Last weekend I made French onion soup*. This is my way of creeping back into cooking after basically retreating into heating up and taking out since mid September. This soup was one of the first from scratch things I learned how to cook. I bought Julia Child's French Cook cookbook. This isn't the two volume version with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholt. No, this was the little paperback based on the tv show. As I remember, the recipe is different in the paperback. I think that it calls for thyme or bay leaf or something. In the Mastering the Art version (the one I use now, I've got both volumes), the soup is basically onions, beef broth, a little salt, a little sugar, a little flour, and some vermouth. The trick is waiting the carmelization process out. When I first made the soup, I'd stand over it, worrying the onions along. Sometimes I'd just not be able to stand it another minute and dump the broth on the not-quite-golden onion slices. The soup always came out ok, but never as good as it can be when the onions get good and browned. So now, I find other stuff to do while they're in the pan. I read. I fold clothes. I wash dishes. I swing back and check out the pan and give it a stir every five or ten minutes. After a while, it's ready to go.
I know things about cooking now that I simply couldn't have at 20 or whenever I bought that little paperback. Some of the things I know, I know because of that book (soon covered in grease and gravy and egg and who knows what). But many of the things I know, I know simply because I've been cooking for a long time now. It's sheer practice, making mistakes, learning to think my way around fuckups or missing ingredients. My skills are the result of both theory (any new recipe) and practice (every dish executed).
I'm thinking about soup because I have to develop next semester's class on writing and writing is a lot like cooking. It's theory (the nuts and bolts and widgets of written English) and it's practice (every written communication). But since I'm trying to teach students how to write sort of formal prose, I have to figure out how to write the recipes . . .
Oh, forget this metaphor. I'm having the worst time trying to think about this class. The soup was great. Also great is Harold Pinter's Nobel speech. This man can write. My students, well, some are sort of interested in writing. But I'm having this incredibly hard time getting the writerlyness about writing across to them. For one thing, there's this whole problem of patience. Some find it difficult to understand why someone would write something that's fifty pages long, when you could say the same thing in a paragraph. The point that fifty pages make possible something that a single paragraph doesn't is probably the root of my failure to communicate.
* I made gingerbread too.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Thursday, November 17, 2005
epiphany
When I was an Episcopalian, from 13 to 16 years old, I had this great pastor who invited members of a youth group out to his house in Upper Montclair and talked about theology and chess. I am a bad chess player. I learned when I was in 5th grade and have never gotten any better. I'm not a great theologian either, but I remember still this one thing I learned from those discussions - epiphany.
Now according to the dictionary, once you've gotten past the feast of the Magi, epiphany is "the revelatory manifestation of a divine being". But my pastor called it "the outward sign of an inward grace". I think that epiphany applies to many things, not just grace and I've been having a number of them this week. First, the continued devolution that is this university. The Academic Senate voted not to do anything in response to the Chancellor's mandates. This is not so good as the Chancellor is not a forgiving sort of guy and is likely to do something about this refusal. To make matters worse, according to the Provost, the school is going to have to pay back something like one and a half million dollars through failing to meet enrollment targets. To make things even worser, 49% of the students who come here leave without a degree. And, the worstest part, the ones who stay here are harassed by instructors. This last is from my buddy the ombudswoman, who further went on to say that the many complaints that come to her are caused by the same five or six faculty members, time and time again.
Great.
But the epiphany came when I was walking across campus to get some lunch. It must be hunger awareness week or something right now. On the middle of the lawn at the center of campus was a cardboard and duct tape shantytown. I didn't know it was a shantytown until I saw the sign. It didn't look all that much like anything. So anyhow, as far as I understand it, students who want to bring attention to thee important issues live in these shantytowns for the week, but these were empty by sundown, with only a couple of posters and the boxes were gone by midday the next day. That is this place. Full of borrowed good intentions, but with never the heart or head to follow through.
The other epiphany was about golf, but that will have to wait.
