If I did this Challenge. . .

. . . And I'm not saying I will. . .

Chris, bookworm extrordinaire, is always getting tangled in this web of book challenges over at his blog, Stuff As Dreams are Made On. It's a neat concept, much more attractive to me than the "community reading projects" you hear about from time to time--or the Oprah's Book Club kind of thing. For one thing, you don't get the impression that the people who start challenges have any hidden agenda other than to get other people to read what they want/like to read. In my discipline we get so caught up in balancing how much of what type of work and which kind of author and what social, political or intellectual currents, the whom-you-can't-leave-outs and the whom-you-should-really-includes according to this or that view go onto our various reading lists, from syllabi to prelim lists to works in papers and articles we write, etc., that I'm not sure we even know what it means to simply enjoy a work of literature anymore. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization, and so not entirely true, but you know what I mean. So I find this reading-blogging sub-culture is really cool. I want to get sucked into this level of enthusiasm. So Chris is currently doing one challenge (among many) that encourages people to read 10 books from a list of 1001 "must reads," thus making themselves 1% more well read. Certainly a noble cause. I could benefit from something like this, I think. So I perused the list. Many titles--er, most titles--are pretty unknown to me. And the ones I chose, I confess, are largely on my to read list anyway. And I'm not sure I can really do something like this--too many other things going on. But if I were to choose, and if cheating were permitted (that is, choosing with an eye to the "useful" or "things I planned to read anyway"), I would choose the following:

1) The Hours – Michael Cunningham
2) Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
3) The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
4) If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
5) A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
6) Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
7) Ulysses – James Joyce
8) Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
9) Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
10) The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera

Only the last one is a complete unknown to me. Sounds intriguing, though. I want to keep my eye on these book challenges--and get motivated & excited & stuff!--and I actually signed up for real for a different challenge that I'm behind on, so I'll talk more about that soon! I've got an idea for a Lenten book challenge for next year--Catholic must-reads of various types: choose one book of apologetics, one of fiction, one encyclical. . . you get the idea! If you have suggestions, let me know!

New "About Me"

Thought I'd share my new self-description. The old one was getting stale...

Read it "Literacy chick" or "Literacy chic": I am a newly-minted-Ph.D.-packin' Orthodox Catholic Momma who reads sometimes, writes a lot, and thinks too much! My literary scholarship focuses on literacy: Does literacy affect consciousness? More importantly, do writers think that literacy affects consciousness? I love my husband and proudly wear his name (off-blog); I do my best to live the Catholic faith into which I was Baptized & Confirmed in October 2004. I am a Catholic academic, seeking what that means in my life. I believe that where there is life there is hope, and uphold Life on those grounds (and others). I think academics can afford to share many values with SAHMs, and I keep my children around whenever possible. I hold and express unapologetically many opinions of varying popularity, but what's a blog for, after all?

Sounds accurate, right? ;)

Dr. Literacy-Chic

You can still call me Literacy-chic, though! ;)

The defense was a short, friendly conversation--only an hour! I have some good suggestions for converting it to a book and many nice things were said. Now I have some serious sweets hanging around!

Immediate plans: Hit local restaurant where 2 of my siblings work for some celebratory dessert & wine--maybe an appetizer. I want a margarita, but I'm not sure about that level of alcohol while breastfeeding. . . My brother's the bartender, though, so we'll see what I might be able to work out! Maybe something 1/2 strength. :)

I feel happy, but most of the relief was after the draft was done. That was the BIG work. Now, I'm just feeling motivated for the future, which is a big thing for me!!

Thank you all so much for all of your thoughts & prayers! I appreciate having such supportive blog-friends!

Discovering my comfort foods. . .

I watch Food Network a lot. A Lot! One thing they like to talk about is so-called "comfort food"--usually mac 'n cheese, ice cream, chicken soup, spaghetti. I've wondered sometimes at the rationale for the designation, though ice cream is a given. Chicken soup = illness, so that too. When I think of favorite homey dishes that evoke family, I come up with chicken fricassee, dirty rice, seafood gumbo. Not thing that are easy to turn to for comfort, since I don't make them like my grandmother did. (My dirty rice isn't bad--and no, it's not like the stuff you get at Cajun restaurants!)

So finally, reality hit, and I've been trying to look over some articles, look over the dissertation, print the dissertation in all of its tree-killing immensity (that's the epithet). . . But things were a little crazy at home, and with all of the beginning-of-the-month, only-paid-once-a-month grocery shopping that we have done recently, we still needed some things. So I made a list and sent my husband to the store with the kiddos (but at the last minute the little one needed me). I looked over the list, and behold: comfort foods!

--ingredients for a 7-layer bean dip: beans, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, tomatoes, pico de gallo, salsa, tortilla chips

--cookies

--doughnuts

--frozen cooked shrimp with cocktail sauce (an appetizer of sorts for me!)

Even the things that I put on the list because we "needed" them are comfort foods for me:

--frozen cheese tortelloni (which we had for dinner with butter)

--frozen portabello mushroom raviolis (the store brand is scrumptious! and only $2.09! what a great supper! :) )

--frozen vegetables: broccoli, broccoli & cauliflower, peas (great with the cheese tortelloni for supper!)

The bean dip was too labor-intensive, but will be consumed in the near future! :)

So. . . Any favorite "real" comfort foods? Things not usually considered? (Pregnancy cravings aren't quite the same. They vary with pregnancy and usually don't last in my experience. But they're an interesting subject unto themselves!)

And for tomorrow: Water. Just water. 'Cause all that talking will make us thirsty! Thanks for all the supportive words!

Dissertation Defense Protocol

If I have not already communicated the fact that I can be an awfully socially awkward person in certain contexts, let me do so now. I dread the odd social gathering at someone's house, unless I know most of the people who are going to be there, and even then, it can be cause for some anxiety. We're talking non-academic, even. So this is not just the pressure of networking. Oh no. It's not being able to answer a query from a person I don't know that runs like this, "Hey, you know that cake you brought? Are we going to eat it or what? Can I cut it since you're busy breastfeeding?" with an honest, "I was waiting until everyone--namely me--was finished eating, and I'd prefer to cut it, but thank you for your offer!" instead of muttering a weak, "okay" and then brooding about it for the rest of the party. . .er. . . weekend. It's deciding not to go to the shower at all because two were scheduled for the same day and you RSVP'd to the one given for the person you knew well, but not as well. I take comfort in my committee chair's admission that there are times that he has entered a home for a gathering and proceeded straight through and right out the back door. That's so me. So what am I worried about with the upcoming dissertation defense? Refreshments. Yup, you read that correctly. Because I heard waaay back--and again today--that the defendee (person on the hot seat) usually brings snacks or breakfast or something in hopes that the committee members are too charmed by the offering--or too afraid of crumbs escaping their mouths--to ask any difficult questions. Or as a courtesy, maybe. That was all vague. Anyway, it's been months since I've had any meaningful face-to-face interaction with my committee chair department head, and while I have asked a couple of times in meaningful ways what is expected of me, he simply will not say "some koolaid and a tray of brownies." So I'm in agonies over which snack would be too childish, the politics of pastries, what about the vegetarian (and what are his reasons for being vegetarian--do they preclude icing?), would it seem like a bribe--and a weak one at that, is it rude to come empty handed? (Except for the dissertation--there is that. . .) And that is my primary source of anxiety. What snack (if any) to bring, and how my choice of snack reflects on me. Literacy-chic, you are an idiot.

How Do We Love Them?

Each time I have contemplated having another baby, the thought has struck me: how is it possible that I should love another child as much as I love this one? Each of my children has been an incredible--amazing!--emotional investment: all of the hopes, fears, worries, joyful moments, new experiences, anxieties. . . For years, I wasn't certain that I could have another baby and love him or her as much as I loved my son--fertility wasn't the issue, but love. The thought seemed strange. At the risk of sounding cliché, it was becoming Catholic that opened my mind to the possibility that I could, indeed, have another baby to love, with whom to share all of our family experiences--but that's another post. The same thoughts surfaced when I was pregnant for number three--I was still in the midst of the intense, anxious infant-to-toddler love; my son had had years of my love (and I had had years to love only him with wonderful and difficult mother-love) and seemed much more self-sufficient by the time his sister was born. But however many babies we have, there are always new things to be learned, and I've been thinking about how we love our growing families. . .

