theme: err on the side of caution?

1. I recently told my boyfriend that i wanted to be an English teacher to stop people from making shitty "art" that incorrectly references Romeo and Juliet. Two prime examples are Twilight and Taylor Swift. Bella, who we know is super smart and sensitive because she reads lots of depressing literature and compares her life to it, is particularly fond of Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet references. Because apparently, neither she nor Stephenie Meyer noticed that in WH, the main characters are two spectacularly shitty people who make each other and everyone else they encounter bitter and miserable. And they don't end up together. And in R&J, the two main characters impulsively get married, and then impulsively kill themselves (seriously, Romeo, if you had waited like thirty seconds, you would have lived happily ever after!). You can't exactly call it a great love story, not if you're paying attention. In Taylor Swift's song "Love Story", she outlines a story that is superficially similar to R&J (and also throws in a confusing Scarlet Letter allusion), and the whole point of the song is that her dad didn't like her boyfriend so they were just like Romeo and Juliet and then Romeo proposes and her dad is cool with it and they live happily ever after.
So for everyone whose English teacher did a crappy job teaching this play, let me clear something up: if your relationship reminds you of Romeo and Juliet, THAT IS A RED FLAG. GET OUT NOW.
This post from Cliff Pervocracy underlines that point, although from a slightly different angle. Teenagers in love make terrible decisions, and a parent who tries to stop those decisions is not a bad person. Ignore Twilight. Ignore Taylor Swift. Romeo and Juliet are not good role models. Teenagers of the world, frustrated affection will not actually kill you. Impulsivity might.

2. I've posted a few times about how i'm in this awesome relationship and it's really confusing, because i've never dated someone for this long before and we're not engaged now and won't be any time soon, so i have no idea how to just keep being someone's girlfriend. I'm not struggling to patch holes in a failing relationship, i'm not flushed with new love, i'm not desperately seeking an excuse to break up. I'm deeply in long-term love in a strong relationship and i don't know what the hell to do about it. I know how to get into relationships and i know how to leave them, but the basic daily maintenance of relationships is hard and new and confusing. I'm glad i'm not the only one who feels that way.

3. This is a 

• graphic novel
• written by a woman
• about food
• that includes recipes.

So basically, it was designed with me in mind.

4. In the last election, we spent a lot of time talking about rape, because some legitimate medical doctors who specialize in women's reproductive health and some legitimate lawyers who specialize in rape cases explained to us all that there are different kinds of rape, and that one of them can never result in pregnancy, so we need to stop using that excuse to justify abortions. Oh wait, actually, what happened was a bunch of idiot politicians accused women of making false rape claims and also demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of how biology works.
In the aftermath, i had a conversation with a well-meaning friend who pointed out that women do sometimes falsely accuse men of rape, and it really sucks for the men. Back then, i was less educated about rape culture than i am now, but i did know that a woman who cries rape, whether true or not, will be blamed and doubted and questioned and ridiculed, and a man accused of rape, whether true or not, will be defended. I said then that i'd rather live in a world where women feel comfortable reporting rape, even if that means that men are sometimes falsely accused, than in a world where women who really have been raped are afraid to come forward because they think no one will believe them, even if that means that no man is ever falsely accused. Or, as Cliff puts it, "I'd rather live in a world where a hundred false accusers are told 'I believe you, I care about you, and I'll stand up for you,' than where one rape survivor is told 'gosh, this story has two sides and I really need to consider him innocent until proven guilty.'"

5. "Maybe I'm a fatalist, but I think that if someone wants to cheat on me, they'll cheat. If they don't want to cheat on me, they can go to a skinny-dipping-and-soapy-Twister party with thirty-eight beautiful single women and not cheat. But trying to keep them from cheating by having weird rules (other than "don't cheat on me") about who they can associate with -- that falls somewhere between creepy and downright abusive in my book."

6. I love this outline of consent culture, especially the conclusion, where Cliff draws a parallel between different types of consent violation. Now, i absolutely DO NOT want to suggest, or to imply that Cliff has suggested, that someone making you dance or go to a bar or give them a hug or whatever is the same as being raped. I do want to affirm, as Cliff points out, that we can't arbitrarily decide that "no" counts in some circumstances and not in others. It's not okay to force sex on someone who says no. It's also not okay to force alcohol on someone who says no. It's not okay to force a hug on someone who says no. It's not okay to force socialization on someone who says no. And it IS okay to say no to anything that you're not totally enthusiastic about.

7. I will definitely be keeping this in mind when it's time to talk to my own kids about sex.

8. Even if all you read is the title of this post, it makes a great point. Because here's the thing: if someone calls you racist, they are either right or wrong. Right? Either you are being racist or you are not. If they are wrong, you probably won't get anywhere by arguing with them. They are confused, or over-sensitive, or they misunderstood something, or whatever. You can apologize, and you can ask what was offensive in your statement, and hopefully the ensuing conversation will clear up their misunderstanding. And if not, oh well. But if they honestly think you are being racist, even if they are wrong, you arguing with them is unlikely to change their mind. And if they are right, if you are being racist, arguing with them will definitely not help your case. Instead, you can apologize and ask what was offensive in your statement, and hopefully the ensuing conversation will clear up your misunderstanding. Oh hey, look at how the recommended plan of action is the same in either instance!
I can't speak for anyone else, but i know that i personally will occasionally surprise myself with a racist thought or feeling. I'm not, like, actively racist; i don't burn crosses or wear a white sheet or petition for re-segregation or anything like that, but i do occasionally discover an underlying assumption that i wasn't even aware of. It's helpful to have these things pointed out to me, because that's how i learn that they exist and can start working to eliminate them.
It doesn't feel good to realize that you are racist. It doesn't feel good to have someone of a different race point out that you are racist against them. But i'm guessing that it probably doesn't feel that great to be non-white and to live in a white-dominant culture where most people you meet will be a little bit racist toward you at least once. I'm guessing it doesn't feel great to live in a culture where everything you are is Other and everything you're not is normal. I'm guessing it doesn't feel great to see institutionalized racism all around you, so deeply ingrained into everyday life that a lot of people don't even notice it. And i'm guessing it doesn't feel great to gently point out some of these racist things and have people get all upset and tell you that you're wrong and you need to be less sensitive. As above with the false rape accusations thing, i'd rather have an overly sensitive non-white person tell me every day that something i did or said was racist, even if they are wrong, than to have even one thing that i say or do or thing cause pain to someone else.

