Graduate Students and the Four Groups

On Tuesday, the professor for my class veered away from the lecture for a few minutes to tell us about how grad. students are the only group at the university who "know" they are not the top of the educational heap. He said that there a four groups at every university: Faculty, Administrative Staff, Undergraduates, and Graduates. The first group, Faculty, can say, "without us, there would be nothing to teach." The Administrative staff can say, "well, without us to organize the schedules, facilitate the registration, and pay everyone's salaries, nothing would happen." And even the undergraduates, who make up the majority of the student body can respond with, "we are the people who pays the money into the system by taking these classes. Without us, there would be no-one to teach."


Working at Night

The only group who really "knows" that they are NOT the top of the heap are the graduate students. They are the only ones who recognize that they are working for some other purposes, usually another professor. And the graduate students wind up doing the bulk of the drudgery work such as "grading papers, doing class prep. work, etc." I admit that I haven't heard this before, and when the professor said it, I felt that it was at least true for the college where I am at currently. Perhaps it is true for all colleges. I know that I have graded more than my share of papers, and I haven't even taught a course yet.

As far as my own academic work goes, I am still behind. But, I think I can catch up. I have a plan that might work, and what is more important, a new attitude. I now know that all I can do is my best work and turn it in, which essentially means to me that I don't have to strive for perfection. I can strive for "good enough." I have heard people say this before, but only now is the realization of it sinking in.

Shouting

The other night I was shopping at my local grocery store because I had run out of milk and eggs. It was about 10:00 p.m. at night, and on Saturday night. From the looks of the shopping crowd, there were more than a few decrepit-looking bachelors or young people on a "beer run." This is what happens when you shop at the grocery store at night. If you shop at the other end of the day, say around 6:00 a.m., you will be more likely to run into people over the age of 60. In any event, this stop at the grocery started out to be uneventful, and like most things in my life lately, dull.


Summer Tree

When I parked and got out of my car, a young woman, college aged shouted at me: "JOE!" I stopped and looked at her out of the corner of my eye. I wasn't sure she was talking to me. "Hey, JOE!" Okay, now she was talking to me. I looked at her. The passenger was laughing. The woman shouting at me, oddly enough, looked a little shocked, perhaps even slightly scared. Something weird was up, and she expected some kind of an answer. I said, "uh, no--sorry. I'm not Joe." "You not!?," she asked incredulously. "No," I said and proceeded to walk away. Next, for some reason, she decided to start cursing at me and saying some things that would make a sailor blush. "HEY! YOU &*&%^?! Why don't you (expletive) effing (expletive) You (expletive, curse word, and you guessed it: expletive)!!!!" As she was still shouting at me when I had made it halfway from my car to the front of the grocery store, I decided to stop. I turned around and walked straight over to her car. I got within 5 feet of her car and made a big show of reading her license plate. She stopped yelling. Without saying a word, I walked inside the store and did my shopping.

When I was done, her car was gone. So I went home without incident, and went to bed an hour or so later. But, this kind of thing really makes me wonder. Why do people do this to each other? I am a stranger to her, and the funny thing is, I think she knew I wasn't "Joe" all along. For some reason, maybe the thrill of adrenaline, she wanted to yell at me. In a weird way, the whole shouting episode makes wish it was August. I took the above picture then, and I keep thinking of how I would do some things over again if I go back in time to then.

A Slump to End Them All

As you can see from the bottom of my post, it is about ten o'clock. I got back from my class on violence about an hour ago. And, believe it or not, I have two books to read in the next thirty six hours. Subtract the time I need for sleeping, eating, an going to an appointment to the dentist tomorrow, and you'll find that time is actually much shorter than that. I've been able to read books in a single day before, but 650 pages of small typeface is going to be a killer, and I am not sure that I can really do it. It has me a bit depressed. Okay, I'll admit it, more than "a bit." But there is nothing that I can really do about it.


Bicycle and Car

Although I no longer have a cold and feel fine physically, the rather immediate school stress combines with the ongoing and increasingly difficult stress of my new home situation (I'll not go into it). I know it is a bore to read about other people's problems, especially on other people's blogs--but I got to tell you--I'm having more trouble than I normally do. Another way of saying all of this is: I actually have some good reasons for complaining this time.

