Proclamations

I like how one week after a proclaim I won't be lame about my blog anymore, I do just that: be lame about my blog.

Sigh.

So, here's some thoughts. Enjoy.

I heard recently from a poet friend about someone he knew who made a poem out of all of the comments he'd written on student essays.

Brilliant! Love it!



While this isn't a poem yet, per se, this is a list of my favorites I have written:

The term "colored" is outdated and is steeped in racism.
Your mother is not a scholarly source.
Please refer to your MLA handout. Please.
You have a handout that tells you exactly how to do MLA. Please use it.
Yes!
Please review your timeline. The Civil War was nearly 100 years before the Civil Rights Movement in America.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn't involved in the Civil War.
I'm not making this connection here ...
Your argument gets a bit convoluted here ...
I agree!
Strong thesis!
Your thesis reads unfinished.
Enough with the rhetorical questions.

On cooking:
I feel that I am a hit-n-miss cook. I can make one hell of a meatloaf, nearly any pasta dish, and something my family calls "pizza loaf." Usually, if I am in my own kitchen, I can put together a pretty delicious meal with whatever is in the freezer and spice rack. I have trouble cooking chicken whole, however. I usually burn the hell out of it and am only just now learning that everything doesn't have to be blasted over high. I've been on a roll this week, I think. I made a lovely homemade chicken/artichoke/alfredo pizza a few days ago, and last night, I made this great basil/tomato/chicken/feta dish served on toasted bread brushed with olive oil and parsley. Mmm mmm .... Sometimes, though, I really suck. Like, I can ruin pots and scorch stovetops and set off the smoke alarms.

On that stupid Levi's commercial that degrades an awesome Whitman poem:
What, you don't have a job? Or classes to go to? You probably have an essay to write and you're running around a bonfire shirtless. GD Levi-wearin' hippies ...

On my lit students:
They are smart. Like, scary smart, and it's the dudes who have really stepped up to the plate. They are presenting on poetry this week and last, and they are breaking out the hard stuff: Shelley, Bukowski, cummings, Rossetti, Yeats, Dunbar, Whitman. And they are just laying it out for us, like bam! I heart them.

On my new career as a potter:
Yup. A few more lessons and I'm gonna hit the street sales circuit.

Home Stretch

I no longer want to be lame about my blog. I am making a more concentrated effort to update it regularly. I don't think I can even blame it on FB; I think mostly I am tired of thinking and writing, so writing for pleasure gets set on the ol' back burner. I have a story seed, about a young man with an old man's name. I think I will break it out for Milton in a few weeks.

Big essays are due in 4 of my classes this week. Studs are freakin' the eff out. Their computers are eating documents; they aren't even bothering to show. Sometimes, they scare me. Sometimes, I wish they would come to my office hours.

What I did during office hours today:
graded 2 essays
got handouts and lesson plans made/copied/updated for class next week
ate some individually-wrapped prunes
stared at the wall
re-watched last night's episode of Glee

I am expecting a student soon. We will see.

I am going to Wagner tomorrow to lead some high school teachers in a writing workshop thingy. Two very good friends from grad school live there and have restored this beautiful old farmhouse. Maybe I will be their guest for a night. Or at least for dinner. Me and B visited them this summer, and we're overdue for another one.

This weekend is D-Days. I am thinking about fleeing town. I mentioned this to Bridge, but she is afraid that if we leave, some drunken mob will either:

a.) burn down our house
b.) move into our house
c.) drown in the birdbath













These are all legitimate concerns. So, maybe we will stay put.

I teach my last class of the week in about an hour. Then, aha, a 4-day weekend. Thank you, South Dakota, for honoring Native Americans.

Thank you, Jesus, for taking the wheel.



Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

I Like This

It's 9:24 on Sunday night, I need to iron my white skirt, and I haven't worked out since Wednesday. Which maybe wouldn't be such a big deal if my weekend wasn't filled with barbecue chips and Mexico Viejo.

Such is life.

The 4th week of classes (!!) begins tomorrow. After meeting 3 times with my studs, I can safely say I've got a fantastically smart and engaged group. The final tally: 89 students. Ones that actually care about their education? At least 69. Those are odds I can totally, and happily, deal with. We're talking gender conflicts in my lit classes, visual rhetoric in my advanced comp classes, and how to not be a dbag in the business writing class.

Still, though, I am plagued with anxious and angry dreams. Like last night, when I dreamed WebAdvisor let all these students into my class after the add/drop period. Boy, was I mad. I woke up, though, and got un-mad.

I have always, always been a nail biter. Always. But when I had wisdom teeth surgery, I couldn't very well chew my nails. So they grew. And I've let them. I've even used a nail file and clippers in the past few weeks. I've never used these items on my hands before. I'm a little clumsy. But, maybe I am no longer a biter. Tell that to my thumbs.

Today, at an auction in town, I may have purchased John R. Milton's typewriter. I will take that as a sign to start my own literary journal. I want to call it The Flyover Review. And I will publish hip, smart writers who write and live the Midwest. But, you've got to have some kinda angle to get published in my review. You've got to be something.

Bridge is strumming guitar in the kitchen. I'm gonna go put in some requests.

What I Learned at the Bull-A-Rama

1. Everyone likes a fat, dancing rodeo clown.

2. A bra can be used to hold one's cell phone.

3. I am not nearly as tan as I thought I was.

4. Watching skinny cowboys willingly get on a 1,300 lb. bull is pretty freaking amazing.

5. I will wait 20 minutes in a smelly line to use a smelly bathroom.

6. Watching 4 year olds try to ride a sheep is pretty freaking awesome.

7. I very, very badly want to find a mechanical bull.

8. There ain't no doubt I love this land.

What's Up

Listening to Madonna and thinking. Not obnoxious Kabbalah Madonna, but awesome Immaculate Collection Madonna. Sacrilegious Catholic Madonna--my fave. The throb in my gums gets fainter and fainter each day and today I have whole day free.

