Pretty much everyone who knows me knows I'm mildly obsessed with personality tests (administering them to my stuffed animals and the like--for instance, Lambie is an INFP, like me). Today I was thinking about the word personality itself. It's so literal. Personality: it's your, you know, person-ness. I like that.
I also like that it's a compliment to say that someone has personality. I like that it accepts, but does not fetishize, one's defects.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Monday, November 28, 2005
My nose...
no longer likes the grindstone.
It is a very weird experience to try to help a high school ESL student write college essays while writing PhD and fellowship essays yourself. It really puts things in perspective. Thinking about possible phrasings for him, I realized how convoluted my own application-essay prose can get. I have to give myself a clause limit. It's also interesting to see the whole selling-yourself process through the eyes of someone to whom it's alien. For instance:
Student (discussing after-college plans, for one of the essays): Or I might go back to China and work for my father's company, help him make it more bigger, more famous.
Me: Well, would it really be famous? What does your father's company make, anyway?
Student: Aluminum!
And also:
Student: Okay, I wrote that I want to spend more time with my family, not just with my business. What next?
Me: Well, how about say why you want to spend time with your family?
Student: I could say: Because my father didn't spend time with his family and it made me . . . (long pause) . . . so sad!
It is a very weird experience to try to help a high school ESL student write college essays while writing PhD and fellowship essays yourself. It really puts things in perspective. Thinking about possible phrasings for him, I realized how convoluted my own application-essay prose can get. I have to give myself a clause limit. It's also interesting to see the whole selling-yourself process through the eyes of someone to whom it's alien. For instance:
Student (discussing after-college plans, for one of the essays): Or I might go back to China and work for my father's company, help him make it more bigger, more famous.
Me: Well, would it really be famous? What does your father's company make, anyway?
Student: Aluminum!
And also:
Student: Okay, I wrote that I want to spend more time with my family, not just with my business. What next?
Me: Well, how about say why you want to spend time with your family?
Student: I could say: Because my father didn't spend time with his family and it made me . . . (long pause) . . . so sad!
Friday, November 25, 2005
Always, Sometimes, Never?
As they say in the personal ads, are the following always, sometimes, or never okay?
--Parentheses around part of a word, as in "There are many (re)sources for a female poet..."
--Poetic as a (singular) noun
--Problematic as a noun
That's all for now, next installment coming up soon...
--Parentheses around part of a word, as in "There are many (re)sources for a female poet..."
--Poetic as a (singular) noun
--Problematic as a noun
That's all for now, next installment coming up soon...
The All-Clear
Thanksgiving has passed: the turkey was relatively moist and no one died of undercooked-poultry-poisoning, suffings and pies and potatoes were delicious, autumnal centerpieces were admired, and Agent Cooper drove into town and drank coffee made with a fish in the percolater. So all is well.
I'm afraid I will never be able to concentrate again. This is a serious fear I get from time to time. Right now I'm going to try to get my brain going and to exorcise some of the ghost of turkeys past by reading a book about Marianne Moore at the gym. I also just added a longish personal note to my rejection wall!
I'm afraid I will never be able to concentrate again. This is a serious fear I get from time to time. Right now I'm going to try to get my brain going and to exorcise some of the ghost of turkeys past by reading a book about Marianne Moore at the gym. I also just added a longish personal note to my rejection wall!
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Turkey Stress
I've forgotten it: the frantic calls to mom, the anxiety over whether to open the oven and check on it. Thanksgiving is a holiday I've always kind of liked--I like how there are rules but it's not religious, kind of like Festivus--but looking back on it, most of my TG experiences have been at best a mix of good and bad. Thnking about this makes me feel like I have permission to feel sad today, which is good, because I do.
There's that moment in your life when loss stops being hypothetical. I guess some people never get to go through the hypothetical stage at all, but if you do then that stage itself is something else to mourn. Sadness used to be an entirely pleasureable feeling for me; now it's still pleasurable, but I no longer feel the anchoring assurance that everything will be all right in the end and that makes everything different. Especially reading. Which is why I don't buy the idea that we have to teach students that relating to poems out of their life experiences is wrong, even though, in a crude sense, it's an unsophisticated way of reading.
Well, time to baste and make an autumnal centerpiece.
There's that moment in your life when loss stops being hypothetical. I guess some people never get to go through the hypothetical stage at all, but if you do then that stage itself is something else to mourn. Sadness used to be an entirely pleasureable feeling for me; now it's still pleasurable, but I no longer feel the anchoring assurance that everything will be all right in the end and that makes everything different. Especially reading. Which is why I don't buy the idea that we have to teach students that relating to poems out of their life experiences is wrong, even though, in a crude sense, it's an unsophisticated way of reading.
