20131001.0741

I have in past years referred to the month of October as Death Month, for it has had an unfortunate tendency to claim the health or life of members of my family.  Both of my grandfathers died in October, for example.  I spent many Octobers ill, and indeed contracted mono at the end of October during my first year of graduate school.  I recall that some rather unfortunate diagnoses came through in October, as well, and what I recall of the family legendry notes that many of the dates of death in earlier generations fell in the old eighth month.

The past months--nearly a year now, actually--have produced quite a shift away from that.  Deaths among those I have known have been happening throughout the year, not confining themselves to the early autumn.  Major upheavals have taken place time and time again since December, and most of them have been far other than pleasant; even those that have been good have been stunning in their magnitude.  Hair-tearing somehow comes to mind.

So as October begins amid a governmental shutdown for me (since I live in the United States), I find that I cannot accord it the same label I have given it in years past.  I do not know that the label will not be accurate--although I very much hope it will not be.  I do know that it no longer serves to differentiate this month from the others, hence my refusal to use the label again this year.  And I cannot say that I am entirely pleased with the change, particularly given the price paid for making it.

Such prices are charged and paid whether or not those who are billed and whose accounts are debited are aware of them or consent to them--as public events have served to return to mind.  I know that my own reserves have been quite depleted of late, sometimes by my own expenditures and for my own goals, sometimes by fees incurred along the way.  And I have trouble balancing accounts; there are factors involved, compounded interest and taxes and penalties and various other numerical trickeries, of which I am ignorant.  (Some will say, no doubt, that it is the foolishness of my seeking training and work in the academic humanities that has left me thusly ignorant, and that I deserve to suffer therefore.  Fuck those people.)  I am not certain that I trust that matters balance out; I feel very much as if I am in the red, as if I have paid more than I have earned, and that I will never be able to earn enough to offset the expenses that I incur simply from being in the world.  Those I take on in the attempts to find work at all--I have long since abandoned any pretense of being entrepreneurial--add to the burden, as I increasingly think true for all.

Where there is any debt relief, I am unsure.  If there is any such debt relief, I am also unsure.

20130930.0634

With the end of the month has come a paycheck, and that means that the day is already much improved.  I have been worried about money, as could be imagined; the move was draining to the household finances, and with a new member joining the household soon, the budget that was doing decently well for two people will need to be refigured.  My loving wife is looking for work, herself, but I am aware of the relative tightness of the job market--a tightness increased for those who have graduate degrees and are looking for work outside of the regular times.  For she arrived here too late to pick up any adjunct teaching (not that that pays terribly well), and given when our child is due, next semester is not looking good for her, either.

There do seem to be problems for her, and those like her, in finding work outside of academia.  She worries, and my own earlier job hunt has shown me why, that having multiple graduate degrees makes her look...odd...when she seeks more "normal" employment than standing in front of a classroom.  Despite the fact that having graduate degrees bespeaks a degree of focus and loyalty, as well as attention to detail and the ability to process vast amounts of information reliably and accurately, many people do not want to hire the more formally educated.  And it is not an issue of seeking "high-powered" jobs, necessarily.  I was looking for beginning writing and editing positions.  My wife sought--and did not get--receptionist jobs, and has applications filled out for retail work.  Yet callbacks are few, despite the search and the breadth of work sought.

I have been fortunate.  My current position may not be high-powered (or highly paid), but it offers regular hours and benefits (which are coming in quite handy now, I might add).  It is not a continuing line job, but it does offer me a base from which to seek such jobs--and I have, I think, a strong possibility of renewal (I was observed recently, and the observer seems to have been pleased with the way I do things, which will surely help), provide funding remains available.  I do not discount this.  But I am also aware that not all are so lucky in that regard, and it is not from a lack of willingness to work, and it is not from overweening pride and a refusal to take available jobs (for the most part; I cannot fault someone for avoiding certain work in the light of certain medical situations or religious proscriptions).  And if it is the case that the entrepreneurial route is available--what is the rate of failure for new businesses?

There are more applications to fill out, more letters to send out, and more positions to search out.  People are hiring, or they will be soon, and it remains only to find them at the right time.  With luck, one of the blasted things will give us a single, happy word: yes.

20130929.1939

I have tried to put together a blog post several times today.  Each time, I have found myself stymied by the task--which annoys me, since I so often start my days with a brief note on this blog.  That I would have trouble writing one when fully awake and aware, as opposed to when I am still working to get caffeinated, confuses vexingly.  If anything, it ought to be the other way around.

