More Information Than You Require*

Alright, so the seminar of doom this time around is a theory class in another department. Now, I'm trying to be open-minded about all this theory nonsense, but this sentence probably tells you how effective that 'trying' is. The thing is that I really do see the use of the theory, I really do. I even - heaven forfend!- use it in some of my work! But here's the rub, theory is not what I do. I do Gruub Studies, and theory is a tool - and only one tool - that I use to study, er... Gruubs.

So anyway, I'm trying to address my fear of theory by tackling it head on with this class, and actually, it's going well. I'm learning heaps and gaining a lot of respect for the prof that teaches the class (less so for some of the students). He actually seems to be alright with the idea that I'm only wanting to cherry-pick the stuff that I think is useful to me. All to the good, even though I still have to do all the work for all the theories.

What this means in practical terms is that I'm reading a metric boatload of reeeally dense stuff. This weekend was one of the roughest for reading, but I made it through, took notes, wrote a handfull of thoughtful questions to ask and dutifully headed to class.

It was cancelled.

I now feel like a piece of furniture with a coat of stain but no sealant. How am I possibly going to remember all this junk well enough to be coherant next week. Luckily, I'm not sure I'm ever cohearant. Maybe no one will notice. I'm exhausted and disappointed and happy all at once.

I'm adrift.

Also, tomorrow's a holiday.

I've got more work I could/should be doing, but I'm going to go home and maybe watch some football.

*title is from John Hodgman's book of the same name. I haven't read this one, but I read the last one, or well, listened to it on audiobook and loved it immensely. That is all.

Colloquium Colloquium Colloquium - C'mon, It Is Fun to Say

One of the coolest things going on this year is a student-run colloquium for the grad-folk. Everyone even remotely related to the study of Gruub in all her glory can feel welcome to come on down and talk shop. Nothing to spectacular there, right? We bring in articles from various parts of the Gruub matrix and talk about them, which is cool, because we get to see what's state of the art in related fields that we've never really mucked about in. Every other week, we invite professors in to talk about what they are working on and such, which is nice, because on no-prof weeks, we can have the more informal talks without the stress of a possible advisor or committee member hovering about, but we've still got them around when we need them.

What's very cool about this, and what makes it better than I thought it would be, is that we've ended up talking about things that we need to know on a practical level that I've never heard discussed openly and freely in groups of academics that didn't involve booze. Not only are we talking about the field, but we're asking, and actually getting fairly important professors to talk seriously and thoughtfully about the politics of (for example) writing reviews ('You cannot write any kind of review, positive or negative, without making enemies' - obvious in hindsight, perhaps, but very good to know). We're talking about the hows and whys of inter-departmental and inter-field-al (?) territorial fights and biases, and because we've got people from so many fields, we're getting a really broad overview. It's a lot of stuff that seems to be generally learned by painful experience.

Last meeting, we had a wonderful knock-down drag-out fight over the implications of emerging broadening and lengthening of copyright laws as it relates to Gruub Studies. How Frickin Cool. And not something that would come up in a seminar except to perhaps feel a twinge of guilt as you run off copies of entire books.

I guess this kind of colloquium might not be a groundbreaking thing, but I've never seen it before, and I'm really impressed how it's working out. It seems to be a very useful way of easing us into the role of academics in a broader way than just writing another paper.

The copyright issue was especially interesting. I may need to do a post or three on that one. What do you folks think? Is copyright helping you more than it hurts you nowadays?

Confidential to Dude in the Back Row

Ok, so the class I'm TAing for is a large one, and when I go to lectures I always try to sit inconspicuously in the back to see what the students do during lecture. You can probably figure it out. The ones up close are listening intently and scribbling notes. The students back by me? well... Here's a quick list

• In the annoying but not completely horrific category:
• Texting (xJust about everyone)
• In the distracting and annoying category:
• getting up and leaving out the loud doorway in the middle of lecture (x2)
  
• In the why don't you just stay home category:
• Solitaire on the laptop
• Soduku (x3 or 4)
• Sleeping
• In the Oh my god get a room! category:
• rubbing the upper inner thigh of the girl next to you. Constantly. For nearly the entire lecture. Yeesh. Who knew Gruub studies gets people so hot and bothered.
  

On another completely random note, in case you didn't know how, here's some excerpts from the book, On Becoming a Woman. It's filled with such useful information about how to avoid lesbian relationships, and the dangers of masturbation. Remember! Circumcision is always an option if you can find the right "Christian doctor." Brought to you by the loving care of 1951 misogyny.

• 
  

Hot Topics

This post is for me, so I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense because I've edited out too many identifiers.

I had a mild epiphany as I was drifting off to sleep last night (actually I fell asleep almost immediately after getting home. Right in the middle of MNF, too. So, what I mean is that when I woke up again and spent a dreary few hours trying to reorient myself through sleep-gucked contact lenses, I eventually took those blasted things out and tried to get some work done. Eventually at about 2 or 3 in the morning I gave up and went back to sleep - heap o' healthy, I'm sure, but I digress).

I specifically chose my field to a a bit vague. I straddle two field that generally don't play well with each other, but they're intimately connected. I like dealing with both and think that they are mutually supporting. The classes I'm teaching now are supposed to be Introduction to Gruub Studies (Topic A), which is, incidentally, the name of the department to which I belong, both here and at the soon-to-be-named School Of The Fall.

The trick is, that in teaching this class I've come to the conclusion that I can't teach Topic A, without going deep into Topic B. Topic B is very poorly supported right now at this university, so the vast majority of students have no background whatsoever in it - we couldn't even have it as a prereq (which it should be). I've had a great deal of fun introducing Topic B, but it has taken time away from Topic A.

I've TAed for professors teaching this class a few times, and they've always glossed over Topic B, and the students hurt for it. As a TA, I was always having to shore up the shaky Topic B information before the students could get a grasp of Topic A, and frankly, I'm not sure they were able to really get the Topic A information because they didn't understand Topic B.

The reason this is all so important to me is that this really helps me define myself. I've always thought that Topics A and B were of absolute equal value. I understand now that, to me at least, B must come before A, even if they are both equally important. Maybe this seems obvious to the students, but it's a bit of a flashing lightbulb over my head that clears some things up for me, even if this post is completely unintelligible to anyone else.