Not that you can see my feet.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Excuses, Excuses
I was going over my students' absences today, realizing how very many strange reasons they've given me for missing class throughout the semester. I don't know what it is about this batch of students, but as a group, they've dealt with some vivid and unique circumstances this spring. Here are some examples of ways they've finished the sentence
"I missed class today because..."
1. I have a hot tub business, and I had to meet with some potential buyers.
2. My inner ear burst last night.
3. I got kidney stones from eating too much Domino's Pizza.
4. My girlfriend and I were in a car accident on the Jersey Turnpike, and now she is in the hospital with brain damage, and she thinks it is last year.
5. It was raining, and my umbrella turned inside out, and I was too wet to come to class.
6. I was detained in New Orleans on a matter related to my hot tub business.
7. After staying up all night to write the paper, I was sleepy so I rested on the bench downstairs, and I fell asleep and slept through class.
8. My roommate accidentally ate peanuts, and he has a peanut allergy, so I took him to the emergency room.
9. My kidney stones are back.
10. I also own a small appliance business, and I needed to attend to a service issue.
"I missed class today because..."
1. I have a hot tub business, and I had to meet with some potential buyers.
2. My inner ear burst last night.
3. I got kidney stones from eating too much Domino's Pizza.
4. My girlfriend and I were in a car accident on the Jersey Turnpike, and now she is in the hospital with brain damage, and she thinks it is last year.
5. It was raining, and my umbrella turned inside out, and I was too wet to come to class.
6. I was detained in New Orleans on a matter related to my hot tub business.
7. After staying up all night to write the paper, I was sleepy so I rested on the bench downstairs, and I fell asleep and slept through class.
8. My roommate accidentally ate peanuts, and he has a peanut allergy, so I took him to the emergency room.
9. My kidney stones are back.
10. I also own a small appliance business, and I needed to attend to a service issue.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Good news comes in threes?
On another note, I thought I'd also quickly post another piece of good news: last night I got a letter saying that a poem of mine, "Three Months," has been accepted for publication in a brand new journal called Cloudbank!
"The dirty secret of higher education is that without underpaid graduate students to help in laboratories and with teaching,
universities couldn’t conduct research or even instruct their growing undergraduate populations." From Mark Taylor's "End the University As We Know It" in The New York Times, April 26, 2009.
With two notable exceptions, I haven't told anyone at school about my pregnancy. This was at first in part due to my pregnancy shock and my desire that my teachers not know anything about my "new creative project" until my other creative project, my thesis, was finished and done. But now it's mainly because I am in a state of indecision about what's going to happen next year. I've applied to teach part time in the fall, but being due October 5 means giving birth in the early-middle part of the semester, which would obviously be disruptive. I simply don't know what my options are going to be. If I were a public school teacher, I would get maternity leave, but as a TA-turned-lecturer I am a contract employee with few benefits, even though I have worked at UMD for three years. Since we have been receiving ominous emails about there being fewer teaching positions due to the economy, I was uncertain if I would even be offered any classes, so I figure it wold be stupid to tell anyone about my issue until I had been offered a position. If/when that happens, I can talk to them about what options I have, if any, for teaching part of next semester.
All of this is very frustrating. Being pregnant has brought up a lot of feminist-related issues. For awhile, I felt as though I had solved all problems in my life related to sexism and gender. I went to college, discovered feminist theories, worked through the appropriate stages: rage, sadness, acceptance of a sort, personal solutions to larger political problems, various forms of activism, especially in my writing and teaching. But now, being pregnant, I mostly feel helpless.
It's been pointed out to me, by wise woman such as my mother and mother-in-law, that the best thing would be to take the semester off anyway. Health-wise, they are likely right. Even so, as my wise friend Liz pointed out, there are many parts of the working equation to consider: physical and mental health, yes, but also finances, my career, and sanity. Maybe after six weeks I will be ready to have a five-hour-a-day, two-day-a-week break from the baby. I could also want nothing more but to stay home, but if I do feel as though I could go back, and if I am offered a job for next semester, I should be able to do it. However, the fact of the matter is that they might tell me that there is no way for me to take six weeks off in the middle of a fourteen-week semester.
That opens the question: could I take four weeks off? Three? Five? Would such time spans be enough? I have no idea. I've never had a baby. Even if I had, there's no way of knowing how this will work out. I could have the baby early, or late. It could go well, or I could have to have a c-section and thus a longer recovery time. There are a million possibilities.
It should be a given that if a women is going to have a baby, her job will be available when she is ready for it again, if she wants or needs it. But for many women, it isn't that way at all. (There's a particular story I want to tell her about a wonderful, hardworking woman who was basically pushed out of her job, which she'd had for about seven years, due to her pregnancy. It's not my story to tell, but it's awful and real.)