As I think on it though, I am minded of the implications for my teaching.  I spent a fair bit of time today grading papers instead of being outside and enjoying the wonderful weather that the Stillwater autumn has been offering (and I am happy to have two classes of my four taken care of, for I have yet a fair bit to do before heading to New Orleans for my next conference).  As I read over my students' writing, I was, typically, somewhat...miffed...at some of what I saw in the pieces I was reviewing (I do my students to favor of looking at drafts before the full versions of assignments are done; whether it helps or not, I do not know but I am at least trying to make things better for them).  But now, as I think back over my attempts to put together a brief blog piece today, it occurs to me that the challenges I face in putting together words are likely magnified greatly for my students, who do not have the benefit of my theoretically greater experience and exacting and magnificent training (and I do thank my professors for their time, attention, and indulgence).

I am not able to adjust my evaluations to reflect the revelation, of course.  I had sent my comments back to the students before I started this bit of writing, for one.  For another, I evaluate the work submitted to me rather than the workers; however I may feel about the people, my job is to treat the writing they submit to me, and whatever circumstances lead to its quality, I can only address the quality.  And that has not always been good, certainly not as good as I know most of them can produce.

I can, however, adjust my attitude to reflect the revelation, and that will impact the teaching which will, with luck and the efforts of the students (one cannot lead those who will not follow, and "education" means "leading out"), result in better writing--and better thinking that underlies it.  How I can parlay my experience in having some difficulty putting words in order to help students address their own difficulties in that regard, I have yet to figure out, but I think that I will be able to do so--someday.  I do not think I am there yet; I do not think I am yet that good at the front of the room, although I am continuing to work to improve.  With luck, I will have time to do so, and I can be of some help to my students in the meantime.

Maybe.

20130928.1048

It has been a while since I explicitly commented on political matters in the sense of "political" as "having to do with Washington, D.C., policymakers and their antics."  It may be a while before I do so again.  But I feel the need to do so now, because I am honestly and frankly worried about the possibility of another government shutdown in my lifetime.

I remember the one during the Clinton administration.  I remember being a child in my parents' house on the outskirts of a Texas Hill Country town and watching the shutdown loom larger.  And I remember being quite worried, for then as now, the majority of my parents' household income came from my dad's paycheck--and he worked for the VA Hospital.  I suppose some people could say that he needed to be working a "real" job in the private sector, one where he was not sucking at the public teat and draining tax dollars collected unjustly and in too great a number from private enterprise--because of course all federal employees work for the government because they are not competent to work anywhere else.

A sarcasm font would be helpful.

Dad still works for the VA, and while neither of his kids are at home anymore, I imagine he is still not thrilled about the prospect of his paycheck being switched off again--and possibly not restarted, if something I heard on the radio as I was buying food yesterday is correct.  And now I work for a state agency, one that receives a fair bit of funding from federal money--yes, yes, I, too, am sucking at the government teat, draining away the hard-earned money of real Americans so that I cam cavort without oversight in the ivory tower and undermine the beliefs of the youth in what the Founding Fathers in their infinite and undying wisdom intended for the US to be.

While I am insulated by several layers of bureaucracy and governmental division from the sources of the shutdown problem, the possibility remains that my paycheck will be inhibited by the shutdown, if (more likely when) it happens.  And I am not the only one who depends on that paycheck at the moment...

I have not, so far as I know, been in Oklahoma long enough to establish residency or be eligible to vote (if any of you know, please tell me).  But that does not mean that I am not paying attention to who is doing what in the lead-up to the shutdown--and my memory is long.

20130927.0626

This time next week, I will be in New Orleans. Louisiana, for the 2013 South Central Modern Language Association (SCMLA) conference.  There, I will be presiding over the two panels allocated to Old and Middle English, and I hope to attend one or two other panels that are of some interest to me.  At this point, my beloved wife plans to join me on the little trip--so those who will be in the area and want to stop on by are welcome.  I'm sure we can figure out something to do to entertain ourselves without putting the pending little one in too much danger.

I tend to look forward to conferences.  In past years, I have not had as much time among working scholars as I would like (it is true that things are better now), and trips to conferences such as SCMLA have afforded me the opportunity to be back among my own people again (I am still going to go to conferences even though matters are improved).  Too, because SCMLA is relatively broad in its treatment, it allows me the chance to sit in on panels whose topics are unfamiliar to me and from which I can therefore learn much.  My coursework as a graduate student was markedly generalist, and my research continues to reflect a degree of openness in its repeated return to treatment of appropriation and refiguring.  SCMLA helps me to be able to do so, offering me access to ideas and resources I would not otherwise have considered--or even been able to consider.

There is this, too: I have friends (shocking, I know), some of whom I only see at conferences.  The International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo is remarkable for it; each year, I meet new and amazingly interesting people there, and each year I reconnect with others whose awesomeness I encountered in previous years, furthering relationships that produce new insight and damned good times.  SCMLA is not as intense an experience as the Congress--the broader focus prevents it--but the variety of locations allows it to offer more in the way of interesting times outside of planned events, and there are people whom I tend to see again only at SCMLA.  Having access to the other interesting things makes the re-encounters all the better.

