Category Archives: Writing

People Who Make the World Right

Posted on 11 November 2009 | Leave a comment

I don’t often think of the way that certain people make life bearable and, in fact, even enjoyable. I was reminded today of three people who not only do their jobs, but who do them well. Above and beyond the requirements of their jobs. All three happen to work in the graduate office, or whatever they are calling it these days, at the Ball. Sometimes it is important to notice when people make others’ lives easier.compassionA couple of weeks ago when I was having such a bad spot, the first person to notice my funk was Shawna, our administrative assistant. She didn’t just notice that I was especially flustered or sad; she asked me if I was doing okay. She actually was concerned about my well-being, which is a rare quality to find in another individual, particularly someone who works as an administrative assistant at BSU. (They don’t have the best reputation.) Since I have been at Ball State there have been three people who have done her job, but Shawna is by far the most sensitive and helpful. She goes above and beyond in every way to ensure our (the students’) success. I have learned that if you need something, Shawna is the one to ask.

Similarly, Jill gives as much of herself as anyone I have ever met. She exudes grace and mercy, while also maintaining an air of justice. Some of my favorite classes during my graduate program have been my creative nonfiction classes. I am not sure that my creative writing improved, though that is no fault of Jill’s; but, through thinking about memoir, I have grown in my academic writing. I am more aware of the way I weave words together, more cognizant of my audience, and more interested in choosing the exact phrases to communicate my ideas clearly. More importantly, Jill encourages her students to be engaged and gracious human beings. How? It’s a gift.

Finally, our graduate director is one of the most diplomatic and compassionate people I know. How she is so eloquently and gracefully the liaison between the students and the graduate school, I will never know. What I do know is that she excels at her job, and she does it with a smile. I think my appreciation for Debbie grew exponentially today when I was sharing with a friend about her positive and uplifting role in our graduate school careers. I was talking about how astounded I am at the fact that one person can embody such intense passion for her career, while also exhibiting such compassion for those of us seeking to pursue the same path.

I hope one day a student of mine can say that I influenced his or her life in the ways that mine has been influenced by these amazing women. In case it never feels like it, there are some of us who notice you going above and beyond to make BSU a better place to be. How is it that I always feel better about myself after I’ve been around you? Thanks.

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Since today was Veteran’s Day, I was thinking pretty extensively about my family members and friends who have been in the military. Although I disagree with most of what our government does, I do recognize that the men and women of the armed forces go to great lengths to ensure our American freedom, including my right to disagree with the government. I want peace, but I also honor the military personnel. So thanks.

  • Vernon Hash
  • James Roberson
  • Themie Pappas
  • George Pappas
  • Bill Pappas
  • Jim Pappas
  • Mike Pappas
  • Tony Shiner
  • Rick Hash
  • William Keck
  • Vaughn Hash
  • Bernard Hash
  • Dale Hash
  • Calvin Hackman
  • Jack Taly
  • Jack Harris
  • Ed Comber
  • Nathan Neely
  • Drew Hunter
  • Nathan Klink
  • Ty Shadle

If your name isn’t on this list, please forgive me, and know that I do appreciate your sacrifice. 3875416709_28f5eede84*

Exercise: Walked the dogs 1.4 miles, rode my bike from RB to Burris and back

Food: banana, Clif bar, apple, tea, Chinese, Superman ice cream with sprinkles, M&Ms

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Posted in CNF, Food, Grace, Relationships, School, Teaching, Writing

Ups and Downs.

Posted on 8 November 2009 | 2 comments

Today has been one of theological ups and downs. I have decided that I cannot go back to Agape, and, sadly, there aren’t very many people I will even miss by not returning. I say this is sad because a person shouldn’t be able to attend a church for three and a half years, then leave, and not really miss anyone. I think I didn’t form attachments to many people because I didn’t feel like I could ever be myself, which I suppose I will wrestle with for most of my adult life in church.

On my way to church this morning, I prayed for God to change my heart, for God to meet me there, and for my own knowledge and pride not to get in my way. I found myself worshiping God in a way that I hadn’t in a long time. I felt at one with all God’s glory around me: the trees in their changing state, the fields being harvested, and the wind blowing forcefully through the trees. I felt like Celie in The Color Purple when she finally understood who God is: “Here’s the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into this world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you are looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. […] God ain’t a he or a she, but a It.” I was reveling in the beauty of my body as I exercised, basking in God’s love. “Create in me a clean heart, put a new and right spirit within me,” I prayed with David, the Psalmist. I felt like my previous tension and even anger had been swept away by this 40 minutes of worship and prayer. When I walked into church a few minutes late, they were already taking communion. I interpreted this as a good sign. Surely, today would be different.

