feMOMhist

why I hate the kid science fiar

2012-02-02T17:09:00.000-08:00

here is our approach to science fair

do nothing

kids pick project, implement, and pretty much write the whole thing up

fine they have fun and get to "do" science

Tonight, we arrive at science fair

it is clear other parents have
1. helped pick "sexy" topic
2. "helped" with implementation
3. "helped" with write up (most hilarious eavesdrop NO WAY is that first grade handwriting)

kids compete in two grade groupings which means almost all the awards go to kid in higher grade of each bracket.

this year of the kids that won, I'd say at least half have parents who are k-12 teacher

WRONG WRONG WRONG. I'm all for encouraging kids to do science, but this hardly seems the most effective way to do it.

on facetime in academia

2012-02-02T08:03:00.000-08:00

update - as I feared, push back on the two day a week schedule for next year. Now have to decide whether to stand on principle (hello stus prefer tech contact not IRL, school pays $ so should be flexible, individual schedules should be looked at over the long haul not semester/semester, go after the habitual offenders rather than everyone, consider other contributions to college, I'm doing new prep, honors and one more course tied to new curricular initiative rather than recycling) or go for pity (fMhson situation means I need to be here after school). I know the latter would be more efficacious, but it pisses me off. I want to argue the former, in a respectful way.

no not the App, but the concept, as in having to be seen at working in order to be perceived as working. I first learned of this insidious concept from my lawyer friends, but I've been increasingly peeved to see it creeping into academia.

Despite the preponderance of and need for digital literacies and tech savvy students, TTLAC still believes "contact hours" as mandated by accreditation = asses in the seats. Any and all variances must be reported and "made up." Never mind should I chose to create a podcast, interactive reading assignment, or walking historical tour, which would take me far more time to prep, and my students far more time to complete than the hour to hour correspondence suggested by the facetime concept, the college right now doesn't recognize that as valid instructional time.

I'm of two minds here, 1. my fav do what I want and EFF them 'cause I've got tenure and 2. the full frontal assault where I got in with documentation of the whys and wherefores of what I'm doing and demand approval. The risk of 2. is that I've now drawn attention to my plan and falling back to 1. becomes more of a hassle, if not actually prohibited.

Similarly meetings of the faculty at TTLAC, which are at least 1.5 hours/week, are always in person, with only the very rarest variations for phoning in (apparently the real facetime, or google chat, or google phone, or facebook chat, or skype or .... are unheard of). This results in many sr. faculty simply skipping meetings while jr. faculty drive in on days they are not teaching, and should be writing or researching, to attend brief meetings. As we all live in a major metropolitan area, the total commute time can easily surpass the actual meeting time, never mind that we have a major campus green initiative that totally ignores the environmental impact of this commute.

Now that I have tenure, of course I could simply skip the meetings, but again, I'm left feeling like a full on assault, arguing for the use of technology and/or fewer meetings would be better all around. I hate feeling passive aggressive, but that is the survival mode of most at TTLAC.

What say you? How many hours of meetings do you attend a month? Do you skip when you want or religiously attend?

what if reinvention leads to divergent evolution?

2012-02-02T04:55:00.000-08:00

so today, in the process of reinventing myself, I stumbled upon a side project in which my area intersects with Hot Topic, and I simply cannot pass it up. I know, I know, I SO should not be doing anything OTHER than writing this damn book, but there is a conference and special issue of a journal on Hot Topic in the next six months, so it is a short diversion, right?

Still it seems only fair I should harness the collective wisdom of my readers (who lack a clever moniker). So should I stay or should I grow?

things people apparently want to know

2012-02-01T05:20:00.000-08:00

oddest keyword search

mistress rapes slave

well, the historian in me feels compelled to note that VAST amount of rape in the South involved not mistresses but masters. There is, however, a long history of consensual sexual relationships between white women and Black men in the colonies and U.S. that is seldom discussed.

Prior to racialized, inherited slavery in the colonies, white women did engage in consensual sexual relationships with men, as evidenced by mixed race children. At the end of the 17th century a series of statutes were enacted to penalize any "white" woman who gave birth to a mixed race child. These statues also precluded white men from marrying black women, but did nothing to penalize them for fathering mixed race children.

As racialized slavery developed in the colonies, the sexual exploitation of Black women increased, and the sexual policing of Black men rested on notions of white women's purity. Therefore it would have been a rare white woman who risked a sexual relationship with a black man. As abolition took hold in the States, and utopian colonies like Nashoba formed, such relationships did exist, but were still considered at the very very extreme limits of social acceptability among even the most radical people.

However, historian Martha Hodes has found that ideas of class deeply constructed the boundaries of acceptable sexual relationships.

antebellum documents reveal that communities of white Southerners displayed some degree of toleration for liaisons between white women and black men under the institution of racial slavery. This toleration was due, in part, to white ideology about the sexual depravity of white women outside the planter classes. Those who held
authority in antebellum Southern communities were likely to consider poorer white women to be the depraved agents of illicit liaisons, including liaisons with black men. Thus could white ideology about lower- class female sexuality overshadow ideas about the dangers of black male sexuality.

Of course inter-racial marriage was completely forbidden, and remained so in some part of the U.S. until Loving V. Virginia (1967)

obviously the topic is of some interest to me. I was born a year after my marriage to sciDAD was legalized in all States.

well dear reader

2012-02-01T04:25:00.000-08:00

we left the peds office with meds (intuniv), trial pack, courtesy of the drug pushers

and script for EKG

exhausting

fMhson so amped he hasn't stopped or slowed down since

I'm nervous, but hopeful. We will start them Thursday the 19th so we can observe the side effects over the long President's day weekend. Starting for 1 week with 1 mg, then up to 2mg, where our Ped thinks fMhson wil settle.

do NOT read if you are on the job market

2012-01-31T03:59:00.000-08:00

but I spent a hilarious evening perusing the "universities to fear" on Academic job wiki. I cannot imagine how I would be haunting the job wiki should I be unfortunate enough to be on the market in this crap economy. However, as I'm not it made for some dman funny reading.

I have a toss up for my worst on campus visit

1. remote rural uni, which I will always think of as Bubba U, required me to front all the money for every single thing, which was bad enough, stayed in a hotel full of partying teenagers, so no sleep, then arrived on campus to find factionalized dept split between the good ole boys, and lovely people trapped in rural locale. The latter set out to recruit me immediately, informing me that all prior candidates had 'blown' it and the job was mine to lose. Trust me by the second day I wanted desperately to "blow it" too. After a job talk where the "bubbas" sat in a row in the back of the room, looking for all the world like truculent undergrads, I was then taken on a tour by the pervy dept chair, which included massive sports complex, but not the library. Then toured the "town" such as it was. Suffice it to say, since I decided I too wanted to "blow" it, I finally confronted him, asking how on earth any young-ish woman would ever expect to be taken seriously in their dept.

2. prestigious midwestern campus, picked up by lovely lovely woman, thoroughly enjoyed ride to campus, only to be put in some odd sort of "family style" campus housing (no private bath, sharing with other candidates), dropped off at 6PM without any mention of food. As it was snowing, I ordered a take out pizza and fielded other job offers (thank GOD). Dept visit was grueling, as the faculty vacillated between trying to convince me that taking a 1 year renewable job was actually a good thing, and offering despairing remarks about the state of the dept. Got left standing out in snow for like 20 minutes waiting for some person taking me to yet another "quaint" campus building to talk to grad stus, none of whom wished to come out in the snow apparently. Next morning I had a super early flight to another on-campus, no transportation arrived. Finally called a cab on my own and made it to airport just in time. Thankfully dept secretary was appalled by dinner/transport situation and got me reimbursed for both.

care to share yours here (as I'm not clever enough to disguise who I am online to contribute to the wiki, I figure you may not be either!)

some good things

2012-01-30T13:16:00.000-08:00

remember this post on reinventing myself?

well it is starting to happen. Major step forward today. Wish I could share details, but I wanted to at least share happiness.

of course now I'd like to be working around the clock, and sciDad has dinner with candidate tonight. SIGH and pretty much something every night this week. When I lived alone I think I got almost twice as much writing down when I was on a roll. I'd stop for a bit in the late afternoon, and then start up again around 6 or 7. It did make it difficult to sleep though.

Tonight I'll have to settle for taking notes in lieu of writing.

when is the study on mommy blogs coming out?

2012-01-29T04:18:00.000-08:00

so the NYT has an article today on the therapeutic value of blogging, which comes as no big surprise to me at all. I wonder if anyone is studying the value of mommy blogs in increasing happiness for mothers?

Trader Joe's muffin top scone hack

2012-01-28T04:27:00.000-08:00

my kids fell in love with these blue berry muffin tops that my in-store bakery stopped making!

Got this for xmas

oh yes and kids have declared boycott on blueberry yogurt (in favor of mango) just after I stocked up, so I hacked these

1 c trader joe's whole grain baking mix
1/4 t baking powder
1 container of blueberry yogurt
1/4 c sugar
1 egg
dash lemon extract

frankly I blame Clarissa

2012-01-27T03:28:00.000-08:00

because of her fulsome review, well and the friends we visited this weekend, oh yes and Target and the book I could get for 4 without having to wait for it to be mailed, and my library lending eBooks which I've been reading on my macbook, so I am now the proud owner of a probably redundant and completely unnecessary Kindle Fire.

fMhson, who had a hell of a day apparently, is chilling out upstairs downloading apps like no one's business, including yes Texas hold 'em and something called Tank Wars. You know what, though, I'm not screaming, and kids aren't fighting, so if he's prepping to plan the next Battle of the Bulge, I can deal.

The Kindle, which can now be procured in less than 5 minutes at your local Target for less than $200 (you get the 5% off if you use your Target card too!), is a good compromise between the laptop they'd each like and having him destroy my iPhone. True there aren't as many apps as there are for iPhone which is kind of a drag, particularly as free Hulu and my cable app don't work, and that means either Youtube, which can be scary for the kids, or buying Amazon prime to watch what in the "kids and family" section of TV are a lot of really decent PBS shows, but not a lot else of interest to older kids. fMhgirl will be happy if I find a youtube playlist of My Little Pony episodes (Ok I have to admit the 21st iteration is not as crap as the original).

Is there a point in this argument?

2012-01-24T16:16:00.000-08:00

I mean I know that Stanley Fish is the academic academics love to hate, the curmudgeonly éminence grise of the humanities, but I've harbored a fondness for him since I first read Is There A Text in This Class. At least, unlike some of the other dinosaur old D00Ds at the top of our profession he is conversant with the phrase "digital humanities" but jesus he sounds like an old fart in the NYT this week.

I'm sure many lit prof DigHum peeps have already noted all of this but Fish's assumption that

The direction of my inferences is critical: first the interpretive hypothesis and then the formal pattern, which attains the status of noticeability only because an interpretation already in place is picking it out. The direction is the reverse in the digital humanities: first you run the numbers, and then you see if they prompt an interpretive hypothesis,

calls to mind the farce of David Lodge's novel Small World

"You could get the computer to list every word phrase and syntactical construction the two writers have in common. You could precisely quantify the influence of Shakespeare on TS Eliot"

“But my thesis isn't about that,” said Persse. “It's about the influence of TS Eliot on Shakespeare"

Srsly it is like Lodge presaged Fish's worst nightmare, in which the sum tote of what digital humanities has to offer is counting how many times the Bard used a specific preposition and then using that to create nonsensical arguments. The mere fact that profs went digital well over a decade ago seems to have escaped Fish, who I presume is reacting to the digital turn of the most recent MLA.

Still for heaven's sake Stan, it's time to recognize that barbarians are no longer at the gate. They are, in fact, sitting around the table with you at faculty meetings and sh1t seems to be going along just fine. His analysis that there are

two attitudes digital humanists typically strike: (1) we’re doing what you’ve always been doing, only we have tools that will enable you to do it better; let us in, and (2) we are the heralds and bearers of a new truth and it is the disruptive challenge of that new truth that accounts for your recoiling from us

would make me feel kind of bad for old Stan -- he's had a hell of a run hasn't he?-- but the end is a bit self indulgent

whatever vision of the digital humanities is proclaimed, it will have little place for the likes of me and for the kind of criticism I practice:

yup retiring from that endowed chair and the bully pulpit of the NYT will be a biatch.

from the archives

2012-01-24T07:09:00.001-08:00

because frankly last night was a repeat, although thankfully so far only for me.

From March 4, 2010

sciDAD and I were all set for a night out on the town, when fMhgirl announced “my tummy hurts.” The words that strike fear in the heart of parents everywhere. I knew what was to come because a particularly noxious stomach virus was making the rounds of our friends. In fact, one child had started barfing the NIGHT of a playdate, so really it was just a question of when not if.

So I get all set up. Small child on towel √, trash can at her feet √, son isolated in vain hope of sparing him √. I go upstairs to check on him, leaving sciDAD in charge. He turns his back, so fMhgirl walks towards the bathroom, but does not make it. Vomit on floor, wall, two doors, her and sciDAD. She is crying hysterically. fMhson comes racing down, but upon hearing the word vomit gets a disgusted look on his face and tears back upstairs.

Fast forward. Losing count of how many times fMhgirl has puked. I have made a pallet on the living room floor for her with a trash can, towels and Clorox wipes next to it. Looks like Andersonville and has about the same level of dysenteric activity. She watches Monsters Inc while I franctically google “todller + dehydration” in between in rounds. Once I discover we are a good half day away from needing IV fluids I relax. fMhgirl does not. She now knows what is coming and starts a tantrum every time she realizes she is going to throw up. She yells no and tries to run away from the trash can, as though proximity is causing the problem. It would be hilarious if it were not so sad.

Fast forward again. Tired tired little girl is now retching helplessly. In between she attempts to curl up in my lap like a baby bird to sleep. She is pathetic. I rock her in a vain effort to soothe what cannot be stopped. Finally some time after midnight she falls asleep. I make my own bed on the couch next to her although at least I no longer have to fear her aspirating vomit. She has been down to dry heaves for hours.

Shortly there after, upstairs I hear sciDAD and fMhson raced down the hall. Round two has begun. Not only is fMHson older, but he has also just witnessed the horror of his sister (think Marlow). He keeps trying to leave the bathroom as though by changing location he can alter the situation and whimpering, “I don’t want to do this.” Remarkably he makes it to the bathroom or into a trash can every time. Yay for older children because mopping up vomit has become quite tiresome by this point. Ever the practical child he prepares himself. Stuffed animals moved √ towel over his favorite blanket √ He even strips off his jammies. He pulls the towel up under his chin awaiting the next round. He is so anxious that he runs to the bathroom several times for false alarms. I creep back downstairs leaving sciDAD to deal.

The next morning we all lay about, sciDAD and me sick now as well, sipping water and watching cartoons. We all fall asleep. I do not think I have heard our house this quiet in the middle of the day ever. The day slips by in and out of sleep. I am reminded of that Little House on the Prairie when the entire Ingalls family was stricken by malaria. Slowly we come back to life. The kids are incredibly impressed by the ordeal. Days later they are still saying, “I think my stomach hurts.”

sciDAD and I both remark that it was an oddly bonding experience. Cooped up for over 24 hours together, side by side the entire time without computers, wiis or leapsters, it was the most intensive interaction we have had with the children since they were infants.

In Defense of Bribing my kids

2012-01-23T01:59:00.000-08:00

Yes, I admit it. I bribe my kids -- as in straight up cash for for desired action, quid pro quo, incentive plan, however you want to put it.

After years of the dreaded sticker chart (which I still sort of do, as in delayed gratification is still instilled via fMhgirl getting .50 for every 'good' day at school and every 'good' day on the bus working towards a princess tent that should have taken her 10 days if perfectly behaved in both instances and fMhson earns money to buy computer game memberships for doing stuff), I threw in the towel. They are too much damn work for me.

I know that to some people it will seem that I'm taking the easy way out. Here is the thing. I'm tired of arguing with my kids, over cleaning up, over chores, over school crap. Really, the latter is what is driving me insane. After many meetings with the school over my kids, I've learned that the school's attitude is that kids need to learn that sometimes you just have to do stuff you don't want to. Yes, and as adults we get paid to do that crap, so why shouldn't kids?

So for example, while fMhson will happily do math games on the iphone, he does not want to do "math fact" tests at school. He will do flashcards with his sister, who is learning addition addition and subtraction. He will even do the multiplication or division flash cards at home. What, he can do multiplication and division. Why yes of course, but first his teacher insists he must do addition and subtraction math fact sets perfectly. What, fMhson can do 7x,8x, 9x in his head? Yes well who cares. It is "important' for kids to know their math facts. Here's the thing, it sure is, but requiring ALL children to demonstrate this via a 5 minute test of 100 question, many of which are duplicates, is not necessarily the best way to assess mastery of said MATH FACTs. How about a computer game? Something to make it fun? BUT NO. Similarly, fMhgirl does not wish to, well to be honest, do most anything at school including "reading instruction" as she can already read, coloring within the lines, painting freehand is preferred, writing stories when told, although she will write tons when she feels like it, etc.

