Man, the start of the spring semester is a slog (and full of alliteration). I find critiquing my creative writing students’ poetry to be one of the most time consuming tasks on the planet; I also give a lot of assignments to my research writing class early in the semester, so between reading and commenting it seems like I have little time for anything else.

Except reading of course. Last week I finished two books heavier on practice than theory in Teaching the New Writing: Technology, Change, and Assessment in the 21st-Century Classroom and The Digital Writing Workshop. Both had some interesting ideas, but I’m realizing that it’s quite difficult to work digital projects into a class during the course of the semester. It seems like things will work much more smoothly if the course is tailored to these kinds of projects, since you need to dedicate time to scaffolding how to use the necessary technologies over the course of several weeks. Good to get me thinking.

I’m really enjoying A Better Pencil, which is a highly readable account of how the acts of reading and writing have changed since ancient times. Good stuff, and lots of things to incorporate for the next time I teach English 101.

Current Mood: Fine But Tired |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

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I got an email last night that Mondadari Publishing, which Wikipedia says is the largest publishing company in Italy, is reprinting The Best Horror of the Year #1.

It contains my story “The Hodag,” which first appeared in the UK magazine Black Static. I can hardly wait to tell people how huge I am in Europe!

Current Mood: Molto Felice ed Emozionato |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Awhile back I changed the name of the site from “The Always Insightful Insights of Trent Hergenrader” (a name I never particularly liked) to “A Propensity for Unstable Realities, ” which is another name I didn’t particularly like. My goal at that time was to create a more professional-looking site and take it away from its origins as a personal site, but I wasn’t satisfied with the result.

This past semester I worked on a project developing WordPress websites for academics and writers (funny, that) and decided to once again revamp the site. Now, trenthergenrader.com has a completely different look than this page, where I plan on keeping my blog and its six-year archive as well as links to my personal photos. That page houses my professional information (i.e. writing credits and academic work) that hopefully will come in handy when I hit the job trail in the next two or three years. It seems like a pretty good solution.

(sigh) One of the benefits of getting older (turned 36 last week, thanks for the well-wishes) is that you tend to develop perspective as well. I started following Spurs during the 1990-91 season on the heels of the Italia ‘90 World Cup, having fallen in love with Gary Lineker and Paul Gascoigne. Of course, Spurs won the FA Cup that year, looooooong before you could watch any kind of footie on television on these shores, and it’s been more or less a disappointment since then. Two League Cup wins in about twenty years? Yes, I feel like I’ve been long-suffering enough to be a true Spurs fans.

Tottenham missed out on fourth spot in the 2005-06 season on the last day of the season thanks to a bout of food poisoning known as lasagne gate. I knew then that they’d missed a huge opportunity. In subsequent seasons, they’ve lost Michael Carrick, Dimitar Berbatov, and Robbie Keane when those players were at their peak and I’ve never believed that they had the mettle to crack the top four again. So this season when everyone’s been saying “this is Spurs’ year” I have to say, no, no it’s not.

Even though Spurs have been loitering in spots three through six for the entire season, my hopes have never been raised because I never let myself believe they could pull it off. The home loss to Stoke, the away draw to Everton, the home draw to Hull, and today’s draw to Leeds in the FA Cup: these results reveal Spurs for what they are, and that’s a team that doesn’t have the nerve to see out tough matches. My prediction is that Spurs will have a tepid second-half to the season and will end up in sixth. I hope I’m wrong, I’d love to be wrong, but history is on my side.

I splashed some Christmas and birthday cash on some XBox 360 games: FIFA 10, Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed, and Gears of War 2 to be exact. Besides the soccer game, I got those last ones in a “buy two, get one free” deal that was too good to pass up. Gears 2 wasn’t supposed to be part of the promo but some strange wording in the ad (I misread Gears of War 2 Disc Set) worked to my advantage as the cashier at Best Buy wasn’t sure how to do handle returning an online promotional transaction, so she let me swap for Gears 2 instead of voiding the whole purchase. Yay her, yay me.

My initial reaction to FIFA 10 is disappointment. The game play is better in that you have better control with passing and dribbling, but I’m in that unenviable spot where I can beat Barcelona with Lincoln City on the professional setting, but I can lose to Lincoln City with Barcelona on the next level up. Three of my biggest problems with FIFA 09 was defending against high balls (I lose every header), defenders who either sprint past the striker with the ball or who get nutmegged thirty times a game, and keepers who flap at the most innocuous of shots and crosses. All of these still feature prominently in FIFA 10 too. Also, I lament the fact that so many games are geared towards mastering crazy, split-second controller combinations. I have a feeling that my inability to flick the left-joystick in a clockwise motion while dragging the right one back and holding both triggers down means that I can’t dribble past a single opponent. That’s pretty frustrating. I haven’t tried the manager or Be A Pro modes, but if the game still features these major annoyances, they’re going to be there too.

I took a very brief look at Bioshock and Assassin’s Creed last night and both appear to be highly entertaining. I didn’t realize Bioshock was from the same company that made the Half-Life series and I was a little disappointed at first, because I found parts of Half-Life 2 to be really annoying. Bioshock has some cool features where you can genetically enhance your character and the great weapons management system is still in place, so I’m hoping that they took the best from the Half-Life series and added some other interesting features.

Assassin’s Creed is visually stunning, to quote a cliche’, and I think it will be fun to explore the world beyond the first couple levels I got through last night. On the annoying side, the storyline makes little sense whatsoever (does the main character really need to be a genetic descendant of an assassin, traveling back through time to reenact his life because they share the same genetic code… couldn’t the game just be about a medieval assassin already?) and the basics of climbing buildings and fighting guards already seem a little predictable and repetitive. Also, the cut-scenes are painfully long, made worse by the incoherence of the plot-within-a-plot about finding a traitor to the Brotherhood of Assassin’s organization… or something like that.

I also find it troubling that everyone in the game is Middle Eastern except for the protagonist, who has lily-white skin. Everyone speaks with heavy accents except for the protag, who speaks an “unadulterated” English. Also, the protagonist is by nature violent, rash, and stubborn, and who bristles at being brought to heel by white-bearded elder who tells him he needs to listen and follow directions. Let’s just say I won’t be surprised when said elder turns out to be the traitor in their midst, blah, blah, blah…

Of course, this game will predominantly be played by teens and the above paragraph reaffirms a lot of bad messages. In the next couple weeks I’ll be reading James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy and Good Video Games + Good Learning and I’ll be interested to see how/if he tackles these kinds of issues. It’s early days, but I can’t help but feeling that’s there’s a definite hierarchy of “right and wrong” in Assassin’s Creed that isn’t reinforced by, say, the Grand Theft Auto series, which seem to be amoral. Or maybe it’s that in those games, both the developers and gamers know that what the characters are doing is wrong, wrong, wrong and that’s what makes it fun. Maybe.

More on this as I read more. And hopefully have time to play more too.

Reading and reading and reading and reading, and not loving much of it. I read a dozen books over break and the only one I loved was Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar, although I enjoyed Ben Okri’s The Famished Road quite a bit. For most of the others, there’s a gap between “intellectually interesting” and “enjoyable to read” that’s wider or narrower from title to title. For instance, The Woman Warrior, House of the Spirits, Kingdoms of the World and The Light People were mostly enjoyable reads, while Bearheart and Love in Two Languages were not.

I’m well on my way to blowing last year’s book total out of the water. That number was a mere 43; by this May I should be around 30 or so as I continue to plow through my preliminary exam reading list.

