Interesting comment thread on 19-year-old college student/entrepreneur Ben Casnocha's blog post about not wanting kids. I would say I share his view--having children has never been a life goal of mine. Parenting requires sacrifices that I'm not sure I'd be willing to make, a true giving up of the self, if you're a good parent. But then again, never say never.

Merit-based pay for teachers?

This TIME cover story by Claudia Wallis looks at performance-based pay for teachers:

Before ProComp, Betz had reached the top of the district's pay scale at $53,500 and, despite high marks from her bosses, was looking at nothing more than an annual cost-of-living raise (currently $260) for the rest of her career. "I've worked in hard-to-serve schools my entire career," says Betz. "I make home visits. I make phone calls. I'm looking at ProComp as compensation for the things that are above and beyond." Betz didn't expect performance pay to change anything about how she does her job but says it has made her even more driven. "Now I refuse to let kids fail," she says. "I'm going to bulldoze whatever the problem is and solve it." The bonus money is simply a just reward. "I'm not a money grubber. Most teachers aren't. But people in other professions get raises," she says. "Why shouldn't we?"
_________________________________________

It's a good goal for an entire nation in need of better-quality teaching. As U.S. school districts embark on hundreds of separate experiments involving merit pay, some lessons seem clear. If the country wants to pay teachers like professionals—according to their performance, rather than like factory workers logging time on the job—it has to provide them with other professional opportunities, like the chance to grow in the job, learn from the best of their peers, show leadership and have a voice in decision-making, including how their work is judged. Making such changes would require a serious investment by school districts and their taxpayers. But it would reinvigorate a noble profession.

This seems like a good idea to me, if done well. "Like factory workers logging time on the job"--I think that describes pretty well the current state of how America treats teachers. Which is sad, considering that teaching actually takes a lot of time and effort to master. According to the article, "It takes at least two years to master the basics of classroom management and six to seven years to become a fully proficient teacher."

Also interesting is the sidebar article describing the teaching profession in other countries.

All teacher candidates in Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands, for example, receive two to three years of graduate-level preparation for teaching, at government expense, plus a living stipend. Unlike the U.S., where teachers either go into debt to prepare for a profession that will pay them poorly or enter with little or no training, these countries made the decision to invest in a uniformly well-prepared teaching force by recruiting top candidates and paying them while they receive extensive training.

- The weather today is cold, cloudy, and windy. Yuck, something to further deepen my already bad mood. Then I got to my office and my co-worker started singing quotes from the "Marge vs. the Monorail" episode of The Simpsons, which forced me to laugh.
- It's decided: I'm going to New York City next month. Anyone have any ideas on what to do there? I've got the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, museums, etc., of course, but any ideas on some more out-of-the-way places?

Celebrating the Semicolon. I like semicolons.

Our house/Is a very, very, very fine house

A little over a month ago my mom came home on a Sunday afternoon and said, "Guess what?"
"What?" I said, although I knew what the answer might be, given her big, mischievous smile.
"I bought a house!!" I knew she had been looking for houses, but I didn't know it would be this soon that she would find one that she liked, much less buy it, all in one day.

It has been a little over a month since that bomb was dropped. Things have happened fast, and as of this weekend my mom and sister and I are moved into the new house. It's a great house, really, a brand-new house on the "fancy pants" Westside of town. Moving back to the Westside from the Northeast part of town had been a lingering idea ever since we moved out to the Northeast three years ago to be closer to Mom's work. It's something my family talked about constantly. We missed our friends and our church and the neighborhoods we grew up in, as well as the perks that go with living in a nicer part of town. Not that the Northeast is so horrible, but, well, it is a little dingier than the Westside. A dollar store on every corner. Huge potholes in the Albertson's parking lot near our house. Homeless veterans wandering the streets. One Starbucks, when the Westside has three. The Northeast has about four decent restaurants, one of which is Chili's, and another of which is Applebee's. The Westside, on the other hand, has a huge number of really great restaurants: Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Southwest, breakfast, ice cream, etc., etc. Yum.

You'd think I'd be jumping up and down to be moving back, but I wasn't. It's funny how once Mom announced that we'd be moving back, I just wasn't that enthused. Maybe it was that the task of moving seemed arduous to me, but I think I had also gotten used to the Northeast and its little quirks. I grew to appreciate its more working-class nature. I also liked how it wasn't as congested as the Westside. I liked being near the baseball stadium and being able to walk up the side of the mountain whenever I felt like it. I guess it was always in my mind that I'd leave the Northeast eventually, but when the day actually came and I was finally going back to the Westside, I just felt sad and like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I did spend two and a half years of my life at that house. I had gotten used to the commute, gotten used to the Wal-Mart and the library branch, gotten used to coming home at night and seeing the church across the street from the house lit up at my return.

Maybe more central to my surprising discontent is that I thought that the next time I'd move would be the time that I moved into my own house. "When I have my own place..." is something I've thought about quite a few times. My house will be Downtown. My house will be warm. My house will have terra cotta tile. My house will have character. It'll be just like Friends! Sure, this is a sparkly, new, beautiful house, a sun-filled house with tan walls and new appliances, but it's not mine. I'm back on the Westside, but not on my own terms.

Boo hoo, I know I should count my blessings and not complain about things. I know the day will come soon when I'll be all grown up and out on my own and most likely living in much poorer conditions. What's a house, anyway? I'm still me, Mom's still Mom, the dog's still the dog. The more I move from house to house, the more I realize how arbitrary a house is. Like a hermit crab, it seems I can get used to living anywhere, given enough time.

I hate Valentine's Day. Actually, I think I hate the whole month of February.

I was there. Still don't know whom I'm going to vote for, though.

Woo hoo, the UTEP women's basketball team is in the AP Top 25 poll. They sure played an awesome game against East Carolina on Sunday, a game that was televised nationally on ESPN2.

Exhibits

There are a couple of interesting exhibits are now at the Centennial Museum (which I visited today)--Bracero Memories and the Border Film Project, both of which you can read about here.

For those who don't know, the bracero program was a guest worker program that brought Mexican workers to the United States from 1942-64. Some photos from the bracero exhibit can be viewed here. It's a nicely put-together exhibit about a program that I think is often overlooked in America's history. My grandfather once employed braceros on his farm, and my dad told me he used to hang around with them as they worked the fields. It was interesting to put a visual to some of the things my dad has told me about.

The Border Film Project is a project by a group in Arizona that put disposable cameras in the hands of both Minutemen (volunteer border patrol groups) and Mexican migrants. They provided address labels and mailers so that the cameras could be returned to them anonymously. The photos in the exhibit are not the most artful, as they are obviously not professional quality, yet you do get a good idea of the culture of both groups. It's an interesting contrast, the white (mostly) guys sitting in their trucks watching for migrants, and the migrants walking through the desert, water bottles in hand, or sometimes in hotel rooms or on buses. Predator and prey, I guess you could say.

If you're in El Paso, these are worth a visit to UTEP to see. I was very pleased to see both of these exhibits, since I think both are such great fits for a border city museum.

- It's a little past seven and I'm waiting for a pizza for dinner. Pizza for dinner, generally not a good thing.
- I'm torn: Clinton or Obama?
- Today I taught my students how to use colons properly. Is that really so useful? I think it is just a huge pet peeve of mine when people use colons wrong, i.e. "The primary colors are: red, yellow, and blue." Aagh. That makes me crazy.

Candy fix

From last night's pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Even the cardboard underneath the PB cups now has advertising. I thought it was cute, though.

My so-called blog post

I forgot that I had added "My So-Called Life" to my Netflix queue. I've already seen most of the episodes, but OK, I admit I watched them all the episodes on Disc 1 again anyway and enjoyed every second of Angela Chase and her rebellious ways yet surprisingly thoughtful voice-over remarks. Actually, when I first saw the series I was 13 or 14 and thought Angela was stupid to hang out with losers and that she should just listen to her parents and maybe she wouldn't be so tormented about things. No, Angela wasn't who I related to. Brian, now, there was a character I could relate to. Nerdy. Loner-ish. Didn't break the rules.

