–Facebook status update, 10pm last night.

Here’s the sad part. These accomplishments consisted of:

• an excellent and productive meeting with students to get feedback on issue x
• getting permission to put on a workshop related to issue x
• getting permission to set up a program related to issue x
• getting permission to organize a course related to issue x

So, nothing was actually produced or done, yet it felt like a good day’s work.

The terrible part is—getting permissions was a big accomplishment. For months, I’ve been trying to get my chair to agree to the workshop, and having the go-ahead to get things done is a huge first step.

I guess that’s how admin works.

Nationality in running counts. It’s why many identify Kenya as the land of the long distance champions.

Really? I thought it was Ethiopia. You meant “biology”, Mr. Rovell, not “nationality”.

But, seriously, this is a ridiculous article, full of sloppy thinking, non-existent research, and terrible sportsmanship.

Meb Keflezighi, who won yesterday in New York, is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998
…
The positive sign was that some American-born runners did extremely well in yesterday’s men’s race.

If any of them stand on the top step of the podium in Central Park one day, that’s when I’ll break out my red, white and blue.

This is an easy target because it’s so simple to make the case for Keflezighi as an American in both law and culture, since he moved here when he was 12. And that’s how most of the commenters make it. Some clearly knowledgeable people put quite a lot of weight on Keflezighi’s training in the American running system. Rovell also shot himself in the foot by harking back to the 1982 champion—Rovell doesn’t mention his name, but it’s Alberto Salazar, who isn’t at all black but was born in Cuba (oops! so it’s racist, not just xenophobic and jingoistic). Lots more take-downs around the web.

Okay, other angles. It’s not so clear whether everyone would reject Rovell’s argument for someone who came to the US after developing a running career. Some certainly would—those people liken Keflezighi to the non-citizens in our armed forces.

But Rovell’s even more of an idiot:

Americans haven’t had much success in the marathon. Many cite lack of motivation as the root of our troubles, as in our best athletes devote their lives to sports where they can make big money instead of collecting the relatively small paychecks that professional running offers.

Wait, what? Really? I mean, I’m not a sportswriter and Darren Rovell is, but since he’s already established himself as talking garbage here, I feel free to talk out of my ass too.

“Best athletes” is not a predictor for marathon success.

Yes, I bet football and basketball seduce some potential track and field stars. I’m trying to picture a single player in the NFL/NBA/MLB/NHL who would be any good at the marathon, which generally favors people with a relatively thin, light frame. Not any golfers. Maybe some tennis players or swimmers? Honestly, what big money sport could be siphoning athletes away from high-profile marathon running?

hat tip @academicdave. Edited 10 minutes after posting to clarify accusations of racism.

Dishcloth sampler #1. You can’t tell, but the bumpy part in the middle is a disastrous attempt at seed stitch that looks better here than in real life. There’s a yarnover thing I hadn’t figured out.

Dishcloth sampler #1 redux.

Dishcloth sampler #2. Much better. I designed the pattern stitches myself. My sister proclaimed me ready to move onto a hat. That was while we were in Hawaii. I started the hat, but have done nothing on it since I left my sister’s house. I’m pretending it’s because my cats will attack string, but really it’s because I’d rather play around on the internet to keep my hands busy. That’s okay, because I’m knitting a hat for her kid, but she isn’t even pregnant yet, and I designed the hat way too large. So if I finish it in about four years, it’s probably fine.

Not once did I think ‘Let me examine the gender, class and race implications of my brown self being here while these doctors and nurses look at me hold his lily white hand.’

A friend’s department was having some issues around the ethno-racial climate among the graduate students in the department. Undesirable things had been said. The reports specifically mentioned conversations held in the graduate student lounge while people hung out talking on the sofa.

At the faculty meeting, one professor proposed: so get rid of the sofa.

This is totally not about my career. Rather, it’s about my hair.

I cut it all off. So, I went from long (past my shoulders) dark curly hair to short (ear-length) curly hair, a length I have only seen on my head in baby pictures. And from wearing it off my forehead to having bangs.

