Hey, I wrote a paragraph this afternoon! (and with that, you know this blog has moved back into the familiar and ever-so-annoying, I'm sure, blogging of every minute and painful detail of my writing progress. Prepare to be bored.)
I was having luck with just writing and planning on going back through and putting in the dates and quotes and details later. Right now I have about a page of crap, liberally interspersed with _____ or [get the quote from the bio and put it here]. I'm hoping that this will keep my momentum going, as I can make it to the end of my train of thought and of the paragraph, and then go search my 800 different word files of notes and quotes and thoughts to myself later to fill it in. Usually I fill in as I go, and then forget where I am going when I finally have located that quote 30 minutes later.
Unfortunately, two days of hot weather and little sleep mean that I am really crashing. More than my usual afternoon lag. (I had a wonderful time of it last night trying to get my drunken-looking fan to stand upright, and then broke it. Even once I got it cooler in my room my blood was still boiling from frustration.) So I'm going to go home and take a nap (hope I'm good for driving), and rest up and maybe play with the cats if it is not too much of an oven at my place.
Crazy utopian goal for tomorrow: two paragraphs.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Random Bullets of It's Hot and I'm Bored
- It's hot!
- I'm bored!
- Actually it may have cooled off outside but I don't feel like doing anything and that includes moving.
- I should go away from the computer now, especially since it is generating heat, but I can't be bothered to actually do it, only to complain about it.
- We're on fire again.
- But only in a more general "state of the state" kind of way rather than an OMG I have to pack the car and the cats and run for the hills (or maybe away from the hills) kind of way.
- My philosophy is: if it is more than 10 miles away and not located in a canyon that is directly pointed at me, then fuck it. I ain't movin'.
- West Covina? Who would even miss it?
- In other news, I think I should call the landlord about the window screens, as they seem to all have large holes in them that let in the gnats.
- At least my cats are happy about that.
- However.
- The landlord still hasn't called back or done anything about my last maintenance request.
- Did I tell you about that one?
- When Cool Scientist Friend was here, one morning I opened a cabinet door and it came right off the hinges and landed on my head.
- The crazy thing was that both of us saw it fall in super slow motion. That made it possible for me to move my arm and block it. But it seemed very strange and dreamlike.
- Like those dreams where you are running away from something but your legs only move in slow motion, like through invisible jelly.
- I hate those types of dreams.
- Also, I drank an extra iced coffee yesterday afternoon.
- Because it was hot.
- But then I couldn't sleep.
- So I don't want to go to bed now, although I am exhausted, because I would like to have a semi-normal sleep schedule. Please.
- Oh, and you know what's crazy?
- Besides the fact that the summer is over and the MLA job list is coming out so damn soon?
- (If it comes out with any jobs on it. The MLA ______ list would be a depressing, and I'm afraid, all-too-likely, situation to encounter.)
- Craziness is looking at the Penn call for papers site and seeing a bunch of calls for next year's MLA panels up already.
- People!
- I cannot plan that far ahead.
- Not when I am unemployed,
- and it is too hot to move.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Value of Qualitative Information
Historiann is having a discussion today about "outcomes assessment" and how
Reading this made me think of my MLA summer newsletter, which made me vaguely worried and uncomfortable when I read it a little while ago, but was unable to put my finger on it at the time (I thought maybe it was because it reminded me that the job list was coming out soon. Eeek!) If you haven't gotten around to reading it yet, here's an excerpt from Rosemary G Feal's column:
I know it's ironic, coming from someone who is currently compiling a table of incidences and who just posted a picture to her blog to document the quantity of her recent reading (not the quality --- whoo no, there is no quality in that pile of boredom), but I would argue that the essence of the study of the humanities is qualitative. In fact, in the past, the "human" part of the humanities has meant that part of life which cannot be quantified.