Classes begin Monday. I am more or less prepared and looking forward to it. More or less.

Current Mood: Numb |
Currently Listening To – Uncle Tupelo – “Uncle Tupelo 89/93: An Anthology”

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Geez, two weeks since I last posted an entry? Shows you where blogging is on my list of priorities. So, what have I been doing?

Reading, mostly. I finished my ninth book in three weeks tonight. If you’re interested to see what I’ve been reading, count backwards on this list (or everything between Gordon Henry’s The Light People and The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier. Tomorrow I begin Gerald Vizenor’s Bearheart, and I plan on finishing Ben Okri’s The Famished Road and hopefully one or two others before school starts again on the 25th.

I also finished my prelim rationale and book list and sent it along to my committee. Two have already signed off adding a book a piece (gah!), but I’m still waiting on two others. My minor area of “digital pedagogy” currently has about 12 books and 70-some articles and that’s probably going to grow, but hopefully not too too much or I’m down the proverbial creek. Fingers crossed all goes well.

Over the past couple days I’ve been plugging away at my spring courses, College Writing and Research and Intro to Creative Writing. In the former I’m changing very little, and in the latter I’m changing quite a lot. I’m also setting up custom websites for both and I plan on using D2L for a bare minimum, although that bare minimum will include submitting all assignments and the grading. This way students can have an accounting of how they’re doing as the semester goes on, and allows me to keep all versions of their work so I can quickly compare draft one to subsequent drafts.

A number of my colleagues have noted a lot of students lobbying (*cough*whining*cough*) for better grades at the end of the semester. I too have noted students trying to apply pressure on me for a specific grade, and I have to say it doesn’t go down well especially when they’ve done mediocre work for most of the semester. (As a related side note, two students have asked “What does it take to get an A in this class?” in the first couple weeks, and then went on to be two of the lazier students I’ve ever had. As if asking the question somehow convinces me from the get-go that they’ve got the right stuff.)

The biggest and most disturbing news to come out of the world of soccer has been the machine gun attack on the Togo National Team’s bus during the African Cup of Nations. Every once in awhile, a news story really strikes home and this one has unsettled me a lot. I think it’s because with the World Cup in South Africa this summer, this was supposed to be the year to showcase the brilliance of African football, but this event sends all the wrong messages. It’s tragic, and my heart goes out to the families, the players, and the fans who should be celebrating the exciting of a major tournament rather than mourning the needless loss of life.

I can’t keep up with all of the twists and turns in the Premier League anymore. One week it looks like Ars*nal are out of the title race and Liverpool will be lucky to finish sixth, then the next week it looks like Ars*nal are contenders once again and Liverpool are right in the mix. And Man Ure and Chelski can’t decide whether they’re even going to put their foot down on the pedal or not. Crazy, riveting stuff. The same is true for the teams chasing fourth, including Tottenham, Villa, and Citeh.

I would much prefer the leagues in England, Spain, and Italy to resemble the German Bundesliga in terms of the competitive aspect. Every year there are six or seven teams vying for the title, which makes it much more exciting to follow than Spain (is it going to be Barcelona or Real Madrid) or the constant shuffling of the top four in England and, to a lesser extent, in Italy. With Man Ure and Liverpool in dire financial trouble right now and Citeh being bankrolled by billionaires, the order could be upset in the next decade. And not a decade too soon…

My story “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter” is now online at Zahir: A Journal of Speculative Fiction. Go read it!

In other news, Ellen Datlow has been forwarding the reviews of The Best Horror of the Year #1 to the book’s contributors and they’re overwhelmingly positive, although a few people complain that the stories aren’t scary enough—which as Ellen points out, horror works in a variety of ways. One Amazon reviewer says that “‘The Hodag’ is the kind of story I would write if I could write better,” which is probably the best compliment I’ve ever received, full stop. The vast majority of reviews, both good and bad, haven’t singled out my story for individual comments but that’s okay. A lot of gushing reviews say the book is great cover to cover, so I’ll take it!

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Yay! for the Badgers, whipping up on Miami in their bowl game. I had serious doubts about this one. And boo! on the Packers for losing to Phoenix, having spotted them the first 14 points. Oh well, better to lose to the Cards than F*vre…

I’ve been playing a lot (too much?) indoor lately, both on the O30 team I signed up for and the open-division team that’s perpetually short of players. Both teams started out hot with a streak of wins, and both teams have hit the skids having lost the last several. I’ve got a strong goal streak going having scored in the last six games or so (including a hat-trick a couple weeks back) but too many of these are in losing causes. Still, I’d rather be scoring goals and losing than not scoring goals and losing. I would take not scoring goals and winning over both, though.

Current Mood: Sure |
Currently Listening To – Wilco – “A.M.”

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

2009 flew past, didn’t it? Quite a bit better than 2008 I must say, and I’m looking forward to what 2010 has in store.

Well, first things first. 2009 was definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, dominated by the one we call G-Man, G-Money, the gooch, the goon, Mr. Moo, and every so often we actually use his name: Grey. He arrived late morning on May the 4th and it would be cliche’, stating the obvious, and completely accurate to say that life hasn’t been the same since. Being a parent is exhausting work but we have a great little boy with a very easy going disposition. He sleeps well, he eats pretty well, and he’s all-around healthy and happy, and for that we are truly grateful. All of our friends assure us that things don’t slow down from here, so we’re bracing ourselves for the first steps, first words, and all the other many firsts that tumble out of babies. 2010 will present Grey with a number of firsts inflicted upon him as well. He flew well back in October, so we’re upping the ante by traveling internationally just after his first birthday. We’re heading to Switzerland to visit Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Todd and who knows where side trips might take us. Germany? France? Who knows? One thing we do know is that wee man will get some English culture in him as we’re spending another few days in London on the way home. Have baby, will travel.

Writing has been a great year despite an extremely low output for me. The year started with a bang as my story “Eskhara” was selected for John Joseph Adams’ anthology Federations, and then I was blown away to find out my story “The Hodag” had been chosen by Ellen Datlow for The Best Horror of the Year #1, which is by far the most significant achievement of my still-young writing career.

2010 will also start out with another publication, this time in Zahir, a smallish magazine that I’ve always admired. They’re going entirely online this year and my story “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter” (which was part of my Masters final project) will appear in the first issue of the year.

I’ve got big ambitions for 2010. This includes submitting a bunch of new stories as well as making the final revisions to my first novel and shopping that around as well. 2009 did not afford me much time to write at all, but with school work winding down I’m looking to rectify that situation.

Speaking of which, I submitted the last seminar paper of my graduate school career a few weeks ago. No more coursework (ever) for me, but I do have my preliminary exam in the spring. I’ve mentioned this exam before, but in brief I’ll have three days to write three, 15-page papers that cover a book list of about 100 or so titles. I have it on good word that it is not nearly as bad as it sounds, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Three of the four courses I took in 2009 were in professional writing, a discipline that makes many of my colleagues shudder but I find it pretty interesting. Once I put a final portfolio of my work together (also this spring or even in the fall) that means I’ll have fulfilled the requirements of getting a special emphasis in professional (i.e. business and technical) writing with a specific focus on information technology. I should teach my first professional writing class next fall too.

I also taught two new courses this year, one in creative writing and the other in college research writing. I’m teaching these again next semester and have a good idea of how I plan to improve both of them, although my students seemed to like them both as it was. The old saw that teachers learn from their students is pretty true, and I hope to be getting better with each passing semester.