Aside from the new red and yellow stage lighting and the performative nature of the worship sets, I can live with change. I am not someone who despises things simply because they are new; I just expect things to change for some higher or better purpose, especially when they involve God, the Church, or things theological. I could feel my annoyance rising when I could tell that the service had been engineered to run seamlessly. My irritation continued to rise when attention was drawn to the fact that it was engineered in this manner, and we were expected to think that was cool and even lament the fact that it didn’t go off as planned.

My anger culminated when the Scripture we read was Acts 1. I wasn’t angry about reading Acts 1—Acts is one of my favorite books of the Bible, and I would consider it one of the most powerful—but I was angry at the fact that we read most of Acts 1, except PART of verse 14: “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.” We were encouraged to understand that we should pray all the time, but we never discussed the revolutionary implications of a church who prays together, male and female, joined together. Similarly, when we talked about the Samaritan woman at the well a few Sundays ago, more attention was drawn to the fact that she was Samaritan than the fact that she was a woman. In fact, we also didn’t read part of that Scripture either. The part we neglected to read was John 4:27: “Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, ‘What do you want?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?'” How can you tell, let alone try to apply an exegetical or hermeneutical understanding to, this story without mentioning the female aspect of it?isnt_heart_break_cute1

By the end of the service this morning I was filled with anger, disappointment, and a great sense of loss. I found myself mourning the great strides I had seen our church make over the past few years. They have been lost or abandoned in less than a couple of months. I lay hope in the fact that this style of service reaches someone. Obviously it reaches the people who go there, but it doesn’t reach me. I think God uses everything to reach out to this world, but it doesn’t mean that everything reaches everyone. I think it is better for my spiritual well-being if I just stop going and find somewhere that doesn’t provoke me to rage. This is difficult for me. I am not one to quit what I have started, but my spiritual health relies on my leaving. Bye, Agape. I mourn the loss of you.

I decided to try out Commonway Church tonight. I loved it. The worship was genuine; the message, given by a missionary to China, was thought-provoking; and, they actually do real things like go to movies with each other and talk about worldly ventures. I didn’t feel cloistered off from the real world. I felt like I was in the world, not of the world. I did not feel like I should be ashamed for listening to secular music, watching movies that are rated R, or thinking critically about the word. In fact, the speaker compared God’s glory and world recognition to the world-renown of Michael Jordan. Let’s face it. More people could probably pick Michael Jordan out of a line up than could pick Jesus out. It was good. I have found at least a temporary home.

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I have decided to start listing my food consumption and exercise expenditure here. The purpose of this is two-fold: (1) I need to make sure I am eating properly. (2) If I list it here each day, it will encourage me to write more.

Exercise: walked the dogs 1.4 miles; ran for 39 minutes (3 miles); biked to church and home

Food: banana, juice, oatmeal, spaghetti with marinara, spaghetti squash, spinach, ice cream sandwich, two Twizzlers, popcorn, cheese, an apple, glass of chocolate milk

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Posted in Feminism, Food, Grace, Relationships, Running, Writing

African Studies Conference

Posted on 6 November 2009 | 3 comments

The conference went off without a hitch. My paper turned out pretty well, and I am happy that I got it finished and that it was not a horrible paper. I am not sure why my ideas take so long to congeal, but I wish they would learn to do it a bit more quickly. At any rate, the coordinator of the conference, Dr. Patton, said she had burning questions for all of us, and congratulated us on our papers, so that is a good sign, right? Our panel chair, Dr. Peterson, engaged each of us in the discussion afterwords, which was enlightening and helpful. What interests me about conference presentations is that even when the papers are not written around a certain theme, they still seem to take on similar qualities. For example, our presentation were all on entirely different ideas, subjects, or themes, but we were able to see definite similarities between the three of them. In short, I think we made BSU look good.

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Posted in Literature, Reading, Writing

Subbing. Conferences of All Sorts. Writing.

