- I finally tried a McDonald's free Monday vanilla latte--it was worth every penny I paid. While it's true I am something of a coffee snob, this goes beyond frou-frou drink to... Well, it's everything I expect of a McDonald's drink--all sugar, no coffee substance. If you want a latte, go to your neighborhood coffee house (and I do mean local, not Starbucks--crack open the phone book or use Google if you're not sure where to find one) and get a real latte, the kind that actually contains coffee. Coffee should bite back, not smother you in toxic sugariness.
- On a positive note, Atlanta Bread's Baja Chicken Enchilada soup is wonderful--rich spicy flavor, chicken chunks you don't need a microscope to see, and, uh... corn. And beans. Protein never tasted so delicious. (With my luck, they'll be discontinuing this soup, now that I've discovered the requisite one dish that I like from a given restaurant. I'm a horrid stick in the mud when it comes to trying new things.)
- Youtube truly is amazing. I started off by clicking a link to a featured video of talking cats (the Internet is an incredible medium for people to take pet dotage to new levels) and clicked through to several videos of talking cats, where I watched a cat named Roxie talk and grow up in the span of several videos. Then, since it was my break time, I searched for songs by a few folk artists I like, and then I searched with the generic search term "peace," just to see what was there. And then I found...
- Gregorian chants, but with a twist. These are covers of pop and rock songs, you see, everything from Evanescence to Simon and Garfunkel. Check them out. R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion." Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters." Decent covers, but one surprisingly good one is a cover of Rammstein's "Engel" (original version here for comparison--probably not work-friendly). Another good one is their cover of Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." The Gregorian chant stuff eventually led me to the Leningrad Cowboys, who do some interesting covers, including a version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" with balalaikas.
- If that's not random enough, I'll add a few more links you could have lived without following. Something about this video a few weeks ago gave me a hankering to search for Greensleeves on Youtube (don't even try to follow the logic; my mind jumps sometimes in ways that I can't always follow). That eventually led me to a Youtube group where people uploaded videos of themselves playing songs on their ocarinas, which I found cool because I was pondering getting one at the renaissance festival (but didn't). I did hit up Wikipedia to read more about ocarinas, though, because my only prior knowledge consisted of what I skimmed over at the ren fest and, uh, I knew it had something to do with a video game that I never played.
- This comic made me smile the other night.
- In time, this site will make it onto my "vices" list, if they update with more frequency. Shoot, I should submit a few of the ones that've made it into my spam folder recently. Something about massive meats and back doors and another one about stallions and fillies... Uh, yeah... I actually have to give them points for some of the metaphors, crude though they may be. Never mind that I have no need for such products given that I am female.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Random bullets of crap
I'm at nearly 50 posts on this blog, so I feel some sense of entitlement to a "Random Bullets of Crap" post. So, here goes.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
This is... there are no words
From the NY Times Magazine: Sweeping the Clouds Away.
Early episodes of Sesame Street, available on DVD, come with a warning that they may not be suitable for today's preschoolers. Why? Several factors, including Cookie Monster's smoking in the Monsterpiece Theatre pieces, his unhealthy eating habits, Oscar the Grouch's misanthropy...
It's been a few years since I watched the show, but it's a part of my childhood warm-fuzzies. And I turned out... more or less OK. I'm not a smoker, not obese, and only borderline misanthropic. Which leads me to one conclusion:
It must be a strange experience to raise a child in this day and age. On the one hand, kids have cell phones and Internet access from a young age with access to everything the web has to offer, but on the other hand they must be so sheltered. They must be guarded from smoking (a current social bugaboo right now--it makes a convenient scapegoat), they must be shown people indulging only in healthy eating habits (because no doubt mommy or daddy, juggling both parenting and careers, are the very models of healthy eating), and they must be shown a technicolor-bright world where no one is unhappy (because it's that sort of thing that leads these current generations to being the Prozac nation, not increased anxiety from things like pressure to perform on tests and witnessing the violence of our society).
(Gee, but that "wtf" tag has come in more useful than I anticipated.)
Early episodes of Sesame Street, available on DVD, come with a warning that they may not be suitable for today's preschoolers. Why? Several factors, including Cookie Monster's smoking in the Monsterpiece Theatre pieces, his unhealthy eating habits, Oscar the Grouch's misanthropy...