We love them all in their different ways--that seems obvious. Each has a different personality, different needs. But while that is true, there are ways that we love them that are the same--or similar--for each child, which nevertheless vary according to where we are with them at the time.

We love them in the midst of the group dynamic: When older brother is able to pick up the youngest, we smile to see his delicate manipulation of her soft floppiness. When he is able to negotiate the various compromises of toddler interaction to give Momma time to take a shower, we are grateful. And amid our exasperation from the noise and commotion it generates, we love to see his horseplay with the little sisters because of the affection it betrays. There is a communication between the baby and the toddler that is amazing to see. . . We love the nicknames that one bestows on the other. And the thrill that is apparent when little sister catches sight of her big sister reverberates through us, and we echo her joy.

We also love them in ways that are (st)age-appropriate: Babies, we adore. This is why we celebrate Christmas, no? That this instinctual love that humans are meant to feel for the smallest and most helpless of our race--the rapt emotional embrace that requires no act of our will--should be transferred to our Lord and Savior. We love them in our recognition of the newness of their actions and their experiences--in our observation of the novelty of their interactions with their senses, their bodies, their families, their worlds. Even amid sweet frustrations, we love their recognition of ourselves--who we are to them--and love their needs, which we alone fulfill. We love their cries and fussiness, and dwell on the sweet sounds that we know we can soothe, or else we love them with anxiety, holding them until their discomfort passes.

Toddlers, we love with tolerance and a sense of adventure. We love them with a wry twinkle, appreciating their cleverness as they demonstrate to us that we can't sneak anything past them--not an open door, not a single piece of chocolate. We love them when we follow their routines--never ever coming in the front door when we come home, but heading around the building to play by the porch. We love them when we "see down" to play with legos or blocks instead of doing that very important thing that we should be doing. And when we repeat with wonder that word or phrase that we've just heard for the first time, or smile at that thing that they shouldn't be doing but which is a very big accomplishment, we give them our love. By letting the baby cry or fuss just a little bit longer to attend to the needs of the toddler, we are loving them in a way that really matters. In every delicate frustration we endure--even if not so well--or turn into a rowdy game, in every single effort to divert attention from that one forbidden or harmful thing, we love them. We love them as we share our tasks with them, even if we can accomplish them better alone. We love them when we hold them like the babies they still are, enjoying their affection whenever it happens to present itself.

In all of their seeming independence and hidden vulnerability, we love our older ones--our "pre-teens," though that term is speeding them on to a stage they have not yet reached--in ways that are subtle, but special. It may mean popping in to comment on a particularly well-played cello piece, suggesting that something is not quite right with a certain note, or asking about the piece being played. In our attentions to what is important to them, we love them. It may mean listening--at least for a little while--to the narrative of "how I beat the last video game boss." We love them when we laugh at their jokes--even the really corny ones. We love them when we accept the help they give us rather than dwelling on the help that was not given. We love them when we answer their questions honestly and carefully, giving neither too much information, nor too little. We love them by walking beside them sometimes, not always in front.

We love them all by remembering all of the ways we love them, as often as possible.

Not Teaching Sci Fi

The class didn't make--probably because History decided to schedule ALL of their summer courses at the same time as the Sci Fi. So FOUR of our summer classes didn't make. But that's okay. I'll be teaching another of my favorite "not really considered literature" genres: children's lit. And this will be REALLY fun, since many who are taking it will be doing so as part of their Education degrees--but I plan to teach it as literature, with theory & everything. ;)

Here are the texts:

The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature

Considering Children's Literature: A Reader

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznik

Answering My Own Question. . .

I'm home on a Sunday morning with my girls because the younger of the two was running a slight fever this morning (99.5 or so) and has a runny nose. :( So I thought I would report my findings. . . There are indeed places to get cool European and Japanese, good quality fabrics online (as I knew there had to be), it's just a matter of typing the right search terms into Google. Some can be found on eBay as well. So here's a list of cool online fabric retailers:

Hart's Fabric

Bunte Fabrics

Sew Euro

Fabric Hound

Reprodepot Fabrics

Maybe one day I'll get around to ordering some!! And then using it!! (And of course, I'll go to a 5 or 7 PM Mass. . .)

Where Do You Find the Fabric???

I've been doing a lot of sewing lately. I made two dresses for Chiclette, one for Doodle, dug out lots of patters, I have a cute top cut out for myself, piles of fabric everywhere--you get the basic idea. I have still been doing other things--I went to my department 3 times for meetings this week and once to pick up the unsold blanket (green) that my Doodle promptly claimed as her very own (though she took it off of her bed to cover her little sister before we left the house this afternoon!). I need to revise some handouts for next week, revise a dissertation abstract and conclude a conclusion. Sewing is for when I need to de-stress or be creative. So doing a little bit of non-productive web searching earlier, I discovered the most incredible magazine with oodles of patterns in every issue! It's called Ottobre and is published in Finland. The clothing design is really amazing. If I could sew all of the time, I would have no need to buy clothes for myself or the girls again--ever. That is, if I could find good fabric!! Because the styles are fashionable, but there's no matching the quality of fabrics that the better manufacturers can get their hand on. At least, not that I've found. Please, if someone knows something I don't, let me know!!!!

Academic Moms & Tenure Track Jobs

Hat tip: Kate

A study out of Utah revealed recently that female professors are less likely than their professional counterparts to have children. This is hardly surprising to someone who has been in a graduate program and known a number of female academics who, for whatever reason, have decided not to have children or have delayed that decision indefinitely. I have been fortunate to be in a department full of professor-moms and even more fortunate, lately, to be in a department full of grad student moms (though this was late in coming--I was the only grad student mom in the department for quite some time!! It's nice to have company. . .) The blog that mentions this study also mentions that UC Berkley is doing something to try to address the issue of continued gender inequity in academia--the basic fact that while being married with children seems to be an asset of sorts to male success in academia (or at least a reflection of--like sowing the academic oats has a biological counterpart*), the reverse is true for women. More women who achieve tenure have fewer children, no children, and have children later, while women who have children earlier tend to drop off of the tenure-track, choosing instead to work in adjunct and lecturer-type positions. Tenured women are also more likely to be divorced, since the average male prof is married to a non-academic, while the average female academic is married to a male Ph.D., leading to the "my career is more important that yours" syndrome. I have seen that happen with a lawyer couple with whose family my family was good friends when I was growing up, so I suspect that that statistic is true of professional married women in general. It is not unique to academic couples for each individual to enter the marriage with the assumption that his/her career is or should be more important than the other person's, or more important than the marriage or the family unit. But such things vary according to maturity level of the individuals involved (the couple we knew were very immature), temperament, and level of ambition.

Now, to be fair, the rather extensive study done by Berkeley showed that women with children made up almost 1/2 of women in tenure-track positions, with only a slightly lower percentage overall than women without children. It's funny the way that worked out, unless you look at the comparison to the number of men in tenure-track positions. It was clear that family considerations do indeed keep huge numbers of women out of tenure-track positions. When I consider my schedule for next year as I strive to keep my youngest out of daycare, I understand why. But at the same time, for women to drop down into lower-paying, higher-teaching load adjunct and non-tenure track positions doesn't make intuitive sense to me.

I remember reading posts recently about the presence and absence of children in our lives. Not just the ones that sparked some of my bolder pronouncements on the subject, but discussions on other blogs about how having children around while growing up fosters a healthy attitude toward children, including a realistic impression of what can actually be accomplished with children around. Just the knowledge of how to take care of a baby is a healthy effect of having not only siblings, but young cousins, and friends who have siblings, etc. While it may be helpful for me at this stage to have some on-campus office hours in the fall, I know that I can write with my babies around. I've been doing it as long as I can remember!! So sacrificing the lower teaching load of a tenure-track job for a job that requires more in-classroom hours and less research & publication doesn't seem like a smart career (or family) move to me. Of course, I don't aspire to an R1 university anyway. I would like a university where achieving tenure is a more laid-back, faculty-supported, not highly-competitive enterprise. So clearly, I won't be taking a position (or applying for a position) with the Berkeley system. Besides my aversion to earthquakes and mudslides. But it is nice to see the problems laid out and some solutions proposed. I really like one of the goals articulated in their report on their findings: They want to be able to answer the often-asked female grad student query, "When is a good time to have a baby?" with a resounding "Any time!" Part of their program, then, is to support grad students who wish to have families. The problem is that at this stage their family-friendly policies and goals (dictated, no doubt, by current reluctance of some people to move to California because of cost as well as a negative birth rate in some parts of the state that rivals that of some European nations. . .) are not necessarily shared by the institutions that will be hiring their new Ph.D.'s. So it's a step in the right direction, but unless other schools follow suit, it's only a solution for the faculty they wish to recruit or retain.

