20150513.0614

I am ready to go

A place Meine names
With Schenker behind him
Calls to me

Miller speaks of it
Earlier than they
Spelling it out for the audience

There are a few things to do
Before I can go
This is one of them

20150512.0920

I am, at least for a brief bit, back at Sherwood Cottage. Tomorrow, I head up to the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies, where I will be presenting a paper and presiding over two sessions, as well as attending at least one dinner and a number of other events. Yesterday, I got back from a whirlwind trip to the Texas Hill Country, where my wife and daughter and I attended what amounted to being a wake for my late grandmother. (I have not made much of a secret of my offline identity in this webspace, I think.) Today, I will be taking care of a few final things to be able to go forth and do what I need to do in Kalamazoo: printing, laundry, and the like.

As such, it will be another week before I settle into the summer routine I expect to have. The Mrs. will be working nearly full time if not actually full time or more, and I will have the day-to-day care of Ms. 8 while I try to keep up with freelancing (once it starts back up) or other research writing. It should be a productive summer for the household in the main, although we do plan on a trip or two during the months between now and the resumption of classes in August. Some weddings are scheduled, and more family could stand to see us now and again.

Another thing: The weather in the region where Sherwood Cottage stands has been severe in the past few days, and many have suffered and are suffering as a result. Donations to relief efforts would not be out of line. They will not find their way to Sherwood Cottage, however; the city where it stands and where we live has once again avoided the worst of the matter. There was rain here, certainly, and some wind, but not so much of either as in other places. (And it was good to see the Red River look a river again, as well as the Cimarron.) All is well here, and I pray it will continue to be so.

One more note: While I am away, I will have some internet access, although not as freely as I have while I am at home. Given the demands of the conference, though, I am more likely to focus my attention on Travels in Genre and Medievalism than on this webspace. So it may be a bit before regular updates resume here...

20150508.0708

Today promises to be a busy day. I have not got freelance work to attend to, nor have I conference work; both of those are done for now, with nothing else to do until another order is offered or I am on-site. Instead, today will be taken up by exams and grading; I have two exams to preside over, and so I will have two exams to grade. How many show up for them is not yet clear to me; some are not in position to suffer for skipping or benefit from taking, and some of those are doubtlessly aware of their positioning. I would not blame them for not sitting for the test; indeed, I would appreciate it, as it lessens the grading burden I face this afternoon and evening.

The thought occurs that my appreciation bespeaks a view that there is no point in doing things that "don't matter," and sitting for an exam that will have no effect on the course grade does not matter...if the grade in the course is the point of the course. (That it is for many people, I am well aware. The number of students who have come to me asking for one or two more points on things is proof enough of it.) It is easy to think that it is, of course; the course grade is the end result that is measured and recorded, and it factors into decisions about money and hiring. But the grade is also in many cases a measure of how well a student can follow directions, how well that student can conform to expectation--and that may well not be learning. (The grade can also sometimes reflect how much a professor likes a student. It should not. For me, it does not; I am reported to hate my students, after all.) Ideally, an exam should oblige students to generate new knowledge as they sit for it; it should not simply be a reiteration of material previously covered. If the point of a class is to learn new things, then sitting for a properly-designed exam is never something that does not matter--irrespective of the grade to be earned.

Admittedly, such an event does require the exam to be designed properly, and while I think that mine are thusly constructed, I am not sure. It also requires the environment and context to be such that conduce to learning as the end-goal, and I readily admit that I do not foster such and environment and context as much as I should. For one, I have not the institutional heft to be able to do more than "the job" for which I am hired, and such contextualization runs counter to things such that the heft is needed to avoid being swept away. For another, when I have been in a position to do so and have attempted to do so, I have not met with enough success to justify the continued effort; such as I have found would, I think, have come about without my intervention, or without my devoting class time to it. (Office hours are altogether different.)

I am not certain where this line of thought leads me. I am not certain that this line of thought leads me. I am certain, however, that I need to get another cup of coffee...