It's been a few years since I watched the show, but it's a part of my childhood warm-fuzzies. And I turned out... more or less OK. I'm not a smoker, not obese, and only borderline misanthropic. Which leads me to one conclusion:
It must be a strange experience to raise a child in this day and age. On the one hand, kids have cell phones and Internet access from a young age with access to everything the web has to offer, but on the other hand they must be so sheltered. They must be guarded from smoking (a current social bugaboo right now--it makes a convenient scapegoat), they must be shown people indulging only in healthy eating habits (because no doubt mommy or daddy, juggling both parenting and careers, are the very models of healthy eating), and they must be shown a technicolor-bright world where no one is unhappy (because it's that sort of thing that leads these current generations to being the Prozac nation, not increased anxiety from things like pressure to perform on tests and witnessing the violence of our society).
(Gee, but that "wtf" tag has come in more useful than I anticipated.)
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Last shots of autumn
I took a 20-minute break from grading earlier this week to go outdoors. After all, autumn won't last forever. Camera in hand, I decided to see what interesting things the yard held in store.
It started at the deck, actually. The leaves are accumulating. If we leave the back door open in the evening, sometimes the wind whips them up against the screen. And sometimes they scratch across the deck, an almost crunching sound, which when combined with the creaks of a settling patio, can be disconcerting. But the leaves looked pretty harmless in the halflight. The great thing about being digital is that I can take pictures just for kicks, just to play with the angles or the content. Those pictures tickle my fancy, but there's nothing spectacular in the composition.
Onward, then. This is what I eventually found:
This is a... shrub of sorts. Dunno what it's called, but it's got pretty little pink flowers in the spring.
Most of the leaves are gone now. I'm a sucker for silhouettes and sunsets, so here ya go.
OK, so I actually took this one a few weeks ago. It was an accident, actually. The shot I was trying to capture was...
Ah, the benefits of actually using the flash on a grey, gloomy day.
It started at the deck, actually. The leaves are accumulating. If we leave the back door open in the evening, sometimes the wind whips them up against the screen. And sometimes they scratch across the deck, an almost crunching sound, which when combined with the creaks of a settling patio, can be disconcerting. But the leaves looked pretty harmless in the halflight. The great thing about being digital is that I can take pictures just for kicks, just to play with the angles or the content. Those pictures tickle my fancy, but there's nothing spectacular in the composition.
Onward, then. This is what I eventually found:
This is a... shrub of sorts. Dunno what it's called, but it's got pretty little pink flowers in the spring.
Most of the leaves are gone now. I'm a sucker for silhouettes and sunsets, so here ya go.
OK, so I actually took this one a few weeks ago. It was an accident, actually. The shot I was trying to capture was...
Ah, the benefits of actually using the flash on a grey, gloomy day.
And that may be all the pictures I take in a while. I appear to have murdered my camera, or at least critically injured it in a steep topple onto a hard surface (blasted concrete...). It now works about every other time I try to use it and sometimes refuses to read the memory card (problem's the camera, not the card--computer reads it just fine). Could be the impetus I need to get a better camera.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Good questions
This post is largely navel-gazing in nature, although I've tried to keep the whine down to a minimum. Skip over at your discretion; I won't be offended.
One of my coworkers has the following question posted on her Facebook profile:
What were you doing five years ago? What did you think you'd be doing? Where do you envision yourself in another five years?
Good question, I thought. Five years ago I was... I was... What was I doing five years ago, anyway? That was undergrad, right? Before I transferred, so community college. I was a student. Just a run-of-the-mill slacker/honor student. Didn't have a single blessed plan for the future. Beyond that, I still drew a blank; luckily, there are approximately five years of my life on teh interwebs. I logged into my oldest blog (I remember that password but forgot my login to pay my cell phone bill--what gives?) and skipped directly to November 2002. Here's what I found:
I wasn't planning on teaching, that was for sure. Can I see myself doing this for another five years? No. If I keep up at the pace I'm going now, I'll burn out. Frankly, I think I'm there already. I haven't had any of the panic attacks that punctuated grad school, but I'm just barely keeping my nose above water as far as grading goes.