Ah, the teenage years. We sure did a lot of sitting around and standing around in those days. Sitting in class, waiting for time to pass by until you could finally go home. Standing in the hall, talking with your friends (or so-called friends). I say this because it seems like every other scene involves one of the former, and unfortunately, I think it's all too true of how high school really is.

Ironically, I relate more to Angela Chase's adolescent angst now at 25 than I did at 14. Call me a late bloomer, but now I get why someone would want to dye her hair bright red. I get why you'd want to do something exciting just to feel alive, even if it's stupid. I've had a few Jordan Catalano-scale crushes in my life. No, I will not elaborate. But I guess the point is that I still relate to the adolescent experience, even though I am quite a few years past the age for it now. Does some of the teenager remain inside a person, no matter how old he or she gets? I think so.

Advice/lyrics from Boston

Take a look ahead, take a look ahead, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...

Now everybody's got advice they just keep on givin'
Doesn't mean too much to me
Lot's of people out to make-believe they're livin'
Can't decide who they should be.

I understand about indecision
But I don't care if I get behind
People livin' in competition
All I want is to have my peace of mind.

Take a look ahead, take a look ahead. Look ahead.

"Peace of Mind" by Boston

So yesterday I'm sitting at Starbucks talking with some friends. I'm nervously fiddling with the remnants of an iced mocha (caffeine always makes me nervous). Suddenly I drop the container. It lands on its plastic dome-shaped lid. Darn. Luckily only a few drops of coffee get on my sweater and pants. Good thing, since the pants are light tan-colored. And no one I was sitting with got splashed with coffee, thank God. I was lucky. But I guess the most remarkable thing is how I didn't freak out. I saw that there wasn't too much of a mess, said "sorry," picked up the plastic container, sopped up the coffee drops with a napkin, and threw the container away. Then I sat down and kept talking. I don't get super-embarrassed when I occasionally drop things. Sign of maturity?

In Ireland, you have to pay a 33-cent tax for every plastic bag you use. "Within weeks [of the law's passage], plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog." via New York Times

Home from class. It's 9:17 and I'm tired. It feels so late to me, yet six months ago it was normal for me to be at work right now. It's strange what you get used to. I don't miss working at night much. Yet if I had to get used to it again, I think I could.

It's a sign of a good class when you feel stupid sitting there listening to the professor and everyone seems smarter than you. Wha-a-a-at? But feeling that challenge reminds me why I signed up for grad school in the first place. Food for the mind. I'm glad I'm where I am and not working some mind-numbing job.

Caroline Kennedy supports Barack Obama for president:
"I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved."

The New York Times "strongly recommends" Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic presidential nominee: "Hearing her talk about the presidency, her policies and answers for America’s big problems, we are hugely impressed by the depth of her knowledge, by the force of her intellect and by the breadth of, yes, her experience...The next president needs to start immediately on challenges that will require concrete solutions, resolve, and the ability to make government work. Mrs. Clinton is more qualified, right now, to be president."

Pictures

Finally, a picture of the Sun Bowl game. It was a gorgeous day. I took about ten pictures and they all came out looking roughly the same as this one. Blame it on my crappy disposable camera.




Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia. My Chia head.




The sunset.

Once lived up to the hype. Sweet story, not a cliche in sight, with great music. Very nice.

Did the following today:
- Laundry
- Took not one, but two naps
- Read articles about postmodernism by Lyotard and Habermas. Interesting enough, but I thought both used overly difficult language to communicate relatively simple ideas. Is it a rule that philosophers have to make ideas hard to understand even when they're not?

Cellphone novels are the rage in Japan. Weird.

This morning I had a chai tea and a croissant for breakfast. Very international compared to my usual bowl of shredded wheat with milk.

I'm exhausted. I'm not used to waking up early, and teaching can be stressful, remember?

More in this space when I actually have something interesting to say.

Day 3 of school. Reading about postmodernism is warping my mind, and I don't really like night classes, but other than that I think I'm holding up remarkably well, sleepwise and freetime-wise. Of course, this is just the beginning; ask me how I'm doing in a month, probably a whole different story...

Cookie meltdown

Besides watching the aforementioned movie, on Saturday I also tried baking some oatmeal raisin cookies. My sister made dozens of these cookies for the Christmas holiday, all of which came out looking perfect and tasting delicious. I figured it would be easy--just follow the same recipe, right? So I got out all the ingredients, mixed together the batter, started dropping the dough...but somehow the lumps looked a little bit liquidy. I figured they were supposed to look like that, I just didn't know it, and they would come out looking like they were supposed to. Wrong. The cookies ended up melting together in two cookie sheets worth of oatmeal-raisin goodness. They came out looking like a hybrid of granola and peanut brittle. Cookie meltdown.

I called over my sister, aka, the Cookie Master, keeper of what my family calls Cookie Magic, to make a diagnosis. "Are you missing an ingredient?" she said. "No," I said. I had put in everything called for on the recipe: sugar, vanilla, eggs, oatmeal, flour... Then I looked a the recipe a little more closely. 1-1/2 cups of flour. One and a half cups of flour. I had misread it, thinking it was 1-1 1/2 cups of flour, so had only put in one cup. *slaps forehead* DUH. A simple but crucial mistake, proving my sister's diagnosis correct. I think I'm done with baking for awhile, as it seems like I can't handle baking anything where I have to add more than two ingredients...

So last night I watched Zodiac. Maybe this is not the best movie to watch before going to bed (couldn't fall asleep thinking about it), but I thought it was really well-done. The dramatizations of the "Zodiac killer" crimes are very scary, but in the end the investigation of the crime, with its many twists, turns, and dead ends, ends up taking center stage and being just as fascinating. I liked how the filmmakers decided not to sensationalize the details of the crimes. The movie is chilling and suspenseful enough without embellishing the details too much. Highly recommended.

More random lyrics: Fifty Years After the Fair

Fifty Years After the Fair by Aimee Mann
Fifty years after the fair
the picture I have is so clear
underneath the clouds in the air
rose the Trylon and the Perisphere
and that for me was the finest of scenes
that perfect world across the river in Queens

Fifty years after the fair
I drink from a different cup
but it does no good to compare
'cause nothing ever measures up
I guess just for a second we thought
that all good things would rise to the top

But how beautiful it was - 'tomorrow'
we'll never have a day of sorrow
we got through the '30's, but our belts were tight
we conceived of a future with no hope in sight
we've got decades ahead of us to get it right
I swear - fifty years after the fair

Fifty years after the fair
I live in tomorrow town
even on a wing and a prayer
the future never came around
It hurts to even think of those days
the damage we do by the hopes that we raise

But how beautiful it was - 'tomorrow'
we'll never have a day of sorrow
we got through the '30's, but our belts were tight
we conceived of a future with no hope in sight
we've got decades ahead of us to get it right
I swear - fifty years after the fair

I kinda like this random song lyric thing.
Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve
'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Try to make ends meet
You're a slave to money then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know the one that takes you
to the places where all the things meet yeah

No change, I can't change I can't change, I can't change
But I'm here in my mold, I am here in my mold
But I'm a million different people from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no

...

The weather was so nice today (in January!) that I was inspired to wash my car. As I was scrubbing, I noticed that there's a large scratch on the front hood, the side stripe is peeling off, and that there's a large spot where the paint has faded to gray on the trunk. The front bumper is spray-painted a different color blue from the rest of the car (don't ask), and there are tiny dark spots where the paint has chipped off all over the car. Maybe these are relatively minor things, but I still think I'd be pretty embarrassed if the lady I bought the car from two years ago saw the car today. She kept the car in immaculate condition. She kept a car cover over it when she wasn't driving it. The inside upholstery of the car was perfect (one thing I've actually done a good job of maintaining), and I'll never forget when she popped open the hood of the car and I saw that it was spotless. She cleaned under the hood of the car. Whoa. I wish I was that dedicated to keeping my car looking nice. Alas, I think my car spends far too many hours under the blazing sun in the UTEP parking lot.