Also, i've repeatedly said here that the person accusing you of racism might be wrong or overly sensitive, but the chances of that being true are pretty slim. If you say something about Black (or Asian, or Hispanic, etc.) people and a Black (or Asian, or Hispanic, etc.) person tells you that it is a racist thing to say, they are almost definitely correct. And even if the thoughts and feelings underlying your statement were truly not racist, it's pretty clear that you didn't express yourself clearly, so aren't you glad to learn that your words are unclear and to have a chance to clarify your statements?

[something clever]

I love doing research. Love, love, love it. I love reading new things, encountering new ideas, watching debates unfold on paper over decades and centuries as new scholars and critics attempt to shed light on old themes and ideas. I love to see the constancy of opinion on some things, and the ever-shifting disagreements on others.

I hate citing my research. Footnotes and in-text citations are so fussy, and bibliographies are annoying, and making sure that you put the quotation marks in exactly right makes me want to die. I'd rather just hand you a list (formatted any damn way i please) of everything i read while writing this paper and let you do your own research.

So, in the tradition of many great bloggers, i feel that the time has come to provide you with a weekly bibliography. I read a lot of things online, and these things often inform and influence my thoughts, directly and indirectly. Also, a lot of the stuff i post is going to be old stuff from way back in some other blogger's archives. I'm not timely.

1. I've been learning a lot lately about fat-shaming and fat-acceptance and the pros and cons of both. Basically, it can be boiled down to this: fat-shaming is good because it encourages people to control themselves and change bad habits and become healthier. Fat-shaming is bad because standards of health and beauty are arbitrary and subjective, and being more attractive than someone else in no way makes you a better person or more deserving of good things in life. Fat-acceptance is bad because sometimes being overweight is really unhealthy and is entirely due to poor choices in your life and if you don't change your ways you will die. Fat-acceptance is good because not all fat people are that way from their own bad choices, and not all fat people are unhealthy (and not all thin people are healthy) and anyway regardless of your attractiveness to other people or your physical health you should be happy and feel comfortable in your own skin.

So i found this gallery of photos. You can watch in a slideshow, but if you look at them one by one you can see what their BMI is. It is shocking. There are rail-thin people who look seriously ill who are classified as "normal weight". There are gloriously curvy people with amazing figures classified as "a pound or two shy of obese". There are people who look happier and healthier and sexier than me who are "dangerously overweight". The point is, BMI is bullshit. (Check out the "overweight" triathlete and the "morbidly obese" Wonder Woman).

2. "Should gay marriage be legal?" Ginsburg continued. "Yes. Done. Case closed. Goodbye. Christ, were we seriously scheduled to spend the next few months debating this?" 

All over the country, states are voting to legalize gay marriage, or voting to remove bans on gay marriage, or otherwise ending bigotry. On my own tiny, conservative Christian college campus, we recently approved an LGBT organization. Some day, our children or grandchildren will be in history class and will learn about the LGBTQI fight for civil rights, and will say, "I don't understand. Why did people object to this?" I can't wait for the day that all LGBTQI organizations are dissolved, because there is no longer a need for them. I mean, think about it: how ludicrous would it be to start a heterosexual/cisgender club on a college campus? Why would anyone even need that? There's no point; the world belongs to us. Some day, LGBTQI clubs and organizations will be just as unnecessary as straight/cis ones.

3. I, too, have a debilitating fear of the phone and a job that requires me to make and answer calls pretty frequently, so this piece by Julianne "Boobs Radley" Smolinsky touched my soul like a call from the Holy Spirit. True story: once, when ordering Chinese food, i forgot my phone number and had to ask my roommate what it was. If i thought i could get away with it, i'd copy and paste the whole thing here and pretend i wrote it, and it wouldn't even technically be a lie, because it was pretty much lifted straight from my brain anyway. But instead, i'll just quote some tidbits and then order some spring rolls online.

"Nobody was more delighted by the advent of online food ordering than I was, because calling a restaurant used to fill me with a singular dread. I have a bizarre  middle child's terror of being inconvenient to other people, so asking for something like "dressing on the side" had all the magnitude of requesting, say, a kidney, even in my deferential sexy baby timbre.
 . . . I think the fact that I still fear the phone is an issue of control -- you don't have the degree of planning you do when having a conversation via email or text message. After I write something out, I have the option to edit or delete it. Even when calling was still the preferred method to get in touch with someone, I'd often write a script on a piece of paper if I was nervous enough about the subject to be discussed.
. . . I've encountered similar problems in my personal life. I had a brief non-relationship with a guy last year who kept asking if he could call me, just to talk. I was repelled. Call to talk about what? Is there something you can't say in a series of text messages that I can respond to in a way carefully calibrated to demonstrate my exceptional cleverness? You know who calls people just to talk? The Long Island Serial Killer."

4. I've been in a season of doubt recently. Well, not doubt precisely, but definitely asking questions and testing boundaries and trying to find my footing. And Rachel Held Evans, the Queen of Christian Doubters, wrote this prose-poem of a post that hit me where i live.

"Or it will pull you farther out to sea like rip tide,

Or hold your head under as you drown --"

5. Hey, look! More body-image stuff!

". . . it was so apparent to me that my looking beautiful, or sexy, or whatever, was an important component of the event. It was a feature. My appearance was part of the entertainment, and no matter what I did, if I went along with the cultural prescription by getting dolled up, I was going to be rewarded with oos and aahs."

oh hey

So. Um.

Posting has been a little erratic lately. I do know that. Sorry.

All i can really say is that i've been so busy actually doing things that i have no time to write about them. I'll give you guys a quick synopsis of the past month and a half, and then we'll call it even, k?