I worry that, in relying on quantitative data to justify such a deeply qualitative field of study to our administrators, legislators, donors, and the general public, that we end up commodifying humanistic study ---- that we train those aforementioned people to not value the very subjects and methods we are advocating for, that they will become even less likely to understand the humanities work we do and why it is important. Will relying more and more on tables and charts and graphs of humanities "outcomes" and "excellence" end up devaluing, or transforming, the qualitative types of work we do in the humanities classroom?
After all, what's so great about quantitative data anyway? Well, let's see: it is a fast and efficient way of conveying information ---- it will take you a lot less time to read my charts and timelines of who-was-where-when than it would for you to read all those documents and for us to have a deep conversation about it. (Let's save that for the novel, which is actually worth considering closely.)
We also currently have a strong cultural inclination to value quantitative data as very important and somehow more real or more rigorous (here I could link to Lyotard or Evelyn Fox-Keller or Donna Haraway or whoever made this point first but I'm lazy and don't want to hunt it up). I'd say this trend dates back at least to the invention of the stock market ticker and the mystical belief that somehow throwing around numbers necessarily produces more money (I could link to any number of recent articles about the stock bubble, housing bubble, or Jon Stewart's attacks on Jim Cramer, if you'd like.)
So is outcomes assessment just another part of the factory university speedup? The whole point of humanistic study is to read and think in depth and then to talk about it, and to train our students to read and think in depth as well ---- and then to communicate what they have discovered through writing and speech.* That's it. It's a model that doesn't lend itself well to Taylorization, rationalization and efficiency. It's hard to turn it into a commodity with the attendant cycles of innovation and obsolescence of various bells and whistles, at least hard to do that and have it remain recognizably the same. There's no product, no profits or dividends; ideally these activities --- reading, thinking, communicating, in a humanistic manner --- should be carried out in all aspects of life and won't be easily correlated to getting a job or making X amount of money. In fact, humanistic study is supposed to be so much more all-encompassing and affect so much more of your life than your earnings, that measuring such a limited outcome as wealth, rather than a holistic assessment, should just be silly.
Of course, the idea that there are whole swaths of life and society that are not about money and measurements and profits makes some people veeery upset. As does the idea that maybe profits and making money don't have to be an important part of your life, or how it is measured. As for me, I think that when a university mission changes from educating students to proving to people that it is educating students, things have gotten really out of whack.
*I know, I know, craziness: the Marxist scholar endorsing humanism? Well, remember that Marx himself advocated that everyone work for 4 hours a day so that they all had time to study and create and entertain. Hell, I'd put in my 4 hours at the communal garden or garbage dump if I knew I had the freedom to think and read and talk about things that interested me in complete security.
It’s redundant work for everyone, except for the “Outcomes Assessment” administrators who are paid to make $hitwork up for faculty and students who would prefer to be left alone to get on with the business of studying physical anthropology, or engineering, or zoology, or Romantic literature, or something else that has actual interest and value to people other than “Outcomes Assessment” administrators.Historiann, and the blogger she cites, Clio Bluestocking, and some of the commenters, have the following complaints about Outcomes Assessment: it's a bunch of non-experts coming in from outside and dictating how content experts should be teaching things, it's a process that attempts to standardize content and teaching across departments and colleges and locations, it's a time- and labor-intensive process but departments are usually not granted any extra money or resources to comply with it, it homogenizes learning (through testing) and trains students to be uncreative and timid, and, most important, it assumes that the humanities and the outcome of a humanities class or education can be measured quantitatively. (did I leave anything out?)
Reading this made me think of my MLA summer newsletter, which made me vaguely worried and uncomfortable when I read it a little while ago, but was unable to put my finger on it at the time (I thought maybe it was because it reminded me that the job list was coming out soon. Eeek!) If you haven't gotten around to reading it yet, here's an excerpt from Rosemary G Feal's column:
Leave the Kleenex. Take the Data.While I am glad that the MLA is actually doing something (Historian's earlier post about a professor who ignored controversial emails attributed to him makes a good case for the dangers of ignoring distasteful developments), I worry that our willingness to jump on the quantitative-data bandwagon will produce some short-term benefits but be hugely detrimental in the long term.