Posted on 5 November 2009 | 2 comments

I am substituting for a friend right now and a few of her students are sitting up in the corner, supposedly reading, but really they are watching videos or listening to something on someone’s iPod. They don’t think I can see what they are doing, but I can see them laughing, and the last time I checked, Of Mice and Men wasn’t a funny book. Maybe I just failed to see the humor in it. Maybe somehow these two students have unlocked the secret to the mystery within, which I was unable to find. Another student is sitting in his desk with his head down pretending to read but trying harder to sleep, but the one who is sound asleep in the middle of the floor takes the cake. The rest of them, diligent as can be, are using this time to their advantage to read the book. Two of them took it home last night, read it all, and are already working on their essays. One of the over-achievers just came back to the room from the library, where he is working on his essay, to ask the other over-achiever a question. This kid is young, too young for high school, as is evidenced by the fact that he just skipped, like the child he is, back to the library. But he’s smart so he’s here.

When I was in high school, I would have been sitting in the corner watching the iPod. Why, then, am I so hard on students who act like I did when I was younger? I do it to my college students, too. If someone had told me that I had a free pass to miss class because of the flu, I would have missed as much as possible, saying, “Peace out until they lift this new policy.” I would have quit class, done my homework from home, and come on the last day to turn it in, all the while claiming I had the swine flu. For. A. Really. Long. Time. I wonder why, now as an adult, this behavior irritates me so much. I have come to the conclusion that it irritates me because I am grown, so I can no longer get away with it. I have to work and do things like write conference papers.

I leave in about fifteen minutes for a conference. My paper is still not finished. I am not saying this to brag, as undoubtedly some people who read this will misconstrue, but I say this because it scares the shit out of me that I will not get it finished before I am supposed to present it. I try to act nonchalant about my last-minute trysts with Microsoft Word, research, and my ideas, but each time this happens—this time not because I procrastinated, but because I literally did not have time to write it—it strengthens the fear in me that I will one day be discovered as the woman who can’t do it, who doesn’t quite measure up, and who simply doesn’t belong in academia.

This is not self-debasement or a thinly veiled plea for self-pity. Instead, this is simply how I feel about my inability to get things finished in a timely fashion. Oh, I do try to play it off as this quirky skill I have for procrastinating until the last possible minute and then pulling something out of my ass that is passable, half-way intelligent, and not plain crap. I might even laugh about it or pretend I function best this way. It isn’t funny, and I am not proud that I am a woman who writes her conference papers at the last minute. I would vow to change this behavior but I know it won’t be easy to change. As I said, it isn’t like I just put it off. I simply didn’t have time to finish it. Now I am putting it off.

I think writing gets easier the more I write. I don’t write academically everyday, but I do try to do some type of writing each day, so I think it gets less difficult to try to synthesize ideas into a cohesive presentation or paper. It doesn’t matter how easy it gets to put ideas together, it still takes time to put them down in print. Now I will go finish putting them in print. Yes, I am almost finished with it.

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Posted in Dissertation, Personal, School, Teaching, Writing

Write On! Where the Wild Things Are. A Jog.

Posted on 19 October 2009 | 3 comments

After school today is the second meeting of “Write On!” a writing group that Abbie and I are starting at Burris. The point of the group is to write and edit a literary magazine. Submissions will be accepted from Burris students in grades 8-12, Indiana Academy students, and our faculty. I hope we get some faculty submissions because it is important for students to see their teachers write. I also hope more students show up today than did last week, although I was pleased by the four who showed up last week. Abbie and I pretty much decided they would be the editorial board, although we have to hold elections in a couple of weeks.

My students are working on designing comics or political cartoons because we just finished MAUS I: A Survivor’s Tale. In another week, we will read MAUS II. Then we will go back to Modernism and their textbook. That sentence sounded sort of like I dread moving back to the textbook. I don’t. As textbooks go, this one doesn’t suck too bad. I do supplement the text with links on their class website, so I think we are getting full coverage.

I went to see Where the Wild Things Are over the weekend. It was weird. I think Time’s review is fairly accurate. Here are two other reviews: The New Yorker and Rotten Tomatoes. I loved that this movie took Sendak’s story and made it into something more. I also hated it. I loved that the land of the Wild Things was so well portrayed, but I hated that they had such internal strife. I get that their emotions in many ways were tied to Max’s own emotions, but I wanted the Wild Things and their world to be his escape from reality, not a descent into their reality. Still, I will probably buy it when it comes out on DVD. And, I still may get that Max tattoo.

I have decided to run two miles every morning instead of running three times each week. I started this morning with a run up to McGalliard and back. I think the consistency might help me get faster, but I hope I have enough recovery time between runs. Of course, the shorter distance will help with that. I am going to run two miles on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then run my long run four or six miles on Saturday. I think this will help to still provide me with a distance/endurance run while still helping me to get faster. Who knows. This could be the shittiest idea ever.

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Posted in Running, Teaching, Writing