So, in October, one of my best friends married her best friend, and i was a bridesmaid. So Boyfriend and i took a train, which arrived in Philly at 4:30 am, and then we waited for the rental car place to open. Then when it did, they apparently required a deposit (which they had not told us when we made the reservation and which he has never had to pay before when he has rented a car), and since he didn't have enough money in his account to cover the whole thing, his card was declined. So he made some angry phone calls, and i pulled out my iPad and transferred some money from my savings account and paid for the rental car. Then we went out to the parking lot, and our car was blocked in by three other cars. We called the office to ask them to move it, and then sat there for twenty minutes waiting. Finally, someone came out and walked around the three cars blocking us, looking confused, until Boyfriend got out and said, "Hey, can you move one of these cars so we can get out?" The guy looked more confused. Apparently, the office had told him to move a car, but not which car or why they needed it moved. Another ten minutes went by before we could leave. We slept at the hotel for a few hours, and then went to set up the church/rehearse/have the rehearsal dinner. Then the other bridesmaids and i stayed at the bride's parents' house. Then the wedding, and then the reception, and then Boyfriend and i went back to our hotel and passed out, exhausted. We checked out early the next morning, because our train left at 7:30. The rental car place wasn't open, and the gate to get into the rental lot wouldn't open, so we had to leave the car in the regular parking garage. A few hours later, when we were on the train, we got a rude phone call from the office, demanding to know where the car was. The story ends with Boyfriend writing an angry letter to the rental company.

The following weekend, we went to see Ingrid Michaelson on her acoustic tour with Katie Herzig. It was honestly one of the best shows i have ever seen. Both ladies were enormously talented, obviously, but they were also both very laid back and friendly and chatty. The whole thing felt like sitting in coffee shop, watching your friend perform. It was really lovely. Boyfriend and i had an amazing hotel room, and we spent some time cuddling, and antiquing, and exploring, and doing other things. On our way back home, we stopped at a state liquor store (we were in New Hampshire), and stocked up.

Then there was a hurricane. I was making myself dinner and drinking a rum and coke, when my roommates invited me to hang out. So i grabbed a bottle of wine and went downstairs, where we played Cards Against Humanity and i drank nearly the whole bottle of wine on my own. Then we took a break, and i went upstairs and got my special Black Velvet Toasted Caramel whiskey. We mixed it with apple cider and the rest of the evening is kind of a blur. I know i ate some pizza at one point. The next day, i took a sick day. Partly because i wanted to do laundry and never take any sick time and was out of vacation and personal time, and partly because i was too hung over to go into work.

Then i was proofreading and editing a paper for a guy in an MBA program. English was not his first language, and business is not my thing, so it was a lot of work. But it's the kind of work i love, so it was awesome.

Then Boyfriend and i had some serious discussions, and then i wrote him a whole bunch of love letters. Like, pen to paper, envelope, send through snail mail love letters that our grandchildren will read over one day. I know. How cute are we?

And then we organized our Thanksgiving trip down to Maryland to see my family and eat pie.

And finally, i and one of my downstairs neighbors have started an informal writing workshop group. So far, it's just the two of us, but we're hoping to expand soon. So i was revising old things, and realizing that everything i write should just be a sonnet and i should stop pretending that it isn't, and that i've missed this, and then i sent him two poems and he sent me a one-act play and we will meet this weekend to workshop them.

Oh! And i've also started going to the gym 3ish times a week. I do mountain climbing on the treadmill to a 90's pop music playlist, except for when i forget my iPod, in which case i watch Frasier instead. And then i drink a lot of water and eat some almonds or cashews and then go home and order a calzone or some Chinese food and eat it all in one sitting while watching The Office. It feels so great to be healthy.

So now there's this happening.

Moodle is an online system that allows students and professors to connect, share information, and go paperless. It is one of several such systems; my alma mater (where i am currently employed) uses Moodle. It's a great system in a lot of ways: changes to the syllabus can be immediately posted in an accessible place, make-up dates for snow days or other delays can likewise be posted, and assignments can be updated. Students can turn in work electronically, ensuring a time stamp and eliminating wasted paper. It is also possible to lock the assignment window after a certain date, ensuring that students can't turn in assignments late. It has many wonderful features, and it would be a perfect system if it would only work properly.

In four years as an undergraduate student and one year as a grad student/employee, i have seen innumerable Moodle issues. The site cannot be fully accessed from IE, despite the fact that IE is the only browser that fully supports the other three online systems that the school uses. It sometimes crashes. It often gets confused about login credentials and blocks all attempts of everyone to use it.

And today, it is sending me quizzes from a marine biology course.

I am not teaching marine biology this semester. I am not the TA for marine biology this semester. I have never even taken marine biology. In fact, i took a regular bio course in high school and have never studied biology since. Yet for some reason, as these students submit their completed quizzes to Moodle, the quizzes are being sent to me for grading.

UPDATE: Turns out, this particular professor has been using Moodle for his class quizzes for years. This semester, as he was setting up the page, he did exactly the same things that he has always done, and the quizzes are rocketing all over the place. I've gotten two so far, the VP of Student Development has gotten a few, our data technician has gotten some. The professor has gotten none.

College 101

Okay guys, it's time for some tough truth: not everyone should go to college.

My dad is a genius. Literally. He's taken the IQ tests and was a member of Mensa until he opted out because he was tired of all the flyers they kept sending him. He skipped a grade in school, he coasted through high school, he was admitted to Dartmouth as a chemistry major, and he got kicked out in his freshman year because his depression was so crippling that he couldn't even get out of bed. He transferred to a small Christian school in Massachusetts, where he met my mother, and when they got married and moved to Baltimore, he got jobs and worked while she finished school. He never graduated from college, and is still one of the most brilliant, talented, educated people i know.

I know someone who is borderline retarded. I'm not being insensitive or politically incorrect -- she is actually close to being intellectually disabled. She told me this herself. Her IQ is 85 (mental retardation is 70 or below, 100 is considered average). She spent some time in rehab as a teenager. She did a lot of drugs and drank a lot of booze when she was younger, and she didn't get a chance to start college until she was well into her twenties. But she finished her degree in four years, and last i heard she was checking out grad schools.