Sigh. There's more I want to say--about problems with the university labor market, and how the so-called ongoing "breastfeeding wars" play into all this--but I'm overwhelmed, and I have papers to grade later.
With two notable exceptions, I haven't told anyone at school about my pregnancy. This was at first in part due to my pregnancy shock and my desire that my teachers not know anything about my "new creative project" until my other creative project, my thesis, was finished and done. But now it's mainly because I am in a state of indecision about what's going to happen next year. I've applied to teach part time in the fall, but being due October 5 means giving birth in the early-middle part of the semester, which would obviously be disruptive. I simply don't know what my options are going to be. If I were a public school teacher, I would get maternity leave, but as a TA-turned-lecturer I am a contract employee with few benefits, even though I have worked at UMD for three years. Since we have been receiving ominous emails about there being fewer teaching positions due to the economy, I was uncertain if I would even be offered any classes, so I figure it wold be stupid to tell anyone about my issue until I had been offered a position. If/when that happens, I can talk to them about what options I have, if any, for teaching part of next semester.
All of this is very frustrating. Being pregnant has brought up a lot of feminist-related issues. For awhile, I felt as though I had solved all problems in my life related to sexism and gender. I went to college, discovered feminist theories, worked through the appropriate stages: rage, sadness, acceptance of a sort, personal solutions to larger political problems, various forms of activism, especially in my writing and teaching. But now, being pregnant, I mostly feel helpless.
It's been pointed out to me, by wise woman such as my mother and mother-in-law, that the best thing would be to take the semester off anyway. Health-wise, they are likely right. Even so, as my wise friend Liz pointed out, there are many parts of the working equation to consider: physical and mental health, yes, but also finances, my career, and sanity. Maybe after six weeks I will be ready to have a five-hour-a-day, two-day-a-week break from the baby. I could also want nothing more but to stay home, but if I do feel as though I could go back, and if I am offered a job for next semester, I should be able to do it. However, the fact of the matter is that they might tell me that there is no way for me to take six weeks off in the middle of a fourteen-week semester.
That opens the question: could I take four weeks off? Three? Five? Would such time spans be enough? I have no idea. I've never had a baby. Even if I had, there's no way of knowing how this will work out. I could have the baby early, or late. It could go well, or I could have to have a c-section and thus a longer recovery time. There are a million possibilities.
It should be a given that if a women is going to have a baby, her job will be available when she is ready for it again, if she wants or needs it. But for many women, it isn't that way at all. (There's a particular story I want to tell her about a wonderful, hardworking woman who was basically pushed out of her job, which she'd had for about seven years, due to her pregnancy. It's not my story to tell, but it's awful and real.)
Sigh. There's more I want to say--about problems with the university labor market, and how the so-called ongoing "breastfeeding wars" play into all this--but I'm overwhelmed, and I have papers to grade later.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Antler
I defended my thesis on Thursday. Its title is Antler; it was The Window, but I've changed it (both are also titles of poems in the collection). Since it's a creative thesis, basically a manuscript of poetry, lots of people have asked how one "defends" such a piece. The answer is, you really don't "defend" anything. Like writing an abstract, the defense is one of the parts of a Masters degree that doesn't really fit with the Masters of Fine Arts. What really happened was that I sat with my professors for about an hour and talked about my work.
It was great fun. I got terribly nervous right before it happened, and was even mentally imploring the baby to kick or something for moral support. I was afraid that my professors would quote poetry at me and I would stare blankly back at them. But as soon as I went in, I could tell it was not going to be scary. Basically, they asked me questions about my writing process, talked about individual poems they liked, and commented on the thesis as a whole, how it cohered formally and thematically. My adviser spoke a lot about how she was impressed at how everything came together in the end, about how some of my poems had been "baggy" and how I'd in the end been able to do a lot of cutting and refining. Another of my teachers commented on the lyricism in some of my newer poems, and we discussed how I had moved in different directions with my work since I became a student three years ago.
I wanted very badly to write down everything they were saying, but I couldn't really do that AND participate in the conversation. I am sure I've forgotten a lot already, but some of the other highlights were such comments as, "We expect great things from you," "Not all theses are this mature," and just little moments here and there when one of them would read a line or bit from a poem and smile and say what they liked about it. One of the more amusing things, to me, is the way they focused a lot on my use of "idiom," which they discussed as "charming and authentic" while avoiding the "real potential to be cheeseball." This use of "idiom" goes along with my "southernness" and my "impulse to tell stories," especially family-related stories. What's funny to me is that what they pointed out as examples of idiom are just how I would normally talk, but I guess that's the point, and what saves it from coming across as affected or forceful.
Anyway, it was very fun to sit there and hear about my work from my teachers. It was interesting to have all four teachers all together in the same room. I sort of thought they might argue with each other more, with some of them liking certain poems and others disliking them--that's often what happens in individual conferences, one teacher will tell you to cut another teacher's favorite part of your poem. But it was a pretty happy event. At the end, they sent me out of the room, and called me back a few minutes later with a "Congratulations, you passed!"
