Personal: April 2007 Archive Page

One Iota of Difference (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

*Sigh.*

I've already fixed the one I found on Wikipedia.

I can't hear you, Bert. (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

I walk into my classroom about two minutes before class starts. It's a great hybrid room, with 24 workstations around the outer edges, tables in the middle, and a huge projection screen up front.

As usual, a few students who aren't in my class are using the computers. Some have obviously just come into the room and are just logging on.

"A class is about to start now," I say to a group of students. The students start to pack up.

One student in another corner of the room has headphones on, and I can hear his music blasting from across the room. I walk towards him.

"A class is about to start now," I say.

He does not hear.

I walk over to him.

"A class is about to start now!" I say, louder.

He does not respond.

I stand very close to him, and this time he looks up.

"A class is about to start now!!" I say, even louder.

"What??" he says.

"Number one, your music is rather loud, and number two, a class is about to start now!"

"When is the class going to start?" he says, looking around for a clock.

"Now!!"

But of course, by this time he has finally turned down the volume.

"You didn't have to come at me so hard!" he grumbles, annoyed and offended, and ready to defend his turf.

From his perspective, I came up to him and yelled at him... but of course the only reason I was speaking loudly was because he couldn't hear me when I talked normally.

Even though I was annoyed, part of me wanted to laugh, since I couldn't help thinking of Ernie and Bert doing the "You've got a banana in our your ear" sketch.

I'm sure that fellow found another lab in the building, and although I prefer to start class without fighting battles first, life goes on. Maybe I'll just make a mental note to get to class a little earlier next time, so I have time to clear out the room with less fuss.

I Smell Pretty (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

This morning as I was getting ready to take my daughter to preschool, she told me that she sprayed my clothes with "pretty perfume."

I assumed she meant that she had sprayed the pile of dirty clothes near my bed, but my eyes have been watering all day because it turns out she must have sprayed my shirt while I was in the shower.

I don't know why I didn't notice it first, but my eyes are watering as I type this.

i am in an abusive relationship right now have been in it for 7 months now. i dont feel the best. we allways fight he makes me feel like crap like i am nothing like everything is my fault. he promises me he ownt ever do it again this has happened over 20 times. and than he hits chokes slaps and hurts me again he apoligizes than we fight for no reason again and he gets jeoulos again it happens again. he is very jeoulos and controlling. not even letting me go to the mall with my sister. thinking i am allways cheating on him. it is hurting me bad. tonight is the night i am going to leave him. i hope that i am being serious when i say this because every other time i said this i allways end up going back with him. i just cannot believe i had to go through this allready only 17 years old. bye. --racheli am in an abusive relationship right now (blogs.setonhill.edu)

Somebody recently left this comment on a blog entry on Nathaniel Hawthorne that one of my students posted in 2004. As the administrator of blogs.setonhill.edu, I see all the comments that come in for approval, and I regularly approve all the course-related comments so that online discussions don't shrivel on the vine. In the past few days, somebody has been reading blog entries, posting a quick but seemingly relevant comment, and then leaving link to a spam portal. So I've been looking more closely at what I would ordinarily approve or delete, and this submission caught my eye.

I have already sent a quick e-mail to the address the poster provided, but who knows whether it was real or fake. I have no evidence that the poster is in any way connected to Seton Hill University... I presume she just found a page that had keywords she was searching for.

I guess I am just feeling pretty emotionally raw as I think about the latest news... I've submitted an article proposal that looks at Super Columbine Massacre RPG! as a form of new media composition, and when I heard about Cho's multimedia manifesto, I realized that I would have to read it in order to write the article I proposed. That's not a cheerful thought.

Maybe someone in Rachel's life can help her make a sensible choice before it's too late.

Rumours that Chiang, 23, was the mass murderer swept across the world after links to his gun-obsessed blogs were posted on social networking website Facebook and similar sites. More than 180,000 people visited his sites, with many noting the similarities between him and the man described in accounts of the Virginia Tech tragedy.

Some went so far as to jump to a conclusion. "Early 20s, Asian man, vtech student. Fits the bill," wrote one commenter on one of Chiang's blogs. Another simply wrote: "Why why why why why?"

