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July 31, 2005
Just another day in copyright hell
I find myself urging friends to license their online work with Creative Commons. Bit by bit, I'm going back to old online docs of mine and removing copyright notice (if I even put it there in the first place) and replacing it with the CC license that now (finally, after a long spell of coding klutziness) appears in the sidebar here. I tried to get into the habit of copyrighting online stuff after a colleague and I put up in public domain a bunch of instructional stuff that we'd written for a textbook that we never published—and then found it published in someone else's textbook.
But I hate copyright, and now the CC license works within copyright law and offers valuable improvements on it. (Their licensing agreement is here.)
And why do I hate copyright? Here's just one example, from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, 29 July 2005 ("Whose Work Is It Anyway?" by Scott Carlson):
Like many other scholars across the country, Joseph Siry might have broken the law to illustrate an article he wrote for an academic journal -- by including an illustration without obtaining permission to do so from its copyright holder.Mr. Siry, who is usually meticulous about clearing copyrights, says he did his best to get permission for the illustration -- a sketch of a building, drawn by a collaboration of architects at several firms, that had influenced a Frank Lloyd Wright design some 50 years ago.
But Mr. Siry, a professor of art history at Wesleyan University, hit a series of dead ends: The architecture firms involved were out of business, and their onetime principals could not be found. The rendering had appeared in Life magazine, but staff members there told him that the magazine did not own the images. Nor did Life's archives have any record of people connected to the design.
With no apparent owner to approve its publication, the image was stuck in copyright limbo, a prime example of what legal experts call an "orphan work." Mr. Siry made a difficult decision: He cited the little information he had about the design and used it in his article anyway, despite the risk of being sued for infringement if an architect turned up later with a legal claim to it. He was assured by the academic journal, he says, "that this risk was minimal." Still, he expresses discomfort over the choice he made.
Many scholars, archivists, and librarians have stories like Mr. Siry's. Orphan works have led to complications not only in publishing but also in digitizing projects, preservation efforts, and the creation of works like film and video documentaries.
This blog entry comes to you, incidentally, during the consumption of raspberries, banana, and cereal on the last day of July in the country and on the grid. But there's always August raspberries, and there's always July 2006. . . .
Posted by senioritis at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
July 30, 2005
The Perils of Writing
The trouble with writing the webwriting and multimedia writing chapters for the handbook is that you learn too much. If you're me, that is. If I were Derek or Brooke or George or Collin or Aleshia or Madeline—shall I go on?—I'd just be writing what I already know. But alas, I am none of those people. I am instead a tech-head wannabe, so these chapters are taking me forever, because I'm learning so much and unable to restrain myself from applying it to my own stuff. Like for example, I figured out why the Creative Commons license notice hadn't been showing up in the sidebar here. Fixed. And that's just the tip o' the iceberg, as it were. Don't expect technological feats from me, but on the other hand, I'm not quite as ignorant as I was a week ago.
Posted by senioritis at 04:59 PM | Comments (4)
July 29, 2005
Summertime
BP has made a righteous CD that is entirely performances of George Gershwin's "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess:
1. Janis Joplin
2. Dizzy Gillespie & Mongo Santamaria
3. Miles Davis
4. Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald
5. June McMechen (1951 opera)
6. June McMechen (1951 opera)
7. Camilla Williams (1951 opera)
8. Betty Roche (1956 Bethlehem)
9. Betty Roche (1956 Bethlehem)
10. Betty Roche (1956 Bethlehem)
11. Betty Lane (1977 Houston Opera)
12. Betty Lane (1977 Houston Opera)
13. Clamma Dale (1977 Houston Opera)
And what a pleasure it is to listen to.
Posted by senioritis at 10:21 AM | Comments (4)
July 28, 2005
Culinary conjugation
I can, you can, he she it cans. He cans. Green and yellow beans. Bushels of 'em. He's put it off till the heat broke (it's 11 a.m. and 65° right now), which means our fridge has been packed with plastic bags o' beans. And now, forsooth, the canning begins. Meanwhile, I do what I always do:
I write, you write, he she it writes.
Posted by senioritis at 11:03 AM | Comments (1)
July 27, 2005
Autodiet
Wonder if they'd deliver to Earlville?