Anyhow, it’s not just that I have to move the accumulation of hairsticks and hairclips into a box since I will not be wearing them for a while. And switch out wide headbands for thin ones.

It’s also that, with less hair, I seem to need less eyebrow. And more earring, and more necklace.

And also that, for the first time in my even remotely professional life, I have few options. Previously, I was able to wear my hair up in a bun to seem older, adding chopsticks to seem edgy, letting it down to go out at night, adding decorated clips for special occasions, putting it in a messy ponytail for the gym, and so forth.

Now, no matter what, I’ve just got a mop of ringlets. Insouciant, a colleague said.

In the end, I wrote a fake encyclopedia entry for “Old English language” and instructed them to correct all the mistakes and add any major omissions. The students moaned and carried on when I handed it out, but as I told them, the whole point of the class is for them to be able to read critically down the road. Nothing would make me happier than if, 10 years from now, they read some incorrect claim about the history of the language and said, “Wait a second, that’s not right.”

What are your thoughts on whether it’s appropriate for students to say the n-word in class, when quoting a important source that uses it?

I think I yelled at a student (ETA: not for that—after dealing with the n-word issue). I felt obliged to emphasize to all the students that there are many contexts in which the n-word would not be appropriate, even when quoting, because it has acquired a taboo status in American culture.

And then I went off on the student doing the presentation for being elitist, and for having major inconsistencies in the way the project is set up (ETA: and talked to him after for 5 minutes after that—that was the possible yelling). Incidentally, I wasn’t even the professor, just covering a class for a friend in the department.

(Student, luckily, likes to be challenged and has already forgiven me. But it’s a bit odd, to be expecting to be calmly, coolly teaching and suddenly find myself all passionate. Left me a bit frazzled.)

I went to the cafe and the cashier had just noticed the woman before me had left her ATM card. I had just seen the same woman crossing the street—she had two kids in a double stroller—so I ran after her and gave it back. She wasn’t moving very fast.

And, I was only at that cafe because my thesis student gave me a giftcard for it. It’s Pay it Forward, in action!

I am really slow about changing incompletes to real grades. Because, you know, to grade an essay that is substantially late, I have to go back, reread some of the course materials, check the essay against other student essays to ensure that I am assessing it by the same standards, etc, etc. And once it’s been a month or so, this doesn’t really get harder, so I just keep putting it off. Who wants to do all that? Especially when maybe I am waiting for a second incomplete from the same class, and I sure don’t want to do it twice!

Anyhow, the easy way:

Since I grade by numbers, I can look at how many points the student has accumulated. Then sort out how many they need to earn an A, how many to earn an A-, how many to earn a B+, and so forth. This took me about 5 minutes in Excel.

Okay, so now the question is not, “what grade does this essay deserve?”, but “if the essay is at least a 70, change the incomplete to a B. If the essay is at least an 89, change the incomplete to a B+.” Well, that I can do off the top of my head—no rereading or comparing necessary.

I once made a student wait for ages, not realizing all he needed me to do was change the Incomplete to Pass. Which I barely had to read his essay to do. And yet, I still didn’t realize I was making it much harder than it needed to be.

one pernicious legacy of the social justice movements of the 1960s and 1970s is the notion that the opposite of invidious hierarchy is the equality of similarity

I have an unusual first name. It’s not only unusual, but misleading—it’s not pronounced the way it is spelled (to most Americans) and it doesn’t signify female (to quite a lot of the world). There are other Americans out there with the same first name, and my middle and last names are quite common, but nevertheless, there is only one of me on the internet. For all of these reasons, I prefer not to use my real name online, and professionally, I often use my middle name to signal gender.

Anyhow, let me tell you.

Scenario #1
I send in a conference pre-registration. The people sorting it look at my name, and think “wow, that’s a weird name.” Which is fine. But then, instead of thinking, “hey, learn something new every day”, they apparently think “boy, this educated, literate, professor must not know how to fill out a simple form, even though every other professor got it right. He put the name in backward. Well, we’ll fix that for him.”

