Better days
Feb. 16th, 2009 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieMy teaching today improved ONE THOUSAND PERCENT. Since just writing down five open-ended questions about the reading and trying to fly with that failed last time (I am simply not the kind of person who can work that way, although my mentor is, which is why I tried it last time), this time I overprepared, and didn't even get to everything I had on my piece of paper to talk about. I had pointed questions, I had significant passages, I had my own readings of the text, I had critical backup...I had it all. And the ironic--but in hindsight expected--thing about it was that I didn't have to talk nearly as much as I did last time, even though this time I had more to say. The more specific questions and topics I seeded the discussion with allowed them to actually build up some momentum arguing and talking with each other, and I got to sit (well, stand) back and watch. They even took the discussion places I wasn't expecting, and it was awesome. These kids are really bright, and really into the topic.
It helped that the content was Beowulf instead of Greek myths this time. Beowulf, I have the critical background to do something with. Greek myths are sort of shadowy and amorphous to me, and always have been. I guess this is why everyone says teaching your own class will be much easier than being a TA, in the sense that you've chosen the material and know where you want to go with it rather than having to teach it because it's on the syllabus.
In other news, I got my...hemienniel? once-every-three-to-four-months haircut today, and now I have what could legitimately be called a "bob." Yay, it's not eating my shoulders! It's at that stage where it's a little too short to tuck all the strands behind my ears, but it'll get over that in a couple weeks.
Other good things:
- Adam Bede. Once you get used to the dialect, it's rather good. It's interesting reading this while taking a Joyce class, because some of the sentence structures Eliot uses feel almost like they could come from Portrait. Almost. I can see the germ of Modernism in them. In all other respects it's very Victorian, especially with the narrator-who's-kind-of-but-not-really-a-character-too. That's been in every book we've read so far, and it's been a continual source of interest and frustration to me. The shadowiness of the narrator's status drives me crazy, but I think there's more too it than I'm understanding at the moment.
- My Joyce professor agreed to let the grad students in the class do one conference paper and an abstract instead of one five-pager and one ten-pager, so I don't have a paper due next week. Just an abstract. Of course, that means my conference paper at the end of the semester has to be a higher level of awesome than it might otherwise have been, but since this is my freaking field, for once, hopefully that won't be a problem.
- My parents came up this weekend, and we celebrated my birthday two weeks early. There was a Boston Cream Pie. In fact, there is still a Boston Cream Pie in my fridge, only half of it's missing. Soon all of it will be missing. :D I also have a comfortable spot to sit in my living room now! My futon started out comfy, but it's not so great after several hours of reading on it. Now thanks to parental generosity and redecorating at the house, I have big soft club chair and a footstool, and it's awesome.
- I watched When Harry Met Sally last night. I love that movie. Now I own it. Yay.
It helped that the content was Beowulf instead of Greek myths this time. Beowulf, I have the critical background to do something with. Greek myths are sort of shadowy and amorphous to me, and always have been. I guess this is why everyone says teaching your own class will be much easier than being a TA, in the sense that you've chosen the material and know where you want to go with it rather than having to teach it because it's on the syllabus.
In other news, I got my...hemienniel? once-every-three-to-four-months haircut today, and now I have what could legitimately be called a "bob." Yay, it's not eating my shoulders! It's at that stage where it's a little too short to tuck all the strands behind my ears, but it'll get over that in a couple weeks.
Other good things:
- Adam Bede. Once you get used to the dialect, it's rather good. It's interesting reading this while taking a Joyce class, because some of the sentence structures Eliot uses feel almost like they could come from Portrait. Almost. I can see the germ of Modernism in them. In all other respects it's very Victorian, especially with the narrator-who's-kind-of-but-not-really-a-character-too. That's been in every book we've read so far, and it's been a continual source of interest and frustration to me. The shadowiness of the narrator's status drives me crazy, but I think there's more too it than I'm understanding at the moment.
- My Joyce professor agreed to let the grad students in the class do one conference paper and an abstract instead of one five-pager and one ten-pager, so I don't have a paper due next week. Just an abstract. Of course, that means my conference paper at the end of the semester has to be a higher level of awesome than it might otherwise have been, but since this is my freaking field, for once, hopefully that won't be a problem.
- My parents came up this weekend, and we celebrated my birthday two weeks early. There was a Boston Cream Pie. In fact, there is still a Boston Cream Pie in my fridge, only half of it's missing. Soon all of it will be missing. :D I also have a comfortable spot to sit in my living room now! My futon started out comfy, but it's not so great after several hours of reading on it. Now thanks to parental generosity and redecorating at the house, I have big soft club chair and a footstool, and it's awesome.
- I watched When Harry Met Sally last night. I love that movie. Now I own it. Yay.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 11:37 pm (UTC)Will you post a picture of you and your new haircut?
Whee, no paper this week!
Happy Early Birthday!
Aww, yay movie!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 03:04 pm (UTC)The haircut looks a lot like the one in this picture. Perhaps an inch shorter. It's the standard haircut I get every three or four months. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 03:07 pm (UTC)ETA: I know your icon is of Wanda, but I keep wondering why Sam Carter is wandering around Saskatchewan taking pictures. Are there Goa'uld in Saskatchewan? They'd be bored out of their tiny minds.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 02:13 am (UTC)ETA: I know your icon is of Wanda, but I keep wondering why Sam Carter is wandering around Saskatchewan taking pictures. Are there Goa'uld in Saskatchewan? They'd be bored out of their tiny minds.
HEE! I never noticed the similarity before. And if Goa'uld were wandering around Saskatchewan, I have a feeling Wanda could dispatch them instantly with the powers of her mind. Or perhaps Hank could, with the powers of his Dumb.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 02:52 am (UTC)Yay, it's not eating my shoulders!
pics yo
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 03:04 pm (UTC)Yay!
pics yo
See here for a representative example from senior year.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 07:06 am (UTC)Why would your mentor recommend that?? That sounds like a recipe for blank stares! Anyone who can carve a discussion out of that is amazing! Overpreparing totally sounds like the way to go.
Haircut! It is a haircut time of year.
Footstoooooool!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 03:06 pm (UTC)He is pretty amazing. Apparently he dislikes doing the overpreparing thing because then he feels like there's too much of a plan to stick to and won't let the kids lead. That didn't happen with me this time, so we all went home happy.
Haircut! It is a haircut time of year.
So it is.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 08:32 pm (UTC)"I'll have what she's having. " :D :D :D
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 03:08 pm (UTC)