Humanities Advocacy Day, 2009. I am sitting in the audience with the MLA's president, Catherine Porter, and vice president, Sidonie Smith, at a panel called Making the Case for the Humanities. A university president anchors his talk with this little quip from his days as a dean: when faculty members from the sciences came to see him, he took out the checkbook; when faculty members from the humanities visited, he took out the Kleenex. Leaving aside the gendered attitudes and other biases encoded here, I wonder what made him view the humanities faculty as a bunch of whiners without a cause. Is it in part because we are without something the scientists have when they visit the dean: the data?
The scientific community enjoys the benefits of a federally funded data collection project, Science and Education Indicators, prepared by the National Science Foundation's Division of Science Resource Statistics, with guidance from the National Science Board (www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/start.htm). Our turn is coming, though. Thanks to the efforts of many ... the Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has recently been launched in prototype form (www.humanitiesindicators.org).
I know it's ironic, coming from someone who is currently compiling a table of incidences and who just posted a picture to her blog to document the quantity of her recent reading (not the quality --- whoo no, there is no quality in that pile of boredom), but I would argue that the essence of the study of the humanities is qualitative. In fact, in the past, the "human" part of the humanities has meant that part of life which cannot be quantified.
I worry that, in relying on quantitative data to justify such a deeply qualitative field of study to our administrators, legislators, donors, and the general public, that we end up commodifying humanistic study ---- that we train those aforementioned people to not value the very subjects and methods we are advocating for, that they will become even less likely to understand the humanities work we do and why it is important. Will relying more and more on tables and charts and graphs of humanities "outcomes" and "excellence" end up devaluing, or transforming, the qualitative types of work we do in the humanities classroom?
After all, what's so great about quantitative data anyway? Well, let's see: it is a fast and efficient way of conveying information ---- it will take you a lot less time to read my charts and timelines of who-was-where-when than it would for you to read all those documents and for us to have a deep conversation about it. (Let's save that for the novel, which is actually worth considering closely.)
We also currently have a strong cultural inclination to value quantitative data as very important and somehow more real or more rigorous (here I could link to Lyotard or Evelyn Fox-Keller or Donna Haraway or whoever made this point first but I'm lazy and don't want to hunt it up). I'd say this trend dates back at least to the invention of the stock market ticker and the mystical belief that somehow throwing around numbers necessarily produces more money (I could link to any number of recent articles about the stock bubble, housing bubble, or Jon Stewart's attacks on Jim Cramer, if you'd like.)
So is outcomes assessment just another part of the factory university speedup? The whole point of humanistic study is to read and think in depth and then to talk about it, and to train our students to read and think in depth as well ---- and then to communicate what they have discovered through writing and speech.* That's it. It's a model that doesn't lend itself well to Taylorization, rationalization and efficiency. It's hard to turn it into a commodity with the attendant cycles of innovation and obsolescence of various bells and whistles, at least hard to do that and have it remain recognizably the same. There's no product, no profits or dividends; ideally these activities --- reading, thinking, communicating, in a humanistic manner --- should be carried out in all aspects of life and won't be easily correlated to getting a job or making X amount of money. In fact, humanistic study is supposed to be so much more all-encompassing and affect so much more of your life than your earnings, that measuring such a limited outcome as wealth, rather than a holistic assessment, should just be silly.
Of course, the idea that there are whole swaths of life and society that are not about money and measurements and profits makes some people veeery upset. As does the idea that maybe profits and making money don't have to be an important part of your life, or how it is measured. As for me, I think that when a university mission changes from educating students to proving to people that it is educating students, things have gotten really out of whack.
