Something I found amusing

Hilary Clinton's Top Ten on Letterman was actually quite amusing:

My favorite, though, is from 2000: Top 10 reasons that I, Hillary Clinton, finally decided to appear on 'The Late Show.':

#4 was: When they threw in a "Late Show" tote bag, I said, "Gas up the Taurus, Bill, we're goin' to Dave's."

It's the "Taurus" that does it.

My life in folders

So I know I'm anal about certain things: like the BBQ sauce needed for chicken nuggets, or the way I highlight my books (although recent evidence has shown someone is a bit more anal, using a ruler to underline passages). But what really bugs me is disorganized computer files. I have a very rigid way of identifying (and sorting) my files. I'll explain it so we can all laugh at my disability. Here's an example of my Folder Structure:
My Documents >
My Music
My Education
My Teaching
My Pictures

Now, let's take one of these a little more in depth:
My Teaching
Northeastern U
Fall 2004
Spring 2005
ENGL 111
ENGL 111 (Paper 1 – Summary)
ENGL 111 (Teaching Log)
ENGL 111 (Digital Resources)

Nothing gets saved on my computer that doesn't have some type of similar designation. Sometimes it boggles my mind how/why people don't do the same. A computer desktop is like any other desktop; A space that needs to be cleaned and organized routinely to be as efficient as possible. Would you pack your insurance papers in a folder labeled "Recipes"? No. Would you put your bills in folders with your classwork? No. Don't be ridiculous! (Balcy Bartacamous, Perfect Strangers).

In other words, I'm a freak. Label your files as you choose. Just don't ask me to track down a file for you.


Some snippets from a conversation with some officemates regarding Chick Fil-et:
-I love Chick Fil-et
-They're so nice there
-Yes, but they're uber-religious. I think last time I ordered Moses Fries
-In nomine patri at filii et chickenus sancti
-Chick Fil-Amen

Afterwards a conversation ensued about whether or not we were mocking Christians or just Christian practices. We came down on the side of practices. And Chick Fil-et.

A Brief Defense of Michael Vick

I was watching ESPN the other day at lunch and an analyst tried to make the argument that we should be a bit more sympathetic towards Vick because he was getting a harsher punishment because he was black. While I don't think that's the case, there is something to be said about this. I originally wrote a much longer version of this, but it stalled out with all the work I've had, so here's the argument in brief.

We must first acknowledge some "facts":

1. That professional athletes of any stripe, though particularly in contact sports like football, hockey, boxing, etc. are to a certain degree raised to be fierce and competitive. I speculate (fairly, I think) that no linebacker likes to think of the moral implications of clothes-lining a running back or taking someone out at the knees. This much is stripped out of them in the early years of their training.
2. That professional athletes are, in some degree, perceived by spectators as sub-human, a perception that filters down to the athletes themselves. This might be linked to the "fierce" "competitiveness" that is instilled in them, as these seem to be, in our "highly refined and cultured" society to represent our "base" instincts. Much like gladiatorial competition, we thrive off seeing others being beat to their core, simultaneously humanizing them in their mortality, but dehumanizing them in that we don't so much care for their well-being because they are somehow "less" than us.
3. This leads us to the final point: That such a training must invariably affect their conception of themselves, others, and the world around them. If they are trained not only to devalue human life but their own lives as well, is it not understandable that they would devalue all life? And can the blame rest solely on them?

For every child that worships an athlete, there is an adult who devalues them, or values them for purely selfish reasons (their success equals YOUR success). This argument, of course, neglects the racial politics involved in such a reading as well. It is not uncommon for these associations to be made in particular with black athletes because of the history of degredation and dehumanization.

Anyway, I'm not trying to say what he did was right, but we need to be a little self-reflective ourselves. Perhaps the fault lies not in the football stars, but in ourselves.

Much Ado About Nothing

It's my first week of class and I've spent most of it alone in a group study room in the library. Still getting a feel for my classes and whatnot, but I'll keep you posted as more interesting things happen. Hope all is well in the other various corners of the country.

Why I live at the PPO

As some of you may know, I've been living without health insurance for about 3 years now (which was illegal in Massachusetts for 1 of those years, but let's not tell Devall Patrick). Living without health insurance is like playing a giant game of chicken, except that you KNOW sickness doesn't blink and you KNOW eventually it will find you. Very much like death.

So, back in school, I'm required to have health insurance if I want to do things like: enroll in class, step foot on campus... that type of thing. So I have to buy into the partially subsidized health plan. So now I pay $300 for the year (a very fair price, on the surface). So I've been psuedo-sick all orientation week: my throat has been hurting and I've had a dry cough. So I wake up this morning (Saturday) and I'm feeling worse.