One of the ways that I have been coping is by working on my webcomic in brief intervals during the day. It gives my brain a rest from the constant studying, and it helps me stop dwelling on my problems for a time. I admit I am becoming more attached to the webcomic than I ever suspected I would be. I really want it to become more popular, like Beaver and Steve or something like it. And I wish I had more feedback about my comic and how to make it better. My current stats suggests that traffic is increasingly slowly, but I wish it could go a little faster.

Out of Commission

For the last five days, I've been pretty sick with a nasty head cold. One the consequences of which has been that the dentist appointment that I had scheduled for today was cancelled. I've been spending most of my time writhing on the couch under a blanket or lolling on my bed looking like death-warmed-over. When I've been forced to attend class, I've tried to sit in the back next to window and cough discretely into my sleeve. Yes, I'm sure I annoyed the hell out of everyone with my icky display of illness, but when your graduate course only meets ten times in a term, you have to go to every class. However, that has been balanced by my recent realization that most of the students in the class were nerdier than I remember.


Reach for the Sky

So, I've been trying to do my best during the last few of days of illness, but it hasn't been too easy. The physical illness, in a way, is a just a token of the larger, more intense personal issues with which I have been struggling during this past half month. Work, which for an English Graduate student means reading and writing, has been both a refuge and a distraction from these other problems. Currently, I'm reading Charles Dickens Bleak House, a novel which is supposed to paint a portrait of 19th century London. It is sometimes been a challenge to wrap my poor, ill and infected head around a Victorian sentence structure, but I have been able to follow the gist of the plot anyway. Also, I've been reading Flannery O'Connor. There's nothing like a weird story than one written by her. And, of course, Faulkner will be coming soon. But by that time, I hope to be feeling much better.

School Again

The first week of classes here at the University are over, but I am not sure that I have fully got in the swing of things yet. Too much has happened during the last three or four weeks for me to have fully processed all of it yet. In many ways, I am still trying to recover some lost equilibrium. I know people talk about finding their "centers" or becoming a "centered" person, and I think that is what I may be trying to do, but I admit that I hate that terminology and cliche.


Farm Chickens

One of the major things on my plate for this week is figuring out how to resolve what, exactly, I plan to do in September, nine months from now. Nine months from now seems like a ridiculously far away date right now, but if I am planning on getting a PhD., I will need to apply to a school during this next week. It would have been better if I applied during the first of part of December, but as I was functioning on such a basic level emotionally, I was barely able to meet some basic needs. To be honest, I am still having a hard time thinking or planning for the future, but circumstances demand that I do, so reluctantly I will. This is the first thing on my to do list for Friday morning. If I can crank out the applications, I may still have a decent chance. I am still waiting for the results of my GRE English subject test, something needed for applications. I will let you know how I did when I get them.

Birthday Sabbatical

Well, I didn't plan on it but it seems that I have taken a month long, winter break, sabbatical. I won't go into any details about it here because it is too personal. Suffice it to say that I haven't been doing too well personally. I've had to go through some major life changes, especially within the last two days. These are the kinds of things that stay with a person for a long time. And even though I never seem to stop saying it here on the blog, I really am going to be super busy for the next few weeks. The reason: I am finally going to complete my unfinished school work. Everything is on the line.

On another note, today is my birthday. I don't normally come up with new year's resolutions because I am thinking about B'day kinds of things, so I am too distracted. But this year, I think I will try to go to the gym more often, learn to cook, develop my webcomic more, be more reliable, and generally be more consistent and confident as a person. Oh, and I will finish all of my school work. This summer and fall will be very interesting regardless of anything I do.

Finals

So this will be a very quick post just to let everyone know that I am knee-deep in work right now trying to slog the last of the term's papers. It is amazing how work these silly things can be, and perhaps the most frustrating thing about writing papers is that no matter how many of them I write, they never get any easier to do. In fact, sometimes, they are considerably harder. Of course, this could be due to a variety of reasons: my personality, the course level, the increasing demands of professors, etc.

