Phi Theta Kappa

Our chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, Beta Xi Zeta, is gearing up for a very busy semester! Our students have already mailed 350 letters to eligible members, have begun taking applications for new members, and staffed a booth in the commons for Student Organization Day.

In the next few weeks, we will hold two orientation session for prospective members, process more applications, organize an induction ceremony for new members, and plan our trip to Grapevine, Texas, for the annual international convention. We also have a Better World Books project in the works, and one of our students will receive recognition at a ceremony and luncheon for being selected for the All-MN Academic Team.

On top of all this, we need to hold two meetings a month, create an officer training session, find new officers, and organize engaging events/activities to fit our Honor's Study Topic and Service Project programming.

Flu Kitteh

As many of my students know, my house was visited by the Flu Kitteh two weekends ago. That cat is still takin' sips of my soda, I think. May you all escape his wrath.

Toddler's Thoughts

Today, my daughter, who will be four at the end of May, had two funny observations.



1. "Your eyes are very green, " she says as she chews her cheeseburger. She then adds, "Just like a pickle."



2. While discussing birthdays she comes up with these four thoughts one after another: "I like white cake. It is white like the snow. There could be snow on my cake. I like to eat snow."

I think she is pure poetry today.

Prairie Fire

I am co-editor of Prairie Fire, a campus anthology of student writing and art. I could not be more thrilled that, after numerous delays, the second edition is here! We are so excited to have a nice mix of short stories, poems, a speech, and art!

Students whose works were published in the anthology recieve a free copy, but it is also for sale in our campus bookstore. Isn't the cover lovely? It was created by Tabitha Andrews, one of MSCTC's graphic arts students. The layout was designed by our talented Kirsten Birst, another graphic arts student. Both put forth a lot of work to get this pulled together!

John Updike

Author John Updike passed away. Students in my online and hybrid ENGL 1102 courses have read his short story "A&P." The other section will be reading it soon. I had to read Run, Rabbit, Run in a novel course during my college years. Updike's unflattering depiction of Rabbit's wife, Jenny, was one of those descriptions that has stuck with me for years! I would quote it, but I do not have my copy here, and our library does not have one either! :(

Dissecting Literature

I really dislike the term "dissect" when students apply it to literature. A short story is composed of many parts: plot, characters, setting, etc. We can look at each element and appreciate how the author creates, manipulates, or portrays each part. We don't leave each part lying exposed on a table in a lab, though. What I want students to understand is that reading critically may require them to look at the parts, but the ultimate goal is to pull the parts of a story together to make the best sense of it. What good is it to discuss the characterization of Faulkner's Emily Grierson if we ignore the various settings that influence her character and our understanding of her situation?


A few weeks ago, a colleague who was preparing a "why do we need to read lit" sort of presentation for her own class asked me why I read. My immediate summary was "because it reaffirms what I already believe and it challenges me to explore new beliefs." I value both sides of that relationship. I don't want to be merely pat on the head and told I'm right all the time. I want to be challenged to think about issues in new, interesting ways. I'm dumbstruck whenever I'm confronted by others who are only interested in the head patting. Honestly, I often don't know what to do with these types.

Oh, and I don't have all the answers nor do I love all the literature we read in class. That's why I chose some of them!

No Frills

This weekend I was able to spend time with my mom, two sisters, niece and daughter in a cabin tucked away in Itasca State Park. We worked on our pictures and other various projects. This was all fun, but on the drive home I was thinking about my family and what I admire about each person. Many fine qualities pop into mind, but the one that I kept returning to over and over is that they are genuine. They are not obsessed with unnecessary frills. They are not high maintenance people, and this is a trait I value both in myself and in those around me.


Evidence of frills and excess abound. On my way to work yesterday, I was driving behind a Cadillac Escalade truck. It was, considering the amount of salty, dirty snow on the roads here, very pristine. The pearly white paint truly glistened in the early morning light. As we motored along, I wondered if the driver--a female--felt better about herself for driving that rig. Does she feel superior for having that particular truck and maintaining it in such a way? Is that what makes her happy? Honestly, maybe she doesn't think of it at all. I decided that even if I had the money to drop on an Escalade, I wouldn't want one. I've never driven one; it may have the best ride and amenities, but I don't want one just on principle. I am content to drive my little four-cylinder Compass, Blaze. She left a smudge of white road matter on my black pea jacket this morning. She is not high maintenance and we get a long fine. Truly, if I had the money right now, I would buy an older Jeep Wrangler before I bought anything else.


