I was away.
I am now back
But I am unwell.
Figures.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
20140919.0715
Briefly:
Ms. 8 is seven months old today. It does not feel like it. It is still largely fun.
I do not think the flu shot is the problem. There is still work to do, though. I am thrilled.
It is hard to jump into a series eight books in.
Scotland will remain part of the UK for now, it seems. With the oil to which it has access, though, I wonder that the US does not move to, ahem, "secure freedom" for the people there. Then again, they are awfully pale for the most part...
That's about enough.
Ms. 8 is seven months old today. It does not feel like it. It is still largely fun.
I do not think the flu shot is the problem. There is still work to do, though. I am thrilled.
It is hard to jump into a series eight books in.
Scotland will remain part of the UK for now, it seems. With the oil to which it has access, though, I wonder that the US does not move to, ahem, "secure freedom" for the people there. Then again, they are awfully pale for the most part...
That's about enough.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
20140918.0645
Yesterday's health screening had the expected result. I got my flu shot, and I got told that I am overweight and under-active and that if I do not fix both I am likely to develop diabetes and heart problems. Nothing I did not already know, although I admit that I have not been good about doing anything to help matters. I do not think I quite qualify as Grade A beef anymore, being either past my shelf life or some other thing, but I am not sure how I feel about the matter. If it makes me less desirable, perhaps it saves me for something else...
The work continues--oh, my, does it continue. Grading piles up, despite my efforts; I have two classes of job materials to review today, as well as a couple of quizzes. None of it will take terribly long, of course, but it will take time, and there are other projects that need attention. Freelance work is still coming in, and, given how mercurial it is, I am inclined to devote my attentions to it. But The Work also needs doing, and if neglecting it in favor of other things is good for short-term things, it is far less so for long-term plans. The Work is what, if anything over which I have control, will conduce to my having the kind of job I want, and so I need to attend to it, although I also need to be able to eat in the meantime.
That is always the balance, of course, judging short-term needs against long-term goals, for the long term will not matter save that the short terms preceding it allow it to happen, yet without planning for the long term, the short term becomes all--and that is no way to live. (It is, of course, becoming the only way people are allowed to live. Which I suppose was the case 150 years and further back for most. But that "it used to be this way" is not necessarily a reason it should be that way again; there is a reason appeal to tradition is regarded as fallacious.)
I know that I am not alone in trying to find the balance between the two, and I will not belabor the point here. There are other times and places for it. What I will do, though, is note that the time I spend in composing these posts is not wasted, at least not in my view. If nothing else, writing in this webspace offers me exercise of hands and mind with which to begin the day; I am convinced that I have worked more and better since making this writing a regular part of my day than I did before. Maybe it is something in the pressure of the potential audience (which I admit I would like to see grow) that spurs it, and maybe it is something about having a regular task to accomplish and the satisfaction of doing so pervading more of the day that helps. Whatever it is, though, I approve of it.
The work continues--oh, my, does it continue. Grading piles up, despite my efforts; I have two classes of job materials to review today, as well as a couple of quizzes. None of it will take terribly long, of course, but it will take time, and there are other projects that need attention. Freelance work is still coming in, and, given how mercurial it is, I am inclined to devote my attentions to it. But The Work also needs doing, and if neglecting it in favor of other things is good for short-term things, it is far less so for long-term plans. The Work is what, if anything over which I have control, will conduce to my having the kind of job I want, and so I need to attend to it, although I also need to be able to eat in the meantime.
That is always the balance, of course, judging short-term needs against long-term goals, for the long term will not matter save that the short terms preceding it allow it to happen, yet without planning for the long term, the short term becomes all--and that is no way to live. (It is, of course, becoming the only way people are allowed to live. Which I suppose was the case 150 years and further back for most. But that "it used to be this way" is not necessarily a reason it should be that way again; there is a reason appeal to tradition is regarded as fallacious.)
I know that I am not alone in trying to find the balance between the two, and I will not belabor the point here. There are other times and places for it. What I will do, though, is note that the time I spend in composing these posts is not wasted, at least not in my view. If nothing else, writing in this webspace offers me exercise of hands and mind with which to begin the day; I am convinced that I have worked more and better since making this writing a regular part of my day than I did before. Maybe it is something in the pressure of the potential audience (which I admit I would like to see grow) that spurs it, and maybe it is something about having a regular task to accomplish and the satisfaction of doing so pervading more of the day that helps. Whatever it is, though, I approve of it.
