My Reading Project

So I've decided to read all the books I've cheated myself out of during middle / high school and early college. I had the habit of reading a few pages, the back cover, then listening to a few comments about the reading from classmates then fabricate a very strong opinion to the point that by conviction alone, everyone would believe that I must have read the book to have such a strong opinion.

While I learned a valuable skill doing this, BS and chicanery is my bread and butter sometimes, I think I really gypped myself out of something more valuable I could have gotten, personally, from the reading.

To this day, books like Siddhartha, Ender's Game, The Alchemist, and Perks of Being a Wallflower stand out in my mind and really impacted how I often looked at my life, not just because they were amazing, but because they're among the only books I've read, drowned in, surfaced for air, then returned to. I love these books, but maybe some of the other books I skipped over for not wanting to do the work would have had just as heavy an impact on how I view the world.

So I'm returning to them.

I've already ready two of them in the last two or three weeks: As I Lay Dying and The Bell Jar. I wish I had reflected on them as I was reading them, but I'm going to use this blog to reflect on what I recall from them and then, moving forward, I'll comment on the reading as I go.

Ready? Set? Go!

Silly Email

The following is an excerpt of an e-mail message I just sent... Oy vey

"I'll be honest today was rough and to keep from reverting to bad habits I've poured some rather strong drinks and now and quite drunk and it's only 6:30... wow, glamourous.

"Anyway. Green Eggs and Ham. Yes. I enjoyed it. I feel it is an example of great American literature which should be hailed frequently, like a new york taxi cab. I mean honestly, look at this list: http://www.readliterature.com/american.htm

"How many of them have you ACTUALLY read. And I don't mean the cliff's notes, or the back cover, or seen the movie, I mean READ it. Me? Eight. Yup. Eight. Now I've heard of a bunch of these and skimmed it, have it on my book shelf, took a test on it, seen a movie- working through one of them actually- but read it? From cover to cover? Intro to epilogue? Eight.

"Yet I've read Green Eggs and Ham more times than I can count before I even realized I was reading. With a fox in a box, on a train in the rain? Yes sir, Dr. Seuss, you betcha. You bet your sweet bippy even-- though I'm still not sure what a bippy is... wait that was Goldie Hawn wasn't it?? Nevermind. Point it I've read it and it changed my life. Cat in the Hat? The Lorax? 1 fish 2 fish Red fish blue fish? Of course I have!

"I'm not sure where I was going with this and should most likely stop now. :grin:"

Mundane Mis-Adventures

The last few weeks have seen several adventures and dramatic twists and turns akin to a cross between a primetime melodrama and an adventure-mockumentary on university study abroad offices.

1. Business Trip 1: Our London / Paris program has gotten popular, like super popular--25 students enrolled, popular. Since the program only has one faculty member it was decided an administrative assistant needs to go with. Since the advisor in charge of the program can't go, I was recruited. So I'll be flying to London in early May (5/5/10) to visit partners in Nottingham and London and then picking the group up at the airport on Saturday. I'm with them through May 15 and leave them at the airport in Paris. I then take a train up to Caen to visit our partners in Normandy. I should be back from Europe around May 19 or 20. On a plus side, I should have a free day between dropping the students off and meeting our partners on Sunday May 16... I may try to venture to Mont St. Michel which I've always heard was amazing.
   Mont St. Michel: The Island City


2. Business Trip 2: Word came to us that the director for USF Polytechnic's Service Learning Program this spring break to El Salvador had to drop out of the program. I'm a potential candidate to take over and lead the trip. I doubt I'm going (because I haven't heard and they leave on Saturday) but we'll see. I'm sort of hoping I don't have to.<


3. Business Trip 3: Last October I presented at my professional organization's regional conference in Knoxville. Our session was voted best of conference and so now we're taking it to nationals. I'll be in Kansas City, Missouri June 1 - 4. Right after my 29th birthday (Eeek!).





