Fault of Our Stars” which I gave to my Dad for his birthday (giving him a book about cancer was probably not the best move on my part). I did like it and I wanted to read something by John Green just because I heard of him so much. I did read it fast – it is an easy read. I don’t think it is a book I would reread, but I did enjoy the humor and snark of the characters.

Now I’m watching the Oscars. Oscars are my favorite awards show. But it has been a while since I kept up with all the Oscar related news. When I was 18 or 19 I won a DVD player in a newspaper Oscar contest – I don’t think I can do that today. But I was still all excited for it. I even convinced Bear to watch some of Red Carpet with me to make dress judgments (I loved Halle Berry’s dress) and the opening monologue. Which I did not like that much. I like Ben Affleck joke and joke at EW expense but Seth MacFarlaine’s humor is not the Oscar type humor. His book song was just too tasteless for me. The whole thing was so dragging. He is doing better in later jokes but that monologue was not good.

I like the orchestra using Jaws music to play people off who speak too long. I’m also enjoying the music theme with Bond songs and movie musicals and the dancing.