So, poking around another blog last night, I stumbled across a free thing called SiteMeter that you can add to your page to find out who's reading it. This online journal has always been private so that I could keep a certain amount of control over my audience, but after five-plus years, I've been curious to see who might be reading by fluke.
I was actually going to run the thing for a month before I told anyone about it, though I'm not planning to run it any longer than that because that would be reverse-stalking, which is too tempting on my end. SiteMeter doesn't record usernames per se, but it does record by location, by browser, by a lot of things.
But already there're two readers I didn't know about, leading me to comment now. So, old reader or new, if you've been on this site within the past little-over-a-day, consider yourselves caught. Hello there to Abby, unless I've got another fan in Lexington. ::waves::
And, um, are or are not my parents reading this? And if you are, for how long have you been?
3.31.2008
3.30.2008
3.29.2008
In Summary
I had no idea what real life would be like. Not just in terms of a career. In terms of everything. I think I never took seriously how difficult everything is, and how limited most things are.
Addendum
I talked to Tom about the difference between working for a high school and working as contingent faculty for a college (high school is more stable and the conditions are better...the teaching load might be slightly more, but is roughly comparable to a full-time adjunct instructor), and he says that Ph.Ds get paid better in almost every job. It's not like I'd contradict that, but I also think they don't get paid way better in composition. One job posted I printed from online today offers an additional $66 per class to professors with Ph.Ds.
My parents, whom I called for another reason, don't believe it's as bad as I say and think I'm overreacting and that the normal statistics won't apply to me. I think they also think I'm going to live at home for the first few years after grad school...ruddy not if I can help it. I like them fine, but I want to get out of Syracuse. There is almost nothing there for me.
My parents, whom I called for another reason, don't believe it's as bad as I say and think I'm overreacting and that the normal statistics won't apply to me. I think they also think I'm going to live at home for the first few years after grad school...ruddy not if I can help it. I like them fine, but I want to get out of Syracuse. There is almost nothing there for me.
On Easter Break, Meatballs, and Future Job Prospects
I know I haven't written about spring break yet, but I'm not sure there's much to say. Easter was pretty quiet; frankly, I spent most of it reading and/or eating. Much of the rest of the week involved doing lots of homework for Popular Music & Representation; Dr. S-A kept e-mailing with more stuff to tell us, and occasionally more stuff for us to read, telling us all the while, "Enjoy the sunshine!"
And because that didn't leave me with much time to begin my research paper for rhet/comp (and because I hadn't been sufficiently diligent anyway), I skipped out on Alfred, went back to Binghamton, and have been trying with a respectable amount of success (until now) to work long and hard. I did take time out to make meatballs, since I had ground beef that had to be used. They were okay; I should have spiced them better. Then again, they're meant to be eaten in sauce, not alone with ketchup, as I ate some of them for dinner (today has not been characterized by balanced nutrition). So maybe I don't have to spice them a whole lot.
I don't know if any of my new food projects this whole year have been unequivocal successes. I've had few failures, but I'm rarely fully satisfied with the outcomes, either. I guess mad culinary skills (skillz?) take some time to acquire, however much watching of Alton Brown and reading of cookbooks and food-writers one has done. I seem to remember that from learning to bake, years ago, not that I'd call those skills particularly mad themselves.
Interesting moment: as I was washing dishes, Mijeong came into the kitchen and peered at my baking sheet with its rows of finished meatballs on it. "You can have some meatballs if you want," I said half-sheepishly (had she asked me what to eat them with, I couldn't have offered anything except the ketchup she herself bought and lets me use).
"Meatballs," she murmured under her breath, looking again at them.
"Mm?" I asked, not sure I'd heard what she'd said.
"What is a meatball? I've never seen one before."
Meatballs have been among my favorite things about Italian food since I was small. I have eaten my mom's familiar, American-type homemade ones; strongly-flavored Sicilian-type ones (with raisins and fennel in them...I didn't like them at the time, but I was in elementary school, so maybe I'd like them better now); second-class-but-I-kinda-like-'em-anyway Chef Boyardee ones; delicious grape-jelly-simmered ones from Matt Duell's graduation party...I honestly can't say it'd ever crossed my mind that someone several years older than I am could have lived for four-plus years in this country without knowing what a meatball was.
"Well," I said, "it's ground beef and breadcrumbs and spices [I think I forgot to mention the egg]--kind of like meatloaf--rolled into balls." (I know that for a lot of people it's not like meatloaf, but Wikipedia, for anything it's worth, backs me up on my assertion. But it may have been a bad answer anyway, inasmuch as I have no good reason to assume that Mijeong's seen meatloaf, either.)