On the other hand, if some nutbar tries to tell me that I'm being utterly irresponsible by having more than one or two children, I can just say that since only 1 in 3 female tenured academics have children, I can have up to 6 myself and still be making up for the other two!!

*Sowing the academic oats does indeed have a biological counterpart when male professors, having achieved tenure, marry their grad students or undergrads!

Postcolonial Digression

So Anastasia posed a question on her blog: empire bad, yes? What sayest thou?

After I made a rather obvious smartass comment, I revisited it to say the following:

Playing devil's advocate: Empire can both neutralize the extremities of culture and allow for a mingling that produces richness along the contact zones of cultures that would otherwise compete for supremacy. Unified by--and against--the colonizer, they mingle to create cultural richness that previously had not existed. Not to mention postcolonial literature ripe for analysis!

So while it's a darn shame that no one has had his still-beating heart ripped from his chest down in Central America lately, the Romans might have made some cultural improvements in Europe before succumbing to the Germanic hordes.

But undergraduates are studying marketable subjects--like philosophy--and wouldn't know about those things.

Blankies Galore!!

So this is what I've been doing this weekend.

A blanket for my friend (and Doodle's godmother) who will be having her second child (and first daughter) in June. It is a cowgirl motif because my mother made some of the decor for her son's room in a cowboy motif, and the new baby will likely inherit that room. So this way, it is something new to go along with something shared!



Disclaimer: Any resemblance that this blanket might bear to the school colors of any Texas university is purely coincidental!!

So far I have only made blankets to keep (4, to be exact--one of them a 12 square Christmas blanket!) and blankets to give to good friends (also 4--now 5). These blankets are something different for me, and proving to be more difficult than I thought! I decided that I would make a blanket to donate to the English Graduate Student Association's annual silent auction. I was going to make a unisex blankie, but I was attracted to the florals (as usual) more than the gender-neutral prints. So I did both!

The first is the floral, and its color scheme is based around the asian cherry blossom print. I'm not sure the colors are true-to-life in this pic, because there's a lot of peach in the floral:

My first "neutral" blanket is a green froggie blanket (I love frogs) with yellow trim and a yellow backing.


The winner will choose 1 of the 2 blankets. I hope they go over well!

Marriage Prep begins in the car. . . on the way home from school?

Two days ago, my son, who is 11 years and in 5th grade, came home telling me about an "adventure" that he was involved in--nothing school related, he added. It seems that a girl in his class "likes" a boy in his class and wants to "date" him, but he has been taking no notice. ("Good for him!" I thought. In my day, we "liked" one another, but I'm not sure we really talked about "dating"--at any rate, no one went anywhere. . .) Well, my son became involved in this when the girl entreated him to ask the boy some questions--not sure what questions, probably "will you go out with her or what?" and to try to convince him to go out with her. She offered him first $10 and then $5 to ask her intended some questions.

Well, first I told him that she was not going to give him money, so not to expect it. He was a bit disappointed. I further said that if she did produce the money, he was not to take it. Then, I got went off for a little while--good humoredly--about the silliness of the whole matter: 5th graders? dating? Dating (I said, in my parental wisdom) was really about getting to know someone whom you might want to marry. Yes, he said, and when you mention marriage, the kids are like--eeeeeeewwwwww. But when it's dating, they're like--who's with who? Oh boy. Now, I would not have had a conversation like this with my mom. Never. Though like my son, I knew her opinions on the matter and probably would have cast it in a way that made it look like I understood and agreed with her on all points. Hmmmmm. . . But I never would have even gone into a "She likes him, but he doesn't like her" etc. etc. I'm glad he feels like he can be open with me, even about this trivial stuff. Because, I started thinking, this is trivial now, but my attitudes are going to lay the foundation for when things are much less trivial. Aren't they?

Having thought this on some kind of subconscious level, I realized that I couldn't just leave it at "This is silly. 5th graders are too young. This is for people who are considering getting married." So in spite of the fact that he was likely more interested in the second Leven Thumps book, I proceeded with a discussion of sorts. It went something like this:

Have you discussed the Sacraments in R.E. yet? I mean, this year? Kind of. So you basically talked about what each one is? And no much else. O.K. Have you talked at all about how Marriage is like Ordination? [O.K., he's confused, but interested. Good.] Well, both are considered vocations, and God calls some people to Marriage, some people to the religious life, and some people are neither, but live a single life. Also, Marriage and Ordination are two Sacraments that are exclusive. You can't be married if you are ordained, and in most cases, you can't be ordained if you are married. Remember, though, a couple of years ago we were at a Mass officiated by a newly ordained priest? He had been married, but his wife died, so he became a priest. So he is one of few people who will be able to receive all seven Sacraments, which is uncommon. From there, I stressed the seriousness of marriage (which is why I was comparing Marriage to Ordination--because marriage is "everyday," while it's easier to recognize the special significance of Ordination)--the idea that it is a vocation, and as such, it has to do with what God has planned for us. And because it is serious, and a Sacrament, anything leading up to it should be taken seriously--like dating. And that is why 5th graders shouldn't be talking about such things--or 6th graders, or 7th, 8th. . . You get the idea. I definitely suggested that dating was for late in high school at the earliest.

I know there's a school of thought that says that chaste, Catholic young people shouldn't "date" at all, the argument being that "dating" as it's currently defined doesn't lend itself to chastity. True, but the definition can be altered in the mind of the young person by parental influence, I think. I started thinking about this again after reading Dr. Janet Smith's essay on "The Challenge of Marriage Preparation" this evening, which claims that, on the contrary, "Young people simply don't date." She continues:

Young men do not plan for the weekend and then invite a young lady out. Often young people just hang out together and perhaps someday one or the other musters up the courage to ask his or her friend "Is anything romantic going on here?" For the licentious, a positive answer means finding a vacant bed.

I think this is partially right (the latter part) and partially inaccurate, but the point is a valid one--what passes for dating runs counter to chastity. While I'm sure that we'll have to repeat this conversation at uncertain intervals, I think it was important to lay some groundwork with this conversation.

Dr. Smith outlines three stages of marriage preparation according to the Church--remote, proximate, and immediate:

Remote preparation takes place in the home, as the child from a very young age observes how his or her parents interact. Children, like sponges, soak up nearly everything around them. In our culture, that preparation is often counterproductive; children spend their earlier years with squabbling parents and their teen years shuttling between parents who are trying to get their lives together. Even those who grow up in intact households harbor deep doubts about the durability of marriage.

Proximate preparation takes place as one moves into adulthood and begins to think about choosing a life partner. This might include some sort of education in abstinence or sexuality in the schools. I think this period is also mismanaged in our culture. Young people are not counseled to date wisely. They easily fall in love with someone who is not a good choice for a life partner and thus many unfortunate marriages are made.

PreCana instruction and engagement encounter weekends constitute immediate preparation. If done well, these are opportunities to begin to work on some of the issues that all married couples face and even to give a very important final consideration to the wisdom of one's choice. This is an opportunity to teach Catholics who know so little about their faith. A crash course is needed in what a sacrament is, in marriage as a vocation, in marriage as indissoluble. Couples need to learn why premarital sex is wrong, why contraception is wrong, why prayer should be a part of everyone's life, for instance.

Recently, my husband and I were asked to participate in our parish's Pre Cana program. Okay, it's more like ongoing recruitment than a request! ;) While we see the importance, and I believe we would both like to help prepare young couples for the realities of marriage and the realities of Catholic marriage, we have so many questions. One big one is what kind of contribution we could make. Given the chance, what insights based on our own experience could we really pass on to new couples? And how would they fit with the goals of the Pre Cana, or how could we make them fit? So far, we have missed the preliminary conversation because Doodle was sick last weekend. She's still not doing very well, though there are no real symptoms, but one reason I am dubious about whether we could or should participate in the marriage prep program right now is that it means being away from the children for a long stretch on the Pre Cana weekends. But the question of topics is also troubling. Would we discuss NFP, when we would likely stress the difficulties rather than the benefits? We are singularly unqualified to discuss finances, although we might give a lesson about not letting difficult finances hurt the marriage.

