Freight Train Runnin' thru the Middle of My Head

Back again
Being in so many other places in the last few months has made me appreciate Chapel Hill even more than I already did, which was a considerable amount. I love this place, and it will be hard to leave it, if we do. The other places have been great, too (San Diego, Charleston, and Ithaca), but different. Not quite home, of course.

I will write more when I get some time to breathe and can come out from the pile of dirty laundry, papers, and books that have pretty much drowned me lately because of the traveling. Tonight I will sleep like I've never slept before, and it will be good.

I promise I'm alive
I'm here. Just wanted to let all of you know. I have another trip this weekend, but after that I should have some time to get back into the regular flow of things. So far, things are groovy. Just super busy!

Off to Charleston
I'm headed to Charleston, SC for work-related stuff tomorrow, so I'll be away from the blog for a few days. I know you're sad, but just try to be strong.

Off to bed. And then to the beautiful city of Charleston! I've only been there once, but I really loved it. I'm excited to be going back. And it's one of those places that, everytime I mention it, people go... "ooooh, Charleston. I love it there." Every single person, no matter who it is.

Ode to the Internet
Pablo Neruda wrote some beautiful Odas elementales, or "Elemental Odes" to lots of everyday things: a tomato, wine, socks, a book, and more. I think if he were alive today he would write an Ode to the Internet. Some of the wonderful things the Internet has allowed me to do today: buy a plane ticket, check the weather in three different states, find an article for my research, get some ideas for teaching my Spanish 2 class, pay a bill, talk to friends, connect with colleagues about business matters, read poetry. And that is the tip of the iceberg. And to think I used to be afraid of computers.

Begging for money
Time to write an inspiring essay about my teaching to try and win some money to attend one of those conferences. I really, really need this money. I'll be talking about blogs as potential tools for teaching foreign languages at the conference, which will be cool. Hypothetically. If I can go. Here goes some grant writing, something that I do not enjoy, even though I realize their usefulness. Free money can't be beat, really, particularly money that you get to travel, learn, and/or do something new.

Yay three day weekends
It has been a packed weekend, and we still have one more day left. The in-laws have been here, we've eaten out numerous times, seen UNC beat UConn (!), cleaned the house, done laundry...

50 degrees in my carrel
It is truly cold in here. I wonder if the library would let me bring in a space heater?

I have a headache. Again. They are frequent and furious these days. Something about stress, yadda yadda. Ibuprofen is my friend.

I'm sick of having no big words in my vocabulary. How can I have a PhD and use the word "important" 4 times in one paper? Come on.

When I crave things it is either cheese (think: quesadilla) or hamburgers (with cheese). Sometimes I crave Doritos, which are fake cheesy. Thank God I'm not lactose-intolerant.

(today's random thoughts were brought to you by: the letter X and the number 5)

Conversating about my profession
I've been chatting with anyone who will listen about teaching. What the issues are, what I should be on the lookout for, what I've been doing right and wrong. I feel like I need to get a real handle on this, although a big part of me just thinks that teaching is something you do by trial and error. No book could teach you most of the tricks you come up with through experience. I've been teaching now for 8 years. I cannot believe I've been doing anything for 8 years. And yet a lot of this is still a mystery to me. I love reading people's philosophies of teaching because I find myself wanting to articulate mine better. Right now it is a "bag of tricks" that works, not a coherent, cohesive belief system. My philosophy of teaching = It is fun. It is cool. I like it. My students like me. It makes me happy. Sometimes teaching is like putting all the right ingredients into a recipe. It might be messy going in, but when it is all said in done, you have a delightful experience for one and all to share. Ok, okay, that was pretty bad. See why I'm no good at this? Teaching: Just Do It. Maybe that's my philosophy. Learn from your mistakes, but just jump in head first and see what happens. Treat your students like human beings that think, create, feel, and teach you just as you teach them. And have fun with it, because why else do anything at all?

Missed calling
In an uncharacteristic second post of the day, let me just say this: I think I might have missed my calling. I can edit like the wind. I actually enjoy this work. Give me a dissertation chapter, and I will dissect it. I don't like putting a numerical grade on it afterwards (like for student work), but I love reading something closely, asking questions, finding the good stuff. Thinking about how the ok stuff could be better. Even the grammatical stuff. Reformulating words that don't seem to quite fit right. I think I've earned a rep for this somehow, because I'm often asked to read everything from chapters to conference papers to letters of recommendation and cover letters. Even CV's. Emails to old boyfriends. Thank you notes. It's pretty cool, a little bit like being a linguistic voyeur, because I see their work before anyone else. I get a sneak peek.