Last night I finally finished putting together my syllabi for the upcoming semester. I'm teaching two classes. Dare I say that I'm excited for the semester to start? I'm infinitely more sure of what I'm doing this time around. Funny how teaching is a learning experience.

Random song lyric of the day:
Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House
....

Now I'm towing my car, there's a hole in the roof
My possessions are causing me suspicion but there's no proof
In the paper today tales of war and of waste
But you turn right over to the T.V. page

Now I'm walking again to the beat of a drum
And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart
Only shadows ahead barely clearing the roof
Get to know the feeling of liberation and relief

Hey now, hey now
Don't dream it's over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
Don't ever let them win

My very adorable dog Bootsie

Today was the last day to pay tuition. I drove down to UTEP and the line to pay was nearly out the door. Thank God for the web, though--I got on the Internet and paid via webCheck and it took five minutes. It probably would have taken me at least an hour to get through that line. This is my second-to-last time paying tuition. Thank God for that, too.

As I'm typing this, I'm trying to eat the remnants of a bag of cotton candy I bought for a dollar yesterday. Not recommended.

I don't think I'll try running another poll for awhile. One person voted in my poll last time. A big thank you to that one non-resolution-making person, though.

Book review: The Last American Man

Reading like a tall tale with a large amount of psychoanalysis thrown in, The Last American Man (2002) is a fascinating profile of Eustace Conway, a man who creates a back-to-nature life light-years away from modern American society. A present-day Davy Crockett, Conway's life is closer to that of a 19th-century Native American than to that of a person born into late 2oth-century suburban America. Smart, funny, and wise author Elizabeth Gilbert (who also wrote 2006's Eat, Pray, Love) paints a picture of a man who is so frighteningly accomplished the reader is sometimes left wondering if he's real--long-distance hikes with bare-bones materials, record-setting horse rides, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world, and success in real estate. The details of his rugged lifestyle are often jaw-dropping and illustrate just how different today's world is from the world of our ancestors.


Gilbert chooses a mostly light, humorous touch for the material in The Last American Man rather than entering the dark intensity of survivalist books like Into the Wild. The author delves into how Conway fits into conceptions of American manhood and compares him favorably with past pioneer heroes such as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. Throughout the book, Gilbert holds up Conway as an American icon, with many Americans saying they desire a life like his, but very few actually attaining any semblance of it. She also spends a good amount of time exploring Conway's trouble with relationships, finding some answers in his family background. Gilbert never hides the fact that she is writing this book about a friend, and I think her relationship with the subject adds to her ability to create this insightful portrait.


I enjoyed reading this book for what it says about America today, illustrating the conflict between our secret desires and reality. It allows the reader to visualize just what would happen if he or she dropped out of society and went to live in the woods, the way it sometimes seems tempting to do after a frustrating day of work. While Conway's extremism may be off-putting, I think most would agree that getting back to nature would do Americans a world of good. However, also implied in the book is that perhaps there is also something to be said for the "soft" relationship skills that have been free to develop along with modernization. Conway is a most deserving subject of a book, and Gilbert does a superb job of describing both his life and the cultural and psychological issues at play in it.

So the Tonight Show returned last night. Yay, though it wasn't quite as funny as usual. This guy even live blogged it. Wish I would have thought to do that.

Today I bought $100 worth of dress pants in preparation for the new semester. That's one thing I'll miss about being on vacation: wearing jeans every day. Ironing is not my favorite activity.

It was cold and cloudy today, exactly the type of day that makes me hate winter. The holidays are over. The days of idleness and constant blog posts about my random doings are fast coming to an end. Sad, I know.

End of the year

Some years I'd never want to live through again. 2007 wasn't one of those. I wouldn't mind living through it all again. Some damn good things happened in my life this year. What if 2008 turns out to be a dud?

I did end up going to the Sun Bowl game on the final day of the year. The weather was unbelievably warm, and Baby Bash performed at half-time. The second half turned out to be a disappointment. I was sitting next to some South Florida fans who left at the end of the third quarter. I don't blame them. I took some pictures of the game, which I'll probably be posting soon.

As for tonight, my invitation to a wild New Year's party got lost in the mail, so I'm probably going to change into my pajamas around 11 and watch the crystal ball drop and then go to bed. Geez, I am a boring person sometimes.

As an end to this post of randomness, this is a pretty cool CD.

New poll on the sidebar.

Resolutions

Here's how I did on last year's:

• Eat less junk food - Not so much
• Exercise more - Pretty much stayed constant, not more or less than last year
• Practice piano more often - Nope, practiced less than last year
• Write something cool - Two magazine articles, woo hoo
• Be more observant - Nope, still a big unobservant dork about a lot of things
• Read at least one great novel - East of Eden
• Do more outdoors things - Unfortunately not
• Make a career plan - *sighs* No
• Learn Spanish - Does Italian count?

Two out of nine, not a great track record. Nevertheless, here's my set of resolutions for 2008:

• Stop using emoticons
• Eat spicy food more often
• Stop using the words "you know" as nervous conversation-filler
• Travel to a foreign country
• Read another "great" book
• Read a newspaper every day
• Decide on a career (for real this time)
• Pray more
• Eat healthier food
• Finish school
• Do something totally unexpected

Copy from products that I received as Christmas gifts

From a registration card that came with my Chia Pet Cuddly (a stuffed animal that looks like a Chia Pet)
In the interest of continuing research and development to improve our products, we would appreciate your taking a few minutes to answer the following questions.

5. If received as a gift, why did the giver chose a Chia Pet for you? (check all that apply)
I wanted a Chia Pet Cuddly
I like Chia Pets
I like stuffed animals
I like the animal this cuddly is

7. Please indicate which attributes of this Chia Pet Cuddly appeal to you
It is soft and cuddly
It sings the Chia song
It is like a Chia Pet, only softer
It is a nice size
It is cute
I like the the carrying case

The very existence of a registration card for a Chia Pet Cuddly is just hilarious to me.


Copy on the back of my new hairbrush, brand-name So Gelous (named for its plastic-gel handle)
Get ready to create a new you that others will envy with So Gelous Hot Round Straightening & Curling Brush. Great for creating curl or straightening hair, simply by using direct heat from a blow-dryer. It features Ion Infused bristles to minimize fly-away hair and an open vented pattern that makes blow-drying wet or dry hair easy, manageable and fast. Make your hair shiny, glossy, and most of all frizz free!

Yes! Frizz is indeed my enemy.


English-language translation of some Italian-language copy on the back of a tube of Mimosa Moisturizing Bath & Shower Cream (from an Italian company called Elaria)
Little velvety spheres of gold, emerge between the thin green leaves, gently vibrating to the breath of the first spring breezes. It is the Mimosa that whispers a sweet song and colors the landscape with brushstrokes of light and happiness. With its strong, supple branches and fleeting clusters of flowers, it evokes an intriguing and elusive woman, rich in inner strength. The essence of Mimosa is one of the world's most ancient perfumes and with its warm and joyful notes, it strokes the skin like a delicate ray of sun...

"Evokes an intriguing and elusive woman, rich in inner strength." A mysterious woman with values--nice concept, but it might be a lot to ask of a shower gel.

I can't believe that people are actually paid to write this stuff.

