mfanerd's Xanga

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:33:27 GMT

Just a reminder that my blog has moved to http://oregonstate.edu/~carpenta/wordpress-2.0.4/wordpress/

Ah, disparities

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 00:54:44 GMT

The impulses of inactivity and activity are curiously similar, at least in my case. Both are compelling and easy to ignore, depending on my mood. Right now, the inactive impulse is the one I’m most interested in entertaining. I don’t know if it’s because I received a 12 out of 15 on a paper and was told not to worry about the grade and not to make it into a percentage (80%) or if it’s because it’s Thursday and I’m just exhausted. Though the latter is most often the reason for my lethargy on Thursday evenings, I know a lot of it has to do with the former. And not because I can’t handle a non-A, but because he provided almost no concrete guidance for the paper. Instead, he enveloped it in obscurity and vagueness and abstraction and even told us he expected none of us to get it right. If that’s the expectation, then perhaps there is a problem with the explanation of the assignment, unless it was intended to make us fail to understand it. That kind of teaching to me isn’t the kind that stretches students but rather alienates them through frustration and confusion. And when you ask a question and receive a completely unrelated answer time and time again, it’s hard to be oriented in the class.

But most curiously, up until today, I haven’t allowed this disparity between expectations and explanations to bother me because I realize that this will often happen in life. But it’s disheartening when you’ve gone above and beyond to try to produce a paper that at least thoroughly attempts to make sense of the complicated and unclear topic and still do worse than seems necessary, especially when the comments on the paper do not imply a 12 out of 15 grade. Perhaps he is simply trying to push me and the other graduate students and feels that if we all got A’s, we wouldn’t try harder for the longer essay which is to be an extension of the first. Either way, this course is about the pleasures in reading and for some time now, any pleasures have been obscured by the obscurity of the assignment instructions. And of course, I could never voice these concerns to the professor because I’m sure I would be told that I’m supposed to be thinking out of the box and that alternative ways of thinking are always difficult. But that’s not what’s happening. Expectations must be in line with a teacher’s preparation for such expectations to be met.

One week down, nine more to go

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:40:27 GMT

I would say that the first week of classes went very well. The vagueness of that sentence pleases me in some ways. However, I shall get more specific.

My two sections of WR 121 at 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. both went smoothly on Tuesday. I had a lot of founded and unfounded fears about my first class because how could I possibly expect my 8 a.m. students to be awake at all? How could they possibly want to be engaged, nod their heads, laugh at my jokes, and have done all the reading? But in fact, they had! Now I’ve been told by a fellow MFA that the first two weeks of 8 a.m. classes can be great and then the rest go sharply downhill from there, but I’m hoping that’s not the case. And while the energy level may naturally decrease a little bit as we move further into the term, I will cling to my “good” students in that class, hoping against all hopes that they will continue to nod their heads, engage in good discussions about the books, and generally be alert in class.

I put the word “good” in quotations marks because I think it unfair to say that the students I like in my classes are actually good students or that they are the only ones. So by “good” I mean engaged and on-task. I know for a fact that other less-talkative students have done the reading and are paying attention, etc…. But there is something about that student who raises his or her hand at just the right times and has well thought out responses that just makes me happy and makes me want to label them as “good.” And I know at least most of why that is: because they are like me. As Lauren said yesterday, “They’re little Claires.” And that’s true. And as a general rule, I tend to believe that a person is often repulsed by certain aspects of themselves that they see in other people, but the characteristics that make up a “good” student must not be them. Although, the students that do raise their hands a few too many times do irk me a little, not because I don’t want to hear their responses but because I want everyone else to have a chance. And I know I was that student, the over-eager hand-raiser who just couldn’t help herself.