Currently, I am working a paper for No-No Boy by John Okada. I think that it is a great book and could probably give a pretty good formalistic (note: jargon) reading of the book without doing any extra research. But of course, research is absolutely required, so the desk in my office is slathered in academic papers that only a handful of people have ever really read. But, I am not complaining. Last year, I wrote a thirty page bibliography for research I had done for my first graduate level paper. It was one of the most challenging things I had ever done, but I was glad I did it. I suspect that I'll be glad when I finally get this work done as well. I can't wait until it is all finished.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

For the Thanksgiving Holiday here in the States, I visited my girlfriend's family and had a wonderful meal of turkey, ham, and broccoli. (I know Canada already had their Thanksgiving a month before.) I wanted to post a picture of the delicious meal, but unfortunately my skills with the digital camera were sorely lacking the day I took the picture: everything turned out grey. It was an interesting holiday in that the most memorable part of it was spent raking leaves for my girlfriend's uncle who had recently had heart surgery and was still in the hospital. The raking work was messy, but I like the fact that we were helping out someone who really needed it. The town in which they live is very pretty, and I realized being there that part of me missed it. I hoped they enjoyed sharing their holiday with me, and that I was not too much trouble.


Thanksgiving Visits

That weekend, I made a special trip by myself to visit my family. (The picture above is of the barn at their place.) Most everyone was at my parent's house this time as my sister had driven up from her college in California. I spent some time catching up with them about what they were doing. I took a lot of pictures, but with exception of a few non-identifying photos of things like the barn, I won't be posting them here on the blog. They're the kind of family photos most people would find boring anyway. As for the nutria I mentioned in the last post, I haven't seen any lately, but wouldn't you know, I did see a possum. Sometimes, you can't win.

Ned the Nutria

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of ever seeing a nutria, then let me paint you a picture. Imagine a New York rat: a long tailed, beady-eye animal, with large teeth protruding front teeth. Now, imagine that rat growing to the size of a small beaver, throw it into some waterway like a creek, a ditch, or even marsh, let it live there to munch on weeds and whatever else it eats.

Now imagine that it is dark. You have come home two hours ago. And because you live in crummy student housing, you need to take your laundry to a building across the parking lot. You walk past the bushes and assume that the rustling you hear is just the neighborhood cat, a pleasant but annoying creature always trying to sneak into other people's apartments. While looking at the bushes for the invisible cat, you nearly miss stepping on the giant rat creature obliviously munching on acorns under your apartment mailbox. Since you have startled it, it dashes off towards the creek with an animal burst of speed, which startles you. Simultaneously, the rustling in the bushes dashes off towards the creek. After removing the various laundry items that you, in a fright, accidentally threw up into the oak tree, you realize you have met a nutria.


Ned's Home

I had called a couple of times before to complain about these rat like disease carriers, but today, I finally went to visit the apartment manager to complain in person. As the creek behind the apartment we live in is actually a wildlife refuge, the manager says that he will have to call the fish and wildlife department. I know that the nothing will likely be done because, as I go to a state college, and the creek is a local park, I am officially in bureaucratic purgatory. Ned the Nutria, you have won the day my friend. If I can capture him on camera, I will try to post the picture here. For now, I can only be content to post a picture of the creek in which Ned lives.

Fall Changes

It has been a full nine days since my last post. Things are getting busy around here, especially because it is getting closer to the end of the term, and I have a lot of work that I need to complete. I've got about two and half essays to write in about as many weeks. I'm not sure that I will be able to get it all done, but I have definitely changed some things about the way I have been working in the past. Rather than keep doing the same thing with more intensity, hoping things would somehow change, I decided I needed to do some completely different things to try and effect a permanent change.



Money has suddenly become an issue, which, is seriously making me think I should apply for a job over the winter break. I have noticed a few temporary agencies around town, and considering how winter shopping season is about to get in full swing, I figure I should be able to get a job an earn a few hundred dollars. I definitely need the cash. Still, I try to maintain my sanity in small ways: through time spent with my girlfriend, taking digital pictures when I can, and working on my comic occasionally. It definitely helps.

