Category Archives: Teaching

Egg Nog Waffles. Hookah Initiation. Joseph.

Posted on 22 December 2010 | Leave a comment

Let’s begin with Joseph. For some reason, whenever I hear of a meditation on Joseph of the Christmas story variety, I get a little pissed. In my mind, I wonder what else could possibly be said about a man who had so little to do withe actual Christmas story. As Sojourner Truth points outs about Jesus, “Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him” (Ain’t I a Woman). For as little as Joseph appears to play a role in Christmas, the gospel of Matthew does spend the better portion of the first chapter giving Joseph’s lineage. I assume that means that even though Jesus isn’t technically Joseph’s son, Joseph is still important in the life of Jesus and in the eschatological timeline of the Christian church.

Despite my reluctance to recognize Joseph as someone worthy of lengthy discussions at Christmastime, and despite my desire to scream, “Can’t just one Christian holiday be about how God used a WOMAN?!?”, I have to admit that God sometimes goes to extreme measures to get me off my high horse. This time, though, a simple article did the trick. And, what’s even better is I found this short meditation by accident, via Twitter. Frank Viola writes in Remember Joseph: Rethinking Righteousness, “Today, I’d like to give Joseph his due. By my lights, Joseph was one of the most righteous men who ever lived.” That’s a pretty powerful statement. More righteous than Noah? More righteous than Job? More righteous than (fill in any person who is described in Jewish Scripture as blameless or righteous)? Really.

Viola continues by explaining Joseph’s righteousness like this, “I’m sure Joseph’s blood boiled when he heard that the woman who was betrothed to him in marriage was pregnant . . . and not by him. But because he was a righteous man, he showed mercy. He treated her as if he were in her own shoes and was guilty of what he had assumed she did.” Um, yeah. How many of us would’ve done what Joseph did? How many of us would stand beside someone who was in Mary’s shoes? Think about it really hard. Would you? Would I? Could we do it without patting ourselves on our backs or privately commenting that we are just doing it because that’s what a good Christian would do? Can we live as Viola describes Joseph? He writes “It is to react like Jesus, living void of self-righteousness.” This is the part of this meditation I loved. Viola reminds us to be vigilant in our dealings with others, because our own character is really what God is testing and proving. This holiday season can I behave this way? Can I live void of self-righteousness?

*

I initiated my hookah today. I used molasses tobacco, and spent about half an hour listening to Christmas music, contemplating life, and smoking shisha. I love being Greek, and I need to go to Greece sometime in order to experience where I come from. THe only drawback to going there is that I’m afraid I won’t want to come back!

*

I took the dogs for about a two-mile walk this morning, and when I got home I realized the reason I love breaks and summer is the ability to live slowly. I got up at 7:30 AM. walked the dogs around 8 AM, and made breakfast around 9 AM. This is the way my life is supposed to go. Slow, easy mornings. Now it’s noon and I have already exercised, made food from scratch, done laundry, relaxed, socialized via Twitter and Facebook, and written more than I have on any day since school started. Come to me summer, and don’t fail me Winter Break! On break, it’s all about the victuals.

Delicious vegan Egg Nog Waffles (substitute ground flax seed and water for the eggs) I made for breakfast! Yummy.

And the delicious dish I am calling Penne and Faux Sho Cheese that I made for lunch.

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Posted in Christmas, Feminism, Food, Relationships, Religion, School, Teaching, Vegetarian or Vegan, Writing

Diligence. Running. Diet. Merideth. Attitudes.

Posted on 3 December 2010 | 1 comment

It’s difficult for me to keep up with this blog since no one can actually see it anymore. I know now how my students feel when they write essays that are simply for my eyes, so I know that my teaching will be entirely different next year from what it is this year. It’s really hard to come here time and again to write, just like it is really hard for them to muster up any level of caring about their writing when they view it as simply an assignment. Next year, I am hoping to help them do assignment that will have a bit more exposure, more influence in their culture. But for now, I will occasionally write for you, my faithful and devoted reader(s), and they will write for me and each other. It’s an exercise in non-profit diligence.