"Oh," she said. She didn't take one.
So yeah, I'm also researching for my rhet/comp paper. Said research is pretty depressing so far: without a Ph.D, it's way hard for me to get into anything tenure-track, and even a lot of community colleges want Ph.Ds. (They also tend to want prior non-TA teaching experience; how they expect us to get it is another question.) So I would most likely be relegated to what's called "contingent faculty," meaning that anything that would take me would be paying about minimum wage, would probably not offer me health insurance or any other sort of benefit, and would have essentially no job security from one semester to the next. A lot of people in that position become "freeway fliers," actually working at multiple community colleges in order to make ends meet. All this for an MA, and sometimes even a Ph.D.
Dr. Kinney implied that I shouldn't panic hardcore until I've looked into colleges that have made deliberate efforts to accomodate non-tenure-track employees and treat them a little better, but she hasn't done much research with a focus on having just an MA, so I may find that there's nothing out there unless I get a doctorate.
Which I almost certainly won't, by the way. Barring a wonder situation wherein I get a TA assignment next year (and it'd have to be in the fall if I wanted to apply for Ph.D programs immediately thereafter) and love it so much that I can see myself doing it all my life for low pay and no benefits after slaving for the next four to seven years in a doctoral program (immersed in a graduate culture and curriculum that so far I energetically resent), I'm going to get my MA, get the heck out of graduate life, and start looking for jobs. If not in composition or as a Writing Center director (though I think that most of them need teaching experience, too), then in something akin to editing, or at a nonprofit doing whatever nonprofit workers do. I'll look over the summer, I guess, at my prospects.
I kind of want to ask Kevin, who's in my program and friendly and nice, what's making him try to get a Ph.D. At thirty-three, he has a pretty good life already: an English-teacher job, which he seems to genuinely like, in a private Catholic high school; a side job reviewing books for the local newspaper; a wife and small children. But to get a Ph.D, he's teaching by day, arranging and attending his graduate courses around it, getting home late, often grading his students' work or doing whatever else for class, getting what he says is about three or four hours' sleep every night, and subsisting on energy drinks. He's in the creative-writing program (we have a Ph.D for that, not just an MFA), so I think he wants to be published, but cold indeed must be the world of employment if all that rigmarole is considered preferable to just being a high school teacher. The pay can't be that much better: people think that professors make a lot, but only a small percentage of them do (if you're interested, this week's Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article on that very topic).
[next two paragraphs deleted...I don't know if I like them anymore]
Seriously, though, back to work. I've spent way too much time on this already.
And because that didn't leave me with much time to begin my research paper for rhet/comp (and because I hadn't been sufficiently diligent anyway), I skipped out on Alfred, went back to Binghamton, and have been trying with a respectable amount of success (until now) to work long and hard. I did take time out to make meatballs, since I had ground beef that had to be used. They were okay; I should have spiced them better. Then again, they're meant to be eaten in sauce, not alone with ketchup, as I ate some of them for dinner (today has not been characterized by balanced nutrition). So maybe I don't have to spice them a whole lot.
I don't know if any of my new food projects this whole year have been unequivocal successes. I've had few failures, but I'm rarely fully satisfied with the outcomes, either. I guess mad culinary skills (skillz?) take some time to acquire, however much watching of Alton Brown and reading of cookbooks and food-writers one has done. I seem to remember that from learning to bake, years ago, not that I'd call those skills particularly mad themselves.
Interesting moment: as I was washing dishes, Mijeong came into the kitchen and peered at my baking sheet with its rows of finished meatballs on it. "You can have some meatballs if you want," I said half-sheepishly (had she asked me what to eat them with, I couldn't have offered anything except the ketchup she herself bought and lets me use).
"Meatballs," she murmured under her breath, looking again at them.
"Mm?" I asked, not sure I'd heard what she'd said.
"What is a meatball? I've never seen one before."
Meatballs have been among my favorite things about Italian food since I was small. I have eaten my mom's familiar, American-type homemade ones; strongly-flavored Sicilian-type ones (with raisins and fennel in them...I didn't like them at the time, but I was in elementary school, so maybe I'd like them better now); second-class-but-I-kinda-like-'em-anyway Chef Boyardee ones; delicious grape-jelly-simmered ones from Matt Duell's graduation party...I honestly can't say it'd ever crossed my mind that someone several years older than I am could have lived for four-plus years in this country without knowing what a meatball was.
"Well," I said, "it's ground beef and breadcrumbs and spices [I think I forgot to mention the egg]--kind of like meatloaf--rolled into balls." (I know that for a lot of people it's not like meatloaf, but Wikipedia, for anything it's worth, backs me up on my assertion. But it may have been a bad answer anyway, inasmuch as I have no good reason to assume that Mijeong's seen meatloaf, either.)