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
20140917.0645
I have a health screening today, an opportunity thoughtfully provided by my place of employment. It offers a small cash bonus for my participation, which I will admit informs my going to it, although I have to consider what it says about me that the money is a motivation, and I have to consider what it says about my place of employment that some kind of bonus *has* to be offered to get the employees to go to the screening. In neither event does it seem to me to be a good thing; the one suggests that financial concerns are or are becoming more important than others, while the other suggests that there are health problems among my colleagues and that few of us are concerned about them.
If I follow the latter thought further, though, I begin to see deeper implications. If the employer is concerned with employee health, it is doubtlessly due to financial worries. Healthy workers are more productive workers, after all, taking fewer sick days away from work and doing more with the days that they are at work. The attention to employee health can thus come across as something like maintenance of a machine--and if the employees see themselves as parts of a machine, reduced to being parts of a machine, it is not much of a stretch to think that they will not care so much for their own maintenance as might otherwise be the case. Being a replaceable cog is not entirely pleasant.
There are other reasons to think that the mechanistic view obtains. The prevalence of adjunct and contingent labor (noted here and here, among others) suggests it. So does the increasingly widely-held view of education as test-taking in the service of job preparation; education, even at the college level, is broadly seen as a service industry (attested here among others), and it is widely held that service ought to be provided in a predictable, efficient, ultimately mechanistic way. (Why else the success of franchises?) Education is seen as an investment on which a return is expected, again, much like manufacturing machines. Again, then, those who teach, who are in the work of making teaching available, have reason to think of themselves as being regarded as cogs, and reminders that cogs break and are replaced such as health screenings offer are not wholly comfortable.
It is something of a pessimistic view, I admit. Many I hold are; I am quick to see the problem, the cloud to the silver lining. (I forget who introduced me to that turn of phrase, but I am grateful to that person even so.) I look first to the left, seeking the sinister, and rarely do I look to the right thereafter. But if I do, it is because I recognize that Machiavelli is correct, even centuries later. There are deeper reasons to consider for the things that are offered, and even if they are not recognized on the part of those making the offer or those accepting it, they influence how the offer is made and the effects it has. And they are not always, or likely even often, happy.
If I follow the latter thought further, though, I begin to see deeper implications. If the employer is concerned with employee health, it is doubtlessly due to financial worries. Healthy workers are more productive workers, after all, taking fewer sick days away from work and doing more with the days that they are at work. The attention to employee health can thus come across as something like maintenance of a machine--and if the employees see themselves as parts of a machine, reduced to being parts of a machine, it is not much of a stretch to think that they will not care so much for their own maintenance as might otherwise be the case. Being a replaceable cog is not entirely pleasant.
There are other reasons to think that the mechanistic view obtains. The prevalence of adjunct and contingent labor (noted here and here, among others) suggests it. So does the increasingly widely-held view of education as test-taking in the service of job preparation; education, even at the college level, is broadly seen as a service industry (attested here among others), and it is widely held that service ought to be provided in a predictable, efficient, ultimately mechanistic way. (Why else the success of franchises?) Education is seen as an investment on which a return is expected, again, much like manufacturing machines. Again, then, those who teach, who are in the work of making teaching available, have reason to think of themselves as being regarded as cogs, and reminders that cogs break and are replaced such as health screenings offer are not wholly comfortable.
It is something of a pessimistic view, I admit. Many I hold are; I am quick to see the problem, the cloud to the silver lining. (I forget who introduced me to that turn of phrase, but I am grateful to that person even so.) I look first to the left, seeking the sinister, and rarely do I look to the right thereafter. But if I do, it is because I recognize that Machiavelli is correct, even centuries later. There are deeper reasons to consider for the things that are offered, and even if they are not recognized on the part of those making the offer or those accepting it, they influence how the offer is made and the effects it has. And they are not always, or likely even often, happy.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
20140916.0711
I should be writing
But I am writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
Something else
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I've work to do
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I know, I know
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I have to get done
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
There's more to do
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
Yes, I should
I should be writing
But I am writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
Something else
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I've work to do
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I know, I know
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I have to get done
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
There's more to do
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
I should be writing
Yes, I should
I should be writing
Monday, September 15, 2014
20140915.0641
I has happened again that I had a brilliant idea about what to write here while I was in the shower, but have forgotten it in the time between stepping out and sitting down. It is quite vexing to have had the idea, and to remember having had the idea, but not being able to recall the idea...
Matters proceed as they would be expected to go. The pleasant weather of the past few days has seen me working on freelance work--which has included reading for the job just past and the one on which I am working now, and that has seen me on the front porch with the book and a beer ready to hand. I find it a good way to spend an evening and one I have not gotten to enjoy as much as I would prefer. But that is the way of it; the demands of the paycheck are such as they are, and the demands of supplemental pay are such as they are, and it is not always the case that they conduce to working in the most desirable locations. Still, the pay comes as it comes, and I do not complain.
