Okay, see, isn't is usually the *girl* who wants to have/plan/revolve life around a wedding? It's the girl 'cause she wants a dress, flowers, pretty hair, pictures, etc., right? That's what conventional stereotypes tell me. They also whisper in my ear that I could use more propriety and that I could stand to wear nylons once in awhile, which is why I hate conventional wisdom and feminine stereotypes AND, as it happens, wedding planning. So fiance and I are getting married, theoretically in J...
Partially because I'm a masochist (according to its secondary definition), I go through every single comment anyone ever posts on anything I've ever posted. I analyze it to pieces, get mad, write a stinging reaction which I then e-mail to myself, wait a few hours or days, then write a reply which I post. Then I sit nervously, wondering if I accidentally pissed anyone off, and my heart beats a little too fast when I see that there is a new comment. Another reason I hate my field of study, jour...
I started reading through some of the religion vs. science posts. Not religion and science, mind you. I wasn't altogether pleased with the tones people took and the words they used to bolster their side of the debate. But then, why does it have to be one or the other? And why do people have to get on other people's backs about it? Neither camp explains everything about how life came to be as we know it today--not yet, at least. Me, I believe in God and I believe in evolution. Sure there...
Last night I figured out how to go back in time. What an amazing discovery! It's only by five minutes, but hey--that's plenty of time to take back something stupid I might have said, or to undo an embarrassing trip or stumble, or to avoid dropping things, car accidents, meeting my ex in the ice cream aisle of the supermarket--all kinds of things. Boy howdy, I'm a lucky woman. You see, my alarm clock is equipped with a squishy button on top that allows me to turn time back five minutes. This w...
DEAR EVERYONE WHO OVERUSES CAPITAL LETTERS, IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE YELLING. Don't you think that a writer sounds calmer when you write with the correct capitalization? And maybe to emphasize a word, you could put asterisks around it (at least that's what *I* do) or, better yet, reword your sentence. That's how I would change the e-world. And for what it's worth, from a typographical viewpoint, it's really hard to read all caps. If I could change the real world, it would explode. But at ...
Day 1: Official Teacher-reads-the-syllabus-while-students-struggle-to-stay-awake-day Bleak outlook. Students are tired. Worse, Professor is tired. It's 8 a.m. far too soon after New Year's and no one, least of all me, cares to hear what I have to say in the syllabus. So I finish quickly and have them free-write for 20 minutes to give me an idea of their grasp on English, which might be better than mine. Preparing first lecture for day 2. Do I really have to talk for an hour? Students won't w...
Unemployment blog: Day 36. Have taken to wearing no underwear in hopes that will go through underwear more slowly, thereby saving self laundry $. Also is bloody hot here. Scarcely goes below 100 in daytime and below 70 at nighttime. . Magazines not buying my articles. "Ran that one two months ago" (No you didn't, liar; am not stupid, do in fact read magazine back issues for that very reason) "Like your style but we're just not interested right now" Actually, am making those up: rejection s...
Prior to college I was a pretty good conservative/moderate Christian girl. Post-college I am an okay moderately liberal agnostic woman. All the education, from religion to philosophy to history to literature, has done one thing: Complicated the whole damn world. People on JU often like to point out (with some degree of arrogance, it seems), seeing things in black and white is for simpletons; to be an intellectual, the whole world must be a massive gray area, a continuum from the lightest ...
It's past midnight so can now say am getting married today. V. surreal. Had the rehearsal and the dinner--which were fine. V. v. surreal. Just like a dinner with best friends. (Should have those at other times, too, besides weddings and funerals.) Tried calling Fiance, as have yet to finish writing vows. However, Fiance is out with friends at bar, even though bachelor party was last night, so guess am writing vows alone. Oh well. In lieu of an embarrassing bachelorette party, sister ...
20. Shut up. Please, for the love of everything pure and beautiful, SHUT UP. 19. Yes, sometimes I assign subjective grades, and sometimes I don't grade things as closely as I should. And it’s okay if you question me about grades—better than than bitching about it behind my back. 18. The word "while" is not a relative pronoun, like I told you, but rather is a subordinating conjunction. My bad. 17. I don't like some of you. No offense. 16. I think some of you are hilarious even thou...
One of my students is a know-it-all. When I test my students, I make the tests hard (see other blogs about that) and I make sure they apply what we've learned in class to everyday life. This class is all about seeing all sides to arguments and using them well. Then there's the know-it-all. She picks on any question if it's not exactly how I told them it would be on the review, and she'll correct multiple choice questions so that they're correct, then circle the letter. I make multiple choi...
This week my freshers are doing debates. The topics the class chose were legalizing gay marriage, death penalty, and reparations for slavery. One student missed the day we decided on topics and gave debate group preferences, so I assigned her to a group in need of a choleric. It was gay marriage. Two weeks later, debate week, she tells me a day before her debate that she doesn't feel morally comfortable debating gay marriage. I explained to her, as I had previously explained to the clas...
I am a cynic because that way the world never lets you down--you're only ever pleasantly surprised. (I know I thought of that, but someone else probably wrote it first. It sounds like the type of line that resides somewhere in the subconcious and then makes its appearance, only for the thinker to be told that someone else thought of it first. Stupid subconscious.)
The the-dog-ate-my-homework excuse has been replaced in the last few years with its alter ego, the the-computer-ate-my-homework excuse. I would know. I invented most of the variations on the computer theme. And now that I'm a professor, it really ticks me off. Here's why: Computer-eating-homework: Only works on teachers who still think computers are too technologically advanced for themselves. Most of us aren't that dumb anymore--we can't be, especially since so much of our campus communic...
And like most crimes of that category, it's by someone I know. Someone who knows me. Someone who knows my husband. Someone who will probably read this, and to whom I say, leave. Leave now. You're not a JU and never have been, you're not interested in the site, you're not brought here with referrals or any simple curiosity or altruistic reason. You're come here to keep tabs on me and report to others what I say. Others who have no business in my life, like yourself. To my JU friends, I don'...