I just realized that in less than two months, we're going to have an easy way to refer to our current decade: the 'teens. No more of this awkard "2000s" business; we'll have a real decade name again.

That feels a tiny bit shocking. I'm not sure why.

Maybe it's because my immediate assocation with the phrase is with the 1910s, which seem incredibly remote to me. It's weird, but they seem somehow more distant than even the last decades of the nineteenth century, and certainly moreso than any of the decades that came after. The twenties and thirties, I get on a visceral level; I feel like I have enough common referrents with them to understand, more or less, what life was like then. The period before 1900 is so removed from my daily experience as to make any hope of understanding life then impossible, so in an odd way it's easier; I write off the whole enchilada and concentrate on the aspects that are accessible.

The Edwardian era¹ doesn't quite fit into either category. It's tantalizingly close--you have the rise of the automobile, the silent movie, the gramophone; not the same as today, but close enough analogues. Even telephones had been around for a few years. But at the same time, you have the crazy hats and hobble skirts of women's fashion; you have the whole social system that made WWI an even bigger mess than it was going to be anyway (for that matter, you have a cavalry in WWI); you have the decade with the greatest percentage of the population having servants or working as servants in 1900-1910; you have women unable to vote in this country; you have the huge popularity of ballroom dancing and vaudeville. These are things I can read about--or even do, as with ballroom--but never really know.

I do think WWI has an incredible amount to do with it; there are echoes in WWII and in the sweeping cultural changes of the 1960s, but nothing really makes a big black uncrossable line across the timeline of the past century or of any century quite like the Great War. (Which makes me wonder why we don't study it more in, say, high school. I knew the dry facts of Franz Josef's assassination and everything, but it wasn't until very recently, when I started reading Eliot and Woolf and other Modernists with people who really know what they're talking about, that I got the true impact of this war on every area of life.) You can go up to that line, you can wave at the people on the other side, but there's no getting over it.

I wonder, though, if it's just the war, and if those two decades wouldn't seem so remote to me if it hadn't happened. Is the horizon of understanding always fixed at ninety or so years in the past? I guess I wonder because I'm curious how our current era is going to look to the people of the 2110s. So much of this decade, at least technologically, has seemed to be refinements of previous technologies--the iPod for the Walkman, 3D movies for 2D movies, etc. Nothing quite like the paradigm shift of the automobile has come along.²

Maybe this century, though, will be one of primarily social and cultural rather than social and technological sea changes. The recent healthcare reform bills, for example. Perhaps the European Union organization and ideal will spread to other areas of the globe; maybe the Vulcans will show up and we'll end up uniting under a world government. Or perhaps in 2083, there will be a law passed that requires all meat to be grown in vats. (I guess that would be both social and technological. Hmm.) Maybe people of 2110 will marvel at a world that had 193 separate countries and where people killed animals for food.

What are things about our current era that you think will be unknowable to the people of 2110s?


* Icon is not related; it's just pretty. How much do I want Ginger's dress? Oh, wait, that would be a whole lot.

¹ I'm using the extended definition, i.e., from 1900-1918.

² Granted, that paradigm took probably thirty years to really shift entirely from horses to cars, but I think you get my meaning. Then again, maybe it's just that we're still riding the wave of the 80s and 90s, with the infiltration of computers into all areas of our lives; the car and the telephone have been telescoped by time into these immediate, sweeping changes, but really they were more like the information revolution.

Another set of papers to grade. WHEN WILL IT END?

(Oh, wait, that would be in about a month. A month. Crap! WHY IS OVER SO QUICKLY?)

Hmmm. I promised my students I'd have the papers back on the 18th, because my two-week revision policy has rather boxed me into a corner. I should get on that. *mopes*

I was not expecting this to work nearly as well as it does. (It does seem to fall apart a bit near the end, but the beginning is really impressive. You know, I think my cha-cha would've improved about a hundred percent had I been wearing tap shoes instead of Latin heels.)

This weekend, I corrected a grievous oversight plaguing my life: I finally saw a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers flick (Top Hat). The plot was so incredibly lame* that I wound up fast-forwarding through most of the talky bits to get to the dancing, which is magnificient. I wanna be able to do that.**

You can really see the influence they had on American Smooth dancing (my favorite of the four ballroom dance types). Like right here, in this clip from Roberta, there's definitely some American Foxtrot sensibility going on, even if they aren't performing actual steps from the syllabus. (Granted, there are sometimes little Russian-accented voices in my head yelling at them to stand up straight when they dance with each other, for the love of God, but then I remember that, a.) they were doing tap dance together more often than they were doing anything strictly ballroom-related, and b.) it's Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and I have absolutely no room to criticize.)

Speaking of YouTube, there appears to be some kind of fad over there for replacing the original music with modern songs (such as here and here) and...it actually works, once you get past the initial weirdness. I guess when the beats are roughly the same, you can kind of do whatever you want. (Or possibly just that particular number is so amazing it can handle any music you throw at it.)

There are also actual fanvids, such as this one, which was surprisingly well-done and even somewhat touching.