Fish Dreams

Last night, I dreamed I was a small exotic fish in a very large municipal pond of some kind. I enjoyed the wash of water rushing through my gills, and I enjoyed the strength with which my body threw itself against the barely rocking currents. Swimming forward towards the pond's above-water concrete edge, over towards the waving underwater vegetation and the kelp-like shapes of the fresh water plants, I found myself caught in the tall leaves, leaves which were poisoning me. The shock of the idea of being poisoned affected me more than the mere reality of it. Assuming a human shape, I climbed out over the edge of the pond to try and find the comfort of people I knew would take care of me, cover me with a warmth that would negate the poison of the leaves that were prickling at my damp skin.


Fish

Although I enjoy dreams in which I am other animals or people, I did not enjoy this one too much. At the same, for some reason, I can not stop thinking about it. Here it is nearly twenty-four hours after I had the dream, and I can still hold some of the imagery of it in my mind. Most dreams leave me after being awake for twenty minutes. It has affected me on a deeper level than I guess I really want it to. On a completely different note, I do appreciate the poetry of the dream, even though it bothers me.

Projects and Introspection

Last night, I finally finished a minor project for school that I had been working on for the past couple of weeks, and, thankfully, I think that I managed to do rather well on it. I will know for sure when I get my grade for it, but the instructor told our group that she thought we had did well. I definitely needed the academic ego boost. It will help when I turn my attention this week to the unfinished projects I am still working on from last term.

Primarily, we were discussing John Okada's No-No Boy, which for me, is a novel that depicts a young Japanese-American man's struggle to define what it means to be an American in a society that had rejected him. Although I live on the West Coast of the U.S.A., I think that we do not hear enough about the internment of Americans in these camps, even now when such discussions--hell, "cultural battles"--are being waged over what it means to be an American. There are all kinds of memorials, observances, and reminders of other parts of our history, why not this part? Just as most kids on the west coast here know about Lewis and Clark, they should know about this as well. If anyone ever had a desire to read this book, they should read it as soon as they can.


Waterfall Fountain

Finally, despite this press of work, yesterday my girlfriend and I decided that a trip the beach was necessary to take a time out from all of the stress and hassle that normally builds up from daily living. Just as one has to occasionally clear out the fridge from spoiled food, or clear out the accumulations of clutter in your living room, one should clear the soul and spirit from the clutter of daily routine with a refreshing communion with nature. There really is no place like the beach. I wish we had taken pictures, but we did not have a camera with us. Today at least, even though I am immersed in the daily routine of work again, I can still enjoy the mental images of yesterday's sunset at the coast and enjoy the feelings that were inspired by time well spent with my girlfriend.

NaNoWriMo

One of the things that I've always wanted to do was write a novel. Of course, I've dabbled with writing for several years, the most significant portion of which has been free verse poetry. (I try to take an imagist tack in the poetry as much as possible, and therefore I avoid meter, rhyme, and other things traditionally considered poetry. Like I said, I am a dabbler.) But, I have not really delved much into prose, except for a couple of ridiculously angsty short stories I tried to write on my own in my early twenties and a handful of short stories I wrote in my creative writing college classes. Therefore, when I came across the NaNoWriMo website, I figured it seemed like a good thing to try. Short for National Novel Writing Month, the NaNoWriMo group encourages everyone to write a novel in a single month and to keep track of their progress on their site. I figured, what the heck, why not give it a shot? As it is completely free, I created a user profile and signed up.





Their basic advice about writing is pretty sound. The thing they say is that the most difficult thing about writing is pounding out the first draft. Having written countless college essays and term papers, I can concur. Many of my composition courses, or training classes to become a composition instructor, have said the same thing. Consequently, emphasizing quantity over quality, NaNoWriMo is encouraging participants to write 50,000 words during November. As I still have a lot of my own work to do (writing several essays for college), I already know that I will fall far, far short of this goal. As with all of my creative writing, I only intend to dabble, which means I will work on this "novel" during slow moments, or when I can't stand to write another academic word. These brief moments of novel writing will be a way of loosening the stiff writing muscles for the heavier work of writing term papers. (I haven't forgotten which side my bread is actually buttered on.)