So, wouldn't you happily shell out a $1/test (the negotiated rate, fMhson initially held out for $2) instead of having to fight? Not coincidentally since the incentive plan kicked in fMhson finished the addition sets 8-10, and the first subtraction. When I mentioned this incentive plan to his teacher she looked askance. I forbore from telling her to eff-off, as it was her stupid tests causing all the issues in the first place. In the same breath she told me he topped out on the math assessment test. Similarly, fMhgirl has had only 1 "non-sticker" day at school (their incentive plan) since the "tent" bribe was held out. Her teacher is completely on board with the bribes and has her own that she doles out in class!

Other bribes this week, a new scooter for reading 100 books (hey it was meant to be an outing to Chuck E Cheese, which I will do almost anything to avoid), various dollar bin items for complying with doctor-ordered saline snorting (ewww), .50 for packing school lunches or emptying dishwasher or feeding dog.

I do hold a hard line on a few things. There is no bribe for cleaning one's room or putting away one's laundry. Self maintenance is its own reward. Hilariously, fMhson will now inform me he is "doing this one for free," which I take as full vindication of my bribing methods.

To my elected officials

2012-01-21T04:00:00.000-08:00

I wrote my first editorial about abortion. I defended clinics. I attended rallies. I stood on the tenuous ground of the 14th amendment. I had an abortion.

I absorbed the liberal WASP tradition. I rest on the bedrock of independence and self-sufficiency.

If good fences make good neighbors then the road less travelled by must be mine. If I sing the body electric, then my soul must be as my body.

We hold these truths to be self evident that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Gentlemen, I refuse the question. I withdraw my consent. I break the contract. The centre can not hold. What falls away is always.

I’m wife; I’ve finished that/that other state;/I’m Czar, I’m woman now:/It’s safe so.

I call the question. I demand an accounting.

I am too pure for you or anyone. You hurt me as the world hurts God.

I advise you to prepare for the day of reckoning.

With all due regard for Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, William Butler Yeats, Theodore Roethke, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath

will apple solve the textbook crisis?

2012-01-20T05:18:00.000-08:00

Lots of my friends' kids in other, more affluent areas, are either given or required to have an iPad, which I know is also the case at some IHE. Apple has just announced its entry into the e-textbook market Apropos of the discussion re: textbook costs over at Ink, and my prior ponderings of going "book free"
I ask what do you think?

Should there be an "official" cap per course for the cost of books?
Should stus give up "luxuries" like cell phones and beer to buy whatever text a prof. sees fit to pick?
Should schools wrap the "cost" of textbooks into tuition so that stus are in effect "forced" to buy?

Have at it my friends as this is a subject near and dear to my heart and one of the issues I plan to tackle post-sabbatical, return to TTLAC with tenure :)

My .02 on the AZ book "ban"

2012-01-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

ok straight up, any attempt to limit kids' education is bullshit, but I've been puzzled by the reporting on the "book ban" which I put in quotation since to me a "ban" implies no access, but reportedly the books will still be in libraries, but not used in class.

Don't get me wrong the canceling of the classes in and of itself is complete crap, complete. I sat down to write a post about it this weekend, but could not find adequate sources of information that I trusted. I was mostly puzzled by disparities in the "lists" of books, one of which is quite short (seven books), and one of which is considerably longer (and includes white dudes like Shakespeare and Thoreau, causing much confusion and ire among the non-Bard literate folks unaware that the Tempest is an allegory of the new world with Caliban standing in for the indigenous. Frankly Thoreau is ONE DANGEROUS mo-fo, which is why I teach him at every opportunity).

Meet thorny issue's friends, analogous issues.

2012-01-19T00:41:00.000-08:00

Writing history about over-analyzed eras is always tricky business. Thorny issue emerged in conjunction with specific historical developments. Other historical changes caused difficult concept to evolve. Obviously charting those historical currents is part of the joy of writing my book. However, for the past few days I've been delving into the historical era more explicitly, working from the primary sources (I heart digital humanities as they are ALL available online) and I'm having a heck of a time figuring out where to stop. Some amount of context via analogous issues will enrich my book, but how much? At what point does thorny issue become lost among analogous issues?

Of course, since working with primary source documents is a particular speciality of mine, and I am, if I don't mind saying, quite good at teasing out the allusions between thorny and analogous issues, there really is no end to how long I could work this particular document cache. I'm on day two and could easily run a full week.

Obviously, I need to narrow to the precise threads that most clearly connect thorny and analogous issues to one another and then winnow the document analysis down from there.

Inspired by my (Virtual) Book Club

2012-01-18T04:04:00.000-08:00

Always and first, there were words. Even as the print grew fuzzy and my head ached, providing refuge, offering solace. The thin blacks lines leading me out, away until it became something of a joke, my timorous need for their companionship, in church, while driving, at school, under the covers, a talisman really against aloneness.

Still small, I sit, crouched behind the shrubs, reading of course. You know me, kindred spirits, those who live mostly in worlds that don't exists. When first entering, I scan shelves, noting with delight the familiar, taken aback at times, and always surprised at what they reveal, friend or foe, for who could love someone with that on the shelf? I dream words, everywhere hear, accompanied by my own narrator.

Poring over epistles I've wondered at lives lived through words alone. Unfettered by familiarity, to exist only as thought. Malleable, flexible, plastic in extreme, they do what I am not and take me there. I pound, forging them out, bending to an elegant curve, the precise point, elegiac, evocative, polishing until each one shines, exactly. They march out and over, a bridge beyond body or mind.

considering drugs

2012-01-17T13:27:00.001-08:00

Where we are right now:
At the peds today with fMhgirl I happened to draw our original ped who cared for the kids as infants (our practice is huge, so for sick visits you get whomever and ditto for camp/school physicals) which was FAB. Because she has a child much like fMhson, she of course she asked after him. I updated her on his progress and mentioned something about meds. She suggested that he might do well on monotherapy with Intuniv. I'm torn.

In the past week

1. fMhson got so anxious he stayed home from an outing with sciDAD and fMhgirl to local kid attraction that he loves
2. at recent Boy Scout field trip his anxiety loop made him so impulsive that he interrupted the speaker constantly to the point that s/he was obviously getting annoyed and we decided he probably shouldn't go to any more outings/field trips
3. I didn't sign him up for spring sport because the competition is getting so serious that his "hyper" activity/impulsiveness aren't going to be tolerated
4. In conversation with friends we were discussing camps, and sciDAD said "fMhson could never do sleep away camp" which is so true with his current state of anxiety(often has to read until 10 or 11PM before able to fall asleep and that is in familiar surroundings!).
* more mundane things not done, haircuts other than at home, so v. bad haircuts, and dentist only once (had to be sedated)

At this point I'm concerned that fMhson is missing out on, well, life. However, we have really really resisted giving him meds, with me just slightly more willing than sciDAD to consider. I'm wondering now though, as he is able to communicate quite well, and can participate in the trials of the drugs, if the time has come. I share many of fMhson's traits, but they did not stop me from doing the things listed above as a child and they don't impede my daily functioning.

I just finished reading the FDA docs (srsly never knew those years of working in a med sch would come in so handy) as well as the anecdotal information from parents on the web. Other than the very rare electrophysiological consequences (syncope, prolonged QT intervals, bradycardia) I'm most concerned about the very very small incidences of agression that I've read about. It is difficult to tell if these are truly attributable to the drugs, because ADHD is often co-morbid with other disorders and many many people use Intuniv as adjunctive therapy to simulant based meds, but it still worries me. The other concern is that unlike stimulant based ADHD meds, Intuniv, which basically impacts the norepinephrine uptake cycle, requires both titration and weaning period, so minimum time on is probably a month and a max time to see efficacy is three months.

update #1: sciDAD has agreed to at least go to the ped with fMhson to discuss meds. Calling today for appt.

update #2 appt scheduled for 1/31

questions: EKG for sure before starting, what about irritability/aggression? Home blood pressure monitoring necessary? Start over Pres. day weekend to assess side effects.

Virtual Book Club

2012-01-17T00:30:00.000-08:00

In December of 2011 when I ranted about an upcoming adaptation of one of my fav mystery series., Ink had the idea we should form a virtual book club, as several of us were reading Death Comes to Pemberely.

Along the way we picked up via twitter, some more friends, who share our ~~narcissistic~~ commitment to investigating the inner workings of academia, via novels, and there we were, a virtual book club.

Some of us tweet as we go, while other save it all for the big reveal on their blog. Still others make use of good reads, so feel free to participate as you like.

As I'd just finished reading Foolscap, and no one else had, and it could be had for quite cheap (or free via Freading.com) we had our next book.

So review posts by-- shall we say President's day weekend (not that my college ever has that day off!)

I thought we might want to pick a few of the questions from the reader's guide to make the posts more "conversational"? I'm partial to the first and the last

Many faculty members at Cavendish are referred to by the subject they teach, with or without an actual name. What does this identification method suggest about personal identity and inter-personal relationships in academia?

Ford is a great example of the traditional image of the writer as solitary genius. Theo, however, marvels at the wide variety of people who contribute to the creation of a great work including authors, editors, actors, directors, producers, audience members, and others. Do you typically think of a creative work as the product of one inspired, isolated individual, or the result of a collaboration between many different people? How do you view the role of the reader or audience member.

background pattern from this website, pretty no?

ADHD

2012-01-16T12:43:00.000-08:00

If you've reached this blog because you are interested in our ADHD/Anxious kid journey, then use the short cuts here to get to that info, rather than my life as a history professor.

fMhson has been "different" since, well since in utero, when he attempted to exit at a startling 24 weeks. After a week in hospital, I spent 10 weeks on bedrest with a terbutaline pump. At 3 fMhson "flunked" out of a Montessori preschool. He did OK in college run daycare mostly thanks to the wonderful staff who adored him, but by December of pre-K he bottomed out. After getting suspended (!) he received an aide and an IEP under "other" impairment.* After tons of testing, three neurologists and much work with a psychologists, we moved forward with cognitive behavioral therapy. That combined with simply maturing meant that by the end of first grade, fMhson could function in a classroom without an aide.

In second grade, he still performs above grade level, is a sweet and compassionate child, and has friends. He cannot sit quietly and his "behavioral" manifestation of his neuroatypicalness mean that he is missing out on life. Because he is a twice exceptional kid (re-doing IQ testing to get more accurate gifted diagnosis), he is able to get by academically just fine, however his boredom leads to behavioral issues, which has led me back to fighting with the school about accelerated work while staying grade level. Mostly however we are concerned about how his different brain is impeding his quality of life and I'm now considering Intuniv.

I've posted about lots of stops along the way. See Diagnosis, schooling (End of K here 1st grade start here 1st grade end here) various non-medication therapies we've tired (journaling, diet, CBT via Star Wars). overdiagnosis, mostly about fMhgirl.

Beginning of our med journey starts here.

*Diagnoses we've had so far, Sensory Processing Disorder (almost completely gone), Generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD (hyperactive/impulsive), some pronounced Aspie traits but not on the spectrum.

fMh does MLK day

2012-01-16T03:34:00.000-08:00

oh well meaning but tragically ill-equipped teachers, why why must you persist in spoiling MLK day with your twee and trite lessons? I have mixed feelings about the use of MLK as an icon, but geez, I think we can probably do better than what I found in offsprings' school bags the Friday before the sainted three day weekend.

1. MLK's childhood reading comprehension exercise that lists his fav sports and black heroes (point tho for including Nat Turner, no point for not explaining who he was).
2. numerous coloring pages of MLK looking beatific.
3. MLK themed crossword puzzle that DOES NOT include the word assassination
4. another reading comprehension exercise in the form of a "newspaper" that imparts no actual historical information about MLK.
5. Crossword puzzle "they made history" including yes, Tubman, and Parks, but also Thurgood Marshall, Colin Powell, and Jackie Robinson (points for throwing in some new peeps, no points for poor historical context. Being first isn't always the most important thing!)

fMhson informed me that MLK "was a famous Black American" like that is some sub-species of "regular American famous people." Other "famous black people" he knows about are Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, Rosa Parks, and of course now, Barak Obama. Apparently black folk didn't make it to America until well into the 19th century.

So here is what I'd LOVE to send to his teachers, a list of "other" famous Black figures from history that they might like to teach my kids about, just to mix it up.

Anthony and Mary Johnson - free blacks who owned property in colonial VA. Introduce kids to the idea that the colonies created permanent, inherited, racialized slavery. It was a historical choice.
Crispus Attucks - nice counterpoint to all those damn white founding fathers
Phillis Wheatley - throw in some of her poems for good measure
Sojourner Truth - I swear Harriet Tubman is the Anthony to Truth's Stanton. What is it about Tubman that makes her so much safer? Personally I like them both.
Frederick Douglass- kick ass dude who also stood up for the ladies! [p.s. go read Clio's Bluestocking Tales blog]
W.E.B. DuBois - each one, teach one
Ida B Wells - what is not to love, fearless journalist, she'd have an awesome blog herself today

got more suggestions? leave them in the comments!

It is a truth universally acknowledged

2012-01-14T10:21:00.000-08:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a young girl of a certain class won't long be in want of her own copy of Pride and Prejudice.

While I confess I do not belong among the group properly termed Janeites, I had, like most young women of my acquaintance, read the Austen canon, before setting off for college. I, there converted to feminism, in a women's lit course learned of dear Jane's need to escape the plight and boredom of the redundant woman and to set herself apart from the hordes of scribbling women.

I, being no great admirer of adaptations of Austen by other authors, must admit to having the greatest partiality for the writers of the classic British mysteries of which James comprises one third of the holy trinity along with Christie and Sayers. Thus willingly did I, in the days following Christmas, turn to Death Comes to Pemberley.

The first pages imparted no small amount of delight, with their echo of Pride and Prejudice's infamous start, as James aptly wielded Austen's syntax (so much so that I re-read many sentences before falling back into the familiarity of nineteenth-century cadences). It seemed the only probable explanation lay in James' constant companion in writing having been a thesaurus. I therefore set out to share (via tweet) the many remarkable words found therein (garrulity, desultory, divertissements, amity) as well as those perhaps best left long forgotten (gobbet, head-borough, loam).

While the basic plot was not without some merit, I must lay claim to a rather hearty dislike for the solution, which while consistent with Austen's tendency to tie everything up in a neat bow, still smacked of a rather bourgeois restoration of order. While my tender heart has also rushed to a particular sort of sympathy for the lady authors, such as LM Alcott, pressed by want to bend to the desires of their readers, I've but none for Austen, who've I've always considered vastly superior to this sort of base and low pandering.

Having made my way through the not unsatisfactory mystery, I returned once more to Pride and Prejudice, it being some years since I'd last passed my eyes over its pages. A more perfect a social satire, it must be admitted, has never been seen. Austen, in deft, concise dialogue, manages at once to sketch out her characters, from the long-suffering Mr Bennet to his overweening (and overwhelming) wife, while this achievement is made all the more remarkable by the simultaneous introduction of the plot line (not that the travails of marrying off five daughters required much peroration for Austen's intended readership).

It must also be admitted, that in the manner of turning a phrase, Ms James simply cannot compare to the wonders of Miss Austen, causing me to tweet in delight "happiness in marriage is merely a matter of chance." Then too, in the matter of selecting the most exquisite words, Miss Austen seldom finds rival, leading to my most heartfelt hope that by offering several words suitable for reintroduction to the modern lexicon, including importune, appertain, and asperity, although perhaps not strictures, precipitance, or jot, I might make some small contribution to the happiness of all.

Considering the asperity with which Austen so perfectly fitted her story to her time, I was driven to ruminate about the trajectory of her career, her elevation to the pantheon of literature coming late as it did. Further as I pondered this most excellent author and the prejudice with which she was viewed, my mind could not but help to consider Charlotte Perkins Gilman (and Edith Wharton) as perhaps best viewed as anti-Austens, turning their backs on the felicities of domesticity, which both experienced unhappily, to lay bare the fiction of women's fortunes in marriage.

In all, I am forced to conclude, that the time spent in perusing Death Comes To Pemberley was not wasted in vain, but returned in more than fair shares, both for the pleasures it afforded and the thoughts it provoked.

more from the VBC Ink, Good Enough Woman, Stacey, and ZenMoo. Add your links in the comments please if you wrote a review as well. Meanwhile check out the next VBC

Quaint College Link Love

2012-01-14T04:55:00.000-08:00

ongoing link love as I ruminate on life at Quaint College for the R1set

In addition to the peeps from my blog roll ------>
Spanish Prof
Two Body Problem
Fie

From the Swarthmore perspective, so highly selective SLAC http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2012/01/09/brinkmanship/

Uncertain Principles a physics prof at a SLAC
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/

and even more from science prof at SLAC (do the humanities peeps at SLAC figure they have nothing to say?)
http://liberalartslady.blogspot.com/

from a science prof perspective
http://thetwobodyproblem.blogspot.com/2012/01/happy-new-year-to-you-all-i-have-so.html

please add in comments if you've blogged on the subject!