The lure of that pay does remain something of a distraction, however. There is other work that needs me to do it, there are other things that need my attention, and while I am not slacking off by any stretch to be working on work that directly pays, I may be running myself into some difficulties by doing it ahead of work that may not pay directly but leads to other work that does, or that supports it. But the paying work is mercurial; it may not be in place again for a while, and so I need to act upon it when it appears...it is a conundrum. (And, yes, I am aware that the argument can be made that I ought to do it now instead of writing in this webspace. I am also more aware of circumstances now than many who would make the argument. I have considered it and rejected it.)
If I am going to have a conundrum, however, this is a good one to have--not where will I find work to do, but which work will I do to the best effect? Many are not so fortunate, as I well know. I am also in a position in which I more or less like the work I do. (There are parts of the job that could be better, but there always are.) Again, this is something in which I know many are not so fortunate as I am. This does not mean that I will not agitate to make things better, and I resent the implications in the mouths of many who caution me to be thankful for what I have that I ought not to seek more; being content with things breeds indolence and stagnation, and neither of those is something to appreciate. But I am aware that I am doing so from a decent place.
Matters proceed as they would be expected to go. The pleasant weather of the past few days has seen me working on freelance work--which has included reading for the job just past and the one on which I am working now, and that has seen me on the front porch with the book and a beer ready to hand. I find it a good way to spend an evening and one I have not gotten to enjoy as much as I would prefer. But that is the way of it; the demands of the paycheck are such as they are, and the demands of supplemental pay are such as they are, and it is not always the case that they conduce to working in the most desirable locations. Still, the pay comes as it comes, and I do not complain.
The lure of that pay does remain something of a distraction, however. There is other work that needs me to do it, there are other things that need my attention, and while I am not slacking off by any stretch to be working on work that directly pays, I may be running myself into some difficulties by doing it ahead of work that may not pay directly but leads to other work that does, or that supports it. But the paying work is mercurial; it may not be in place again for a while, and so I need to act upon it when it appears...it is a conundrum. (And, yes, I am aware that the argument can be made that I ought to do it now instead of writing in this webspace. I am also more aware of circumstances now than many who would make the argument. I have considered it and rejected it.)
If I am going to have a conundrum, however, this is a good one to have--not where will I find work to do, but which work will I do to the best effect? Many are not so fortunate, as I well know. I am also in a position in which I more or less like the work I do. (There are parts of the job that could be better, but there always are.) Again, this is something in which I know many are not so fortunate as I am. This does not mean that I will not agitate to make things better, and I resent the implications in the mouths of many who caution me to be thankful for what I have that I ought not to seek more; being content with things breeds indolence and stagnation, and neither of those is something to appreciate. But I am aware that I am doing so from a decent place.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
20140914.0801
I have commented before about the part of my freelance work that has me read and write up popular novels. I am most of the way done with such a project now--I expect to finish today--and another is waiting for me to do soon after. The current project has added some things to the list of requirements (and to the words for which I will be paid); while before it asked for a review, discussions of characters and setting, and chapter summaries, now it asks for those plus discussions of major symbols, motifs, and themes. As I do fancy myself something of a literary scholar, enough to teach literary scholarship, I find no challenge in doing so, although the turnaround on the task precludes my delving as deeply into them as I know I can do.
Why the increase in desire materials would occur, though, is not clear to me. My experience with general readership--which I will admit is somewhat restricted--is that the average reader will not delve much into such things as simile and metaphor. They will pass largely unremarked, or if remarked will be taken as a decorative fillip meant to "make it pretty" rather than a means to connect the text to what has gone before and embed in it evidence of authorial context and expected readership. Such things do not add to the enjoyment most readers seek in the texts that they read, although there are some who enjoy the puzzle aspect of tracing them out. Most, though, will make some comment such as "It's just a story" and reject investigating it as too much work to do. (They are the same people who will spend hours standing in the glaring sun to play a game or freezing in the crotch of a tree to shoot meat they do not need to have to survive so that they can mount heads on their walls, which would seem either to belie their argument or suggest that reading deeply is work, maugre the protestations of many. But that is another discussion entirely.)