"Oh," she said. She didn't take one.
So yeah, I'm also researching for my rhet/comp paper. Said research is pretty depressing so far: without a Ph.D, it's way hard for me to get into anything tenure-track, and even a lot of community colleges want Ph.Ds. (They also tend to want prior non-TA teaching experience; how they expect us to get it is another question.) So I would most likely be relegated to what's called "contingent faculty," meaning that anything that would take me would be paying about minimum wage, would probably not offer me health insurance or any other sort of benefit, and would have essentially no job security from one semester to the next. A lot of people in that position become "freeway fliers," actually working at multiple community colleges in order to make ends meet. All this for an MA, and sometimes even a Ph.D.
Dr. Kinney implied that I shouldn't panic hardcore until I've looked into colleges that have made deliberate efforts to accomodate non-tenure-track employees and treat them a little better, but she hasn't done much research with a focus on having just an MA, so I may find that there's nothing out there unless I get a doctorate.
Which I almost certainly won't, by the way. Barring a wonder situation wherein I get a TA assignment next year (and it'd have to be in the fall if I wanted to apply for Ph.D programs immediately thereafter) and love it so much that I can see myself doing it all my life for low pay and no benefits after slaving for the next four to seven years in a doctoral program (immersed in a graduate culture and curriculum that so far I energetically resent), I'm going to get my MA, get the heck out of graduate life, and start looking for jobs. If not in composition or as a Writing Center director (though I think that most of them need teaching experience, too), then in something akin to editing, or at a nonprofit doing whatever nonprofit workers do. I'll look over the summer, I guess, at my prospects.
I kind of want to ask Kevin, who's in my program and friendly and nice, what's making him try to get a Ph.D. At thirty-three, he has a pretty good life already: an English-teacher job, which he seems to genuinely like, in a private Catholic high school; a side job reviewing books for the local newspaper; a wife and small children. But to get a Ph.D, he's teaching by day, arranging and attending his graduate courses around it, getting home late, often grading his students' work or doing whatever else for class, getting what he says is about three or four hours' sleep every night, and subsisting on energy drinks. He's in the creative-writing program (we have a Ph.D for that, not just an MFA), so I think he wants to be published, but cold indeed must be the world of employment if all that rigmarole is considered preferable to just being a high school teacher. The pay can't be that much better: people think that professors make a lot, but only a small percentage of them do (if you're interested, this week's Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article on that very topic).
[next two paragraphs deleted...I don't know if I like them anymore]
Seriously, though, back to work. I've spent way too much time on this already.
3.28.2008
Conviction. Not jealousy. Right?
Dear Students of Binghamton,
You know, you're cutting yourselves off from an integral part of the college experience, especially you freshmen. College students are supposed to come from different hometowns, such that they can't spend entire breaks hanging out together, and must stay home and reconnect with high school friends and exchange e-mails with each other about how many dang weeks there are until they can be back together in (insert college town here). Freshmen are supposed to undergo a weird, gradual, angsty process wherein they first love their high school friends best of anybody in the world, and then have a strange break wherein they're so anxious to get home but then spend all their time wishing they were back at school, and then conclude that they really do love school and everybody there--mere weeks before either Christmas or summer break, depending on how long this adjustment process has taken. And then there's a happy reunion after the long desert-weeks(/months) of separation, and no arguments or annoyance for whole days at a time.
See what you're missing, putting up all those Facebook albums about gatherings and car trips together?
You know, you're cutting yourselves off from an integral part of the college experience, especially you freshmen. College students are supposed to come from different hometowns, such that they can't spend entire breaks hanging out together, and must stay home and reconnect with high school friends and exchange e-mails with each other about how many dang weeks there are until they can be back together in (insert college town here). Freshmen are supposed to undergo a weird, gradual, angsty process wherein they first love their high school friends best of anybody in the world, and then have a strange break wherein they're so anxious to get home but then spend all their time wishing they were back at school, and then conclude that they really do love school and everybody there--mere weeks before either Christmas or summer break, depending on how long this adjustment process has taken. And then there's a happy reunion after the long desert-weeks(/months) of separation, and no arguments or annoyance for whole days at a time.
See what you're missing, putting up all those Facebook albums about gatherings and car trips together?
3.26.2008
The line lives!
Ryan '04, Albert '05, me '06, Edgard '07...
...Courtney A., '08. And Abby G. is practically certain to get it in '09, so we ought to be set for then, too.