In defense of my life at Quaint College

2012-01-13T04:49:00.000-08:00

Fourth day of tips for the R1 educated considering a career at Quaint College, click on label at bottom for all posts.

over the past few years I've written quite a bit about life at TTLAC, although I redacted some of the snarc in a pre-tenure panic. Pretty much any time I run into former grad colleagues from MFRU I'm asked, either directly or indirectly, how I can stand my career. I politely refrain from noting that they

1. live in a sh1t location
2. live five states away from partner with no end in sight for their commuter marriage
3. don't have partner because they've job hopped for the last decade moving up the ladder
4. won't be kept warm by their monograph or cared for by their grad students in old age
5. teach crappy grad students at their third tier R1
6. teach minimum 4 sections of U.S. survey every year and have to fight to teach UD in their specialty

I could go on but why? They made their choices. I made mine. Undoubtedly the reason I can survive at a Quaint College after life at the R1 is that I knew precisely was I was getting when I signed on. I've been at a Quaint College before and while I enjoyed the resources and teaching master's students at the R2, I missed being at a SLAC. I love teaching, and I love the course flexibility that at SLAC offers me. I teach exactly one year long required course series and then only every other year. Everything else I teach is in my admittedly broad interests. Those two things alone were enough to convince me that the pathetic salary, lack of resources, small faculty and mixed bag of students would be worth it. Of course I was pretty damn motivated to solve my 2 body problem as well. I've been surprised how much I've enjoyed some of my colleagues at my Quaint College. I hang with juniorish folks from a variety of disciplines, which is unusual coming from an R1 where fields of history were enough to determine my circles, but I'm a pretty interdisciplinary scholar, so it works for me.

However I am also pretty ruthless in terms of my willingness to say no to people, my ability to compartmentalize, and my commitment to still producing academic scholarship. As I've written about before, that scholarship hasn't taken the form of book writing. With such heavy service and teaching loads, I've been able to get articles published, but that is all. Fortunately the standards for tenure at my Quaint College don't include a book, which is fairly rare in history.

From a more practical vantage, I'm married to someone who makes a considerably higher salary than I do, which allows me the luxury of not worrying about finances quite so much. I get to live in a desirable part of the country where our bi-racial kids aren't a complete oddity.

I must confess that when I took the position originally it was to solve the two body problem and I planned to find another position if possible. Two kids and a crashed economy later, I don't know that will ever be possible. I'm planning at this point to alternate years with two day/three day teaching schedules and to limit my service to one major committee. At this point in my career, I really want to focus more on writing, and switching jobs, even if it were possible, would probably involve more work. Still I'm not sure that I can see myself at Quaint College forever. I don't really know what that means for the future.

How can you keep 'em on the Farm after .... Life at Quaint College

2012-01-12T02:54:00.000-08:00

Fourth day of tips for the R1 educated considering a career at Quaint College. Begins here, consider the S in SLAC here, and the reality of life after R1 here.

When I started at my Quaint College we had an innovative pedagogy that allowed me to teach 3/3. The current economic crisis ended that and I now teach 4/4 (except I haven't recently due to an arrangement I made for myself to do alternate work in exchange for course release). That's 4 different preps for those of you counting (which you should if you are considering life at a Quaint College). I've been teaching long enough that I only have new preps when I choose to teach a new class, and I never teach more than 1 new class at a time, so class prep takes negligible time most semesters.

Still 4/4= 42X4 hours to fill=168 hours/semester (if you teach 4/4 at a SLAC you may not be given a double prep). Say you are fresh out of grad school, armed only with a completely useless syllabus based on R1 expectations (start by cutting the reading load in half. Repeat each year as needed*). That is A LOT of time to fill out of your brain, while you perform service and attempt to write. Since teaching could quite possible eat up every second of your time, like all other things in life, you must schedule it, and allow it only the time it deserves. You also need to learn to steal time for class prep, like during those pesky meetings, while watching TV etc. Furthermore, stealing is a totally viable option. Borrow at will from anything/everything you can find on textbook/other prof's websites. However, over the years, mostly out of other pedagogical motivations, but with time saving results, I've come up with some ways to lessen your out of class time devoted to teaching. Presumably you are an averagely ethical professor, so you will not want to set the stus off to play on youtube during class time.

So I offer the following ethically viable and pedagogically valuable ways to fill class time requiring no prep (and little grading). The mixture that you can get away with at your Quaint College will vary (ranging from full online courses to formal hybrid courses to you-must-inform-the-dean-each-time-your-class-is-not-in- assigned-room-at-assigned-time). You need to tread carefully until you find that mix. I got my ass kicked more than once for these pedagogical innovations and just today got the usual pre-semester warning that classes must be held in the normal boring fashion (which I've been ignoring now for years and post-tenure will do so with total impunity).

In class options

group work - in history primary sources analysis, debates etc
presentations - grade as they go!
Film or website analysis - show snippet, they write, then you lead discussion

out of class assignments

Assignments using technological innovations, powerpoints, podcasts, websites, blogs, participation in online venues etc
FIELD TRIPS - historical sites, museums, answers questions on site, basis for 1 exam question
Library work - locate book, article whatever, write review, precis, whatever
Portfolios - totally stolen from comp folks, document analysis portfolio

Time sucks to avoid at all costs

student journals of any and all sorts (abs. least fav women's studies thing ever)
mandatory online discussion boards (unless class is 100% online)
reading questions, chapter outlines or any other work designed to force them to read
mandatory drafts (hello, writing center?)

*I'm not going to bemoan the type of stu at SLAC. Suffice it say that unless you are at an elite SLAC, you are looking at a decidedly mixed bag of stus. Some will be quite bright and some will not. You will need to find your own "level" based on the mix any given semester.

r1 meets reality - is a career at Quaint College for you

2012-01-11T02:17:00.000-08:00

At MFRU I studied with profs who taught max two courses a year. They received sabbaticals, competitive research leaves, and of course, many major grants which allowed them to "buy out" their teaching time. They traveled internationally to invited conferences where they routinely were feted as recipients of honors and awards. They published only with top presses and in top tier journals. They deserved all of this and more and not one had a home life AND career path to which I aspired.

So early on I turned my back on life in the R1 and moved towards SLAC. I've held three permanent positions, and two have been at SLAC of the non-selective, non-elite variety mostly because of the vexed two body problem and my refusal to live in a non-urban, non-coastal area (yes #firstworldproblem alert, I'm aware). So here I am top-10 R1 educated at a college comprised of both faculty and students of mixed abilities, but today's discussion focuses on the former.

1. Prepare to hit the iceberg, which is how I always think of the glacial pace of change at Quaint Colleges. But we've always done it this way With the average age of faculty some decades older than me, and only some continuing to remain active scholarly, let's just say a certain degree of myopia has set in. Having not interviewed for jobs since the Carter years, they are woefully ignorant of salary, work load, and service expectations. They react with suspicion to new______ (people, ideas, concepts, classes, everything). However, because the Chronicle and other major news outlets keep them apprised of the "crisis" in higher ed, they have the (justifiable ?) attitude that newbies should be grateful to have a job. They seem blissfully ignorant of the fact that only by an accident of birth did they find themselves in a more hospitable employment climate.

2. Prepare to be judged by your (non) peers - expectations for the un-tenured are ridiculously higher than for previous cohorts. Sad fact of life, people, it is a buyer's market for profs, and if colleges wish to set the bar high, you'll be judged by a tenure and promotion committee of folks whose most recent CV update consisted of attending a major conference or writing a book review for an obscure journal. Do not expect to be praised for scholarly production, since teaching will likely be the centerpiece of Quaint College. In fact too much scholarship in too high profile a venue may prolong your newbie status (see #1).

3. Prepare to live on the Titanic - non selective SLACs are the IHE equivalent of the dodo bird. I seriously doubt most will survive whatever this current iterative turn is that we are taking. Quaint College will never have enough _____ (students, money, faculty, time, anything). The message from on high will vacillate between sunshine predictions and dire prognostications. You will need to keep your own even keel as any queries regarding future of quaint college will be regarded as lack of commitment to the institution (see #2).

4. Prepare to wait - every resource necessary awaits your beckon at R1, all in the service of academic genius. Books, journal subscriptions, software, hardware, office supplies and chalk all magically appear. At Quaint College each one will require effort on your part, some considerable some not so much. No beckoning will occur, for lack of people at whom to beckon and things for which to beckon. You will, in essence, do work that was taken care for you as a grad assistant or T.A. at R1. No one else will find this odd in the least and will take any and all complaints as a sign of ingratitude (see #3).

Size does matter - Is a career at Quaint College for you?

2012-01-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

Second in the series, is a career at Quaint College for the R1 educated?

I'm not even sure I actually knew what service meant when I began interviewing for positions in higher education. If my profs at MFRU did service in history it was completely invisible work to me as a grad student. I knew only of their "extra" labor on behalf of gender studies, which was wholly voluntary.

Somehow I learned of this mythical 1/3rd of the formula teaching, research and service. I assumed at the time that the relationship between these three factors resembled

As I interviewed at various places, (I landed low double digit on campus interviews due to ability to apply to positions in three fields) I began to hear more about this "service" thing as various Deans spoke about criteria for tenure. I was still vague as to what these "service" tasks might be, but I began understanding that "excellence" in two of the three categories would be necessary to achieve tenure and depending on the school, research or teaching would be paramount, and then service.

My first position in academia was a joint academic/administrative appointment so I coordinated, chaired, assessed etc and it all went quite well. Of course I was single, childless, and full of the enthusiasm of the newly Phded person.

Some years later, to solve the common 2 body problem, I arrived at TTLAC. Due to the small number of faculty at TTLAC and the relatively small number of administrators, all faculty perform what I now know to be absurd levels of service. I should note that in that period of TTLAC a new faculty member was "protected" from service in the first year. The word protected, commonly joined to service, reveals volumes about most academics's attitudes towards service. Things have changed however, and in my time at TTLAC I've now see and/or done myself

In addition to regularly schedule faculty meetings, advising student clubs, organizing events for stus or any other not teaching/not research work one might choose to do

serve on multiple major governance committees
Untenured faculty chair major committee that address contentious and controversial issues
Ad hoc committees pop up and faculty are "assigned" to work on them*
College wide, year long "self study" on top of all of the above that involved all faculty
Accreditation on top of all of the above that involved all faculty* to be completely fair, at one point we began receiving some compensation for these committees

Dr. Crazy is currently keeping track of her service time, something I've planned to do now that I'm tenured to attack the above, but the point is that for the time until tenure had I not been able to negotiate other duties for myself, this is what things would have looked like

This may pose several problems if your plan is to take Quaint College as a "first job" and then "write your way out" or if in fact, running a college was not your actual goal in acquiring a Ph.D. in the first place. Some profs seem to take to service like the proverbial duck. Frankly I can barely grasp this, but I've seen it myself. There are many many many historians as deans, provosts and college presidents, and presumably they all started with a love of "service." I myself do not play well with others, and committee meetings are right up there at the top of things I hate to do.

So here are my helpful hints

1. find out to what you can say "NO" Some shit turns out to be important (like attending faculty meetings where as a newbie you shouldn't even talk at all) but others won't be. You need to find that "insider" who will give you that crucial information. I my case I effed that UP my first year and it was mentioned in my re-contracting letter.

2. if the meeting is big enough, you can probably do other work in it. This will be especially true if you are in an electronic friendly environment. I myself still get asked "what I'm doing" on that computer during meetings. Ummm taking notes, looking at the agenda. I'm in a paper and manila file folder culture though and it was quite clear that the laptop bugged some of the older profs, so I started sneaking in grading to do during meetings.

3. if you can't get away with doing other work during meetings, then for heaven's sake, keep your mouth shut as much as possible, take copious notes to occupy yourself (I often volunteer to be the "secretary") and try to get assigned a task that allows you to do work alone. I would almost always do mine when I was on kid duty, and/or watching TV at night.

4. get on committees with colleagues you don't hate, preferably ones known for actually doing their work as opposed to

not showing up at all
arriving half way through the meeting
half way through semester informing the Dean that actually they *don't have time to serve
arguing for the sake of arguing.

So to conclude, while Quaint College may be lovely, and the idea of teaching in a castle is quite tempting, you should attempt to suss out, probably from a junior faculty member, what the actual service commitments are. What you say? Who will be so honest, so forthright? Well me, but if I'm not interviewing you then

1. search for the CV of a junior faculty in your or a related field to see what is listed under service
2. look online for the governance structure which will give you an idea of how many assistant deans, provosts etc exist to do the service labor, particularly the dreaded assessment and accreditation
3. check out the number of standing faculty committees and if the members aren't listed, do some math

Is a career at Quaint College for you?

2012-01-08T16:24:00.000-08:00

Are you at this very moment be attempting to convince yourself that Quaint College might be suitable, at least for your first job now that the AHA/MLA have done their ego crushing work on aspiring profs?

Allow me to make some observation about life at a SLAC for those of you educated at r1/elite colleges, other than the lure of teaching at a place that looks like Hogwarts.

1. Act as if you may well be there forever. Falling in love, shifts in economy, less than stellar reception of scholarship all auger for picking wisely before you accept any job.

2. Remember, ILL can be your best friend, so don't get too freaked about limited on campus resources. Do ask about money to support "new faculty" research. Conferences take on added significant when you are exiled at Quaint College.

3. Consider that if Quaint College is proximate to other IHE, you may be able to create a larger scholarly community for yourself (and if you start some sort of group, you can put that on your T & R doc). Barring that, there is always the internet. However for some people that is simply not enough. My office neighbor left a TT job at TTLAC for a VAP not TT hours away from spouse due to the lack of scholars in the same discipline.

4. Collegiality is one of those words one hears at R1s, but seldom observes, because reputation and scholarship are all that matter. This attitude is wholly untenable at Quaint College, where your relationship with colleagues may outlast marriages and will most certainly dwarf the years devoted to childrearing should you get tenured. If you can't at least fake it, make sure your colleagues are tolerable.

5. Find the nearest egress, preferably an airport within what you consider decent driving distance. Let's face it, a semester stretches to16 weeks max. That is maybe 32 weeks out of your year, leaving 20 to be spent elsewhere if desired ....

6. if it pays sufficiently. An astounding number of deeply impoverished institutions of higher education exist offering faculty salaries below that of the admins in your grad dept. You need to do some serious math because being stuck in Quaint College town with limited resources may suck badly.

7. Speaking of Quaint College Town ... you need to do some sniffing around. Are their people like you, by which I may mean young and single, of a specific religion, belonging to an alternative identity group etc. I knew of a Ph.D. who took a job in a town where the grocery store produce ran to iceberg lettuce and rock hard tomatos. The nearest store selling vegetarian items was two hours away. Imagine making THAT trek several times a month.

This week I'm back to one of the themes that started this blog in this blog in the first place. What happens to an r1 person at a non-prestigious SLAC? In addition to the good (yes there is some), I'm dishing on the bad including size does matter service, r1 meets reality, and writing while 4/4.

on raising zebras*

2012-01-06T08:51:00.000-08:00

if you have a zebra talking to horse people is frustrating

sheer chance led to back to back meetings about both kids at their respective schools.

apparently my boy zebra is not performing as stellarly as his IQ results would indicate he should. What you say? The zebra has an IEP so of course he doesn't learn like other horses? NONSENSE the answer is clearly to retest the zebra. He probably isn't a special zebra at all, just an average horse.

Girl zebra on the other hand shouldn't be tested at all. She should just learn to do what all the horses are doing because you know that eventually she has to hang with the horses, right? What you say? You are in a zebra only herd? Me too, but apparently you can't have that option until adulthood. Once girl zebra does what the other horses have done, then she may have zebra appropriate activities, but not before.

*zebra metaphor inspired by Cloud's unicorn

I am reinventing myself.

2012-01-06T03:32:00.000-08:00

reminders for myself

I was the girl who had a lot of promise who got lost somewhere in graduate school buried under the weight of _____ (you fill in the blank you are as likely to be apt as me).

It took years to retrieve my voice, but my intellect at least emerged intact. I took years to get where I am now and I am not going anywhere else fast. I hope I can remember that and stay for the long.

This is my life. I made it. I can change it. Bitterness cannot have me. I made choices. Other people made choices.

I can revel in the smallness (the book in which I am not is itself not very good) or I can celebrate that space still exists for me to say what I want to say.

who says higher ed doesn't give back?

2012-01-05T03:18:00.000-08:00

My parents have been here for the holidays and they are avid sports ~~fans~~ junkies. As a kid I can recall a few Bowl games prior to the big Bowl party on New Year's Day. However as the number of Bowls have multiplied, now a whooping thirty-eight, my parents have remained ever faithful. They'll watch games even without a dog in the fight between two scrub teams if the word Bowl is slapped on the event.

That gave me the idea that as a counterpoint to the seemingly endless debate about the role of higher education in the 21st Century, IHE should develop an ad campaign highlighting the hours of free entertainment we provide each holiday season.

We'll need a slogan, of course. "No education, no football" might be too complex, so I'll leave formulating one up to the Comm folks, [I must admit to a certain partiality to "power to the profs"].

I have, however, come up with a provisional list of the tangible benefits IHE provides to even those completely disdainful of a liberal arts education.

Nothing to say to your former buddies or extended family members in home town? Thanks higher ed for a way to hang with people without actually conversing with them about anything of substance.

Of course the economic boost from tourism to bowl-hosting cities is well documented, but who provides normally frugal midwesterners with the excuse to book over-priced Bowl packages to warmer climes? Higher education benefits the people again.

No pro football team near you? Who cares. There are over 100 Division 1-A teams located in all sorts of obscure places, democratically spreading fandom to forty-one of the fifty States, courtesy of higher education, while the NFL offers this only to residents in a paltry twenty-three states.

