Thursday, June 21, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
I WENT tothe INTERNET becauseiwas LOOKING fora METHOD
I've been applying for lots of weird little jobs, and to just to make my random freelance life official, last night I posted some ads on craigslist advertising myself as a tutor and editor . . . well, today I got an email from an adult looking for ESL tutoring, asking--perfectly reasonably, I might add--about my "method."
So I went online in search of a method, and I discovered a couple of interesting thoughts about English.
1. Spoken and written English are so different that they should be considered separate dialects. Whoa! I'd never thought of that but I guess it might be true. So now we can all feel good because we're fluent in at least two dialects.
2. English speakers say "function words" (prepositions, articles, all the little words) EIGHT TIMES FASTER than we say "content words" (nouns, verbs, etc). I love the idea of the researchers sitting there with a stopwatch timing, I don't know, their friends? Or "Friends"?
Obviously, these have implications for ESL instruction, but they are also pretty relevant to writing poetry and creative prose. I'm going to think about them more.
So I went online in search of a method, and I discovered a couple of interesting thoughts about English.
1. Spoken and written English are so different that they should be considered separate dialects. Whoa! I'd never thought of that but I guess it might be true. So now we can all feel good because we're fluent in at least two dialects.
2. English speakers say "function words" (prepositions, articles, all the little words) EIGHT TIMES FASTER than we say "content words" (nouns, verbs, etc). I love the idea of the researchers sitting there with a stopwatch timing, I don't know, their friends? Or "Friends"?
Obviously, these have implications for ESL instruction, but they are also pretty relevant to writing poetry and creative prose. I'm going to think about them more.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Progress
The tomatoes are getting bigger, and the droopy basil seems to be cheering up. Still, we have another two weeks of June Gloom left to go, and I can tell the plants are sick of it. As am I. My teen student, on the other hand, claims to love it, which proves that growing up in Seattle makes you a freak.Last week I couldn't find the key I use to get in and do laundry. Feeling kind of dumb, I turned my apartment upside down in various ways for several days and then finally found the key last night . . . on the kitchen table. Yup, I'm a keeper. At least my clothes are clean now.
Tomorrow I'm going to print out all my poems from my thesis and from this year and maybe some more that have been lurking in my files, and I'm going to see where we're at.
INSOMNIA!
C'mon, relax!
Tomato report: one new cherry tomato, one cherry tomato gone (eaten?). One tiny big tomato.
Other stuff report: nada.
Tomato report: one new cherry tomato, one cherry tomato gone (eaten?). One tiny big tomato.
Other stuff report: nada.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Every day, and some questions
,I decided to start blogging again, like, every day or something. Why? Just because I enjoy it. That's all.
So here is the tomato update: each cherry tomato plant has five baby tomatoes, for a total of ten. The two regular tomato plants are doing fine, but no sign of babies yet. One of the basil plants is mysteriously droopy, which is worrying. I keep meaning to go to Home Despot and get some more herbs, and probably some more tomatoes too, so I have a real collection.
I'm in love with a certain chord on the guitar. E7/G#. I'm not sure why. I've never felt this way about a chord before.
One year + one week into the PhD, and school is still confusing. My poetry idol told me that I would know if I should be doing this or not, that if it wasn't right for me I would hate it. But, well, I do kind of hate it, I feel like I'll never be able to do and/or be satisfied doing what's expected of me, that the available lines of inquiry either a) are boring or b) require more knowledge than I'll ever be able to acquire or c) obviously, both. And yet, when it comes time to do my own work, I break what I understand to be the rules and write exactly what I want to write and I love pretty much every paper I've written this year and, well, love's a strong word but for the most part I'd say so do my professors. So is this just a grad school bubble where I'm getting good responses because the standards are relatively low but I'll eventually have to stop writing what I want and start playing the game? Have I just chosen the old-fashioned and/or easy professors? Or are the rules more flexible than they sound? I kind of hope so because sure, I complain about academic inbreeding and the narrowness of professional discourse, but it's not like Harper's is looking for an incisive discussion of the role of the comma splice in contemporary poetry . . . for better or worse, if I want to write about poems, academia is probably the place.
And finally, meet my friend Carafe, who counts being the coiner of the phrase "Summer of Excess" among his many important accomplishments.
So here is the tomato update: each cherry tomato plant has five baby tomatoes, for a total of ten. The two regular tomato plants are doing fine, but no sign of babies yet. One of the basil plants is mysteriously droopy, which is worrying. I keep meaning to go to Home Despot and get some more herbs, and probably some more tomatoes too, so I have a real collection.
I'm in love with a certain chord on the guitar. E7/G#. I'm not sure why. I've never felt this way about a chord before.
One year + one week into the PhD, and school is still confusing. My poetry idol told me that I would know if I should be doing this or not, that if it wasn't right for me I would hate it. But, well, I do kind of hate it, I feel like I'll never be able to do and/or be satisfied doing what's expected of me, that the available lines of inquiry either a) are boring or b) require more knowledge than I'll ever be able to acquire or c) obviously, both. And yet, when it comes time to do my own work, I break what I understand to be the rules and write exactly what I want to write and I love pretty much every paper I've written this year and, well, love's a strong word but for the most part I'd say so do my professors. So is this just a grad school bubble where I'm getting good responses because the standards are relatively low but I'll eventually have to stop writing what I want and start playing the game? Have I just chosen the old-fashioned and/or easy professors? Or are the rules more flexible than they sound? I kind of hope so because sure, I complain about academic inbreeding and the narrowness of professional discourse, but it's not like Harper's is looking for an incisive discussion of the role of the comma splice in contemporary poetry . . . for better or worse, if I want to write about poems, academia is probably the place.
And finally, meet my friend Carafe, who counts being the coiner of the phrase "Summer of Excess" among his many important accomplishments.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Good Morning!
As of this afternoon, my first year of school is finished! I have to apologize because I have been MIA for at least the past week as I cowered in a hole and put off writing and then wrote my seminar papers. My phone is now back on. If you called me, I will call you back and apologize personally.
But let me just tell you for a second what I did in the last 24 hours. In 24 hours, I conceived of, researched, and wrote a perfectly respectable--in fact, I think quite insightful--twelve-page seminar paper. Perhaps that impresses you. Just wait. In the same 24 hours I also: got a full night's sleep, tutored my high school student, ran 4 and half miles, AND put in a serious effort partying not only at the College Inn but also at Earl's. I'm a machine!
And now it's over for a while. From now on, this blog is going to be all about my tomato plants.
But let me just tell you for a second what I did in the last 24 hours. In 24 hours, I conceived of, researched, and wrote a perfectly respectable--in fact, I think quite insightful--twelve-page seminar paper. Perhaps that impresses you. Just wait. In the same 24 hours I also: got a full night's sleep, tutored my high school student, ran 4 and half miles, AND put in a serious effort partying not only at the College Inn but also at Earl's. I'm a machine!
And now it's over for a while. From now on, this blog is going to be all about my tomato plants.
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