Piratitude

Noun. An attitude that is especially piratey.

Ex. Charity displays some great piratitude in this picture.

Sports

Charity Did Not like soccer this fall. She played for an entire 10 minutes the whole season. I'm kind of sad I'm at a conference in Wisconsin this weekend and can't take her to her last game, but I don't miss the fight. However she did look like a cute football player in her jersey. Now I have to think about if we want to try basketball...

The Warmest October in 30 Years

Today it rained, singling the end of the longest stretch of warm, beautiful days October has seen in 30 years, according to WBEZ. Because the last time Chicagoland has been this warm and accommodating to a three-year-old who can turn a two-bedroom apartment from clean to post-nuclear in the time it takes me to update my Facebook status, we had to enjoy it. No, we didn't go to the pumpkin patch. We're doing that this Sunday. We probably visited the park for the last time this year.

Charity figured out that she can swing from this park equipment.

She made me stand far away so she could do it "by herself."

Yesterday, we had to stay inside because we were waiting for the carpet cleaner, so we decided to make ghosts. Charity calls them "goosets," and she makes them say "wooooooooo."

Not Enough

For the past few weeks, I've been agonizing over a job I want and that I'm applying for. It's an administrative job at Purdue Cal, a job that would allow me to do a lot of what I'm doing now, but it would also allow me to have more reach, possibly to try out some of my programs and ideas, of which, as many of you know, SOWI is the most accomplished and closest to my heart.

Although I've been explicit with some of you and vague with others, SOWI is going somewhere. I have an idea of where, but I can't be certain. What I can say is that SOWI will be required in most ENG 100 and some ENG 104 classes. It's a great accomplishment for me, and I want to thank each of you that have helped make it happen or who have at least noticed what I've been doing.

I just wish that I could feel satisfied.

Yes, SOWI is designed to help people. It is designed to help all students be successful because I believe that education is fundamental and knowing how to write teaches others to think and advocate, which then allows them to change the world.

But SOWI is not enough.

The reality is that many of the people who most need SOWI will never walk through the doors of Purdue Cal. They may never walk across a high school auditorium stage to receive a diploma. They may never even make it through the front doors of a high school--ever.  If they do, they will need so much more than SOWI when they get there.

I know I can't expect to end injustice in the world, nor can I even hope to end it my corner of the world. Injustices occur as a result of deep-rooted problems that portions of our society ignore because turning an eye to them might knock those individuals from their positions of prominence and power. Or make them feel guilty for having those positions.

However, I do wonder if I could be doing more and if it is really ever possible to make a real difference from world of academia since so much time is stolen by competition and intellectual brawls.

So wish me luck as I apply--or not.

Because I Work

"Hi Mommy!"

The first time Charity's impish, dimpled face woke me up exactly a half an hour before I had to go to work, I didn't think it was cute. My reaction, instead, was more to the tune of "ugggggg." In fact, the first week of this new wake up call was a little hard to handle. After all, I'm a grad student, writer, teacher, manager, wife, and mom surviving on caffeine and five hours of sleep each night. I need every moment of shut-eye I can get.

But after a few days of waking up to an energetic toddler crawling into my bed to either feign sleep, jump, or play with the Dora doll who must not be moved from my windowsill, I'm starting to feel gratitude more than fatigue.

Charity Feigning Sleep

It's nice to spend a few extra moments with her, even if it's when I'm at my sleepiest. I even get the impression that she's getting up just to spend the time with me too. Sure, she still asks me to put on her "Elmo DVD" or watch "Sesame Street on the Computer," to bring out her doll house so she can fill it with her dinosaurs, or to get her some yogurt--STAT! But she seems to want to spend more time with me in the mornings because she knows that "Mommy has to go to work." She always asks me whether I'm going or staying, and if I'm going, she wants to know if she can go to the library when I get home. If I'm staying, well, she wants to know if she can go to the library now. Even though I'm tired, even though I'm not ready to get up, having those few moments with Charity is worth it. Plus, waking up to a smiling, happy toddler is better than waking up to even my favorite radio stations--The Drive, XRT, and WBEZ.