And another happy event from last week was finding out that I won the yearly student prize. It's a school-wide contest sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. UM students submitted poems, which were then sent off to one of the poets who came to read at UM's "Writers Here and Now" reading series this year (it was Authur Sze). And I won first place! (Thanks, Arthur Sze!) So I get another $100, and I get to read at the last Writers Here and Now with the other winners (the fiction winner, plus two honorable mentions each for poetry and fiction). I am looking forward to that, because I've always wanted to be a Writer Here and Now, and many of my students, both present and past, come to the readings. It will be fun to have them as an audience, since they are often curious about my poems. It's a great end to a great three years of being in school and re-beginning my writing life.
It was great fun. I got terribly nervous right before it happened, and was even mentally imploring the baby to kick or something for moral support. I was afraid that my professors would quote poetry at me and I would stare blankly back at them. But as soon as I went in, I could tell it was not going to be scary. Basically, they asked me questions about my writing process, talked about individual poems they liked, and commented on the thesis as a whole, how it cohered formally and thematically. My adviser spoke a lot about how she was impressed at how everything came together in the end, about how some of my poems had been "baggy" and how I'd in the end been able to do a lot of cutting and refining. Another of my teachers commented on the lyricism in some of my newer poems, and we discussed how I had moved in different directions with my work since I became a student three years ago.
I wanted very badly to write down everything they were saying, but I couldn't really do that AND participate in the conversation. I am sure I've forgotten a lot already, but some of the other highlights were such comments as, "We expect great things from you," "Not all theses are this mature," and just little moments here and there when one of them would read a line or bit from a poem and smile and say what they liked about it. One of the more amusing things, to me, is the way they focused a lot on my use of "idiom," which they discussed as "charming and authentic" while avoiding the "real potential to be cheeseball." This use of "idiom" goes along with my "southernness" and my "impulse to tell stories," especially family-related stories. What's funny to me is that what they pointed out as examples of idiom are just how I would normally talk, but I guess that's the point, and what saves it from coming across as affected or forceful.
Anyway, it was very fun to sit there and hear about my work from my teachers. It was interesting to have all four teachers all together in the same room. I sort of thought they might argue with each other more, with some of them liking certain poems and others disliking them--that's often what happens in individual conferences, one teacher will tell you to cut another teacher's favorite part of your poem. But it was a pretty happy event. At the end, they sent me out of the room, and called me back a few minutes later with a "Congratulations, you passed!"
And another happy event from last week was finding out that I won the yearly student prize. It's a school-wide contest sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. UM students submitted poems, which were then sent off to one of the poets who came to read at UM's "Writers Here and Now" reading series this year (it was Authur Sze). And I won first place! (Thanks, Arthur Sze!) So I get another $100, and I get to read at the last Writers Here and Now with the other winners (the fiction winner, plus two honorable mentions each for poetry and fiction). I am looking forward to that, because I've always wanted to be a Writer Here and Now, and many of my students, both present and past, come to the readings. It will be fun to have them as an audience, since they are often curious about my poems. It's a great end to a great three years of being in school and re-beginning my writing life.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Happy Hour
On Fridays I've been going to a class called "Happy Hour Yoga," so called because of the time it's held, from 5-6:15 PM. This class really does coincide with the many happy hours being held at the bars along Pennsylvania Ave, near the yoga studio. Now that it's warm, these happy hours have spilled into the outside seating, so when I go into yoga and when I come out, I walk past a block full of people happily sipping lovely glasses of white wine, with the sunlight shining though the liquid, and tall, dewy pints of cold beer.
I really miss white wine. I really miss beer.
P.S. I did have a delicious virgin pina colada at dinner last night--fresh coconut and pineapple juice. Although I DID note the irony of being pregnant and having to order the "virgin" anything. Ha. (Just as I noted the irony, last night as I was telling Meg about my yoga class, of me saying that I wanted the other women in the class to pay more attention to my pregnancy. It's not a prenatal class, and I am the only pregnant woman who goes. I secretly (well, not so secretly anymore) want them to ask me lots of questions, look admiringly at my belly, and such. I said, "They must be very self-centered.")
I really miss white wine. I really miss beer.
P.S. I did have a delicious virgin pina colada at dinner last night--fresh coconut and pineapple juice. Although I DID note the irony of being pregnant and having to order the "virgin" anything. Ha. (Just as I noted the irony, last night as I was telling Meg about my yoga class, of me saying that I wanted the other women in the class to pay more attention to my pregnancy. It's not a prenatal class, and I am the only pregnant woman who goes. I secretly (well, not so secretly anymore) want them to ask me lots of questions, look admiringly at my belly, and such. I said, "They must be very self-centered.")