Syllabi and homework schedules are done and sent in for copying. First week lesson plans are tweaked and ready to go. Meetings are over and eyebrows are waxed. Now it's just the last few days before the rush. Last night was porch sitting and margaritas.

I am eating food again and loving it! I missed eating so, so much. After a meeting earlier this week, L. and I went for lunch at Chae's, and it was delightful. The first meal I enjoyed in over a week and a half. Broccoli, lo mein, zucchini. Yuh-um.

Our campus is a construction zone. It's hard to see that. It's hard to understand that there is money for that, but not money for the ones who teach and keep the university running. I propose this: someone bigwig can put their name all over, say, a $4,000 bump in my salary. I'll put their face on my office door and put their logo on every handout I make. They can sponsor the hell out of me, and I'll make them proud.

Isn't that how it works? Money for new buildings and sidewalks and lawns and lampposts and athletics is always easy to find. Money to attract and keep talent here, money to continue nationally-known, significant programs is scant. The higher-ups have spent the last 7 months jerking around B's father. They showed the man as little respect and professionalism as possible. Another friend who works on campus is feeling devalued, and I am blown away. Just absolutely blown away.

Things will work out, I hope. And this semester will be a good one. I was in a Business Writing meeting yesterday, and it was, um, okay. I realize I haven't been teaching for years and years, but I've taught a lot. By my calculations, after this semester, I'll have taught over 32 classes. That translates to over 550 students who have walked into my classroom.

And I'm confident about my teaching abilities. I wasn't. Not before, not when I was just starting out and took everything, and I mean everything, to heart. But I've matured as a teacher and I feel confident that I give my students an engaging and intellectual experience when they choose me. I received a letter from my Dean yesterday. According to student evaluations, my classes last Spring were ranked in the top few dozen in the College of Arts and Sciences. Now, I don't know how many classes the College offers each semester; I would guess it's in the hundreds. And I'm teaching required, gen ed classes. I'm not teaching, you know, the History of Rock and Roll, or Art Appreciation, or Acting I, or Human Sexuality, or other sexy classes like that.

But now I feel like my Comp I class is a pretty sexy class. And that I am making a goddamn difference.

And that's a pretty awesome way to start out a new semester.

Sunday Night

I am incessantly blogging about my wisdom teeth because I am incessantly consumed with my wisdom teeth. In the week preceding and the week after getting my wisdom teeth removed, I have googled variations of "wisdom teeth" and "pain" compulsively.

And what I have found through my "research" is that wisdom teeth are effin' weird. They are primitive. And gross.




Me: Bridge, do you think we'll have wisdom teeth in 300 years?

Bridge: Yup.

Me: But ... why?? They don't serve a purpose anymore!

Bridge: But we get them removed. They don't impede anything. They don't disrupt reproduction. Until reproduction rates are disrupted, they aren't going anywhere.

Me: Well. It sure doesn't make me want to kiss. I think that disrupts reproduction.

Bridge: Think again.




Last night was a rough night. I was up most of it with ice wrapped around my face and clutching my bottle of Darvocet. I Just Say No to Darvocet during the day, but at night? Lemme at 'em.

This coming week is meetings, meetings, meetings.

And the week after is teaching, teaching, teaching.

Saturday Morning

I'm up kinda early this morning.

My mouth hurts, but not where I would expect it to. Where the oral surgeon made his cuts--no pain; my bottom gums closer to the front of my mouth--lots of pain. I wonder why.

I took my 600 mgs of Advil (ok, and 600 mgs is a lot of Advil. I feel like I may succumb to the lamest OD ever) and have my ice pack on.

My ice pack has become my crutch. I need it; I crave it. I love it.

Last night right before I fell asleep, I heard sirens. I whispered in the dark to B., "sirens...?" and she whispered back, "yes, Vermillion is just getting ready for the students in a few weeks." A few weeks, B.? Try a few days. And then she was up, tossing and turning, because even though we both know exactly when the semester starts, we both didn't think it was quite so soon. I am pretty sure I wrote this last year at this time, but here we go again: it's almost September. But I feel like summer is just getting started, man. We're just getting started.

I think I am ready for the new year, though. It's already shaping up well. I will lead a workshop on creative nonfiction at the Sorcerer's Apprentice Camp in September, will read poetry at the Western Lit conference in Spearfish in early October and fiction at the Milton Conference in late October, and will have my work debuted at the Sioux Falls Pavilion in December as part of P3: Poets, Painters, and the Pavilion. Oh yeah, I'll also teach a bajillion students.

I'm excited to get back into teaching. I've gotten e-mails from some returning superstars; I'm always glad to have those students back in class. And, if nothing else, I'll be glad to get back into the classroom so I have something real to get frustrated about, besides the parking antics of my neighbors and the way clover has claimed my lawn. When I meet J. for lunch, I'll actually have to schedule a time, not just send a text that reads, "lunch this week? all week? anytime, anyplace!" When I meet you all for happy hour, I'll actually deserve a happy hour.

OK, Fall '09, I'm ready for you.

Or at least I will be, after my shopping trip to SUX with Bridge, Weez, and Jacy today. I need some tan trouser cut pants. And a planner. And some Clearasil. Then, Fall '09, I'll be totally ready for you.

Oh. I need a haircut and an eyebrow wax, too. And then, Fall '09, watch out.