But when the tables are turned, I get a little nervous. A little, shall we say, protective of my words? Defensive, even. I can take the criticism if it's deserved, but at the same time, I feel like I've already ripped it to shreds by the time I dare to let someone else's eyes have a gander at it. Ah well. Today I learned a lesson: never rush a peer editor. Let them simmer with it, roll it over in their brain. That is, if you really, truly want quality feedback.

Money troubles
I have the opportunity to go to two really incredible conferences, and I don't know if I can afford them. Granted, one of them is in Acapulco. The registration alone costs $250, and I just found out it is non-refundable. But my proposal was accepted for a presentation, so it could be a really great professional experience. But I'm so bummed out. When will I be able to do all the travel and work I want to do and not worry so much about financing it all? Probably never. Worrying about money is part of my genetic makeup, I think. Even if I had a lot of it, I think I would still feel guilty about paying $250 simply to attend a conference. That's not to mention the airfare, hotel, food, etc. Ugh. Right now I'm on the quest to find funding. Wish me luck.

57 channels and nothing on
Got that right, Bruce. I found myself getting sucked into terrible movies on TV last night, exhausted from working all day. But today was nice, because I had lunch with a good friend and we talked about everything from families to the future to work. And shared an incredible appetizer made from some of the tastiest ingredients on the planet: artichokes, cheese, and spinach. MMMmmmm MMMMmmmm good.

The kitties keep looking for Jason. They look in his bathroom, under the bed, out the window. At night, especially, they meow for him. It's a questioning and accusatory meow, kind of a "what have you done to him??"

Hello Hemingway
Hello Hemingway was a strange experience for me. A bit like looking in a mirror. A lot like looking in a mirror, actually. My friend Daniel once remarked, in reference to the fantastic film Central Station, "It's a portrait of my life." I had never felt that way about a movie until last night. It wasn't the most well-made film, and the quality of the video that came from ILAS was pretty shoddy. But I saw a little bit of myself in the eyes of the lead character, Hilaria, who is trying desperately to get out of her small hometown and go to the university. Specifically, she wants to win a scholarship to study abroad in the US before she graduates from high school. But the odds are severely stacked against her. She faces some of the obstacles I have had to face, although I have to admit that so far, my story has gone much more positively.

Throughout the movie, Hilaria is reading Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea and writing in a diary, and the struggle of the old fisherman becomes a metaphor for her own life. Hemingway just happens to be living in her Cuban pueblo at the time, just up the hill from her family's place. I, too, had a fascination with Hemingway when I was about 14 or 15 years old. Hemingway was my introduction to travel, to the cultures of Spain and Cuba, to the idea that a gringo could see the world and write about it. I read everything he wrote. When I finally got to Spain, 19 years old, I wrote in my own diary about seeing the things Hemingway must have seen. I followed his path in Madrid, like so many other American tourists do, looking for the ghost of Papa Hemingway. I got my picture taken in front of Casa Botin, one of his favorite restaurants. I went to the running of the bulls and bullfights, looking for Hemingway.

I'm now a different person, of course, and I see problems with Hemingway's words and life. He's no longer an icon to me, no longer my favorite author, but still I have to admit the important role he has played. The funny thing is, I had forgotten my own obsession with Hemingway until I saw this movie. It was weird--like opening my own diaries and watching them come to life.

Singers and Standards
On digital cable, you know how there are music channels? I'm probably the only person on Earth who uses them. But once in a while, I feel like something other than my own CD's but without ads. So there you go. Right now, it's the Singers and Standards channels. I just heard the gorgeous song "Since I Fell for You," which used to be a big, coveted trumpet solo when I was a trumpet superstar (ha!) in high school.

I have a billion things to do this weekend while Jason is at his conference in San Diego. In addition to other work-related tasks, I also need to start researching a few conference presentations that I'm slated to do. I need to clean the house again, because Jason's parents are coming to visit us next weekend. And when I say clean the house, I mean scrub it. Not straighten things. So that could take a good bit of time. Sleep a lot. Yes, that's on the schedule. Watch two Cuban movies that I just checked out of the Institute for Latin American Studies, where you can borrow Latin American movies for free!!! (And they have a better selection than the Undergrad Library, sorry SILS friends.) I got Lista de espera and Hello Hemingway.

Day one is over. Bring on day two.
The first day was a smashing success, I think. I felt good about my classes, and I even got through my entire lesson plan, which doesn't always happen. I've never taught two classes back to back at the University level, but I like it. I usually have an hour or more between them. But there's something refreshing about moving directly from one to the other...you don't have to warm back up, and you don't have to do other things and then prepare again. You're rocking by the second class, so it seems to flow smoothly. Here I go for day 2.