About two people among my readership are going to have any idea of what I'm talking about, but I'm posting it here anyway. ::is a little more pleased than the situation necessarily warrants::
Incidentally, Easter and stuff was nice. I'll post more later.
...Courtney A., '08. And Abby G. is practically certain to get it in '09, so we ought to be set for then, too.
About two people among my readership are going to have any idea of what I'm talking about, but I'm posting it here anyway. ::is a little more pleased than the situation necessarily warrants::
Incidentally, Easter and stuff was nice. I'll post more later.
3.21.2008
Sobriety, a little late
Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us...it is a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up "our own" when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is "nothing better" now to be had.
...The dangers of apparent self-sufficiency explain why Our Lord regards the vices of the feckless and dissipated so much more leniently than the vices that lead to worldly sucess. Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Back when I heard Frank Hart's song "Confession" (listed variously under that title and "Confession of Malachi and the Thief") this past--oh, it must have been September sometime--I remember reflecting on how very fitting a Good Friday song it would be. Now that we've actually arrived there, I can't help wondering whether it would really have been better for Ash Wednesday, heh. Either way, it is a free and legal download (here; scroll down to the bottom of the page) if you'd like to hear it. Do me one favor if you do listen: take the time to pick out all the lyrics. (But don't worry about the phrase "please remember me," as though God forgot that His people existed or something. I think it's modeled after the way God's actions are explained, especially in the Old Testament, in humanistic terms, the way the Torah says that God "remembered" this or that, as though He'd actually forgotten it, instead of that His timing just hadn't come to full fruition yet. It looks to humans like a forgetting on God's part when it's really just a waiting for the right moment. I think the remembrance line here, then, translates to something more akin to "please don't abandon me to the natural consequences of my actions.")
People here are fond of asking why we call it "Good" Friday if it's when Jesus was put to death. To answer that: we don't mean it as His good, but as ours. It's looking forward from the death to the resurrection. The death was good only in that the prophecies connected thereto were fulfilled--but because of them, it was very good. I know it's a counterintuitive name for such a thing. But it does seem to be the best one.
...The dangers of apparent self-sufficiency explain why Our Lord regards the vices of the feckless and dissipated so much more leniently than the vices that lead to worldly sucess. Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Back when I heard Frank Hart's song "Confession" (listed variously under that title and "Confession of Malachi and the Thief") this past--oh, it must have been September sometime--I remember reflecting on how very fitting a Good Friday song it would be. Now that we've actually arrived there, I can't help wondering whether it would really have been better for Ash Wednesday, heh. Either way, it is a free and legal download (here; scroll down to the bottom of the page) if you'd like to hear it. Do me one favor if you do listen: take the time to pick out all the lyrics. (But don't worry about the phrase "please remember me," as though God forgot that His people existed or something. I think it's modeled after the way God's actions are explained, especially in the Old Testament, in humanistic terms, the way the Torah says that God "remembered" this or that, as though He'd actually forgotten it, instead of that His timing just hadn't come to full fruition yet. It looks to humans like a forgetting on God's part when it's really just a waiting for the right moment. I think the remembrance line here, then, translates to something more akin to "please don't abandon me to the natural consequences of my actions.")
People here are fond of asking why we call it "Good" Friday if it's when Jesus was put to death. To answer that: we don't mean it as His good, but as ours. It's looking forward from the death to the resurrection. The death was good only in that the prophecies connected thereto were fulfilled--but because of them, it was very good. I know it's a counterintuitive name for such a thing. But it does seem to be the best one.
3.19.2008
On stuff and its overabundance
I got this from Tom. Tom is not a radical liberal, so I was surprised by the degree to which this sounds, though much more moderately, a little like Dr. Heywood over here (who does a lot of doom-mongering about how fossil fuels will run out in twenty years and our economic system will collapse and we'll all be forced to take up community farming). As with any extreme-sounding argument, the video makes me wonder what counter-arguments could be made, and how good they are (and see Joe's comment below), but it's very much worth watching anyway.
If nothing else, it's a reminder that we all want and use too much stuff. And if I'm not being rude in saying so, I think we in IV-B should take this really seriously. I've come out of an undergrad school in one of New York State's poorest counties, populated by a lot more lower-middle class kids than here, and come to a school populated primarily by NYC kids, many of whom suddenly find themselves richer than they are at home. And I have to say, I have been a bit taken aback by the amount of money that we as a fellowship spend. I realize that that's got a lot of potential--look how far we already are to buying Christina's orphanage a stove--but think of what it means that last Friday night, we dropped all that money on the baked goods that Ninth Hour made, people being very generous with their donations...and then we went to BG's and the teahouse. At least two dozen of us. Like at least two dozen of us (myself periodically among them) do every Friday. It's not that they aren't local businesses who appreciate our support. But the problem is, think of how much stuff we're buying. Think of the expensive clothes so many of us buy, and how often--easy for me to point to because I don't, but you could accuse me of other things, like food waste.