I enroll in my health plan which is retroactive to August 6, so for starters, I have to pay for weeks of coverage I never had. I decide that my illness now warrants a trip to a physician. I look up where I should go: Student health services. Okay, I planned for this eventuality. I figured a university plan would run through Student Health services first. So I check PUSH (Purdue Univ. Student Health) hours: they're closed on weekends. So I go back to the pamphlet for where to go "after hours." Well, I could go to another physician, but it's not an emergency, so I'd have to pay full price.

Thank god I've got this health plan.

Orientation Wrap-Up

I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that 60% of all orientation week events are useless. I'll preface this by saying (although I'm not actually prefacing it, or I would have said this first) that I really valued my time in the classroom working with my mentor and classmates and did genuinely find some of the information important, useful, and well communicated. But let me give a quick run-down of Day 5's events:

9:00am-10:00am: All Graduate students at Purdue show up for a "welcome." The speakers include three deans who welcome us, a Graduate Student Council president who asks us to join up, and the mayor of West Lafayette who tells us about all the parks that the town has to offer. Let's be honest with ourselves; how many times do I have to be welcomed to the University by people who could care less what my name is or what I'm doing. One of our welcoming speakers was the Dean of Research who, though seemingly a nice guy, proceeded to tell us about all the opportunities available to Grad students... in the sciences. At one point he made a comment about lab safety because "all of you, at some point, will be dealing with some radioactive isotope of some sort." I turned to my English peers with a paniced look and asked if that was true. Perhaps, in addition to the foreign language requirement, I was being asked to pass a lab-exam, too. Regardless, the entire event could have been summed up with a toast at the complimentary breakfast that followed.

10:00am-11:00am: Complimentary coffee and cake. This was more of an activities fair than anything else, except that half the tables were unpopulated (since most of the student body isn't back yet) and didn't really have much to offer as a result.

11:00am-12:00pm: Talk on Employee Benefits. This hour-long snooze-bomb was basically a verbal retelling of everything I'd already read in pamphlet form a week ago, or summary of information easily accessible on a website. What's worse is that the speakers knew it and kept repeating that all this information could be found on the website.

1:30-2:30: Syllabus discussion meeting. This was actually the only useful part of the day. We got to meet with other (veteran) instructors teaching the same syllabus approach as us and discuss some of the opportunities available.

2:30-4:00: Composition Teacher Meeting. 200 of us gather for a welcome back message, a few words from the graduate student council VICE president, a few reminders about things that have already been told to us once or twice before, followed by the highly amusing "introduction of new instructors" portion. Again, valuable information that could be easily condensed rather than spread out over a very long day.

That being said, I think the program and the staff are terrific. I've never seen such enthusiasm (I'm more familiar with the bitter sarcasm or tacit compliance of other institutions), so it was a breath of fresh air. Anyway, Orientation is over now. Last weekend before school starts. Getting a bit nervous.

Week One

Many apologies for not posting recently. I've been in orientation all week and it's taking a while for me to get accustomed to this 9-5 gig. The class itself is really interesting. It's a tech-centered composition/rhetoric class. Finally some strong guidance, superb peers, and a well organized program (actually, the #1 undergrad writing program in the country). While I won't go into the specifics of the class itself yet, I'll share a story of a grading exercise:

We were asked to design a grading rubric to be passed out with our student's papers so they know exactly where they're losing points. After reading these papers, we went around the room announcing our scores. They went like this: 72, 67, 70, 65, 75... 30. Guess which one was mine...

I had a lot of problems working with a rubric. For instance, if a paper has no thesis, and a thesis is worth 15 points, then the student gets 0 points. Of course, that's not really how it works in the real world. Even an F grade is worth 50 points. So essentially, a student need only exist in order to get half credit. I'm fine with this, but that doesn't translate well to a rubric, because it then becomes an inaccurate representation of a student's value/lack of value. Imagine:

A student gets a paper back in which he's been given a 5 out of 10 on the thesis portion of his paper. A though bubble appears over his head which reads "Jinkies! I got half credit on my thesis, I'm almost there! I should go home and celebrate with a bubble bath and a Corona" Meanwhile, the teacher is thinking "That poor sack of potatoes just failed the thesis portion. I sincerely hope he improves on that the next time around or else he will fail the class and his life will grow dismal and meaningless."

Anyway, rubric aside, I'm confident in my grading practices, I just need to figure out how to work with these grading sheets so that my student average isn't lower than GW's IQ. BA DUM TSSSS!