I feel as if I’ve given my 9:30 a.m. class short shrift. They are a good class. All of them showed up both days (in my 8 a.m., five were absent the first day), and while they would rather smile instead of laugh and be silent instead of talk, they seem to be alert. I was pleased yesterday at the nice discussion we had about Richard Rodriguez’s “Aria: A Memoir of Bilingual Childhood.” They had a variety of ideas that came at the piece from different angles. I had been teasing them and calling them my quiet class and then I praised them as my talkative class. I know they have it in them; I would just like at least a few more courtesy laughs throughout the class

But overall, I know that I’m already enjoying teaching a lot more than last term now that I know what I’m doing. My examples in class are more tightly focused as are our discussions of the readings. I’m more aware of making sure everything relates to the first essay they’ll be writing, whereas before, I didn’t really know what that essay would look like, so I didn’t know how to prepare them for it very well. So I’m much more excited about this term and feel so much more at ease with my lovely freshmen.

The two classes I’m taking also look to be very interesting, very unlike the kinds of classes I took at Texas Tech. I learned no theory there, not even a hint of it, so in Ahearn’s “The Pleasure of Reading” class, the main textbook by Robert Alter really touches on New Criticism and New Historicism and actually is a reaction to the “disappearance of reading” as literary critics move away from examining texts to just using texts as a platform from which they can explore or pontificate about any issue under the sun without having to have actually read the book. So it should be quite interesting, as shall Helle’s “Literature and Pedagogy” class. Me, Lauren, and Isabelle have signed up for the first presentation, so we’ll see how that goes.

Off to read more for both those classes and do a little grading of informals and freewrites for WR 121.

Forsaking you for Wordpress

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 03:18:36 GMT

While xanga's administrativce interface is much more pleasant than Wordpress's, I fear I shall be leaving xanga soon so that I don't have to divide my time between facebook, xanga, and my Wordpress site. I've been tinkering with the free website I get through OSU for several months now and couldn't figure out how to use Wordpress to do it. Well, I got help today and have done it. So here's my new page (whose address will hopefully be cleaned up soon once I find someone to tell me how to do that--probably Ruben): http://oregonstate.edu/~carpenta/wordpress-2.0.4/wordpress/

Another motivating factor is that my brother and sister-in-law have a Wordpress blog now, too, and since they're now in DC planning to go overseas with the Foreign Service, it will be nice to be able to communicate with them through our respective blogs.

So we'll see if I end shutting this one down..... At least it won't be anytime soon, I don't think.

Polka dot? If you insist.

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 04:37:46 GMT

So I've been watching the Animaniacs DVDs, which of course got me thinking about Tiny Toons, which of course has made me happy all around

Sample awesome quote:

Umlatt of Dunlikus: "Yes! I will have all the anvils!
Yakko: "Exsqueeze me. This whole thing is about anvils? Why didn't you say so?"
Dot: "Here you go. You can have my anvil." (Dot hands him his anvil.)
Umlatt: "I don't want this tiny thing.":
Yakko: "Well then have this one." (Yakko hands him his anvil)
Umlatt: "No!"
Wakko: "Don't look at me. I'm keeping mine."

Here are links to the two fan sites I just joined. Enjoy! &

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:38:06 GMT

So for Christmas, I got a laptop from Donnie's parents!!! So exciting! I'm on it right now . So now when I'm at home, I can actually get some schoolwork done while Donnie plays on the computer in the evenings.

I also got the two volumes of the Animaniacs episodes, which I've been hoping for since they went on sale on July 25th. I was watching one of the episodes last night and realized that it was made in 1993. That is so incredibly long ago. It made me feel old.

Tomorrow morning we will be driving down to Houston bright and very early before the suburbites start driving into Dallas. So that means leaving at around 6:00 a.m. If we're too tired, we might end up waiting until like 9, after all the traffic has gone away.

Off to hang out with Donnie's friends. But remember kids: "If at first you don't succeed, blame it on your parents." (Animaniacs 1st episode)

Ah, holiday travel

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:07:35 GMT

So i just finished The Black Dahlia, which was a lot more disturbing and had a lot more moments of sexuality than I expected. At least it kept me entertained. The first fifty pages or so were pretty slow because it was hard to slog through all the 1940s police and boxing jargon. So once I got used to the flow and the fact that all policeman are not nice, it went more smoothly and actually finally got exciting. I definitely would've never finished the book if I didn't have to read it for a class. Now I get to watch the movie and see if it's as interesting as the book.