Posted by senioritis at 09:33 AM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2005
"sans l'ombre pesante"
So Vino is going to Liberty Seguros, where he will be lead rider, out of the heavy shadow of Kloden and Ullrich. Meanwhile, Discovery will have Hincapie (HINCAPIE?), Savoldelli, or Popo as lead rider. Yeah, good luck with that. Savoldelli or Popo, maybe in a coupla years. Hincapie, maybe in another lifetime. I guess I just don't know enough about competitive cycling to know why Johann passed on the Vino opportunity. I mean, Basso's going to win it next, unless he falls off the mountainside, but who else is going to be on the podium? Vino, that's who. And Vino was available and is now going to Liberty Seguros, fer cat's sakes.
Posted by senioritis at 08:06 AM | Comments (0)
July morning, in the country and on the grid
- Wake up. Sit up. Stretch hamstrings.
- Go around the house turning off fans and closing windows. It's going to be 90° today.
- Open a can of the Good Stuff for the cats (including Freddie) who are frantically rubbing your legs.
- Start a pot of coffee: 6 cups of water; 1 scoop of the Real Stuff; 3 scoops of Starbucks Decaf.
- Take a bowl outside and fill it halfway with raspberries. Today's the last day when there will be more black raspberries than red. But there are still lots of red raspberries in the future.
- Come back inside, set the bowl on the counter, and allow time for any critters (that the daddy longlegs didn't get) to crawl out of the bowl. Daddy Longlegs must've had a good breakfast; there are no critters this a.m.
- Clean up the kitchen for BP, who today will start the job of canning 5 bushels (so far; lots more to harvest) of beans.
- Pour a couple tablespoons of Grape Nuts in a bowl; slice a banana on top; pour the raspberries over that; top it off with a thin layer of Cheerios; pour in milk.
- Take the coffee & cereal upstairs.
- Turn on iTunes. 5055 songs on random rotation, starting with Andante ma non tante from Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op 22. Next comes Lou Reed's "Sick of You." Hey, this works for me.
- Blog whilst breakfasting.
- Hunker down and work on Chapter 12.
Posted by senioritis at 07:34 AM | Comments (1)
July 25, 2005
Mission accomplished
Today, Day 55, Freddie got his first petting. He was asleep on his pillow behind me, and I picked up his Barbie boot and began rubbing his cheek with it. And in a few seconds it was my hand rather than the boot rubbing. And then I was just scratching his neck and stroking his cheek, and he was loving it. Neither one of us could believe it.
What, you might be asking, is Fred's Barbie boot? It's a Barbie cat toy, given to our cats by their friend HBH, a woman with a delicious sense of humor. It's a very sturdy little cardboard high-heeled denim-covered boot, with an equally sturdy white feather at the top. All this is attached to a pink elastic string. Our other cats haven't been interested in the Barbie boot (you never know which toys any given cat or dog will or will not like), but the Barbie boot (along with the weasel that was a gift from SJ: a long brown clump of feathers at the end of a string attached to a stick) are Fred's faves. (The weasel is also Luigi's favorite. Yet neither Teakettle nor Ruth has any interest in the weasel; Teakettle likes ordinary string with a knot in the end, and Ruth likes furry mice with feathery tails and rattles in their bellies.)
Thus endeth the Saga of Fred's Socialization. He's no longer feral: he's a housecat who has toys, gets petted, and is developing a cute little bulge in his brown tiger tummy. And we love him as dearly as we do Teakettle, Ruth, and Luigi.
Posted by senioritis at 10:22 AM | Comments (6)
July 24, 2005
Just what the world needs
Another celebrity politician, one whose public statements over the years have indicated what might most generously be called "conservative" gender politics. Please, Lance, find a different hobby for your retirement years.