We have an obligation to take good care of everything we're given. Just turning off extra lights on campus is not enough. I, for myself, ought to be off this dang computer anytime that I'm not actively on it, washing my own dishes instead of running the dishwasher, sewing the holes in my t-shirts instead of using them as an excuse to get new ones. I should be taking the bus all the time, not slacking in the mornings to spend five more minutes on e-mail because I know I have a commuter pass as a backup. I should be reusing Ziploc bags...all the things I've always known I should do but have found excuses not to. Basically, I should be doing many things that really cheap or, indeed, poor people do, but not to save money (though that's good) so much as to save space and materials.
There are a lot of ways that I fall short here, and I think there should be fewer of them.
If nothing else, it's a reminder that we all want and use too much stuff. And if I'm not being rude in saying so, I think we in IV-B should take this really seriously. I've come out of an undergrad school in one of New York State's poorest counties, populated by a lot more lower-middle class kids than here, and come to a school populated primarily by NYC kids, many of whom suddenly find themselves richer than they are at home. And I have to say, I have been a bit taken aback by the amount of money that we as a fellowship spend. I realize that that's got a lot of potential--look how far we already are to buying Christina's orphanage a stove--but think of what it means that last Friday night, we dropped all that money on the baked goods that Ninth Hour made, people being very generous with their donations...and then we went to BG's and the teahouse. At least two dozen of us. Like at least two dozen of us (myself periodically among them) do every Friday. It's not that they aren't local businesses who appreciate our support. But the problem is, think of how much stuff we're buying. Think of the expensive clothes so many of us buy, and how often--easy for me to point to because I don't, but you could accuse me of other things, like food waste.
We have an obligation to take good care of everything we're given. Just turning off extra lights on campus is not enough. I, for myself, ought to be off this dang computer anytime that I'm not actively on it, washing my own dishes instead of running the dishwasher, sewing the holes in my t-shirts instead of using them as an excuse to get new ones. I should be taking the bus all the time, not slacking in the mornings to spend five more minutes on e-mail because I know I have a commuter pass as a backup. I should be reusing Ziploc bags...all the things I've always known I should do but have found excuses not to. Basically, I should be doing many things that really cheap or, indeed, poor people do, but not to save money (though that's good) so much as to save space and materials.
There are a lot of ways that I fall short here, and I think there should be fewer of them.
Culinary Endeavor and Misadventure: Kenyan Mandazi
Because apparently I haven't been enough of a moron in the past week.
The short version: attempting tonight to make Kenyan mandazi (sort of like fried dough, but smaller and puffier) for the good people of Ninth Hour Prayer Ministry (who'd come over), I accidentally pushed the vegetable oil past its smoke point. Not to its flash point, so no fire, but there was enough smoke that all the smoke detectors in the apartment, both downstairs and upstairs, went off. (Well, or maybe mine was the only one upstairs that went off, since I think I was the only one who had my door open. All the same.) I've never set off a smoke detector before, so this was a new experience for me. My cooking safety record's been clean, but ruddy dang, not anymore.
The good news: it's a BU-owned apartment complex, but campus rules don't apply. Not only was the alarm localized to just our apartment (no one else had to go outside or anything), but we're also not directly connected to the fire department, so no one came in a big noisy truck to lay the verbal smack down on me. I think the alarms in the hall are connected, but the actual common area/bedroom ones aren't.
The bad news: the safety films from freshman orientation are exactly right--even without any flames involved, smoke spreads across an apartment startlingly quickly. It wasn't black or truly thick, but even what we had obscured things more than I expected. So if you ever start an actual fire, do what everyone says and don't wait. Just get out of the apartment/house/building/whatever as fast as you can. I'm absolutely serious.
I don't like being the doer of blatantly stupid things (there's a surprise; who does?), and even though I didn't put in as much oil as the recipe called for, and had it in a big deep Dutch oven, I still committed various acts of obvious idiocy. The chiefest: I was doing it without a thermometer. I have one, but I can't find it. The lesser ones: I had the heat too high. I put the lid on while I waited for it to boil. Though I kept the pot within sight, I still walked away from it for about sixty seconds.