Here's the thing: we've all seen the articles about how people with graduate and postgraduate degrees earn more money over their lifetime than those without. But the important part of that phrase is "over their lifetime". When you graduate from college, you have two choices: find a job immediately and start paying off your student loans, or take out more loans to go to grad school so that you can postpone paying your student loans and also postpone finding a full-time job with good pay. Jobs that require degrees are harder to get than jobs that don't, and they often don't pay as well at the entry level. Once you've earned more degrees and advanced your education (and your debt) further, you can get promotions and raises, and by the time you retire you'll be making bank. But you still have to pay off your student loans, and you may find yourself eating ramen and cold pizza for several years after obtaining your BA or BS. College is expensive, and it will be a long time before you see any financial benefits from your degree.

If you want to go to college so that you can make more money, turn back now. It will be a long time before you can realize that dream. Your best money-making bet is to get an Associate's degree in business from a community college, find a good internship or entry-level position in a financially stable corporation, and work your way up. When you've been there long enough, they may help you pay for additional classes, which can also be taken at a community college or even online. If all you want is to make money, don't travel out of state to a private, liberal arts college and pay for four years of tuition, room and board, student fees, and books. It will likely be many long, hard years before you see any return on that investment. Some people are luckier than others and fall into their dream job immediately after graduation, and they make six figure salaries after two years and pay off all their student loans in fifteen months. Do not assume that this person will be you. The only reason that they got that lucky is because they never assumed that they would get that lucky. They worked hard, they took chances, they pursued the things they wanted. And for every one of those stories i can tell you ten more of people who took years to get any luck, of people who slacked off and never achieved their dreams, of people who worked as hard as they could but still had to settle for second best, or even third.

I know that culturally, college is viewed like thirteenth grade. It's sort of assumed that you'll be going to college, studying for four years, getting a bachelor's degree in something. But i have seen so many people graduate with a degree in liberal arts, or business, or English, just because they picked something they liked in high school or something their roommate was studying or something that sounded easy to get a degree in. Those people ended up working in pet grooming shops, or in a department store, or as someone's secretary or receptionist. If that's what you want to do, you should do it right out of high school, instead of wasting four years and tens of thousands of dollars. If you work in a pet grooming shop for a few years and then suddenly realize that you want to be a vet, or a research biologist, or an architect, you can always go back to school. Yes, it's harder to go back when you've been gone for a while. But it's also hard to pay rent and student loans at the same time when you're working 35 hours a week at Dunkin Donuts. And if you work at a pet grooming shop for a few years and then suddenly realize that all you want to do is groom pets, start taking night classes, or online courses, and get a business degree and open your own pet grooming shop.

Don't let anyone pressure you into college, including your parents. Ask them if they really want to pay for four years of education when you don't know what you want to study. Make a deal with them: you can live at home and work and save money for one year. If at the end of the year you know what you want to major in, you'll go to school. If you don't, you'll move out and support yourself. Do some research: show them statistics about student loan default rates, about how much money you can expect to make your first year after graduation, about the average debt of college students after graduation. Tell them that you are making the responsible decision to hold off on spending money for college until you're sure it will be worthwhile.

If you know exactly what you want to major in and where you want to work and what you want to do with your life, you may still want to consider a state school or community college, or postponing college for a year or two. College is fucking expensive, and it takes a long time to pay off. Even if you are one thousand percent certain and committed and motivated and driven, it will take a long time to realize your dreams. It will take a long time until you can live the life you've dreamed of. Do not get drunk in a hot tub three months after graduation and start crying in a fake British accent about how you've been waiting "so long" but you can't find a job (yeah, Fay, thanks for ruining my 21st birthday). It's been three months. This is going to be a long, expensive, difficult, stressful, exhausting struggle. Be patient, work hard, and understand that you're going to face a lot of failure before your "big break".

Think of it this way: if you inherited some sort of legacy that gave you an allowance of $100,000 a year, what would you do with your time? Would you still want to write? Would you still want to teach? Would you still want to clean teeth? Would you still want to sell clothes? What is the one thing you could see yourself doing for the rest of your life, even if you didn't need any money? Now imagine that you are getting an allowance of $30,000 a year. It's enough to make ends meet, as long as you don't have kids. But working would give you some extra income, would help you save and afford big purchases and maybe even support a family. What is the one thing you would want to do? Now imagine that there is no allowance, no inheritance. It is up to you, to your talents and skills and passions to support yourself and your future family. What do you want to do?

If the answers you're coming up with are things like "socialize", "something that would give me lots of vacation days and leave my weekends free", or "something with a good benefits package", don't go to a liberal arts college. Maybe don't go to college at all. Go to a vocational school, take business classes online, work full-time at a bagel shop or part-time as a security guard or intern at a business. But if the answers you're coming up with are things like "counsel suicidal teenagers" or "write poetry" or "teach seventh grade math", go to college. Get your degree. Just understand that, while all of the stress and money and hardship will be worth it in the end, the end is a long way from where you are now. Be prepared.

knowledge without thought

In the first semester of my freshman year, one of the gen ed courses i took was called "Biblical History and Literature", aka Bib Lit. Most people hated it, because most of the class could be divided into two groups: people who had grown up in the church and already knew as much as they wanted to know about the Bible, and people who hadn't grown up in the church and weren't religious and didn't want to be. I thought the class was okay, but wished that there were more people in there who cared about what we were learning.

One day, after we had all turned in a paper about our definition of religion, the professor was talking to us about that paper. He said that many of us, in our papers, had said some variation of "I know what I know, and I don't know how I know it, but I do, so leave me alone." Far from being annoyed or angry by this, he was interested in our conclusions. He asked us if we thought that was a fair assessment of what we all believed. The response was a handful of halfhearted murmurs. He wanted to have a class discussion about knowledge, and truth, and belief. How do we know what we know? Where does knowledge come from?

But the discussion went nowhere.

No one wanted to talk about truth or knowledge or belief. Everyone wanted to know what grade they had gotten and move on. They didn't want to be challenged, they just wanted to be right. Can there be knowledge without thought?

This wasn't the last time i had an experience like this in a classroom. Students would do only exactly as much as was necessary. They didn't want to learn anything that wouldn't be on the test, and once the test was over, they didn't want to hold onto their learning. They didn't want to be exposed to new kinds of thinking, new ideas, different views. They just wanted to know what they knew and be left alone.

Your phone privileges have been revoked.

