Academia engages in misleading advertising, too

To date, my work has been on the less obviously sexy side of a currently sexy topic (CST). Some might even argue that my interests are even a little dry, especially compared to the blood and fireworks of CST. To give you an illustration, suppose I work on fifteenth-century er0tica, but ignore the er0tica itself and instead talk about the watermarks of the paper upon which it's printed. I'm interested in where the paper came from, who was selling it, why it ended up covered in this particular subject matter, and so forth. Interesting stuff, to be sure--but not what most people would immediately be drawn to, given sexiness and whatnot that first catches the eye.

So tonight I'm giving my first big lecture, here at Field. It is, in fact, the first time--apart from a couple of job talks--when I will receive Solo Billing at an academic event. I'm a little nervous, mostly about the Q&A. See, it's a lecture for the general public: the faculty (none of whom works on anything even close to my research), students (half a dozen might show up), and, especially, the community. People from Field Town, Ordinary City, and even Nominally Ordinary City show up in droves for these events, for some reason. (Well, small droves. Little, scattered droves of the elderly, the curious, and the strange.)

And I'm worried because, given the nature of the lecture, and what I, in a crass effort to make it sound exciting, chose to call it, the posters all look something like this:

Fifteenth-Century Er0tica!!!!!
and the paper it's printed on.

So I fully expect to get lots of questions about (to continue the analogy), turn-ons, positions, anatomical details, etc., when all I really feel qualified to say is, "But look--this is a French manuscript written on German paper!!!"

Wish me luck.

How the Cats Spent The Weekend

I didn't do much better.

*And yes, these are the only cats: Kittenfoot went to live with her lovely new owner--a cat-needing colleague of ours--on Thursday. She is missed, but not by these guys, who never even detected her presence. Lazy so-and-sos.

Postcards from Boringland

I've got pictures from the hayride to eventually post, but not at the moment. And square dancing was EVEN MORE FUN than it was in the sixth grade. Seriously. Teh hilarious.

Right now, though, I = sick (just a cold; TM's got it too) and have to give this big public lecture thing on Tuesday. And classes this week were sort of meh. Nothing traumatic, just dull. It's homecoming week here, though, so that might explain it. Also I'm teaching Twelfth Night again, which I just can't teach in a compelling way, for some reason. Perhaps it's drama in general, with which I have little experience. (And I let myself off the hook for boring comp classes.)

Um...yeah, I think that that about covers it. But lest you think the situation is too dire, I should add that today was a day off (homecoming, again), so last night, after a colleague's talk, TM and I built a fire and watched "Rome" whilst drinking calvados and then fell asleep on the floor with the cats. There are luxuries, now and again.

Oh, Midwest!

Field College, in wee Field Town, is, well, in the Fields. We are rural.

I say this up front so that you will better understand this weekend's Big Plans.

First, there is a Quilt Show at the Farm Bureau Administration Building on Friday night and all day Saturday. I will be in attendance, because it's to benefit the non-profit on whose board I sit. I will also very likely be paying for all of the tickets that I was supposed to sell but was too passive/embarrassed to push on people.

Second, TM and I have been invited to have dinner with a few other "young couples" on Saturday and then to join them at the Square Dance Fellowship Event at the church. I have not square danced since elementary school (although I confess that I loved it back then).

And finally, on Sunday afternoon, we will trek out--well, it's not so much of a trek, being less than a mile away--we shall wander out to a local farm for a hayride and "wiener roast" (oh, poor vegetarian me). We're going because we've been curious about this farm, whose owners we know; well, the hayride might be fun, if my allergies subside by then.

So while my mom goes to gallery openings (many of them showing her work) and my brother and sister-in-law perform original songs on avant-garde public-access TV, I get hayrides, square dancing, and quilts.

I like my life. But sometimes it's very hard to recognize.

Week 6

So: I have emailed Journal Editor with a variation on Notorious' message. I am not as blithe as she suggests, but am working up the confidence angle. I'll let you know what happens; it's making me nervous.