TIME magazine chooses Vladimir Putin as its Person of the Year. Writes managing editor Richard Stengel (ever so eloquently, I might add):

TIME's Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest. At its best, it is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world—for better or for worse. It is ultimately about leadership—bold, earth-changing leadership. Putin is not a boy scout. He is not a democrat in any way that the West would define it. He is not a paragon of free speech. He stands, above all, for stability—stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for a hundred years. Whether he becomes more like the man for whom his grandfather prepared blinis—who himself was twice TIME's Person of the Year—or like Peter the Great, the historical figure he most admires; whether he proves to be a reformer or an autocrat who takes Russia back to an era of repression—this we will know only over the next decade. At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power. For that reason, Vladimir Putin is TIME's 2007 Person of the Year.

Winter vacation/Christmas

So it's great to be out of school, finally. Isn't it? I think it's great for the first week or so, as you rediscover the joys of sleeping late and watching movies during the afternoon. Then I'm like, OK, what now? I then become excessively aware of chores that need to be done, like cleaning the bathroom and washing the car, things I've neglected in the past month or so. Also, I remind myself of some schoolwork that needs to be completed over the break, tragic as that may sound. And a blog post or two may be in order, now that I have the time.

Tonight I helped my sister bake Christmas cookies. There's one Christmas tradition worth holding on to--pecan puffs, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, and mini-muffins. Wow. I once heard someone say, "The best part of Christmas is the food." Well, I'm not exactly sure it's the best part, but surely one of the best. As I'm typing this, I'm surrounded by pretty Christmas decorations, courtesy of my mom. There's a beautiful Christmas tree in the living room in front of the window, garland above the fireplace, candles, red ribbons, and white Christmas lights. It's all very nice. Somehow it's very comforting, like a reminder that everything's going to be all right. There will be a time to be crazy busy again, but for now it's good to just be still and relaxed and grateful for what I have.

Speaking of Top 10 lists, there's a whole slew of them over on TIME.com. Check out the Top 10 underreported stories, books (nonfiction and fiction), breakups, buzzwords ("bacn" is a cool one), and quotes.

Chalk finally popped up on my Netflix queue, a few months after La Brown Girl recommended it. This is the funniest movie I've seen in a while, especially after my first semester teaching. I think it's also an interesting commentary on why so many new teachers quit during their first years of teaching (50 percent quit within the first three years, according to the film). If you like The Office-style mockumentary, you will love this movie.

Top 10 favorite lists, 2007

In keeping with the annual tradition I started last year, here are my Top 10 favorite lists for 2007. No, not all these works were released this year, but I did view or read them all this year. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

Books
Once again, the "classics" took a backseat to current and/or more lightweight stuff. I think I managed to read some interesting books this year, though.
Americanos (photo book) by Edward James Olmos, et al. - Lovely photos
The Assault on Reason by Al Gore - Al Gore = my hero
A Mighty Heart by Marianne Pearl - Great
C.S. Lewis by A.N. Wilson - Amazingly interesting bio of the writer
East of Eden by John Steinbeck - A true classic
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert - I joined every Oprah-watching, book-reading woman in America in reading this book this year.
Harry Potter, Books 5-7 - Got swept up in Potter mania this summer.
Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner - Love anything by her
Love Monkey by Kyle Smith/About a Boy by Nick Hornby/High Fidelity by Nick Hornby/ (in order of how much I enjoyed them) -Aren't these all the same book? I think I've read enough about the male mind. Not encouraging.
The Meaning of Wife by Anne Kingston - Fascinating study of women's gender roles

Movies
Action movies are clearly not my cup of tea.
Becoming Jane
Knocked Up - Funny and true-to-life; love when they find Paul Rudd at the baseball club
The Lives of Others - Excellent
The Lookout
Marie Antoinette - Pretty to look at and surprisingly poignant
Michael Clayton
The Queen
Ratatouille - So cute
Russian Dolls
Waitress
Classics: The Commitments, Fandango, Ghost World, Labyrinth - Rent these!

Music
This is the most current of the music I listened to this year, amid the oceans of classic rock. I never thought I'd like any song by Fergie, but I have been proved wrong.
"Apologize" by Timbaland - Check out the video
Augustana (in concert) - Ah, "Boston."
"Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie
"I've Got a Feeling" by Ivy - As heard on "Felicity"
Self-titled album by Corinne Bailey Rae
Shiny Toy Guns (in concert)
"The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani
"Sweetest Girl" by Wyclef Jean - Lyrics questionable, but I like the chorus.
Two fantastic older pop albums:
Everything's Different Now by Til Tuesday
Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too by the New Radicals
Eternal classic:
Chopin: Favorite Works interpreted by Vladimir Ashkenazy - Probably the thing I listened to most this year. Good music for reading or doing homework.

TV
Lousy year for TV. Writer's strike and who has time, anyway? Oh well, there were a few things...
The Daily Show
Europe with Samantha Brown - Ooh, Europe.
Grey's Anatomy - Entertaining, if nothing else.
Mad Men - This is cheating, since I only watched half of two episodes. But the attempt to recreate the (non-PC) attitudes of the 1960s seemed pretty daring.
Mythbusters
The Office
Planet Earth - Whoa.
Prime Suspect on DVD - So hooked on this series; Helen Mirren is amazing.
Real Time with Bill Maher
Top Chef

Interesting article about attempting to recruit El Paso expatriates back to the city. Check out this survey if you are an ex-El Pasoan.

My lunch on Thursday inspired the new poll on the sidebar.

My first (and possibly only) Christmas card of '07

Thanks, Stu!

I miss The Tonight Show. Stupid writers' strike. Can't they just work it out already?

Actually, I think I'm about 20 percent more productive now that it's all reruns.

Snow pictures

As promised, pictures of the snow on Thanksgiving weekend:

"Deleting your Facebook is the new Facebook." LOL

Ever wonder what the lyrics to "In the Air Tonight" mean?

A great moment

Yay, I think I finally finished the paper I have been working on since the beginning of the semester. I am strangely satisfied with these 17 pages. Now I have to make peace with the fact that only one person besides myself is going to read it...

I'm a guest blogger!

My contribution to Stu's Review 2007 is up today over on feeling listless. Since the theme for this year's review is "Home," the post is about El Paso. It's the first time I've ever really written about this city in much detail. It was surprisingly emotional for me to write, since this city is so much a part of who I am. Anyway, go read it and see what you think.

It's a rainy Saturday morning. Did I mention that I hate this weather? I have yet to find a good way to deal with the winter months. Hibernation would be ideal.

Last night I watched The Lives of Others. It's a great movie, though very different from what I thought it would be. More romantic, less political, I guess. I took German in high school so I could understand about 10 percent of it without reading the subtitles.

- I'm busy. Again.
- The cold is starting to lessen up, so thank God for that.
- I like holding conferences with students better than I like teaching in front of the whole class. Do most teachers feel that way?
- I had forgotten how good oatmeal cookies can be. Ooh, yummy...

- Is it a bad sign when you wake up to the song "Don't Fear the Reaper"?
- I got in the car this morning to find the gas gauge on empty. I drove the car all over town yesterday and didn't notice at all. Scary. I was afraid to be late and so wasn't planning to fill up on the way to school, until I was driving and noticed the needle dip down to the black region below empty. How many miles can you drive a car when it gets to that point? That might be an interesting experiment for Mythbusters. Not for me on a Monday morning, though. I finally stopped at a gas station. $43! but that's another story. I've never run out of gas before. That would have been embarrassing.

The NY Times explains the high cost of health care in America:

Almost all economists would agree that the main driver of high medical
spending here is our wealth. We are richer than other countries and so willing
to spend more. But authoritative analyses have found that we spend well above
what mere wealth would predict.

This is mostly because we pay hospitals and doctors more than most other
countries do. We rely more on costly specialists, who overuse advanced
technologies, like CT scans and M.R.I. machines, and who resort to costly
surgical or medical procedures a lot more than doctors in other countries do.
Perverse insurance incentives entice doctors and patients to use expensive
medical services more than is warranted. And our fragmented array of insurers
and providers eats up a lot of money in administrative costs, marketing expenses
and profits that do not afflict government-run systems abroad.