I have to conclude that the guides I am writing to popular fiction are to be used as ways to ease entry into literary study--which is not something I oppose. Rather the opposite is true, in fact. And that tells me that literary study is being applied more and more frequently and broadly to genre fiction--which I knew was the case at the conference level, but which seems to be spreading into the conservative bastion that is mainstream public education (which is invested in perpetuating a specific narrative of culture that varies by nation and state but which in each case works to the maintenance of a stable understanding of the nation or state as a good thing, to be supported and obeyed). There, it had been (and is still in large part, if what I see among education students and the products of mainstream educational systems is any indication) anathema to consider popular work as worth serious study. I disagree, of course; how could I not, given the work I do? And I cannot say I am sad to see it shifting...
Why the increase in desire materials would occur, though, is not clear to me. My experience with general readership--which I will admit is somewhat restricted--is that the average reader will not delve much into such things as simile and metaphor. They will pass largely unremarked, or if remarked will be taken as a decorative fillip meant to "make it pretty" rather than a means to connect the text to what has gone before and embed in it evidence of authorial context and expected readership. Such things do not add to the enjoyment most readers seek in the texts that they read, although there are some who enjoy the puzzle aspect of tracing them out. Most, though, will make some comment such as "It's just a story" and reject investigating it as too much work to do. (They are the same people who will spend hours standing in the glaring sun to play a game or freezing in the crotch of a tree to shoot meat they do not need to have to survive so that they can mount heads on their walls, which would seem either to belie their argument or suggest that reading deeply is work, maugre the protestations of many. But that is another discussion entirely.)
I have to conclude that the guides I am writing to popular fiction are to be used as ways to ease entry into literary study--which is not something I oppose. Rather the opposite is true, in fact. And that tells me that literary study is being applied more and more frequently and broadly to genre fiction--which I knew was the case at the conference level, but which seems to be spreading into the conservative bastion that is mainstream public education (which is invested in perpetuating a specific narrative of culture that varies by nation and state but which in each case works to the maintenance of a stable understanding of the nation or state as a good thing, to be supported and obeyed). There, it had been (and is still in large part, if what I see among education students and the products of mainstream educational systems is any indication) anathema to consider popular work as worth serious study. I disagree, of course; how could I not, given the work I do? And I cannot say I am sad to see it shifting...
Saturday, September 13, 2014
20140913.0741
Something about seeing the joy of others awakens grumpiness in me
Something about mass happiness bids me turn away from it in sullen annoyance
Retreating to my cave of home or office
Muttering about the inanity of it all
When asked about it
I rail
I am told that I should simply
Lighten up
Enjoy myself
Have fun
Be happy
Why I should be admonished for answering honestly an unsolicited question posed to me
I still do not know
Why I should have to enjoy mass celebrations
When I have work to do and a family to support
And the celebrations interfere with my ability to do so
I do not know
Why I should be expected to celebrate
Simply because other people are also celebrating
And about something in which I have no innate interest
And the exercises of which have tended to my abuse
And abuses perpetrated upon others for whom I have some regard
And which still do
And which perpetuate abuses of others
Not known to me personally
But by long and frequent report
I do not know
Why I would celebrate the existence of things which I oppose
And have opposed
Repeatedly and publicly
I do not know
I weary of the repetition
I am not about to lie
And say that I see joy in such things
As seem to my eyes
The work of idiots
I know that they will go on
I really wish people would leave me the fuck alone about them
Something about mass happiness bids me turn away from it in sullen annoyance
Retreating to my cave of home or office
Muttering about the inanity of it all
When asked about it
I rail
I am told that I should simply
Lighten up
Enjoy myself
Have fun
Be happy
Why I should be admonished for answering honestly an unsolicited question posed to me
I still do not know
Why I should have to enjoy mass celebrations
When I have work to do and a family to support
And the celebrations interfere with my ability to do so
I do not know
Why I should be expected to celebrate
Simply because other people are also celebrating
And about something in which I have no innate interest
And the exercises of which have tended to my abuse
And abuses perpetrated upon others for whom I have some regard
And which still do
And which perpetuate abuses of others
Not known to me personally
But by long and frequent report
I do not know
Why I would celebrate the existence of things which I oppose
And have opposed
Repeatedly and publicly
I do not know
I weary of the repetition
I am not about to lie
And say that I see joy in such things
As seem to my eyes
The work of idiots
I know that they will go on
I really wish people would leave me the fuck alone about them
Friday, September 12, 2014
20140912.0636
One of the side-jobs I do is individual tutorial work. I have been working with one tutee for some time who had been a student in my spring literature class, going over a paper for submission to the undergraduates panels at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo. In recent weeks, though, we have begun to look at some of the student's other assignments, currently for a US popular culture class. The tutee is obliged to carry out a participatory project and has opted to engage in fanfiction based upon a rough copy of a popular MMORPG.