*I know, I know, craziness: the Marxist scholar endorsing humanism? Well, remember that Marx himself advocated that everyone work for 4 hours a day so that they all had time to study and create and entertain. Hell, I'd put in my 4 hours at the communal garden or garbage dump if I knew I had the freedom to think and read and talk about things that interested me in complete security.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
What I did on my Summer Vacation
This last month of it, anyway:
Look upon my archival might and despair, ye weaklings! This doesn't count the boxes of loose stuff cause I couldn't bring in my camera. I love the UC system and its inter-campus interlibrary loan! Anway, I now know everything there is to know about this subject. I compiled everything in it except the thickness of the motherfucking pages.
Too bad that this type of work, while necessary to create an article, doesn't actually get measured and evaluated as work in and of itself... at least not if you don't have a camera and a blog, awww yeah.
Unfortunately, I can't put "read cubic shitloads of very boring contextual stuff" on my CV, not and have it count for anything anyway. So miles to go before I sleep and all that before this turns into something I can send out to a journal. And I really really need to do that before the job market season starts up again so that I can make it visible. At least, visible to the official, rather than the internet, academic world. You all are bowing and quaking in your boots:
Look upon my archival might and despair, ye weaklings! This doesn't count the boxes of loose stuff cause I couldn't bring in my camera. I love the UC system and its inter-campus interlibrary loan! Anway, I now know everything there is to know about this subject. I compiled everything in it except the thickness of the motherfucking pages.Too bad that this type of work, while necessary to create an article, doesn't actually get measured and evaluated as work in and of itself... at least not if you don't have a camera and a blog, awww yeah.
Unfortunately, I can't put "read cubic shitloads of very boring contextual stuff" on my CV, not and have it count for anything anyway. So miles to go before I sleep and all that before this turns into something I can send out to a journal. And I really really need to do that before the job market season starts up again so that I can make it visible. At least, visible to the official, rather than the internet, academic world. You all are bowing and quaking in your boots:
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Peopled Out
It is a sign of how happy I am to have my place to myself again and all my little routines returned to normal that I was actually thrilled to clean things and do laundry and put the sofabed away. I would never want to compare my dear friend to stinking fish, so let's just point out that I am the epitome of the introvert. My cats must be too. They are happy and quiet and back to normal now. And I have no desire to talk to anyone at present. Hiding in a cube in the library while reading my boxes of crap sounds lovely right now!
Based on our conversations and revisiting of old stomping grounds and various adventures I had many moments where I wanted to write up emails to people and really really wanted to tell them everything and see how they are doing. But right now I don't feel like doing that --- as if even emailing someone would be too draining right now. Heh. I hope to have the urge return sometime this week so I can get caught up. I love to get phone calls and emails but am a terrible sender of them myself. Plus, I often verbally or mentally respond to the email as I get it, then think I actually sent a real email, and then not only not write them back, but get all huffy that they are slacking on sending me an email. In response to my imaginary response, you know. Crazy.
I didn't keep track of what I ate on this week of insane celebration, but I saved receipts to add into my creaky old version of quicken, and man! I need to go on both a food and a money diet starting immediately. No eating out, no drinking, as little spending as possible. Whoo! It was crazy --- a couple days I ended up buying food out for all my meals plus snacks! (It involved trying to get my friend places she needed to go and otherwise put out fires, then it was combined with laziness and the lack of a packed lunch to bring along with me. So, as is usual for me about once every three-four months I hereby declare it to be a New Year and am officially Turning Oveer a New Leaf, rededicating myself to the cause, as it were.
That's all I've got. I may tell you some stories of the (obnoxious and bro-ish) people who populate Cool Scientist Friend's department, but I also may be over that and just put them out of my mind. I will just say that the stupid sexist crap you see in an English department is nothing compared to what goes on in some of the other, more science-y, disciplines.
Ok, back to the hermit cave. Whoo-hoo!