T minus 18 hours and counting
Almost time for the new semester to begin. I'm a mixture of tired, excited, nervous, sad and happy. It depends on the minute and what particular thing I'm thinking about. One of my classrooms is terrible: a theater-style set up with chairs that don't move. A very very wide room but not very deep. Not so conducive to communicative and student-centered language teaching. I can't even walk between the "aisles" because there aren't any. Just three very long rows of theater seats. Ideal for showing a movie, but not so great for an interactive class like mine. Blah. Very disappointed. Last semester I had a seminar style room and that rocked. I'm spoiled now, because seeing this room today totally bummed me out.

My friend Jen is coming to town later today. She's lucky because Wake Forest doesn't start classes for like another week. Sigh! If only I had one more week!!! (Yeah, right. I'd be just as ready as I am now, which isn't very.)

p.s.
Did you know that the guy who wrote the novel on which Big Fish is based--that new movie directed by Tim Burton and starring Ewan McGregor that was nominated for 4 Golden Globes--was written by a UNC professor???? Daniel Wallace. I guess I've been living under a rock, but I just found this out. Sometimes I feel like I don't see what's happening outside Dey Hall.

Is your ear falling off?
Jason asked me that last night, at about 11:10 p.m. when I finally got off the phone with Tim. Tim and I are yin and yang. We care about each other in a profound, connected-at-the-brain-stem kind of way. January so far has been all about re-establishing contact with people like this, those that I truly love in a deeper sense than I love my own (unchosen) family. My chosen family, that's who these people are to me. I've talked to many of them in the last week on-line or on the phone. These are the old raggedy friends, the ones who have been around since you care to remember, and the ones who you don't ever want to think about being without, even though they might drive you totally insane sometimes.

I'm staring down the barrel of a possible future with question marks that point sideways toward far off places. Do I really want to be so far away from the familiar? From those friends? I may have to grapple with that issue sooner rather than later. I don't like thinking about it. It makes me want to hibernate. I look out the window and see the rain streaking down, and I want to grab a blanket and bury myself underneath it. The choice between fight or flight for me often turns into flight before I even realize what it is I'm supposed to be facing. These are the days made for Bruce Springsteen, and strong coffee, and poems.

Things I'm Looking Forward To:

• seeing people in addition to Jason and family again
  
• my friend Bridgette is back in town!!


• increasingly warmer weather


• new, energized students


• building community in my new classes

Things I'm Not Looking Forward To:

• waking up early again


• more deadlines


• being "on call" to my Graduate Teaching Fellows virtually all the time, thanks to good ol' email


• a hectic, hectic few months full of travel and a good bit of stress


• remembering how long it takes me to learn names

Appalachian women
Last night I started flipping through a new anthology called Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia. A bit angry that I had never heard of many of the authors. Angry at the textbooks that left them out, angry at my own teachers in Appalachia who had never introduced them to me. Or didn't know to do so. Disappointed that I'm almost 30 and only now realizing that I might be interested in these words forged from hands like my grandmother's, my mom's, my own. Set in times and places that might echo those that creep around in my memories and my dreams.

I come from an Appalachian "borderzone," a place that some might not consider Appalachian enough (not Eastern enough, not mountainous enough). But if Appalachia is a culture, a state of mind, a way of seeing the world, a rootedness and stubbornness and not just a geography, then my family definitely qualifies. It wasn't until I went to college in Morehead, KY and then moved up the mountains to Ohio University that I began feeling a sense of Appalachian-ness. I think we all come to a point in our lives where we want to understand who we are and where we came from. For me, it is a fear that those roots are slipping away. I want to hang onto them, preserve them before I'm so far away from them that they feel foreign.

Identities
Watched "Identity" tonight with Jason...his choice. I agreed, mostly on the merit of John Cusak (I sort of have a Cusak thing). But I was totally skeptical. Despite the fact that Jason had to put up with me yelling my half-baked hypotheses at the screen ("I bet he's the killer! Oh no! Did you see the way his shirt looked? That was a clue!"), we both really ended up liking it.

Earlier in the day, I found out that a good friend of mine--someone I've known for over a decade--is not who I thought she was. Well, it's still her at the core, but her life has changed drastically and she is in the process of redefining herself. That's all I can say here, damn this imperfectly public space that's supposed to be for my own catharsis but lately has just served as a site of secrets and obfuscation.

Anyway, identity was the theme for today, the first day of 2004.

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!
We welcomed the New Year with Monopoly, Dick Clark, mojitos, beer, pizza, Doritos, and blondies with ice cream. So today starts the resolution to get healthy again.

2003 was a blur, but when I think about all I've accomplished, I realize how amazing the year really was for me. I defended my dissertation, graduated with my Ph.D., took my first trips to Colorado and California, spent fun time with family and friends, taught some good classes, and a million other little things. 2004 is likely to bring some major changes for me and Jason. Will we move or won't we? Will we sell the house? What kind of job will Jason find after he graduates? Will we be closer to family or farther away? What will I be doing? I'm turning 30 in 2004. I got some gray hair in 2003. What's next?