The editorial goes on to give some surprisingly nuanced solutions for changing the health-care system based on actual research. Imagine that. I still think a single-payer system is the way to go.

Snow

I woke up to a beautiful snowfall this morning--fat spiraling flakes, a thick blanket of white covering everything. Last week temps were in the 70s. El Paso weather is definitely crazy but I like it. The first thing I did was go out to take pictures. In my pajamas, even. The snow continues to fall furiously outside the window. I'm amazed. Pictures will be posted soon.

This is sad but also kind of cool.

A lull

So somehow I've arrived at a lull. No papers to grade, a couple of reading assignments, but nothing major to turn in. I cleaned the house last week. I'm reading for fun and watching DVDs and blogging. Ah, this is nice. I even made cookies yesterday. I bought a cookie mix that requires only adding a stick of butter and an egg. I'm not against taking a few shortcuts in life. They tasted just like cookies made the regular way.

I'll tell you all a secret: I don't really like Thanksgiving. I'm a Scrooge when it comes to holidays in the past few years. When I was a kid I used to get excited about holidays, but I honestly can't remember the last time I really looked forward to celebrating a holiday. Maybe because I dread having to make small talk with family members? Or because I think most holidays are overhyped and lacking in meaning? The exceptions being things like Veterans' Day and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. But Happy Thanksgiving, anyway, to anyone who's reading this.

My new favorite song, heard for the first time driving to school/work this morning.

Capturing the now

It has been awhile since I've really reflected. Not completely true, I guess, since I can spend a good hour writing in my journal when I have the time, trying to make sense of things. But it's true I haven't updated this space much lately.

Things are very different since I said good-bye to my old job. This is a healthier way of life, I think most would agree, now that I don't have to stay up until 2 a.m. every day. It's definitely a more social way of life. Where before, I'd do my job mostly in solitude, I now work in an office with about 20 other teaching assistants. Most of us are around the same age, and we're all in classes together or have been in classes together. This is probably as close to college dorm life as I've ever gotten, or a season of the Real World--it's a great mix of whites and Hispanics, girls and guys, introverts and extroverts. During office hours, while not grading papers or meeting with students, we talk about books and philosophy, race and culture, our students, and our classes (there is one in particular which we are united in hating and can spend hours bashing). We go out to lunch and talk about our life plans, our significant others or lack thereof. It's a group that likes to talk, and a group with the brains to make conversation interesting. It has made this semester far different from the previous ones. A blast, really.


Not to say being a teaching assistant isn't work, especially on days when I get up around 5:00 in the morning and work basically continuously all day until I go to bed and close my eyes and fall asleep immediately. I have crammed a lot into this semester. Too much, I think--a class on teaching, a research methods class, a service learning project, and most importantly, I'm teaching a class on my own for the very first time. On principle, I am against cramming so much into a four-month period. Ideally, classes should be savored, readings should be thought about, discussions should be deep and meaningful. But schedules being what they are, this semester day to day has been more like, I've got three articles to read and one hour to read them. Realistically, I'm not going to get much more than the gist. Sometimes I don't have time to read at all and I go to class and have absolutely nothing to say. I hate myself for doing this.

This semester has definitely been a case of information overload. It seems up until now there has been no time to think about things, just time to do. So much has happened, and it's like I can see everything spinning around me--the things I've read, the conversations I've had--but all I register is a blur of color, not the shape or texture or symbolism. Undoubtedly, hugely significant things have happened, and I have failed to realize their significance. This is a very different state of being for me, as a person who had gotten used to there being, proportionately, much more reflection time compared to actual things happening. In a way it's fun. In other ways it is just confusing and bewildering. I know that the events of the past few months have changed me, but I haven't had time to register how just yet, which is a very strange feeling. My next post...

Anyway, so now it's getting into that time of the semester where I'm trying to decide about the future (or at least next semester). But how do you decide about the future when you have no time to think about things? Everyone's asking, What are you going to DO?

Are you going to get a Ph.D? No, not planning on it.

What is your thesis about? My God, I don't know, I have a few ideas.

Are you going to keep teaching? I don't know. *sigh*

Ah, teaching. Can I do it? Yes. Do I like it? Well enough. Is it my life's work? I don't know yet. Here you have your lofty goals about making a difference, but are you? What about next semester, and the one after that? Am I going to be happy teaching the same material to another group of 18-year-olds? Or am I painting myself into a corner?

I'm frustrated at the pace of things more than anything. I don't know why everything has to be decided now, why finishing school has to take a year and no more, a thesis project two semesters and no more, why I have to have a ten-year career plan decided on by the end of this semester. But it seems that's what people expect of you. And it scares me to think of this chapter ending, just like the last one did. What will happen then? What will I be doing? Will I be happy doing it? Hopefully I will have had time to make a thoughtful decision by then.

This is the first weekend in a long while when I haven't been overwhelmed by homework and grading. Could this mean a longer post might be forthcoming? It might...

TIME's Michael Kinsley on Democrats vs. Republicans and libertarians vs. "communitarians":

Libertarians and communitarians (to continue this unjustified generalizing) are different character types. Communitarians tend to be bossy, boring and self-important, if they're not being oversweetened and touchy-feely. Libertarians, by contrast, are not the selfish monsters you might expect. They are earnest and impractical--eager to corner you with their plan for using old refrigerators to reverse global warming or solving the traffic mess by privatizing stoplights. And if you disagree, they're fine with that. It's a free country.

Generally, he says Republicans are libertarians as far as government regulations go, but socially they are communitarians, and Democrats are communitarians in government and libertarians socially. I think it's an interesting and mostly valid categorization, with a few gaping holes. Since when are Democrats lacking in visions of an ideal society (and attempts to legislate it)? And how much are Republicans against Big Government these days, really, in practice? As one letter writer put it in the letters to the editor, "But both parties are for Big Government; they merely differ on how to use it. Democrats would legislate compassion. Republicans would legislate morality. Libertarians would legislate neither."

Which one are you--libertarian or communitarian?

It's Nov. 2 and it feels like a warm spring day...meanwhile, they already started playing Christmas music at Wal-Mart. I'm confused.

From Judith Warner's blog post on The Daring Book for Girls:

“The Dangerous Book for Boys” spent 20 weeks on the New York
Times best-seller list and is slated to become a Disney film. If the “Daring”
book does anywhere nearly as well, then it could mark the start of a pop culture
re-imagining of modern girlhood – one, perhaps, with an emphasis on doing rather
than seeming, on growing rather than shrinking, and on exploring rather than
shutting down.

I like what Warner has to say about "toxic girlhood" and ways to combat it. I think if I had a daughter I wouldn't let her watch TV, except things like PBS and the Discovery Channel. TV = poison to girls' self-esteem, for the most part.

Grad school triathlon

As I faced the mountain of work in front of me last night, I remember thinking that if I could just make it through to 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, I would be home free, having shown myself to be worthy of being a grad student.

Sometime life sets up an obstacle course for you. I felt like life was testing me, or could it be the divine? I knew I would have to do everything just right that night--schedule my time just right, force myself to concentrate--or the whole thing would collapse.

Yesterday class lasted until 6 p.m. and I got home at 6:30. At that point I had the following to do: read and summarize a 23-page journal article (due online by 10:30 p.m.), prepare to lead a discussion and teach an important lesson in my class the next day, and finish a rough draft of a seminar paper (I had written three of eight pages). All of this while fighting off a cold and really wanting to rest.