I arrive at the conference. “Sorry, no Laughters registered.” I sigh. “Look under Prone?”

Yep, there it is.

Not an isolated incident.

Scenario #2
It’s really fascinating to watch this happen. I hand over ID, or a check, or something, with all three names, which I often use, as noted above. People will look at the name, look at the first name—and I can see the wheels turning—and think to themselves “well, that can’t be a name, even though it’s in the right place and where a name would be and there’s nothing else it can be”, look up at me, and say “To?”.

NO.

Again, multiple times.

Scenario #3
This was a new one on me. Just came up recently. The tech people had to set me up with a special account for reading applications electronically. All they were given was my first and last name. So they looked at the first name, said, “well, that can’t be a name,” and fucking changed it. Just dropped a letter to make it into something they recognized as a word.

What drives people to think they know my name better than I do? American privilege? Generic cultural privilege? Hell if I know, but I am tired of it.

I’ve turned in my letter of resignation. Funny, it doesn’t really feel any different.

I have had a series of interviews individually with each member of my department, as well as with other people around campus who I felt had an interest in my development as a member of the university community. That was a wee bit tiring.

I am letting the news hit the grapevine—whenever someone asks about my book, or when I come up for tenure, or anything like that, I tell the truth, happily and with a smile on my face, no matter how well I know them or don’t. My book is going great—I’m cannibalizing my favorite parts for articles, stepping off the tenure track, and switching to university administration. I am openly chatting about who they might hire to replace me—the spousal candidate? explore a new and exciting field?

I am now a non-voting but talking member of the tenure-related faculty in my department (I kinda suspect this is technically illegal and unenforceable, but I really don’t care—I’m happy to voluntarily abstain. We don’t actually vote very often anyhow, just talk). I am not planning on talking any less (and I talk a lot in faculty meetings), but I am trying to switch my tone from making strong statements to asking questions and highlighting things that need to be considered. I am a bit confused about when I should be saying “we” and when “you”, but I think I’m handling it okay.

I am still going to meetings because I am using, with the support of my chair and assistant chair, my position as a faculty member without a big research expectation to assist the department in getting a lot of things done: working on the desperately needed website redesign; working on a student advising handbook; working with our diversity efforts; etc. I have the time to do this work at the necessary level of detail, and the knowledge to represent the faculty perspective and see how these individual projects fit into the overall structure of the department. After this year, I will be on a terminal contract, but will continue to do this sort of service, which will also give me some necessary experience to be applying for university administration jobs.

Also, I care about the department, and I want to see these things done right, dammit. I want to leave the department with something to show for my time here, even if it wasn’t the product I anticipated when I arrived in 2004.

I have complained before about geneaology, but this NYT article on Michelle Obama’s roots strikes me as a really lovely piece showing off the best of what family history can be.

Even if the “ooh, white ancestor!” tone is really fucking annoying to anyone who knows the least bit about American history and blackness in the western hemisphere.

I’m late, of course, but for intelligent comments about Polanski, visit Victorianitas, among others.

However, in a random google inspired by Polanski, I came across this webpage from lawyers specifically positioning themselves as defenders of young men accused of statutory rape. In the Texas A&M region, home to some fifty thousand college students.

Now, I recognize that these lawyers are trying to win defense clients, and I assume especially trying to appeal to parents who may be paying the bills. But I think some of the underlying assumptions are really interesting to see laid out in marketing copy.

Aggressive defense for college students
…They look for the motive behind the accusation — an upset parent, pregnancy, or guilt — and strive to have the charges dropped….

Bedrock assumption that it’s not really rape.

Protecting clients from the assumption of guilt
…They[the public] often assume the alleged “rapist” knew what he or she was doing and do not take into consideration outside influences, like drugs or alcohol or even consent.

Having a hard time seeing how that doesn’t include the suggestion “well, you can’t blame him for things he did while drunk.”