‘Twas a dreadful year for reading—only 43 books in a list that includes 10 graphic novels. That’s down from 54 books last year and 64 (!) the year before. There are many reasons for the decline. The biggest is that my courses in 2009 assigned way more articles than books; I probably read nearly 100 articles this year, or the equivalent of about 10 books. The second big reason is that I starting listening to footie podcasts rather than audio books, so that counts for at least another five or so. The final reason is that normally I cram some pleasure reading in over the summer, but see the first item of this blog post to understand why I spent my free time sleeping this past summer.

Even though I read fewer books, there were some doozies in the list. M y favorite were Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon, Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (I finally finished every story), The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, and probably my favorite of the lot, Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar, which I finished today, the last day of the year. I plan on hunting down the rest of Cortázar’s short fiction this year.

There’s way too much to sum up succinctly about the beautiful game, but it’s worth noting that Spurs’ stock has steadily risen over the last twelve months, even though I fight back any kind of optimism whatsoever. They lost to Wolves and Stoke at home for God’s sake, so you can’t get too carried away even if they did stuff Wigan 9-1, tying a Premier League record for biggest win.

Long-time readers of this site will know that I lean towards Real Madrid if forced to choose between the Spanish giants, but I (along with everyone else on the planet) have to admire what Barcelona has accomplished this year by winning everything in site. I get very tired of Barcelona fans, but I can’t say that I dislike any of their players now that Eto’o left (although Zlatan Ibrahimović’s ego is enormous and annoying) and the football they play is pure class. Unlike some teams that I will not name here, Barcelona plays the most beautiful football on the planet, they win things, and they remain humble. There’s not much here to dislike.

The US National Team had more lows than highs in my opinion. The Confederations Cup run will live long in the memory, but just like 2002, the team needed a hell of a lot of luck to go their way. They looked pretty dodgy and uninspiring throughout qualifying despite winning the group, but is it because they’re an average team or because they play down to their opponents? Either way, they were gifted a lovely draw for next summer’s World Cup and the need to figure out how to play better more consistently if they want to take advantage of it.

That should wrap it up. This past year was not great for blogging either and I expect that to continue, but thanks to all of those folks who read this space, whether it’s through our past friendships, through following links from Facebook, or via f-lists on LiveJournal. Happy holidays, hope your 2009 was a good one, and all the best in 2010.

Current Mood: Fine |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

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Oxford University Press has a series of books called Very Short Introductions and they’re quite good. Two years ago in a class I took on visual narratives we started the course by reading Dada and Surrealism – A Very Short Introduction. In a separate course, another instructor strongly recommended we read the VSI on Literary Theory, which I duly bought and read. Both were quite good.

They’re like the Dummies or Idiot’s Guide series, only they assume a fairly high level of intelligence. Rather than assuming you’re a dummy or idiot who wants a dumbed down version of a topic, the VSI approach is that it’s a big, complicated world and people often find themselves wishing they were conversational in intellectual conversations about, for example, modern art, or perhaps animal rights, or maybe you want to know more about film studies. The VSI series do a good job giving a high-level overview of the given topic and, most importantly, clue you in on what to read next to learn more.

Coming into graduate school for English I knew virtually nothing about literary theory. For me, this created some low-level anxiety as I felt a certain expectation that somehow I should know all of this stuff already, but I’d never taken a theory course and had no idea where to start. Over time, I read a little Foucault here, a little Derrida there, a slice of Barthes, drizzle in works by some structuralist theorists, a dose of postcolonialism and it all started to come together. I should mention the dozens upon dozens of Wikipedia searches too—can’t forget those as a part of serious scholarship.

My program does indeed offer a survey class on criticism but it didn’t fit in my schedule the one time that a) it was offered, and b) I knew about it. Why this course isn’t a requirement, or at least strongly recommended by advisors when you enter the program, I have no idea. I wish I would have known about the VSI series a few years ago though because I think reading a core set of these little books would have helped me have a firmer grip on much of my coursework. The books are short too, about 150-75 pages so they can be read over a weekend. Here’s what would have been quite valuable to have read back when I started as an MA student, more or less in order of importance:

> Literary Theory
> Postmodernism
> Poststructuralism
> Barthes
> Foucault

Other less essential titles would be:

> Postcolonialism
> Capitalism
> Marx
> Dada and Surrealism
> Feminism
> Continental Philosophy
> Kafka

I’ve read Dada and Surrealism, Literary Theory, and I’m almost done with Kafka. I’ve flipped through portions of Poststructuralism and Postmodernism and I’m quite curious about Barthes and Foucault because I plan on reading their primary texts once prelims are out of the way. Some of the older books in the VSI series list Derrida as a book that’s coming soon, but I don’t see it listed in later editions which makes me wonder if it has been dropped.

Anyway, this reminds me a bit when I worked at the UW medical school I noted how the educational culture was one where novices or initiates to that world (med students) were made to feel their ignorance very keenly, perhaps as a motivational tool for these students to work harder. For me, this is crap. A healthier idea is summed up by something one of my professors said a few years back: “We have to remember where our students are at, not where we wish or where we expect that they would be.”

Current Mood: A Bit Relieved the Semester is Over |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

I was positively giddy today watching online as the balls emerged from the pots. The draw is crucial for every team, even the big boys who want a game or two to get their motors running before the knockout stages. Here are my initial thoughts for winners and losers.

Winners
The United States of America – Quite frankly, the only way this could have gotten any better is if they’d been drawn with South Africa as the seeded team. As it is, I think the US should be happy with England as the big name in the group as it means they avoided other much more difficult seeded teams like Brazil and Spain. If anyone is to believe that US Soccer has improved in the last decade or two, they’ve simply got to get out of this group by beating Algeria and Slovenia, two of the weakest teams from Africa and Europe respectively. The US needs to get out of this group, and could even win it. The big question: can they handle this pressure?

Mexico – Just as in 2006, Mexico got a sweet draw. The seeded team in their group is South Africa, although France practically fills that role and that should be an interesting test. Uruguay is a team that Mexico should match up against fairly well so they have to like their chances given France’s dodgy form as of late. The top spot in the group won’t be easy but I think guaranteeing a second-place spot is well within reach. If they advance they’d face a Group B team—Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, or Greece. Four potentially tricky teams, but it’s not like coming up against a Brazil or Netherlands or Spain.

England – They’ll have to feel that this draw set up nicely for them. They’ll expect to get full points off Algeria and Slovenia but starting against the US is less than ideal since a draw or even (gasp!) a loss would pile the pressure on. Still, they’re clear favorites to win the group and face Germany, Ghana, Australia, or Serbia—none of whom will make England shudder in their boots, although they’ll not be wanting Germany.

Netherlands – You’d have to think they’re a lock for the quarterfinals as they should buzz through the likes of Denmark, Japan, and Cameroon and likewise whoever gets out of Group F, which will likely be Paraguay or Slovakia—and they won’t even have to play that well! However, the Dutch tend not to do well when they’re expected to succeed, so it should be interesting.

Spain, sort of – Spain should cruise through the group stage, with the goalfest potentially coming from the match against Chile. They’ll make Swiss cheese out of Switzerland, and Honduran cheese out of Honduras. What will worry them is that they’re opposite the group of death, meaning they’d face Brazil, the Ivory Coast, or Portugal in the Round of 16. Brazil vs. Spain is the final everyone wants, and the Spanish should be able to take the Ivory Coast or Portugal out, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be looking forward to the challenge. Still, if you want to win the thing, you’ve got to beat good teams so they can’t be too put out about it.