20150507.0705

Yesterday, I was able to close out one class completely, administering its exam and assessing all of the submitted responses before entering final grades for the class for the term. Two more remain, to which I shall attend on Friday before heading out to see family and thence to Kalamazoo for reasons about which I have commented already. Yesterday's anxieties about things not going well after not starting on time proved unfounded, which I appreciate. I hope that today, since I did get going more or less when I had thought I ought, will not suffer in proportion. A certain degree of smart-assedness seems to be embedded into the world, and it would be a smart-ass thing to do to postpone consequences until their target is relaxed and inattentive.

Yesterday also saw me finish reading the novel I will be writing up for my freelance work. It was not so good as I could hope to read, although it is not as bad as the vampire porn piece I read earlier. (This is not because I am opposed to porn, per se. I am opposed to bad writing--and the writing was really bad. Adding an occasional aspiration to an English word does not make it exotic and foreign; it makes it annoying.) I expect to spend much of the day today writing up the novel, in and around taking care of Ms. 8 while her mother is at work. I should be able to get the task done, or nearly done, if I can be diligent about the use of my time while the girl is asleep or calmly at play. That is, unfortunately, not as often the case as it ought to be.

If it is not, it is in some senses because I am tired. My "other" job is not in a grocery store, as is the case for one writer, Matt Debenham, whose 1 May 2015 article a friend of mine brought to my attention yesterday. (I could wish it were in so nice of one as Debenham describes; I have never worked in one that treats its employees so well.) It is, instead, the freelancing of which I often write. My "main" job is not adjuncting, as such; I count as full-time and have an annual contract, but I remain contingent. As such, I find myself in much the same situation as Debenham describes; I am, in effect, working two jobs to make ends meet. Some of the need to do so is internal rather than external; I have written, I think, about my feeling compelled to work. Some is the result of my own prodigality; when I lived in The City and earned as if in The City, I spent as if in The City rather than remaining frugal, and I am paying for it now. But some is the need to ensure that Ms. 8 has what she needs, and the Mrs. has the occasional nice thing--because she damned well deserves it--and that they can have a roof overhead and food in their bellies while they enjoy them. What I make for the "main" job is not quite enough, particularly after twelve years of schooling after the first twelve and trying to pay for them after the fact.

So, yes, I join Debenham in working two jobs (at least; I might count as doing more, depending on how "a job" is figured). And so I am not as full of vim and vigor as I might otherwise be; I expend much of both keeping going.

20150506.0724

This morning has gotten off to a later start than is usual. I slept in until nearly half past six, an hour later than my norm, and when I staggered into the kitchen after my shower, I found I had not turned on the coffee pot as I usually do--it normally happens during my first walk around the house, when I check to see if things have gone Horribly Wrong while I was asleep. The pot has finally brewed, and I have a cup, but I am somewhat superstitious, and so I have to wonder if the...errors are going to carry forward through the day.

I rather hope they do not. I am slated to give an exam today, and given the constraints imposed by my travel schedule, I will have to grade it today, as well. While I expect that some of my students will opt out of the test--some are in such a position that taking or not taking the exam will have no effect on their overall grade, an artifact of the strict ABCDF system, and I cannot say I blame them for opting out who are in such a position--I know that not all will, and so I will have work to do before attending to other work. Interference with either work will not be particularly welcome.

Among that other work is no longer writing my paper for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, to which I will be heading at this time next week. (And I do mean "at this time," as the drive to the conference from Sherwood Cottage takes some fourteen hours.) The paper was completed yesterday, which pleases me. I will doubtlessly find other things I want to put in it, other things I would like to say; I always do. At this point, though, the paper is deliverable, and that is what I need it to be for the purpose. It is not as if I have not got enough other activities to handle at the conference, what with presiding over sessions and all...