And I have a past history of doing something similar to this. During my undergraduate days, I would often try to write a poem or two (usually a bad one) before launching into writing a rough draft of an assigned paper. The assigned paper would generally come more quickly and be bit better after doing so. It is roughly analogous to stretching before running a marathon. And that is how my priorities are going to be, the real marathon is not writing a novel, but getting my own work done. The stretching will be the NaNoWriMo project. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Progress and Outlook

I finally got my computer cord during the end of last week, and I have been catching up on my internet usage for the past couple of days. I am also trying to get as caught up as I can on some unfinished projects at school. Yes, I have two final papers left over from the previous term that I need to finish quickly, as well as final papers from this term that I need to start soon. For those of you who are keeping score, these two papers that need to be finished are completely different from the previous two papers that I had talked about in months past. I did not do too badly on those papers, although I wish I had done them sooner.

Tonight, I am going home to clean up the house for upcoming inspections from the student housing office. Lest you think me an incorrigible slob, I must tell you that I am not being singled out for said inspections. Since I go to a state university, and have student housing (which by default makes it government housing), the entire student complex of over 1000 units is being inspected. They did this last term and I passed with flying colors, but that was merely because I had barely lived in the place for more than a few weeks before they came over. Now, after a full year, the house has more of a lived in feel, instead of the bare, stark, institutional feel it had back then. Consequently, I will need to make sure that the house is clean top to bottom. It should not be too hard.

But then it will be back to working on my papers. I am going to need to have the one done by tomorrow night or Wednesday. I think I can do it, but it will need some solid dedication on my part and a commitment not to get to get distracted.



Yesterday, I read the novel The Flower Drum Song by C.Y. Lee. According to the instructor, this was popular novel about a family in Chinatown that came under attack in the seventies for perpetuating harmful stereotypes about Asians. After reading, I have to admit that I was uncomfortable with some of the portrayals of women in the book, but I chalked it up as being a product of its time (which was the late 1950's). Of course, the book doesn't come close to the 1961 Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical of the same name for stereotypes. In fact, the movie blows past harmful stereotypes straight into full-on racism and sexism. The fresh-off-the-boat Chinese woman Mei Li has no other desire than to get married to a stiff shirt who suffers from a father who apparently acts too traditional. I won't go into too much detail except to say that the younger son of this too-traditional father is wearing either a New York Giants baseball uniform or a 1776 American Revolutionary fighter costume through half of the movie. I did like the Samuel Adams Fong (no kidding!) character in that he seemed to be channeling a kind of Dean Martin persona with all the attendant 60's lingo. But, it is a movie I probably won't be seeing again soon.

A Conversation

The following is an actual transcript of a conversation that I had with my computer last week. To provide the appropriate background, I must tell you that I am college graduate student majoring in English, and therefore have a daily need for a computer to do research, note-taking, and of course, word processing. (Furthermore, I am a level 10 nerd, with plus one (+1) modifiers to all around geekery.) My computer is a laptop Toshiba Satellite A45-S150; let's call it Toshi.

Zhaf: Well, Toshi, time for another session on the Internet.

Toshi: Dude, are you kidding? That's like the third time today. Don't you have a book to read or something?

Zhaf: Yeah, but I just want to check my e-mail to see if the school has sent me something important.

Tohsi: Hah! You just want to post something on your other blog, and you use school as an excuse.

Zhaf: I do not!

Toshi: Right, and I'm not a computer. Listen, I'm so sick of eating all the cookies from the countless websites you visit, I could lose my "chips."

Zhaf: That's an exaggeration.

Toshi: Uh, actually, I do feel a little sick. My cord hurts for some reason.

Zhaf: Oh my god, your cord is frayed! When did that happen?

Toshi: Man, I don't know. Ow! Don't jiggle it! That makes it worse.

Zhaf: Just let me plug you in for a little bit to see if you'll take a charge. (a short moment later) Whoa!

Toshi: OWWW! Holy Crap! What did you do? That really, really hurts!

Zhaf: When I plugged you in, there was shower of orange sparks that shot out from your cord and melted the nearby plastic.

Toshi: Aw, geez. That's just great! Why don't you set me on fire to see if I will put myself out! Not a smooth move, dude.