Losers
Portugal and Ivory Coast – Ouch. Portugal should be very worried at the moment since they sputtered through the qualifying campaign and historically don’t get off to strong starts. Brazil and the Ivory Coast are not teams they’ll be wanting to face since Brazil is better in all departments and the Ivory Coast play with pace and power, which spells a lot of trouble for Portugal. The Ivory Coast is probably the best African team so they have to feel hard done by getting in a group with Brazil and Portugal who, if they’re on their game and inspired by Cristiano Ronaldo, can conjure up some magic. Worse yet for the second place team in the group is that they’ll likely have to face Spain.

Argentina – The Albiceleste would have wanted a different kind of opponent than what they got. South Korea is sure to hustle and harry them and likely not be overawed by their pedigree; Greece is a difficult team to score against and Argentina is not exactly scoring at will these days. The way I see it, they’ve got to beat Nigeria handily because I see the games against Korea and Greece being draws. If the ball bounces the right way for them I can see them advancing, but not convincingly.

South Africa – They’re pretty poor so it’s hard to imagine a good draw for them, but France wasn’t who they wanted out of the European pot and Mexico and Uruguay aren’t much better. They probably could have done with a Japan or Slovakia rather than two Latin American teams who tend to hold the ball rather well.

That’s my quick take. Only 188 more days until the World Cup!

Current Mood: Quite Excited |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

I just have to point out that since my last post, Ars*nal have lost twice with an aggregate score of 0-6, are out of the Carling Cup and, for my money, out of the title race. Loverly. I wouldn’t want to gloat, but I’ve been firmly on the (minority) side saying that their squad still looked too lightweight to contend for major trophies. Their opening day drubbing of Everton looks less impressive now that the Toffees are lingering above the relegation zone, doesn’t it? I will say that they’re only three strapping players (a central defender, a holding midfielder, and an old school striker-type) from being very dangerous, but that’s three players too many at present. And of course they have massive injury problems. Unlucky? Well, if you check the news from this date on 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 (you get the picture) it seems to be a recurring theme.

At the pinnacle, Chelski look damn good, don’t they? The team they remind me of most at present? Brazil. Not because they’ve got Rio flair, because they don’t—and neither does Brazil. However, both teams are full of technically gifted, gigantic players. This is why I think why Chelski will win the Premier League. And possibly the Champions League.

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And also why Brazil will win the World Cup. If you had a skills contest for a starting 11, I think Spain and Brazil would be close to dead even, just as they in the current international rankings. However, the Spanish players are small—Xavi and Iniesta are about my height, 5′ 8″ or so. The Brazilians are mostly over 6′ and are built like brick walls, yet can sprint with the best of them. If in all the skill categories the two teams are equal, the bigger one will eventually find a way to win.

The best example of this, in my mind, comes from Euro 2008. Portugal was slightly more technically gifted than Germany, yet Germany won out, and I feel it was due to their size in midfield and defense. The German goal came from Michael Ballack barging into the box, remember? Spain, however, was quite a bit more technically gifted team than Germany, and thus they won out in the end.

This is why I have almost no hope for the US to do anything wonderful in the World Cup this summer. There are too many teams that are more technically gifted and/or are bigger than them. The US is going to draw one seeded team (who will be more technically gifted and/or bigger and stronger), one non-seeded and probably African team (who will likely be bigger and stronger), and then one other team that the US should be able to handle. The problem here is that the US needs to play well and have a good dose of luck just to get out of the group. If they only play at their potential, instead of above it, they’re doomed. In 2002 the US played lights out football and got lucky to get as far as they did by having other results go their way, and encountering Mexico in the second round. Despite playing very well, they were stopped by Germany who were just a little bigger and better in every department and luck did not go their way.

If you think about this, this is how their run in the Confederations Cup went as well. Played fairly well against Italy, had no luck, and lost. Played poorly against Brazil and were well-beaten. Played great against Egypt, got really lucky thanks to other results, and went through to play Spain. Again they played fantastically well, got really lucky (both Torres and Villa were off their games) and made it to the final. Against Brazil they played really well, maybe had a little luck… but Brazil were just better than them in all areas of the pitch. You can only ride your luck so far, and I wouldn’t put money on luck over skill when it comes to World Cup predictions.

The draw is tomorrow. Will I be nerdy enough to watch it live? Yes, probably.

Current Mood: Sure |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Whoa Nelly, it’s a big one this weekend. The Merseyside Derby, Ars*nal versus Chelski, and Villa versus Spurs. These games are big for different reasons. Everton need a win to move into a more comfortable spot in the table, and Liverpool need a win to get a foot back in the top four spots. Chelski need a win to consolidate first place, while Ars*nal need a win to show they can hang with the big boys. Villa need a win at home to show they can challenge for a top four spot; ditto Tottenham. Draws will not be welcome by any of these six sides, so I’m hoping for some explosive football-type action.

My picks: Wins for Liverpool and Villa and a draw for Chelski and the Ars*. Not confident picks mind you, but picks nonetheless. Last week’s “Last Man Standing” pool ended in a push, as I picked Stoke (1-0 winners) and Larry picked Spurs (9-1 winners). No bonus points for a blow-out thankfully, and this weekend we both took Man Citeh over a suddenly resurgent Hull. Since neither of us can win or lose, we chucked this one and re-picked. I took Fulham at home over Bolton. C’mon Dempsey! Grab another brace, son!

Equally exciting is the top o’ the table clash betwixt Barcelona and Real Madrid over in sunny Spain. Madrid is somehow topping the table despite not playing all that well (a close look reveals they’ve played mostly crap teams thus far) while Barcelona is head and shoulders the best team in the world when they’re on their game, yet they have also been falling into cruise control and drawing games they should win.

I kept on eye on both of these teams in the Champions League this midweek and if their form extends to the weekend, I would bet my house and the lives of everyone in it on Barcelona beating Madrid like a rented mule. Barca absolutely shredded Inter whereas Madrid stuttered and herked and jerked against the world powerhouse that is FC Zurich. Los merengues can be frighteningly good when they’re firing on all cylinders with Kaká and that Ronaldo kid looking particularly dangerous, yet too often their play doesn’t result in clear-cut chances. Barcelona on the other hand always end up threading the ball through the fourth dimension, finding players in the box without a soul around them, and they duly stuff it in the net. Seriously, it borders on black magic.

Prediction: Barcelona 3-0 winners.

I’m enjoying the brief calm before the storm of work that starts raining down at midnight tonight when my research writing students submit their final portfolios, followed by my creative writing students’ portfolios on Monday night. I’m reading about 44 draft portfolios, all of which are around 20 pages each, and giving feedback before the final drafts are due Wednesday, December 9th.

‘Tis a lot of work, but hopefully well worth it in the end. The only thing that drives you nuts is when you put in the considerable effort to provide thoughtfully commentary, and that commentary is then ignored and you see a final copy that’s identical to the draft copy in the final portfolio folder. Such is life.

One of my students is writing his research paper on Bob Marley and Rastafarianism. Natty Dread and Rastaman Vibration have been on heavy rotation for the last couple weeks. Happily, Baby Grey digs it!

Current Mood: Is That A Baby Stirring? |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Zeus writes:

How can you leave out the Frog handball incident in the only soccer blog that I read?

