Archive for August, 2009
Filed under: mediaPosted: August / 30 / 2009
I’ve been busy and distracted, so I didn’t get to write about this when it happened. For our anniversary, my DH and I went to Raleigh to see Plan 9 From Outer Space. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t drive 50+ miles to see one of the worst movies ever made, but this was special — it had Mike and not-quite-bots. Since the end of MST3K, the principals have had a number of projects;the latest is Rifftrax; they comment on all kinds of movies. You can download the commentary and run it with your movies, or get shorts with commentary. This was a big “live riff” — the guys were in a theatre in Nashville, commenting on the film, and it was broadcast to theatres all across the country. So we were in a theatre full of Misties — geeky types, arguing about whose grad advisor is worse.
The show was absolutely hilarious; there was a great short about airline stewardesses, a musical interlude with some guy names Jonathan Coulton, a very funny geek folk musician. My DH and I have been MST3K fans since before we were married, so naturally we enjoyed ourselves. But it was even more fun to be in a theatre full of MST3K fans — everybody had a good time. Not what most people would think of as romantic, but it was good for us.
Today we went to the library, all of us. The Little Guy found a picture book he remembered fondly from kindergarten, and he and Miss Baby sat down at one of the little tables in the children’s area and he read it to her. We brought her more picture books, ones with animals in them, and she was delighted to be in the “book house.” We didn’t know quite how else to explain the library to her, and the idea of the “book house” pleased her. It was cute, and they weren’t too noisy, too much.
The whole house business is getting annoying. We’ve had to postpone our closing date; the people we are buying the house from are having trouble squaring things with their bank. Or maybe everything is A-OK. We don’t know; their bank and their lawyer aren’t telling us what’s going on, so the effect is the same either way. (I can tell you what bank I will never deal with, though).
Aah! Aah! Aah!
According to The Atlantic, Ted Kennedy was fond of quoting Tennyson’s Ulysses. It’s an interesting context in which to read this poem, in which Tenysson imagines Ulysses, not as the youthful hero familiar from Homer, but as and old man, reluctantly ruling Ithaca. The poem makes a good a eulogy for the senator (note the ellipses — I’m skipping a bit):
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence…
…and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Miss Baby had a happy afternoon with her brother. She laughed all through dinner, took a long and mellow bath, and then sat on me and played with her animals for a while before bed. It was my turn to read with her. Normally, we read three books, but after the second, she told me, “No books!” and pointed to the door. It took a few repetitions for me to get it, but I stopped reading and left. She was asleep within minutes. (Normally, she stays up and chatters to her animals for an hour or so).
The most onerous part of the department chair’s job, at least in my department, is scheduling (elsewhere, it might be budgeting or faculty issues). Last year, my dean was nervous that enrollment would be down, so I planned a pared-back schedule. This was a mistake. We ended up with several overloaded sections. I kept begging for more sections, and finally got one a week after school had started. We tried to recruit volunteers, but that didn’t work well, so the registrar and I moved people from overloaded sections into the new one. Most of them meekly accepted their fate (freshmen); but several complained. All of the complainants were athletes, who said they couldn’t possibly have an afternoon class because they had afternoon practice. Practice is after the class — granted, right after — but I figured they could just hustle. After all, they’re athletes. So I’ve been dealing with cranky e-mail and phone messages for the last two days, but I think everyone is sorted out now. The Registrar says, “Welcome to my world,” to which I replied, “Reason number 342 not to become a registrar.” She laughed.
Next year? I demand to make the schedule I want. Composition classes out the wazoo.
It’s funny, except when it isn’t:
OK, so… I’m about ready for the whole menopause thing. I’ve been doing the whole fertility thing since I was 11, and I’m ready to move on.
Ask me again next week.
Today was the Little Guy’s first day of school, and he had a good time. He likes his teacher, he got to have PE, and he knows several of the kids in his class. He says that the girl who sits next to him teases him, and he still had a good day.
We all remember what teasing means in second grade — I’m guessing she’s got a crush on him. We’ll see how that plays out (How willing is she to develop/feign interest in trains?).
This semester I am teaching in the evening again. I have an evening section of ENG 102, which is sort of the intro to literature class. I like night students; many of them are military, and they are trained to do what they are told. The civilians are all paying for this themselves and are thus highly motivated (plus, for many of them, the intellectual stimulation is a treat, and the degree is a long-desired goal).
Last night, we had one student who decided that he had to explain to me why literature is crap. He explained that he doesn’t want to read a novel about someone else scuba diving; he wants to read about how to scuba dive and then go do it. Reading is a waste of time. The other students and I all argued with him for about 15 minutes, until one woman said, “Can we please stop talking about this?”
When I suggested to him that perhaps there were things he couldn’t do, he replied, “Like what?” Another student suggested, “Climb Everest!” I warned him: “Don’t dare him, he’s got to finish the class!” He argues that having been present for both his children’s births means that he doesn’t have to read about motherhood. He knows. (It’s a good thing he was sitting in the front row so that he couldn’t see all the women in the class rolling their eyes).
(A note: I am not arguing that men can’t understand how women feel; exactly the opposite. Literature can help men understand women. But I think it’s fair to say that watching your wife give birth is a different experience that actually giving birth — I know my DH was more nervous than I was, because there wasn’t much he could do to help with the C-section. I was hopped up on painkillers, so I was far less stressed out.)
Besides making it clear that he’s a rather obnoxious guy, it was a good conversation. It was nice that the other students were able to defend the value of reading literature, and now, whenever he brings it up again, I can say, “We’ve already had this conversation. You can’t get your degree without this class,” and get back to the dreaded literature.