Um, we leave Corvallis Friday afternoon for Portland. We'll spend the evening wandering around and then head to our hotel near the airport. It's actually cheaper to rent a room and leave your car there than it is to leave your car in extended parking at the airport. Plus, we don't have to wake up at like 3 a.m. to drive up to Porland for our 8:30 a.m. flight.

We're both desperate to be in Texas again to see our families. If it were acceptable to do so, I think we would love to actually hang out with our separate families for the 10 days we're down there since we miss them so much. But that would be weird and would inspire all of my cousins to think that we were separated.

Not looking forward, however, to having to check our bags since I couldn't find any containers under 3 ounces at the store. I bet we'll lose my luggage and I'll be *screwed.* I'm sure nothing will happen; it's just that I never check my luggage so I'll be feeling very naked, kind of.

Off to continue reading ahead before dropping off my bicycle at Bike N Hike for a little tune-up ,and then sausages hot dogs, then The Nativity Story and $.50 movie popcorn!!

Monday, December 11, 2006

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 23:52:31 GMT

So the term's over! Hooray!

I've finished all my grading and actually failed one of my students . Yes, that is a 'pleased' smile. I'm not pleased that he failed but that he didn't get away with not doing all of the work. He turned in one of his portfolios late, missed a conference, didn't do the library portfolio, and never turned in his final portfolio! He should've failed outright for not doing the library portfolio, but I forgot to remind him of that early on, so I felt like I couldn't fail him after his chance to withdraw had passed. He would just get a D-. So, my only hope was for not turn in his final portfolio. And he didn't! He actually tried to email me his paper and I told him that wasn't acceptable. He had to turn it in to my mailbox, but he never did. Stupid, stupid boy. Do you have any idea what a 0.0 does to your GPA when it's on a 4.0 scale? Let's just say it's not good.

So anyway, now school's over, I've planned my syllabus/schedule for the my two classes in the winter term and life is good! Now I'm just reading ahead for the next term and sleeping in and generally doing nothing incredibly productive.

I do, however, wish that I were already down in Houston hanging out with my family. Instead, I'm being a good wife and sticking around until he can leave on the 23rd. We only get to see our families over 10 days. Not very much time when splitting it between 2 families. But my parents are coming down over spring break, so hopefully that will sate my desire to see my parents.

Um, here are a few more pictures of my fellows MFAs/MAs. Hopefully I'll have some soon from the super cool Christmas party we hosted at our apartment. Almost 25 people were in our apartment at one time! Woohoo! A very un-Clairelike thing to do.

And here are some pictures of my niece and nephews.

Me and the Donnie @ McMenamin's for Isabelle's Surprise Party!

Ruben and the Lauren @ McMenamin's

Tommy :) Ella :)

Wade :) All three of them :)

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 04:26:26 GMT

Tomorrow is my last day of class for the fall term, both teaching and taking! Of course, I'll have to grade the final portfolios, but that won't take almost any time at all! Hooray! Whippee! Yippee!

I'm actually in the middle of planning next term's syllabus and schedule. I think I'll be changing around a few things and personalizing it a lot. I have to turn in the plan as well as my defense of it by December 15th, so I have to get to it. I'll actually be teaching two classes in the winter term, which will make things very busy but will also get me twice the money! Woohoo for that.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the winter break so I can start getting ahead for next term's classes and actually read a few books for myself.

Here are a few random pictures of me with some of my fellow MFAs.

Me and the Ruben.

Jason and Isabelle looking a little, um, odd.

Me and my Lauren, a little blurry in the halflight.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:34:31 GMT

It snowed most of the day here. So exciting! It actually alternated between rain and snow, which was very different. The snowflakes were so huge. It was amazing. I snapped a few pictures of it which I included in my photo blog, but I thought I'd just go straight to the short video of the snow in front of our apartment. Eeeh! Snow :)