So this happened today:

Guy on phone: "Hey, uh, I was just looking at your school online, and I was wondering if you guys had an athletic trainer there."
Me: "Do you mean, like, an athletic training major?"
Guy: "Uh, yeah."
Me: "Um, we have sports management or physical education."
Guy: "Uuuhhh, like, you know when someone's playing sports and they get hurt and the guy runs out on the field to take care of them? Like that."
Me: "Okay, the majors we have are more like, if you want to be a coach or a gym teacher."
Guy: "Oh. Uh, okay. What is your deadline for application?"
Me: "You need to have everything done by the time classes start, which is August 29th. So your application, your financial aid; everything needs to be taken care of by then."
Guy: "Okay. Because I had just graduated on June 7th, and I was going to go to another school, and they accepted my application, but it was too expensive. But I didn't see athletic trainer on your website, so I wanted to call and check."
Me: "Okay. Well, we don't have an athletic training major, but we do have sports management and physical education. They are the closest things we have to what you are looking for."
Guy: "Uh, okay. Do you have criminal justice?"
Me: "Yes."
Guy: "Okay, thank you. Bye."

Wait, do you want to major in athletic training or sports medicine? Because those are two different things. And neither one of them is criminal justice. Am i on Candid Camera? Do you even know what you want to major in? Where is Larissa, my office lover, when i have a great story to tell?!?!

Human Interactions 103

At 7:20 PM Monday night, a woman called one of our enrollment counselors and left a message, asking if she could bring a large group in for a tour on Tuesday morning. Several problems with this:

1. The counselor she called is not the one who arranges the tours. She does not have access to the tour guide schedules. It is therefore difficult for her to set up a tour for anyone.
2. The person who does set up tours was not in the office at all on Monday. She works from home in the mornings on Tuesday, but she does not check her voicemail from home. And this Tuesday being the day before a national holiday, i'm not sure if she will be in at all today. There has therefore been no opportunity for the tour request to be passed along to her, leaving it to the counselor who received the voicemail to do everything herself.
3. Calling thirteen and a half hours before you intend to show up is not really ideal. Especially if you are calling after normal business hours. (Hint: normal business hours are 9-5, though 8-6 is not totally unheard of.) If you call outside of normal business hours, you should do so at least 24 hours before you plan to show up, giving the other person time to hear your voicemail, call you to confirm your visit, and set up the tour for you.
4. Group tours are harder to arrange than individual ones, and really really really need advance notice. We can throw together a really good individual visit at the last second, but group tours are very tricky. 
5. If you have left a voicemail for someone but have not yet spoken to them in person, you should not assume that they are prepared to handle your request. They may be on vacation, especially if you are calling two days before a national holiday. If their job requires travel (like, for example, a college enrollment counselor who goes to lots of college fairs and teen camps during the summer), they may not be in the office at all this week.
6. Having left a voicemail thirteen and a half hours ago with the wrong person, and having failed to talk to anyone at all to confirm your visit, when you come strolling into the office at ten minutes after nine AM, it does not behoove you to demand that the tour be "quick". Our campus is a certain predetermined size and has a certain predetermined number of buildings. In order for the tour to be worth your while, it will necessarily take a certain predetermined amount of time. But showing up ten minutes after we have all gotten to the office and demanding that we abbreviate the service that we have not yet agreed to render you is a little presumptuous. 

So what can we learn from this?


Be considerate of others, especially when you are demanding a service from them. I know this goes against much of what you were taught. You are the customer, and the customer is always right. However, this is not true. The customer is always the customer, and always deserves respect, patience, and our best efforts to make you happy. But you are not always right.

Remember that this is our job, and we know a lot more about how it works than you do. Defer to our knowledge, experience, and skills. Ask us how we can best serve you.

Give people plenty of advance notice when you are planning to visit, especially if you are asking them to do something special for you on that visit. When you drop in with no notice, you are only hurting yourself. If the abbreviated tour you demanded does not meet your expectations, that is your own fault.

Respect normal business hours. If you have to call outside of them, that's fine. We understand. But leave a voicemail with the understanding that we won't be able to even listen to your voicemail until 8 AM at the earliest, and more realistically, 9. We won't be able to return your call until after that. We won't be able to talk to you personally and set up a visit and make sure  your needs and requests are met until after 9 AM. This is just how businesses work.

Know what you're asking for. Some requests are small and some are large. And when you don't work in that particular business, you don't always know which is which. Don't assume that a request that seems simple actually will be. There might be a lot more to it than you think.

There will be a test on all of this. Be prepared. Class dismissed.

penultimate

Today is the next to last class i will have to take for my degree (i hope). I'm at work, frantically trying to finish an assessment portfolio for a unit on fairy tales. Yes, fairy tales. Don't you wish i was your teacher? (No, because i'm a tough grader and you don't want to participate in a Socratic seminar on the feminist critique of fairy tales or create a picture book detailing all the graphic violence and darkness in the original tales.)

Anyway, i have this class today and one on Monday, and then i'm done with classwork. I still have observations and student teaching, but i'm essentially done.

I don't have time or mental energy to write much more right now, because i'm still trying to finish this thing, but i just wanted to say that i'm almost done with my M.Ed. And i still don't know if that's the correct abbreviation for it.

poemings

I wrote this draft as part of a multi-genre research project for one of my classes. 

#istillneedaworkshop

these birds are not angry

they’re all twitterpated

tweeting madly for followers

                John Cleese calls them “twats”

                Hannah Hart calls them “tweeps”

                i call them “fans”

                to inflate my own ego

tweet, retweet, favorite

create a hashtag punch line

hope that the Bloggess will see it

                shouting into chaos

                140 characters at a time

                how does one bird

                stand out from the rest?

at least the mafia requests have died down

should i add events before 2007?

i just edited my subscription to you

                are you only friends with me to be polite?

                what is your subscription to me?

                why did you like this picture

                and not that one?

Mark Zuckerberg keeps tinkering

so hard to control privacy

it’s not just my words, it’s my whole life

                how do i separate the ‘book’ from the ‘face’?

                how do i invite discussion without asking for a fight?

                is it better to be stalked or ignored?

                can’t i just sing my song?