Zhaf: Hang a second; Let me see if I can get you a new power supply.

At this point, I call around to several different computer and electronic stores around town. Although one could theoretically buy something called a Universal Power Supply that will fit most laptop computers, nobody within a 60 mile radius has anything that will work specifically with my particular brand and model of Toshiba. I call the warranty people from the store I purchased Toshi, and after much wrangling, I manage to get them to send me a new one free of charge. Unfortunately, it will take 7 to 10 days for it to get here.

Zhaf: Bad news, Toshi. It is going to be awhile before I can get you fixed.

Tohsi: Bad news for you, not for me. It looks like I am going to get a weeklong rest from your grubby fingers pounding on my keys.

Zhaf: Um, whatever. Look, I am going to have to let you sleep for about a week. We'll talk again when your part comes in.

Toshi: Good night, man.

And that is where I am now. I am using other people's computers to do most of my computer work, but for the most part, I am not using a computer near as much I used to do. I've actually been reading more. What that means for this site is that I will not post as much as I used to. I know I sound like a broken record when I say that (heck, I sound like a hundred broken records--a broken jukebox!), but this computer issue will be the reason why I don't post for now. I'll be back when the power supply arrives, which I hope is real soon.

Academic Monuments

I finally met my new office mate after three weeks of school being officially over. He seems like a very interesting person who wants to focus his English studies in film, which, as far as I am concerned right now, seems about as good as anything. I need to figure out this whole program of English study for myself sooner rather than later. I am still interested in books, but I hardly have time to read anything outside of what I'm assigned. I can't imagine having the time to watch a bunch of films, even if they are for a class I am taking. At this exact moment, I have about two hundred pages of rather dense material to get through of The New Rhetoric, a long treatise on the nature of rhetoric. I think I can follow most of it, but it is testing my ability to concentrate on the subject.

Anyway, My new office mate has be rearranging the other desks lately, and recently wanted to know if I cared whether or not he moved bookcase. Since I'm a pretty easy-going guy, I said that whatever he had in mind was fine with me. But, the thing about the bookcase is that at least one hundred student portfolios are sitting on it, waiting for students to come back and pick them up--something that the students have generally seemed reluctant to do. (These portfolios contain the three essays and three rough drafts that this cirriculum requires them to do, plus all of the writing they ever did in class.) Consequently, even though the students have long graduated, even though the graduate student instructors who taught the classes have moved on, the portfolios remain waiting for a pick-up that will never happen. They are sort of a dust-covered monument to the undergraduate, academic past.

In any event, the new office mate moved all of the portfolios to a couple of the desks that are not being used. As he has brought attention to these portfolios, I became curious about them and decided to thumb through a couple. I was most interested in the previous graduate students, the past teachers of these portfolio authors, because I am currently in the position--hell, I am in the same damn office--that they themselves used to occupy. I noted their names and began to google them to see what greener pastures had lay in store for them after investing their time and money in this particular instituion. Perhaps their success would indicate what may lay in store for me if I worked hard enough.

The results were sobering. Out of eight names, only one turned up: Brian S. And he currently works in an all girl boarding school in Conneticut, not a University or a Community College. I suspect that the only reason that he was able to get the boarding school job is that those types of jobs are harder to hire for, and therefore will accept anyone qualified person willing to work in those conditions. You will not find many people willing to choose to live with their students beyond the normal teaching day. Part of me had hoped that because the program I am at focuses so heavily on its unique approach to teaching that all of the students would be more valuable, and therefore more hirable, in the work force. I expected to see more than half of the names as instructors at community colleges around the country, and even one or two at a full fledged University. They, apparently, are not. I need to really laser my efforts here to not only overcome the previously difficulties I have had, but to acheive some measure of distinction that will help me get a lucrative job in the future. I am doing a pretty good job with my comments in class, but I need to keep up on the all of the homework and improve my writing skills by at least one thousand percent.

Ghosts and Warriors

Today I finished reading The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston for my Asian American Literature course. I am not sure what to make of this book. On the one hand, it declares itself a memoir, but interwoven throughout (in some places more than others) are mythological elements that fight against its being classified as a traditional autobiography. Overall, I enjoyed it, but since this reading was for class, I feel I need to understand a bit more.