But at any rate, if we are not sure yet whether--or how--we fit in to the "immediate preparation," we are committed to the "remote." I know I mentioned to my son in that same conversation that people who are married should be--and should remain--friends. He found this difficult to apply to his parents--because, well, we're parents--but agreed once I explained. He also saw friendship as the basis for the marriage of a couple with whom we are close as a family. I hope he will carry some of this with him, and when the next round of conversations comes around, we will have a strong foundation on which to build.

So THERE!

I've taken the post down. So all of you perverts who find my blog by doing Google searches for "sexy breastfeeding breasts," etc., can just go the heck away!!! I'm sure my number of hits will be cut in half now. But until then, shame on you!!!

SF Course Reading List

So in July I will be teaching Science Fiction. I have officially placed my bookorder, and my desk copies of the novels are on the way (I hope)! The books I'm requiring are:

Gunn, James The Road to Science Fiction #2: From Wells to Heinlein

Gunn, James The Road to Science Fiction #3: From Heinlein to Here

Heinlein, Robert The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Moon, Elizabeth The Speed of Dark

The anthologies are expensive together, but the two of them equal the price of the "standard" academic textbooks--except, apparently, the Norton anthology, but as they didn't get a copy to me after I requested one TWICE... I can't say I necessarily would have chosen it anyway. There still seem to be some omissions. "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke is one that I would like to see included, and I would like to teach Bradbury's 'The Veldt," but at least I do that in my Intro to Lit course. Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon" (the short version) is one I will have to have as a supplement. It and Vonnegot's "Harrison Bergeron" will make for interesting discussion with The Speed of Dark. I admit that I have not yet read The Speed of Dark, but it comes highly recommended; it might be possible to have the author talk to the class; the author is a Texas author, contemporary, a woman, and well, the book sounds interesting. Also, book orders are due. Like, 10 days ago.

So, any thoughts??

Catchier Title: Catholic Postmodernism?

I suppose the whole "finishing a dissertation draft" thing is making me feel like an academic again or something, because my last few posts have been very much in the academic vein. That makes me feel good, really, because this is pretty much how I should be thinking if I want to pull-off an academic career of sorts. Also, it's nice to have ideas & feel excited about having ideas again!! So continuing the trend. . .

In response to my last post about Reading Modernism as an Adult, Maria, fellow-Catholic Academic and Modernist (!) wrote a post about her experiences of Modernism as an Adult, with particular reference to postmodernism. She writes:

I realized that I was a modernist after a few years too. Especially, in grad school when I realized that my dabbling in postmodernism had turned me off of over fragmentation without a purpose. A purpose of purposelessness. I found that increasingly annoying. Particularly because of the discussions that I had in the last few courses of my MA with people who thought that uselessness had more use than well, use (sorry about that). It really bothered me to think that there were people who thought in such a way.

This made a lot of sense to me. Particularly the bit about fellow students. I almost think sometimes that grad students and (to a lesser extent perhaps) professors who study postmodernism take it more seriously than the writers themselves.

I know that in theory postmodernism is "A purpose of purposelessness," and that many writers and philosophers do indeed take that to heart. But I would venture to say that not all of them do. In all of the fragmented contradictions of postmodernism, isn't it possible to sometimes glimpse a hint or hope of meaning? The pieces may not fit. . . or perhaps it's that we haven't yet found--or have forgotten--the clue to assembling them. Not that we would necessarily assemble them anyway, because aren't the pieces interesting in and of themselves? They make us laugh at ourselves. As in the stories of Donald Barthelme. But perhaps I'm not talking about the purist postmodernists. I have a few postmodernists that I keep up my sleeve and play with from time to time. I've waxed poetic about Calvino before. And Borges is always good for a laugh.

Now the interesting thing about Calvino and Borges is that--whether or not they ever set foot in a Catholic Church past the age of 7--both lived primarily or extensively in Catholic countries, or so it could be supposed. (I have since found Barthelme listed in many places under the heading "American Catholic writers," usually with the disclaimer that he declared himself to be agnostic.) And though being "culturally Catholic" isn't the same as being Catholic, raised Catholic, practicing Catholic, or coming from a Catholic background, it affects one. There are moments in Invisible Cities that remind me--not of Catholicism exactly, but of a certain worldview that I grew up with. It has to do with the continuation of life--indeed, the celebration of life!--in the face of fragmentation and apparent meaninglessness. I say "apparent" because nowhere in Calvino do I get the sense that life is absolutely meaningless. Life provides questions--seemingly contradictory questions--that we can't answer, but, well, we all know that. Of course, I'm also the person who sees Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star" as posing a dilemma that actually allows for a theological answer. *shrug* Truthfully, there's a certain kind of hopelessness that I find exhilarating. Perhaps because it is after a certain point of hopelessness that faith really begins to take root. There are moments like that in Tolkien, too, and they can be positively identified as Catholic in his context.

So what I'm wondering is, can a "Catholic postmodernism" be identified, and what would it gain for us to do so? Perhaps an articulation of a particular Catholic worldview. To return to my Catholic colleges question, I think I imagine an academic community that would assist and support this kind of inquiry--colleagues who would take such questions seriously. Wonder where I could find such a place?

Reading Modernism as an Adult

When I entered grad school, really I thought I'd be working with Victorian poetry. Perhaps Modernist poetry. Maybe Yeats. I did not think I would be working on prose and I certainly didn't think I would be working on Modernist fiction. Except that the only grad course I took on Victorian poetry was really, really boring. And the courses I took that included poetry generally did so out of a sense of obligation rather than interest, and I was really never taught how one writes graduate or professional-level papers/articles about poetry (and though my undergrad prep was good, it's not the same). Still, I toyed with the idea of doing something with metaphor or something with ecocritisism. But it just didn't take off, because that's not what I was really doing in my seminars. Two trends emerged: my papers confronted feminism on the issue of motherhood, especially using gothic literature, or they did this literacy thing. And, well, the literacy thing felt more innovative, and could be applied more broadly. Besides, I didn't want to teach Mary Wollstonecraft (gothic) and I didn't want to teach American Lit (poetry & American gothic). So I rediscovered Modernism. That was where most of my coursework was anyway. Even so, though, I hate Henry James, Ford Maddox Ford bores me (though he might have some Catholic issues to explore), wasn't too keen on Lawrence, didn't like Woolf. . . But I like Forster. And I like Huxley. So they were a starting point. I also like WWI. A lot. It caused an intellectual crisis of huge proportions. Anxiety. Loss of faith in civilization. . . . a heap of broken images. . . Whoopee! That's what hooked me on these guys to begin with! Except, well, I don't revel in despair anymore. Though I still like W. H. Auden's poetry. But I like expressions of despair, and of human continuation in the face of despair. So anyway, it seems I'm a Modernist, having just written a big 'ol dissertation on these guys. (Really, I like Modernism. I promise.)

So after talking to my committee member on Friday, I am settling down to read some of what I need to read to get me up to speed. (Funny thing. . . Woolf is my least favorite, but I am told--not surprisingly--that that's what most people will want me to teach. Ugh!) Most of what I have read of the big Modernist novelists I have done on my own. I read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in high school, for example--loved it. Stephen Daedalus is all about teen angst. And I was in my anti-Catholic phase, so that was O.K. When I reread it for prelims, I hated it. The Catholic stuff was interesting, as I now had a context from which to understand it, but Stephen Daedalus needed to get over himself in a big way. I understood that now as I did not when I was 15. Go figure. Of course, Dubliners is brilliant, but it's not in fashion anymore. It's like "Joyce for Dummies." Real scholars read Ulysses. Really really real scholars read Finnegan's Wake. Maybe one day when the kids are grown up. Until then, I have more important things to do with my time.