Anyway. Back to the thesis. I have new critical scaffolding that I like better than my old one, so I need to go and integrate that.


* Mistaken identity plots are my number one narrative hate. I truly, truly despise them, because they rely on characters being SO, SO STUPID.

** Also, Ginger manages to make being sung to by--and dancing with--Fred look like the most awesome thing in the world. Since he's doing the soloing, in theory my attention should've been on him, but no, it was all on her. I am duly impressed.

A kind soul is holding a job fair in his comments. If you're looking for work, or will be soon, you can leave a comment with what kind of work you're looking for, and then people who know of job openings and/or have advice will be able to see and respond to the comments. Better than nothing, right?

(Thanks to wintercreek for the link.)

I was browsing the WriteRCastle Twitter feed, and whoever's behind it re-posted a joke that was so amazingly bad, I had no choice but to stick it up here. To wit (or at any rate to groan):

Two philosophers walk into a bar. One asks, "Can you mix me a Nietzschean Cocktail?" The bartender shrugs. "Kant."

It almost makes up for the frustration I've felt today while trying to a.) find Millay criticism in online databases*, and b.) finish this frakking B5 fic.


* I've decided to write on her celebrations of transience. Wish me luck, especially considering there is literally a book of essays on her, and that appears to be it, aside from two biographies. Good thing this paper appears to be intended as a mainly formalist analysis.

Structuralism is really dead now.

(sleepingcbw is the only one who's going to get that joke, isn't she?)

More seriously, I had no idea he was still around. What an impressive intellectual life he led.

...My poetics paper is due in a month, isn't it? Ah, hell. I should start thinking about that.

Also, today, I realized that the semester is actually a day shorter than I thought it is. Wish I'd found that out before I gave my students a new schedule for the next unit. *headdesk* We have exactly one day of class after Thanksgiving. How much do you think we can actually get done? Exactly. I was going to have them do peer review, but given that none of them are actually going to write the paper over Thanksgiving, I think it'll be futile. Maybe I'll just have them write the first two pages and workshop them. GAAAAAH. I need another week in this semester!

Also, my microwave is completely dead, which I found out as I was attempting to heat up my oatmeal this morning. Luckily, I had a leftover muffin. But really, not a way I needed to start this day. ARGH.

Good day today. I planned out my lesson for Monday (when I am getting videotaped for observation purposes--I feel like I should be more nervous than I am), wrote a page on my thesis, spent thirty minutes writing the ficlet in the last post, and then watched I, Robot, which I had somehow managed to miss since it came out. I'm not quite sure why; I think perhaps I was abroad at the time? Anyway, it was so good! Yeah, there was some preachiness at the end, but until then, I was riveted. I'm making room for this sucker in my class next semester! I'm tempted to make them read one of the stories and do a comparison to the movie, but I've already got "The Last Question" on the list, and there's only so much Asimov I can stomach. (I really like TLQ, but mostly his prose stylings make me want to beat my head against a wall.) That would've worked brilliantly for my context unit this semester, though. Wish I'd thought of that.

My opinion of the movie may be somewhat influenced by the fact that Chi McBride, aka Emerson Cod, played a large supporting role, and he was totally channeling Emerson. Hee. As well, there may be the fact that the last three movies I've rented from Netflix--Little Miss Sunshine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Science of Sleep have all been so bad that I couldn't even finish them. I've decided that I'm just not cut out to appreciate indie and/or French-inspired movies. I just end up wanting to throttle everyone in them. Give me my sci-fi films and romantic comedies. I am so bourgeois, I know.

But anyway, back to my good day--I just remembered that we gain an hour tonight. WOOT.

Finally, have some sheep, courtesy of my mom.

I haven't written SG-1 fic or really even thought about the franchise in seriously like five years, so God only knows how much resemblance this actually bears to canon, or, for that matter, to graduate programs in archaeology. But I've pretty much written it for the lols, and because I wanted a story to go along with my icon.

(Since I'm teaching my students about plagiarism on Monday, I would be a hypocrite if I didn't mention that the idea for said icon is not mine. I saw a version of it, I think with a different picture and slightly different wording, many moons ago, but haven't seen it around since, so I made my own. Whoever came up with this icon idea, you're brilliant. :))

Title: They Didn't Teach This in Grad School
Author: icepixie
Rating: PG
Word Count: 358
Summary: "Sure, the freshmen he'd taught as a grad student might have murdered Middle Kingdom culture, the English language, and possibly his soul, but at least they hadn't been trying to murder him."

( Silliness )

I am joining queenofthorns's love meme. My thread is here.

Speaking of memes, there are still several unguessed in the favorite characters meme. And I know there are some of you who would have no trouble guessing the ones that remain.

Hooray! I got my 102 course proposal approved without any revision necessary.

Speaking of that course, in spare moments over the last few weeks, I've been composing the syllabus. I've had my schedule for a while (since I needed to figure out what books I'd be ordering), and now I'm copying, pasting, and revising my policies from 101. Currently, my policy on participation is, "If you don't come to class prepared, I will turn into President Roslin and throw you out an airlock."