And it's not like I've never seen anything deep-fried--I think I've even done it at one point before this, though I forget right now what the project would've been--and I've made enough caramel that I'm familiar with fatty liquids climbing in temperature. That was the problem, actually: because sugar and butter take so long just to hit 250 for caramel, I assumed the oil would take a comparable amount of time. I was very wrong. The science-and-engineering types among my readership could, I'm sure, tell me exactly how wrong, and why I should have known better (though I did have a chem major standing there, haha), so all I can say is that I was a stupid English major, a little too enthusiastic, a little too distracted, and I intend, because I really want to be an adult who can do things without supervision, for it never to happen again.
As a postscript, though, I was ready to throw the batter out and call it a night, but Thomas or Matt or someone suggested just frying it normally, in a skillet with much less oil and over much lower heat. So, way later (as our meeting was winding down), we tried that, and it did work fairly well. A little doughy in the middle, but that's a small price to pay for satisfaction and security.
The short version: attempting tonight to make Kenyan mandazi (sort of like fried dough, but smaller and puffier) for the good people of Ninth Hour Prayer Ministry (who'd come over), I accidentally pushed the vegetable oil past its smoke point. Not to its flash point, so no fire, but there was enough smoke that all the smoke detectors in the apartment, both downstairs and upstairs, went off. (Well, or maybe mine was the only one upstairs that went off, since I think I was the only one who had my door open. All the same.) I've never set off a smoke detector before, so this was a new experience for me. My cooking safety record's been clean, but ruddy dang, not anymore.
The good news: it's a BU-owned apartment complex, but campus rules don't apply. Not only was the alarm localized to just our apartment (no one else had to go outside or anything), but we're also not directly connected to the fire department, so no one came in a big noisy truck to lay the verbal smack down on me. I think the alarms in the hall are connected, but the actual common area/bedroom ones aren't.
The bad news: the safety films from freshman orientation are exactly right--even without any flames involved, smoke spreads across an apartment startlingly quickly. It wasn't black or truly thick, but even what we had obscured things more than I expected. So if you ever start an actual fire, do what everyone says and don't wait. Just get out of the apartment/house/building/whatever as fast as you can. I'm absolutely serious.
I don't like being the doer of blatantly stupid things (there's a surprise; who does?), and even though I didn't put in as much oil as the recipe called for, and had it in a big deep Dutch oven, I still committed various acts of obvious idiocy. The chiefest: I was doing it without a thermometer. I have one, but I can't find it. The lesser ones: I had the heat too high. I put the lid on while I waited for it to boil. Though I kept the pot within sight, I still walked away from it for about sixty seconds.
And it's not like I've never seen anything deep-fried--I think I've even done it at one point before this, though I forget right now what the project would've been--and I've made enough caramel that I'm familiar with fatty liquids climbing in temperature. That was the problem, actually: because sugar and butter take so long just to hit 250 for caramel, I assumed the oil would take a comparable amount of time. I was very wrong. The science-and-engineering types among my readership could, I'm sure, tell me exactly how wrong, and why I should have known better (though I did have a chem major standing there, haha), so all I can say is that I was a stupid English major, a little too enthusiastic, a little too distracted, and I intend, because I really want to be an adult who can do things without supervision, for it never to happen again.
As a postscript, though, I was ready to throw the batter out and call it a night, but Thomas or Matt or someone suggested just frying it normally, in a skillet with much less oil and over much lower heat. So, way later (as our meeting was winding down), we tried that, and it did work fairly well. A little doughy in the middle, but that's a small price to pay for satisfaction and security.
3.17.2008
Professorial Quotations as Monday Technically Begins
I'm done regrading the papers. It didn't take as long as I expected it to, which is fantastic.
Anyway, to continue the Monday tradition:
Dr. Stoever-Ackerman:
"Office hours [today], 12-2...please keep me from doing work."
Professor Schneider:
[also from the online course syllabus] "People behaving the way I did when I was an undergraduate will not be tolerated."
Dr. Whittier:
"Plato says, 'At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.' That doesn't mean everyone's a good poet."
"So basically, if you want to know whether you've learned something, ask yourself if you've paid a blood-price for it."
[on how people will be unimpressed if you tell them to "come watch the earth turn" with you instead of to come see a sunrise] "They might think you're a Late Victorian poet, but..."
"None of us deserve love, but we all should have it."
Anyway, to continue the Monday tradition:
Dr. Stoever-Ackerman:
"Office hours [today], 12-2...please keep me from doing work."
Professor Schneider:
[also from the online course syllabus] "People behaving the way I did when I was an undergraduate will not be tolerated."
Dr. Whittier:
"Plato says, 'At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.' That doesn't mean everyone's a good poet."
"So basically, if you want to know whether you've learned something, ask yourself if you've paid a blood-price for it."