I’d completely forgotten about it, to tell you the truth. The main de grenouille incident (”hand of frog”) has been well-documented. This video clearly shows Thierry Henry double-handballing the ball in the crucial play-off game between France and Ireland; the first hand ball seems like an involuntary reaction any player of the game will recognize, but the second one is quite deliberate as he uses his hand to keep the ball in play before squaring it to Gallas for the winner. Clearly cheating and the correct decision would have been to disallow the goal and give a yellow to Henry for deliberate hand ball. Not to mention two French players were offsides when the free kick was taken as well…

On the podcasts I listen to the topic has been beaten to a pulp and frankly there are some lunatic opinions out there. Here are my calm, rational, and utterly irrefutable opinions on the matter:

* As an avid Ars*nal hater, I am no fan of Henry. I do not view his as the immaculate sportsman others do, but I don’t think he deserves the vilification he’s been getting in the press. In that situation, I think plenty of players would have done the same thing. It’s happening so fast I find it hard to criticize.

*However, I think Henry’s true(r) colors happen in the aftermath. Henry claims to have told the referee it was a handball and thinks a replay is the fairest solution. This feels utterly disingenuous. First, off “telling the referee” would look something other than wheeling away in celebration, wouldn’t it? If Henry did tell the referee, it wasn’t until much later. He could have, for example, shook his head, pushed his teammates away and made it very clear it was a handball. And suggesting a replay is the fairest solution after the fact is ridiculous. There was no chance of it happening, so Henry has nothing to lose by suggesting it to look like a good guy?

* FIFA are fighting a losing battle against technology being brought in because the public clamor is too great and the solution is too easy. Their problem, however, is that it complicates influencing games. As fans of Italy and Spain know, something wasn’t quite right about South Korea’s march to the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup. That something would be multiple blown offsides calls against Italy and disallowing two perfectly good goals for Spain, errors that are inexplicable and easily corrected via video replay, just like the handball against Ireland. Unfortunately for FIFA, there was a strong suspicion that they wanted France in the World Cup (bigger stars, bigger television market) and wanted one of the host nations (Korea/Japan) to go deep in the tournament to show how far the sport has come in Asia. Even if it isn’t completely fixed, it seems awfully convenient that referees make crucial mistakes in games that turn out exactly how FIFA had hoped.

* The ol’ “it all pans out over the long haul” excuse as well as “Ireland benefited from bad calls earlier in the campaign” are absolutely ridiculous. This was in extra time in a World Cup playoff. There is no evening out, just like you never get another chance when you’re screwed in the knock-out stages of the World Cup. It also seems like an odd argument, that nothing should be done about hideously wrong referee decisions.

* I do like the fact that football rules are slow to change, and changes tend to improve the quality of the game. When draws and conservative play were killing the game, FIFA passed a number of rule changes (3 points for a win rather than 2, liberalizing offsides rules to benefit attackers, ‘keepers can’t use hands on backpasses) that sped up the game and awarded attacking play. The current problem is that one middle-aged referee and three assistants can’t keep up with the modern athlete. The run of play and the speed and trajectory of the ball is ridiculously fast, too fast for the human eye to follow with any degree of accuracy and certainty.

* A couple simple rules would fix most of the problems. An official watches the game with the benefit of twenty-two different camera angles. If there’s a controversial moment in the penalty area relating to fouls, handballs, or offsides, this official has, say, 30 seconds to overrule the call on the field. If the 30 seconds passes because it’s too close to call, the call on the field stands. Substitutions and injuries take at least this amount of time, so the critics who say it would destroy the flow of the game don’t seem to have a leg to stand on. Also, I think dives and violent play should be reviewable after the game and penalties assessed accordingly.

It seems pretty easy and straightforward. Which is why nothing will happen anytime soon.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Current Mood: Hungry |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Things are winding down quickly in school; I only meet with my classes one more time as a large group and then in individual conferences. Teaching two new classes in my last semester of coursework isn’t ideal. Generally I was writing or modifying assignments each week based on how things went. Next semester should be much easier since I’ll have a better idea of how things roll out over the course of sixteen weeks and all the assignments will have been written. I also won’t be taking any classes, just doing reading towards my preliminary exam that’s scheduled for April. I’m looking forward to this.

Next fall I should be teaching another new course, one on business writing. That’ll be a nice change, and then in the spring I asked to teach a short story class focusing on fantasy, science fiction, and horror. I’m pretty sure I’ll get it, and I’m doubly sure it will fill. My plan would be to spend the first half of the semester educating students on these three oft-misunderstood genres, and the other half would be pure workshop. Sounds like fun, right?

I received my contributor’s copies for Best Horror of the Year #1 and reviews have started trickling in. None have mentioned my story “The Hodag” specifically, but the reviews have all called it a solid anthology without a clunker story among ‘em.

Some other narcissistic googling revealed a couple really negative views of my story “Eskhara” in the Federations anthology, both from Eastern European bloggers. What I find particularly interesting (and telling) is that both more or less say the story sucked because it’s a shameless and transparent parable about the current war in Iraq with a preachy, obvious conclusion. Of course readers are free to interpret it however they want and it’s not for me to say whether they’re right or wrong, but I will say that I’m relieved that other, more positive reviews seem to suggest that there’s perhaps a little more complexity than that. Also, I’d be interested in hearing what the heavy-handed conclusion would be, since I can say there was absolutely zero intent on my part to write a neat and tidy story with a clear moral at the end, and I would suggest there’s plenty to there to support other readings. But to each their own…

Glory glory Tottenham Hotspur! 9-1 over Wigan on the weekend. Having watched the replay you have to say Wigan played their part in the route with some shambolic defending, and you think they’d make an adjustment to give Aaron Lennon a little less room on the right after goals two, three, four, and five piled in…

The same weekend that Spurs claimed the second-most lopsided victory in Premier League history, I got quite a bit schadenfreude watching Ars*nal lose 1-0 to Sunderland. To be fair, this lot are a lot better than I thought they would be, but they’re still not nearly as good as the legions of sycophantic bandwagon fanboys want me to believe. They’re still injury prone and lightweight in the middle. Yes, they can hammer the minnows and the goals start flooding in after the first goal forces the game to open up a little, but I still see them as a tier below Man Ure and especially Chelski.

Granted, they’re no Liverpool! I didn’t think they’d slump quite so badly but you’d have to say that the race for fourth is well and truly on. Villa made a serious run for about 2/3rds of the season last time but ultimately the squad, not the team, failed them and they ended up well short to Ars*nal. This year, things are very different. Liverpool’s squad is thinner than Posh’s sticks and you’d have to say that Man Citeh and Spurs have equivalent, if not better, squads. Villa still seems short to me, but it’s not hard at all to envision Liverpool, Spurs, and Citeh going down to the wire. It’s also worth noting that it has far more to do with Liverpool’s decline than the improvement of the other two.

MLS Cup came and went. I would have enjoyed a Chicago vs. Los Angeles final far more, but as far as a cup final goes, it wasn’t half bad and penalties, for all the criticism they get, are pretty damn dramatic. I didn’t have strong feelings for either team but the spectacle of penalties brought me to the edge of my seat. And who would have thought Landycakes would blow over the bar? Phenomenal.