Because I will be out, it will be the case that my blogging will slow down a bit.  I have been making an effort to make a post of around 500 words each day, and while I have not been as successful as I should like, I have been getting better about it.  The past couple of weeks have demonstrated it, and I am looking to continue as much as I can.  I am like to come back from the trip with a report on my activities--and I am already planning to propose a special session for the 2014 SCMLA conference in Austin, Texas.  If you know that you have something to say about fighting words, get it ready to go and let me know; I have had good luck getting on the card so far...

20130926.0954

It might be guessed from the fact that I work as a scholar of English language and literature that I spend much of my time on my butt--and such a guess would be accurate.  Planning for lessons, grading papers, reading books and journals to stay abreast of developments in my field (which I need to do a bit more than I have of late), and writing, writing, writing all have me planted firmly in a chair, often for ours on end.  That my butt is, by several reports, fairly bony complicates matters.  Accordingly, the quality and comfort of the chairs I use are concerns.

One of them is an older chair, a chair with a wide seat artificially narrowed by the construction of the chair-back.  Sitting in it pinches my butt a bit, creating a discomfort that forces me to shift around frequently.  In doing that, I find that I put uncomfortable amounts of pressure on the bones in my ass, both hip-bones and coccyx.  The chair literally becomes a pain in the ass for me--a circumstance I cannot help but find funny to discuss even as it annoys me to endure.

It has not always been the case that I have had to endure bad chairs.  One I have owned I purchased for the immense sum of ten American dollars when I was twelve or so; it was a rocking chair from a local thrift shop.  The spring at the back of the rocking mechanism was broken, so it would lean back to a precarious and eminently comfortable angle, cupping me as I sank into its brown velvet upholstery for hours of reading--and some other things that I perhaps ought not to discuss too openly (I was twelve when I bought the thing).

I got ten years out of the chair before I moved to Louisiana to begin my graduate work.  It stayed around the house for a while after, and my parents "fixed" the spring so that it would not lean so far back.  But, as all of us got older and things changed, the chair finally fatigued out and was discarded.  Too, none of us had room to keep it; my parents had their own furniture, and although my dorm room was large, it also had to handle my needs as a graduate student--and that meant it could not take the wonderfully comfortable chair.

I am sure that there is some metaphor in this somewhere, some tacit statement about the nature of the world and of humanity's place within it, or else one about my place within humanity and therefore also that of the populations of which I partake.  Indeed, I can think of one or two without any trouble.  But I am not going to trace them out--at least, not now.  Doing so would do no good, for me or for anybody.  And my ass is starting to hurt.

20130925.0649

Yesterday saw me go through the process of selecting a textbook to use for a class I have been assigned to teach in the spring.  It had been some time since I had had the opportunity to do so, as my previous institution did not offer much flexibility in its textbook selection, and it was a bit frantic a search, but I got done what needed to get done.  I am relatively happy with the text I chose; it ought to offer my students and me more options for getting done the work I tentatively plan to have the class do.

As I worked (quickly) through selecting a text, the issue of editions came to mind.  In many cases, students, and the section of the general public they represent, come into classes thinking that there is one text, unitary and inviolate.  The words (which are to be read minimally if at all) are the words, period.

This is, of course, not true.

I have expressed to students before that in many cases, the words that are made available for reading go through several people before being read.  The writer has to write them, of course, and there are many occasions in which the writer is able to submit those words to general view without other interference (this blog, for example).  And while there is some value in offering the minimally-mediated insight into the writerly persona, there are also problems; we are all of us myopic in one way or another, letting slip things that other eyes would catch and making ourselves look just a little less intelligent thereby.  Thus the presence in professional writing of editors, reviewers, proofreaders, and publishers, each of whom alters or adjusts the text in some way.  Each alteration, following both McLuhan and McGann, changes the way in which the text can be read, however slightly.

An easy example, and one that has come up with my students in the past, is that of the Christian Bible.  I have on my shelves at this very moment several copies of the text, at least three of which label themselves as the King James Version; one of them is the Oxford UP Quatercentenary Edition of the 1611 printing, and the other two are commonly available at bookstores.  The words are not the same among the three.  Even the contents are not the same; the 1611 text includes entire books that the later editions omit entirely.  Which one, then, is the "authentic" text, the "real" one, is subject to an interpretation that has to include things beyond the words themselves.  At root, the text is not the text; it is a text, and there are others in competition with it.

If such is true for what is supposed to be the Eternal and Revealed Word of God, how much more true is it like to be for works that have no such lofty pretentions?  Surely the words of mere mortals cannot be expected to have the same power as those meant by the Almighty as the One True Way of life--yet even the text of Scripture is contested (and hotly, as it has been for seventeen hundred years and more).  That other, presumably lesser, texts then go through and exist in multiple editions, multiple competing versions of relatively equal validity, is not to be wondered at.  And this is why I get to select textbooks as I do.