I wish I didn’t teach until 9AM. If so, I could run in the morning without having to get up at 5AM. I am not so much fun when I get up at 5AM. In fact, I am quite grumpy when I get up at 5AM. You wouldn’t want to be around me when I get up at 5AM. Seriously, 5AM is bad. For me. However, what running I can eek out is going well. I am back to pre-injury speed, which in the running world, is more like a slow walk compared to where I should be for my age. I blame it on my girth. I’d like to strap a one-hundred backpack on some of these scrawny little runners and see how fast they go then!  They’d then be thrilled they could move their 200-plus-pound frame across flat land at 12:30 a mile. That’s pretty fast for a rounder! 🙂

The diet has changed. I am trying to only eat whole foods. The 1200-1500 calorie thing worked for about two weeks until I felt as if I was starving to death. Along with not liking to wake up at 5AM, I really don’t like to wake up hungry. When my stomach’s growling is more effective than my alarm clock, I realize I am no longer dieting. I am then starving myself. I am trying to transition to eating things like sweet potatoes, broccoli, barley, oats, nuts. You know, whole foods. I feel better, but last night I caved to a craving and ate pizza. Without cheese of course. And tonight I am having some beer and probably some other unhealthy food, like fries or whatnot.

On a very different note, I’d love (still) to go into business with Merideth to open the “Hoot and Whatnot,” the coffeehouse/bar/bookstore/general store conglomeration that we fantasized about so long ago. I can’t wait until Christmastime when she and her sister are going to be here. I only wish the time would be longer, and the days less packed with family events. Everything changes, but everything’s changed. We’re old. We’re married. She pregnant. We can’t just lie around all day eating peanut M&Ms and watching bad movies. We have to behave like adults. Sigh.

Adults. How do they behave? Badly, usually. I am trying with all of my might to help my workplace not be such a den of negativity. It’s like the beginning to Richard 3, “Now is the winter of our discontent,” only without it “made glorious summer by this son of York.” It’s just a pit of despair.

I am hoping to make it into sunshines and rainbows!

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Posted in Beer, Christmas, Family, Fat, Goals, Relationships, Running, Teaching, Writing

Sleeping and Waking. Injuring and Running. All in a days work.

Posted on 16 October 2010 | 4 comments

I would teach from nine to four, sleep an hour, and write from six until midnight, night after night.—Marguerite Young

I wish I was this motivated.

I should be. There is no reason I am not.

But, I am not.

So, instead, I teach from 8AM to 3PM—or 4 or 5 if I have a meeting—everyday, coming home to walk dogs, eat dinner, grade, then couch. Instead of writing, I fondle the remote control, waiting for some titillating piece of cinematic prowess to stimulate my mind into wanting to write or read or do anything productive. What I do instead of doing anything remotely academic or intellectual is I fall asleep watching Jeopardy before 8PM. Then I get up at  an ungodly hour in the morning to grade or to read or to plan my day. It’s sad, really.

I thought this weekend would be different. I thought I had a no-fail plan for catching up on all those things I should have done during the weekends when I was otherwise engaged, be my engagement in conferences or traveling or whatnot (side note: I cannot believe whatnot is in the computer dictionary, and that there is no little red line telling me it’s spelled wrong or not really a word.). I thought this would be the work weekend to end all work weekends, but my neighbors and their dog had another plan.

As I slept peacefully on the couch downstairs where I had fallen asleep watching Bones, I heard a loud commotion outside. I discovered that much like every other weekend since they moved in, my neighbors were having a drunken conversation on their front porch. This conversation was taking place in that I’m-trying-to-be-quiet-but-since-I’m-drunk-I’m-really-being-louder-than-usual radio newscaster’s voice. All monotone and spacey.

They were talking about the beers they were drinking; at least they’re drunken beer snobs, so I get to hear all about different, good beeers, instead of then pontificating about the ins-and-outs of beer pong or Asshole. At any rate, the dog must have had to go pee, because they let her out. Normally, she stays in their yard, does her business, and then goes back inside. But, I am sure, since she’s a smart dog, that she recognized the fortuitous twist of fate, the fact that they were so drunk they didn’t realize they hadn’t put her back in the house, and decided to come over into our yard for a bit. Which wouldn’t have been a bad idea if she would have simply stayed quiet and in the front yard.

However, she decided that it might be nice to go to the back and start snooping around, sniffing by the garage door, and nosing around in our back yard. This one, seemingly miniscule, action resulted in my being up from around 115AM when they awakened me with their revelry until about 5AM when they finally got their dog back in the house, and I finally calmed mine down for the third time. Yes, there were three cycles of Jane (their dog) barking and carrying on, which incited Sydney, who got Celie all riled up, who then got Lily all howly, and then I would come thumping down the stairs to quiet them down. On round number two, I took our dogs outside to pee so they could see that it was just Jane who was in their space. They didn’t really care. They didn’t want anyone in their space at 2AM.