Adulthood 101

To bring in a little extra cash and to practice for my future job, i do a little grading for one of my former professors. She recently brought me a stack of papers to look over for her. In sorting through them together, we discovered one handwritten piece with no name.

"Well, someone is going to be squawking about their grade, and I'll have to look through a whole file of assignments with no names to find it, and then I'll have to change their grade, and . . . " she trailed off, exhausted by the mere prospect of the work ahead.

Here's the thing, people: PUT YOUR NAME ON SHIT. For the love of all that is holy, when you have done an assignment for a class and are ready to turn it in, PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.

If your name is not on it, you cannot receive credit for it. If you do not receive credit for it, your grade will be lower than you may have hoped for. If you do not talk to your professor about why your grade is low, you may not discover that there is one very easy solution for your troubles: putting your name on your paper.

I'm in classes with graduate students who don't do this. Do you think the professor is psychic? Were you confused by the absence of a line saying "name" under it? We just assumed that, by the time you had graduated high school, you would be able to find a spot somewhere near the top to cram your name in. We assumed you would have the intelligence and good sense to put your name on your work, ensuring that you get credit for it.

Put your name on EVERYTHING except anonymous surveys. Take credit for your work. Make sure everyone knows who did this amazing work. And if it's less than amazing, guess what? Still your fault. Write your name on it.

Adulthood means taking credit and/or responsibility for all that you do. It means exercising common sense. It means asking questions when you feel you haven't gotten full credit for your accomplishments.

There will be a pop quiz on this. Many times. For the rest of your life.

How to Use a Telephone

As the administrative assistant/receptionist for the admissions office of my school, I spend a lot of time on the phone. In the time i have spent talking to strangers, i have concluded that people tend to lose anywhere from 10-80 IQ points as soon as they pick up a telephone. Therefore, i have compiled a list of do's and don'ts that will hopefully make my life easier from this point forward.

DO speak clearly and enunciate carefully. There is often background noise in my office, and i cannot see your face. You need to make sure your words are perfectly articulated. This goes double if you are leaving a message, because i cannot ask you to repeat anything.

Before launching into a ten minute explanation of your problem, including background information on your entire family and a detailed schedule of your week, DO give me a brief synopsis of your question or problem. I don't want to waste your time, since you are clearly busy. And i don't want you to waste my time, because i hate you a little bit. It may be that i am already aware of your problem, because your sister has already called, and i am already taking care of it (true story). It may be that you have called the wrong department and that i need to transfer you elsewhere.

When leaving a message, DO provide your first and last name and a phone number or email address where you can be reached. I am not psychic. If you leave a message with your first name and ask me to call you back, i will not. This is a business land line, not a personal cell phone. I can't just scroll through my missed calls.

DO find a quiet area to make your phone call. As stated above, it is hard enough for me to hear and understand you under the best circumstances. It is not helpful when you are in the living room where your younger siblings are playing rock band while your mom yells at all of you to come set the table for dinner.

DON'T call without knowing what you want. It is not my job to figure out who your enrollment counselor is, how many of your documents you have sent it, how to get your SAT scores delivered, or deduce from your confused ramblings that you are interested in the criminal justice program and want to get some more information on it. Figure out what you want before you call. Write it down if you have to.

DON'T expect me to take care of your entire admissions process for you. First of all, i am not your enrollment counselor, so helping you get into college is not really in my job description. And second, you need to be assertive and proactive. This place you're calling is a college, an institute of higher education. If you can't even make a phone call without relying on me to take care of everything for you, you won't make it past your freshman year.

DON'T be rude. I am not being rude to you. Being rude to me with no provocation will severely tempt me to pretend i am connecting you to someone else and then "accidentally" disconnect you. I won't actually do it, because i am better than that, but when you are rude to me it does not make me want to help you. I begin the conversation on your side. Don't do anything to turn me against you.

DON'T swear. Firstly, it is unprofessional and inappropriate. You are on the phone with a stranger, trying to get into college. Do not use profane or offensive language. Secondly, we are a Christian college. We do not allow profanity on this campus. Using it to faculty, staff, and administrators may adversely affect your admission status.

I hope this was helpful. Feel free to print this out and keep it next to your phone at all times. By the way, these rules don't just apply to me. Any time you are on the phone with anyone for any reason, keep them in mind.

Overheard in the Office 14

Dude: "Hey, uh . . . (to his girlfriend, in a whisper) I don't know what to say."
His Girlfriend: "Just tell 'em what you want."
D: "Uh, I want to sign up."
Me: "Um, you mean you want to apply to be a student here?"
D: (with a pleased smile) "Yeah."

Clearly I Need To Get More Tattoos

Today marks the one-year anniversary of my first ever blog post. It was a poem i wrote for class; i edited it and posted it as the introduction for who i am and why i do what i do.

The year has gone by quickly. April was when i started dating John and moved into my first real apartment, May was my college graduation, August was when i started my first grown-up job, September was when i started grad school, October was when my brother was wounded, February was my first "real" Valentine's day and my first venture into vegetarianism AND the time i met Mark Oshiro AND the day that my brother's leg was amputated, and my first year of blogging closed out with a continuation of reasons that i should live with my boyfriend, reflections on my brother, and a very strange piece of short creative non-fiction i wrote in my sophomore year of college.

I have to be honest: i'm still not totally sure what this blog is. It's probably most honest to call it a diary (or LiveJournal, if you're Benji and want to make fun of me).

My confusion is shared by my readers, as evidenced by some of my search terms. The most popular search term of all time is "never settle tattoo", which makes sense, since my most popular blog post of all time is the one where i talk about getting a tattoo that says 'never settle'. My second most popular search term is "Diana Lark", which means that i'm famous because people are actually searching for me by name. Right? Third is "awasiwi odinak", which was the title of this post about how i like nature and travel and walking and such. For those of you who may have Googled this term looking for a definition, i got the phrase from the TV show The West Wing. According to them, it means either 'beyond the village' or 'far from the things of man'. My fourth most popular term is represented by several variations of "world's happiest turtle". My favorite variation is "picture turtle eating a strawberry you'll never experience this joy". That seems awfully threatening to me. (Is threatening the word i want?) Anyway, if you want to know the kind of joy you're missing out on, the picture is at the top of this post.