What is among the other work, as ought to be expected, is more freelancing. I am more than halfway through a novel I will be writing up for pay (not bad for only starting the reading last night); I anticipate completing the read today and beginning the write-up either later today or tomorrow, with scheduled completion tomorrow. The extra money will take a little while to get to me, given the constraints on how my payouts work, but it will not be the less welcome for it. I imagine that I will be getting more such work done before terribly long; with the end of the term, I will have more time to work on such work, even if I will also be doing more to take care of Ms. 8, as was the case last year. She moves more, now, and so needs more attention--but that is far from a bad thing.

I can hope the day will also be thus removed.

20150505.0726

As I noted last year at around this time, ­¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! and happy Revenge of the Fifth!

Now that the holiday cheer is dispensed with, on to other things: The weather around Sherwood Cottage inches toward summer, with lows in the sixties (Fahrenheit, of course; we'd not want to convert to a sensible system of measurement, now, would we?) and highs formally in the eighties--although I would not be surprised to find that it actually reached ninety. Humidity is up, which likely accounts for the feeling; forecasts suggest that rain will be moving in and staying through the weekend, which will make for a fun time getting things loaded for travel. Once the semester ends, we are paying call on family, and I will be running thence to Kalamazoo for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, at which I am to be quite busy. Getting to do so in the rain makes things all the better.

I do not complain about the rain, though, not really. Having grown up in the Texas Hill Country makes me appreciate water falling form the sky. There is not often enough of it doing so in a year, and only rarely does too much come at once. Twice, to my recollection, or twice of serious note, anyway, but not more than that. The rivers often run low, as do the aquifers upon which many depend, and that is not less true near Sherwood Cottage than in the oak- and cedar-covered hills among which I grew up. Too much red dirt shows beside the waters that do not flow as they ought for me to complain that they are replenished from above--even if such rejuvenation has uncomfortably sexual overtones. But that I am happy to have it happen does not mean that I am pleased entirely with its timing; it will make some things a bit less convenient for me and mine.

That inconvenience occasions complaint is doubtlessly a sign of my being steeped in privilege, of course. I recognize this, and I recognize that my life has been largely good; if annoyance at having to drive in the rain befalls me, it only does so because there is rain (which is good) and because I have a car in which to drive (which I also count as good; if nothing else, I can run deliveries for extra money, although preferably not in a town whose population includes so many of my students--I have some dignity). I am able to drive said car, which not all are, and to expect that my travels will be conducted relatively safely; I do not have to worry so much that I will be pulled over--with legal sanction and official protection for the one doing it--for being in the kind of car I drive or for driving it through the places I do. I do not have to worry that my doing anything other than prostrating myself will end up in my being shot--or that I will be shot even if I do so, leaving the Mrs. and Ms. 8 to deal with the trauma and loss. All I have to do is get through the rain and let it soak into the ground--and that is not so bad.

20150504.0713

Yes, yes, yes. May the Fourth be with you again. And, yes, this blogroll is once again marking an anniversary, having begun (although not in earnest) in 2010 on this day. I probably ought to attend to some of my other online materials, though; it has been some time since I have done so, and links in the linked posts may not be as live as they ought to be. Perhaps after I get done the other things I need to get done, I can attend to it, but that will not happen for some time yet. It may not ever happen; new tasks arise as quickly as I discharge old ones, which is good in that it keeps me in work and thus in bringing in money, but it is less good in that it makes clearing my docket a difficult thing to do. Such is the cost of life in academia.

One of the benefits of that life, though, is that things have discrete beginnings and endings, and one of those endings arrives presently. It is exam week at the school where I am employed, and while I am not actually giving exams today--mine are Wednesday and Friday--the sense of finality, of crossing a finish line, is very much in evidence at Sherwood Cottage. To continue with the racing metaphor, there is one final sprint to undertake, since the line is in sight and its tape waits for me to break it. I hate to run, of course, although there was a time when I did so well and swiftly, but for such an occasion as comes twice a year (or more, in some places), it is worth doing. That the sprint is only a sprint helps with that.