Well, time to baste and make an autumnal centerpiece.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Step Aerobics
How does something like this happen to a person? You're just living your life, and then . . . you're bouncing and waving your arms around like a maniac and doing push-ups on the Resist-o-ball. (I'm not kidding, this is apparently the terminology.)
My new mantra, "I am a person who does not procrastinate," has not gotten me very far so far. But the whole problem with not procrastinating--you're never done, there's always something else not to procrastinate about--also means I keep getting another chance to do better.
I have rarely felt so unintellectual. I miss thinking, but it seems very far away. Maybe a nice quiet Thanksgiving with Twin Peaks and some applications will help.
My new mantra, "I am a person who does not procrastinate," has not gotten me very far so far. But the whole problem with not procrastinating--you're never done, there's always something else not to procrastinate about--also means I keep getting another chance to do better.
I have rarely felt so unintellectual. I miss thinking, but it seems very far away. Maybe a nice quiet Thanksgiving with Twin Peaks and some applications will help.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Oh Yeah
Bloggin on a Saturday night...
Seriously, though, I just finished a draft of the Dread Personal Statement and I feel much better. Of course, it might be awful. Usually by the time I write these things I know what I want to say and so they come out structurally intact in the first draft (although I usually replace all of the words with new, better words...it's sort of an odd process). But this one is especially tricky because the English PhD is such a strange entity with so many particular considerations. For instance, should I use jargon? Should I cite critics? And most importantly, should I try to hide my horrible secret*? People at JK's birthday party #1 were saying that the horrible secret must be hidden in general or everyone will think you're dumb as a stump.
Well, I decided that I had to attack the horrible secret head on. My whole essay is about addressing the misconception that the H.S. means I'm a fuzzy-headed lightweight, although the essay does it gently and also throws in specifics about my impresive qualifications. I hope it's okay. My essays, even for this kind of thing, tend to say what I really believe and to veer into the profound--no joke, I usually get goosebumps writing the conclusion--and I know that could go over poorly with the uber-cynics on English Dept admissions committees. But on the third hand, I want a school that wants the real me, not some simulacrum I've cleverly invented to fool it. So . . . that's pretty vague, but any advice?
Also, there's something terribly wrong with my computer's CD drive. It sometimes gives these sad little whimpers, and other times it starts braying really loudly and shuts the computer down. Uh-oh. I wish my student didn't work at the Apple Store, because I want to have a crisis and it's just embarrassing to do that with the teacher face on.
Now, off to JK birthday party #2.
*The horrible secret: that I'm a "poet."
Seriously, though, I just finished a draft of the Dread Personal Statement and I feel much better. Of course, it might be awful. Usually by the time I write these things I know what I want to say and so they come out structurally intact in the first draft (although I usually replace all of the words with new, better words...it's sort of an odd process). But this one is especially tricky because the English PhD is such a strange entity with so many particular considerations. For instance, should I use jargon? Should I cite critics? And most importantly, should I try to hide my horrible secret*? People at JK's birthday party #1 were saying that the horrible secret must be hidden in general or everyone will think you're dumb as a stump.
Well, I decided that I had to attack the horrible secret head on. My whole essay is about addressing the misconception that the H.S. means I'm a fuzzy-headed lightweight, although the essay does it gently and also throws in specifics about my impresive qualifications. I hope it's okay. My essays, even for this kind of thing, tend to say what I really believe and to veer into the profound--no joke, I usually get goosebumps writing the conclusion--and I know that could go over poorly with the uber-cynics on English Dept admissions committees. But on the third hand, I want a school that wants the real me, not some simulacrum I've cleverly invented to fool it. So . . . that's pretty vague, but any advice?
Also, there's something terribly wrong with my computer's CD drive. It sometimes gives these sad little whimpers, and other times it starts braying really loudly and shuts the computer down. Uh-oh. I wish my student didn't work at the Apple Store, because I want to have a crisis and it's just embarrassing to do that with the teacher face on.
Now, off to JK birthday party #2.
*The horrible secret: that I'm a "poet."
Scary Red Coffee Cups
I think Thanksgiving should be the holiday with resolutions, rather than New Years. New Years resolutions are just too easy. By January 1st, the excess is behind you. If you live in a normal climate, it's cold and snowy and you just want to stay in anyway; if you live in California, it's clear, the mostly invisible snow-capped mountains are out, and you're filled with a sense of possibility. Resolutions are no problem. It's now that we need them, now when we're about to spend too much money, eat too much food, drink too many spirits, get too little work done, and indulge in an unhealthy sense of melancholy.