As of this moment, i have gotten just over 2,000 pageviews. Total. In one year. My boyfriend keeps getting excited about my blog stats and telling me that i will be a famous blogger, and doesn't really listen when i tell him that many bloggers who are not really "famous" generally get several hundred pageviews a day. My record is 284 in one month. Furthermore, most bloggers are only famous to other bloggers. We're a weird bunch.

Anyway, i'm glad to see you all here. For those of you who are looking for more tattoos, rest assured that i am working on it. In fact, i've gotten another tattoo and just haven't written about it yet. For those looking for Diana Lark, you've come to the right place. For those looking to get away from it all, maybe start by turning off your computer and going outside? And for those looking for cute turtles eating strawberries, ME TOO. They are absurdly precious, aren't they?

You Gotta Watch Out For Those Naps

Once, I woke up to go to class. And it was dark and quiet in my room. And my bed was sooo warm. And the room was cold. And my pillow was whispering sweet nothings in my ear. And I had an A in that class anyway. And I'd never skipped it before.
So I went back to sleep.

I woke up an hour later, wishing I hadn’t stayed up to finish the movie the night before. I couldn’t miss the next class. I dragged myself out of my bed. The impression left by my body looked strangely empty and desolate. As I opened my dresser drawers, picking out clothes for the day, my pajamas rubbed against my skin seductively. “Come to bed with us,” they murmured. “You know you want to.” I glanced back towards the bed. My pillows were shooting me covert glances. I began to waver, and was just about to crawl back under the covers when I glanced at the clock and realized that I was about to be late to a class that I absolutely couldn’t miss. Frantically, I yanked off my pajamas, shutting them in the drawer, and hurriedly made my bed. There. That was better. Surely I’d be safe now.

But I’d forgotten about the naps.

This being my sophomore year of college, I knew a lot about naps. I had learned the year before that naps are vicious. They attack suddenly and without warning. I was attacked by one in my freshman year: I was sitting on my bed, doing homework, when suddenly I was forced down onto my stomach by a nap. Once I was reclining, the battle was over.

Today was different, though. It began stalking me as soon as I sat down in class. It sat in the seat behind me and stared holes in the back of my head, making concentration impossible. In chapel, it sat beneath my pew and snapped at my ankles. It wasn’t ready to devour me yet, however. It just wanted to play with me for a while, wear down my defenses. Finally, it cornered me in my room, an hour before dinner. It didn’t let me go until well after dinner had begun. I almost missed my meal.

Things I Have Learned In My First Semester of Grad School

1. Never assume that being the least experienced person in the room makes you the least qualified.

2. Always ask for clarification BEFORE beginning an assignment.

3. Alcohol really does soothe the pain temporarily.

4. Sleep is overrated.

5. Food is overrated.

6. Spending time with friends is overrated.

7. Crying is underrated.

8. Carry chocolate with you at all times for emergency energy boosts and/or mood stabilization.

9. Never assume that other people are doing their work. Even when they are in your group. Even when they won't get their degree if they don't do their work. Even if you threaten them with grievous bodily harm.

10. If you have to choose between an accomplishment and your mental health, choose sanity every time.

the road not taken

In high school, i took an ethics and philosophy course called "Understanding Our Times" or something like that. We learned about a lot of different perspectives and approached major world issues from those perspectives. All through a massive conservative-Christian homeschooler lens, of course.

One of the topics we discussed was feminism/gender roles. A lot of it was . . . less than empowering. Things like how to use your gifts and passions and skills to serve your husband and your Lord (in that order?), and how deeply fulfilling it is to be a stay-at-home mom.

Let me be clear: I am NOT knocking traditional gender roles or stay-at-home moms. Those things CAN be enormously fulfilling and wonderful. Women should be able to do anything they want to do, including staying at home and raising kids, without anyone trying to vilify their choices. But what i can't stand is when the more conservative sides attack the more progressive sides by glorifying the wonder and joy of child-rearing. It is wonderful and joyous. But it's also a whole lot of work. And not everyone is cut out for it. And that is okay.

However, this program did say one thing i appreciated. It was talking about women trying to choose between post-secondary degrees or work, and staying home with their kids. And it said that the choice is not permanent, that you can always choose something else down the line if you find that you are not being totally fulfilled.

You can have it all. You just can't have it all at once.

You can get a master's degree and work for a few years. Then you can take time off to have some kids. Then, once the kids are in school full-time, you can go back to work and/or school. Then when retirement comes around, you can hang out with the grand-kids. You can switch careers, you can collect degrees like rare coins, you can take time off to homeschool your kids or pursue your dream of being a musician.

You can have it all.

I was a psych major in my freshman year of college. I had always loved English and wanted to be a writer, but somehow it had never occurred to me to actually study writing. Besides, God wanted me to study psychology and work with teenagers.

But in my sophomore year, i added an English minor. And in my junior year, i added an English major. I went into my senior year with a double major and every intention of being a psychologist.

And then i "decided" to be a teacher.

But i still struggled with my choices. From a purely practical standpoint, had i really wasted four years of time and energy to get a psych degree that i would never use? From a spiritual standpoint, had i misinterpreted God's instructions for me or had He changed His mind? I still believed that God wanted me to have that degree, but why?

In February of my senior year, i was putting together a presentation for some prospective honors students. I was organizing a slideshow of accomplishments of current honors students. I needed a photo of each student, so i was perusing Facebook profiles. I was scanning through photos of "Caroline", who was also a psych major and who had come in with me as a freshman. I had had lots of classes with her and we were friendly, but i didn't know her very well. I did know that she had dropped out of high school and worked to get her GED, meaning that she was highly self-motivated. I also knew that she had been on track to graduate a year early, but that she had instead taken some time off of college and simply graduated on time. I suddenly felt led to talk to her about these choices.

I sent her a quick Facebook message telling her that i admired her courage and self-awareness. That lots of people needed to take time off but were afraid that people would judge them. That there were probably lots of people who judged her, who called her a quitter, who said that she was lazy and unmotivated. That the truth was that she was extremely motivated, and brave, and strong, and that i had an enormous amount of respect for her.