I envision these promo spots slotted in right after those vanity puff pieces in which IHE strategically depict only their most attractive campus locales while a voiceover extols the virtues of the fine education received therein. Fat lot of good those have done us all these years. So maybe its time to send out a different message.

You're welcome America for the extended distraction of the holidays well into January. Now pass the chips, dude.

in which IA Republicans answer my prayers

2012-01-04T04:02:00.000-08:00

I sat, dear read, before the proverbial blank screen, mind void of topic

When interrupting my NCIS what should appear? The IA caucus results. I tweeted my reaction.

what does it mean that twice as many people in #iowa caucuses think #abortion over health care most pressing political issue

According to the news brief graphic by CBS 5% of caucus goers cited health care as the most important issue, while 10% pointed to abortion.* Earlier/later entrance polls had a factor of 3, with only 4% pointing to health care and 13% to abortion.**

First of all people abortion is a health care issue, so this is freakin' specious distinction at best, and yes I get that there are still some 80's style die hard abortion litmus test voters, but srsly are they rich (so not naming the economy) or fools (not pointing to the terrifying deficit)? Lest you think they are all committed ideologues, 1 out of 3 prized Rep. caucus goers valued electablity above all other attributes in a candidate.

I'm pretty damn hyped about abortion these days since during my recently (ruined) dinner with sciDAD we were seated in a table, separated by a sheer curtain, from two women voicing in non-romantic restaurant tones their committed anti-abortion views. I really really really wanted to peek behind the curtain dear reader but sciDAD began shooting me one of those looks. Then of course he barfed, and well control of my uterus receded in importance (very briefly) to his stomach.

Which reminds me, we're also coming up on Blog For Choice day (Jan 22), which please note is not blog for having an abortion day, an important if ill-understood distinction. As the bumper sticker says

buy here

srsly it must be piss me off night, because next up during NCIS was the Catholics Come Home commercial with the tag line "the church started by Jesus" like right after the Beatitudes Jesus outlined plans for the papacy, the College of Cardinals, right on down to your local parish. I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone's religious beliefs, but twisty histories peeve me to no end. The idea that Jesus chose Peter as the rock is not the same as arguing that two thousand years later WWJD = The current Catholic Church. As a religiously literate person, albeit from a Protestant perspective, I'm fascinated by the various expunged gospels, as well as the sects that never fell in line with the unification of Christianity

*I can't find online the pie chart I saw on TV and numbers on website now look like this

Which ONE of these issues mattered most in deciding whom to support today? (CHECK ONLY ONE)

	BACHMANN	GINGRICH	HUNTSMAN	PAUL	PERRY	ROMNEY	SANTORUM
Abortion (13%)	7%	9%	-	7%	11%	7%	58%
Federal budget deficit (34%)	5%	15%	1%	28%	11%	21%	19%
The economy (42%)	3%	13%	1%	20%	9%	33%	19%
Health care (4%)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Which ONE of these candidate qualities mattered most in deciding whom to support today? (CHECK ONLY ONE)

	BACHMANN	GINGRICH	HUNTSMAN	PAUL	PERRY	ROMNEY	SANTORUM
Can defeat Barack Obama (31%)	3%	20%	0%	9%	7%	48%	13%
Is a true conservative (25%)	9%	4%	-	37%	12%	1%	36%
Has strong moral character (24%)	5%	5%	0%	23%	14%	11%	40%
Has the right experience (16%)	2%	28%	3%	16%	10%	35%	6%

P.S. and back to NCIS OMG if they get Tony and Ziva together this season I will be so pissed

meanwhile back in never mind land history is happening

2012-01-03T05:12:00.000-08:00

I always find getting back to writing so difficult after taking a break. This time, of course, the "break" stretched from the "great lice outbreak" through the New Year, making for six solid weeks of interrupted writing. BREATHE BREATHE

I've decide to leave off my out of order chapter (which is approx 2/3rd finished and approx 10,000 words for those of you counting. I got in maybe 12-14 of the anticipated 16 writing days before holidays kicked in). I'm taking up the next successive chapter, which is the material I know best but will therefore pose serious challenges in terms of keeping the length manageable and the focus tight. Writing out of sequence has left me unclear on exactly where I'll be in my argument, what details will have been covered. It seems I'm more wedded to narrative than I knew.

Never mind in the midst of my fever, like Darwin, an insight came to me. Chapters 1 and 2 are probably organized incorrectly. LE SIGH

Never mind my parents are rattling around the house and I SUCK at writing when there are distractions. I need to get source material, which is in their room, LE SIGH again. However I guess first I'd best reacquaint myself with the subject at hand by re-reading what I've written so far.

Never mind Jan 2 2012 eight months since I've started this sabbatical and not a chapter yet that I'm pleased with. I cannot say this is what I expected and I'd be lying if I didn't admit to some disappointment.

Le grand sigh

my list of "versatile" bloggers

2012-01-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

First up big thanks to Spanish Prof for including me

I'd just been thinking that blogs need a version of the #FF on twitter, particularly as I followed lots of blogroll links during the recent holiday sickness, leading to some FAB new finds. The "award" runs a bit like a chain letter and while I'm vaguish on the criterion for establishing versatility, this serves quite well as a means for introducing some of my new favorites (of course I love my long time blogroll inhabitants as well)

Here are the conditions of the award:
1) Nominate 15 fellow bloggers
2) Inform the Bloggers of their nomination
3) Share 7 random things about yourself
4) Thank the blogger who nominated you
5) Post the award badge.

So with the emphasis on recently discovered

First up, Cloud over at the Wandering Scientist. I've no idea how I found her, but I'm thinking via unicorn post linked off one of the sites I regularly read. Anyway, love the discussions that occur over on her much bigger blog.

In our conversation about age on the internet QueSera noted, with great perspicacity, that in reading blogs perhaps we are seeking models, advice, or certain perspectives, and that is definitely why I'm reading The Frugal Scholar (whom I'm quite sure I found via G.G.) and Janice Liedl, both of whom are ahead of me in life. Because sometimes there is true value in looking back a bit, both QueSera and Moria in Excelsis remind me of times past in my life. Delight and Instruct on the other hand is also newly tenured and on sabbatical blog (trying not to be jealous of the already acquired book contract).

At On the Road to the Good Life, Way To Go Homesteader is someone so completely unlike me as to be just FASCINATING and since she just changed her blog (AGAIN) it "counts" as recently discovered right? mama(e) in translation - totally fell off my radar, no idea how, but adventures in cyberschooling, expat life, bi-cultural kids, LA politics, she writes about it all, and has so much in common with the other regulars in our little corner of feminist/academicish/parentingish blogosphere that I feel certain many of you are reading already. [Honorable mention here new mom-to-be on the block which I know some of you already read, The Age of Perfection.]

See the really lovely writing at Writing as Jo(e), the pretty pictures over at Mom's Basement, and for a dman funny spin on feminism, queer stuff, and other issues of import check out Roxie's World where irreverence rules.

p.s. if you are a regular reader I'm not spamming you to tell you you're on my list. Consider yourself hit up.

ummm not really sure how this is relevant, but now to Share 7 random things*

1. I only bathe, very seldom shower
2. I don't like most people
3. I never ever see serious films anymore
4. I feel a complete failure because I've never published a ~~book~~ scholarly monograph
5. I find it very very odd that people choose to watch violence as entertainment
6. At various points in my life I've been a proficient horsewoman, rockclimber, and mountain biker
7. I am obsessed with all things vintage

side note: like my nominator I read Agatha Christie at an early age, although ONLY Poirot, probably by 12 or maybe 13. I eschewed Marple and to this day know those solely through the Masterpiece Theater shows.

*is it odd that a bunch of stuff that would seem random to my IRL friends, you already know from reading my blog? I kept having to erase stuff thinking, umm this isn't random to them. I blog about X all the time.

#1Minute4Me & #5Minutes4Me

2012-01-01T14:57:00.000-08:00

I don't consider these resolutions (only one true resolution this year), but rather things I want to experiment with to see if they help with stress and pain.

#1Minute4Me - mini meditative breaks, or more properly conscious relaxation that I first learned at the end of my yoga classes during corpse pose. I have no idea if these will help or not but I figure why not try. I'm going to tweet more for my own record than anything else.

#5Minutes4Me - I'm still take a semi private reformer class and at least one other Pilates class a week, but I haven't been able to develop a disciplined home practice. So I'll be doing 5 minutes per day of Fletcher Pilates, in the AM for my hip and in the PM for my shoulders . Again, I've no idea if this amount of time will be sufficient, but it is definitely feasible to start there. I'm also going to sneak in different Pilates exercises whenever I can during the day. It has to be better than trying to do 30-45 minutes at home.

resolute

2012-01-01T03:20:00.000-08:00

book

from

NYE shoe?

2011-12-31T16:38:00.000-08:00

too much for neighborhood faculty party? Most peeps will be in jeans and Crocs. I have paired with black tights, skirt and cashmere crew. Will still be overdressed by factor of 10. These shoes are sad though. Sabbatical means they've not been out in forever!

Not Quite the Right Year End Meme

2011-12-31T03:42:00.000-08:00

I began this blog as an experiment late in 2009

It morphed into a way to write about life at a TTLAC as an R1 educated person, but pre-tenure that turned out to be too scary. I redacted most of those posts, but plan in 2012-2013 to return to this theme.

2011 became a sabbatical blog, of sorts, as well as a blog that gained some fairly regular readers.*

I reconnected with WFDA, wrestled with feelings of inadequacy compared to my grad school cohort, and in general tried to figure out how to write about my book without revealing my identity. I began offering advice on writing, including how to write in the spaces between, writing history week, and culminating in my post how to write an article over winter break.

Fashion still preoccupied me, even after the institution of the $5 rule from ruminations about professorial appearances and of course shoes, shoes and MORE shoes, as well as appearance over 40.

I also managed to write about history in popular culture, from the MLK memorial to the Jackie O tapes to Pan Am to D-Day, the 4th and the 150th anniversary of the Civil War

I spent October exploring themes because suddenly one-off posts seemed too limiting. My fav was the "dude blogging" week, which turned into a fascinating discussion of gender/academia/parenting blogging (I still think we need a carnival on what it means to be "a mommy blogger") but I also really enjoyed writing the posts on Hysterical History and Work, Labor and Money. One thing I know it means to me to be a feminist is the ability to use the word "work" colloquially without getting slammed for it. I'm not about to write "labor for remuneration" as opposed to "non-waged labor" each time I want to say something.

I also squeezed out a fair amount of navel gazing, including Is It A Book If No One Reads It, my plea to end the ubiquitous kid sport trophies, and thoughts about age coloring perspectives on feminism.

In 2012 I'm looking forward to the Death Comes to Pemberley virtual book club. Consider joining us. The book was a quick read and an interesting way to re-think Austen.

So I'm raising a glass to you, dear readers! I want to thank all the bloggers who have linked to my posts or put me on their blog roll. While I've never aspired to be a big blog (my writing is an attempt to figure out my life, so how many people can find that interesting?) I've really enjoyed the larger community of readers this past year.

awesome blog where I found image
I could srsly spend hours on this blog

*In an odd way I'm indebted to Hst'ann since it was snarking post-Berks (admittedly not my finest moment)that landed a huge number of readers here, and thankfully a bunch stayed around.

child free time - why you should get to leave

2011-12-30T02:38:00.000-08:00

courtesy of my parents, sciDAD and I are, as you read this, luxuriating in a 4 star hotel, enjoying room service, food our kids won't eat at restaurants, and other delights (including the end of Death Comes To Pemberley. I can't wait to find out whodunit. ZenMoo carefully tweeted so as to not reveal, and a bubble bath with my FAB half price Body Shop Candied Ginger bath set).

I honestly don't know what parents do who can't get away every now and again. While it will be only about 24 hours that we are not all-familied up, our kids are 24/7. While girlchild sleeps at a sensible hour of 7-ish and arises at 6AM, fMhson is up now until almost 10:30PM, by which time I'm asleep. I firmly believe all parents should get a minimum of 24 hours, preferably 48 hours, without their kids every month.

Why? Because kids are exhausting, or at least, my kids are. As I type, fMhson is repurposing his dart board from Santa (AWESOME GIFT BTW teaches physics and math) to determine which surfaces in the house are magnetic. His sister is following around shouting randomly "this is magnetic" much to his ire. This will invariable end in a fight over the darts or result in at least one dart being lost or trapped (inside a clock at the GPs house where this delightful pass-time was first discovered). Meanwhile my parents already look exhausted, so I feel a little guilty leaving, but I know they want to do this and the kids are sometimes better behaved for them.

I'm sure I should say that parents need this break to be better parents. Hell you can say almost anything as long as you claim it is to make you a better parent, no one questions your intent. However, this mother's manifesto starts with "I am a person. I am a mother. Not necessarily in that order." As an adult person who enjoys quiet and solitude, both of which are in slim supply around our house, sometimes I just have to leave.

I hope everyone, childed or child free, also gets some time to do nothing but what they want in peace and quiet for at least 24 hours during the holidays. For academics it always seems to be catch up time, and I know for non-academics, work is still happening for some of you.

Am I old on the Internet?

2011-12-29T04:35:00.000-08:00

One of the oddest things about virtual life is the disembodied aspect of it. I don't mean this in some profoundly PoMo way, but as a more prosaic observation. While most of the bloggers I read are women, I've no image of the majority (I think only Clarissa and Alyssa have pics on their blogs) and of course I don't "know" the identities of most either (nor do I try to figure them out). I've been living online long enough that these things don't bother me most of the time.

What I have been reminded of lately is that, like in real life, I'm older than most of the feminist/ parent/academic people whose blogs I read. I sometimes forget this because I'm in the "middle" of my current circle of BFFs (yes some moms with kids YOUNGER than mine are older). I'm the only one who had a Ph.D. by 30 and they both reproduced in grad school, but because they had lives between undergrad and grad school, we've all caught up with each other in the end.

When Que Sera noted Madonna was her Taylor Swift and Fie alluded to the 90s, I recalled that they are both like a decade younger than me (I'm 43 for those of you who haven't done the math). In a weird way I think that the internet keeps me young. Twitter is clearly the dominion of the young (and medievalists, what is up with that? How did the antiquarian set of historians end up early adopters?)

Other times though, my virtual interactions remind me of my age, as in the recent online takes on feminism over at Clarissa and the G.G.'s. Initially I planned to write a response, which began

so I mean wtf do I know. It is true I have undergrad ws minor (I'm SO EFF-ING OLD the majors were few and far between in my college days) and I wrote for the campus feminist newspaper and my first license plate proclaimed "feminist too" in vanity-plate speak, but some two decades of studying and writing about feminism later and I'll be dmaned if I'm any closer to a definition. I mean I have definitions. Shit I teach definitions as well as write them, so should you require one, I can provide, but really why? The longer I do this, the less I care who calls themselves what.

I stopped writing 1. because I'm not sure what I have to say is of interest to anyone but me and 2. it was hard going without revealing my TI. It was clear to me though that my age (I knew actual radical feminists in the years when the movement of women colloquially called the second wave was disintegrating, so my perspective is far more historically bound) largely influences my discomfort with the way feminism is often discussed online.

So does that make me "old" on the internet? Certain indicators, an AOL account for example, an inability to understand abbreviations might point to the aged user, I suppose. The example of feminism however points to something quite different, what we in the humanities call discourse communities. So the feminist/academic blogosphere constitutes a discourse community. It overlaps with the parenting (really mothering except for a few dads)/academic discourse community [and for others of you with science, politics, DIY and other discourse communities]. However, it is becoming clearer to me that my historically informed understanding of feminism is not within the norms of the academic/feminist discourse community as it overlaps with the parenting/academic one. And I'm pretty sure that is because I'm old(er)!

20 most personally important albums meme

2011-12-28T03:29:00.000-08:00

I'm stealing this from someone on my blogroll, but dmaned if I can recall who, so claim it in the comments and I'll fix this credit line!

My first album, and of course, it was a record album, was Donny and Marie. SIGH I LOVED that variety show as a very small person. I am old enough to recall the 45 as well and had a variety of cheesy 70s hits (Shaun Cassidy, Barry Manilow!), all of which I’m sure are included on at least one of the Time-Life music collections hawked by one-hit wonders in the wee small hours of the morning.

Thankfully I was saved by my first boyfriend, a true musical aficionado, who introduced me to the Beatles, the Blues, Dylan and host of other sixties protest musicians. We spent hours trawling through used record stores and I amassed quite a collection of Beatles (original Apple labels only, natch!).

I’m sorry to say that as I’ve aged music has become far less important to me. I can’t abide noise much these days, and if music is playing in this house it is either sciDAD on his laptop with headphones, of fMhgirl blasting Taylor Swift.

Thus I’m going with the albums from the formative years of my musical tastes, which means my own top 10, not 20.