I am more or less ready for the exams. They are already written and need only be administered and graded. The grading will have to be in some haste, admittedly, as I have travel plans which commence the day after exams are done, but it should not be a problem for me. The students' submissions will likely be brief, and they will all be treating the same subject matter. I do have a freelance piece to which to attend, as well as a conference paper to complete within the week, so there will be a bit of a juggling act to negotiate, but that ought not to be too much of a problem. The piece I will read for the freelancing ought to go easily and quickly; I think I will handle the conference work first. Exam proctoring, after all, allows for other things to happen--as I have attested before, and more than once, in this webspace.

There are benefits, after all, to maintaining a single stream of writing, even if it has not always flowed as freely as it ought to have done. Being able to look back with ease on some, at least, of what has gone before helps to frame thought and promote evolving understanding. If the channel is sometimes diverted, that does not mean the flow must stop forever...

20150503.0741

A chapter comes to its last page
There are words yet to read
Notes yet to make in margins
Thoughts yet to think
Comments yet to make
Appendices, perhaps
An index yet to scan, perhaps
But the back cover is fast approaching
And the volume is to be put on the shelf
When another is to be taken down
Opened
Is unclear

20150502.0700

Ms. 8 got her own bedroom last night. Rather, my Mrs. and I moved out of the room where we had been sleeping since settling in at Sherwood Cottage and where we had put Ms. 8's crib, switching the beds in that bedroom--"the front"--and what had been the guest bedroom. It seemed a better choice to make than swapping all of the furniture around. There is more to do in that regard, of course; there is a bookcase that needs to come out of Ms. 8's room and into that my Mrs. and I now share. But what is left to do is relatively minor, easily accomplished once we or I set out to do it--although that will likely be a while.

Work continues, of course. I have a set of assignments to grade in haste, and I am fortunate that their nature is such as admits of my doing so. I am also in the midst of a freelance piece; it is well begun, but it is not done, and it needs to be. I will likely be able to complete it over the weekend. My conference paper also needs attention. The reading I have yet to do for it will go quickly, as the texts I am poring over are short and I have read one of them before, but it still takes some time and the writing takes a bit more. It will get done, though, as will all of the other tasks I have to handle before the term ends and I gallivant up and down the middle of the country.

Weather at Sherwood Cottage continues to be good. The nights are cool, the days warm, and the rain that we enjoyed has moved on so that the ground is drying out and I will likely be able to mow the yard today. It needs it; the falling water has helped the green carpets in the front and back of Sherwood Cottage become shaggy, a seeming throwback to the worst excesses of the 1970s. The back yard also needs some picking-up, as there are branches strewn about and what I can only call the leavings of plumbing work done to be found; a hatchet-job is needed, too, as roots and such are sticking up such that they will meet the mower blade uncomfortably. I have no desire to have wood chips or slivers of PVC flung at me at speed again. The experience was unpleasant enough the first time. And the second. And the others.

It is, for the most part, a calm, placid life I lead, following a pattern that I have allowed to grow up over the short time that I have been where the wind comes sweeping down the plain. I make no complaint of it; I know that the pattern of my life could be far worse than it is. It could be better, yes, and I continue to struggle to that end, but it could be worse. I have no desire to learn how much worse...

20150501.0659

This day
Is May Day
And I call out
"Mayday"
Because we are in
Distress

Is it not obvious?

Workers united
Once
Are now divided
Blaming as corrupt
Systems that
Though corrupt
Are at least corrupt in ways
That benefit them

I have been in
Right to work
Places and
Closed-shop
Places and
I did far better in the latter
Than in the former
And I am not the only one

We hear complaints
That things were better
Back in the day
They are wrong
In many regards
Because things were not better
They have sucked the same amount
But in different directions
But even so
Those who complain
Complain also of things that
Were
Better
Back in the day
And when things were as they were
Labor practice was different
And workers stood better together

Now
Not so much

An isolated target
Is easier to hit