Based on our conversations and revisiting of old stomping grounds and various adventures I had many moments where I wanted to write up emails to people and really really wanted to tell them everything and see how they are doing. But right now I don't feel like doing that --- as if even emailing someone would be too draining right now. Heh. I hope to have the urge return sometime this week so I can get caught up. I love to get phone calls and emails but am a terrible sender of them myself. Plus, I often verbally or mentally respond to the email as I get it, then think I actually sent a real email, and then not only not write them back, but get all huffy that they are slacking on sending me an email. In response to my imaginary response, you know. Crazy.
I didn't keep track of what I ate on this week of insane celebration, but I saved receipts to add into my creaky old version of quicken, and man! I need to go on both a food and a money diet starting immediately. No eating out, no drinking, as little spending as possible. Whoo! It was crazy --- a couple days I ended up buying food out for all my meals plus snacks! (It involved trying to get my friend places she needed to go and otherwise put out fires, then it was combined with laziness and the lack of a packed lunch to bring along with me. So, as is usual for me about once every three-four months I hereby declare it to be a New Year and am officially Turning Oveer a New Leaf, rededicating myself to the cause, as it were.
That's all I've got. I may tell you some stories of the (obnoxious and bro-ish) people who populate Cool Scientist Friend's department, but I also may be over that and just put them out of my mind. I will just say that the stupid sexist crap you see in an English department is nothing compared to what goes on in some of the other, more science-y, disciplines.
Ok, back to the hermit cave. Whoo-hoo!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Visit Update 2
I should be working. I should be getting more coffee. I'm going to write an update here instead.
Last night Cool Scientist Friend mentioned something about maybe she should try sleeping in her car. Wha??? :( Turns out that if you are not used to cats, them creeping up to you and tickling you with their whiskers, trying to determine what the hell you are, is startling. And if it happens a lot per night you lose sleep. Oh no, we can keep the cats in my room, I say, gathering their food and water and litterbox. And hopefully you will sleep better without them walking all over you.
And that was fine. Actually, as soon as it became clear I was in the room and the door was shut, the cats came out from hiding under the covers and started acting like their normal selves, nosing about, leaping all over things, sometimes scrabbling at the door. But overall it seemed to be fine.
Except I can't go through the night without needing to pee at some point. It must have been around 3 am and I decide to get up. I creep out, shooing the cats from the doorway, and close the bedroom door. I can't get it to "click" but it seems closed all right. So I use the bathroom, without bothering to lock the door. Partway through the door creaks and I see little Timido's head poke in. Oh crap! So when I'm all done and washed up I grab him and cart him with me back to the bedroom and toss him in. And then start to look around in the dark living room. If Timido came out, Loquito must be out there, preparing to make trouble and investigate the strange person.
I see a glimpse of white and go after him, and try to pick him up, but he sinks his claws into the carpet. I've got a hold of him under the belly and I pull, but he doesn't go anywhere, just gets longer and longer like taffy, holding on with his claws. And suddenly this whole situation is hilarious to me and I dissolve into giggles. You know the kind where knowing you can't be making any noise makes you laugh a million times harder? So I'm laughing so hard that I can't hold on to the cat any more, stifling myself, and all these weird little sighs and snorts are escaping me even though I've got my hands over my mouth and I'm trying to corral my cat with my knees, and I'm just laughing harder and harder, thinking, What the hell will CSF think when this wakes her up? How freaked out is she going to be?
Luckily I manage to get my self and my cat under control and we head back to the bedroom, where everybody finishes up the night mostly behaving themselves. And luckily CSF found it hilarious when I acted out my little adventure for her the next morning.
In other news, I think we're going to try to hit all the old favorites and eat out as much as possible. Aww yeah! Tonight will be either Thai or Italian. We may need to save the Italian place with great wine until after she files. Mmm!
Last night Cool Scientist Friend mentioned something about maybe she should try sleeping in her car. Wha??? :( Turns out that if you are not used to cats, them creeping up to you and tickling you with their whiskers, trying to determine what the hell you are, is startling. And if it happens a lot per night you lose sleep. Oh no, we can keep the cats in my room, I say, gathering their food and water and litterbox. And hopefully you will sleep better without them walking all over you.