[on how people will be unimpressed if you tell them to "come watch the earth turn" with you instead of to come see a sunrise] "They might think you're a Late Victorian poet, but..."
"None of us deserve love, but we all should have it."
3.15.2008
How Things Are and What They Mean
I did a bad job correcting the essay tests for the class for which I grade; I relearned the standards this morning, hopefully better this time, and have to do them again. It's not that I didn't try, but that I didn't understand what was expected. I feel pretty bad about causing so much trouble.
The startling part of this morning's meeting wasn't actually that so much as my professor telling me that, no matter what Dr. Kinney tries to tell me in rhet/comp class, I'm going to need a Ph.D just to teach at a community college. The two professors are the same age, as far as I can tell, but this one claims that the people with MAs who are currently teaching composition got their degrees in the 1960s. I really like Dr. Kinney, and she's been so reasonable and helpful; I'm startled by the implication that I'm being misled for the sake of her department, as much as many people might not find that surprising in what's commonly called, here, the "corporate university."
I have to do a research project for rhet/comp next month and had already planned on doing it about MA-level workers in composition (sort of--Dr. Kinney's going to help me come up with a good topic that's a little more specific); I guess that might be one way to figure out who's telling the truth. Because if that's true, I'm not going to be a professor. I can't stay here until 2013 just to teach at that level. People here don't take enough joy in teaching for me to have any idea why I'd do it instead of getting a job where at least some of my time is my own.
So anyway, I'm not going to be accessible for much of this weekend, either.
The startling part of this morning's meeting wasn't actually that so much as my professor telling me that, no matter what Dr. Kinney tries to tell me in rhet/comp class, I'm going to need a Ph.D just to teach at a community college. The two professors are the same age, as far as I can tell, but this one claims that the people with MAs who are currently teaching composition got their degrees in the 1960s. I really like Dr. Kinney, and she's been so reasonable and helpful; I'm startled by the implication that I'm being misled for the sake of her department, as much as many people might not find that surprising in what's commonly called, here, the "corporate university."
I have to do a research project for rhet/comp next month and had already planned on doing it about MA-level workers in composition (sort of--Dr. Kinney's going to help me come up with a good topic that's a little more specific); I guess that might be one way to figure out who's telling the truth. Because if that's true, I'm not going to be a professor. I can't stay here until 2013 just to teach at that level. People here don't take enough joy in teaching for me to have any idea why I'd do it instead of getting a job where at least some of my time is my own.
So anyway, I'm not going to be accessible for much of this weekend, either.
3.11.2008
On e-mails and messages I've gotten and thoughts I've had
(And with no disrespect to my also-beloved IV-B intended. Even to the degree that I'm not just being a smart-aleck English major, I make an exception for you and for church.)
This is Just to Say (to Binghamton)
I have given to Alfred
the heart
that is within
your city limits
and which
you probably
wanted
to mold
Forgive me
it's irresistible there
so sweet
and so warming
This is Just to Say (to Binghamton)
I have given to Alfred
the heart
that is within
your city limits
and which
you probably
wanted
to mold
Forgive me
it's irresistible there
so sweet
and so warming
3.10.2008
Um, Romans 8:28?
Those semesters I sank into the Spanish minor that never fully came through? Looks like they're going to get me out of the BU graduate foreign-language requirement, which is not an easy thing to accomplish via prior course credit. It's not finalized yet, but I've e-mailed the graduate office to see where I should send a copy of my AU transcript (which also has my high school credit on there), and we'll work from there.
Another Monday, another couple of professorial quotes
Excerpts from Professor Schneider's online semi-syllabus for the rest of "Tales of Violence, Love, and Power":
March 14 - pi day. Circular reasoning will be tolerated briefly on this day, but only at 1:59:26 (as in 3.1415926..., but not military time). Maybe donuts are tolerated briefly, as well.
March 17: Wrap Up of 70's Existential Angst.
...On a mostly unrelated note, if you're Catholic, make sure a St. Patrick's Day near you isn't being moved (I'd heard to Pi Day, but apparently it's the 15th instead). If you miss it, you'll have to wait 'til 2160 to get it right.
March 14 - pi day. Circular reasoning will be tolerated briefly on this day, but only at 1:59:26 (as in 3.1415926..., but not military time). Maybe donuts are tolerated briefly, as well.
March 17: Wrap Up of 70's Existential Angst.
...On a mostly unrelated note, if you're Catholic, make sure a St. Patrick's Day near you isn't being moved (I'd heard to Pi Day, but apparently it's the 15th instead). If you miss it, you'll have to wait 'til 2160 to get it right.
3.07.2008
What to do with your extra seven dollars, or however much have you
This. 'Cause, you know. Books. Needy Jamaican children. Warm glow. It's been too long since I've done something like this, so I couldn't resist.