I’m also a little fed up with the constant harping on the league’s quality of play. Is it great? No. But exactly why do we expect it to be? Isn’t it just a tad unfair to say that MLS isn’t even close to La Liga or the Premier League, when they have deep traditions and a rabid soccer culture to boot? Yes, the league needs to loosen the purse strings a little and the talent pool needs to get deeper, but all things in good time. Good God, in two years the league will have 18 teams and the recent expansions in Toronto and Seattle have become two of the most exciting venues to watch soccer. Perspective, people? Can we get a little perspective?

Now on to homework. I’ll be looking forward to having this semester behind me.

Current Mood: Pretty Tired |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

/
Call us nutty but we booked it—a trip to Europe with the wee one. Grey will be just over one year old when we head off to Switzerland to visit his Uncle Todd and Aunt Pee Wee with a stopover in London on the way home to see my high school bud Aaron. The trip to Savannah went almost without a hitch so we duly raised the stakes. Fingers firmly crossed for the next six months…

Speaking of Brother Todd he (foolishly) invited me to take part in a “Last Man Standing” competition, where players all kick in some currency and get to pick one team who is certain to win over the weekend in the Barclay’s Premier League. The catch is that you can only take each team once, and they have to win—a draw is as good as a loss.

Out of a field of 23 players from various countries, two players remain—me and Larry, one of Todd’s friends from high school who now lives in Wales. Unlikely draws and losses for Ars*nal, Man Citeh, and Spurs in the last few weeks thinned the field considerably, topped off by Liverpool’s draw yesterday with Birmingham to put me and Larry head-to-head. I stand to win (or lose) about $115 US, but we’re idle this weekend for the international break. Can’t you just feel the tension?!?!

Over the next two classes in my creative writing class my students will be reading short shorts by Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Ben Marcus. I am more than interested to hear what they have to say. A good number of them appear to appreciate complicated, confusing, and somewhat perplexing stories, but there is also a contingent that seem to feel if a story doesn’t have a pronounced linear plot that features rising action, climax, and denouement, then the story is deficient.

I teach intro to creative writing again in the spring semester and will be changing things around, but not a ton. Conversations about modernism versus postmodernism seemed to help adjust reader expectations somewhat, so that if a piece of creative nonfiction or a short story appears to be devoid of a fixed “meaning” that it doesn’t automatically mean the author sucks. I plan on building this more deliberately into the syllabus next semester since a surprising number of essays and stories in the course textbook definitely bear some hallmarks of postmodernism.

Have to stop here and start working, unfortunately. A lot of stuff on my mind that seems blog worthy, but it’ll have to wait.

Current Mood: Pretty Good |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

School goes fine, but busy. The classes I teach are going fairly well as we steam into the last third of the semester, but at this stage most students seems to be running out of gas and then it gets tricky. It’s always a bit of a mystery to figure out what motivates students to begin with, so mixing things up in hopes of increasing motivation takes more work and isn’t always successful. Not to mention I have plenty of my own work to do just to keep up…

I’ve gotten 50% of the required paperwork filed for my preliminary exams, a number that should jump to 75% by Monday. The last form (four of four) is once I have everything completely nailed down, including my final reading list and the date of the actual exam. It’ll be April sometime, and after having several of my good friends going through the process this semester, I’m cautiously optimistic. By most accounts, it’s not too bad as long as you’re pretty thoroughly prepared, which I should be. In the next couple months I expect to be hammering the “academic” blog pretty hard as I take notes on the critical sources I need to read. No classes next semester, just independent reading to get prepped for the exam.

I’m love with a couple new podcasts, one ongoing the other completed:
* Football Weekly by the Guardian is absolutely hilarious, much better than the antiseptic lot over at the Soccern*t podcasts. Updated Mondays and Thursdays.

* Modes of Reading by Warwick University is an excellent lecture series available via iTunes. It’s a series of eight lectures, each about 40-50 minutes, on literature, criticism, and theory. I haven’t taken any literary theory courses per se but I’ve got a decent handle on what distinguishes different theories via exposure in my classes, having read various bits of Foucault, Derrida, Marx, etc. but it’s another thing entirely to put it all together succinctly and not in service to an outside text or extraneous topic. Since this is a recorded lecture, the audio fades in and out as the professor walks the room or turns his back, which can be maddening, but he’s an engaging speaker and it’s exactly the kind of high-level overview of these topics I currently need.

Speaking of which, I’ve also got a billion primary texts I want to read by Barthes, Bakhtin, Foucault, and others but those will have to be on hold until after prelims. I must admit that I found such theory pretty off-putting initially, probably because no one offered any contextual paths into theory, and also because a lot of academics (and burgeoning academics) like to use theory as a club—if you’re not in on the conversation, you are most definitely out of it.

Once these theories start to come together though, it’s pretty clear why English as a discipline has become so theory-based rather than “can’t we just talk about books we like.” The problem for anti-theory, “just literature” folks is that you can’t talk about how you experienced reading a book and what made it good without theory popping up. As soon as you are pressed to answer why you liked a certain book, you’ll have to give some abstract reason—the way it was written, the way it made you feel, the way it teaches you about the world—and by doing so you’re immediately thrust into realm of theory, like it or not.

Lots going on in the world of footie, too much to report at this moment.

Current Mood: Baby Break Just Ended |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Well, I have to say that I find the Premier League a lot more interesting this time of year than I did last year, although I’m pretty sure the outcome will be more of the same. My preseason pick was Chelski and I don’t see much to dissuade me at this point. Man Ure seem to burn hot and cold whereas the Russians seem more consistent, despite their relative inconsistencies. Ars*nal, for me, will fade in the winter months and Liverpool have ruled themselves out already by virtue of their losses and generally shoddy squad. There’s no chance for the chasing pack.

The Big Four is definitely under siege, but really only by Manchester Citeh who seem a bit too immature to get over the hump. It’s a little depressing that the richest folks in the world can’t simply buy their way into the top four, so entrenched they are. From my preseason musings, not all that much has changed, except that I think Liverpool is the team struggling to stay in the top four. Ars*nal look a lot better than I gave them credit for, but I still don’t take them too seriously as title contenders. They’re still a few players short in the squad, but they’re not as far off as I originally thought—-indeed, wished.

And I have to say that Citeh has become my second team, mostly because they are equal parts infuriating and fascinating to watch. I find it laughable when people say the money being pumped into Citeh is somehow ruining the integrity of the game, as if having the same four teams shuffling around in the top spots for the better part of a decade is somehow admirable, fair, and interesting. Citeh square off against Birmingham tomorrow and I hope to be watching.

If I had more time in life, I’d watch more La Liga. I’ve watched very little thus far, but it’s getting pretty interesting over there as well. Barcelona, despite being the best team in the world, isn’t having it go all their way. What impresses me about La Liga is how the minnows still play the game without resorting to hoof-n-hope. It’s as if they’d rather go down than play an inferior brand of footie. Long live La Liga.

Real Madrid is a team you can’t take your eyes off of either. They can be bloody brilliant, but they can also be a case of “How can that team not win every damn game they play?” I hope Pellegrini can figure out how to get Benzema more involved, since he’s been le sulk almost from the get-go, and that’s a shame.

I scored a good goal today. My first in six games and it was almost worth the wait. Just sayin’.

Current Mood: Quite tired |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Well, blogging sure ranks pretty low on my “to do” list I guess. The schedule nowadays could best be described as “crushing” most weeks; I have to hunker down and work quite hard in order to free up enough time to play soccer on Saturdays. It’s a sorry state of affairs.

