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I currently have a bit of an identity crisis with this blog, hence the random posting of YouTube videos. But here's another one. For those not on Facebook, this won't make much sense. But I've been dabbling in it the last six months or so and this is pretty funny.
Andrew Sullivan posted this super cool audio recording of Walt Whitman reading on of his poems. As an English major and Dead Poet's Society Watcher, this is super cool!!!
Found this post detailing an academic exploration of the Sopranos. Wish I could attend! My favorite session: "The Sopranos, the Family, and the Postwar Imagined Community"
I'm not a total fan of piling on our president's malapropisms, but this one (pointed out on Daily Kos) struck me as particularly funny. Obviously, the dead don't usually wonder too much about tomorrow.
Laura and I want to wish everybody a happy Mother's Day. It's just a special day to give thanks to our Moms; appreciate the hard work that Moms do. And I understand that for some, however, Mother's Day is a sad day for those who lost their lives in Oklahoma and Missouri and Georgia because of the tornadoes, are wondering whether or not tomorrow will be a bright and hopeful day.
I see many such statements in my life as a composition instructor. This semester, one student wrote how he had a friend attacked by a band of "armed rubbers." They don't quite tickle me as they used to, but it's one thing I'll miss as I move to greener pastures.
As of next week, I'll no longer be a first year composition instructor. I'll be teaching a course this summer, but it's not technically first year comp and I'll no longer be a part of the Writing Studies Department here. Probably the hardest part of this whole transition has been stepping out of a fairly comfortable niche. I've been in my current career track for almost a decade. I more or less know what I'm doing, and I'm reasonably competent at it. I'm in control of my work and I know what's expected of me.
Starting this fall, that all changes. I'm entering a new field. Rather than concentrating on teaching, the next three years of my life will be primarily about research. While my classes have touched on the themes I'm interested in, they've been introductory and, by necessity, fairly broad. In my next gig, some four or five years from now, I'll be teaching students specific content from a particular discipline. And during this transition, I'm a student--somewhat in control, but also learning what's expected of me and how I fit in a new academic landscape.
To that end, I feel like the caterpillar entering a cocoon. I don't know exactly what I'll look like on the other end of this. But it will be interesting to find out.
We now know that Obama has really, truly broken ties with his pastor.