For example, in the first section, a young Chinese girl, lost in wilderness, is found and taken care of by two mysterious old people who train her to take revenge on the the people who have made her homeless. She is trained as a swordswoman, like the traditional figure of Fa Mu Lan, which apparently is akin to Joan of Arc. (That is, all of this happens if I understood the narrative right.) The elderly couple is described as magical beings who hardly eat, and have powers of prognostication thanks to their crystal ball, which isn't a crystal ball but actually a magic drinking gourd. Contrast those images to the final section where a young Chinese-American girl working at the family Laundry in New York is frustrated by her mother, while she simultaneously struggles to define who she is and how she fits in the Western World.

I am oversimplifying here, but the thoughts that come to my mind are this: as this book shapes itself as an autobiography, should one think of the mythological elements as an ideological framework in which the more realistic elements are grounded? What I mean is this: does the mythology provide a framework that gives readers with no knowldege of Chinese culture a cultural background that is necessary to understand the autobiography? This book reads more like a novel than anything else, and as a novel, I am thinking along the lines of the "magic realism" style associated with Marquez. I think all this might be happening, but then again, I also think this is too technical for my blog, and I should be putting this on the class site instead. Actually, I think I am going to do that right now.

Volcano!

As everyone who has watched the news in the last several days already knows, Mt. St. Helens has been making some noise and has generated a lot of interest. My grandparents happened to be painting their deck when the big blast occurred in 1980. They watched helplessly as ash fell into the wet paint ruining it. Then it was tragedy, but now, it is a family story (which most of us think is kind of funny). Now, my parents live in that house, and the grandparents have moved ten miles to be closer to town. And guess what they are doing? Painting their new deck for their new home. I know it would be a lot of money to repaint a deck, but if ash managed to make it down here in a new explosion to ruin their paint job, I really would find that hilarious.

Anyhow, while looking, I found this link to the live webcam from the Johnston Ridge Observatory (named for the scientist who died in the 1980 blast). In the interest of science, I present the following to you. Enjoy.



UPDATE: October 4th, 8 a.m.-- Scientists have said that the lava dome, that big bulgy thing in the crater of the volcano that acts like a lid on a shook up soda bottle, has moved 50 to 100 feet! They were concerned when it looked like it had moved just a couple of centimeters. Another thing I have heard is that Volcanoes in the Northwest have a tendency to explode, shooting out plumes of ash rather than erupt with rivers of lava. It looks like the darn thing could blow at any minute. While I hope I get to see it when it happens, I also hope noone gets hurt.

UPDATE 2: October 4th, 6:00 p.m. -- This information about the Volcano is really interesting. I found it on one of the US Geological Survey sites:

Northwest Indians told early explorers about the firey Mount St. Helens. In fact, an Indian name for the mountain, Louwala-Clough, means "smoking mountain". According to one legend, the mountain was once a beautiful maiden, "Loowit". When two sons of the Great Spirit "Sahale" fell in love with her, she could not choose between them. The two braves, Wyeast and Klickitat fought over her, burying villages and forests in the process. Sahale was furious. He smote the three lovers and erected a mighty mountain peak where each fell. Because Loowit was beautiful, her mountain (Mount St. Helens) was a beautiful, symmetrical cone of dazzling white. Wyeast (Mount Hood) lifts his head in pride, but Klickitat (Mount Adams) wept to see the beautiful maiden wrapped in snow, so he bends his head as he gazes on St. Helens.

I want to hear more of these kind of stories about the mountains in the news, rather than see reporters get excited every time there is a belch of steam. Oh, and one final thing, don't make that Sahale guy angry. Apparently he has a temper.

Old and New

School officially started yesterday, and like thousands of college students before me, I stood in the lines to buy a parking sticker and get books, earlier. Fortunately, as I have done this for so long, I don't have to stand as many lines as I used to. Even in both of the lines I stood in yesterday, there were at least a couple of freshman who stood in line for half an hour before realizing or being told they were in the wrong line. Been there and done that, but thank God that I know better now.