Four classes a semester is just too much--too much grading, too much stress, too much personal investment that wears me down, too many meals skipped because I was so busy I forgot to eat, too many weekends that leave me choosing between socializing or doing what needs to be done (with either option leaving me dissatisfied, sarcastic, harshly judgmental, and generally unpleasant to be around), too many cups of coffee and too little sleep. Too much of everything across the board. I like my colleagues, who are among the most intelligent, quirky, and generous people I've met, and I like the few students who make it worthwhile, but most of the students just don't care. And that burns--to give and give, and get almost nothing in return. In that sense, it renders the other sacrifices meaningless and bitter.
So, where do I see myself in five years? Still no clue. The real world no longer encroaches; it's here. It won't go away, either, the pesky bugger. Maybe I am one of those la-la land dwelling milennials so derisively described on 60 Minutes, but while I do want something that'll pay the bills and not leave me scrounging, I'm not at this point looking for a capital-C-Career. What I do needs not define who I am, and that's where teaching has screwed with my head--it became who I am against my consent. It's what academia demands, and unless I invest myself fully in the discipline and moreover believe that what I'm doing has worth and meaning, the payoff will be scant, both monetary and otherwise. If grad school taught me one thing, it was actually a valuable lesson before I invested in the blood, sweat, and tears of a Ph.D: I don't want to be a scholar of English. I love to read, and I love to write, but to spend so much time and energy in writing about what others have written strikes me as unfulfilling.
Where does that leave me? Staring at the crossroads once again. Unless I land a full-time job or a couple different part-time jobs, I'll continue to teach as an adjunct. I've requested fewer classes, and I'm starting to send out more applications. We'll see how it works out.
One of my coworkers has the following question posted on her Facebook profile:
What were you doing five years ago? What did you think you'd be doing? Where do you envision yourself in another five years?
Good question, I thought. Five years ago I was... I was... What was I doing five years ago, anyway? That was undergrad, right? Before I transferred, so community college. I was a student. Just a run-of-the-mill slacker/honor student. Didn't have a single blessed plan for the future. Beyond that, I still drew a blank; luckily, there are approximately five years of my life on teh interwebs. I logged into my oldest blog (I remember that password but forgot my login to pay my cell phone bill--what gives?) and skipped directly to November 2002. Here's what I found:
November 17:Oh, that post was good for a few chuckles when I re-read it. The melodrama and pretension--that was me, and those elements still flare up from time to time. I may prefer to complain rather than fix my problems, but by golly, I at least understand the underlying problems. I chose English largely for the fact that I could read books--lots of books, lots of obscure books, lots of classic books--books, books, and more books, all for college credit. Sweet deal, I thought. The future would come later, but there were faint whispers, never fully articulated to even myself, of being able to turn my experience around into publication of the literary variety.
For better or for worse, I'm an English major. My Respected Father (can you pinpoint my literary allusion?) is not too thrilled, but oh well. Y'know, I have almost no idea what I want to do with my life. I know darn well what others want me to do, but hardly any idea of my own ambitions. And I'll be a junior next semester--the real world encroacheth.
I wasn't planning on teaching, that was for sure. Can I see myself doing this for another five years? No. If I keep up at the pace I'm going now, I'll burn out. Frankly, I think I'm there already. I haven't had any of the panic attacks that punctuated grad school, but I'm just barely keeping my nose above water as far as grading goes.
Four classes a semester is just too much--too much grading, too much stress, too much personal investment that wears me down, too many meals skipped because I was so busy I forgot to eat, too many weekends that leave me choosing between socializing or doing what needs to be done (with either option leaving me dissatisfied, sarcastic, harshly judgmental, and generally unpleasant to be around), too many cups of coffee and too little sleep. Too much of everything across the board. I like my colleagues, who are among the most intelligent, quirky, and generous people I've met, and I like the few students who make it worthwhile, but most of the students just don't care. And that burns--to give and give, and get almost nothing in return. In that sense, it renders the other sacrifices meaningless and bitter.