Finally, after this second round, after I startled one of the neighbors while he was peeing in a bush, and after he decided to get Jane into the house, I stayed downstairs, sleeping on the couch until the third round of barking which must have been inadvertently stimulated by a squirrel or something in the backyard. Once those dogs get wacky, there’s almost no calming them down! I fell asleep watching Criminal Minds around 5AM. I should have used the time to write or read, but as per usual, I couched and remoted. I woke up about an hour-and-a-half later and went back upstairs to bed. I got up at 815ishAM. Needless to say, I am worthless today, so I am going to try to read the rest of the books I need to read. It’s about all I’m good for.

*

I finally went to the doctor for my ankle, and I have to wear heel cups, do stretches, and massage it with ice frozen in Dixie cups. I am going to start running again on Tuesday, but I have decided to move my runs to the afternoon, just when I get home from school and after I walk the dogs. I am going to start at the very beginning, so I don’t re-injure my ankle. My hope in running in the evening is that I will be able to run out the stress of the day and run in some energy to read and write for the evening. I figure if I can get to the point where I can get home, walk the dogs, and run by 530PM, I will have an hour for a nap/leisure time before Bec gets home. (I may have to reverse the order of the nap and the run.) Then, I will be more energized. Also, I am going to try to avoid the TV and the Internet between 630PM and 930PM or 10PM. Maybe this will help me get more focused as well.

One thing I will also have to work on is the way I eat. I have been eating like crap lately: lots of cookies, candy, animal products, and soda. I am not sure why I do this to myself, because I feel much healthier when I don’t eat these things. I love grape soda, so I am not sure I want to cut it completely, and a couple of Oreos won’t hurt either. I just need to stop eating ten or twelve Oreos and a couple of sodas each day. On top of regular food! It’s silly, really. And, I will need to stop the caffeine intake, too. No more Americanos that aren’t decaf.

Not only will I need to change what I eat, but when I eat. Seemingly, it would work better to eat more for an early breakfast when I first get up , hopefully by 430 each morning. Then by eating more for lunch, too, I will be able to run five hours later and skip dinner, having popcorn and an apple for a light snack before bed.

*

So here I go again setting goals I may not keep. The goal date for the following is July 22, 2011, my birthday:

  1. Finish a marathon.
  2. Stop shaving my head. Let it grow for Locks-of-Love.
  3. Spend at least half an hour reading the Bible, praying, and contemplating God each day.
  4. Have 75% of my students grow one academic year’s growth.
  5. Finish two chapters of my dissertation.
  6. Run 1000 miles.
  7. Stay vegan.
  8. Learn to say only what is necessary. Listen more than talk.
  9. Read one new book and one magazine from cover to cover each week. Follow the news.
  10. Finish painting the outside of the house.

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Posted in Birthday Crisis, Coffee, Dissertation, Fat, Food, Goals, Reading, Relationships, Religion, Running, School, Teaching, Vegetarian or Vegan, Writing

Failure? China. Appointment.

Posted on 9 October 2010 | 3 comments

Epic fail: I am so bad at this full-time job thing. I don’t like it. I like having lots of time to myself. Being around people wears me down. Groups of people wear me down more. Warring factions about put me over the edge. Having a meeting every time I turn around is even worse. I love the students. I love my subject area. I love teaching. But I hate this job.I know I have to have a full-time job, and there isn’t one I’d rather have than this one. But, I really want to just live instead of working and somewhat living.

*

I think I made either the best or worst educational move of my entire life. In my 10th grade English class, we have been reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil-Disobedience.” Naturally when Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize, I seized the opportunity to discuss his act of civil disobedience with my students. I have a Chinese exchange student in my class, so I figured she’d be able to help us understand the whole thing a bit more. Maybe she could even help to explain why China is so upset about his win. I showed these two videos:

But first, we read this article from the BBC. We also discussed some of the comments following the article.

About half-way through the first clip, I looked over at Nancy (my Chinese student) and noticed that she was looking frantically through her computer. She was frowning and looked mostly confused. When the videos were over, I asked the students to discuss two things in their groups: (1) Why were the Chinese so upset that Liu won the award? and (2) How was Liu exercising some of the ideas from Emerson and Thoreau’s writings? One of my other students also wanted to discuss why it is that American and British media always end up making other countries look barbaric in the news. I set my students loose in pairs and groups to discuss these three things.

I noticed that Nancy was still looking through her computer and that she hadn’t joined a group for the discussion, so I went over to her desk to discuss with her. When I approached her desk, I never in a million years, could have predicted what she would ask me. She looked up at me and said, “What happened at Tienanmen Square? What happened in 1989? I have never heard of this that we watched.” I am sure my mouth gaped a bit, but it was more at my own stupidity. Of course, with Internet censorship, she had never heard of the protest and civilian slaughter at Tienanmen Square. Why would she have heard of it? The military won, the people succumbed, and things went on as usual.