Now according to the dictionary, once you've gotten past the feast of the Magi, epiphany is "the revelatory manifestation of a divine being". But my pastor called it "the outward sign of an inward grace". I think that epiphany applies to many things, not just grace and I've been having a number of them this week. First, the continued devolution that is this university. The Academic Senate voted not to do anything in response to the Chancellor's mandates. This is not so good as the Chancellor is not a forgiving sort of guy and is likely to do something about this refusal. To make matters worse, according to the Provost, the school is going to have to pay back something like one and a half million dollars through failing to meet enrollment targets. To make things even worser, 49% of the students who come here leave without a degree. And, the worstest part, the ones who stay here are harassed by instructors. This last is from my buddy the ombudswoman, who further went on to say that the many complaints that come to her are caused by the same five or six faculty members, time and time again.
Great.
But the epiphany came when I was walking across campus to get some lunch. It must be hunger awareness week or something right now. On the middle of the lawn at the center of campus was a cardboard and duct tape shantytown. I didn't know it was a shantytown until I saw the sign. It didn't look all that much like anything. So anyhow, as far as I understand it, students who want to bring attention to thee important issues live in these shantytowns for the week, but these were empty by sundown, with only a couple of posters and the boxes were gone by midday the next day. That is this place. Full of borrowed good intentions, but with never the heart or head to follow through.
The other epiphany was about golf, but that will have to wait.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
extremes
Today was too long by about three hours. Part of the problem was an academic senate meeting. I've been the senator for my college for going on three years now and the nasty bits of the sausage-making that is getting people to discuss issues and make decisions has become tiresome.
Today's meeting there were presentations from two of the academic vice presidents. These women aren't directly connected to the faculty-teaching side of things, but they were giving information about the dire state of the campus and what we should be thinking of doing about it. I may have mentioned that the place is falling apart?
Their presentations were the sort of bracing talks we needed, but of course someone managed to turn it around to their political perspective in less than 30 seconds. So what that we're the worst school in our system for students transferring out? It's not our fault. The problem is that the tuition is too high! Yeah, that's it.
Uh huh, sure it is.
So I drag myself out of the meeting and off to class. This is my rambunctious section and we're slogging through a book that I know less than half of them are reading with anything like attention. One of my better students starts off with this wild-assed theory about why African-Americans are better athletes than whites. Something about different rates of evolution in humans.
Oh dear.
Well, I was tired and I was cranky and I called his theory wacky in front of the entire class. After about ten minutes he left and I have never felt so bad in a classroom all the time that I've been teaching. I got through the rest of the class and went straight to my office to write him an apology. At the end of my next class, he walks in, waits for the students who have been hanging around to leave and then we have a good talk.
He's having a hard time these days. His parents are splitting up. He's been helping his dad move to Salinas. (His mother doesn't know.) He just broke up with his girlfriend. And he's pretty sure that he doesn't want to be a business major. He really just loves music, but doesn't see how he's going to make a living at it.
We talked for quite a while. Although I'm the last person on earth to tell someone to stay in college, I think that college is the perfect place for a guy like him. He's curious. He likes struggling with new ideas. He's not particularly shy about putting his opinions out there. He's thoughtful. He works hard. Not to mention that he's thinking about dropping out to join the Navy and this is a bad time to be in the Armed Forces. He should be having a good time in school now and not worrying about what he's going to major in to pay off the debt he's accruing as he goes to school.
Our system sucks.
This is one of the things I like about teaching. Just as sitting through the meeting before class is one of the things I hate. The latter makes me tired. The former makes me feel useful and it's nearly as good as doing the classroom work.
Today's meeting there were presentations from two of the academic vice presidents. These women aren't directly connected to the faculty-teaching side of things, but they were giving information about the dire state of the campus and what we should be thinking of doing about it. I may have mentioned that the place is falling apart?
Their presentations were the sort of bracing talks we needed, but of course someone managed to turn it around to their political perspective in less than 30 seconds. So what that we're the worst school in our system for students transferring out? It's not our fault. The problem is that the tuition is too high! Yeah, that's it.
Uh huh, sure it is.
So I drag myself out of the meeting and off to class. This is my rambunctious section and we're slogging through a book that I know less than half of them are reading with anything like attention. One of my better students starts off with this wild-assed theory about why African-Americans are better athletes than whites. Something about different rates of evolution in humans.
Oh dear.
Well, I was tired and I was cranky and I called his theory wacky in front of the entire class. After about ten minutes he left and I have never felt so bad in a classroom all the time that I've been teaching. I got through the rest of the class and went straight to my office to write him an apology. At the end of my next class, he walks in, waits for the students who have been hanging around to leave and then we have a good talk.