And that was fine. Actually, as soon as it became clear I was in the room and the door was shut, the cats came out from hiding under the covers and started acting like their normal selves, nosing about, leaping all over things, sometimes scrabbling at the door. But overall it seemed to be fine.
Except I can't go through the night without needing to pee at some point. It must have been around 3 am and I decide to get up. I creep out, shooing the cats from the doorway, and close the bedroom door. I can't get it to "click" but it seems closed all right. So I use the bathroom, without bothering to lock the door. Partway through the door creaks and I see little Timido's head poke in. Oh crap! So when I'm all done and washed up I grab him and cart him with me back to the bedroom and toss him in. And then start to look around in the dark living room. If Timido came out, Loquito must be out there, preparing to make trouble and investigate the strange person.
I see a glimpse of white and go after him, and try to pick him up, but he sinks his claws into the carpet. I've got a hold of him under the belly and I pull, but he doesn't go anywhere, just gets longer and longer like taffy, holding on with his claws. And suddenly this whole situation is hilarious to me and I dissolve into giggles. You know the kind where knowing you can't be making any noise makes you laugh a million times harder? So I'm laughing so hard that I can't hold on to the cat any more, stifling myself, and all these weird little sighs and snorts are escaping me even though I've got my hands over my mouth and I'm trying to corral my cat with my knees, and I'm just laughing harder and harder, thinking, What the hell will CSF think when this wakes her up? How freaked out is she going to be?
Luckily I manage to get my self and my cat under control and we head back to the bedroom, where everybody finishes up the night mostly behaving themselves. And luckily CSF found it hilarious when I acted out my little adventure for her the next morning.
In other news, I think we're going to try to hit all the old favorites and eat out as much as possible. Aww yeah! Tonight will be either Thai or Italian. We may need to save the Italian place with great wine until after she files. Mmm!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Visit Update 1
Cool Scientist Friend is here. Yay! Unfortunately I had forgotten about the effect of the time difference and a long drive, so she crashed on my couch at about quarter to ten. That left me trapped in my bedroom (with terrified cats), wide awake and nothing to do. (Oh, we did manage to have a lovely dinner of Mexican food out and a nice long talk. Now she is packing up her old office and prepping her stuff for her defense. I'm in the library, doing my usual work.)
So, since I had to be quiet, I grabbed a book off my huge stack of books-I-bought-compulsively-in-a-bookstore-and-now-have-way-too-many-to-ever-catch-up. I'm about halfway through Toni Morrison's Paradise right now and I have to say I am totally rocked. I am always so confused and lost, in a good way, when I read Morrison. She has such a gift for making you think you are figuring out what is going on, then dropping some more details that leave you trying to figure out the actual situation and totally loving the suspense. I know I'm going to have to turn it over the moment I hit the last page and start reading it again so that I can actually put all the pieces together. That's such a great feeling. For some reason it reminds me of In Cold Blood, which I think I read last summer.
Anyway, back to my actual work reading ancilliary stuff for my article. It does not have the same engrossing qualities as Morrison, I must say. :-)
So, since I had to be quiet, I grabbed a book off my huge stack of books-I-bought-compulsively-in-a-bookstore-and-now-have-way-too-many-to-ever-catch-up. I'm about halfway through Toni Morrison's Paradise right now and I have to say I am totally rocked. I am always so confused and lost, in a good way, when I read Morrison. She has such a gift for making you think you are figuring out what is going on, then dropping some more details that leave you trying to figure out the actual situation and totally loving the suspense. I know I'm going to have to turn it over the moment I hit the last page and start reading it again so that I can actually put all the pieces together. That's such a great feeling. For some reason it reminds me of In Cold Blood, which I think I read last summer.
Anyway, back to my actual work reading ancilliary stuff for my article. It does not have the same engrossing qualities as Morrison, I must say. :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)