I admire many poets, but I am a fan of Stevie Smith. Though I’ve posted her work before, I did so in the context of a theme. Here, however, is one of my favorites. To my mind it displays such a caustically exhilarating playfulness, quibbling with Victor Hugo and daring the reader to groan at [...]
Archive for November, 2007
29 Nov
Time for rhubarb pah!
There’s a running bit on A Prairie Home Companion in which some poor fool undergoes a ridiculous concatenation of increasingly embarrassing situations, and just before pronouncing the final, inevitable disaster the voiceover interrupts: “Wouldn’t this be a great time for a piece of rhubarb pie? Yes, nothing takes the taste of shame and humiliation out [...]
26 Nov
Go, litel book
In my experience, “grad school” is emphatically not “college: the sequel.” For one thing, professors don’t care about your little feelings when you’re a grad student. So when I encounter people who went straight from undergrad to grad school, I wonder what is supposed to have happened in the intervening summer to transform them into [...]
25 Nov
Thanksgiving’s passed by way of Thanksgivings past
Like probably everyone else, I would love another five days “off.” With
an exam to write,
a dissertation proposal to comment on for the umpteenth time (at this point, I wonder if I shouldn’t just write the thing myself—and no, I don’t think it could be any picnic to be my advisee),
a recommendation letter to revise to [...]
21 Nov
Like Black Friday, only not
My horoscope, which is never wrong, gives me this bit of advice:
Shopping is dangerous for you right now. It won’t cause any physical harm, but you are seriously at risk of buyer’s regret. Have a sensible friend or coworker tag along to keep you grounded.
It’s not even the day after an early Thanksgiving. And then [...]
20 Nov
Another world
One of the fabulous benefits of being employed full time by JPU is being able to take one course tuition-free per term. By comparison with other places I’ve worked (which will cover tuition for faculty children at not just that institution, but any institution in the same consortium), JPU is mind-blowingly miserly.
Even so, I know [...]
17 Nov
Chalkboard heroes
It must be the pre-holiday doldrums, but my classes sucked this week. The undergrads were restless; the grads didn’t understand what they had read and as usual just gazed expectantly at me to decipher what they should have looked up themselves. It’s too close to course evaluation time to chide them, and since course evaluations [...]
16 Nov
Things I have discovered about reading
Call it extreme reader response, or maybe reader reader response, in which I construct the meaning of other readers’ reading, but I’ve been having epiphanies right and left these days about how people read. Of course I’m not so silly to think that everyone reads as I do, but really, folks, I’m getting self-conscious these [...]
14 Nov
Yes, I am blogging about TV
At the end of another teaching week, I have hobbled home with my briefcase deliberately empty. Because I’m feeling such an affinity with the 70+ demographic these days, I’ve got Nightline on. They’re going to do a story on how sleep deprivation produces an effect comparable to alcohol.
This morning I woke at 5 a.m., after [...]
13 Nov
LOST
Motivation.
Description: beautiful, exhilarating, and much missed.
Last seen: weeks ago, maybe longer.
Reward: undetermined (because determining one would require too much energy).
If found: please return via e-mail. Alternatively, keep and use well.
