I'm Just Sayin'

Updates on what's happening in my life. Thoughts about current events, politics, books, and anything else that I find interesting. Intended for those who know and love me.

Name:
Location: Albany, New York

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Digging Deep

Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

Lose Yourself -- Eminem


I'm digging deep for inspiration today as I'm finishing about hour 70 of this 7-day work week, with a similarly hectic week starting again tomorrow. I seriously hope that some day, when I have the security of tenure and a comfortable salary, I will be able to look back and say it was all worth it.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Picture Perfect Day

Today was as perfect a fall day as you could ask for. With temperatures in the mid-70s and the sun shining brightly, it just doesn't get any better than that. We took advantage of this gorgeous day to drive to Lake George to see the fall colors in the mountains. It was simply great, great, great!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Global Day of Action Against Poverty

Today, October 17, is the Global Day of Action Against Poverty.

Here are five simple things that you can do to recognize this important day:

1.) Sign the call for action -- encourage world leaders to be committed to the fight against global poverty
2.) Learn more about the UN Millenium Goals
3.) Adopt the white band
4.) Stand up and speak out
5.) Learn how world poverty is related to gender inequality

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Things I Would Blog About If I Weren't So Damn Tired

  • the Armenian genocide
  • why gratuitous hugs annoy me
  • how critical thinkers can be so uncritical of their own actions
  • dying friendships
  • midterm burnout ... it's not just for students

Sunday, October 14, 2007

The ONE Campus Challenge

One of the things that I miss most about UM is that is is an active campus. Students are eagerly involved in lots of social and political issues (sometimes to extremes). UA is much more subdued in that respect, so this is my attempt to help change that. I've been a supporter of the ONE campaign for a while now, but they have just started a new public awareness campaign to get college students involved in global social issues.

ONE, the nonpartisan campaign to end poverty and fight HIV/AIDS globally, has started a new promotion to engage college students in this cause. The ONE Campus Challenge is a competition for college campuses to raise awareness for the ONE campaign. Joining the challenge is simple and schools earn points for membership alone. Additionally there are a number of things that students, faculty, alum, and other school supporters can do to earn points for their school. The challenges are geared toward education and awareness and vary in level of difficulty. One of the easy ways to earn points for your school is to blog about ONE, so this is part of my contribution to the effort. It’s a worthy cause that does not require a lot of time or effort to support. You don't have to be a member of any particular college to participate; you can sign up as a friend of a student or faculty member.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Recovering

I had oral surgery on Friday which pretty much killed the weekend. It was necessary to fix an ongoing problem, but it was disgusting and traumatic so I'll skip the details. I don't have a lot of patience for being sick, but this knocked me out for a few days. So I spent the weekend sleeping a lot, watching all of the first season of 30 Rock on Netflix online viewing, and sporting a very chipmunk-like look. The worst part about the recovery was not being able to talk much or laugh at all. The latter is a pretty big problem since laughter is a staple of our marriage. Eddie did his best to refrain from cracking jokes, but it was hard. On Monday he had a truly "Eddie moment" which probably would have caused me to break some stitches from laughing so hard if I had actually witnessed it. As it was, the retelling of the story caused me to take an extra pain pill. It's too crass for me to blog about, but I'm sure if you ask Eddie he'll be happy to retell the story in full dramatic fashion.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Writing Totems

I'm embarking on a new manuscript which I'm pretty excited about. Most of the analyses are done and I have an outline for the paper. Now I'm getting ready to write, so I have pulled out my writing totems. I have a very strict set of conditions under which I write well. I used to fight them and think that they were silly and constrained me from writing more spontaneously, but now I accept them and realize that I write well when I just give in to my little idiosyncrasies and that I am easily distracted without them. In particular, I handwrite all of my work and later type it. I need to write on a hard surface and I have to use lined paper (just like in grade school). I prefer special pens for the job, typically multi-colored gel pens. And it helps to have the slinky nearby to keep my hands busy during the "thinking" moments. One of the few advice books about academia that I like also encourages writers to embrace their rituals and totems. This is the same author who advocates that writing for 30 minutes a day will be sufficient for scholarly productivity. I haven't adopted that strategy yet, although I try not to go for too long without writing because it's easy to lose momentum.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

A Sappy "Girly" Moment

In honor of our 8th wedding anniversary Eddie and I pulled out our wedding video, which we haven't watched in a few years. That video is a surefire way to make me cry. It used to be the case that I would only cry during the vows. There is something about the purity and simplicity of those words that is remarkably powerful. But now the whole damn video makes me cry. Some special people who were at our wedding are no longer alive, including both of our mothers and my godfather, and it's bittersweet to see them as they were on that particular day. It's also really interesting to notice the changes in other people's lives as well -- the dancing toddlers who are now preteens, the "kids" who now have kids of their own, the couples that were together but are no longer ... .

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Tweaked

I just received an email from an undergraduate student asking for information about a course I'm teaching next semester. I'm happy to provide that information since our course descriptions aren't terribly helpful, but this was the first time here that an undergraduate has addressed me by my first name and it tweaked me. They occassionally use "Ms." or "Miss" which is also annoying, but at least it's polite. I don't believe I know this student (although he didn't provide a last name so it's hard to tell), but even if I did know him my undergrads do not call me by my first name. At first I was going to ignore it, but it got under my skin. It came across as presumptuous and disrespectful, although I think it was probably just a careless informality.

I'm also bothered by the fact that it tweaked me because it makes me feel elitist. On the one hand we're all adults so it seems fine for everyone to be on a first name basis. My co-workers at my last job didn't call me "Dr." even if they were younger or were still in school. And I actually prefer if my grad students use my first name because I consider them more as colleagues than students. But for some reason it's different for undergrads in the classroom setting. While the title adds distance between faculty and students, it also helps to establish respect and authority. I haven't had any teaching problems yet (knock on wood) but introducing that level of informality into the classroom makes me nervous. Anyhow, in my reply to this student I added a diplomatic line about using proper titles as a courtesy to faculty. I felt the need to make my point, but I didn't want to make a big deal about it.

Monday, October 01, 2007

The Slippery Slope of Addiction

According to my Diet Coke rules I'm not allowed to have a fix once I get home from work, which means that I don't keep any in the house in order to avoid temptation. It also means no Diet Coke on the weekends unless we go out to eat or I go to work, which happens pretty often this time of year. I didn't go to the office this weekend because I had an upset stomach on Saturday and we had company on Sunday. I broke one of the golden rules on Saturday and bought a 2-liter of Diet Coke because the carbonation would quell the stomach problem (yes, so would Pepto or lots of other things). Then on Sunday we had another 2-liter leftover from our barbecue and I certainly couldn't let that go to waste. So I spent the weekend consuming much more caffeine than I normally would at all kinds of odd hours. Now it's late Monday evening and I'm dying for a fix ... seriously jonesing ... and there's still some left in the fridge. If I was smart I'd poor the rest down the drain, but that would be sacrilegious in my book, so I'm using the blog to shame myself into sticking to the rules.