What makes things worse is that I’ve been pushed from my defensive midfield role out to be an attacking winger. While theoretically I have no problem with this, it involves far more running and far less of the ball. I haven’t scored any goals this fall after averaging almost a goal a game over spring and summer. (sigh)

Unsurprisingly, school is largely to blame for the workload. Teaching two new courses in a single semester isn’t great to say the least. After teaching a class once I get a sense of how it will all roll out and making adjustments becomes much easier. As it stands, I feel like I’ve been lurching through this semester, where I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself by having large(ish) assignments due in both classes on the same week. This kind of stuff isn’t apparent until you teach a class once. The good news? I’m fairly sure that students are learning, which is good. I take my teaching very seriously and I feel I focus too much on what I’m not doing well rather than what’s getting through.

To compound problems, the two classes I’m taking allow for a great deal of self-direction. (This shouldn’t surprise me since one is an independent study.) This is great but, as all self-directed learners soon realize, it’s a lot more work to 1) figure out what you’re interested in, 2) figure out how to pursue these interests, and 3) keep to schedule than to just have someone thrust a syllabus in front of you, effectively saying, “Do X, Y, and Z by these dates.” Still, I’m learning a lot of good stuff so I can’t complain. But I do.

Ho hum, the US qualified for the World Cup again and (yawn) won the group. I should probably be excited but I’m not. Has this team significantly improved from 2006? God, from 2002? I don’t think so. There’s some weird alchemy that allows the US attack to play extremely well at times but fall flat most of the time, but I can’t figure it out. Sadly, neither can Bob Bradley.

What makes this World Cup 2010 effectively a non-starter is the defense. Yes, I realize this same team made it to the Confederations Cup final having beaten Spain, but in the context of the World Cup their progress would be equal to a quarterfinal exit—the same point they got bounced in 2002. I would also hasten to point out that the US needed to ride a serious wave of luck in both 2002 and the Confed Cup before being eliminated. Yes, a team needs a certain amount of luck in these major tournaments, but the key point here is that the US loses when they don’t get lucky, and they tend to lose even if they’re a bit off their game. That’s not the hallmark of a competitive team.

The draw won’t be done for another couple months but, regardless, I have a hard time seeing this be a very cheery World Cup. Onyewu and Bocanegra are a clumsy central pairing and the left back spot is problematic at best. The US had a hard time keeping CONCACAF opponents off the board; African, European, and South American opposition will be far more clinical and the US attack is neither potent nor consistent enough to keep top-notch opposition on their heels.

All for now. Hopefully this space won’t be as barren in coming weeks, but I’m making no promises…

Current Mood: Feh |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “The Bootleg Series, Volume 8: Tell Tale Signs”

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Sheesh, looks like this blog has received a cruel reminder of where it ranks in my life. Really, there are so few extra minutes in the day that this space gets neglected. Even this post has to be short so I can get caught up on schoolwork.

After returning from Savannah I held student conferences for two days, six hours each with only a few breaks scattered in. Overall, I felt they went really well even though they left me exhausted. I feel like I don’t know my creative writing students as well, probably because they have fewer writing assignments. It was great to get a chance to speak to them individually and, unless a lot of them are lying, they’ve overwhelmingly enjoyed the course despite the fact that a majority of them distrust/dislike poetry.

My own coursework has been brutal. Trying to manage an online class and an independent study is a ton of work and I end up doing hours of work in spurts. I’m learning a lot, but it’s sort of a binge-feeding type of learning and therefore not my favorite. I persevere.

After much scrambling, I finally found the second half of US vs. Honduras online last night and happily caught all five goals. It’s huge for the US to win on the road anywhere in CONCACAF and Honduras had been perfect at home thus far, so that’s no small feat.

Except that defense looks horrid. They have virtually no composure on the ball whatsoever, and Gooch and Bocanegra are good for at least a half-dozen mistakes between the two of them every match. Against higher quality competition this would equate to about two or three goals. The stalwart display during the second half of the Confederations Cup looks more and more like a blip with each passing game.

The good news is that they’ve qualified and can now experiment a bit against Costa Rica, not that they need it. Extra matches are useful for squad players to try and strut their stuff and make life difficult for the manager picking the team. Well, the US squad fringe players have had ample time to show Bradley what they can do in the form of the Gold Cup and, Chad Marshall and Stuart Holden aside, there aren’t too many questions left. Still, we’re in and I’m not complaining. Much.

Current Mood: Frazzled |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Whew! This is one of the driest runs in this blog’s history but we’ve been busy. Amy flew out to Savannah last Wednesday morn for a conference and I joined her Thursday afternoon. She brought Grey down and, happily, he was a perfect gentleman the entire journey. And bonus points for TSA for requiring Grey, who is five months old today, to remove his shoes and run them through the x-ray machine before being carried through the metal detector. Geniuses.

Also, I found out that you get charged $15 for checking even one bag nowadays, which therefore encourages more travelers to bring their carry-on sized suitcases through security. I find it odd that no one cared about the gel-filled pouch we heat up in the microwave to warm baby bottles, because it seems like that could be filled with a variety of liquid substances that are banned from carry-ons… but what do I know? Anyway, I opted instead to bring my bag to the gate, where they had a mandatory policy to check it, which was fine because I wasn’t planning on bringing it with me in the plane to begin with. But of course they’re not set up for thirty people needing to check and retrieve their baggage at the gate, which in turn leads to bottle necks, and the oh-so-important doorknob salesmen who simply must call everyone in their cell phone’s contacts at the moment the plane touches down, and therefore become just as (if not more so) clueless and clumsy as the family of fifteen traveling on an airplane for the first time. Fun? Oh no. Not so much at all.

Overall, the trip has been lovely although school and teaching obligations have hamstrung me quite a bit. Normally I’m on full-time baby duty Thursdays and Fridays and get very little done anyway, but I would still say I’m running behind the curve on my own schoolwork this semester. So it goes.

The weather has been nice, about thirty degree warmer than Wisconsin and far sunnier, and the g’parents have been vital in making sure the baby Grey gets all the attention one could hope and dream for. Savannah’s a lovely little city made for strolling and, more to the point, strollering.

We return tomorrow to cold, rain, and work. Not looking forward to the grind, that’s for sure.

Current Mood: Pooped |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

We’re hitting the road next week for a conference in Savannah, GA and bringing el bebe with us. Happily we’ll have adjoining rooms with the g’parents, so hopefully me and my folks can contain the little guy while Amy attends her conference. Amy flies down with Grey without me, so keep your fingers crossed for her. He’s a pretty easy going little fella, so we have high hopes. We’re all together on the return trip so that should make things easier. Allegedly.

I’ve arranged it so I have student conferences for two days straight when I get back. We can cancel classes at our discretion as long as we meet with every student, either individually or in small groups, as part of conferences. My first semester teaching I kind of dreaded conferences because students tended to treat them as interrogations, but now I like them a lot more and find them quite useful. My first round of conferences was sort of a “How do you think you’re doing?” kind of meeting, which I didn’t find useful. Now I try to give the conferences more structure, as in “We’re going to talk about X,” and students tend to come more prepared. There are also a couple of students stuck in neutral that need some prodding, and this is a decent time to do that as well.