Her reply was humbling, inspiring, and illuminating.

"You have no idea how much this means to me. Your uncanny ability to see into a situation you don't know much about, and somehow still know a lot about it just blew me away.

Your encouragement made my day, but in all likelihood, my week and month as well. I have been through a lot these past four or five years, and need a reminder every now and again that I'm braver than I give myself credit for.

And I just wanted to let you know that I believe you made the right choice in switching to Psychology. If nothing else, this message proved it to me. I've heard fantastic things about your writing, and am sure that you would have made a great English teacher or whatever you had planned -- but I am supremely confident that you will make an even better therapist or whatever it is you wish to do with your insight and talent.

Who knows, maybe you could become a professional therapeutic note writer, and help other people make it through this crazy life as you just did for me. :)

Thank you."

In a rush of insight and understanding, i realized that there are a lot of people out there who need someone to notice them. Statistically speaking, the people who need therapy the most are the ones who have least access to it. Sometimes, all a kid has is a teacher who asks them to hang back after class so they can say, "Are you okay?"

I realized that i could always go on to get more psych degrees and "use" them, but that i would already be using my BA every day, in every area of my life. I might be the only person who bothers to ask a kid what is going on in their lives, or who shows an interest at all. I might be the safe haven, the refuge, the advocate, the role model. I might be the only thing standing between my students and utter despair.

I can have it all. I just can't have it all at once.

I can always double back later on and take an alternate route. I can only take one road at a time, but that doesn't mean i can't take them all eventually.

I can have it all.

Overheard in the Office 4

"I'm not a serial killer. I just have traits of a serial killer."

Philosophy of Education, Part 4

My Foundations of Education class required an essay on my personal philosophy of education. The syllabus listed no page number requirements. When we asked the professor how long it had to be, he simply said, "Explain yourself."

Mine was six pages long and is reproduced here, section by section, for your edification and reading pleasure. Part 1 can be found here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.


What is my role as a teacher?

                As a teacher, I must help my students to be prepared for whatever lies ahead. I have to be aware of my students’ skills, abilities, and passions so that I can help cultivate their strengths and guide them to success and fulfillment. I must ensure that I never denigrate any student’s desires or goals, but find constructive ways to encourage them to reach for more.

Through personal, one-on-one encouragement and general modeling of my own life choices and where they have led, I can and must show my students that their lives are in their own hands to do with what they will. For better or for worse, we all have some measure of control over our futures. It is in my power to endow my students with a sense of the great responsibility and privilege that they each have: the freedom of choice. The choices are not always good or easy, but they are always present.

I must also teach them ethics and life skills, whether by direct instruction or by indirect modeling. The method of instruction will be partially dependent on the rules of the school. Some schools may not allow me to give explicit moral instruction, even if asked directly to give my opinion on an issue. But by striving to keep my two selves congruent and by always being honest with my students, I can at least show them how honesty, openness, and self-awareness have impacted my own life. Even if I rely on direct instruction, however, I can never try to force my own ideals or convictions on my students. All I can do is share my opinion and model my own beliefs and attitudes.

My final point is the most obvious of all: I must share my passion for my content. As a teacher, it is my job to share not only my knowledge, but also my enthusiasm. As an English teacher, I will encounter many students who find reading boring. I will encounter many who struggle with reading because English is not their first language, or because they are hampered by a learning disability. I will encounter students who do not care about parts of speech, who hate to write, who can’t be bothered to read anything that doesn’t feature vampires or wizards or whatever the current literary trend is. And I must teach them all Shakespeare and Dickenson. I must teach them all to avoid passivity in their writing. I must teach persuasive essays, analytical essays, and research essays. I must teach many forms of creative writing and adaptation. All of English language arts and literature are in my hands, and I must strive to pass as much as possible to my students.

But teaching a subject is not only about passing along information. It is also about sharing a passion. Not every student I encounter has to leave with a deep appreciation for Shakespeare. But they should all understand why I love him. I must make it clear that, while this may not be everyone’s cup of tea, there is nevertheless great value in the study of literature and language arts. There is value in being well-read. There is value in being a skilled writer. And no matter the path your life may take in the future, the study of English is not a complete waste of time.

Philosophy of Education, Part 3

My Foundations of Education class required an essay on my personal philosophy of education. The syllabus listed no page number requirements. When we asked the professor how long it had to be, he simply said, "Explain yourself."

Mine was six pages long and is reproduced here, section by section, for your edification and reading pleasure. Part one can be found here and part two can be found here.

What is important to learn in school?

While academic and life skills are of unparalleled importance to survive and thrive in the world,  school is not just pure academic achievement or meeting immediate survival needs. Since most people spend their formative years in school, that is where we all learn how to socialize constructively with one another, how to follow a schedule and respect a deadline, how to obey authorities beyond our parents, and how to make decisions about our identities, lifestyles, and morals. Some would argue that teachers should not teach morals or social skills or anything beyond textbook information within their own subject, but the fact is that kids learn a lot more from the behavior of adults than from their words.

Even if teachers decline to explicitly instruct their students in socialization or cultural sensitivity or deference to authority or ethics or anything not directly related to their own subject, they must be aware of their own attitudes, behavior, and demeanor. Kids will pick up a lot from their teachers’ nonverbal instructions, and will observe the way that all adults handle themselves in everyday life. It is important to be aware that we are role models, and to ensure that our words and actions coincide. Nothing will make a child lose respect for an adult faster than catching the adult in a lie.

Rogerian psychology places a high emphasis on “congruence”, or the agreement between a person’s perception of themselves and the reality. Very few people are exactly the person they’d like to be, but those who freely acknowledge that they are a work in progress are far more likely to be liked and respected by their students than those who deny any incongruence and claim to be in total control of who they are. You must be sure that the face you show your students is really yours, because you will not be able to fool all of your students all of the time. All it takes is one slip and a student, a class, or an entire career could be lost forever.

Be aware of and honest about your own faults and weaknesses, while working hard to better yourself. Admit fallibility and hope for greater congruence. And always encourage your students to be equally honest and self-aware in their own lives. During the school year, you will spend nearly as much time with some of your students as their parents do, and in some cases more. You are equally responsible for their academic, professional, and personal futures.