He's having a hard time these days. His parents are splitting up. He's been helping his dad move to Salinas. (His mother doesn't know.) He just broke up with his girlfriend. And he's pretty sure that he doesn't want to be a business major. He really just loves music, but doesn't see how he's going to make a living at it.
We talked for quite a while. Although I'm the last person on earth to tell someone to stay in college, I think that college is the perfect place for a guy like him. He's curious. He likes struggling with new ideas. He's not particularly shy about putting his opinions out there. He's thoughtful. He works hard. Not to mention that he's thinking about dropping out to join the Navy and this is a bad time to be in the Armed Forces. He should be having a good time in school now and not worrying about what he's going to major in to pay off the debt he's accruing as he goes to school.
Our system sucks.
This is one of the things I like about teaching. Just as sitting through the meeting before class is one of the things I hate. The latter makes me tired. The former makes me feel useful and it's nearly as good as doing the classroom work.
Monday, October 24, 2005
shuffle - I
One big problem with having my mp3 player on endless shuffle is that I rarely listen straight through a CD or album. I hear things in bits and snatches, one great song and then onto something completely unconnected. Of course this is also like having God’s very own radio, spinning between genres and time periods as though they were all the one.
Things catching my attention this week:
Things catching my attention this week:
- The Staples Singers – New Home
- Billie Holliday with the Mel Waldron All Stars (including Lester Young) - Fine and Mellow
- Joao Do Vale – Estrela Miuda
- Gil-Scott Heron - Winter in America
- Richard and Linda Thompson - Calvary Cross
- June Tabor - Lay This Body Down
- Sonny Rollins - Tenor Madness
- Hilary Hahn - Bach Violin Partitas
- James Brown - The Big Payback
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
the cabal
An amazing talk from the former State Department's chief of staff who details and condemns the mess the GWB administration has made of foreign policy.
being contrary
I don't know what it is about me or about me in conversation with some people, but there are folks that just make me perversely contradictory. Today I was in a faculty meeting. Well, it's more complicated than that. I am the director of the program. All of these people are my employees, sort of. That is, I hire them, but given that we all teach the same topic, we're more like colleagues, but the fact that I chose them is always lurking in the background.
At any rate, there's a lot of tension around as I've written before and faculty in my program are particularly worried that the program itself is going to be eliminated. One of the proposals making the rounds is that all the university learning requirements (general education in the rest of the world) should be cut from four to three units. All the university learning requirements, except English Communication and Mathematical Communication. The people who wrote the proposal think, with some reason, that reading and writing are good things to be able to do, that it's good to be able to do some arithmetic, so these classes should have an extra hour to teach these useful skills.
No one has ever shown that the students here actually do learn better with four rather than three units in a class. Actually, there have been complaints since the very beginning that students get to their senior thesis without begin able to write. (It's true. I've read some of them.) But there's a sort of fetishism going on here.
At any rate, one of the faculty starts in on this rant about how cutting the arts and emphasizing English and Math is just another one of those Republican attacks on civilization. Now I hate the Republicans as much as any progressive, African-American lesbian living in the Bay Area could, but wait a minute. I started back at her with some rant about how it shouldn't be an either or sort of thing, how schools just needed more support to do all the good educational things they did when I was a kid (cheap instrument rentals, free lessons, art programs) blah, blah, blah.
But the thing that really bugged me? She actually does think that art is more important than mathematics and that's just wrong. In a perfect world, people wouldn't fear mathematics; every one would love reading; they'd be able to play an instrument; they'd be able to write what's in their hearts and heads with clarity and eloquence; they'd be able to make visual arts; they'd be able to fix a car, and cook, and sew, and who knows what all? But in this imperfect world, what should someone coming out of a four year university be able to do?
At the very, very , very rock bottom least, they should be able to read critically, write clearly (passion is a plus), and understand something of the abstraction that mathematics embody. To do these things, they should know some content too, but I'm willing to leave the content wide open.
The contrary part? I actually do think that knowing how friggin' hard it is to make art should be part of undergraduate study. But I know that this woman has remarkably low standards for art from her students. All expression all the time. Anything she says about art, holding herself as an exemplar of course, just turns me into a Philistine or forces me to point out to her that I started out as a painting major, ended up with a doctorate in ecology, and basically see art and science as co-equal in the realms of human achievement.