His blogs are decorated with a multitude of photos of Chiang posing with semi-automatic weapons and Russian rifles and training at a marine camp. His last post before the killings showed him proudly standing alongside his collection of 14 Russian Mosin Nagant M44 weapons. --Kenneth Nguyen --Judged by the internet (The Age)

I asked my journalism students today... if they heard gunfire on campus, would they pull out their cell phone camera and head towards it, hoping to get a scoop?

I told them they should get to safety.

When I learned that the young man who was identified as the shooter was an English major, the whole incident became suddenly more real. It shouldn't have -- the human tragedy would not be less heartrending if the student had chosen different coursework. So now, on top of all the other emotions that I'm feeling as I contemplate the event, I feel guilt.

My journalism students are doing next week's podcasts on local reaction to the massacre.

The Mercury News posted an Associated Press package that included a video news story, accounts from witnesses and a disturbing home-made cell phone video that recorded dozens of gun shots and angry and disturbed screaming, presumably from the gunman.

Perhaps most troublesome was that whoever was shooting the cell phone video, actually moved toward the gunfire instead of away from it. Some obvious advice: It's not worth it. Do not endanger your life for a YouTube moment.

News coverage aside, technology potentially played a key role in informing those most at risk. The way school administrators used their digital tools may even have saved lives. --Mike Cassidy --Digital tools were potential life savers during Va. Tech massacre (MercuryNews)

My brother is a Va Tech alumnus. At the University of Virginia we enjoyed a friendly rivalry with our larger land-grant sibling.

This time of year I have lots of papers to mark and lots of stressed students who need attention; further, three days this week I'm leaving early to attend to family business (today was a birthday party for both my kids, Wednesday I always leave early so I can watch the kids while my wife prepares for her night class, and Friday my son will be in an art show), so I haven't been following this as closely as I really wanted to.

Someone else will write a thoughtful analysis of the Wikipedia and Wikinews articles on the events, and someone else will track what the Va Tech students were saying to each other on MySpace and Facebook while the Va Tech authorities wondered how to get in touch with students and what they should say.

I'm glad my kids don't mind being hugged and kissed in public, since I was doing a lot of that today.

Update: the Roanoke Times has been covering the event on its breaking news blog, changing the title to reflect recent developments, adding time-stamped items to the top of the page.

"It's almost always the first play I teach," she said. "I do that because very often students have only encountered Shakespeare in high school and have a misunderstanding of him as safe, moral, and dull. This one really dislodges the idea that Shakespeare is full of eternal moral truths. It takes place in a different world from what they expect."

And how does Titus go over with her students?

"Many of them have a very hard time with it," she told me. "They expect to be able to like somebody in a piece of literature, to find somebody they can identify with, and that is quite difficult in this case. It's hard to identify with Titus, who kills his own son for dishonoring him. The moral ambiguity of the play is very, very difficult for some of them." -- Denise Albanese, interviewed by Scott McLemee --A Dish Best Served Cold (Inside Higher Ed)

Great analysis of Shakespeare's slasher farce, Titus Andronicus.

I still swell with pride when I recall that as an undergrad, I asked Gordon Braden, who was teaching the Shakespeare survey at the University of Virginia, about the role of rhymed verses in this play. I pointed out that we are most likely to see rhymed verse when Aaron is either performing or talking about his most wicked, most violent deeds -- a detail that suggested to me that Shakespeare knew exactly what he was doing, rather than than that Shakespeare made a terrible play.

Prof. Braden said that Shakespeare often used rhymed verses to end scenes, which is true most of the time, but, as I pointed out in the 100-student lecture hall, "Not in this play." Prof. Braden cocked his head, opened up his book, and checked a few scenes, then agreed with me that Shakespeare's use of rhymed verses is unusual in this play. (He didn't actually agree with me about what I thought the unusual rhyming meant, but that was all I needed to feel like I was pretty hot stuff that day.)

I ended up writing a paper on "Head-hewing, Limb-lopping, and General Nastiness in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus."

• Got to Dance (autographed by the author, M. C. Helldorfer; illustrated by Hiroe Nakata)
  
• Has a Heart (Magic School Bus (Turtleback)) (Annie Capecki; illustrated by Carolyn Bracken)
  
• Zathura The Movie Deluxe Storybook (Zathura: The Movie) (adapted by David Seidman)
  
• Frederick (Leo Lionni)

--Coffee Table Books Meme (CultureCat)

My coffee table is deep in kid territory. If you asked me what was on my desk or by my bedside, I'd give very different answers.

What's on your coffee table?