So I'm reading Lawrence's Women in Love. It's supposed to be one of his best. Which is good, 'cause it's 400 pages and Lawrence generally needed to learn when to stop writing. Perhaps this one will be different. Sons and Lovers is in my dissertation. I've got some short stories under my belt (read "Horse Dealer's Daughter"?--hated it). I read Lady Chatterley's Lover, like so many adolescents, and felt utterly cheated. Although I did latch on to a phrase or two about things I had no idea about at the time. And I'd look back and think, "Hmmm. . . was Lawrence right?" not knowing that Lawrence is generally wrong. In a big way. But what strikes me now is not his wrongness, or his frustrating tendencies, or his inability to find synonyms for the word "hate," but his absolute silliness. His self-conscious (oh how he hated self-consciousness) attempts at sensuality, eroticism. Especially masculine-flavored eroticism. It makes me giggle. And it was so scandalous at the time. And I would have felt differently 15 years ago. But really, all this talk of muscles and maleness and moustaches, hair and skin and animals, fountains and jets and streams. Really, I can't help but chuckle. Has the writing always been this absurd, and I can just see it now? And if so, then why didn't his contemporaries dismiss it as such instead of being scandalized? Or is my "maturity" and the culture's acceptance of Lawrence in all his over-sexed silliness just a symptom of our desensitization in the area of sexuality? I pause more now over his declarations about God's non-existence (which he--unlike Joyce--takes as a given, or tries to) than over his erotic imagery. Does that say more about me, or about the writing?

So what do you want to do?

I thought that with a Ph.D., the answer to that would be pretty clear. Even to those relatively unfamiliar with academia. So imagine my surprise when I got a version of that question from one of my committee members!! Granted, it was phrased rather differently. First, he asked where I wanted to teach, what kind of flexibility I had in terms of following a job (that was the "what's your husband going to do" and "will he follow you" question), how I'm going to market myself, and, finally, whether I want to be a "publishing" academic. Ummm. . . 'cause we have a choice, but okay. . . Even schools that really value teaching over publication--as evidenced by the high teaching loads required at those schools--feel the need to put a clause in their job ads about publishing & scholarly activity. I'm not sure what the rationale is. Maybe they feel like they need to include that kind of thing in order to attract up-and-coming new Ph.D.s, or maybe they really do feel like there should be a publishing component for academics at their (mostly smaller) colleges. I don't quite see a 4-4 load being compatible with a publishing career. And I don't see a 4-4 load being compatible with me. Writing and research for publication can be accomplished with babies around. Teaching 4 classes a semester--not so much. And the schools with the higher teaching loads don't tend to pay more.

But actually, I do see myself publishing. I like academic writing. I think some of my ideas might benefit the literary community. It sounds arrogant, but you have to think that kind of thing to play this game. And, well, you have to think that what you're doing is at least as interesting as what others are doing, perhaps more interesting. I'm pretty much there--no surprises. I do wonder what will stimulate new ideas, though. I can get some mileage from the literacy thing. I can get some mileage from ideas left over from coursework, and Catholicism might creep in somewhere, somehow. The "must write to complete course" and "must write to finish degree" will be replaced by "must write to publish" and "must write to get promotion/tenure." I suppose that the "ideas generated by coursework" will be replaced by "ideas generated by teaching" and "ideas generated by conferences" and "ideas generated by further reading." But you know, it feels different. I guess it will happen.

As for the other questions, I couldn't exactly say that I would apply for anything I seemed remotely qualified for. That may not be precisely true, anyway. I would prefer to teach literature, but I may be seen as attractive because of rhetoric. But I don't really know rhetoric. I am flexible enough to go anywhere, but there are some places I really don't want to live. And you know, being here for almost 9 years has spoiled me. I know what doctors to see, what schools are good, and I know it's safe to take a walk in the park. There is a disturbing lack of good Catholic education, but there are rumors about that changing. There is a disturbing lack of culture, but there is a reassuring lack of crime. It's not a bad place to raise a family, just a boring place. Anyway, the next year(s) will be an adventure! I wonder how often I will have to answer/ponder these same questions in the coming weeks and months?

Life with a Toddler

This evening, my husband said to me,

Should I turn this [tape] off, wander back [to our bedroom] with her [to put her to bed]--and fall asleep so she can play bongos on my nose or something?

And I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks.

IT'S FINISHED!!!!!!!!!

[Doing a little dance around the apartment]

The final touches have been put on the dissertation conclusion! (Believe me, the use of passive voice is intentional and appropriate.) Without the works cited, it is 219 pages, 65,887 words, and 348, 083 characters (without spaces). Now I get to photocopy it in all of its tree-killing immensity, and deliver it to my committee. And while I know that this is not the FINAL final copy, and that there is a bit more to the process, still. . .

It's finished, it's finished, it's finished, it's finished. . .

Portrait of an Academic Mom

This evening as I sat on the sofa writing what will be some of the final pages of my dissertation, my 2-year-old daughter, who had, a little while before, put on the DVD of The Empire Strikes Back, climbed into my lap, leaned her head on my shoulder, and fell asleep between my iBook and I as I continued to type. :)

Okay, So I Might Graduate. . .

Actually, it's looking pretty certain these days. I'm finishing up the dissertation now (well, no, not now exactly, but you know what I mean. . .), and my defense is set for May 5. I have to have a good copy to my committee by Friday so they can, like, read it and stuff. So eventually, I figure, I should get a job. Well, I guess first I have to look and apply for some jobs. So I was wondering. . .

Since becoming Catholic, I have been thinking, Gee, wouldn't it be nice to teach at a nice Catholic school? Then I could raise the kinds of questions that you can't raise in a state school where you're supposed to respect everyone's religious identity to the point of annihilating your own (like when, post 9-11, one prof voluntarily removed his Divinity Degree from the wall, and another was advised to hide her icons!!), and where there would, presumably, be some sense of Catholic identity, and opportunities for faith formation among the faculty and. . . well, that's the kind of thing I was thinking. Except that even in the first fervor of conversion, I wasn't sure Ave Maria or Steubenville would be for me. I'm an orthodox kind of gal, but I'm not ready for any Catholic versions of those protestant colleges that won't let faculty drink alcohol (yet the one I have in mind has the bar and cash register from the Bird and the Baby--the Eagle and Child pub where the Inklings met--in its library--yeah. . .), and I believe that those schools might be a teensy evangelical in flavor for a recovering protestant.

So then I found the blogosphere. Specifically, the Catholic blogosphere. And I learned that not all Catholic colleges are created equal. And that precious few are deemed "Catholic enough" for the orthodox crowd who want their kids to have a degree. I've been to a bunch of the web sites that give you the scoop on the adherence of the various Catholic colleges to the Magesterium, read many a lament about the state of Catholic higher education, many tirades against the Jesuits, and, frankly, I'm confused. The scholarly, prominent Catholic universities with whom every new Ph.D. would LOVE to have an interview are apparently unworthy of being termed Catholic, while the most orthodox of all hire mainly clergy or have 5-person English departments or 300-student enrollments and the ones in between have low pay, high teaching loads, nominal research requirements--not the kind of place to go, in short, if teaching and research are on your agenda, that is, if you want your ideas to be heard by the scholarly community. So is it worth investigating positions at Catholic colleges at all? If you risk being associated with heterodoxy or heresy, or exposed to and manipulated by such ideas? If, by avoiding those pitfalls, you are compromising the chance of having a Catholic voice in the cacophany of scholarly opinions? Not to mention compromising your ability to pay those loans--you know, the ones that are equal to or surpass the price of a really nice house? The ones that you will not pay off before you die? The ones that are, in fact, a lease on your education rather than a purchase? Yeah, those. Is it O.K. for a Catholic academic to take a position at a Catholic college or university that is Catholic in name only? In hopes of influencing others, maybe? Or do you just give up on Catholic education altogether in order to avoid this sticky issue?

Family Blog Post

I posted Baptism pics, for those of you subscribed to the family blog. . .

Happy Easter!!

Hope everyone's Lent was what they wanted it to be. . .

I am back for a brief hello, but I will probably not be returning to my old blogging habits--at least for a while. I will keep posting family updates, and will stop by here from time to time.

