doldrums and the kracken

It's that time. Students who can afford to relax - don't; some come to grips with academic and personal goals for the first time; and some need help getting out of bed at the crack of noon.

I feel it - but you can't step in the same river twice (Heraclitus), and the water's different for everyone.

Teachers hustle to keep up with grading - and judging/evaluating takes its toll - and can result in little patience for ... how do real people say insouciance? Where can we find motivation?

Needing empathy, I started my own iSearch. I forgot that databases tell you were to find info - but often don't have direct link/ download. It can make you feel like you're in over your head.

Check google scholar if your school library doesn't have a journal or source you need - and if that fails interlibrary loan is pretty quick - talk to a librarian. I should walk the class thru it. The process for tracking down sources changes every 6 months, but once you get the hang of it, you can figure it out and it can be fun.

The important thing: try something new. Look in new places. Have fun.

Perhaps we should collectively reassess our goals and objectives. Please check out the video. I especially noticed the phalanx at 2:30... the paramilitary utilitarian outfit and choreography had to influence Public Enemy. They make a statement on the paradox of fitting into a system that encourages uniform expression, while discovering one's own voice: intense emotional engagement while simultaneously detached and objective - or cold and mechanical.

It's performance art/punk rock at its finest; Devo flourished in the shadow of disco - and made a bigger impact in Europe and Japan than in the Midwest, tho they did help pioneer the music video. Mark Mothersbaugh - front man - you may know from The Rugrats, or any of a bunch of movie soundtracks. That dude can compose: visually, musically and lyrically.

Another of Devo's songs could sum up my andragogical theory, our course objectives, and the idea - or more accurately a reaction to an idea, that explains most decisions I made up until 2002. Haven't reassessed my life re: said song since. The message is in the vein of Lloyd's dinner party speech from Say Anything.

I'd probably get in trouble for showing you the music video in question - or even using it's name in print.

BTW anyone else want to read Punk Power in the First-Year Writing Classroom? It'd better live up...

Superbowl, gender diversity and the SRTOL paper

Absenteeism was up for my 2 classes on Monday. Some research shows this may be caused by the Superbowl. See a scholarly journal here, or see a more news magazine article here. It could also have been the weather.

Maybe people stayed home because they don't have a draft of the Students Right to Their Own Language paper.

I've had some ideas lately. Given arguments expressed in class and in videos on the wiki that fashion is a form of expression and analogous to style or "voice" in writing, could we treat body art as communication, and a type of language, and thereby bring discussion of tattoos, piercings and other body modifications into our discussion of students' rights to their own language? The chart at the bottom of the recent post on diversity notes generational changes in attitudes toward body art.

If students have a right to expression through body art, where does that leave us on transgendered issues? By the way JCCC has invited Donna Ross in GEB 233 at 2pm on Thursday. She's undergone the transition and will be answering questions.

Am I still on topic in asking, if students have a right to their own language, how do I as an instructor respond to the comment in a student paper, "I know it's gay, but my girlfriend gave me the Twilight books, and I read them."

I know the "it's so gay" comment is inappropriate - but as my guest speaker Miguel pointed out last semester - in certain situations and in certain audiences gay people use it. Is it exclusively the purview of homosexual groups, or are there times and places where anyone can use it, or is it a word any young person should be allowed to use because it means something different today than it did in the old days?

BTW: the Queer & Allies group meets Wednesday at 2 pm in CC 212. Maybe someone could take these questions to them.