The Dream of My Life

Why yes, it is a personal goal of mine to be seen in my bathing suit and swim cap by as many of my students as possible.

Preferably my freshmen. Even more preferably, my freshman boys. Oh yes.

Was there some kind of Dr-Mihi's-Comp-Students-Special-Lifeguard-Training session over winter break? I mean really.

Aw! Sometimes they're nice to me.

Field College has begun holding campus visits for "my" job--or, rather, the tenure-track version of my job. (My interview/job talk aren't for two weeks, thank God--I need a break!) So in my survey class today I mentioned to my students that they should consider going to the teaching demo this afternoon; they need students to attend these things, and it might be interesting, and they'll have a say in who gets hired, etc. Now, they all know that I'm interviewing for the job too; the chair has sent emails to the campus about the search process. When I'd concluded my announcement, one student asked if I was going to go to the talk, and I said, "No, that might be weird," which provoked some laughter. (The survey is the fourth class I teach MWF, so by then I'm a little...looser? than I normally am when I teach. So far I think that this has served me well: they laugh at my jokes! And we all know that that's the ultimate goal of any teaching situation.)

Anyway, after class, as they were sort of wandering out of the room, one student remarked, "I think it would be cool if no one went to any of the other candidates' presentations but yours was standing room only. It'd send them a message about where we stand."

"Well, thanks," I said, "but you should go anyway."

And another woman came up to me after everyone had left and asked point blank, "Are you leaving?"

"It's all up in the air right now," I said (or something to that effect).

And then she told me that she'd switched majors (which I think she'd been considering doing anyway) so that she can take an upper-division course with me next year.

How touching! I was touched. And a little conflicted. But mostly that felt good--because I got my course evaluations yesterday, and true to my way of doing things I find myself absorbing the negative comments first (I'll get around to the positives in a couple of days and wind up feeling perfectly good about myself; no worries--this is how I process things, for better or worse), so it did make me feel that my teaching is actually meaningful and productive and that I'm not just on some endless comp-grading treadmill.

On the subject of course evaluations, though. I was struck by how well some of my students seemed to have me pegged, particularly in comp. The evaluations were generally positive, I think, the lit classes much more so than the comps (which didn't surprise me at all, and was totally in keeping with my sense of how the semester went). But a few of the comments from the comp evals were interesting. For example: that I seemed unsure of myself and afraid to stand up for my views. Or that I seemed nervous. And yes, I was nervous in comp, precisely because I was unsure of what I was doing and uncertain about whether I should agitate for my interpretations or just let the students talk (because the content of the course wasn't particularly interesting to me and wasn't actually relevant to the goals of the course, I thought). Fortunately, this semester is all about what I like, so I feel a much greater degree of ownership over the material and I don't think that uncertainty will be a problem. Plus I'm not scared of students any more.

Annnd on the subject of the Field search: It's a little awkward trying to avoid running into the job candidates, especially in SUCH a small department. All kinds of weird complications. Further complicated by some general weirdness surrounding the job search about which I'm not going to blog. It'll be nice when everything is settled--for a lot of reasons.

The Thing about Winter

Here's the thing about winter. When it's winter, I scuff around in my slippers on the beige wall-to-wall carpeting in the study/living room, and then when I sit down at my desk I first need to touch the metal goose-necked lamp in order to diffuse all of my static electricity before coming into contact with my computer. It kind of hurts, and I dread it a little every time I get over here.

On the other hand, I dread it a lot less than I dreaded zapping the laptop back before I figured out that touching the lamp first made things better. (I came to this realization, oh, yesterday.)

What's in Store

I present you with the first batch. (I had my students attach an in-class pre-writing to their papers; hence the ragged edges.)

For those of you who were curious about the numbers:

• 3 sections x (avg.) 20 students = 60 comp students
• 1 section x 25 students = 25 survey students
• 4 short papers + 3 drafts + 4 final papers = 11 comp papers
  
• 10 comp papers x 60 comp students = 660 comp papers (I miscounted last time)
  
• 4 short papers + 1 midterm + 1 final = 6 survey papers
• 6 survey papers x 25 survey students = 150 survey papers
• 660 comp papers + 150 survey papers = 810 papers

I've been so excited about this semester's syllabi and the students (who seem like a good bunch thus far) that I'd forgotten all about this part of teaching. Yeep. This is the semester in which I experiment with typed comments, methinks; my hand won't make it otherwise.

In other news, there haven't been any bird pictures on this blog for a while. Here are some geese that I photographed in the fall. I'm really fond of this picture, which I only just downloaded from my camera tonight. I like the way that the birds are captured in flight between the two trees.

The Lull

I'm giving myself the morning off before I begin preparing Teaching Demo 2. Due to a variety of unrelated and incomprehensible airline delays, I didn't get home until about midnight; I hadn't eaten dinner, so despite my exhaustion I cooked up some pasta + parmesan and had a bit of wine whilst watching "Arrested Development" DVDs. Then I slept until 10. It was nice

Now I'm afraid of getting my hopes up and all, but before I firmly put School 1 (Miracle U) out of my mind, I can't keep myself from writing a few words on how heavenly it seemed. Great students, gorgeous campus and area, fabulous research support, all kinds of amazing opportunities. But enough! Wish me luck--I was the first of three candidates, so there's going to be a long wait. And I have this other school to go visit.

I can't think about this anymore. I need to read about what y'all have been up to, instead.

Um this is weird, a bit

I'm taking a break from my interview madness to remark on a sudden surge in blog hits.... Apparently my recent clothing query was linked in the footer of a Wall Street Journal "On Style" article. It's kind of a bizarre feeling, since I'm used to thinking of my readers as a relatively small group. I feel oddly exposed.

In other news, the interview is--well, okay, I'll say it--I love it, I love it! I shouldn't say this--the odds of disappointment are still so great--but the school seems terrific and lovely and argh. !!! But I need to stop and try to get a short nap in before dinner.

Light(er) Blogging Ahead

I'm off tomorrow for Campus Interview. I'll be back on Friday night; then I have all of two days to get ready for Other Campus Interview, for which I leave on Monday. About 8 days from now I expect to collapse.

I'm really trying not to count on getting one of these jobs. The search process is so fraught with disappointment that one can't rush headlong into every glimmer of possibility, you know? I am, however, allowing myself to mix metaphors, or at least metaphor-like things, as freely as I wish. One must cut oneself some slack. One must indulge.

Yeah, okay. In other news, I'll be guiding an independent study in Shakespeare this semester. That might be some fun. Since (honestly!) my preps aren't too bad this semester, and once the job search settles down I'll have a little more time. The papers should start rolling in right about then, though; I'm pretty much in denial about them. Let's see--rough numbers--I'll be grading and/or commenting on...1200 composition papers this semester. ?? Wait--can that possibly be right? No, actually, it isn't. Hang on. Let's do this again. 600 papers. There we go. Six hundred freshman composition papers will pass through my hands this semester.

Um.

All right.

This is why we're interviewing, see.

So here I go. Wish me luck.