It's been about a year since my essay, "In Defense of Bad Parenting," won the Stark-Tinkham award for best graduate essay and was subsequently published in Subvesify online magazine. In that essay, I expressed my frustration with my community's attitudes toward working mothers.I was frustrated by the fact that many people in my community feel the need to cast judgement on mothers who decide to seek fulfillment both inside and outside of the home. I don't understand why, in today's era of modern understanding, we still feel the need to critique others' private choices and assume that working parents are bad parents.

In "In Defense of Bad Parenting," I compared my choice to work with Charity's then choice to stay up later and miss me in the mornings. Now, it appears both Charity and I have chosen again. Charity's made the choice to change her sleep schedule, and I've made the choice to embrace and encourage this time.

 However, my decision to work and to unapologetically enjoy my work has not changed.

I am a better parent because I work, because I love my work and it energizes and challenges me. Working stretches my brain and forces me to create to synapses, to learn more and to become better able to solve problems and think critically. The skills I learn from work don't stay there, though. I take them home share them with my family. Working daily with adult students, clients, and colleagues has undeniably changed how I parent my preschool-aged daughter. I've learned how to see things from various peoples' points of view and to utilize those points of view when interacting with different people. I've learned how to listen and respond to my daughter as a person through interacting with people in my line of work.

So how has my community's perception changed? It's changed a bit. At least, some individuals' perceptions of me have changed because they've begun to view my work as important or significant. However, I still routinely hear people in my community making excuses for children's behavior or feeling sorry for those children because "both parents work." Granted, there are some parents who do not like to spend time with their children, who use work as an excuse to get away.

This is not such a case. And many families in which "both parents work" cannot be characterized by the above assumption. In many families, parents work because they enjoy it or because they finances necessitate it. And in these families, parents still find the time to be good parents, to devote to their children the same passion they devote to their work, and in cases, like mine, to be better parents for it. While these parents are working, they do so with the idea that they work for themselves and for their children--to provide for their children, to learn more that they can teach to their children, and to set a good example of how to not only provide for a family but also how to pursue a myriad of dreams.

Trust me, you would have to feel a lot more sorry for Charity if I didn't work. Right now, I think she's got it pretty good. Our weekend agenda includes a movie and maple sugar tasting.

So am I just defending bad parenting again? No, I'm not apologizing this time. I'm a good parent because I love my child, because I want what's best for her, because I keep my commitments to her, and because I work.

This is a Post About Elmo

For those of you who don't know my daughter personally, there's one thing you should understand: she's absolutely head over heels with a fuzzy, red monster whose name starts with a capital E.

Now just in case there's a horror movie out there whose antagonist is a slasher named Earl with a skin disease, let me clarify: we are talking about Elmo.

As most of you know, I'm not the biggest fan of kids watching TV. I tend to dislike all cartoons, even down to the so-called "classic" Bugs Bunny. I make an exception for Disney movies and The Simpsons. However, I don't like it when kids watch tons of TV because I think they're not doing, not engaging, not experiencing. And because I'm so busy I verge on manic, we all know I'm big on experiencing.

But for the most part, I've been pleased with what Charity learns from Elmo. She wants to watch him, particularly one DVD she got for Christmas, over and over again, but I've seen her vocabulary and her problem solving skills grow because of her close watching of the DVD, taking in the instruction, and actually interacting with it, as well as trying to apply the lessons Elmo teaches her elsewhere. For instance, she often talks to me about "pride," one of Elmo's keywords on the DVD. (OK, she still thinks pride is something she can eat and frequently asks for it alongside a cookie, but at least she's becoming familiar with the term.)

However, there was one part of each Elmo movie or episode that never sat right with me. At the end of his shows, Elmo usually says, "And remember, Elmo loves you!"

But a fictional character can't love.

So will this scar children? Will they wonder why Elmo wasn't there for them when they broke their legs or lost their first teeth? Will they compare others' love the the faux-love that Elmo gives them. Love is the basis of what makes us human--it's something children need to develop the capacity for and understand at a young age. Could Elmo confuse them enough to send them into therapy for the rest of their lives?