Lent was not particularly spiritual for me, regrettably. Easter was beautiful, as always. The Triduum I watched parts on EWTN--not really the same, but about all high spirited toddlerhood allows. I had many parenting ups & downs; the latest: potty-training! Aaaah!!! I started an online diet but stopped because it was taking as much time as blogging. But wanna know something crazy? In the first 2 weeks of not blogging, I wrote a 47-page chapter (some of the material was recycled) and scheduled my defense (mark "Pray for Literacy-chic" on your calendars for May 5)!! I also finished an additional chapter. So I have good drafts of all 5 of my chapters--some of which are quite exciting for me--and only have the conclusion left to do. This I need to finish in the next week or so so that I can give the full draft to the committee in early April. I received a revise and resubmit on a journal article (wait, you know that, don't you?), received my assignment for the Summer--to teach Science Fiction--applied for and got a post-doc lectureship for the fall, applied for one last grad student award for summer (not counting on it) and still felt like I was more attentive to my little girls at home. WOW! It has been a blessed Lent, no? My position for fall is special, too, but I'm not at liberty to divulge too much (especially online--sorry!!). It carries a reduced teaching load, one upper-level team-taught course, and some administrative duties that will be very good vita fodder--it's a good thing someone's looking out for me, because I need all the vita help I can get. (Two pregnancies don't count for much on a job search!) I'm working on the kinks right now, but I have some time & options (I think). . . This might explain why I plan on making myself scarce. I've also got assistantship duties to wrap up in a big way in coming weeks. But it's all pretty exciting. Taking "off" Lent to seriously evaluate whether I could still accomplish all of this was a good idea, I think, and I feel less guilty for not giving up any food items! I do regret that I didn't do as much spiritual preparation as I would like, though I know the opportunities for spiritual development are not limited to Lent. I will be an RCIA sponsor for someone (don't want to say too much about that until I know I am at liberty to do so) in the next RCIA "cycle"--yay!! That will be an opportunity for spiritual development in itself. As a side-note, I am investigating St. Benedict medals for my sister's apartment because everyone who stays there--including her!--has back-to-back nightmares of scenarios with people dying. My mother experienced it last night. *shudder* Anyone have any experience with St. Benedict medals?

I think I have rambled to the end of this post. I will check back, probably once or twice a week (if I can maintain the discipline). Until then, Happy Easter! May the blessings of the season be with all of you!

Blog Closed for Lent

See you in 40 days or so!

In the meantime, check out the Catholic Carnival! And buy Mystic Monk Coffee! And enjoy my 3 "Quick Lenten Meals" suggestions from last year!

Happy Mardi Gras -and- an short academic aside

I had to squeeze in a last post before midnight. Happy Mardi Gras! Have a spiritual Lent! (You can't wish someone a "happy Lent," can you?) I will be away, but you know where to find me (psst! the profile). Also, for the record, I received some bad news today that in the perverse nature of academia, I'm probably supposed to regard as good news. A chapter of my dissertation in article form was rejected. Well, what at first read as a rejection was actually a fairly enthusiastic revise and resubmit. The problem? With all of their good submissions (which vex me because they are doing a special topic on--what else?--reading), they can't wait around for me to make the revisions, which will be very easy since my whole project deals with exactly what they're asking me to clarify. This is part of trying to take something out of a larger work and make it stand alone. However, they returned the results to me 5 months later than they were supposed to. Now their "schedule won't permit"--thanks, guys. On the other hand, once I get over being deflated, I should really have something to work with.

Baptism Reflections. . .

On Sunday, during Mass, we witnessed the Baptism of three infants, and while the addition of half an hour or so is typically not the best thing with a temperamental toddler who is, nevertheless, getting better about staying in the pew, the Rite was very well integrated into the Mass and oriented those present towards the meaning of the Sacrament in a quiet yet profound and even scholarly way. It was nice to see the Baptism, as it always is, though I was a bit sad to note that all of the babies seemed younger than mine, whose Baptism we have been planning for. . . well, months now, but our plans have really been coming together in the last few weeks. I sometimes forget, now, that the importance of Baptism was something that I rejected initially as a mere display--an impression I received from other churches--then because I did not hold with the idea that a newborn could be "tainted" by anything. But I grew gradually to doubt my own certainty, losing faith in my skepticism, until fear that Baptism might be necessary to Salvation gave way to acceptance and faith. It was the biggest step in my conversion process to accept the necessity of Baptism, and I first considered the possibility of its truth for the sake of my family--particularly my son. I couldn't have anticipated the fullness of what it came to signify for me. . .

Apart from the Grace of the Sacrament, Baptism is a gift that I give to my children so that they will always have the Church as a spiritual home--a place where they belong. I know that there are many who were raised Catholic who don't now feel this way, never have felt this way, or never will again. But in the stories of Catholics who have returned to the Church after being away for a period of time, there is always the sense of returning home. I felt this way myself, though I was not baptized Catholic as an infant. I knew that both of my parents were raised Catholic, that my aunts and uncles were raised Catholic, that my grandmother was devoutly Catholic in her way, that many of the older adults I encountered were Catholic, their houses adorned with the trappings of Catholicism. So when I decided, finally, to become Catholic myself, I had a sense of returning home--of being where I belonged.

We have scheduled my little daughter's Baptism for March 1--an oasis in the desert of Lent--and this is what I wish for her: to be initiated into the Catholic Church as a spiritual home, where she can belong, to which she can always return, and where she can learn (about God), and grow (towards God), and thrive (in His Grace).

Fall Plans Dashed

I realized with glee recently that next fall my toddler would be the right age to start school at the Montessori school that my son attending from pre-K through 3rd grade. (I consider 3 yrs to be a good age to start preschool.) I called the school and spoke to the headmistress. She was very pleased, asked about my son, and said she would send the application. The application arrived in the mail several days later, I opened it, and my jaw nearly dropped. There is a one-time application fee of $250!!! That's on top of the $100 registration fee and the advance payment of the last month's tuition, which in our case would have been $245 for 3 half-days a week. Surely, I thought, this must be a typo!! I remembered a fee of $25. So I wrote an email and asked. She confirmed that there was, indeed, a $250 application fee, and hoped it would not change my plans. This will indeed change my plans. I can only conclude that she must have needed to institute that fee to limit applicants. I understand about the last months' tuition, the supply fees, and the registration fees, but had I had to pay $350 for merely applying and registering in addition to the last month's tuition (which in our current case would have been $245 for 3 half-days), I would never have been able to send my son in the first place, and he would have missed a wonderful experience because of it. I am assuming that we simply don't have the income level of most of the families who currently attend that school. And I told her so. In no uncertain terms. Perhaps that is the point. But this makes me very sad, as I can't imagine an alternative that would be as attractive. Clearly, my selectivity is exceeding my income. :(

Random Bullets before Lent

Things I should give up for Lent for wholly unspiritual reasons:

• French fries
• Chocolate
• Coffee (unless it's Mystic Monk coffee*)
• Dr. Pepper
• eBay
• Sewing!!

Thing(s) I want to give up for Lent for wholly unspiritual reasons:

• Housework!!

Things I should do more of during Lent (in no specific order):

• Pray
• Write a dissertation
• Play with a toddler
• Spend time with a 'tween (I only use the term as a tribute to Tolkien)
• Read (anything, really)
• Meditate
• Exercise
• Cook (especially meals from monastery cookbooks!)
• Think happy thoughts!
• Recognize the beauty around me (physical and spiritual)

Things I have thought about recently (in wholly unconnected ways):

• The very natural-seeming portrayal of Tevye's relationship with God in Fiddler on the Roof
• Whether the Tevye stories would be worth finding & reading
• Undergraduate & graduate education and the right relationship between the two
• More job market issues
  
• Children's media and the very excellent show "Charlie and Lola"
• Breastfeeding & NFP
• Hormones, mental health& genetics, and panic attacks (little ones)
• The beauty of children
• The difficulty of children
• All that stuff about children & relationships that didn't seem relevant until child #3
• Upcoming Baptism plans (March 1!)

What have you been thinking about?


*In fact, I think we owe it to the brothers to step up our coffee consumption during Lent so that we will need to purchase more, thus contributing more to help them to establish their monastery in the mountains of Wyoming.

Another Book Meme!!

Courtesy of Chris, who didn't know if I'd be able to finish this one before Lent. Clearly he underestimates my procrastination! ;) This one's easier than it looks. But I have to ask those people I tag to pleeease answer it before Lent so I can read it!!! ;) Either that, or email the answers! So this is Eva's Reading Meme:

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?

Ulysses? No, that's not irrational. . . I know there's one that I'm not thinking of, but I can't put my finger on it.

Perhaps House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. . .

There are more, I'm sure of it!

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?

The vengeful answer: I would bring Stephen Daedalus, Leonard Bast, and Septimus Smith for a class in literary theory taught by a professor who deserves the "challenge." (suppresses wicked laughter)

I was trying to think of some wise, long-lived characters. . . Treebeard, Oisin (Celtic, from Yeats' poetry), but I get stuck on #3. . .