Because I like the tutee, and because I am paid by him to do such things, I looked over the opening section of his class project, and as I did, I was minded of something I have seen in other fanfiction efforts, something that creates a problem in the writing of many such efforts: inconsistency of description. I told the tutee of this, grounding my discussion in a context he and I have from having worked together and his having been my student, and I think he will be working to correct it. But the thought occurred to me in the shower this morning that I ought to discuss it briefly in my morning blogging, and so I will.
Reading fanfiction--any amateur work, really--often reveals inconsistency of descriptions. That is, fanfiction writers will often go into exhaustive physical detail about one or two characters, vastly exceeding that accorded to physical setting, milieu, or other characters yet. Understandably, primary characters receive more attention; they are the foci of the story, and so they should receive more words. They should not generally receive orders of magnitude more words, however, and that seems to be the case with many fanfiction descriptions; the protagonist/s get three hundred words of straight physical description (and without a suitable context such as a police report, which might allow for such a thing), while other characters get three. The character is thus made inconsistent with the rest of the story, creating a disunity that makes maintaining the willing suspension of disbelief more difficult than it needs to be or can usefully be.
The inconsistency is not merely an issue of quantity, distracting though it is. Inconsistency also manifests in the irrelevance of many of the details included in the descriptions; they are not consistent with the rest of the narrative because they do not meaningfully interact with it. For a detailed physical description, such as the notable blazon in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, to work, its details have to connect to the narrative. The medieval example serves as multiple juxtapositions; the virtues supposedly indicated by Gawain's escutcheon are belied by his conduct, and the riches and glory of the rest of his accoutrements do not accord with how he acts. They thus highlight his failures. Many fanfiction descriptions fail to make such connections back to their texts; they are not tied back to the narrative tapestry, and so snag and unravel the effect of the work in which they appear. Thus it is that much fanfiction begins to falter, starting to stagger in a way that presages its ultimate condemnation.
Because I like the tutee, and because I am paid by him to do such things, I looked over the opening section of his class project, and as I did, I was minded of something I have seen in other fanfiction efforts, something that creates a problem in the writing of many such efforts: inconsistency of description. I told the tutee of this, grounding my discussion in a context he and I have from having worked together and his having been my student, and I think he will be working to correct it. But the thought occurred to me in the shower this morning that I ought to discuss it briefly in my morning blogging, and so I will.
Reading fanfiction--any amateur work, really--often reveals inconsistency of descriptions. That is, fanfiction writers will often go into exhaustive physical detail about one or two characters, vastly exceeding that accorded to physical setting, milieu, or other characters yet. Understandably, primary characters receive more attention; they are the foci of the story, and so they should receive more words. They should not generally receive orders of magnitude more words, however, and that seems to be the case with many fanfiction descriptions; the protagonist/s get three hundred words of straight physical description (and without a suitable context such as a police report, which might allow for such a thing), while other characters get three. The character is thus made inconsistent with the rest of the story, creating a disunity that makes maintaining the willing suspension of disbelief more difficult than it needs to be or can usefully be.
The inconsistency is not merely an issue of quantity, distracting though it is. Inconsistency also manifests in the irrelevance of many of the details included in the descriptions; they are not consistent with the rest of the narrative because they do not meaningfully interact with it. For a detailed physical description, such as the notable blazon in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, to work, its details have to connect to the narrative. The medieval example serves as multiple juxtapositions; the virtues supposedly indicated by Gawain's escutcheon are belied by his conduct, and the riches and glory of the rest of his accoutrements do not accord with how he acts. They thus highlight his failures. Many fanfiction descriptions fail to make such connections back to their texts; they are not tied back to the narrative tapestry, and so snag and unravel the effect of the work in which they appear. Thus it is that much fanfiction begins to falter, starting to stagger in a way that presages its ultimate condemnation.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
20140911.0733
It is Patriot Day
Again
Thirteen years later
The fear has returned
Rather
It never left us
Rumor abounds
Again
Attacks are coming
They always are
They always will be
Some fear is healthy
Much fear is not
And we are diseased
Thirteen years is long to be afflicted
It will be longer
Other wounds have not closed after 150 years
Others have not closed after longer yet
Have we bandages enough?
Again
Thirteen years later
The fear has returned
Rather
It never left us
Rumor abounds
Again
Attacks are coming
They always are
They always will be
Some fear is healthy
Much fear is not
And we are diseased
Thirteen years is long to be afflicted
It will be longer
Other wounds have not closed after 150 years
Others have not closed after longer yet
Have we bandages enough?
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