20130924.0829

A piece of news broke for me and mine yesterday--namely that there will soon be another of "mine" in the world.  I am to be a father.

My beloved wife and I greatly appreciate the many well-wishes we have received from people spread across the planet (I mean that; I have had congratulatory bits from as far away from Stillwater as Germany, Indonesia, Romania, and Israel).  It is flattering to know that we are kept favorably in mind by many people, and we hope that we--and the little one to come--will continue to merit such regard.

I confess that I had been worried that such a thing would never come to be.  It is not as if my wife and I had not been offering many chances for it to happen, but with stress from work (and its lack, as those who have read this with anything approaching regularity know) and other factors...Indeed, some comments had been made within the family that my wife and I might not be able to conceive, which was hardly politic although, given circumstances, perhaps to be expected.  But those comments are wrong, as we know now, and the work to make ready for the coming child will begin in earnest.  I will doubtlessly be boring many people with my descriptions of it in the days to come...

20130923.0634

I have commented before about being a morning person, about enjoying the quiet before the day gets started.  There is another thing to consider than simply the quiet, or the coolness that is increasingly available at this time of day, in favor of morning activities: I work better in the morning than later.  It is as if I have a cut-off point each day, after which I am markedly less effective than I would prefer to be.  It seems to matter little how much I have slept before, how early or late I went to bed; what matters is when I get going, and the earlier I do, the more I get done.

Perhaps it is an artifact of my having had early-rising parents.  For many years, my mother worked in grocery stores, and she often needed to be at work at four or five in the morning to get done what needed doing for the stores to open at six.  My father was for no short time a service technician for air conditioning companies in the Texas Hill Country, and in the summers (which last long there, whatever the axial tilt may say of the season), he would often work from before dawn to after sundown to get done all of the work there was for him to do.  That their practices influenced me is not to be wondered at, really; it was normal for me to not see Mom in the mornings and Dad ready for work in the dark before dawn, and early normalcy often resurfaces after teenage idiocy ends (not that it ever ends for many or completely ends for any).

My own experiences have reinforced what my parents taught me (in this and many other ways).  In middle school and high school, I would work with my late great uncle on electrical jobs during the summers, and I learned then that it is good to get the most done during the morning hours, before the real heat of the day could happen.  In college, I earned my pay making and delivering pizza, usually working the morning shifts on the weekends.  I was the only driver until four or five in the evening, so mine alone was the money to be had from football game orders on Saturdays and Sundays, and the money was quite good (indeed, I think I could have made more as a full-time driver then than I am at the moment, though there were other costs to be paid for doing that job, and I have better benefits now by far).

In college also, I sat for early classes.  In doing so, not only did I clear my afternoons and evenings for work, but I presented myself as a fixture of the campus, something that my undergraduate professors doubtlessly noticed and which may well have induced them to my cause when I applied for graduate school--where I continued to be one of the early birds.  Then, as now, I exploited the quiet of the morning to get things done.  Then, as now, I got more done because I got started early.  And now, if I am not at work before noon, I might as well not bother; the work will not be as good, and I will not get as much done as I ought to do.

20130922.1908

On this autumnal equinox, the weather in Stillwater, Oklahoma, has decided to reflect the new season.  It was warm, yes, but not hot--not by a wide margin--and the morning was pleasantly cool, indeed.

I did not get to enjoy as much of it as I perhaps ought to have done.  Instead, I spent a fair bit of the day grading, which is far and away the worst part of teaching--and in some senses not really part of it.  Grading is simply the assessment of student performance; student performance is not quite so connected to the in/ability of the teacher as many would like to pretend.  I--and many others--had bad teachers who never issued a low grade, and I--and many others--had and have excellent teachers who never offer formal evaluation, never issue a grade.

While I do not like grading per se, I do enjoy the opportunity to read some of what my students write.  From time to time, amid the vague responses (something like "It was just so great a thing that I saw once"), worn clichés ("Needless to say"), attempts to "sound smart" ("The acquisition of literacy denotes a hallmark of my prepubescent interactions with institutionalized educational programmatic structures"), and...strange...ideas, things stand out that are well worth attention.  Sometimes, they are simply funny statements, made so by their abruptness and deviation from expectation; one student opened with a comment about eating donuts.  Sometimes, they are thought-provoking, and in a way that the student may well have intended rather than of such thoughts as "What was this person thinking?"

Things would be better were the option available to simply read and respond, rather than having to read and critique.  Then again, given how rarely students read the corrective comments that they know others will make, how much use they would get from the critique is uncertain...