Or you could donate some books to your own local library. Especially if you don't have the seven bucks, or if you're feeling particularly loyal to your personal community.
Don't I sound like Evelyn? Well, she linked it first. Abby gave me the most motivation, though.
Or you could donate some books to your own local library. Especially if you don't have the seven bucks, or if you're feeling particularly loyal to your personal community.
Don't I sound like Evelyn? Well, she linked it first. Abby gave me the most motivation, though.
Beginning of a blues song?
I woke up this morning
And the toaster oven was gone;
Oh, said I woke up this morning
And the toaster oven was gone...
It's true, too. I think Jessica moved it into her boyfriend's apartment (fair enough, since the appliance is hers). We have a regular toaster, but it tends to send up smoke, so my breakfast plans abruptly changed to Cream of Wheat.
Speaking of culinary endeavors, I've had one failure and one success lately. The failure: sweet potato quesadillas. The recipe's from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and looked good, but I think they didn't mention that the herbs they used were fresh, not dried, and that's why they used so much of them. I wasn't using fresh herbs, so I ended up with probably three times as much oregano in said quesadillas as would have been proper. I'm trying to eat them anyway, but I hope they're gone soon.
On the other hand, back when I made baked potato soup, I saved and fridged the melted fat that came off the bacon. Some of it I used in making my cornbread on Sunday, and some of it--here comes the success--I spread onto the bread instead of butter when I made grilled cheese last night. Thumbs up on that one; it browned the sandwich up more evenly, if I'm not mistaken, and I got a faint bacon flavor without having to deal with making any.
In fact, I think I might just go have another one for dinner.
And the toaster oven was gone;
Oh, said I woke up this morning
And the toaster oven was gone...
It's true, too. I think Jessica moved it into her boyfriend's apartment (fair enough, since the appliance is hers). We have a regular toaster, but it tends to send up smoke, so my breakfast plans abruptly changed to Cream of Wheat.
Speaking of culinary endeavors, I've had one failure and one success lately. The failure: sweet potato quesadillas. The recipe's from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and looked good, but I think they didn't mention that the herbs they used were fresh, not dried, and that's why they used so much of them. I wasn't using fresh herbs, so I ended up with probably three times as much oregano in said quesadillas as would have been proper. I'm trying to eat them anyway, but I hope they're gone soon.
On the other hand, back when I made baked potato soup, I saved and fridged the melted fat that came off the bacon. Some of it I used in making my cornbread on Sunday, and some of it--here comes the success--I spread onto the bread instead of butter when I made grilled cheese last night. Thumbs up on that one; it browned the sandwich up more evenly, if I'm not mistaken, and I got a faint bacon flavor without having to deal with making any.
In fact, I think I might just go have another one for dinner.
3.03.2008
::face buried in hands::
Um, about the new John Adams thing, several entries down. For those of you wondering how I was able to draw a comparison between two days of deliberation over an obvious mathematical truth and an English class taken up by deliberation and proclamation of a scientific fallacy...that was because I'd read the quote wrong (like, over and over again, I guess) and thought they were changing two and two to five.
I really shouldn't even be admitting to that. And it's not even like I'm severely sleep-deprived; I've been doing pretty reasonably.
School is okay. I'm a little behind on my work, but the problem should be solved by Friday afternoon.
Back to responsibility.
I really shouldn't even be admitting to that. And it's not even like I'm severely sleep-deprived; I've been doing pretty reasonably.
School is okay. I'm a little behind on my work, but the problem should be solved by Friday afternoon.
Back to responsibility.
3.02.2008
Sunday-Afternoon Contentment
It's about thirty-two degrees, and the sun is shining more brightly than it has in days. My room is clean (did that yesterday), I just made some cornbread (like, for real, not out of a Jiffy box), my parents are coming later (they drove down to Baltimore with Sean to set him up in the new apartment for his co-op, and Binghamton is on their way back), and it's Sunday, which means that I can hang out and do whatsoever I please. Which right now probably means a little e-mailing, but might also mean lounging around reading or watching some-or-other DVD.
Even though it often holds a blizzard, March is an exciting time for me because winter, my least favorite season, starts giving way to spring, my favorite. Hopefully this blog will be a little more enjoyable to read as I begin, at the first scent of green and growth in the air, to lose what's left of my senses.
Even though it often holds a blizzard, March is an exciting time for me because winter, my least favorite season, starts giving way to spring, my favorite. Hopefully this blog will be a little more enjoyable to read as I begin, at the first scent of green and growth in the air, to lose what's left of my senses.