I know! Orlando, Dorian Grey and Lazarus Long at a Revival meeting or on Boubon Street for Mardi Gras. . .

Clearly, my mind is a bit warped right now!

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realize it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?

Moby Dick.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?

Toni Morrison's Beloved. Even tried to read it while teaching it one semester. Didn't happen. And oh so many things that have been assigned over the years, from Death of a Salesman in high school on down to the Ph.D. reading list. Usually I admit to not reading them, but not always--especially when grades are involved. There. Now you know what a slacker I am!!!

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realize when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t?

I always get Love in the Time of Cholera confused with Of Love and Other Demons. Specifically, I told Chris I had read the former, thinking that it was the latter. Oops!!

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead and personalize the VIP)

Lord of the Rings. I know, probably not fair using the same one twice (see below). Not because it's practically useful. Then I might choose The Republic or The Prince, or even Mill's On Liberty. But there's a sense of heroism, amid almost certain defeat, or victory that contains elements of defeat, that is simply unfathomable to so many people today. I was actually thinking about this as a Disney preschool show was coming on this morning (before I could get to the remote control): "Higgleytown Heroes." The premise is that everyone--even those who do the most mundane jobs--are heroes because they provide a service to other people. Ummmm. . . in a word, No. Just no.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?

I would have to go with Spanish. I sneered at Spanish and was a French snob in high school and college, before meeting my husband, who is fluent and has an M.A. in Spanish. When we were dating, he introduced me to Spanish literature, poetry in particular. So many times when he was in his Master's program, I wished that I could have taken the classes he was taking--again, mostly poetry, but also nineteenth and twentieth century Peninsular literature (as in, from the Peninsula--Spain--in case you didn't think I was still a European language snob!) and Octavio Paz. I would also like to do some comparisons between Spanish and English literature within my time period.

A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

Ahem. Lord of the Rings. I practically do this anyway (though I'm not teaching myself to speak elvish or anything. . .) I find it an inspirational book in many ways. I first read it as an adult--rather recently, actually--so my attachment to it is different from the books I read/reread as a child/adolescent (The Chronicles of Narnia and The Mists of Avalon, in case you were wondering--all fantasy; hmmm. . .) Should I expound? Naaah. There's just so much there. Besides, I would get to pick out the misprints in different editions.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?

Well, while book blogs tend to remind me, sadly, of when I was young and not in graduate school and liked to read and read profusely, making me painfully aware that I don't read nearly enough, especially for someone in my discipline (though many people in my discipline arguably read more criticism than primary works) there are two books I learned of recently from bloggers that I would like to read:

The History of Our World Beyond the Wave by R. E. Klein (sadly out-of-print) reviewed here by Darwin

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, discussed recently by Melanie.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.

Without a doubt, a first edition of The Hobbit before Tolkien revised the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter. In fact, first editions of Lord of the Rings, too. I'm well on my way to having all interesting illustrated editions, so that's a given. I would like a collection of really extravagant art books--specific eras, artists, and overviews, all with extensive color plates. And some small press books with woodcuts, from Kelmscott Press, for example.


As for nominations--Darwin, Mrs. Darwin, Melanie, and whoever else would like to join in! (I would tag some others--you know who you are--but isn't there some kind of rule about waiting a reasonable time before tagging the same person?)

Overdue Meme

I was tagged by Darwin! This may have been my first meme, but it bears repeating every 6 months or so, I think. So here goes:

Book Meme Rules

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Aldous Huxley's Proper Studies is the nearest book. My husband checked it out of the library for me (handy that he works there) after it was mentioned in an article I was reading. Page 123 is in the middle of an essay titled "Education":

"A child may grow into a mental cripple or paralytic without suffering anything worse than boredom and fatigue. The fact is unfortunate. If children suffered agonies from the process of mental distortion at the hands of their pastors, if the stupid and mechanical teaching of German grammar or arithmetic actually made them scream with pain, we should by this time have learned something about right education. Finding themselves liable to prosecution by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, bad teachers would soon mend their ways."

[Okay, I cheated and copied 4 sentences! But really, that last one was hard to resist.]

So because the dissertation deals with literacy, which wasn't always talked about as such, "education" is a relevant topic for me, though often discussed more generally than is useful.

So I tag: Entropy at Sphere of Influence, Sarah at just another day of Catholic pondering, Jen at Et-tu? (oops, Darwin tagged her, too!), Anastasia, and Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made On!

An Ambiguous Sacrifice

Well, like so many Catholic bloggers this Lent and last, I am planning to give up blogging for Lent. I figure, everyone will lose interest & forget about me and my sitemeter stats will drop, but vanity is certainly not a good reason enough reason to stop me. I may get blogworthy ideas, but if they don't keep, perhaps I will focus on other things. Which brings me to the ambiguity. . .

No doubt I will miss blogging, and reading blogs (since that occupies more of my time than writing), and I will feel cut off from the community and the friends I have found, but when I considered posting about this a few days ago, I was thinking about my reasons for giving up blogging. Do I think that by giving up blogging and blog-reading, that I will devote more time to prayer, meditation and contemplation? Will this sacrifice bring me closer to God? Not to shock the Catholic blogging community, but no. Not even remotely. Not blogging will not make me saintlier, and that was nowhere in my motives for giving it up. Which caused me to pause. Was I giving up blogging the way others (like myself in the past) give up favorite food items--because it'll be healthier overall, kind of hard, and perhaps have the unanticipated benefit of weight loss? Well, it was true that I figured I would make my life more productive--I would be focusing on what I really should be doing--taking care of two little girls, a big brother, and (dare I say?) my husband and the house, working on the dissertation, and working for my assistantship--but isn't this more of a New Years resolution? Perhaps not, since I don't want to give it up permanently, but going cold turkey might help me regulate it more when I start back up after Easter. But isn't the Lenten sacrifice about turning back to God and making oneself holier? Reading the Catholic blogs probably makes me think about God more in a given day, albeit in a more cerebral or smug way (depending on the blog--mostly the ones whose authors don't read mine) than humble and spiritual. Well, this is what I figured. . .

I have talked a bit about vocation on this blog, here and there, from time to time. I am certainly called to motherhood and marriage, but there is this small matter of the dissertation, and the fact that I need to complete it in order for my family to move on from here, and for us to be able to pay the loans that have allowed us to pay the other bills and. . . well, you get the idea. And as for the argument (and I've seen it around the blogs) that the husband should be the provider, sometimes you have you go with the person who can do the narrowest job search instead of trawling the country for any job within a certain salary range for which one is qualified, and moving one's family accordingly. So the way I figure, the dissertation, at this point in time, is part of the family vocation. And, well, blogging is a kind of guilty pleasure in the middle of all of this. I really need to channel my creative energy into the dissertation, and these 40 days or so of Lent give me a chance to do that in an intense way, with few distractions. So how does this relate to a path to holiness? Because it relates to my vocation. And perhaps even to discernment of vocation, which I see as an ongoing process, though we've got to be settled sometime, right? My family just can't keep waiting indefinitely for the rest of our lives to begin.

So perhaps I will discover some spiritual elements in the pursuit of intellectual activity that is the dissertation, instead of the pursuit of intellectual activity that is the blogosphere for me. And perhaps by getting closer to my family vocation, I will move closer to God. Or maybe this is just my rationalization to force myself to do some work this Lent. You decide!!

P.S.--I will still be doing email, so if you feel like emailing, I wouldn't mind! (Please email me!!) ;)

P.P.S.--I will still be updating the family blog.

Cello Sounds: "Ode to Joy"

Ode to Joy 2.wav

Chickenpox!!!!!!!!!

We have had an infectious January. Two weeks ago, my toddler came down with Coxsackievirus, commonly (or uncommonly!) known as Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease. Very unpleasant. I caught it after her, then my son. Last week, while my son & I were still feeling the effects (which luckily didn't hinder our enjoyment of king cake & ice cream cake too much), I took my daughters to the doctors, and the Chiclette received some immunizations. This week, my son, who was not immunized against chicken pox, who we thought had had 2 milder cases when he was younger, came down with a full-blown case. Remember those? So it's Aveeno & Calomine for him! And another 3-4 days off of school. And the 4th copay in 3 weeks! This gave me the opportunity to ask the doctor about the vaccine. He brought it up, actually.