So for the rest of November and December, I will be a person who no longer procrastinates, who lives in a tidy room, who goes to the gym, who budgets, gets work done, knows where and why she wants to apply to PhD programs and can write all that down in a nice little personal essay, and does everything else right too.
I'm not a Christmas-hater like HenHen, but this year it feels like the Holidays are bearing down on us like an advancing army with elephants, battering rams, fake trees for cover, etc. Even innocent words like "peppermint latte" fill me with dread.
So for the rest of November and December, I will be a person who no longer procrastinates, who lives in a tidy room, who goes to the gym, who budgets, gets work done, knows where and why she wants to apply to PhD programs and can write all that down in a nice little personal essay, and does everything else right too.
I'm not a Christmas-hater like HenHen, but this year it feels like the Holidays are bearing down on us like an advancing army with elephants, battering rams, fake trees for cover, etc. Even innocent words like "peppermint latte" fill me with dread.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
The problem with teaching
is that sometimes you really don't feel like doing it. The Santa Ana winds are blowing beachy weather into town and all I want is to snooze in the shade and read a really old book between naps.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
I made a poster
...for a reading arranged by LOC with which I unwisely volunteered to help. I always forget that design is hard. I hope the rest of the Committee of Three likes what I've done.
Anyway, it's been a weird weekend. First, there was the GRE, which was way more difficult than the practice tests. The [name deleted because I signed an oath not to repeat the test content]'s Tale? Come on, ETS! Get with it! I guessed a lot, though mostly with confidence. Also, I got picked up by a 21 year old alcoholic from Fullerton and had a pleasant post-test drink with him, which is probably a good omen.
Speaking of omens, I am suffering from a lot of magical thinking recently. Good thing Vicky Silver's offering her Milton class in the winter, because she is big on dispelling the magaical mentality, and brilliant about it. I also hope to go out for margaritas with her, D, and his bandmate, her protege (and HH if she takes the class).
Anyway, there may be disappointment, there may be heartbreak, there may be Sex and the City. I probably won't ever finish my grading. My rejection wall is coming along pretty well. I think I need to read some old books and write some more poems.
Anyway, it's been a weird weekend. First, there was the GRE, which was way more difficult than the practice tests. The [name deleted because I signed an oath not to repeat the test content]'s Tale? Come on, ETS! Get with it! I guessed a lot, though mostly with confidence. Also, I got picked up by a 21 year old alcoholic from Fullerton and had a pleasant post-test drink with him, which is probably a good omen.
Speaking of omens, I am suffering from a lot of magical thinking recently. Good thing Vicky Silver's offering her Milton class in the winter, because she is big on dispelling the magaical mentality, and brilliant about it. I also hope to go out for margaritas with her, D, and his bandmate, her protege (and HH if she takes the class).
Anyway, there may be disappointment, there may be heartbreak, there may be Sex and the City. I probably won't ever finish my grading. My rejection wall is coming along pretty well. I think I need to read some old books and write some more poems.
Friday, November 11, 2005
GRE! GRE!
Another hungover morning because fictioneers know how to party, IHOP, and then a long session in Borders studying for the literature GRE. Ruskin, Wycherly and Congreve, ottava rima, alexandrines and rhyme royal, the Miller, the Pardoner and the Nun's Priest, you shall all be mine. And I'm going running and then looking forward to the rest of a quiet night with the books. And more of these quiet nights in the future. Why? Because I enjoy them, damnit.
(Speaking of damnit, in Firefly I noticed that the characters say "gorram" by which they seem to mean goddamn. I've been trying to figure out if that is clever censorship avoidance or annoying Western-speak. But when people in real life use it, the choice is clear. Okay?)
(Speaking of damnit, in Firefly I noticed that the characters say "gorram" by which they seem to mean goddamn. I've been trying to figure out if that is clever censorship avoidance or annoying Western-speak. But when people in real life use it, the choice is clear. Okay?)
Thursday, November 10, 2005
The Po Biz
A propos of many things, I have been thinking about issues of marginality and acknowledgement. I've realized about myself that even though I'm politically liberal I have a conservative temperment: I am drawn to the mainstream and made nervous by the fringe, drawn to things that are already acknowledged to be "good." For instance, I don't want to send my poems to a journal unless I can come up with some sort of frame of reference in which it is prestegious.
This isn't something I like about myself for a number of reasons, including that for any kind of artist this is a dumb way to be. The whole point of art is to imagine something that's not yet there, to imagine a way to be "good" that no one has ever thought of. Any decent artist is ahead of, or at least radically on the edges of, his or her own time.
That's why all this is such a gamble. You have to find the fringe that has the potential to become a new mainstream, and by definition you won't know if you've succeeded until significantly after the fact. So wanting acknowledgement and recognition from the old, enshrined establishment is an impediment to the whole enterprise. Not to mention wanting acknowledgement from people who don't even value poetry.