Grease – dancing, fun, what is not to love?
Madonna’s first album – came out my sophomore year, not like I was insensible to girl bands (jr high favs GoGos and The Waitresses) but Madonna took it to a whole other level and owned her blatant sexuality.
Beatles – can’t pick, maybe the White Album, or Rubber Soul
Prince, Controversy, worked backwards from 1999, had way more political lyrics than better known Purple Rain
Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin Bob Dylan - what can I say, you either love Dylan or hate him and I loved him, everything from his raspy singing to his zeitgeist capturing lyrics
David Bowie, Let’s Dance, like the gateway drug into the earlier, crazier, gender bending Bowie
Simon and Garfunkel Bookends, possibly most perfect album ever
Squeeze, the first important CD and see I can’t even recall the damn album title as it is merged with Talking Heads in my mind, another big band for me from this era
Patsy Cline, Greatest Hits – saved me from the Rhinestone Cowboy country of my youth
Indigo Girls Swamp Ophelia, I’m too old to have truly hit the riot grrrl years, so the I.G. and Melissa Etheridge were the closest I got.

New blog design

2011-12-27T04:39:00.000-08:00

inspired by my return to Austenland

is it too Victorian?

Frankly it reminds me a bit of The Yellow Wallpaper

but in a good way.

p.s. Is Gilman the anti-Austen? Discuss among yourselves.

#virtualbookclub

2011-12-26T15:54:00.000-08:00

Let the VBC begin!

feMOMhist feMOMhist

tweeting my professor's version of a responsive reading log of #DeathComesToPemberley with #Pemberleyvbc

(HATED "responsive reading" logs as stu BTW)

feMOMhist feMOMhist

more words that should make a come back "descant" (48) #Pemberleyvbc

I mean James IS old, but dman is she working from some extant 18th C. OED?

feMOMhist feMOMhist

#lostwords postilion (51) loam (63) #PemberleyVBC

but apparently not forgotten

date for big reveal of true reviews TBD. Thinking pre MLK, opinions? Other thoughts? Sign on in comments if you want to participate!

twitter @feMOMhist

2011-12-26T09:12:00.001-08:00

the decline of a once great American business

2011-12-26T06:45:00.000-08:00

update #5 on picking up, I arrive at un-staffed computer kiosk, use my phone number (?) rather than confirmation # to pull up order. All around are signs informing me that Sears values me and proclaiming that if my order is not out in 5 minutes, I get $5 credit (see un-staff kiosk about this). At 3:40 my order appears as "fulfilled" thus preventing the kiosk from "giving" me $5 credit and yet I stand, waiting, for 5 more minutes. Several Sears peeps pass by on their way to HR saying nothing. Finally stock dude pops head out "I'll be right with you." Five more minutes pass. Apparently he was looking for a large mattress rather than a boxed up replacement sofa bed mattress. To be fair, he was very nice, but seriously, how does Sears not have some more effective tracking that lets him identify where in the stockroom the item is (rather than his searching for it visually).

update #4 " a token of our appreciation in the form of a $40 gift card"

update #3 Hilariously Sears CS seems unaware of update #2 as they are still emailing me. They should srsly consider putting all that money into a modern supply chain with tracking capabilities.

update#2: received email item is in store ready for pick up

update: well apparently if you go all viral on Sears you will at least get a personal response. I just received a voicemail (ran out to buy popsicles, juice, and soup for the sick child) to let me know ... well ... nothing. In that Sears apparently is the middleman in a vendor chain of stunning incompetence, the very personable rep was able to leave me a message informing me that the vendor doesn't provide UPS tracking numbers so ... well ... nothing relevant to my missing mattress ... except of course that Christine is "there for me" and "hopes that I will reach out." For what? More platitudes?

back in the day, department stores were palaces of consumption. With shiny marble and electric lights, they became destinations for ladies who lunched in their tea rooms. In a strange way they resembled nothing so much as our modern museums, with cases dedicated to rarities, in the case of department stores, the latest wares.

One of my favorite movies has a wonderful scene (starting at 23:00)

As a little girl I remember the joy of visiting Santa in the store, shopping for back to school outfits, and browsing through the catalogs. Sadly those glory days are passed. American department stores outside NYC are a pathetic vestiges of what they used to be. I rarely set foot in one unless my mother is visiting, but this year as I searched online for a replacement mattress for my sofa bed, I was surprised to see sears pop up at the top of Google. Hmm I thought, should the mattress have any problems, it would be nice to have brick and mortar option for return. So I place my order, scheduled to arrive in store for pick up on or about Dec 23-25.

Holiday approaches, and I'm busily working away, wrapping packages, finishing up last minute errands. No email from Sears telling me to pick up my mattress. I check website, order still "processing."

Day after Christmas, sick child and I lying on lumpy old mattress, I again check order. Processing. HMMMMM email customer service. Receive auto reply thanking me profusely, buried within, the following information

Per our records I see that you have placed the order for "Memory Foam Sleep Sofa Replacement Mattress" on 12/15/2011. I see that the expected delivery date was on 12/23/2011. As the expected delivery date has been passed. I have processed the request to the Research Specialist for the research. The research process may take some time. Please allow us 5-7 business days to get back to you with an update. We are here for you!

Fabulous, Sears is there for me, which is good because as my parents are coming this week, I will be sleeping on said mattress. I log in to chat with representative. I'm sure this person is located far far away, and is bedeviled by annoying First World Problems all day long. I engage in endless loop in which I request to know if/when/where item shipped from, only to be told "5-7 days." Finally learn item is "in transit." Again "when/where." Sears doesn't know and can't tell! Yes your grandmother can track her mail from the freakin' P.O. but apparently Sears has no tracking information on their order system.

I request 1. replacement with expedited shipping or 2. cancel my order

After an hour I get disconnected when original rep attempts to transfer chat to supervisor. HAHA Sears, I copy and paste the prior chat and restart. Get transferred to supervisor with clearly higher level de-escalation skills, straight from a script either generated by AI or written by person who has acquired English in addition to another language

Derrick: You have all the reasons to be concerned about this purchase. Honestly speaking even I would be concerned the same way if I were to be in your place.

YAY "Derrrick" feels my pain. Perhaps I *will* get my replacement shipped, or a credit for my inconvenience! I wait, and I wait. fMhson and I play some Lego Heroica Fortran (sigh as I hate kid games).

I wait.
I wait.
I wait.

At least 30 minutes has gone by since "Derrick" and I bonded. Nothing appears in chat window, yet I am still connected. I the meantime I do some online searching. Apparently other people think Sears Sucks (at CS at least) both on blogs and Twitter. Sears is apparently aware that it sucks, as it has a team of people (the FAB euphemistic "Social Media Support Escalations team") who respond to the many online rants (geez here is an idea, try putting the time/$ into improving the CS in the first place!)

At least an hour has passed since supervisor "Derrick" swooped in, but nothing more than "his" initial reassurances that being in my position he would be of the same feeling. Total, I've spent more than three hours online this AM with Sears. I call it quits, but not before ranting online.

on kids and sickness - redux

2011-12-26T03:42:00.000-08:00

One of the most popular posts I ever wrote was oddly enough about the simultaneous invasion of a stomach bug.

Friday = fMhson came home sick from school
Saturday = fMhgirl threw up twice
Sunday = fMhson coughing, runny nose
Monday early AM = fMhgirl up with it all, fever, chills, etc

Today I've set up the sick room in the basement, hoping against hope to quarantine whatever this is before my parents arrive later this week. Four years ago at Christmas we managed to spread the love around to them as well. That was a flu I can only compare to the malaria I've read about (actually the image that kept coming to mind was this one from LHOTP). I honestly don't know that I've ever been so out of it,

Thankfully my library has Freading Ebooks! I daren't risk waking fMhson by retrieving one of these books from my bedroom, so I've downloaded the equivalent of a crappy sit com.* I was sucked in by the "cozy con" concept (sidenote, if you've not caught Geek Love yet, speed dating at Comic Con, do so post haste. I have finally found another reality TV show that doesn't frighten me)

I should be writing instead, but dman it's early and all my sources are upstairs (still I could edit I suppose...)

Happy Boxing Day to those of you in the U.K.

*seriously trite out-of-date writing "limp as a dish rag" "it galled her" "good natured at the ribbing" "putting on the dog" "carrying a torch" yet M.C. is downloading to her e-reader, villain is a blog-writer, toastmaster insist on being "toast chick" EEEKKK anachronistic

most bizarre yet FAB xmas gift

2011-12-25T05:45:00.000-08:00

sciDAD received this oddly mesmerizing LCD tree that plugs into USB port.

Enjoy with one of my fav xmas songs and one of the kids'!

Whatever makes you happiest this holiday season

2011-12-24T03:58:00.000-08:00

I don't understand when people say they've a stack of books they've not gotten around to reading yet. Who are these people who can resist the lure of new novel or mystery? Should a new book find its way into this house, I'm reading it, so during the academic year, my fiction consumption is limited to audiobooks during cardio or commute time. For many years now, my holiday gift to myself has been binging on anything but (my field of) history-related reading.

Stacked up nicely on my nightstand

1. Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James (virtual book club anyone)?

2. Our Man In The Dark by Rashad Harrison

3. The Forgotten Affairs of Youth by Alexander McCall Smith

4. Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK's Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930 by Kelly J. Baker (note she has her own domain name. I wonder if I need one? Is fmh.com taken by a pron site already?)

5. on audio for workout Flash and Bones by Kathy Reichs.

and on fMhson's nightstand, approximately twenty books from the A to Z Mysteries and the Capital Mystery Series. He has clearly inherited my fear of running out of books!

Here's hoping that you are doing whatever makes you happiest this holiday season.

Legos and the ASD kid at Christmas

2011-12-23T03:13:00.001-08:00

so over at the Wandering Scientist there has been a FAB discusion of Lego's new "girl" campaign

Issues boil down to
1. are Legos too gendered/pushed at/aimed towards boys
2. are Legos uncreative now that they come in sets
3. are Legos too commercial, since they are largely character driven

This was all fascinating, but we came to Legos from a completely different perspective. In my travels through the peds neuro circuit with fMhson from age 4 on, I saw many a flyer for very expensive Lego play therapy groups. Legos are meant to be quite good for ASD kids. Since fMhson was not ASD, the groups weren't suggested for him*, but I decided to get him some Legos.

We have a completely different set of Lego problems

1. fMhson is a Lego savant. He is ambidextrous and very spatially smart, so he has been able to do sets since day 1 and is far better than me.
2. fMhson is very very "rules oriented." This means if his Lego set is missing a piece, he is not going to do the set ever again. I started him building sets and indicating the missing pieces on the directions, with the intent of buying replacement, but I never did.
3. co-mingling the sets is not a win either. He will play with the Brick Box, or even my childhood bricks, and build whatever, but he is not going to mix up his sets that are missing pieces and just build with those. It offends his sense of order.
4. fMhson is NOT interested in building Legos with other kids. He has been to groups where he plays with his Legos while other kids play with theirs, but Lego camp was a huge fail this summer because the projects were collaborative. He is annoyed at other children who are slower than him at building and he isn't interested in hearing their ideas about building.

So here is the thing, I've got two crates of Lego sets, because fMhson is not into letting go of "stuff," but he doesn't play with them. When he gets a new Lego set, he will build it completely, even if it is several hundred pieces, in one sitting, so in that sense Legos aren't a "waste." Legos force fMhson to get his hands under control and to stay relatively still (he is largely the hyper rather than distracted ADHD, so he can focus quite well when he is engrossed in something).

So do I keep letting him get sets? This year I put a Lego moratorium on Christmas gifts except for a few stocking stuffer less than 30 piece figurines. He really loves Legos though and when we travelled to Legoland this summer, spent all his own money on new Legos.

*fMhson has only two of the diagnostic indicators of Asperger's, pretty insane levels of literalism (although he understand symbolic speech, punning etc when he is freaking out it is often because of this), a definite preference for routine. His desire to work alone rather with peers is attributed by the shrinky set to his above average intelligence, as is some of his social awkwardness. Still we have worked hard to incorporate the therapies used for high functioning ASD kids with him

I blame Veggie Tales - on Atheist Parents Raising Believing Kids

2011-12-22T03:11:00.000-08:00

It all started with Veggie Tales. fMhson must have been around 3 when he found a Veggie Tales dvd at the library and asked to take it out.

I was raised in a religious household. My father considered the ministry and my mother worked for a mainline Protestant-denomination church. I attended services and Sunday School every Sunday of my life until high school (I think. It gets fuzzy but I don't believe it was requisite once I'd attained the age of reason) and was baptized as a child and confirmed at 13. My BFF was from church, however sometime during high school, I think when I began dating my first boy friend, I realized I did not believe in God.

I don't feel scarred by my childhood experiences with religion. They left me with no discernable hang ups, but I do have a solid moral grounding (not to mention excellent Biblical exegesis skills that came in handy during my undergrad English lit days).

fMhson took to Bible stories like the proverbial duck. He began asking more questions about them, and about God. I answered as honestly as I could. Long before I learned that scientists had found something colloquially known as the "God Gene" I used to say to people that fMhson had been born a true believer. He has, from the moment of hearing the good news, completely thrown in with the idea of God.

When he asked a few years ago about celebrating Hanukkah, I said sure. So on the first night, we lit the candles, and he said the prayer, and then we ate. After dinner he and his sister enjoyed playing dreidel. He is sort of like the Unitarians, willing to take on various Judeo-Christian traditions (he is aware of the Abrahamic religions, but so far hasn't been interested in celebrating any Muslim holidays, although he has classmates who do).

In all the host of fears and worries that beset the pregnant me, I can honestly say never occurred to me that I would give birth to a religiously-inclined child (fMhgirl so far hasn't shown any signs of religiosity. She has her own ontological crises, but they are more Idealist). sciDAD is culturally Catholic, so we worried more about the grandparents, wondering if either would attempt a stealthy baptism. We always intended to let our children decide for themselves, the fall back position of "mixed marriages" across the country. Thankfully if our parents had opinions, they kept them to themselves.

Strangely enough, the most vocal critics of my decision to let my kid "decide" for religion has come from my academic atheist friends who are aware of my own (lack of) beliefs. They seem as eager to inculcate atheism into their kids as the religious are to instill certain beliefs in theirs. Both approaches annoy me. I don't hold with evangelism. I won't support charities that proselytize and I'm incredibly uncomfortable with imposing religion on kids (when my sister dissented from my parents' religion she was not forced to be confirmed). However, I also won't attempt to persuade my child that belief in God is silly superstition. I'm don't lie to him. He knows I don't believe, and he is NOT happy about it. However, when I said I'd let him decide, I meant exactly that.

So here I am, a religiously informed yet non-believing person, attempting to explain no the Little Drummer Boy was not "real," but yes, the travel to Bethlehem was an historical event. Taxes are money you give to the State, but most likely the holy family traveled with a larger group of Jews on the trip (for safety). Oh yes, a manger is where an animal's food is in a barn, which is what a stable is, more or less.

In between I try to steer him to the bigger meaning, the notion of "the least among us," that Jesus was born poor and persecuted, and the teachings of the historical Jesus have a lot to say about that.

Top ten television binges for lazing in bed during break

2011-12-21T02:51:00.000-08:00

I neither get to movies (at least of the non-animated variety much anymore) nor do I get to read books that aren’t related to sabbatical project. However I watch a HELL OF A LOT of TV while working out and as I attempt to wind my mind down at night. Network TV terrifies me if it is truly indicative of what the public wants to see. I favor the seemingly endless stream of archaeology shows in History International, but I also love BBC America and PBS' Masterpiece Mystery.* I'm not averse to watching TV online so I can catch most of the series that air abroad as well as at home.

It probably comes as no surprise given yesterday's post, but they are mostly mysteries (including one of the competing 'modern' Holmes. I have loved mysteries since I first hit the Bobbsey Twins/Nancy Drew/Trixie Belden series in elementary school and then worked my way through the Agatha Christie and so on. Given my dislike for violence, I tend towards to cozies when reading, but I'm willing to be a bit more adventurous in viewing.

Here are my 10 best that you may have missed and can catch up on over the holiday hiatus.

Whitechapel - how can you not love a mystery series in which history helps solve crimes
Murdoch Mysteries - even better, historically situated mysteries!
Warehouse 13 - Sort of an Indiana Jones goes to the mysteries
Zen - no history (other than the ubiquitous) set in yummy Italy
Case Histories - v. odd yet intriguing

just to mix it up a little, The Choir is one of the few reality shows that doesn't make me despair for the future of humanity and Leverage is one of the clevrest shows on T.V. Right now I'm watching a gloss on the Office and last two weeks were a multiple POV narrative!

*lest I appear an unregenerate academic snob watching only the Beeb and PBS, let me also confess to Bones, NCIS (both versions!), Rizzoli & Isles, in addition to the other crappy summer fluff I 'fessed up to earlier). I will also binge watch in one go a season Boardwalk Empire, Community, and Glee.

hello Hollywood? Hands off my mysteries.

2011-12-20T02:41:00.000-08:00

Since childhood my favorite means of escape has been a book, preferably one from a familiar series, allowing me to hide away in a fictional universe of my own imagination. For many years, I've been visiting in the world of bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. So it was with some chagrin that I heard about the first book in the series being turned into a movie. I completely flipped when I learned about the casting. In my mind's eye, Plum looks something akin to Jennifer Beals. She most emphatically does NOT look like Katherine Heigl.

TNT in a lower rent version has slated for its Mystery Movie Night this holiday season Deck The Halls, one of the fluffy one-off Christmas novellas produced by the mother-daughter team of Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark in a thinly veiled version of their own relationship. When trapped at obligatory family holidays, I have been known to peruse one of these treacly tomes. As they are both frequently depicted on their book covers, I quite normally picture THEM in the roles of the characters. They do NOT look like Jane Alexander (!) or Scottie Thompson.

the Higgins Clark writing duo

I learned long ago that adaptations of books nearly always disappoint, ( TG I never read the HP series) yet I know at some point both will end up viewed as I won't be able to resist.