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Three Pots of Water
On Friday, I had a tiring day and kept thinking about coming home and taking a bath. I even stopped on the way home to buy some new flower-scented Body Shop bubble bath. When I got home, I went upstairs and cleaned the tub with cold water, then switched to hot to rinse and begin filling. I waited for the water to get hot. And waited. And waited.
It didn't. So I went downstairs to check if the water from the sink would get hot. It wouldn't.
I got my phone and called the real estate place that "manages" our house for our landlord. As I called, I went down the basement to see if I could see any problem with the hot water heater.
As I opened the door, I saw that the basement had been transformed into a shallow swimming pool.
In the meantime, it was about 4:45 on a Friday afternoon, and I was getting no answer from the real state office. I called the emergency number, and found someone, who called a plumber, then called back to say the plumber would be there first thing in the morning. Then the plumber himself called to confirm. "How early can I call?" he said.
At 10:00 am Saturday morning, still no call from the plumber. I called him, left a message, and heard from him at about 11:00. He said he was caught up in another job and would be over in another hour. At 1:00, he arrived.
"Hi," I said as I answered the door.
"I'm not going to be able to fix this till Monday," he said in return.
As we went into the basement, he said he couldn't get his helper to work today, then that the place that sold hot water heaters was closed till Monday. (Apparently the Home Depot hot water heaters won't do.) He looked everything over, assured me he'd be here Monday, and left.
After some pregnancy-hormone-charged tears about our full dishwasher, the guests we were having over for dinner, and my intense desire for a bath, I sort of got over it, and Dean and I took a long walk in the 75 degree day, planning to get hot and come home and brave a cold shower. We did: it was COLD. It felt extra cold, like water dripping from ice cubes. Headache cold. But we did it.
Today, we'd planned the same, an evening cold shower to hold us over till tomorrow night, when everything SHOULD be fixed. But it is cloudy today, breezy, not nearly as warm. When we came in from another afternoon walk, we were both really dreading the cold water.
So, I filled three pots of water and put them on to boil. We didn't let them get quite to boiling, but they were still pretty hot. Dean went first, and almost burned his head with the first cupful he tried to pour. Then he got the idea of mixing some of the hot with the cold water from the tub. He reported a successful "shower."
I tried it too. I actually mixed some of the water in the pot so I didn't have to keep turning around to the faucet. It worked really well. Nice warm water, and plenty. Now I am clean and cozy in my pajamas.
We figure we could save a lot of water if we always just bathed by kneeling in the tub over a pot of hot water. Who knows, the way things are going, we may get another chance tomorrow.
It didn't. So I went downstairs to check if the water from the sink would get hot. It wouldn't.
I got my phone and called the real estate place that "manages" our house for our landlord. As I called, I went down the basement to see if I could see any problem with the hot water heater.
As I opened the door, I saw that the basement had been transformed into a shallow swimming pool.
In the meantime, it was about 4:45 on a Friday afternoon, and I was getting no answer from the real state office. I called the emergency number, and found someone, who called a plumber, then called back to say the plumber would be there first thing in the morning. Then the plumber himself called to confirm. "How early can I call?" he said.
At 10:00 am Saturday morning, still no call from the plumber. I called him, left a message, and heard from him at about 11:00. He said he was caught up in another job and would be over in another hour. At 1:00, he arrived.
"Hi," I said as I answered the door.
"I'm not going to be able to fix this till Monday," he said in return.
As we went into the basement, he said he couldn't get his helper to work today, then that the place that sold hot water heaters was closed till Monday. (Apparently the Home Depot hot water heaters won't do.) He looked everything over, assured me he'd be here Monday, and left.
After some pregnancy-hormone-charged tears about our full dishwasher, the guests we were having over for dinner, and my intense desire for a bath, I sort of got over it, and Dean and I took a long walk in the 75 degree day, planning to get hot and come home and brave a cold shower. We did: it was COLD. It felt extra cold, like water dripping from ice cubes. Headache cold. But we did it.
Today, we'd planned the same, an evening cold shower to hold us over till tomorrow night, when everything SHOULD be fixed. But it is cloudy today, breezy, not nearly as warm. When we came in from another afternoon walk, we were both really dreading the cold water.
So, I filled three pots of water and put them on to boil. We didn't let them get quite to boiling, but they were still pretty hot. Dean went first, and almost burned his head with the first cupful he tried to pour. Then he got the idea of mixing some of the hot with the cold water from the tub. He reported a successful "shower."
I tried it too. I actually mixed some of the water in the pot so I didn't have to keep turning around to the faucet. It worked really well. Nice warm water, and plenty. Now I am clean and cozy in my pajamas.
We figure we could save a lot of water if we always just bathed by kneeling in the tub over a pot of hot water. Who knows, the way things are going, we may get another chance tomorrow.
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