On such morning drives, I can't crank my music because my daughter is in the vehicle, so I have a lot of time to daydream on the way to "playschool." Yesterday, after the Escalade was out of sight, I started thinking about the uselessness, in general, of earrings. What is the deal with jewelry? In particular, have you considered the marketing for earrings? They are supposed to somehow frame our face or be an expression of our personality. If I don't wear them, then, do I have no personality? Have you ever heard of a girl who said her boyfriend/spouse asked her to dance or loved her because of her earrings? Probably not. I have a colleague who makes beautiful earrings, and I once picked out a lovely green pair, thinking how nice it would be to start wearing them again. I just can't seem to find time in the morning to remember to put on any jewelry. My sisters and mom also are not obsessed with jewelry. We don't typically get it for Christmas or Valentines. I currently have two quality necklaces: one pearl and one emerald. I have worn each only a handful of times. They will, however, one day be passed down to my daughter and that is reason enough for me to keep them.

Maybe all this stems from the fact that I hate shopping in general. I have not been to the mall since the weekend before Christmas. I don't have any plans to go there any time soon either. One reason is just that it's been too damn cold to go gallivanting about town, but primarily I just avoid those places at all costs. If I go shopping, it's pretty basic: I go straight for Eddie Bauer. Not frilly. Not excessive. I sometimes treat myself to something at Cold Water Creek (usually for school-related purchases), but that's once a year at most. Yep, take me to a thrift store or Kohls, and I am content.

Now, however, I have the urge to stop by the Boys' Ranch on my way home to see what kind of sweaters they have in stock. There are a few months left of winter, after all, and with the heat turned down in my office, I am in need of some thick, woolly warmness.

Random Reading

I was reminded today that I haven't posted in awhile. Since I taught 1102 tonight, reading is on my mind. Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to read for pure entertainment lately. As the semester started, I was sort of shuffling between two books: Bliss by O.Z. Livaneli and Mayada, Daughter of Iraq by Jean Sasson. I haven't had time to finish either, though both are intriguing. I have been focusing on related readings for awhile.

Today, my mom gave me a book called by Immaculee Ilibagiza called Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. There is also a DVD, The Diary of Immaculee. I could barely watch Hotel Rwanda, so I'm not sure how much I look forward to reading this, but it's important, so I will. Just a few other books I have lined up:

Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlossser
Affluenza (have skimmed snippets already) by John DeGraff, David Wann, & Thomas Naylor
Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Muhammad Yunus
The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David Shipler

The good news is that some of these also relate to the Phi Theta Kappa Honor's Study Topic and could be incorporated into our chapter activities. The bad news? Well, I probably won't get to these until summer!

Blogs

After some minor obstacles with invitations not going through, my students are getting on the course blogs and posting practice messages. Yay!

This semester, I have four classes out of five using blogs:

College Writing II Online (using them as a step up from journal writing; not quite as formal as an essay).

College Writing II On Campus (using them for journal writing)

College Writing II Accelerated/Hybrid (same as the online course)

College Writing I On Campus (mostly as journals, various short assignments such as topic proposals possibly).

Done...almost

The 0050 syllabus and schedule are done. The 1102 on campus syllabus is done, but schedule needs tweaking yet. 1101 is still pretty much a mystery, but since that class was assigned to me at the last minute, it has been relegated to the bottom of my class-related-to-do-list.

(and an hour later--the schedule is done. 1101 is all that is left! Yippee!)

Today

I have finished:

1102 Online syllabus
1102 Online Units 1 & 2 (major overhaul)
1102 Accelerated syllabus
1102 Accelerated Units 1 & 2 (major overhaul as well)

I have to complete:
0050 calendar (restructured to fit 2 day format instead of 3)
1102 on campus schedule (restructured to fit 3 day format instead of 2)
1101 syllabus and schedule (I haven't taught this since last spring, so major revisions will be necessary)

Wish me luck.

No Snacking!

Just wanted to post about this wierd development: I have stopped snacking. Not entirely, but overwhelmingly close! Since Christmas, I just have not been that hungry at all, but even as my appetite slowly returned over the last week, I've almost completelely ignored the potato chips in the kitchen, shirked chocolate of all kinds, and put down candy while thinking "hmmm...don't really want it."

I wonder how long this will last!