In other news, it's Week 6. What is it about Week 6? Either I get cranky or a small but visible portion of my students gets obnoxious. Example 1: In my 10 am class, one student was pretty clearly doing the homework in class, and then handed it right in to me at the end (it was comp; we discuss the homework before the handing-in. I will change this policy as much as I can immediately. Much as I hate walking around and checking off the homework for completion--hello, eighth grade!--I hate being taken for a sucker even more). Example 2: In my 1:00 class, one student told me that another was in the hospital. At 1:50, on my way back to the office, I spotted said student sitting on the floor OUTSIDE MY CLASSROOM waiting for another class to start. I sort of double-taked and vowed to deal with it later, in a stern email. (As I said to TM, "I might be all nice in the classroom, but I am one cold bitch over email!")

So I guess that's only two incidents. There's the sleepiness, of course, and the sauce of a student who casually dropped off his homework in my mailbox a few hours after class ended (Example 3). I shall be discussing this practice with him.

What annoys me is that I try so hard not to police every little stupid thing in my classes. As Dr. Crazy recently argued, such practices can turn into a massive time-suck. (Those were not her exact words, of course, but this is what I recall of her general point, probably mistakenly. I'm tired.) So I got rid of "excused" and "unexcused" absences, and now say that you get three, and after three, no matter what, your grade starts to go down (barring extraordinary circumstances). When you've missed 20% of the class sessions, you fail. So I don't care if Example 2 was skipping class or actually sick; the penalty is the same. But when ze lies to me (and has another student lie to me, too), well, that's kind of disrespectful and insulting, and I feel like I shouldn't let it go. But I don't want to deal with it.

If I only have three Examples (one of whom--Ex. 3--is generally a pretty charming student, otherwise) out of my 60-odd students, I guess I shouldn't complain. But maybe Week 6 is just the point in the semester when these otherwise really little things start to get...just...super annoying.

(On the bright side: My seminar is going pretty well, though only 2/6 are really on board with the blog. Kittenfoot (also known as the Mayor of Kittentown--yes, I am awesome with the cutesy names!) is doing well: she still pees outside the box, for some reason, but otherwise is doing well, eating lots, and racing around the room, and she went to the vet last week. She can't come out of the attic bedroom until she's had her leukemia test on the 13th, though, which means that we have to spend a lot of time in the room with her. That's kind of tiresome and makes me feel guilty for neglecting the other cats! Our Chaplain might consider taking her in, which would be okay with us--as fond as we are of the little stripey-face.)

Publication dismay/query

I am disheartened and need advice.

Today I emailed the editors of the two journals in which I have published/had work accepted for publication, verifying that the publication of (different, revised versions of) those articles in the book would be okay. My understanding is that my doing so is largely a courtesy, right? I should note that the book is eight chapters long, so two previously published bits--one of which is only half a chapter--is not excessive.

Haven't heard back from one yet, but I'm not terribly worried about it.

Got an email from the second. This is Big Fancy Journal, and they accepted my article almost two years ago, but it's not in the pipeline yet. Editor writes (very nicely) that ze could push publication ahead so that it'll beat the book, but is there a point? Maybe I should withdraw the article with a note in the book about how it was going to be published in BFJ but would have appeared too close to the book for that to be worthwhile?

I see where ze's coming from, but...I really want to publish in this journal. Of course, it's a nice line on the CV. But more importantly, I think that it will reach a much wider audience--not to mention being available through JStor, Ebsco, etc.--through the journal than through the book.

The article is not identical to the chapter, by the way. It's about half as long and, while the argument is similar, the emphasis is different. It was changed quite a bit from the original chapter in order to stand alone, and then even the original chapter was revised quite a bit for the book. Now, it's not an altogether different thing, and I couldn't make a strong argument that it contributes to the field in a substantially different way. But the journal did commit to publishing the article (right? I think? maybe?), and, well, see the point about being made available to a wider audience, above.

I haven't written back to the editor yet, but I'm wondering: What's the protocol here? Can I (politely, acknowledging that it's ultimately up to the editor) indicate that I'd really prefer to have the article published in BFJ anyway? Or would that be out of line/simply not done? It's a bummer to be sure.... I was pretty psyched about that acceptance (and have been waiting impatiently for publication, too!).

(Kittenfoot is fine. Updates to follow.)

I do not have time to spend all evening in the attic, playing with kittens!

That's all.