The financial aid line I stood in the other day was the only line where student's parents stood with them, which is because it is about money. But it was interesting to watch the parents and how they behaved in line. Almost every mom and dad took one of the flyers outside of the door and made their kid read one in a gesture of "you-better-think-about-this-now." The students were too busy watching each other, or pretending not to watch, to pay attention to anything their parents were saying. The one exception was a dad who was standing in line by himself because the daughter got upset over something and stormed out away from him. I felt a little bad for him, because unlike the other parents who were dressed in a New England fantasy of middle class, this guy looked like he climbed out of the woods after a month of logging. He wore jeans that were visibly caked in dirt and wore a stained white T-shirt. Later, the whole family returned to ask him what he wanted from Burger King. In a way, it was refreshing to see him there in line because he was an antidote to the bored sterility of everyone else. He seemed to be a little excited by the whole college thing.


1984

But it was not all standing in lines on the first day. Besides working on unfinished projects, I struggled with the new desk I have in my office. The lower drawer gets stuck and, unlike other stuck drawers, I have not find the right technique to get it open. Part of me wants to say this is a security feature, but then I worry my files getting stuck in there forever. Therefore, I pulled in out the other day and found a shopping bag with the magazine card and receipt you see above, circa 1984. If you click on the picture and expand the image you can see where I've underlined the dates in red. Besides the fact that something as humble as a subscription card to magazines is actually a snapshot of American culture, I was intrigued by the the similarities and difference of the college experience then and now. You'll see Dustin Hoffman standing next to himself as Tootsie, The Computer as Time magazine's "Machine of the Year," and Steve Jobs on the cover of Fortune Magazine in a funny business suit. (Sports Illustrated does not advertise their swimsuit issue on the card which make me wonder if it was something they did in 1984.) But, what gets me is there is no reference to credit card numbers on the sign-up. And it is obvious that this card is just like the standard bundle of crap that gets stuffed in your book when you buy it today. Of course, what is missing are the three credit card applications that also come with it.

I have to say that the People Magazine secondary headlines crack me up. (They're printed larger on the back of the subscription card.) They are as follows: At Home with Mom-to-be Marie Osmond, TV's Sexiest Fitness Program, Is Rock Dead, and The Herpes Dating Service. Three words: Oh my God! I have no more comment.

Begin Again

School officially starts of Monday, but I have already gone to a week long conference for graduate teachers of composition, something which was a little intimidating at first, but also a bit exciting. I'm not sure how teaching my first class will go, but I have already made up a syllabus that I think might work. Of course, it is a bit heavy on course work (reading responses), but I'm sure I could make it work. Actually, having a lot of work for students to do is comforting for me as teacher because I know that even if I screw up all the lectures, I can fall back on what they've read. It might mean more grading for me, but as a first time teacher, it is something that I can have a little control over, so I say: bad for them, good for me. Really, I'm pretty sure it won't really hurt them. If the work does happen to be too much, I can always ease up later.


The Creek

During the conference, I have been a little surprised at some of the advice that the other, more experienced graduate students have given the prospective teachers. Having been myself a student for the last several years, it is fascinating to have another peek behind the curtain and see the kinds of things that instructors do when teaching, the tricks they use. For example, when students get upset with certain policies, like your late policy, instructors blame it on the syllabus rather than themselves. Even though they wrote the policy, if they say, "well, it's on the syllabus," most students will sigh, relent, and eventually accept that the piece of paper said so. Somehow, the paper carries more weight and authority. The other thing that surprises me if how often SOME instructors are willing to lie. (I emphasize some because it is clear that not all of them do it.) Just one example: if instructors allow students to choose which essays they want to read for the term by having them write their top three choices on a piece of paper, and later that night while reading their choices the instructors discover they're not comfortable with the student choices, they will lie in the next class and say, "well, it turns out this article was the most popular," even though it wasn't. I have to say that I have heard both of these things from professors, about the syllabus and had to do the choosing articles thing, and it never really ocurred to me that instructors would use these tricks. Man, I was naive. Today, I meet with the Composition Director to discuss my own syllabus and get advice on it. I hope all goes well because I spent a long time working on it.