In short, being a jerk
At any rate, there's a lot of tension around as I've written before and faculty in my program are particularly worried that the program itself is going to be eliminated. One of the proposals making the rounds is that all the university learning requirements (general education in the rest of the world) should be cut from four to three units. All the university learning requirements, except English Communication and Mathematical Communication. The people who wrote the proposal think, with some reason, that reading and writing are good things to be able to do, that it's good to be able to do some arithmetic, so these classes should have an extra hour to teach these useful skills.
No one has ever shown that the students here actually do learn better with four rather than three units in a class. Actually, there have been complaints since the very beginning that students get to their senior thesis without begin able to write. (It's true. I've read some of them.) But there's a sort of fetishism going on here.
At any rate, one of the faculty starts in on this rant about how cutting the arts and emphasizing English and Math is just another one of those Republican attacks on civilization. Now I hate the Republicans as much as any progressive, African-American lesbian living in the Bay Area could, but wait a minute. I started back at her with some rant about how it shouldn't be an either or sort of thing, how schools just needed more support to do all the good educational things they did when I was a kid (cheap instrument rentals, free lessons, art programs) blah, blah, blah.
But the thing that really bugged me? She actually does think that art is more important than mathematics and that's just wrong. In a perfect world, people wouldn't fear mathematics; every one would love reading; they'd be able to play an instrument; they'd be able to write what's in their hearts and heads with clarity and eloquence; they'd be able to make visual arts; they'd be able to fix a car, and cook, and sew, and who knows what all? But in this imperfect world, what should someone coming out of a four year university be able to do?
At the very, very , very rock bottom least, they should be able to read critically, write clearly (passion is a plus), and understand something of the abstraction that mathematics embody. To do these things, they should know some content too, but I'm willing to leave the content wide open.
The contrary part? I actually do think that knowing how friggin' hard it is to make art should be part of undergraduate study. But I know that this woman has remarkably low standards for art from her students. All expression all the time. Anything she says about art, holding herself as an exemplar of course, just turns me into a Philistine or forces me to point out to her that I started out as a painting major, ended up with a doctorate in ecology, and basically see art and science as co-equal in the realms of human achievement.
In short, being a jerk
Monday, October 17, 2005
not thinking
That's the theme for today. I'm clearly not thinking because I've locked my keys in my car and I'm sitting here waiting for the AAA people to show up.
My colleagues are not thinking because with a deadline looming (I'm talking about three weeks or so away, which is like half an hour in academic time), they're dithering over whether these are long-term or short-term changes. And they're wanting someone, from somewhere to pay them some extra cash for thinking about curricula, which is, you know, our job.
And the on-going non-thinking of our government is manifest in
No. The name came to me after watching the Katrina debacle unfold day after day. It made me aware of politics in a way I haven't been in years, convincing me that even as far off and abstract as elections seem, the effects are right here and right now. I wanted to write about politics, but I've only been able to write about the very close up and personal politics of this campus I'm leaving. But it might be an as above-so below sort of thing. The non-thinking that's driven this campus into panic, the dismissal of inconvenient facts or unpleasant information is not all that different from the non-thinking that's gotten the country were it is now. Except that I don't think that there's anyone on staff here who's actually the AntiChrist, and I'm not all that sure about Karl Rove.
My colleagues are not thinking because with a deadline looming (I'm talking about three weeks or so away, which is like half an hour in academic time), they're dithering over whether these are long-term or short-term changes. And they're wanting someone, from somewhere to pay them some extra cash for thinking about curricula, which is, you know, our job.
And the on-going non-thinking of our government is manifest in
- the mad spinning on the Plame leak, even as it looks like someone is going to jail
- The increasingly feeble Potemkin village pretense that this administration has any interest in governing
- the laughable recommendation that that shill Armstrong Williams give back some of the money or that he be indicted, while the brains in the Deprtment of Education who came up with the plan go unnamed and unscathed
No. The name came to me after watching the Katrina debacle unfold day after day. It made me aware of politics in a way I haven't been in years, convincing me that even as far off and abstract as elections seem, the effects are right here and right now. I wanted to write about politics, but I've only been able to write about the very close up and personal politics of this campus I'm leaving. But it might be an as above-so below sort of thing. The non-thinking that's driven this campus into panic, the dismissal of inconvenient facts or unpleasant information is not all that different from the non-thinking that's gotten the country were it is now. Except that I don't think that there's anyone on staff here who's actually the AntiChrist, and I'm not all that sure about Karl Rove.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
implosion II
I fucked up and published the first part of this before I was finished.