So, where do I see myself in five years? Still no clue. The real world no longer encroaches; it's here. It won't go away, either, the pesky bugger. Maybe I am one of those la-la land dwelling milennials so derisively described on 60 Minutes, but while I do want something that'll pay the bills and not leave me scrounging, I'm not at this point looking for a capital-C-Career. What I do needs not define who I am, and that's where teaching has screwed with my head--it became who I am against my consent. It's what academia demands, and unless I invest myself fully in the discipline and moreover believe that what I'm doing has worth and meaning, the payoff will be scant, both monetary and otherwise. If grad school taught me one thing, it was actually a valuable lesson before I invested in the blood, sweat, and tears of a Ph.D: I don't want to be a scholar of English. I love to read, and I love to write, but to spend so much time and energy in writing about what others have written strikes me as unfulfilling.
Where does that leave me? Staring at the crossroads once again. Unless I land a full-time job or a couple different part-time jobs, I'll continue to teach as an adjunct. I've requested fewer classes, and I'm starting to send out more applications. We'll see how it works out.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
And now for a bit of whimsy
From the depths of my creative writing portfolio, I bring out this. . . er, gem of a poem. It's nearly five years old; I submitted it for workshop on November 26, 2002.
"Writer's block"
I feel my fingers itch with the urge,
The words are on my fingertips.
The thoughts come in a rushing surge--
And then they quit.
That's one of the few creative pieces that made it past my summertime, post-graduation manic cleaning streak. Here's what happened to the rest:
I feel my fingers itch with the urge,
The words are on my fingertips.
The thoughts come in a rushing surge--
And then they quit.
That's one of the few creative pieces that made it past my summertime, post-graduation manic cleaning streak. Here's what happened to the rest:
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The thing morning people don't "get" is this
Or; Why I am liable to snap off your head if you so much as rob me of 15 minutes of sleep, regardless of the interruption or the interrupter. I'll give you a hint: it's not personal.
Firstly, it is a matter of proportion. Do a little simple math. Fifteen minutes to someone who has had seven hours of sleep is a mere pittance; fifteen minutes cut out of a four-hour night of sleep is a significant chunk. It's true we choose to sleep at late hours, but it's largely a matter of productivity--my day may be in full swing by 9:00, but my productivity doesn't peak until after midnight. Therefore, if I am to accomplish in a timely matter what I need to do, a late night is the way to do it.
Moreover, though, it is a matter of principle. Daily, with each time we hit snooze, we are reminded of the fact that we have had to accommodate ourselves to a schedule foreign to our own inner clocks. But we do it. We do. We may hit snooze a couple more times than you disgusting Mary Poppins types, but in time, we do wake up. Five times a week, in most cases. Often, we are not ready to go with skips in our steps and songs in our throats. That's just too much to ask.
And in light of that inconvenience, if we prefer to take a semi-autonomous stand of when within the timeframe of what my ex-military aunt calls "zero dark thirty" we arise, let us. It's the only retribution we have in a world that asks us to be fully functional several hours before we reach our peak of productivity.
"I'll rise," says one of my favorite Garfield cartoons, "but I won't shine."
---
And on a different note, here's a Windows Vista paradox: Vista will ask for permission umpteen times to run a program that you specifically initiated with the intention of running, but will take it upon itself to reboot and install updates without being prompted or given permission and regardless of any documents you had running...
Firstly, it is a matter of proportion. Do a little simple math. Fifteen minutes to someone who has had seven hours of sleep is a mere pittance; fifteen minutes cut out of a four-hour night of sleep is a significant chunk. It's true we choose to sleep at late hours, but it's largely a matter of productivity--my day may be in full swing by 9:00, but my productivity doesn't peak until after midnight. Therefore, if I am to accomplish in a timely matter what I need to do, a late night is the way to do it.
Moreover, though, it is a matter of principle. Daily, with each time we hit snooze, we are reminded of the fact that we have had to accommodate ourselves to a schedule foreign to our own inner clocks. But we do it. We do. We may hit snooze a couple more times than you disgusting Mary Poppins types, but in time, we do wake up. Five times a week, in most cases. Often, we are not ready to go with skips in our steps and songs in our throats. That's just too much to ask.
And in light of that inconvenience, if we prefer to take a semi-autonomous stand of when within the timeframe of what my ex-military aunt calls "zero dark thirty" we arise, let us. It's the only retribution we have in a world that asks us to be fully functional several hours before we reach our peak of productivity.