As far as my own studies, it’s very much catch as catch can at this stage. I’m fooling around with design work and, while I like it quite a bit, a find myself only producing semi-satisfactory results—which is probably because I’m not a designer. I finally broke down and bought Adobe CS4 Design Suite Premium, which sells to students for an insanely low $315. This will allow me to hack around in programs I have worked with a little bit (Dreamweaver, Illustrator), give me access to programs I’ve never used but want to learn more about (Flash, Fireworks and InDesign) and update my very old version of Photoshop. Like with most things, having the right tools helps tremendously and though I wasn’t keen on dropping $300, having these tools on-hand should allow me to gain some level of comfort with them that I never would achieve trying to use them in the campus computer lab.

I find this situation interesting in terms of some of the research that I’ve been doing regarding computers and pedagogy. Overwhelmingly, easy access to computers and specific software translates into being comfortable and proficient in teaching oneself new things; in other words, students who have computers in the home are likely to be more comfortable using them than students who only use computers in school settings. Upon reflection, this should seem fairly obvious. But what’s disturbing is how a) these skills make students much more competitive when looking for jobs, and b) students who have up-to-date hardware and software on their home computers tend to be white and upper-to-middle class, not to mention that fooling around on the computer is still predominantly a “guy” thing (though I think this is rapidly changing).

So once again, students who are already at a disadvantage from not having easy access to computing resources (and thus are less likely to feel comfortable self-teaching and experimenting on computers) are also likely to be working from a disadvantage in terms of socioeconomic standing, which in turn strongly correlates to race. Just something to mull over as I, a white guy, drop a good wad of cash on software that hopefully will help me get a job down the line…

Current Mood: Sure |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Good Lord, the days are a blur. The academic calendar had us starting the week before Labor Day, followed by having that next Monday off for a holiday. I teach two MW sections, meaning we’re in week three and we’ve only met three times. On top of this, students can still add classes until tomorrow, which means in both classes I’ve had three or four people who have added, shown up for one class, and then dropped. This makes it very difficult considering I’m trying to match names with faces, collect work, take attendance, and have students sign up to lead discussion. It takes a ton of time to figure out the logistics. Not. Fun.

Oh, and the textbook for one course still isn’t in, even though I ordered it in early August. So much for that schedule in the syllabus then…

Happily, the classes are going well—at least from my perspective. There seems to be a core of engaged students in both who are willing to participate in class discussion, which is great. I remember reading a blog written by a bitter student at USC who complained about her professors farming out the class time to the students while they graded papers. Her point was that she didn’t pay for college to listen to her classmates ramble through shoddy presentations, and I think it’s a valid one.

I also outsource class time to students, but that’s because I’d rather have students talk about what’s interesting them rather than what interests me. I actually finding myself adjusting my daily lesson plans so I’m not talking so much. In some ways, straight lecturing is much easier (and perhaps lazier?) approach to teaching. I could blab about craft in my Creative Writing class until the cows come home, but I probably wouldn’t want to listen to it!

I’m also finding a lot of parallels between writing and teaching. With my CW class, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do each class but it’s challenging to make that actually work when it’s go-time. For my class on college research, I started out having a very rough idea of what I might do from day to day, but that’s turned out to be easier to manage than I imagined.

The classes I’m enrolled in are still in the process of taking shape. More on those when I have a clearer idea of what I’ll be doing, whenever I have time to blog about it…

The game between the Packers and Bears? Fantastic. I’m surprised at the number of fans on both sides of the border who focused on the negatives. The Bears were a worthy opponent and both teams had plenty of opportunities to win it. I thought both teams looked tough as hell, and I can’t imagine too many teams are going to be comfortable playing either one, though injuries took their toll on the Bears. The rematch should be titanic!

Current Mood: Busy busy |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.

Time sure flies by this time of year, with school starting and all the rest. Here’s some quick commentary on World Cup Qualifiers played on Saturday and Wednesday.

* Maradona has no idea what he’s doing. 1-3 loss at home to Brazil and a 1-0 loss to Paraguay puts Argentina in serious jeopardy of not making the World Cup. I keep thinking “He’s going to turn it around, Argentina can’t miss the World Cup.” Such thinking also led me to believe that Newcastle would somehow not get relegated. Argentina surely has good enough players to qualify, although probably not the ones Maradona is picking. So the problem lies where, then?

* Ditto to Scotland. George Burley has had no clue for some time now, and it cost the Scots a place at the World Cup. If your qualification hopes rest on winning at Holland on the final day of your group’s matches, it’s not good.

* Carlos Quieroz? The Portuguese FA are the only ones on the planet not aware that the man DOES NOT KNOW WHAT HE’S DOING and now they too are paying the price. Portugal are far too good to miss out on the World Cup, but they too need to go from uninspired to world-beaters overnight, and even then it might not be enough.

* One man who quite definitely knows what he’s doing? Fabio Capello. He’s using the same core of players as Steve McClaren, yet England look frighteningly good right now. They’re scoring goals for fun, haven’t lost in qualifying, and are brimming with confidence. I still think the team lacks the technical abilities to hoist the ol’ Jules Rimet come July, but they’ll go deep into the tournament playing like this.

* Don’t underestimate the job that Vincente del Bosque and Dunga have done with Spain and Brazil, respectively. Morons believe that anyone could manage teams with that much talent, but they’re wrong; a brilliant mind makes it look easy (see McClaren/Capello above). A Spain vs Brazil World Cup Final would be lovely but I can’t see it happening, as when do the #1 and #2 ever meet in the final of a big tournament? Both are playing deadly stuff right now, but methinks Brazil looks nigh invincible at present, although I watched Spain dismantle Belgium on Saturday and the goals were ridiculously good. Why the planet hasn’t jumped on the Spanish bandwagon yet, I have no idea. Unlike Brazil, Spain scores goals with slick, slick build-up through the midfield that’s a joy to behold.

So the US struggled to beat El Salvador 2-1 at home and made tough work of beating Trinidad & Tobago away 1-0. Six points and one foot in South Africa. Forgive me if I’m not too impressed.

The magic of the Confederations Cup has well and truly worn off. This team can’t pass the ball through the midfield. Michael Bradley is well off-form and I think that hurts a lot. A couple injuries and the defense is a total mess. The only bright real spot is that Altidore and Davies seem like a no-brainer up top, and Landon Donovan looks a class apart.

Dempsey is almost a liability in these games. Because it’s CONCACAF and these teams are crap, and because he plays in the Premier League, he tries all sorts of cute flicks and tricks, none of which come off. He loses the ball constantly. In the games against Egypt, Spain, and Brazil, he contributed to the team effort by putting his nose down and running his tank empty (to mix metaphors). This is classic too-big-for-britches syndrome and its up to the manager to smack the player down. Bradley, who has his favorites and sticks with them, hasn’t done a thing about it.

I can’t tell whether Bradley doesn’t know what he’s doing or whether he simply doesn’t have any better options, or a dose of both. I don’t care that there are no easy games in qualifying; the US haven’t won a game comfortably since the 3-0 over Egypt. In this region I don’t expect them to win 5-0 every time out but at the very least they should be able to dictate play for the majority of the match. Instead, they look like headless chickens and it’s disturbing. We’re better than this, aren’t we?

The US virtually qualified last night. Costa Rica would need to win both of their remaining games, Honduras would need at least two points from two games, Mexico would need at least one point, and the US would have to lose away to Honduras and lose at home to Costa Rica. Then they’d finish fourth and go to the playoff spot. In short, if the US draws either of these games it would effectively kill off the challenge from Honduras or Costa Rica. If they can’t manage that, they don’t deserve to go to the World Cup, but anything’s possible.

Current Mood: Yes |

Originally published at my website. You can comment here or there.