...I have a feeling I'll have to change that or the department will give me grief, but for now, it amuses me.

Other teaching things: yesterday we did "The American Scholar" and a tiny excerpt from Emile. It went surprisingly well, especially considering how lackluster they've been at discussion lately. Part of it was that these are actually interesting, as opposed to the drivel the textbook contains (and, because it costs an incredible amount of money, I feel obligated to use). I'm starting to think the other part was that they weren't always understanding everything in the earlier readings, but didn't feel comfortable saying so (or just figured I might let them out early if they faked it). These, I went into it figuring half of it would fly over their heads, and so I spent the first half of class asking questions that directed them towards the main points of each piece, then writing them on the board as they were mentioned. Discussion went pretty well after that.

However. In the copy of Emile I put up on Blackboard, I included a sentence saying, "If you're reading this, e-mail your professor the secret code phrase: Garlic is essential to avoiding vampire attacks." I had four people e-mail it to me. It turned out that some of the had read it--because they were able to discuss it--but were confused about whether they should do it or not. Gotta admit, I don't quite see how there's any ambiguity in that statement, but whatever. I was going to use it for a quiz grade, but since the people who talked the most were ones who hadn't e-mailed me, I thought that was unnecessarily cruel. They'll just get quizzes all next week. Sucks to be them!

(Actually, what I'm doing in the next unit is having everyone come in with three written questions about the reading and/or something related to writing, which I will take up and address [they'll be talking about them in groups while I look through the questions]. This will replace the roll book I've been using for that unit, so if they don't have questions, they don't get counted as being present. Other people are doing that now and they say it works really well. We shall see.)

Woke up to find one of these guys first pecking at and then chilling on one of my living room windowsills. It left before I could get a picture, but was nice to see. (Although the pecking gets annoying after a while. And I'm sure it's not doing the window frames any good...

Since my thesis only gave me two paragraphs before stopping communication, have a meme, originally from spleeny:

1) Post a list of up to 20 books/movies/anime/TV shows/video games/bands [fannish etc.] that you've had an obsessive fannish love or interest in at some time in your life.
2) Have your f-list guess your favourite character/member from each item.
3) When someone guesses correctly, strikethrough the item and put the name of your favorite character next to it.

Some of these should be blindingly obvious for anyone who's read my journal ever. Others have multiple correct answers.

1. Northern Exposure
2. due South Benton Fraser (magsyb)
3. Castle Kate Beckett and Richard Castle (magsyb)
4. Slings & Arrows Geoffrey Tennant and Anna Conroy (munditia)
5. Babylon 5 Susan Ivanova (magsyb)
6. Corner Gas
7. Doctor Who (entire franchise) Charley Pollard (magsyb)
8. Deep Space 9
9. Battlestar Galactica Laura Roslin (munditia)
10. Vorkosigan series Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan (munditia)
11. Farscape John Crichton and Aeryn Sun (spleeny)
12. Earth 2 Julia Heller (rensong)
13. The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne Rebecca Fogg (rensong)
14. Crusade
15. Wonderfalls Jaye Tyler (spleeny)
16. SG-1
17. Atlantis Elizabeth Weir (spleeny) [There's still one more possibility for sharing the number one spot, if anyone cares to guess.]
18. Harry Potter Hermione Granger (spleeny)
19. Cupid Claire Allen (alethialia)
20. Pushing Daisies Aunt Lily (magsyb)

Or, A Cautionary Tale About Balancing Teaching and Scholarship
by icepixie

Me: Hey, thesis! Man, I am so excited about finally spending some time with you tonight.
My thesis: Oh, you won't be spending time with me tonight.
Me: What?!
My thesis: I'm tired of you always off grading, or preparing for your classes, or reading for that other class you take. Don't think I can't see how often you have ink stains from your grading pen on your fingers.
Me: I know I've been distant lately, but we had dinner together last week, didn't we? And I brought you some new ideas from your favorite theorist...
My thesis: Sorry, I have to wash my hair.
Me: But baby, come on, we've gotta get some work done...
My thesis: I deck myself out in quotations and metaphors, I put my best paragraphs forward, and what do I get? "Not tonight, dear, I have grading." Forget it! I'm not about to be won over by theorists, or poems, or anything else you're bringing to the text.
Me: But I cleared off my schedule for you tonight and all day tomorrow. We won't have to leave Word until Friday morning! Whatdya say?
My thesis: Eh. I'm not feelin' it.

Those of you whom I have incompletely addicted to Hem, this fine retailer is having a sale on all their albums today--each is $5. You can't go wrong with a price like that. Go forth and buy them!

*

One more thing I wanted to say about this week's Castle: ( spoiler )

How much love do I have for this show? I don't think the term has been invented yet.

( Spoilers )

"Last Train Home" - David Mead (it's the first song in the player on that page)

Hem recommended him on their Twitter, so you know he has to be good. I'm sort of eh on the other songs in the player, but that one is so bittersweet and lovely, yet it's kind of...jaunty at the same time. It's nice.

(Why yes, I am avoiding my grading. How could you tell?)