"I'll rise," says one of my favorite Garfield cartoons, "but I won't shine."
---
And on a different note, here's a Windows Vista paradox: Vista will ask for permission umpteen times to run a program that you specifically initiated with the intention of running, but will take it upon itself to reboot and install updates without being prompted or given permission and regardless of any documents you had running...
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Talkin' 'bout my generation
A segment on 60 Minutes was one topic of debate on campus today, and it was just linked through Groupwise. I await their responses. As far as I'm concerned, it's just another entry in the ongoing tradition of hand-wringing and proclaiming that this generation is the worst ever. It's titled, simply, "Millennials."
Where on earth do I even begin with this? The first clip is about how self-centered they are, how lazy, how bright and multitasking many are, but also how difficult and unwilling to compromise in the workplace they are, how "absolutely incorrigible." After all, "they come first." They must be spoken to "a little bit like a therapist on television," buffered from any harsh words. Yes, the overuse of "they" is deliberate on my part.
Next clip? Partying in the workplace, parades through the office, nap rooms, motivational seminars, and happy hours complete with godawful and tacky karaoke. A couple 20-somethings talk about what we as a generation want. "We're not going to settle," and it's not bad to have four jobs per year on a resume [in what industry?!]. "We definitely put lifestyle and friends above work," they say [speak for yourselves, dudes]. Next up, a woman tells a cadre of young workers about how they need to wear underwear, and wear it under their clothing, and by the way, talking about their sex lives in the workplace is off-topic. Her tone is rather like what one would use to address elementary students, bubbling with enthusiasm and softening any mild criticism she has.
It gets worse, blaming Mr. Rogers for the "narcissistic" kids in the workplace, how parents then used that to say how kids are special without having expectations of achievement. It's a "coddling virus," complete with examples of the "I deserve an A because I paid for it" mentality, and how sometimes kids'll bring in mommy to settle a grad dispute, and some even bring their parents to job interviews, and the companies are fine with that; nay, they welcome it! Goodness, but we're going to hell in a handbasket.
I'd go on, but I'd start frothing at the mouth if I did. What I want to know is how hard they had to search for all this. How mainstream is the tendency? Some of the behavior they describe is appalling--yet these people still land what appear to be cushy jobs. How? And if it's that appalling, if they're that "incorrigible," how do they keep their jobs? I hate to point fingers here, but if parents and companies are willing to put up with such histrionics, they deserve every bit of the entitlement attitude they get. And it won't get any better. And then they can continue to lament the decline of the American youth. Seems pretty self-serving.
They have a grain of truth to their pronouncements. Sure, my students can be whiny. Sure they seem startled to learn that their grades actually reflect the fact that they didn't complete two essays and are even more startled to learn that my "do-over" policy is stringent. Sure they're lazy, and sure they'd love it if I brought in all sorts of fancy gimmicky stuff to counteract the tedium of actually taking classes. I don't, and most of them learn to deal with that.
They learn. They do. Eventually, and I'll bet it often comes before the age of 26 (the age designated as the onset of adulthood in the clips). And they learn not from coddling, but from taking a few knocks. Some drop out of school and come back a couple years wiser and ready to make a go of it. Sometimes the glare of an impending F wakes them up. They stand no long-term benefit from countless do-overs and exemptions and words of encouragement when what they really need is the straightforward truth. The workforce, at least the one I'm acquainted with, does not function like the one on 60 Minutes.
I sound like an old curmudgeon there, don't I? Well, I've been told I'm really a 40-something at heart. The truth is, though, I belong to this generation of narcissists and folks who expect to both waltz into the boardroom in ratty jeans and set the stakes for employment. My mommy and daddy told me I was special, oh so special, just like a snowflake, and I would do great things no matter how little effort I put in. *snort* Yeah. That was why they hounded me about grades and were--not so much angry, god, it was worse--disappointed when I didn't, and they let me know it, not always in soothing, therapeutic tones. When I got to college, I never would have dreamed of asking them to intervene in a grade matter. I also went to my job interviews alone. Maybe it's different in the corporate world, but I've never expected to be buddies with my boss or department chair or dean; all I ask for is a decent working relationship and the knowledge that they'd have my back in a plagiarism case. Leave that touchy-feely New Age-y crap for support groups.