The university where I teach is coming unraveled. It started as a experiment, not all that long ago, but it is an experiment within a not-too-experimental system. The campus has dealt with this situation basically by closing its eyes and hoping it would go away.
It hasn't. In fact things are worse now because the central adminsitration is making some very specific demands and (if things were'nt bad enough) the deadline for making some substantial changes is looming. Faculty are either running around like chickens with their heads cut off (metaphorically speaking) or they're hunkering down to resist any change whatsoever. The other sign of the place falling apart is that many of the curricular experiments that made the place different look to be the first things tossed overboard right now. That's telling I think.
For all our rhetoric, it seems as though the glue that held the place together wasn't very strong after all. What seemed like a comprehensive commitment to a particular mission seems to have been individual commitments to individual ambitions. The qualities that make a community happen never came together and now the rifts are growing more and more visible. The people who wanted a traditional education in the first place look at this vindication. Those who wanted something more innovative are building up ramparts of denial and bargaining. Those who just wanted a job are waiting to see what happens next. Sadly, not many want to think about this very deeply or do anything. But there simply isn't time for the usual dithering.
I am torn. Part of me just wants to wait out the time I have left, but another part feels the call to do something. To try to salvage something from what seemed like such a wonderful dream.
The university where I teach is coming unraveled. It started as a experiment, not all that long ago, but it is an experiment within a not-too-experimental system. The campus has dealt with this situation basically by closing its eyes and hoping it would go away.
It hasn't. In fact things are worse now because the central adminsitration is making some very specific demands and (if things were'nt bad enough) the deadline for making some substantial changes is looming. Faculty are either running around like chickens with their heads cut off (metaphorically speaking) or they're hunkering down to resist any change whatsoever. The other sign of the place falling apart is that many of the curricular experiments that made the place different look to be the first things tossed overboard right now. That's telling I think.
For all our rhetoric, it seems as though the glue that held the place together wasn't very strong after all. What seemed like a comprehensive commitment to a particular mission seems to have been individual commitments to individual ambitions. The qualities that make a community happen never came together and now the rifts are growing more and more visible. The people who wanted a traditional education in the first place look at this vindication. Those who wanted something more innovative are building up ramparts of denial and bargaining. Those who just wanted a job are waiting to see what happens next. Sadly, not many want to think about this very deeply or do anything. But there simply isn't time for the usual dithering.
I am torn. Part of me just wants to wait out the time I have left, but another part feels the call to do something. To try to salvage something from what seemed like such a wonderful dream.
implosion
When I started this ten days ago, I was trying to fgiure out what I'm going to do next. No pressure here. I've got months before the resignation is effective. I was trying to separate my mind from this place where I've spent so much time and energy for the last eight years.
But since then, the place itself, never all that stable, is beginning to fall in on itself.
But since then, the place itself, never all that stable, is beginning to fall in on itself.
Monday, October 03, 2005
I quit my job
I was thinking about it for months, for years. I complained about it to all my friends for the same months and years and now I've finally done it.
Since this is academia, it's not that easy.
I had to talk it over with my dean. Then I sent in a letter. Then I sent in another letter. Then he sends me a letter. And then it's done. I don't actually leave until next year, the end of the spring semester when all the grades are in, all the faculty hired for next year, all the graduates gone. Then I'll be gone too.
So in the next, what, nine months I disentagle myself from this life and get started on a new one. I hardly know where to start.
Since this is academia, it's not that easy.
I had to talk it over with my dean. Then I sent in a letter. Then I sent in another letter. Then he sends me a letter. And then it's done. I don't actually leave until next year, the end of the spring semester when all the grades are in, all the faculty hired for next year, all the graduates gone. Then I'll be gone too.
So in the next, what, nine months I disentagle myself from this life and get started on a new one. I hardly know where to start.
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