Email Purge

To continue the theme of purging unnecessary clutter:

Today I purged my Groupwise (email) inbox. I haven't quite deleted the 300 messages in my inbox, but they are archived and sorted into the appropriate folders. Then I went through my archive and sorted the 1000+ messages there. Tonight or tomorrow I shall delete with a vengeance. I've heard of the systems of sorting by "do now" "do tomorrow" "do soon" but that system doesn't work for me. Many of the emails I get are not action items but informative material that I may need to refer to later. I guess I could save them in a folder on my computer, but it is so much easier to access/sort when it is in Groupwise.

I did delete a plethora of email though, and by midterm I will comfortably delete all student email from this past fall. I hang on to those for a little while just in case a question/issue comes up.

I currently have 2 emails in my inbox and will "deal with" those tomorrow!

Purge III

13 more books--GONE!

Purge II

Ran through a couple more shelves on the big bookcase. Getting rid of:

Royal Secrets I, II, III (3 VHS tapes. Yes, I still have quite a few).
Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland (4 VHS tapes)
Shakespeare in London AND As You Like It (2 VHS tapes--will bring to MSCTC Library, I think)
Edinburgh, North Wales, The Cotswolds, Bath (VHS)
England (VHS)
Ivanhoe (6 VHS tapes)
Ivanhoe (the book)
2 Edith Wharton books. Ya know what? I don't even really like Edith Wharton. Why have I held on to these for so many years?
A Shropshire Lad by AE Housman (Ok, so I started to thumb through it and ended up putting it back on the shelf. Damn poetry. It can sneak up on a person like that. Am resolved to keep typing now and not skim anymore pages of other books).
The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edward the Second by Marlowe
Macbeth (have several copies anyway)
Four Tragedies of William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear). Oh, and that reminds me of this photo I ran across whilst Stumbling yesterday.

Now I only have two or three shelves left, but I can't get to them until the Christmas bins are put away! :) Pretty good start, wouldn't ya say?


Consider this: I moved all this stuff down to Arizona and back up to Minnesota, then over to Fargo. WHY?????

Purge I

So today I went through one bookshelf. Here is what I am getting rid of:

Possession by A.S. Byatt
Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman
Strangers and Sojourners by Michael O'Brien
9 various historical fiction books about England
Billy Budd and other stories by Melville
Gone w/the Wind by Margaret Mitchell AND Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley
a book of modern poetry
The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe
101 Costumes by Cummings
The Age of Agony by Williams
Two books about the Black Plague
one children's book about the Magna Carta
The Western Experience textbook.
The Princes in the Tower by Alison Weir

Now, these are books that
a. I never read
or
b. I read and enjoyed but don't hold deep attachment to

Stay tuned for Purge II!
PS If you want any of the books listed, dear friends, please let me know! You are welcome to them.

A New Year ...a New Outlook

The New Year is exactly twelve hours and thirty-seven minutes old as I write this. I have gone back and forth about resolutions, since I know I don't keep them, generally, anyway. But I do have intentions. I want to blog more often. I want to contact my friends more often. I want to simplify my home.

This has been a long time coming. I surround myself w/clutter. Clutter of memories and of hopes. Each object in my house is, if not practical, a memory of a person or place. Some are objects that in some respect are supposed to represent me or my tastes. But that is shallow. I am not my possessions. Many have come to that conclusion far before me, and I've believed it for awhile, but it is really hitting home right now for me how intensely this has come into focus today as I walked through my house, thinking about a families who have lost all their possessions for various reasons.

Besides pictures, there is not one object in my kitchen that I could not live without. I would miss a few things, such as the handcrafted shelf from my aunt that I have had since I was about seventeen or eighteen, but I will always remember that shelf and who it came from and why.

The dining room is a bit more complicated. I love my desk. It is not a roll-top but is fashioned after one. It's big though and I don't work at it. It stores all my projects and paperwork and miscellaneous office products. On it are a wire sculpture of Big Ben, something I bought myself from Target. But I've seen Big Ben. I have pictures. I don't need a cheap, somewhat crooked statue to scream "Look, Jennifer is an anglophile." On the other hand, the CD player is a must--but any CD player with decent volume and bass will do really. I would like to keep my digital picture frame even though I have not used it in probably almost six months. I would like to use it. All my other "stuff" gets in the way of stuff that matters and consumes a lot of my energy.

I have a few other collections in my dining room. I collect little castles. Sand castles but also other miniatures. I've received a few as gifts as people know my tastes, but a few I just picked up at thrift stores. One I bought at Westminster Abbey and another at the Tower of London. Those are the most authentic and the "must keep" type. Similarly, I collect mugs from, mostly, the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. I get those as gifts too and love them all. Each mug I have has a different design. A couple non-Ren-related mugs blend right in--a leather covered beer mug, a goblet I purchased in Wales. A mug from the old Union Station restaurant in Bemidji, Minnesota. Those are all keepers.