Of course none of this compares with the attention being paid to P.D. James' "Austen" mystery novel. The whole obsession with Austen by people of a certain sort continues to amaze me, but I must confess I'm saving the James for over the holiday break (and I did sort of like Lost in Austen).

holiday baking Weihnachten version

2011-12-19T06:03:00.000-08:00

so BFF from TTLAC and I have tradition of baking a new kind of cookie and making dinner from his (deceased) mother's recipe collection.

This year we attempted pfeffernusse and I'm pretty damned pleased with the result. He picked the recipe so I can't vouch for the authenticity but with a strong red wine they were delicious for dessert. I doubled the spices and we dusted only some with powdered sugar

this guy is genius

2011-12-19T05:50:00.000-08:00

GENIUS

dread day arrives

2011-12-18T05:54:00.000-08:00

getting dressed for school holiday concert, fMhgirl, in no uncertain terms announces, "I wish I had blonde hair. It is much more beautiful."

me trying to explain most people don't have blonde hair. They dye it.

fMhgirl, "can you dye mine?"

me - "no" turning on Telemundo to show her all the guapas with black hair

no dice. Is she too young for The Bluest Eye?

Sigh, not like I didn't know this day was coming. I still distinctly remember the moment it hit me that I wasn't going to have a little blonde child. sciDAD and I were driving somewhere, fairly early on in dating, and I can't even recall how the realization came to me. I will admit it made me sad. Up until that point I hadn't realized my expectation that of course my offspring would look like me. I worked through it and I know that fMhgirl will too. For better or worse, I'm afraid she is going to be considered "exotic" in our neck of the woods and she already has this crazy hourglass figure at 5 (how is that even posisble?) I just hope all the fucking years of feminist theory are enough to help me help her.

update: at the school concert everyone made a huge deal out of how pretty she was, which normally would make me insane (pretty is as pretty does, as we say around here), but for once I really didn't mind at all.

holiday baking hacks - I try so you don't have to

2011-12-17T02:58:00.000-08:00

so sadly I spent an entire afternoon cooking food for family friends sitting shiva. That left with me with little time to bake for a holiday party. This is what I ended up with

1. boxed-mix brownies frosted with Hershey's chocolate frosting. Trust me this frosting is so damn good no one is going to notice that the brownies aren't from scratch.

2. Chocolate covered pretzels. If you melt a little shortening into chocolate chips the mixture is thin enough to just dump the pretzels in and fish them out as opposed to dipping them by hand, which is a TOTAL pain in the ass. The mixture coats perfectly. To melt chocolate chips, place in a pyrex bowl or measuring cup with a bit of shortening. Start with a teaspoon and work your way up. Too much is disgustingly greasy. Zap in microwave at 30 second intervals. DO NOT MELT until chip shape disappears. After 30 seconds stir for a minute. The residual heat will continual to melt chips. You may need an additional 15 seconds and then stir again. I found holiday shaped pretzels on sale for 1.99, SCORE. (leftover chocolate can be remelted for reuse. Stuck the pyrex cup in the fridge to do the candied orange peel later.

3. Chocolate covered cookies - selfishly I refused to send a full plate of my home made cookies to kid parties because I see people grabbing tons of desserts and then throwing most away, so I dipped only ten alphabet cookies in the chocolate mixture.

Try not to be upset if your husband forgets to TAKE THE EFFING plate to the party after all your hard work. Try not to eat them all either though! I had far too much of the chocolate frosting/dipping mixture. UGH

these shoes are made for dancing

2011-12-16T07:59:00.000-08:00

shoes finally going out in style w/black tights and (almost age inappropriate) mini-skirt (but restaurant has v. subdued lighting so I should appear less cougar-like).

but sadly they are only going to school holiday concert (which will have huge xmas tree in it and nary a reference to any other holiday, hello first amendment)

wtf - When will I learn ...

2011-12-15T16:40:00.000-08:00

not to read the NYT when I'm already cross

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/14/putting-the-bake-in-bake-sale

war is over, if you want it - for whom?

2011-12-15T03:58:00.000-08:00

so while watching the weather channel this AM, I was surprised to hear that the war is now "over" in Iraq. All along I've said the only way the U.S. was getting out was to pull a Harry Truman - declare "victory" and go home.

Today, the same day as the war "ends, the woman at the center of the much discussed "rape" case in Afghanistan is also being released from prison. [She was raped by a family member, but jailed for "an immoral act."] Her release is considered by many experts to be a "huge" step forward, however implicit in her release is the expectation that she will marry her rapist, which has been a bitter pill for Western feminists to swallow (although apparently the marriage may not occur as her attacker is in jail).

The conjunction of these two events is troubling to me. One of the stated goals of the invasion of Afghanistan in the expanding "war on terror" was to rid the women of the repressive policies of the Taliban. However, the "unforgiving wall of custom" is not something that military efforts can change. That the woman in the center of this case is seemingly willing to sacrifice herself to ensure that her child is not illegitimate reflects the profoundly different context of her life from that of most women in the West.

I think too of the allegations of sexual assault by U.S. servicemen on female troops in what seems to have become the latest "don't ask, don't tell".* How much do these acts of violence reflect our own "unforgiving wall of custom" in which women's bodies are frequently the outlets for the anger and frustration felt by men? Yesterday saw the depressing report that 1 out of 5 women ** are victims of sexual assault in their lifetimes. All of this has me thinking that the "war" on tradition is far from being over for women in either the U.S. or Afghanistan.

*part of me wonders how much the attention paid to these sexual assaults is the last stand of a discourse driven to keep women out of combat, running along the lines of "see they aren't safe" although ironically substituting the fear of rape by opposition forces with threats from their own comrades in arms.

** CDC calculating sexual assault along new, controversial definition

luddite update

2011-12-14T12:47:00.000-08:00

school which would not take email request for fMhgirl to be evaluated is now insisting on a meeting

"to discuss your concerns and determined if we should evaluate."

ummm the child received - on 5 out of 7 "learning behaviors" and in the comments section her teaching indicated that these issues were impeding her ability to learn.

So my only question is WHY am I the one "requesting" the evaluation?

update: are you boycotting chick-fil-a, or and a little child shall lead them

2011-12-14T02:23:00.000-08:00

for background see this post

so as fMhson and I were out and about yesterday, we drove by the soon-to-open Chick-Fil-A and fMhson began talking about how excited he was. I decided "now or never" and waded

"well there is kind of a problem. The people who own CFA give a lot of money to groups that are trying to change the laws so that a boy can't marry a boy or a girl marry a girl"

"like dad's students?"

"yes"

Hmmm puzzled look on child's face (see even a child can grasp the stupidity of the view point).

So I say "what do you think we should do?"

He thinks a minute "what Cesar Chavez did!"

Me almost crashing car, "you know about Cesar Chavez?"

"Yes" and then he proceeds to explain the "campaign" so I teach him the word boycott and now he is damned and determined that we will be PICKETING the new CFA.

Blogosophere, this may be my proudest moment as a parent and I swear to you I was practically weeping. How did I manage to get a kid with such a decent heart and clear sense of ethics? For all the time I've spent worrying about him, stressing about his differences, wishing he was more "normal" I get kicked in the ASS with one of these moments that reminds me that the kid is just ~~fine~~ FABULOUS the way he is.

R#OC

2011-12-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

1. fabulous email from muckety muck in related field today, which felt awesome
2. much brilliance on my part that will probably get me in much trouble with still living people about whom I stupidly write
3. got another 2000 words today, but I'm absurdly distracted by holiday hoo-ha and am off on "things" rather than chapters. Each day has contained at least one significant insight, so I suppose I should be grateful for forward momentum.
4. apparently I am odiferous. I can't remember the last time I bathed (hello working too hard - it's me)
5. I'm wearing a sweater today the predates not only my children but my spouse. (hello J Crew - thanks for the quality)

Are you boycotting Chick-Fil-A, Are you pissed at Lowe's?

2011-12-13T03:14:00.000-08:00

so as you may have seen, Chick-Fil-A founders are apparently asshats. At first I was thinking, fine, I'm still eating there. Why? Because asshats have a right to support the political viewpoints of their choosing, the same as everyone else. Then I did a little more digging. Turns out that Chick-Fil-A Inc has given a sizable chunk of change to their "corporate sponsored charities" that are all up in the gay bashing business. I'm even more distressed at the online mention of a case in which a Muslim employee accused the company of being biased against non-Christians, but I can't find the results of that case online.

So no big surprise that Chick-Fil-A isn't on the list of targeted advertisers during the show All-American Muslims (which should get a fucking award for showing stupid people that muslims are "just like everyone else in the States.") I'm tempted to boycott Lowe's, although I know that could trickle down to hurt employees, who have no say whatsoever in stupid-assed decisions to cave to religious bigotry.

There is no clearcut answer to the question "do consumer boycotts work?" In the case of French wine, apparently so, while in other cases apparently maybe is the best answer you are going to get.

But really, is that the issue at hand? I grew up boycotting grapes and in college boycotted Domino's Pizza for reasons similar to the Chick-Fuck-A debacle. My knee jerk liberal reaction is to boycott both businesses discussed above . I participated in the recent Target boycott for 30 days, which was no easy feat. Still I believe in taking principled stands.

So on the one hand, I'm thinking, yes this is a way to teach the kiddies about standing behind what one believes, yet fMhson is a BoyScout, which damn near killed me, even though so far as I know LGBT issues aren't relevant in our Den. Still it was a bitter little pill to swallow, but I forced it down in a weighing less of two evils moral equivocation. We made clear our stance on LGBT marriage, and the kids know our gay friends are gay, and have apparently pointed out the errors of thinking "only boys can marry girls" to their fellow first graders. So really am I just being a big hypocrite? All of which completely ignore the fact that we seldom eat at Chick-Fil-A and sciDAD is the major Lowe's consumer in this house (although on a rare recent visit I dropped $100 there).

so blogosphere what are you doing about Lowe's? Chick-Fil-A? Whole Foods? or a host of other targets of Socially Responsible/ethical Consumerism during this season of shopping?

YIKES what the search string FMH leads to

2011-12-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

eeeeekkkkkkk, so ummmmm, not very smart of me, but just realized what FMH means. feMOM not much better (no link because YIKES)

That DOES explain some of the key words I get and gives a wholly unintended meaning to moms gone wild.

on the more boring front, acronym finder reveals FMH may also refer to

Acronym	Definition
FMH	Faculdade de Motricidade Humana
FMH	Federal Meteorological Handbook
FMH	Frederick Memorial Healthcare System (Frederick, Maryland)
FMH	Fetomaternal Hemorrhage
FMH	Falmouth, Massachusetts (Airport Code)
FMH	Family Medical History
FMH	Free Molecular Heating
FMH	Fédération des Malades et des Handicapés (French)
FMH	Foedaratio Medicorum Helveticorum (Swiss Medical Association)
FMH	Fan Marker Located with Radio Beacon
FMH	Future Minds Hardcore (band)

why is all the white trash food white? Or dreaming of a white Christmas

2011-12-12T05:22:00.000-08:00

food of my childhood (by choice, not need)

butter on saltines
grated cheese and mayonnaise on white bread
buttered white rice
biscuits and gravy

what does a white Christmas have to do with white trash (said tongue firmly in cheek, my roots would be better described as hill people) comfort food? Expectations and fall backs my friends.

Dreaming of the White Christmas reveals the heavy weight the December traditions bear in our freighted lives. In a genealogy that ranges from indentured servants to PhDs on one side and fairly recent immigrants on the other, I grew up in a solidly upper middle class family. Even as my parents fed me the comfort food of their youths, including biscuit and gravy breakfast on Christmas morning, they also attempted holidays inspired by Christmas card vignettes to provide what was lacking in their pasts. From the matching outfits under the perfectly decorated tree to caroling with the church it was all in the service of a Normal Rockwellesque notion of what Christmas should be. Underneath though was a crushing burden of expectations and the persistent need for perfection. I don't mean to imply that my holidays weren't lovely, because they were, and every child should be so lucky, but there were moments of sheer insanity in the pursuit of some ideal that never was.

Because sciDAD's family comes from countries where holidays are more religious than celebratory that mean I'm basically in charge of festivities chez nous ranging from setting up the toy train to breakfast with Santa each year. The kids eagerly anticipate these events, but I'd be lying if I claimed my childhood hadn't left its mark on me. Up until last year, the Breakfast with Santa, a major picture taking moment, engendered some pretty ridiculous sh!t totally on my part as I attempted to wrestle offspring into the omnipresent annual matching ensembles and to jolly them into smiling while they posed with Santa (forget lap sitting, so not going to happen for fMhson, although girlchild happily clambers up). I still flip out when they PLAY with the train too roughly (yes I do realize the idiocy in putting up a toy and expecting children not to play with it).

More recently I've been able to take the attitude that holiday traditions should be fun, and if not, they should be skipped. This year, with the recent lice insanity, and my quasi SAD, that means a half decorated house, no lights up outside. Although I'm happy to report gifts are all bought, not a cookie has been baked though, nor a box yet shipped.

However, this year's prize for my effed up holiday expectations has to be the Lego Advent calendar, which fMhson wants to assemble in one go, despite grasping the concept of the Christmas countdown implied by Advent, while I insist he follow tradition and go day by day So far I've taken the thing away twice, no doubt scarring him with the same burdensome memories of a controlling parent whose Sugarplummed-vision prevailed.

Good to know he will have something to talk about in therapy later.

conversations you missed

2011-12-11T03:56:00.000-08:00

well not all of you, G.G.s were there as the link love this week reveals.

Cloud has a great post pondering why people participate in blog conversations. Having been involved in online communities since the mid '90s I found it all fascinating, and of course, had to kick in my .02

the "hit and run" approach to commenting also raises interesting questions about the norms of civil discourse online. So if you disagree and post a one off, is that sufficient? IRL one probably couldn't just say "I completely disagree and think XYZ" and then exit the room, as much as one might like to.

I am fascinated by the dynamics of life online and the needs it fulfills for various peeps, and as a theme emerged this week in my little corner of the blogosphere (work v jobs - as G.G. so succinctly put it - which isn't a big surprise because December is the cruelest month for academics), I realized just how crucial it was for me.

Ink resurfaced as hilarious as always, wondering where that damn brass ring is. In that same vein, Fie wants to write a book not about the Bard, and Que Sera just wants someone to pay her to do her work. AcadeMama is thinking about throwing in the towel all together, and G.G. asked via First Gen, will you/would you change careers?

I loved participating in all of these virtual conversations since as you know I've been pondering these questions myself, is it a book if no one reads it, should I stay or should I go? Responding to all these different ways of asking the same question why stay in academia provoked me to clarify my thoughts.

One thing that has emerged clearly is that I am writing this book for me and me alone, to conquer my sense of failure about not having made a "major contribution" to my field yet, but also as reflected in the almost-a-complete blog post (sorry about that!) on G.G. in response to the mostly negative comments about life in academia, I realized that I do love my job, I just hate where I work, which is an important distinction.

I really really love teaching when I’m not burnt out. I’m good at it and it gives me the feeling of short term accomplishment that scholarly work doesn't (if 4 year cycles can be considered short). I went into the college last week and since I had to be there I ate lunch with former students. I am beloved by a sizable subset of the Stus and that is a FAB ego boost in a career replete with rejection
I don’t hate service so long as it is programmatic work in my field that isn’t effed with by higher ups. As a former admin I am reasonably good at it and efficient.
I LOVE writing, and have the luxury of not worrying about publish or perish, so the stresses there are all mine that I put on myself.
What I hate is where I’m doing all of the above right now because it is financially imperiled and filled with “lifers” who do no scholarly work and seem devoted to making all service as onerous as possible. Check back with me 2012-13 when I’m back post sabbatical with tenure!
As one poster said, academia is really for people who cannot imagine life doing anything else. That was my litmus test throughout grad school, as soon as anything else sounded better I was out of there, but nothing ever did, so here I am two decades later.

It is an odd thing to realize that the blogs of people who I don't know (I think almost all the blogs I read are pseudonymous) provided the impetus to think about my life differently. As there is considerable overlap in readership, I also find it fascinating to watch the back and forth on the same topic from different angles among the same people. This week has come the closest for me to replicating a conversation, albeit a fragmentary one, like the best sort of cocktail chatter, where I could drift from one interesting little grouping to another, eavesdropping or breaking in to make my contribution.

Here's hoping I can take that clarity into the coming week. This past week, strangely enough, the chapter that was almost written, would not behave. I got bogged down in significant insight, which required sustained reading. That is, of course, the best part about writing a book on sabbatical, however it did not move me very far towards my goal of finishing a draft of this chapter before the holiday deadline of Dec 23.

candied orange peel

2011-12-10T03:41:00.000-08:00

maybe I read too many nineteenth century books as a girl, but I've always associated oranges with Christmas.

In the days before rapid transportation, ships carried with them the treasured rare fruits that grew only in tropical climes. The wealthy would indulge in delicacies such as oranges, and children often received one in their stockings. Not one bit of the precious oranges went to waste, including the peel, which was candied.