4. Personal Drama: That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. We'll call it all a learning experience and move on from there. :-)


5. PhD Discoveries: I don't want a PhD in Educational Leadership. It's far too meta for me and while I enjoy the topic I'm just not excited about the research like I was with Human-Computer Interaction. At least I know this now.


6. House Fire: I came home after class last Thursday to find out that my neighbors' house caught fire. Only 2 rooms seemed to really be bad. At about 4am we awoke the the entire house ablaze. It seems the fire department couldn't get to the smoldering insulation the night before and the house reignited! Friday and Saturday I was off having a different sort of adventure and heard that the firefighter made a THIRD trip to the house to drench it after one of the walls started smoking. Crazy. Everyone is ok, their stuff is gone, but they're alive. Pictures of the 4am blaze and aftermath below.

About 4am when we were evacuated. Yes, that's my driveway next door!

This was about 5am when the 4th fire truck showed up.

By 7am the house was almost out but gutted by the fire the night before. You can still see parts of it smoking. Those embers would die down but later reignite and cause more smoke.

That about wraps my life up to this point. How are you?

Wrestling with the Wolf

When I was a teenager I heard a phrase used in one of my favorite TV shows. The phrase was “the Hour of the Wolf.”

The character, a stoic female lead brooding over the disappearance and possible death of two comrades, described it as:

"Have you ever heard of the hour of the wolf? ... It's the time between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. You can't sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and the problems and the ways that your life should've gone but didn't. All you can hear is the sound of your own heart."
– Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5 (Season 4, Episode 1)

According to an entirely un-cited entry on Wikipedia:

The hour of the wolf is the hour between night and dawn during which the wolf is said to lurk outside people's doors. In Swedish and Finnish folk religion it is the hour when most people die and are born.

I didn’t quite understand it. My teenage self had never had nights like that. Certainly, I had sleepless nights due to a nightmare or anxiety. Insomnia? Sure. But never feeling the weight of life as she seemed to describe.

I adopted the term though; I used it in fiction and in common parlance with people.

Since my teens, I’ve had a few nights like this. Now and then, around 2:00am my brain wakes me up. Sometimes it’s a growing anxiety that lulls me from sleep, sometimes it’s my body needing to use the bathroom but then sleep doesn’t return.

Last night I had one of these. I was awake around 1:30 or 2, running thoughts and images over and over through my head. My body refused to yield to sleep. I paced. I drank. I did whatever I thought might bring sleep, but my brain insisted on obsessing.

Eventually sleep came again. Maybe it was 3 or 4. Sleep came.

The morning after these nights I’m not so much tired as numb. No emotions, not really melancholy, just sober. I move through my day with limited emotional responses despite being perfectly aware of my surroundings and what I’m doing. I’m not in a daze or anything, I’m just not myself.

Everything takes three times the energy to do during these days. I’ve gotten stuff done, maybe more so than when I’m bubbling and joking—but I’m exhausted and drained.

I hope the wolf doesn’t visit me tonight.

Wicked Tonight

Looking forward to it. :-)




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Where are the good cartoons?!

I'm home sick today. *cough cough sad 'pity me' puppy eyes*

So I'm lounging in bed, unshaven, and unbathed. In a beat up pair of sweats, old Donnie Darko T-shirt, faded bath robe and socks that couldn't be holier if the pope himself wore them. I've got my cold meds, my OJ (well, Mango Peach V8 Splash) and a bowl of Fruit Loops- you know what's missing? Cartoons. Good cartoons.

I'm flipping channels and you know what? These shows blow. Where's the bloody adventure?! Don't market a card game to me, give me entertainment! Give me pathos! Give me something to spur my imagination!

Remember Disney's Gummie Bears? Sure, there were some sugary moments meant to teach lessons, but there was character growth and pathos: When Cubby gave up on his dreams to something that was important to Grammy. When the rest of them decided it was better to sacrifice themselves / be lonely forever than endanger the rest of the species in far flung places. Sure there was some made-for-kid moments, but there was something deeper there.