And that's when I realized--Elmo is telling kids he loves them for just that reason. Because some of these kids who watch Elmo don't come from happy homes with parents who love them and friends and family who feel absolutely blessed to be a part of their lives. Who knows what kind of horrible things these kids have to deal with on a daily basis. But if their parents just turn on the TV, then for a while, they at least get to learn, they at least get to see what happiness is, and they at least get to hear that they're loved.

In the last few weeks, I've heard a lot about the Republican's fiscal bill, which, in the name of the national debt, completely cuts funding for public broadcasting. That's not why I'm writing this blog. Those of you who know me know that, when it comes to politics, I walk pretty much in the middle of the road, just staying enough to the left to avoid getting hit by oncoming traffic. My husband, a convicted Republican, says PBS doesn't need government funding to keep running Sesame Street, that it's worth millions. He might be right. At least, I'd be inclined to believe it based on the percentage of our annual household income that is earmarked for Elmo merchandise.

But when we think about taking away something like Sesame Street, we need to think beyond people like Charity, who, if Elmo were to suddenly disappear, would still have a village of people telling her they love her each and every day. We need to think about why Sesame Street was really created--in the hopes that, someday, a world population might understand the importance of learning, sharing, loving, and sunny days. So far, it's been unsuccessful--wars are still being fought because grown men and women can't learn to share. But I'd like to think that Elmo, Big Bird, Grover, and the gang convict us all a little when our behavior doesn't reflect the values of Sesame Street.

I guess I don't mind so much that Elmo says he loves Charity. In fact, maybe Elmo does love her; you'd have to have a whole lot of love in your heart to write something as pure as Sesame Street.

So, Charity, Elmo loves you. And so does Mommy. And so does your village. How lucky we both are to know that so certainly.

Quick Kindle Comment

I'm working on a longer post about a radio program I was listening to yesterday, and Charity's and my trip to the Indianapolis Children's Museum. But now I just need something to distract me from finishing my Writing for Information Interactive Media Paper.

I've picked, why I chose the Kindle over other e-readers, even those that allow you to read children's books in color.

1. Kindle for PC automatically syncs with my handheld Kindle. When I write papers, I can just bring up my textbooks on Kindle for PC in order to pull out quotes, etc.
2. The Kindle has almost every book that I want to read and/or need for class. Sony, etc. does not. 
3. For me, digital books are a great asset because I already have to multitask like I majored in it, but for my daughter, the process of actually flipping through a book is one of the greater appeals.

And now back to the paper... :)

The New Internet Psyche Facilitates The Brain of the Busy Grad Student/Parent

As most of you know, my research focus has recently shifted to technology and writing. Although I'm in the middle of updating attendance for my ENG 100 class, adding employees to my English SI section, and creating a survey for all ENG 100 students about my SOWI Project, I'm going to give a brief update of what I just thought about, which is sort of the point of this post. How unclear was that sentence? Hopefully things will begin to clarify a bit here as I go on.

Right now, I'm sitting in the PCS teacher's lounge because I am going to meet, at lunch, with students who are working on a drama that will be performed Friday. This means that I have about two and a half hours to work. I decided that I would begin by sending an important e-mail, then recording attendance for my ENG 100 students, so I opened up Blackboard and Outlook. Out of a course of habit, I also opened Gmail and Facebook. As I deleted Gmail messages, I noticed that there was one I had never responded to concerning my daughter and an activity she is in. I began to respond to the e-mail stating that I couldn't meet at the date requested because I was taking my daughter to the museum. In the midst of this, I thought about whether I wanted to record grades online or offline, so I went of to Blackboard, and made a couple of selections to open the online gradebook. Then, I went back to the e-mail and began to finish, when I realized I might be able to make the meeting depending on the train schedule, so I pulled it up on Google. I then thought about how potentially significant this might be, so I decided to write a blog, link to SOWI, etc, all while still checking that train schedule. (Looks like I can just make that meeting!)