The journal article summary came first and took longer than expected. I heated up a veggie burger for dinner. Not much time to eat. Summary was sent off at 8:30 p.m. I zoned out and watched the baseball game for half an hour. Then time for lesson plans, while I was still relatively energetic, since I can't plan a lesson when I'm exhausted. It took an hour. At 10 it was time to write like mad to turn my paper into something coherent. Was it the most brilliant thing ever written about the writing process? NO. But at least it was something I wouldn't be horribly embarrassed to hand in. I went to sleep shortly after midnight, my throat burning. I hate going to sleep when I'm sick. I woke up (coughing) at 6:20 a.m. so I could finish the citations for my paper. This actually went faster than expected. I printed it out. I showered and got ready and reviewed my notes for class as I ate breakfast. Then off to school to attend a class at 9.

At 10:30 I began to teach, after I apologized for the poor quality of my voice. Then halfway through class, guess what happened? An observer entered my class to evaluate me, and I thought, God, what are you trying to teach me, exactly? I absolutely didn't know about this beforehand. I got more nervous than usual but I think I did OK. Immediately after that, I attended a class as a student. The bell rang and the prof announced, "Please hand in your rough drafts." I fished it out of my notebook triumphantly and slid it across the table. I felt like a triathlete crossing the finish line at a triathlon. Seriously, I think I deserve a prize, or at least some heavy-duty relaxation. I did it. I finished it all. Congratulations to me.

I wore a suit to teach today, mostly because it was cold and all the sweaters I have are too casual to teach in. Strange how I act differently when I wear a suit. In some ways I feel ridiculous wearing it, because I feel like the "real me" wears jeans and T-shirts, not dress pants and a jacket with shoulderpads. Yet it does make me feel more"professional" and somehow I feel more justified bossing people around when I'm in a suit.

I think I caught the cold that's been going around campus. Yuck. This is an especially bad time for it, too. Did I mention that I hate being sick? I do.

The El Paso City Council is considering a ban on plastic bags. According to the article in Friday's El Paso Times, "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates Americans throw away nearly 100 billion plastic bags a year. When the bags reach landfills, they break down into toxic chemicals -- in 1,000 years." It sounds like a good idea to me, but I'm the type of person who buys about three or four bags' worth of groceries every two weeks. I don't know if I'd be so enthused if I were a mom with kids who spends $200 on groceries every time she goes to Wal-Mart. That's a lot of bags to bring from home.

A ban may be a little extreme, but couldn't cashiers be trained to fill up the bags more? It really bothers me to see a cashier use one bag for every three or four small items. And bag recycling programs are a fantastic idea, but apparently not enough people participate in them since so many bags are being thrown away.

Did anyone see "Real Time with Bill Maher" last night? Here's what happened. Gotta say Maher handled it heroically. I bet he dealt with more than a few hecklers in his days doing stand-up.

Harsh but amusing pan of Jennifer Lopez's new album where AP reviewer Nekesa Mumbi Mood takes hits at both Lopez's voice as well as her relationship history: "In the past, Lopez scored big hits with sparkling jams that hid her vocal flaws while enticing listeners with irresistible beats. Those kinds of tracks are hard to find on 'Brave,' which contains plenty of fourth-rate songs that sound as if they were made for Brooke Hogan instead of an A-lister like Lopez." Ouch.

Encounter with the past

On Saturday I ran into a classmate of mine from senior year of my undergraduate degree. It's funny to be reminded about your former self sometimes. It was four years ago that I was a computer science major and this classmate and I had to endure a torturous class called Software Engineering. We reminisced about the amount of hell we went through for that class. It involved spending nights and every Saturday at the computer lab and working under the direction of a grouchy, tough-to-please professor. This then led to a "where are they now?" gossip session about professors. I was surprised how easily the computer lingo came back to me. HCI and parallel computing and software and semantics. I still remember. Sometimes I think I'm forgetting how to add. But it's all back there, somewhere.

I'm usually kind of afraid of running into people from that time, since I'm afraid they'll judge me for the decisions I've made since. But I ended up talking to this person anyway and was relieved that his reaction was more of curiosity than judgment. What would possess a person who was doing well in a computer science program to finish her degree and then make a complete 180 and get a master's degree in English? I muddled my way through an explanation. I just couldn't stop talking; I kept layering on the reasons, and I don't know whether I made any sense at all. No one asks me these questions. Maybe I jumped at the chance to try to explain, to both him and myself.

I don't know if I was entirely truthful, though. It's too easy to say that it just wasn't me, that computers didn't suit me and one day I woke up and wanted to be a writer. Not true. I think I've always wanted to be a writer, and it has been a strong pull. But the fact that I chose computer science and stayed with it so many years and was able to do well in it, while really wanting to do something else, says something about me, too.

Something I kind of talked around was the fact that I wasn't very happy back then. In fact, the words that come to mind are cynical, brittle, and lonely. I think about myself now and maybe I'm not Ms. Sunshine and Happiness, but compared to that time, I'm really a different person. I'm much more optimistic, more ambitious, more confident. Maybe I'm the kind of person I'd actually want to hang out with now. Back then, not so much.

For one thing, back then I was still in the depths of being painfully shy. As evidence of how much I've changed, Saturday I didn't have much hesitation going up to this person and talking to him. I wanted to find out what had happened in the old department in the past few years, so I just struck up a conversation and asked. In contrast, when I was in the class four years ago, over two semesters, I never had even one real conversation with him, even though it was always in the back of my mind that he might be a smart and interesting person to talk to. I think he once asked me if he could borrow a quarter, and I said about two words and got all embarrassed about it. That was the extent of my shyness. It was ugly.

But even greater than getting over my shyness is the difference in my attitude--my whole attitude about life has changed. I was cynical to the point of self-hurt back then. I don't think what I was studying had anything to do with it. I was convinced that there was no way I could succeed at what I really wanted to do, which was to write. I was sure that the future was going to be full of drudgery and there was absolutely nothing I could do to change that. Thus I had no real goals or ambitions. I didn't think about school in terms of my long-term plans, and I had no great respect for what I was learning. I got decent grades, but I didn't think much about how valuable the knowledge was that I was receiving. It was more like, let's just get through the system as soon as possible. Make it through a mountain of drudgery in school, then on to more drudgery in the workplace. At least with a computer science degree I might have a shot at getting a decent-paying job. That was my view of life.

Four years ago, life was survivable, but it wasn't good. I was angry because the world wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. I was grumpy due to spending so much time in computer labs. I was shy and therefore lonely. I was purposeless and I didn't care. Honestly, I don't think many people realize the extent of my cynicism at the time. Surely, the above-mentioned classmate didn't know. But I know, and I know how different things are now.

Sometime in the past four years the window opened and the sunshine came flooding in. At some point I shed the bad attitude and now, shockingly, I'm actually looking forward to the future (at least some aspects of it, anyway.) Maybe because I've worked at a place like the newspaper and I've seen some of the possibilities that are out there. Maybe because I'm actually doing OK socially now whereas before I always thought that I could never get over my shyness enough to thrive in the real world. Maybe because I realized the valueless, purposeless, ambitionless life wasn't working out too well for me. Maybe the past four years haven't been easy, but somehow their lessons have transformed me, and so I'm glad for what I've been through.

No news is bad news

The other day I asked my students which of them read a newspaper every day. We were discussing an essay by the author of this book, so I thought it was a relevant question. Not a single person raised his or her hand. Maybe they were just being shy, but I thought at least one brave soul would confess to a news habit. Not one. It was shocking to me. Maybe I shouldn't be shocked, since I guess it goes along with the statistics out there on young people's awareness of current events (as well as their reading habits. I didn't ask who had read a book for fun in the last year, but I would bet the results wouldn't be much better.) About half the class said they watched TV news or "The Daily Show." Better than nothing, I suppose, but I still think print is the best source of news (my view influenced by The Assault on Reason, of course).

I don't know if I could live without at least a passing awareness of the news, a glance at a newspaper at minimum. It has been this way since I was a teenager, at least. Even at 18 I was reading the papers. I don't know if I could imagine my life without the "news habit"--browsing through the newspaper every day, reading magazines, reading blogs. I suppose this is a habit that these students never picked up. To me, reading the news is like brushing my teeth or exercising. I don't know what it's like not to have that.