To discuss the event would mean to have to explain that they do, in fact, want their citizens to conform to a certain way of thinking. And, to discuss the event would mean owning that they killed a few hundred unarmed protesters. It would be like honestly discussing what happened to the homeless in New York or who gave the orders for the National Guard/ROTC to start shooting at Kent State.What’s even stranger about the whole situation is that even after Liu won the Nobel Prize, when Nancy tried to search for him on Chinese websites, all she could find was that he was a political prisoner. Maybe then it would be a bit more like doing a search for Mumia or Leonard Peltier and only being able to find what the government thinks of them, not what their supporters think of them.

So, I’ve either given a young woman a reason to question authority, or I’ve given her government a reason to be suspect of her. Either way, I hope she continues to ask questions about this, because it’s an important moment in history.

*

On Monday, I finally have an appointment to see a doctor at Central Indiana Orthopedics. Hopefully, he can help me get this ankle back in running shape so I can shoot for a spring marathon. We’ll see. I’ll update next weekend.

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Posted in Running, School, Teaching

Whirlwinds. Meanness. Writing. Exercise.

Posted on 24 September 2010 | 1 comment

I started the school year with an equal dose of confidence and trepidation, knowing my ability to teach would have to somehow balance with the expectations of Burris. One thing is true: this month has been a complete and utter whirlwind. I have never graded so many papers in such a short time, nor have I ever had so little time to do any personal reading or writing. I have found myself getting up at 4:00AM or 4:30AM each day this week in order to get grading and planning finished. I have spent the better part of at least one day, if not both days, of every weekend at school working. I haven’t even touched my dissertation, and now I face a couple of late nights working on a presentation for a conference I foolishly applied to attend. However, I do get to spend a good bit of quality time with friends I don’t get to see frequently, so I am looking forward to that part of it. Writing the presentation is an entirely different story!

One month into this new school year, I have to say that my experience is different than I expected. The people I expected to not like, I have grown to love, and the people I expected to really like, I am recognizing I am not so fond of. As usual, I am left with one driving question: Why do people insist on treating each with no compassion and no respect?  When I die, I fully expect  to move into my afterlife, asking to speak to whomever is in charge and trying to understand why people can’t be nice to each other. I will also demand to know why people get cancer and why it seems that the worst, most hateful people continually get ahead. I mean occasionally kind, loving people get ahead, but it feels as if the predominance of folks who are lauded in the media aren’t very nice. It seems as if the predominance of people in my life who have “the best lives” are the most hard-hearted and cruel. I suppose that is what happens when we continually measure the quality of people’s lives by financial success.

As you’ve noticed, and as I’ve said above, this new gig leaves little to no time for personal writing or reading. Normally, I wouldn’t consider working on my dissertation as personal gratification, but I crave a minute of reading a book written expressly for adults. I want to wrap my mind around a little Toni Morrison, and cuddle for a minute with Gloria Naylor. I have even found myself desiring to read scholarly articles! This need will be temporarily sated by my necessity to complete this conference presentation for next weekend. Sarah, Elizabeth, and I are going to Minneapolis, MN, for a fat studies conference. We are presenting on fat, pedagogy, and images. I was going to write about the students I’ve had who have interacted with the ideas of fat and body image, but I think I am going to shift my focus to include conversations or teachable moments in which my students have said things about being fat.

Finally, my body craves exercise in much the same way that my mind craves intellectual stimulation. I desire a run and a swim. I keep thinking that I will start running and swimming in the mornings, but this week I graded instead so next week I am going to shoot for swimming in the morning and easing back into running with a short barefoot run every evening. I feel like a slug. My ankle still hurts, but it is no longer excruciating. I hope the running won’t injure it again, because I have already missed one marathon opportunity, and it sucks.

*

The sun peeks over the top of the gas station across the street, highlighting the new garage being built next door. The rafters and wall-studs are geriatric dinosaurs darkened against the pinks and blues of the early morning sky. Two men sit, silhouetted by the light, by the windows between me and sunrise. They have discussed baptism, blackholes, and solar flares before moving on to high school cross country. Now they give thanks for their posh lives, reveling in the fact that they are not traveling business men who sit “forlorn and lonely” in hotel lobbies.

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Posted in Dissertation, Running, School, Swimming, Teaching, Writing