What does this all suggest (other than I have way too much to do)? It means that the Internet is either changing our thinking--immediate gratification; we forget less because we don't have to stray too far from what we are doing to accomplish our to-do list; in a sense, it's nullified the to do list--or facilitating a thinking that was always a bit scatterbrained. (When you have to juggle shoe sizes, college course plans, Introduction to literary theory, and swimming lesson schedules, I don't know that you have a choice to be anything but scatterbrained!)

All and all, it's interesting. Now, back to trying to respond to that e-mail!

The Test of Twilight

I've chosen to break my three-month-long blogging fast with a meta-summary of the recent conversations I've had regarding the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. After a few years of not really caring to read the books, my decision to give them a chance was inspired by three factors. First, I got three out of the four books for $1 each at the public library book sale. Second, a number of fellow English teachers and writers recommended the books, even noting that they should be taught in the classroom. And third, I ordered the first two movies on Netflix, and I wanted to test the theory that the books were, indeed, better than the movies, which I considered horrible. 

After deciding to read the books, I wanted to be as neutral as possible, and to consider my reading an experiment or test. I read all four Twilight books in succession. The first three books took me 2-4 days each to read, while the fourth book took me all of a week, maybe longer. The time it took me to read the books was a result not only of length, but also of the fact that I was teaching three and taking two classes while reading. 

I read the books through the eyes of a concerned parent, as well as through the eyes of a writer and teacher of literature. However, I also tried to put myself in the place of the teenage, preteen, and college age girl who swears loyalty to the story. I wanted to determine what the draw was, and this is what I found.

There are some aspects of the novels that are very good. I kept reading, didn't I?

Pros

• The books are suspenseful. They keep you turning the page. You want to find out what happens to the characters, and each book includes the first chapter of the next at its conclusion. These first chapters are very effective marketing techniques. They always allude to some catastrophic event which does not end up occurring because of the last-minute, "happily ever after" rescues.
• There are a number of allusions to classic works.

My list of cons was so long that I decided it would be more practical to divide it into subheadings.

Literary Cons

• The book is poorly written. There are a number of serious word choice issues, and an even greater number of contradictions. The allusions to classic works are sometimes so obvious as to make them more statements than allusions. 
• The characters are unbelievable. This is especially problematic considering that the books are written in first-person from the point of Bella, until the final book, at which point the story is told from the perspectives of both Bella and Jacob.
• Much of the "mythology" is incredibly contrived and unbelievable. 
• The characters assume that only three options exist to resolve their conflict. To readers who tend to see many solutions to a problem, this behavior is unbelievable and frustrating, and when alternate options are discussed toward the end of the novel, readers don't feel relieved and hopeful but rather intensify their negative opinions of the main characters. 

Parent Cons

• The book is one of the most anti-feminist texts that I've ever read. Bella cannot exist on her own. She does not derive her own happiness, and goes into a stupor when the two men are not around. 
• Bella's family life is a mess, and for most of the novel she appears to be the caretaker of her parents, which might intensify teens' delusions of grandeur.
• There are a number of very dark scenes that made me uncomfortable.
• I could see this book very quickly leading to teens spending time with people who are bad influences or taking infatuation to a new level. 

Although I can see why people enjoy the Twilight books, I think they are, for the most part, a marketing ploy to sell movies, dolls, clothes, etc. I give Meyer the credit; the story is captivating, but these books don't have the merits to be taught in high schools. Why? The literary and moral objections certainly play a role, but in reality what should be the test of Twilight is the thinking test. Why do we ask students to read literature? Because through it they learn to analyze, to question, to criticize, to think, to apply, and to consider. In other words, they learn to Think About It! And to think about it meaningfully. The true test of Twilight should whether or not it is remembered. I read this one-act play yesterday; it means something, and I keep dwelling on it to think about it, to figure it out, to apply it. I read this short story over 10 years ago, and I couldn't get it out of my head. (Neither, apparently, could Fleetwood Mac.) But the only time I think about the Twilight books is when someone else asks me my opinion. Next time, I'll just send them to this post!