Well it could be true. Try a google search of "christmas + orange" and you get a lot of questions and very few answers. Theories abound everything from some arcane point in the St. Nicholas myth about golden coins, which are represented by oranges, to some sentimental fiction about orphans at Yuletide.

Even today in our local market, crates of clementines appear at the holidays (I've learned from the internets that due to some fruit crisis in the 1990s massive numbers were imported to the U.S. as a substitute and they caught on). They certainly have with my kids. So far we've eaten half of a small crate, but in preparation for holiday baking, I've already began candying their peels.

Clementines are the easiest to candy IMHO as they have such a thin skin. The pith, the white underside of the peel, is bitter and must be removed from other fruits before candying.

The process is not dissimilar from making caramel. Once again, there are many methods available on the web, involving multiple boilings and rinsing, drying in the oven etc but I'm too lazy for all of that.

Determine final use. Are you going to eat as is (or dipped in chocolate etc), or using as an ingredient in cookies or cakes? The former are cooked for a shorter period.

Delicious bark with candied peel

Yum chocolate dipped!

1. slice or dice peel, depending on desire final shape. For decorating, you want long thin strips. For cooking, smaller is better.

3. in a heavy bottomed sauce pan put a bit of water, just enough to cover the bottom. The more water, the longer the cooking period. Submerge peels in a single layer. Sprinkle a ton of sugar of them. I'm using a small sauce pan and used 4T.

4. over lowest heat make sure the sugar has dissolved, then cover and cook, checking every 10 minutes or so. For decorative peel to eat you want them cooked to the soft stage. For cooking peel, cook longer so that they are crystalized (hard stage)

syrup still "watery" for soft stage

consistency of sugar syrup in "hard stage"

5. using tongs or a fork (the peel will be very hot) remove from the pot allowing as much of the sugar syrup to drip off before placing in a single layer on waxed paper. Allow to dry. I store the decorative peel in a single layer in the freezer, while the cooking can be chopped into "chunks" and stored in an airtight container.

the remaining syrup for the decorative peel can be re-used. Since the kids kept eating, I kept candying, not even bothering to slice, which results in something like home made fruit leather.

The syrup will be thick if you cook to the harder stages, so you can either add more water and reuse, or allow to crystalize, which makes a delicious orange sugar (fair warning it resembles crack, so if you've family coming for the holiday, hide it well)

I try it so you don't have to

2011-12-09T03:55:00.000-08:00

apparently Target sent out a gift box full of their holiday stuff to fav mommy bloggers. Not me, but far be it for me to NOT share

positively addictive, Market Pantry Gingerbread Cheesecake cookies, and cheap 1.99

Archer Farm's Pumpkin Pancake mix 2.99, box has shrunk this year in recession sizing

only MEH as far as I'm concerned. They had gingerbread last year that was better.

Actual real food that I have also tried

Bob's Red Mill Coarse Grind Cornmeal

EEEEK if you want to feel like you are eating part of the grist stone this is for you. Even after we "recycled" the corn bread into stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey, it was still crazy gritty.

Imagine Organic Soups, potato leek, butternut squash, sweet potato

pretty tasty if you doctor them up a little, some pepper in the potato leek, some curry power in the butternut squash, a little nutmeg in the sweet potato.

Hodgson Mill Gingerbread

I was pretty excited to find this as sometimes the kids really want to make cookies, but I don't have time to mix up the dough from scratch. However, following the instructions for cookies yielded such a wet dough that I had to knead in a ton of flour. The result was a super bready cookie with a decent taste. I imagine it would be even better as gingerbread.

Gardein Mandarin Orange Crispy Chik'n

Not crispy, and ridiculously fattening. You'd be far better off making your own stir fry.

communicating with the Aspie-ish kid

2011-12-08T11:46:00.000-08:00

fMhson, while really really verbal, has certain thought patterns that while not sufficient to warrant placing him on the spectrum, are still very pronounced. One major issue is his inability to make himself understood and the quickly escalating level of frustration that ensues. He sees the world so very differently that I, in particular, really have a hard time talking to him when he is doing something he ought not.

So today, after several false starts, lots of verbal back and forth that most parents would consider talking back or rudeness, he decided to play educational computer game. YAY, self solving of problem. Wonderful, except computer was not cooperating. I suggested he go up to his room and use laptop. That must have reminded him of the night before, when he started watching a movie on that laptop. He wanted to do that again, which is against house rules. It spiraled out from there until he was in his room in time out, making all sorts of noise.

This has been a hard week, seems like everyday I have some fun thing planned for after school and the kids either fight me, each other or whatever. I've yelled at them more than I wanted to this week.

So today I decided to try asking fMhson to write out his version of what happened. It was really short, but it showed me two keys things. 1. He understood one thing that got him in trouble, but not the other. 2. he could better understand my feelings of sadness.

I'm thinking we may be on to something here.

now if I could just solve their inane silly interactions that so quickly escalate to out of control, someone/something hurt/broken.

when the sh!t gets crazy, the crazy throw a sh!t fit - the other side

2011-12-08T02:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I shared some of my observations about the way academics react to administrators. Since turn about is fair play, and I have a healthy attachment to my own kind, let me now share my observations of the reverse:

Over the past two decades I've observed all of the following:

1. extreme condescension, generally stemming from belief that faculty do not exist in the "real world." Relies on total disbelief that academics are adults capable of making responsible decision. Approach = steam roller

2. total disregard, generally manifesting as complete incomprehension of the role faculty play at a college. Relies on total inability to grasp the obvious fact that professors do work central to the mission of higher education. Approach = outmaneuver

3. utter incompetence, generally exhibited as complete inability to accomplish anything as it relates to actually educating students. Relies on ability to appear as if helping faculty, while getting absolutely nothing done whatsoever. Approach = the endless meeting

shoe update

2011-12-07T11:59:00.000-08:00

although not tried on with dress yet, I'm happy to report red shoes arrived and are ADORABLE and a nice deep red. Target has on clearance now, so snap them up to wear for the holidays. They aren't the highest quality, but then how often are you really wearing red, patent Mary Janes? Wait don't answer that. I pretty much wore out the pair I got myself on impulse two years ago. Turns out red shoes add that little something to a lot of outfits!

when the sh!t gets crazy, the crazy throw a sh!t fit

2011-12-07T03:17:00.000-08:00

Higher ed is a pretty sweet deal in terms of employment if you land on the tenure track. Behave for 7 years and there is a pretty good shot you get a job for life. Where else could you basically tell your boss NO or YOU ARE WRONG and get away with it?

I'm not saying that crazy sh1t doesn't go down in higher ed, because it does, but the way academics react to administrators is often hilarious to me.

Over the past two decades I've observed all of the following:

1. righteous indignation, generally stemming from belief that faculty are the end all, be all of higher ed, and admins exist to serve them. Relies on total disbelief that admin has equally important job to do (keeping lights on, accreditation intact etc). Approach = come out swinging

2. total paranoia, generally manifesting as imputation of Machiavellian-like machinations at admin level, hypothesizing of grand conspiracies, relies on total inability to grasp it isn't all about you all the time. Approach = cabal-like plotting

3. learned helplessness, generally exhibited as complete rolling over to any and all demands made by administrators deriving from attribution of omnipotence. Relies on total misunderstanding of the way sh!t works IRL. Approach = ostrich in the sand position.

Obama Channels the Great Commoner

2011-12-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

From NYT

Infusing his speech with the type of populist language that has emerged in the Occupy protests around the nation

Mr. Obama proclaimed ~~"you shall not crucify humanity on a cross of gold"~~

This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules

WJB he is not, although the sentiment is admirable, if inaccurate. Apparently though Obama was striving for TR anyway, so I suppose he is far more in line with ~~"walk softly and carry a big stick"~~ his historical materialism.

That speech touched on many of the same themes — often in similar language — about concentration of wealth and the need for a level playing field. Mr. Roosevelt called the conflict between “the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess” central to progress.

Am I the only worried that the incumbent democratic is modeling himself after aMarxist Republican?

Shut Up About Your Perfect Kid

2011-12-06T03:29:00.000-08:00

I found this FABULOUS page on facebook called "shut up about your perfect kid" that I wish to reference each time some "friend" posts about their child's wonderful report card or great Parent Teacher conference. Really, who other than say grandparents or aunts and uncles cares to hear about this? Furthermore at what point did privacy end? Do kids really need to have the intimate details of their lives broadcasted to people who actually KNOW them and SEE them?

And trust me, with kids like mine you dread PT conferences.

They usually go something like this

"fMhChild is SO very very smart, creative, advanced blah blah blah"

BUT

"problem 1 problem 2 problem 3"

Me (or sciDAD): "square peg round hole ... accommodation ... not average .... realistic expectations"

teacher : "blah blah rules, blah blah curriculum, blah blah, other children's needs"

Principal (one time) "I've had other kids this smart in school and they didn't have any of these problems" (my all time favorite comment)

Me: "blah blah appreciate that, blah blah, my child's needs, blah blah lawyer, blah blah IEP"

teacher: "hmmm let me see what we can do"

result = some sort of small change that makes life more bearable daily for child, yet doesn't really address inadequate ability to meet child's specific needs

my fantasy FB post "Parent teacher conference fMhChild is the 1%"

Result of this year's conferences, which were back to back on the same day, fMhGirl will be evaluated by the school. On the plus side, she will be accelerated at least in reading. It all feels somehow familiar, yet far less stressful than when her brother was her age as she is far more functional. On the one hand I'm surprised, as she did fine up until this year, but as the teacher has been hinting heavily that fMhgirl is having difficulties in deportment and "self-management," we decided to go ahead and request the evaluation. Heck at least we will know her IQ and the break down of her strengths.

Surprisingly, although fMhson continues to have difficulty staying on task and working cooperatively, the teacher overlooks his constant fidgeting and he is getting highest marks for the other ~~deportment crap~~ successful learning behaviors. I don't know if it was anything we did, but I'm just relieved.

update 1 - I love how the school makes it so hard to request an eval. No email please, must be snail mail. Luddites.

update 2 - interesting debate going on in comments thread, which I love, because I like diverging points of view. So what say you readers? Have you/would you share your kid's report card, sports stats etc on FB? Do you roll your eyes when someone else does, or chime in "great job kid X?"

update 3 - That is why I love this blog! The comments so far provoked me to ponder why I was so annoyed. I suppose this post also explains why I have the reaction I do. I do not discount that healthier ways of being more connected exist.

thorny issue and its sad history

2011-12-05T05:16:00.000-08:00

back to history writing, well one hour less per day due to an ENTIRE week of early dismissal for parent-teacher conferences (about which I'm already having nightmares!)

Anyway, I decided to fast forward to the fourth chapter of the book. It is an extension of a paper I already published, and I've already done a substantial amount of writing on it. Still I'm on writing day three out of a max of fifteen more I think. It is strange to fast forward thorny issue to right before the entanglement with difficult concept. It is the funnest part, because it is so fascinating to see thorny issue so elaborated, yet a little sad to know that difficult concept is coming along to make everything messy.

I'm also pushing myself to do no additional research OR reading, which is not easy at all, and to just write, write, write. Still it is the material I love best out of this book, the stuff that originally got me to the project in the first place, so hopefully it will all just pour out of me effortlessly.

sadly though, fMHgirl, my sleepy-headed child has taken to arising in the predawn hours. I, having been awoken by my snoring alarm clock, had barely poured my first cup of coffee and opened the computer file, when I heard her thunking down the stairs.

I'm embarrassed to relay that at first I chastised her for interrupting my work, but then I recalled Maya Angelou's oft quoted remark

How do you react when your child enters the room? Do your eyes light up?

So we cuddled on the couch, while she read aloud from the ginormous stack of holiday books. Turns out some teachers have some amazing online lesson plans for If You Take A Mouse to the Movies.

Meanwhile I never made up the time lost from the great lice incident, never mind the 5 hours I'm losing this week. FML

update I had no idea HOW FML I was, but as I walked fMhgirl out to the bus I realized she had a host of lice eggs in her head. She is home again, enjoying the cetaphil treatment while I attempt to figure out where the little effers are living. I'm thinking the damn pillow pet.

sunday link love

2011-12-03T15:31:00.001-08:00

for my Bard loving readers

I'm usually ripping on the NYT, but I found their coverage of the freed-from-prison but forced-to-marry-rapist story more nuanced that a lot of the knee-jerk feminist blogs (yes I'm looking at you Jezebel).

another prof ruminates about why the death of a student hits professors so hard.

I know that Everything Over Rice also loves her some Waltons, the cast of which was like an extended family of my childhood. Still, who knew anyone even cared about them anymore ? Maybe it is the perpetual re-runs on the Christian cable tv. They are the like the fictional version of 19 (or have they upped it already?) Kids and Counting.

And the first interesting blog after mine found using the next blog link

file under -things grad school never prepared you for

2011-12-03T07:39:00.000-08:00

the death of a student.

And of course it was a good student, like the kind of student you dream of, loving the humanities, hungry for knowledge and experience, about to enter grad school. The kind of thing that breaks your heart and leaves you weepy all day.

FML sabbatical has ruined

2011-12-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

my ability to sit through the BS meeting

Still it is an opportunity to wear the new outfit.

The dress turned out to be super flattering, sort of a bell-shaped skirt that then widens at the flounce, creating a very slimming illusion. The little puffed sleeves are tough though, unless you have slender arms.

The coat is also adorable, particularly with the turned up collar.

As you can see I went with black flats, but I was forced to order these lovely red shoes for future wear with the dress, although I'm wondering how they will look with black tights - What say you trashy or just flashy?

more holiday cooking fun - caramel

2011-12-02T02:32:00.000-08:00

a few years ago, I don't really know why, I decided to tackle candy making. Although I grew up baking, I never even made so much as marshmallow fluff fudge as a kid.

I started with Rachel Rey's 5 minute fudge, which while tasty, is more or less melting ingredients not cooking. I then attempted the marshmallow version, not wanted to consume and entire can of condensed, milk and well, this year I think I will brave a proper old fashioned fudge.

Having overcome my fear of molten sugar, I moved on to caramel. I love caramel, and right now it is super trendy. It is so good, and so pretty, that packaged in small decorative jars it makes a lovely gift to take along to holiday festivities. It is delicious on ice cream, pound cake, and bread pudding, or stirred into your coffee. So here is my full on cheater's version of a salty caramel.

if you aren't a chemist, you may want a candy thermometer. I used one when I first learned to make caramel. Basically you need to melt the sugar crystals and convince them to recombine, without letting re-crystalize There is a whole lot of fuss about wetting down the pan, swirling rather than stirring etc which I never do. Just keep the stirring down low, and gentle.

This version starts wet, which I think easier (although prof chef here disagrees)

Caramel sauce

1 1/4 cups (packed) dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter
1/2 cup whipping cream, heavy cream, or half and half

from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pumpkin-Bread-Pudding-with-Caramel-Sauce-104182#ixzz1fN3Y9TDJ

1. put butter and sugar in a deep pan with a handle on highest heat. Start stirring.

2. keep cooking until the entire mess turns shiny, bubble, and dark (because we started with brown sugar it will be darker than most versions you see on the Internet), stirring gently all the while, moving from the outside of the pan in to keep the mixture from burning. It doesn't take very long at all, but under cooking means it won't set up and overcooking means it will burn! It will probably take about 5 minutes. The mixture will thicken slightly but still drip from a spoon

3. remove from heat, add in cream. THE MIXTURE WILL FOAM UP HERE SO BE CAREFUL! Stir until it is all incorporated.

4. cool for a bit in the pan before attempted to decant into a container

I think I will also try making caramels this year!

read it and weep

2011-12-01T03:32:00.000-08:00

yes I broke my $5 rule, but not by much and HOW CUTE will this be for festive holiday wear (with boots and tights or black suede ballet flats) in the upcoming season?

I'm still debating the dress, which is a tad jeune, and oddly more expensive than the coat ($17.50) but the coat is a keeper at LESS than $13! We host an informal Christmas eve dinner and I"m thinking this could be perfect (and easy to cook in etc)

what say you blogosphere, stay or nay?

dear universe ....

2011-11-30T11:08:00.000-08:00

you know what universe, I get it. It took one more bout of lice for me to just finally realize that I'm meant to learn something here.

So I'm focusing on the good, a small boy playing Magic Tree house all day, blessedly free from the more serious ills that plague other kids. There is a nip in the air, and so with a candy cane in my coffee I'm off to Target as soon as sciDAD gets home to delouse himself. And I scored coupons that get me $10 gift cards when I spend $50, which my sweet generous kids will love to use, along with the money they earned, to buy gifts for less fortunate children.

And yes I will steal a little time from Saturday to make up for the writing I missed today, but at least, before I got interrupted by that dreaded call from the school nurse, the last piece of my argument slid into place for that first chapter. fMhgirl is looking out for herself, waking up at 5AM to get her time in with Mama, and sciDAD will no doubt arrange something fun for those few hours of work, so off I will go with a clear conscience.

Hear me powers that be? I swear, I get it, ok? I'm far too lucky for all the angst of late. Lesson learned and noted.

hmmm is this a WTF moment dear readers?