I was thinking that maybe I could offer some incentive to students for keeping up with the news. Writing and current events are related, after all, so maybe I could offer some extra credit for reading about the news. I'm seriously considering it.

-It's only Tuesday and I am truly exhausted. I drank a Starbucks coffee before bed last night so I could stay awake to study. I ended up staying up until 1 a.m. and waking up before 6 a.m. You really don't want to see me when I have not had enough sleep. It has not been a good day.

-Guess what Snow White is called in Spanish? Blanca Nieves. I never knew that. I think it sounds prettier, since Blanca is an actual name in Spanish.

-I was at the library yesterday afternoon when some library workers started going around and changing out all the chairs from under the students in the computer lab. Why they chose the middle of the day to start this task instead of waiting until the computer area was less full, I don't know.

The old chairs were these dark, sturdy wooden chairs with plump cushioning. They were quite pretty as they matched the wood of the tables in the library. The new ones were made of thin black metal tubing and had a thin layer of cushioning. So there was this big commotion in the library as the workers brought out these chairs and one by one, asked the students to exchange their chairs. "Can I have this chair?" a girl asked me in accented English. I was like, whatever, just let me finish reading this journal article. So I surrendered the old chair and sat in the new one. It was lighter, I guess. The cushioning was red with black squares. The seat was a little higher up. Truth be told, I liked the old one, somehow it felt more solid, but this one was fine.

The library workers had to ask probably over a hundred people to surrender their chairs, and all of them did so, however grudgingly. But this one guy just said no. "No, I'd rather keep this chair," he said, even as every single person around him traded.
They asked him again. "No, I like this one. It's more comfortable."
So one of the workers, probably a work-study student, as he didn't look older than his early 20s, just left the chair there next to him.
The workers started to point. "What about that guy?"
"He didn't want to trade. Said that chair was more comfortable."
"Oh."
But somehow this task of chair-trading was so urgent that they ended up asking him a third time. A discussion took place, which I didn't hear, and this time he finally gave in. But I kind of admire that kid for not giving in right away. He was right--that chair was more comfortable. In college you're supposed to be taught to resist, right? Why surrender a comfortable chair that is serving you well as you surf the web or write your paper? Maybe this is a silly story, but I suppose the moral is that students really should stand up for their rights more often, even if it is only for the right to a cushiony chair.

Happy is a Yuppie Word

I saw this item on NMK this past week: "rogue" economist Steven Levitt blogs about a study that reports that women's happiness has declined in the past 35 years, both absolutely and relative to men's happiness, despite all the changes brought about by the women's movement that have increased women's quality of life.

Why doesn't this so-called paradox surprise me? I suppose it fits in with studies that say women tend to be more depressed than men. Not to mention all those episodes of "Sex and the City" I've watched. And taking a look back at my journals...no, no surprise there.


But my curiosity was piqued, so I browsed through at Stevenson and Wolfer's paper in PDF format. My eyes glossed over at the stats (not enough of a nerd, unfortunately), but I thought the discussion section was interesting, and I liked their possible explanations a bit more than Levitt's. Here's a paraphrase of their list for possible explanations for women's decreased levels of happiness:


1. General societal trends that have come along with modernization in the past 35 years, i.e. less social support and increased anxiety, have impacted women more than men.

2. Society's definition of happiness has changed in the past 35 years. Greater opportunities have increased what women require to say that they are happy. Also, it may be more socially acceptable now for women to admit that they aren't happy than it was decades ago.

3. Changes brought about by the women's movement may actually have decreased women's happiness. Aware of their greater opportunities for success, women may feel that their lives are coming up short. Also, "...women may simply find the complexity and increased pressure in their modern lives to have come at the cost of happiness" (21).


All three of these reasons make sense to me intuitively--women lead complicated lives these days. However, I'm still a little skeptical, both about the methodology as well as the implications that you can draw from a study like this. Not being a sociologist, I can't really discuss the nuts and bolts of the method the researchers used, but, as Levitt points out, happiness is a slippery thing to measure. Can you really make broad generalizations of our society based on a poll where people are asked to rate their lives overall as "very happy, fairly happy, or not too happy"? What does "happy" mean anyway? Ask 10 people, you'll get 10 different definitions. Ask the same person on 10 different occasions, and you may get a different response every time.


Secondly, is it even that important to be "happy"? In the study, Stevenson and Wolfers found that in recent polls, 80 percent of women think that the overall status of women has gotten better. So why doesn't "better" mean happier? Why haven't greater opportunities made women happier? Maybe ignorance was bliss in some ways. Women expected less, and so were content with less, but does that really mean they were better off? I'd much rather be liberated than happy. I'd rather have what I have now, even if it means gi-normous amounts of anxiety, than go back to a time where women had fewer options in life. I guess what I'm saying is, happiness is overrated. Happiness is an emotion, not a state to aspire to. I'd rather be able to say that women are paid equally to men for the same work, that women's concerns about childcare are taken into account in the workforce, and that women are equally represented in positions of power in government and corporations than to be able to say that women are just as happy as men are. Compared to those things, happiness seems pretty unimportant to me.

Despite my issues with it, I still thought this was an interesting study. Anyone want to chime in on this one? What's your theory?

This evening I went to see my grandfather, who has been in and out of the hospital lately. Heart disease and Alzheimer's, not a good combination. My grandmother hired a caretaker yesterday, a nice lady from Juarez, to help her look after him. Granny asked her how old I looked. "Diecinueve?" Nineteen. She thought I looked 19. I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted. I was wearing some pretty adolescent-looking clothes today. At least I don't look like I'm still in high school.

Grandpa seems to be OK for now. Cantankerous and not all there, as usual, but OK enough. I was tired but I made it a point to see him tonight, because, well, in situations like these you just have to. I don't know how much help I was today. I'm not a nurse, and I don't know if my grandpa even recognized me, but at least I was able to talk to my grandmother for awhile and say, I'm here if you need me and maybe provide a tiny bit of relief from thinking about my grandpa 24/7. Even if that was all I was able to do, I was still happy to do it.

I'm SO tired now and I need massive quantities of sleep so I can be functional again tomorrow. Good night, all.

- Check out this cool NY Times graphic of ice loss in the Arctic. Move the slider on the right to see how dramatic it has been in just the past five years.
- Speaking of the Times, I'm not sure I like the slogan on their website: "All the news that's fit to blog." Is that really the point of a newspaper--to be fodder for blogs? Slightly better is the catchphrase on one of the ads on the site, "All the news that's fit to click." What I would really like to see on their website is, "All the news that's fit to print in a world-class, liberal-leaning, fact-checked newspaper."

Meet-up with La Brown Girl

It was a first for me on Saturday as I met fellow blogger La Brown Girl in person. She was giving a presentation at the Southwest Book Festival at the El Paso Main Library (which is awesome, by the way). I was a little nervous since it was my first time meeting someone from the blogging realm in real life.

It took me awhile to find the right room. I finally found it but then I wasn't sure which person she was, as she doesn't have a picture posted on her blog. I sat for a few minutes and then a young woman in jeans and a Wonder Woman T-shirt said to me, "Are you Annette?" and I said yes. So this was the girl I've been corresponding with these past couple of years. I'll admit to having made up an idea of what I thought she looked like and she did not look like that at all. I was a little surprised at her jeans and T-shirt and short haircut, since I guess I have this idea of what elementary school teachers look like that involves denim jumpers and big earrings. But it goes to show how stupid stereotypes are.

We talked for awhile and then finally the presentation got under way. She read two of her essays that were published in a book, Windows Into My World: Latino Youth Write Their Lives. They were excellent pieces, both about her experiences growing up in a Hispanic family. For the second story I got a lump in my throat and almost cried. It was cool that some of the family members mentioned in the essays were there in audience--her mother, and her brother holding his daughter in his arms. It hit me that La Brown Girl is a Writer. A real Writer, not the sort of bloggy scribbling writer that I am. The girl can spin a story.