I'm trying to feel strength the strength of the effort to live without these things. Even if the product doesn't become meaningful to anyone, it's still a struggle and a sacrifice and there has to be something to that. But I don't like to live on the spinning* edge of things. I never feel I fit in there. Plus it's cold.
*Hence, I skipped spinning ("studio cycling") class this week.
This isn't something I like about myself for a number of reasons, including that for any kind of artist this is a dumb way to be. The whole point of art is to imagine something that's not yet there, to imagine a way to be "good" that no one has ever thought of. Any decent artist is ahead of, or at least radically on the edges of, his or her own time.
That's why all this is such a gamble. You have to find the fringe that has the potential to become a new mainstream, and by definition you won't know if you've succeeded until significantly after the fact. So wanting acknowledgement and recognition from the old, enshrined establishment is an impediment to the whole enterprise. Not to mention wanting acknowledgement from people who don't even value poetry.
I'm trying to feel strength the strength of the effort to live without these things. Even if the product doesn't become meaningful to anyone, it's still a struggle and a sacrifice and there has to be something to that. But I don't like to live on the spinning* edge of things. I never feel I fit in there. Plus it's cold.
*Hence, I skipped spinning ("studio cycling") class this week.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
California
One of my favorite things about Firefly/Serenity is that outer space turns out to be California. I also like that reavers seem to be vampires. Other evidence of Joss Whedon's pattern-repeating mind I'm less sure about but will leave them for later.
Faultline Office
It's raining. I just discussed sex and pears with my students. I don't want to clean my room, pay my bills, or work out. Sometimes I feel like I need to move in to the library and now is one of those times.
Firefox
May be the magic solution.
I like it, but why, oh why, do they not have the cute fox doing flips while pages load? The cute fox is their #1 asset!
I like it, but why, oh why, do they not have the cute fox doing flips while pages load? The cute fox is their #1 asset!
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Can I blog from my classroom?
Maybe it's just my computer at home. Hmmmm.
I just said no to a student who wanted to write his paper about a book his mother teaches to FIFTH GRADERS. And he had no shame about it. These kiddos.
I just said no to a student who wanted to write his paper about a book his mother teaches to FIFTH GRADERS. And he had no shame about it. These kiddos.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Bad Dreams
This morning, while snoozing to NPR, I had two strange bad dreams. In the first, I flew to Indiana to interview Jean Valentine, and halfway through the interview realized I was way unprepared and was asking really stupid questions (although I also had breakfast with Equinoctial and she cheered me up). In the second, I was having a nasty fight with my wonderful Faultline co-editor about this promotional calendar we were putting out. Does it sound like I'm anxious? I think maybe I'm anxious. But really, I blame the pledge drive.
Off to 4 straight hours of student conferences, followed by two hours of tutoring. And then, Collier!
Off to 4 straight hours of student conferences, followed by two hours of tutoring. And then, Collier!
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Stupid or evil...
... are Scooter Libby's choices for explanations of why he did what he did. I've never run in to that particular dichotomy, but in my office job days I was constantly negotiating the boundary between lazy and incompetent, which is basically a minor-league version of the same thing. Did I not sent out those contracts because I couldn't get them done or because I was reading the entire run of some online comic? Was I actually unable to return that email or just staring at the wall? I never really broke through to the understanding that both sins came down to the same thing.
Today, though, I had office job nostalgia. I puttered around the Faultline office doing various important tasks, and when the phone rang I perkily said "Faultline!" when I picked up as if no time had passed since I did that every day. But really THREE YEARS have passed since I've answered an office phone. About the right interval, I guess. Most of the time I really do heart grad school.
Collier countdown: 21 hours! If you're in Irvine, you should come to her party.
Today, though, I had office job nostalgia. I puttered around the Faultline office doing various important tasks, and when the phone rang I perkily said "Faultline!" when I picked up as if no time had passed since I did that every day. But really THREE YEARS have passed since I've answered an office phone. About the right interval, I guess. Most of the time I really do heart grad school.
Collier countdown: 21 hours! If you're in Irvine, you should come to her party.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Halloween
Trying to mount one on my flimsy closet door, I broke THREE separate mirrors within the last 24 hours. This can't be good for my luck. It might explain some things about the past few days*. Does anyone know an antidote? Or is Halloween maybe like Opposite Day for bad luck?
*That is generic bitterness. Nothing particularly bad has happened in the last few day, the multi-day Halloween extravaganza was fun, not much work got done but that seems okay.
*That is generic bitterness. Nothing particularly bad has happened in the last few day, the multi-day Halloween extravaganza was fun, not much work got done but that seems okay.
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