2011-11-30T02:58:00.000-08:00

The above picture has been making the rounds on FB, which is not surprising given how many academic feminist people I know

what I find sort of amazing is the headline of the repost at Slate "when thin was bad." I mean, yes I'm aware not everyone ponders gender topics all day long, but for heaven sake, the whole idea of 'thin" being bad is "misleading" because the ad quite clearly shows that there was still an ideal body type, although it differed from that of our current time. The sharing of the ad is a bit disingenuous because yes while an hour glass figure was considered more attractive, women were on the whole smaller than they are now, as anyone who shops vintage clothing can tell you :)

Here is an awesome slide show of ideal body types over time with comparison to average woman's BMI of that era with some thoughts about feminism, women's status and idealized body types.

historical WTF

2011-11-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

Will 2012 be a replay of 1968?

Back then a street movement confronted the Democratic Party. Will it end the same way this time?

Sure the Yippies will be back, SDS will re-form, and Daley will have the cops beat the shit out of everyone.

No worries now as Todd Gitlin is offering advice to the White House where yet another Daley works.

The events of August 1968 occurred in a damn specific historical context, coming on the heels of the MLK and RFK assassinations and the height of divisiveness over the war in Vietnam. Violence on the streets had become all too common during the long hot summer of '67.

While we have certainly seen some acts of violence, which I abhor, despite the desire to turn the clock back, this ain't the Sixties people.

is it a book if no one reads it?

2011-11-29T03:22:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I just didn't take grad school seriously enough, but I don't recall having nightmares about writing my dissertation. The normal "show up for a class I've never attended on exam day," yes, but the writing process no!

For the past month or so, when I've been engaged in particularly intense and dedicated writing, I've been plagued with dreams that the reviewers hate the work, that I sent off a copy replete with typos and grammatical errors, or that well, I don't know, because I wake up and all I know is that the dream was about writing, and it wasn't good.

I've always had a hard time turning my brain off, for lack of a better description. I can't work in the hours approaching sleep because I simply can't stop thinking once the lights are out. These days however, my academic life ends when the school bus pulls up, so I don't think timing is my issue. I did discover yesterday, while on kid duty, two emails from editors in which requests were buried deep deep into the attachments, causing a bit of a panic, given my tight schedule (one is reference checks, but the other involved actual writing, and that time is scarce these days so I dashed off the requested change and sent back the MS).

I'm left with the deeply unsettling thought that I am becoming my work. Maybe this was what should have occurred years ago. Perhaps my travels through grad school would have been swifter with a little fear to push me along. I am familiar with the nagging aspect of writing, when the not writing becomes worse than actually writing, although that isn't much of an issue for me anymore.

I wonder though if in setting out such a monumental goal, a complete draft of a book manuscript in 16 months, and realizing how much time has passed and how little writing progress I've made, has created some psychological dissonance that my unconscious is attempting to work out during sleep. My fears have been that I would feel like a failure if I didn't meet my goal, but perhaps a more deep-seated concern is that I will, but the book will fail. What if I write it, and no one comes to read it? I have put myself on the line, but more importantly, my family has taken some pretty hard hits as well, least among them the financial.

Maybe that is it. There have been some deep moments of mommy guilt of late. In particular fMhgirl keeps asking why I have to work all the time. The saddest thing in my life of late was when the child got lice and had to be quarantined, so sciDAD and I divvied up entertaining her. That night when I put her to bed, she said "this has been the best day ever."

fMhson is Spock-like in his love of logic, so when he was younger I could explain that unlike some his friends, he didn't go to after care and because of that, when he was with me, I needed to work sometimes. Stick him in front of a computer and he was completely happy to hang out with me. Not so fMhgirl, who wants to frolic in the backyard, or bake, or do crafts or whatever, and is not placated at all by my reasoned entreaties. Maybe the dreams aren't about me at all, but about the high price my children are paying for my dedication to my book. In that case, while the dedication to said book is become clearer all the time, I'm left with little to actually do to change the situation.

The month of December is so crammed full that I'll be borrowing time to meet my self imposed challenge. Is it wrong that I'm not even seriously considering backing off on that? There must be a way to show my children that I love them and still meet my own needs to produce this book.

At this point, short of the answer coming to me in a dream, I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

live blogging writing progress

2011-11-28T06:19:00.000-08:00

p.s. and cementing my rep as that crazy woman in the 'hood, my neighbor walking two of her five kids saw me go out in my PJs and then when I grabbed a pair of capri yoga pants (with fleecey knee highs) and went back out, even the gardener across the street looked askance.

total word count  total word count about 1500
total work hours about 5ish

last hour is fucking torture. Each time I get up it takes longer to sit back down. I sweep part of the kitchen floor. I'm hungry. I want to holiday shop online. I need to get dressed (yes I'm still in PJs). I force myself to remain at the computer until 15 minutes before bus comes. By 10 minutes of my deadline I've finished yet another read through, so I decide to finish for the day. more or less and the core argument is there, which is good because who knows when I'm getting back to this.

hour 3 in which I lose momentum, . stalled by phone call (not answered) from worlds most annoying contributor (did I mention I will never guest edit again), to find laptop cord, and who knows what else. I added a bit but cut more, stable at 5300 words tried to untangle unfortunate event related to thorny issue   Sigh two more hours to go.

hour 2 refining ideas, working in more primary source, creating ties that will link to the next chapter, wrote about another 300 words, and pasted another 200 = 5300

hour 1 wow with just cutting and pasting stuff from conference paper and other writings in, I'm now at 4800 words. go me. Shit can't find file of crucial primary source docs, though. Wasted time shifting through files.

So as you may recall, between travel and sick kids, I'm jammed up against the wall on this first damn chapter. Seven month into my sabbatical and I've accomplished a ton of research, but not as much writing as I'd hoped. I've decided the chapter stays as it is on the last day of the month and I move on to the next one!

I'm  started today with a rough draft of chapter 1 consisting of about 10,000 words.
I subdivided into the following sections, which I need to edit, one a day, until Thursday!
section 1 - 3280 emergence of idea
Section 2 - 3876 elaboration of idea
section 3 - 3800 case study

Today I'm working on section 3 as that draws on my recent conference paper.

Sunday NYT nonsense

2011-11-27T03:35:00.000-08:00

IBTP rants about PBS which like NYT is just an embarrassment to liberals who remember when things really were liberal in the media

Speaking of which, it's already time for the weekly fit engendered by the NYT, you know the articles that have you sputtering coffee out your nose

kid got a problem with her name? blame strippers or jewish lesbians

We totally support OWS AND your right to purchase offensive luxury xmas gifts

In keeping, with the "let's explain X folks to whites" in case you didn't know, not all Blacks are Baptists.

In the usual mishmash of B.S. around the false debate over the economic value of higher ed, an article entitled The Dwindling Power of a College Degree includes the sentence "Though it’s no guarantee, a B.A. or some kind of technical training is at least a prerequisite for a decent salary." Umm ok then, I guess we've settled the need to go on to higher education if one has the intellectual capacity to say grasp what the effing word prerequisite MEANS. If one doesn't, one shouldn't. We can't outsource plumbing, so for fuck's sake learn a trade, since no one, no matter how bad the economy, is going without flushing toilets.

50,000 words in a month

2011-11-26T03:11:00.000-08:00

so apparently the fiction writers have an actual month in which they attempt to up their production?

Called National Novel Writing Month, it involves writing from scratch 50, 000 words in a single month.

I did a little math. I probably write 20-22 days a month, MAX, which would come out to about 2200 words a day, which is about what I write. Of course the caveat for academics is that for every word you write, you cut more.

Still, for the month of December, I'm going to track my output for the 16 days I'm going to be able to write, due to holiday fun. That means 3125 words per day.

So stay tuned and let's see if I can actually do it. I'm going to start with my chapter that is closest to being done already and stick to my writing plan. Wish me luck!

not to spoil anyone's holiday fun

2011-11-25T03:59:00.000-08:00

I'm sure not judging people out shopping, because frankly, what the hell do I know about their finances and I'm sitting here staring at a TV that probably cost more than some people's car. However, as I skimmed the NYT this AM (old habits blah blah blah), I was struck by this

Over the past three decades, Germany, France, Austria and Belgium have maintained household saving rates between 10 and 13 percent, and rates in Sweden recently soared to 13 percent. By contrast, saving rates in the United States dropped to nearly zero by 2005; they rose above 5 percent after the 2008 crisis but have recently fallen below 4 percent.

[update, piece on Slate argues that this savings may not be so FAB]

Having recently met with a financial planner, I know that we are in relatively good financial shape and we definitely save, but I doubt we are at 10%, although I suppose if you count our mandatory retirement we are since that percentage is set for us.

Still it got me thinking, especially in light of living on half pay etc, about the holiday spending madness. Again, not judging, but when I read on FB or hear IRL about people buying an iPod Touch or iPad for their young CHILDREN, like 5-7 years old young, I must admit to SMH, which I suppose is a silent form of judgment.

I probably spend $150/kid and worry that we are buying too much. On the other hand, I grew up in an affluent area with lots of kids whose parents were divorced, or who celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas, or whose wealthy grandparents spoiled them and i distinctly remember feeling weird when everyone talked about what they got for the holidays. I may have even lied about how much stuff I got.

So blogosphere how much do you spend? How much is too much?

pie pie and more pie

2011-11-24T02:54:00.000-08:00

"There was a pie plant in the garden. She must make a couple of pies. ... And when it came to the pie, Mr. Perry, a neighbor of Laura's parents, tasted his first. He lifted the top crust, and reaching for the sugar bowl, spread sugar thickly over his piece of pie" The First Four Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder

I'm sure most people found this piece over at Salon madness, but to me it sounded fabulous. I routinely make at least three different kinds of pie for Thanksgiving, and don't care how many people are present.

The idea of making pies came not so much from my mother, who frankly sucks at crust, and more from my grandmother. Probably the oddest one I ever made was raisin (by request), although I've also made rhubarb, which was the ill-fate pie plant of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which must have been particularly nasty without sugar.

This year, I'm doing a basic pumpkin. Although I spice it myself, I don't bake the pumpkin anymore. fMhson made blueberry apple yesterday, although there is only a 1/4 of that left today!

I'm tempted to do down under apple pie, which has cheddar cheese topping YUM, but I will probably refrain, and do either tarte tatin or ginger apple.

last year's tarte tatin

I'm definitely doing pumpkin bread pudding for a potluck we are attending on Friday. I've been saving odds and ends of bread in the freezer forever.

In addition, for Friday/the weekend, we are brining a turkey breast a la Alton Brown, with sciDAD's speciality sweet potatoes (we used dried cranberries), fMhson's own cranberry sauce recipe (bag of cranberries, 1/2 cup white and brown sugar, 1/4t vanilla, orange, and lemon extract, 1/2t cinnamon), and my favorite cranberry sauce as well.

If you are reading from the States, I hope you have a restful Thanksgiving

Jumping off, when is it good enough?

2011-11-23T02:56:00.000-08:00

GEW is holed up writing her dis, and good for her. I on the other hand have not managed more than an hour of work on the book in GULP a week. The first time I heard of someone having a "writing retreat" as ProfBff calls it, I was kind of surprised. It seems so extreme to leave home to write. However, given my life on sabbatical, it makes total sense to me now.

First it was off to a conference that turned out to be a total waste of time. And I don't mean in the other than saying "great paper" I got almost no response, but as in I didn't even network, except with some very nice graduate students, and I was largely annoyed by the whole conference.

About five minutes before my panel began I got a FB message from a friend that fMhgirl had LICE and the school couldn't reach sciDAD. Raced home immediately following my panel. Did approximately 72 hours of straight laundry (trust me sciDAD who showed up before friend even got to the school to get fMhgirl had the worst job, delousing the child).

Weekend spent working at food pantry with fMhson, purchasing supplies for Thanksgiving lesson, cleaning house, grocery shopping, meeting with financial planner (gulp again).

fMhson started the week with a bad cold. Here is the thing. Most kids can go to school with a cold. fMhson's ADHD behaviors are exacerbated though by somatic issues, so there really is no point. He ends up coughing so hard that he falls out of his seat and by the second hour the nurse is calling me. So I homeschooled that day.

Yesterday fMhson still sounding terrible, I decided what the heck, it is a holiday week, I will carpe diem and enjoy my child (some day I'll be grateful if he jets in for turkey day itself, I know). He and I hit store for xmas decorations, Target to do some returns, the mall for yet another return, and for sale candles. We ate lunch in the food court. Then we ran by the library for more books for him (he is reading all the time now everywhere we go) and the grocery store, which was packed at noon on a weekday due to upcoming holiday.

Today is pre-holiday early dismissal, obviously tomorrow is official Turkey day, then the long weekend.

All of this means that even as I've been trying to be in the moment, to enjoy this extra holiday prep time with my children, to realize that a few days isn't going to make or break my book success, I've also in the back on my mind, had this ever present nagging fear that I should be working. Because honestly, last month I had a week long research trip and article revisions. December has early dismissal for parent teacher conferences (dread), the holidays, and my parents are staying into January. Before you know it those days here and there are going to add up to, and yes, I've estimated it, about a month of work. I'm really really hoping that this first chapter was just so hard because it is the first chapter. Otherwise, I'm not seeing this book done by Aug 2012 and that is really going to make me feel like a loser.

What I'd like to know is why I either feel like a failure as a scholar or as a mom (say if I'd sent the sickish kid to school or just let him play video games all day while I worked). Why the eff isn't it possible to do both?

jumping off a cloud

2011-11-22T12:21:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking of doing a whole week where I just "jump off" from other blogs that influence me and Cloud's post pushed me right off into it (and I'm not the only one The Tightrope has already responded too!)

When I started this blog it was precisely because figuring out how to be a feminist, a mom and a historian, SIMULTANEOUSLY, was so baffling to me. I am all too aware (particularly apropos of PG and GG posts today) how incredibly lucky I am to have my two children, but I'd be a big fat liar if I didn't totally admit to massive amounts of frustration and anger in the first few years of motherhood.

I wish I could say that I've found a way to harmoniously get all the aspects of my life to co-exist but I just haven't. I still feel, almost daily, the pull between writing a book, raising my children, finding time to be a wife, and figuring out how the hell to do it all within my version of feminism! I will completely and utterly confess that my life has never felt like it expanded to accommodate all my varied identities of feminist, mother, and historian!

holiday week flashback - how to make soup

2011-11-22T03:35:00.000-08:00

So during frugal streak a while back, I started roasting a chicken for dinner, using the leftover meat for another meal and THEN making soup. My friends are all sort of amazed that I can make soup at home. Truthfully, it is labor intensive although not hard. So just in time for that picked over turkey later this werk

1. step one, put chicken (or turkey) carcass in pot cover with water. Turn heat on low-ish. You do NOT want to boil. It dissolves all sort of yucky stuff. Cook for a few hours.

2. separate. I do this via a colander. You will end up with two bowls, one of liquid, the other of solid.

3. Return the liquid to the stove after SIEVING. This step is where most people mess up IMHO. All sorts of weird shit is in that broth that will make your soup tast "off" and look yucky. Once you've clarified it you need to season it. I use about a teaspoon or so of poultry seasoning and salt (you must add salt, seriously!). Simmer to reduce.

4. In the meantime, once the solids have cooled, separate the meat. I cannot stand getting down to the last bits (too many years as a vegetarian I guess, so I pick out only the choicest bits).

5. chop up whatever you want to add in. There are two schools of thought here. One is that you sweat onions, celery and carrots in butter or oil in a frying pan and then add to stock. The other, lazy way, its to just whack up the veggies and add them in (time will vary depending on what veggies you use). I do the latter because I have picky kids who aren't going to eat the celery or onions, so I chop up carrots and add about 20 minutes before it is done. You can also add pre-cooked noodles or rice here (if you are super frugal you will have saved those leftovers, which is what I do).

6. Voila soup, in a few hours, with very little effort, which tastes way better than anything in a can

how is your 2nd grade class like life in colonial New England?

2011-11-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

your neighbors know just about everything about you.

seriously, so in fMhson's class the past two visits I've noticed no less than 5 "charts" on which each child's progress/status is laid bare for all the world to see. As a professor I can't quite figure out how this doesn't violate some sort of privacy law, but as a parent I'm just plain horrified. Why should everyone know how well or not well a kid is doing in each and every area from deportment to reading to math?

I mean I know back in the day exemplary work was put on the wall for all to admire, and that best artist in the class got to decorate the bulletin board or the chalk board, and heck it isn't like everyone didn't know who was smart and who wasn't, but I'm talking like a star for each book you read, number of questions missed on this absurd timed arithmetic shit they do, etc

mostly it just makes me sad for kids. I ended up with fMhson home only today. He did timed double digit x+y =#, read two books and took online quiz and vocab test, went to the library with me. I FAILZ at gear ratios. sciDAD will have to go over that. He wants to go to school and I don't want to homeschool him, but I so wish there was some way to make schooling less damaging.

last minute adventures in homeschooling

2011-11-21T03:52:00.000-08:00

so looks like no one is going to school this week (which is short anyway due to holiday and early release on Weds)

Since I'm going to have two at home I decided to try some impromptu homeschooling

The Magic Tree House Thanksgiving on Thursday

Everyday Math

Gears (fMhgirl Quarcetti Gears and fMhson k'nex simple machines gears)

Free writing/art about anything they want :)