I really like my son's PCP. I like the girls' PCP also, as she believes in parental judgment, but I never feel as comfortable around female pediatricians as I do around a certain type of male pediatrician--the "old school" variety. This is quite different from how I feel about male vs. female OBs. But it's nice to have--for once--two pediatricians I trust.

So the doctor brought up the old cliche that chicken pox used to be a "rite of passage," that there were (ill-advised) chicken pox parties, etc., before the vaccine. He asked if the toddler was vaccinated (she is) and said that she could still get it (!!) but that it would be mild if she did. The baby should still be protected by maternal antibodies. So I asked about the vaccine--since there are reports of breakthrough infections, increased instances of shingles, and need for booster shots. He said that they always knew that a booster would be needed (!!). He hasn't heard of increased cases of shingles. And then he told us a few interesting things:

The Japanese have been vaccinating against chicken pox for about 20 years to our 15.

When my son was little, it had not yet become routine to vaccinate them at 1 yr., and that was only 10 years ago. By the time he was school age, the chicken pox vaccine was mandatory, but we skirted the issue.

Our current pediatrician did not recommend the vaccine when it was new for a few years, until the sample size was larger than the original test subjects.

He had a friend whose son (now 23 and an animator for Cartoon Network) had chicken pox induced meningitis. He was on the phone with the father when the boy had a seizure. It was at that point that he began to take chicken pox seriously as a disease.

The real reason that they vaccinate against chicken pox is not the disease but the secondary infections. The secondary staph infections landed 8,000 in the hospital on average, and would result in 40-50 deaths a year (which he whispered to avoid causing anxiety in the 11-year-old). With antibiotic resistant strains of staph, this is a valid concern to my mind.

I value such frankness in a doctor. It gives me much more to work with hearing these things from an informed person whom I trust.

Interestingly, the local news was reporting increased cases of chicken pox in spite of the vaccines only days before he came down with it. Picking up my son's homework today, my husband told one of the teachers that he had chicken pox. She said that a number of people do. It's "going around." Hmmm. . . I though that wasn't supposed to happen now!!

Yoga is Good

I have to remind myself of this periodically.

So I have this toddler who likes to imitate me when I stretch, shows a natural inclination toward dance, and has good rhythm & coordination. I have been wanting to get my son interested in yoga for years, but he was soured on it when he fell over while I was trying to help him with a pose. :( I bought a Yoga kids 2-pack at Target, and put the "From Silly to Calm" DVD in today, and we (mostly I) did some yoga. Even though it is geared toward 3-6 year olds, I still feel like I had a bit of a workout (sad commentary), and my daughter was interested long enough to try a downward dog--she likes that one, and did it a few times. I have to say, it's one of my favorites. I rather objected when the teacher told the kids to stretch their legs out to the side like a dog marking his territory. Please!! And there were one or two other things. . . Think I could substitute pacem for the sanskrit word shanti (peace)?

The Nature of the Job Market -or- Why I Won't Be Hired -or- A Coffee-Inspired Digression

Let me preface this by saying that I'm having a little debate with myself about coffee--whether I should have more of the stuff or avoid it altogether. You see, when I have more of it, I get agitated, but when I get agitated, I write stuff--sometimes even the stuff I'm supposed to be writing. When I have less coffee, I am calmer but less productive. Incidently, the best coffee in the world is made by monks.

So I received an email today about a job candidate to whom we've offered a position. This person is being hired in a marginal subfield related (somewhat) to my marginal subfield, but also intersects with many hot-topic subfields (some related to marginal groups)--hear: really attractive to a field trying to redefine itself as interdisciplinary, non-Western, and socially and politically "relevant." This person would also help the minority profile of the department, and comes from a somewhat more high-profile state school than the one that has offered him a position--also a state-school better known for liberal arts than the one that has offered him a position. He is a self-described "activist"--attractive to some segments of the faculty and grad student body, though the university is not located in a place that one would necessarily consider an ideal locale for activism (unless he painted tiger-stripes on himself and posed naked with the PETA chicks who protested the Barnum & Bailey circus a few years back. . .). He also has extensive creative publications, which would add a possible creative writing instructor to the faculty. His publication record is impressive, albeit limited to journals and book chapters in his particular, very specific, not very prominent ethnic literature specialization--the equivalent to me publishing in the fictitious Journal of Literacy in British Literature of the Early Twentieth Century. No wait--that's less specific. Oh well! He is in the process of being wined & dined by numerous other departments who want him for the exact same reasons I have outlined: well-qualified & looks good politically. So what's the problem?

Well, as I see it, and as the faculty has presented it, he is one of the best qualified new scholars currently on the market, and has other benefits besides. Every department hiring for anything related to his specialties wants him. He's got lots of people fighting for him, and unless we're making him a really sweet deal, he might not be willing to settle for "flagship" school in Texas miles outside of civilization. I mean, another department in liberal arts had a candidate turn them down because the local high school didn't have a good enough tennis team. Yeah. Neither the climate of the school nor the faculty in general nor the majority of the student body are really activism-friendly. (Okay, you all know where I live now. C'est la vie!) So why make him an offer he's likely to refuse? Naivete? Ambition? Have the faculty who are here convinced themselves that it's a really great place? After all, we've got the minimum number of Starbucks to be considered civilized now, a definite improvement on 10 years ago--oh wait, do activists like Starbucks? Hmmmm. . . But what do I have against making him an offer? If he refuses, we just move on an no one has lost anything, and there is the snowball's chance in hell that he will accept.

Well you see, I'm thinking about this as a grad student approaching a firing committee--oh wait, that's "hiring committee," "firing squad". . . Sorry! In the "professionalization and publication" class I took, we talked a bit about the "culture" of a department/university, and how we should make sure we would be a good fit, and how we should learn about the university's/department's "culture" in order to make a convincing application to that department. Anyway, this "culture" thing is supposed to be a deciding factor for search committees. At least in theory. A candidate can be bumped for not fitting in with the "culture"--it's permissible. Clearly, I don't think he quite fits, but this is not about me. Well at least I wasn't the one giving input (for many very good reasons). In theory, someone who is well-qualified but not as high-profile--say, someone from a lesser state-school or one not particularly well-known for liberal arts--can win out over someone who looks more attractive initially based on a well-crafted argument concerning fitting in with the school's "culture." There are other strategies, too, and admittedly it's probably not best to play up a connection with the "culture" of a school with decidedly non-intellectual "culture," but presumably being much more suited for a more cosmopolitan area could influence the decision of a hiring committee in a less cosmopolitan area.

Because, you see, if the top, kind of wacky candidate is not offered all of the 10 positions open in the field (or 6, or whatever), but the positions s/he is most likely to accept (or where s/he is most likely to feel comfortable, not leave within 5 years, etc.), then the second-best, still excellent 2 or 3 candidates might be offered 2-3 positions in the first cycle of offers, which basically means that the hiring process will be completed sooner and the second- and third choice candidates get offers sooner. After all, there are so many people in this discipline who are really well-qualified but lack the academic pedigree of a certain university, I'm not sure the top candidate really is the best candidate--at least, I hope not.

By all accounts, the job search is expensive, grueling, anxious, miserable, and often unfair. And did I mention a load of laughs? If you're from a lesser school, you really need to start padding the vita against guys like the one described above from day one. But if you don't quite have the same list of pubs, does it really mean that you're less worthy? (Working on politically correct subject matter often helps, too. This guy has it all!) A lot of the misery of the job search could be lessened--at least for some candidates--if the hiring committees would be a little more realistic & rational about the whole process. I mean, what if their own students were competing against Mr. Star Candidate? Would they feel like their own students had the chance that they deserved, or that the decks were stacked against them? Would they (and their students) appreciate being left on the back burners while the top few were treated to the grand tour, even by schools whose offers they were least likely to accept? And what about the committees themselves? Are their resources best spent making offers to 4-5 candidates before one accepts? And isn't it just a little nicer for everyone involved to know that the first candidate to receive an offer accepted it?

Where have all the green potato chips gone?

I started wondering about this after seeing an Arthur episode in which D.W. thinks she's going to die from eating a green potato chip. I remember seeing green ones all the time when I was a child, then they just. . . disappeared. I supposed that quality control has improved that much, or that the green ones had been genetically modified away. I never really missed them; they were a little disturbing and tasted a little funny, too. But today, eating some McDonald's french fries, I saw it--a fry with a GREEN TIP! Aaaaaaaaaah!