Remember Gargoyles?! Man that show flipping rocked. Sure I was in middle-school by the time that show hit the air-waves but the sheer artistry of that cartoon, the darkness, the emotion, the seamless blending of mythology, literature, and an all star cast of voices? Damn skippy that was good.

Ok, so both of these shows have a certain theme in common. A mythical/fantasy species on the brink of genocide normally due to human interaction, not forced to live in shadows still trying to fight for the values and traditions they believe in. That's pretty intense. I don't care if you're 5 or 50, that is a timeless theme, and when mixed with excellent story lines that is some pretty killer entertainment.

Looking for a little environmentalism meets adventure? No no no, not Captain Planet. How about Pirates of Dark Water!?

Let's see what we have now...

Flapjack

...WTF? This is what my nephew was watching today.

Ok ok ok, Avatar The Last Airbender is pretty darn good. But Still! I want my good cartoons. :-(

/whine

Ok. Speaking of Avatar, I just saw the preview for the movie... looks pretty friggin sweat!

The Role of the Academy

Academia is in a state of identity flux. The institution itself seems to be challenged at all levels to keep up with the pace of globalization. I feel that the same external forces the academy is meant to question and monitor are those aiding in its progressive identity crisis. I fear that most public institutions are falling pray to ideological winds that boil the duties of the university to economic and financial concerns alone.

Many might argue: "What is the university for if not for preparing our students to enter the 'global' work force and become productive members of society? Isn't that why people go to get degrees? To improve their chances in the job market?"

By asking that question alone, you have already adopted the paradigm of the corporation and not the academy. The purpose of knowledge in this view is distilled using the language of economists, whose soul purpose is the study of finance and the impact it has. If you believe without question that the acquisition of wealth is a panacea for the world's ills, that it is an automatic guarantee of happiness and well-being, then the logic of the above statement makes perfect sense.

Indeed, in university administrative offices around the world, I am sure the discourse of education has taken on more commonalities with corporate boardrooms than faculty meetings. Concerns over the bottom-line, over alumnae donations, over limitations in tuition prices is an understandable concern: you can't run an institution on idealism alone. However, I feel like treating education as a commercial product cheapens what it is.

I would counter the argument that education is purely for financial gain by saying that it is about understanding, self-betterment, self-actualization and not just about getting a high paying job after your graduate.

I would say that the role of the academy is to:

• Facilitate the acquisition of knowledge in a holistic sense, as independent as possible from bias
• Help students develop critical thinking skills to analyze the world around us
• Aid in providing meaning and a context to what we know, learn, experience, perceive
• Promote a sense of social cohesion within society by examining ethics, science, governance, and law through the lens of recorded human experience
• Discover advancements that benefit the world (humanity and the environment)
• Preserve our collective understanding as a species and continue the evolution of the discourse of what we know and how we understand it
• Call into question and understand the actions and motives of agents in society (government, religion, media, corporation, social movements, academia, etc.)

These I believe are the duties of the academy. We as humans have a natural tendency to question and seek to understand the world around us. From grand ivy-covered palaces of knowledge to tribal elders telling stories, Stainless steel labs to artist studios: It is for this purpose that the academy exists as a fundamental institution of society, regardless the form it takes.

While I agree, that the increased intensity, extensity, velocity and impact of global interconnectedness(1) has agitated government concerns of global competitiveness (both of national economies and individuals) we loose our objectivity as academics when we get drawn into the the world according to the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) instead of questioning it. It is not for these agents to frame the nature of our existence, but for us to question theirs.

I close this entry of my blog by offering a quote to those that look at students and see a labor market instead of world citizens. It comes from the report of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century to UNESCO, Learning: The Treasure Within.

"There is every reason to renew emphasis on the moral and cultural dimensions of education, enabling each person to grasp the individuality of other people and to understand the world’s erratic progression towards a certain unity; but this process must begin with self-understanding through an inner voyage whose milestones are knowledge, meditation and the practice of self-criticism."

1. My favored definition of Globalization - Held and McGrew: http://www.polity.co.uk/global/globalization-oxford.asp