Most of these objects reside on two bookcases. I have sorted through my books two times in the last couple of months and I only pulled 10 books or so to get rid of. I have a severe attachment to books, whether I've read them yet or not. There is a wide variety--from general popular fiction and literature to small collection of medieval/U.K. related nonfiction. I have more books upstairs, in my living room, in my bedroom, and packed away in the basement. I simply cannot part with many, but I have vowed to violently purge them before school starts. I'll keep you posted.

The other problem area of the bookcases is the pictures. Picture sit on many of the shelves (in front of the books as there just is not room for them to reside side by side). The problem is that i have more in albums on another shelf, and a dresser full of pictures upstairs in our guest room that I need to sort and put in books yet. I have my daughter's first three months organized and in a book, but the rest are mostly stored on my computer and CDs yet. That is not good because again, this is more important to me than dead lifeless books collecting dust on the shelf. There. That is my motivation to get on this!

The theme continues in each room of the house--daughter's bedroom, my room, linen closet stuffed full of ....well....stuff. What would be lost by losing some of this stuff? Not much. Maybe some level of comfort and ease. Maybe a sense of accomplishment? Look at me and all my stuff. Maybe nothing would be lost and all could be gained. Sense of peace. Sense of direction. Properly aligned priorities. That is my intention for the New Year. I'll start with the books as one should always start with the hardest part.

Wish me luck.

Lessons

Yesterday after I picked up my 3 1/2 year old from pre-school, we went to Arby's. With a flash of the debit card, we whisked away with our food. While waiting at a red light, I thought about all the great things I had heard lately about the holiday lights display at Lindenwood Park. I pulled over and ate my cheddar roast beef sandwich quickly so I could enjoy it in all its hot, cheesy goodness. I set up McKenna with her food and milk, and we headed for the other side of town, dodging the snow drifts not yet obliterated by the snow plows' blades and skidding sideways to stop at the rush-hour filled intersections. She and I chatted about the lights and what we would may be see all the while.

Once we arrived, I realized the attraction cost $5, a fact no-one mentioned in the raving reviews. Since, as usual, I did not have cash nor checks on hand, I turned the Jeep around and faced the daunting task of explaining to McKenna why we could not drive up to the lights taunting us from just around the bend of the road.

Our conversation:

Me, in very apologetic tones: "Honey, Mommy didn't bring any money, so we can drive in to the park to see the lights. I'm sorry. We have to go home now, but maybe we can come back tomorrow. What do you think?"

McKenna, in a wise and weary voice: "Well, I think you should have a purse, and I think you should put some money in it."

So much for the ease and convenience of the plastic.

Technologies

The last few days have been fun. I learned how to participate in Second Life. I teleported into some strange places, was kicked off some islands (I didn't know they had security devices on their homes; if I got too close, I was flung away like unwanted trash), and danced for an hour to great Celtic music straight outta Dublin. As I learn about some interesting places, I'll post the slurls here.

Today, I also was cleaning out my email inbox and read an old newsletter from a listerv I subscribed to. It contained a link to Screencast-O-Matic, a software program to capture video of one's computer screen. I have been looking for this! I knew this was possible but hadn't found good free, easy-to-use software. Yes, I will admit, I even tried to video record it with a camcorder, even though I knew the refresh rate of the screen would allow for that to work. C'mon! I was desparate!

Not only is Screencast-O-Matic free, it is easy to use. Within ten minutes of creating an account, I had produced my first screen cast. Yes, it was a rough draft--no sound/voice-over and some awkward pauses--but it was just a test to see how easy it was. And it was. Easy, that is.

Since many of my online students struggle with written directions for how to save their Word files as .rtfs, creating a blogger account (yes, really), and accessing, as well, as participating in, the course wiki, this will be a life saver. Man, oh, man. Talk about appealing to the visual learners! The applications for this tool are overwhelming! Woot!

In related news, I've been pondering the increasing number of accounts I have to log into just to do my daily work. Blog, wiki, D2L, work and home email, my computer workstation, print servers, copier codes, and so on. In a few minutes I brainstormed quite a few! When I add the non-daily accounts (FaceBook, MySpace, Flickr, Wordpress, etc.), I was a bit overwhelmed.

Then I turned back to the papers on my desk, picked up my pen, and got busy grading again.

Wordless Wednesday