She signed a copy of the book for me ("To my blogging buddy") and we exchanged "real person" info, but then she said, "I know where to find you," which, of course, I know she does.

Friday afternoon reading: George Orwell's Politics and the English Language. Some excerpts:

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse.

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...[T]his mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing...prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse.

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In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a "party line."....A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

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I think the following rules will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Worth reading: Fight for the Top of the World, the cover story from TIME magazine I mentioned yesterday.

The current interest in the Arctic, in short, is a perfect storm seeded
with political opportunism, national pride, military muscle flexing, high energy
prices and the arcane exigencies of international law....Not even strict
adherence to the Kyoto accord on limiting greenhouse gases would stop an Arctic
meltdown, which means the Arctic, like nowhere else on Earth, is a place where
efforts to mitigate global warming have yielded to full-bore adaptation to its
impact. That process is freighted with irony. With gas and oil prices near
historic highs and with scant prospect of any decrease in world demand for
energy, it is only prudent to get a sense of what resources lie below the newly
accessible sea. But there is something paradoxical about seeking in the Arctic
the very carbon fuels that are melting the northern ice. "The rush to exploit
Arctic resources can only perpetuate the vicious cycle of human-induced climate
change," says Mike Townsley of Greenpeace International.

I'm back. I keep starting posts and never finishing them. Yesterday I wrote a post but decided not to publish it because it made me seem depressed. Depressed isn't the state, just busy and a little tired. Overwhelmed, maybe? I'm not used to that feeling of there not being enough hours to finish everything, where there's not enough time to sleep and iron my pants and do a brilliant job on a paper proposal for my class. Teaching isn't a job you go to and then forget about the rest of the time. There are lesson plans to be made. There are papers to grade. The students are going to be there, you'd better be ready. Then there are my classes that I'm trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to stay afloat in. I don't know if it's humanly possible to read everything I'm supposed to read. Should you read something even if you think it's boring or a retread of something you read last year? There's my dilemma.

Today I spent 20 minutes reading TIME magazine and it was like a breath of fresh air. I used to keep up with things like that--you know, news, important things going on in the world that affect us all--but lately I haven't kept up with the news at all. I haven't had time to read TIME in weeks. I read textbooks with breakfast instead of the El Paso Times. I'm becoming part of the ignorant masses, cloistered in my own little world. But today I got my fix of Hillary Clinton's health care plan and how Russia claimed the North Pole (or something like that), and it felt really, really good.

It was a good day in class, too. I've noticed that the times I'm most animated are the times I start talking about politics or social issues. Not surprising, since I've been interested in those things for a long time, so I know a little about them. But I guess it never really occurred to me that that was something to talk about in an English class.

So that's how my life is going. I apologize for the lack of posts. I miss writing here and I'll do my best to make it a more regular habit, for my own sanity if nothing else.

- Driving to school/work the other morning, I found myself in the middle of a convoy of UPS trucks. I think there were about six or seven of them headed in the same direction. I had one truck in front of me and one behind me. A flock of boxy brown trucks--for some reason it reminded me of a kid playing with toy cars and it was strangely cute.
- I think being a teacher has made me bossier. Today I took my students on a quick field trip. I saw some people occupying the area that my class was headed into and I used my "teacher voice" to ask them to leave. They left. You have no idea how much of a departure this was from my usual way of acting. I felt like a P.E. coach.
- I broke down and bought myself a bottle of Coca-Cola today. For years I'd have a can of Coke every afternoon. About 18 months ago I rid myself of the habit, but judging from how good that first sip tasted today, I don't think I'll ever lose the taste for it.
- I think I may be forgetting how to write.

Interesting quote from NewMexiKen: "And there is always this to keep in mind: High school is about how to learn, college is about what there is to learn, and graduate school is about where to learn it."

I agree with the first two; I'm still pondering the third. One of my professors said that graduate school is where you find out how to ask good questions.

Short but amusingly honest interview with The Killers guitarist Dave Keuning. "It was a great crowd, but it was put together in, like, a high school gym, and it was really hot. " Not going to this concert, unfortunately, since it's sold out.

UTEP lost. I was there in Aggieland to witness it (and to hear the chants of "UTEP sucks"). Can't win 'em all, I guess, but ouch, this one hurt.

Bush speech word analysis

Listening to President Bush's speech last night, I thought it might be interesting to do a little word analysis. Using the NY Times transcript and Word's find/replace feature, I compiled a list of the number of times Bush used the following words, which I think says it all. Could this speech be any more misleading about the true situation in Iraq?

• al Qaeda: 12
• free/freedom: 12
• terrorists: 9
• success/succeed: 10
• fail/failure/failed: 1
• Sunni: 6
• Shi'a: 1
• Iran: 5
• democracy: 3
• insurgency: 1
• Sept. 11, 2001: 1
• civil war: 0

I think I'm developing a sleep deficit. I set the alarm for 5 a.m. today. Can anyone think straight at 5 a.m.? I'm tired and cranky and I haven't seen Oprah all week...

The Loch Ness Monster's Song by Edwin Morgan. Some of Morgan's poetry was included in a lecture I attended today. All I could do was give the lecturer a puzzled look. But I still think experimental poetry is cool.

I was feeling nostalgic and decided to make some Rice Krispies Treats today. In less than 12 hours more than half of them are gone, so apparently I'm not the only one who enjoys their gooey deliciousness. It's kind of amazing what you can do with a bag of marshmallows and a box of cereal.

From Slate, Carolyn Cassady's recollection of Jack Kerouac:
"My first impression of it was that Jack was unusual in that great celebration of all kinds of life. Whether it was rivers or mountains and Indian names or hobos. He was so unjudgmental and so thrilled by everything that was alive. The glorification of nature—I thought it was pretty rare. Our generation was reacting to the horrors of World War II. So what they were really trying to do, both of them, in their living and reading about things, was to find out, Why are we all here? What is life all about? They were looking for 'it.' There were an awful lot of people concerned about that. That was their big quest, all of ours, really. Then the hippies came along. They thought Jack gave them freedom to turn the world into chaos. They thought he was giving them carte blanche to be selfish. That's why he vowed to drink himself to death. "

- Worthy of a bumper sticker: "Well-behaved women seldom make history," a quote by women's history scholar Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Read about Ulrich's latest book project in this Slate article.
- Could the age of electronic books be at hand? Says the NY Times: "Hopes for e-books began to revive last year with the introduction of the widely marketed Sony Reader. Sony’s $300 gadget, the size of a trade paperback, has a six-inch screen, enough memory to hold 80 books and a battery that lasts for 7,500 page turns, according to the company. It uses screen display technology from E Ink, a company based in Cambridge, Mass., that emerged from the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and creates power-efficient digital screens that uncannily mimic the appearance of paper."
- Funny article about aSmallWorld.net, a "Facebook for the few," again from the NY Times. " 'If anyone is looking for a private island, I now have one available for purchase in Fiji.' " If only.

It's Wednesday and I'm totally tired. Too bad I have about three hours of work left to do before I can pack it in for the night. My future is a gi-normous stack of textbooks and academic journal articles. Finished with one, start with another. Such is the life of a grad student. But I signed up for it so I can't complain, right?

Two good movies: Year of the Dog and The Lookout. Year of the Dog is a little strange (indie film with a weird ending) but The Lookout is highly recommended for all.

August photos

I took most of these photos while walking around my neighborhood one August afternoon. It was oh-so-hot and muggy that day but I just love the way the clouds look in August.

This one was taken during a storm about three weeks ago:

TIME photo essay on the 30th anniversary of punk. A nice primer on punk and the photos are awesome.