I was raised in a pretty solid middle class, Middle American childhood, born in the '80s, raised in the '90s, just like those folks they're talking about in that news magazine segment. But that generation, at least the one they described, seems alien to me. If that's the future, it's ugly, and maybe just a bit unrealistic and alarmist.
Where on earth do I even begin with this? The first clip is about how self-centered they are, how lazy, how bright and multitasking many are, but also how difficult and unwilling to compromise in the workplace they are, how "absolutely incorrigible." After all, "they come first." They must be spoken to "a little bit like a therapist on television," buffered from any harsh words. Yes, the overuse of "they" is deliberate on my part.
Next clip? Partying in the workplace, parades through the office, nap rooms, motivational seminars, and happy hours complete with godawful and tacky karaoke. A couple 20-somethings talk about what we as a generation want. "We're not going to settle," and it's not bad to have four jobs per year on a resume [in what industry?!]. "We definitely put lifestyle and friends above work," they say [speak for yourselves, dudes]. Next up, a woman tells a cadre of young workers about how they need to wear underwear, and wear it under their clothing, and by the way, talking about their sex lives in the workplace is off-topic. Her tone is rather like what one would use to address elementary students, bubbling with enthusiasm and softening any mild criticism she has.
It gets worse, blaming Mr. Rogers for the "narcissistic" kids in the workplace, how parents then used that to say how kids are special without having expectations of achievement. It's a "coddling virus," complete with examples of the "I deserve an A because I paid for it" mentality, and how sometimes kids'll bring in mommy to settle a grad dispute, and some even bring their parents to job interviews, and the companies are fine with that; nay, they welcome it! Goodness, but we're going to hell in a handbasket.
I'd go on, but I'd start frothing at the mouth if I did. What I want to know is how hard they had to search for all this. How mainstream is the tendency? Some of the behavior they describe is appalling--yet these people still land what appear to be cushy jobs. How? And if it's that appalling, if they're that "incorrigible," how do they keep their jobs? I hate to point fingers here, but if parents and companies are willing to put up with such histrionics, they deserve every bit of the entitlement attitude they get. And it won't get any better. And then they can continue to lament the decline of the American youth. Seems pretty self-serving.
They have a grain of truth to their pronouncements. Sure, my students can be whiny. Sure they seem startled to learn that their grades actually reflect the fact that they didn't complete two essays and are even more startled to learn that my "do-over" policy is stringent. Sure they're lazy, and sure they'd love it if I brought in all sorts of fancy gimmicky stuff to counteract the tedium of actually taking classes. I don't, and most of them learn to deal with that.
They learn. They do. Eventually, and I'll bet it often comes before the age of 26 (the age designated as the onset of adulthood in the clips). And they learn not from coddling, but from taking a few knocks. Some drop out of school and come back a couple years wiser and ready to make a go of it. Sometimes the glare of an impending F wakes them up. They stand no long-term benefit from countless do-overs and exemptions and words of encouragement when what they really need is the straightforward truth. The workforce, at least the one I'm acquainted with, does not function like the one on 60 Minutes.
I sound like an old curmudgeon there, don't I? Well, I've been told I'm really a 40-something at heart. The truth is, though, I belong to this generation of narcissists and folks who expect to both waltz into the boardroom in ratty jeans and set the stakes for employment. My mommy and daddy told me I was special, oh so special, just like a snowflake, and I would do great things no matter how little effort I put in. *snort* Yeah. That was why they hounded me about grades and were--not so much angry, god, it was worse--disappointed when I didn't, and they let me know it, not always in soothing, therapeutic tones. When I got to college, I never would have dreamed of asking them to intervene in a grade matter. I also went to my job interviews alone. Maybe it's different in the corporate world, but I've never expected to be buddies with my boss or department chair or dean; all I ask for is a decent working relationship and the knowledge that they'd have my back in a plagiarism case. Leave that touchy-feely New Age-y crap for support groups.
I was raised in a pretty solid middle class, Middle American childhood, born in the '80s, raised in the '90s, just like those folks they're talking about in that news magazine segment. But that generation, at least the one they described, seems alien to me. If that's the future, it's ugly, and maybe just a bit unrealistic and alarmist.
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