Posted by senioritis at 12:43 PM | Comments (2)
July 23, 2005
Maxine Hairston
Back in the mid-80s, when WPA was an informal summer gathering of about 50 people, I got to know Maxine Hairston. She was incredibly kind and friendly to a brand-new PhD who was muddling along in an untenured WPA job. I will never forget an afternoon sitting at a picnic table with Maxine, Lynn Bloom, and Win Horner, as they discussed the options that were before me in my new job. Folks, that's mentoring. Afterwards, whenever Maxine saw me, she paused to find out how things were going. She had very definite opinions about my choices and argued them in detail, but she never pressed them upon me. As the years passed and Maxine and I pursued different political paths in comp/rhet, I fell out of touch with her, but not because I ceased to appreciate her. She was a generous, dedicated member of the profession.
Posted by senioritis at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
Cycling, doping, and line-scabbing
The NYT has two cycling stories that I appreciate. One forecasts the future of cycling interest and coverage in the US after LA's impending retirement. It answers what for me has been a burning question: Will OLN continue to provide coverage? Yes. But the NYT hints that this coverage may constrict, following the path of OLN's coverage of other races, such as the Giro. Well, okay. As long as we don't return to the Pre-OLN Bad Old Days of cycling coverage, when the Tour was broadcast for a half hour a day by I-think-it-was ABC: You got a half-hour show each day that consisted of about 10 minutes of actual film, presented in MTV-style flashes and interspersed with 20 minutes' worth of commercials.
The second story is about Richard Virenque, whose passion for the sport I have always admired. I find myself taking a deep breath before writing that, because Virenque is a figure central in the doping scandals of the 1990s. Virenque doped; he was caught doping; he swore he didn't dope; and then he confessed. Oog. Distasteful. I find sports doping scary and repulsive, but I don't actually have a position on Virenque re doping, because I really don't think I (or anyone else outside of pro cycling in the 90s) knows what the culture was.
What do I like about Virenque? The guy was a fierce, smart competitor, and year after year he won the polka-dot jersey for being the best mountainclimber in the Tour. (He retired last year and is now an announcer for Eurosport.) In his public persona, at least, he seemed to be somewhat humble; in contrast to Robbie McEwen this year, I never saw Virenque butting other riders or beating his chest when he won a stage. Several years ago I heard Lance refer to him as a line-scabber. I then watched the mountain stages carefully, and sure enough, Virenque's technique was to draft lead riders, letting them do the work while he rode in their slipstreams without taking a turn at the front. Then in the final stretch he'd leap ahead, well-rested, and win the stage.
Well, okay. I've watched a lot of riders do that this year, too. Oscar Pereiro was pissed at Hincapie for doing it to him for the Stage 15 win, but then Pereiro himself did it to Cadel Evans the next day. So I begin to think that line-scabbing is a cycling accusation something akin to the plagiarism tag in public discourse; it can be a trope for other grudges.
Posted by senioritis at 07:55 AM | Comments (2)
July 22, 2005
Just gotta pass this one along
Letterman did a funny list last year that I unfortunately didn't keep. Here's his update:
Top Ten Signs Lance Armstrong Is Getting Cocky
10. Goodbye Gatorade, hello Colt 45
9. For next two stages will be riding a unicycle
8. Is only giving 109%
7. Shouts, "Which one of you French bastards want my autograph?"
6. Yesterday rode twenty miles out of his way looking for whores
5. Already put the yellow championship jersey for auction on eBay
4. Lets fans ride on the handlebars
3. During stage 18, took in the noon showing of "Wedding Crashers"
2. On alternate days, substitutes his fat brother Dennis Armstrong
1. Took detour to nail Jude Law's nanny
[Via Tour de France blog]
Posted by senioritis at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)
Vocabulary building
I'm leafing through my unabridged American Heritage, looking for a technical definition of sans serif (a term which, by the way, I will never remember to pronounce as if it rhymed with sheriff; instead, I always erroneously put the accent on the second syllable), and I spy the word shittimwood in the running head for p. 1608. "Shittimwood?" I think with delight, and I quickly page back to see what it means. And alas, it's a religious term ("the wood of the shittah, used to make the ark of the Hebrew tabernacle"), which means I am deprived of making all the infantile jokes that I would otherwise have been framing.
{sigh} Back to boning up on my printing vocabulary.
Posted by senioritis at 09:27 AM | Comments (1)
A Freddiepurr
I've now heard one.
While I was on vacation, BP heard Freddie purr, while they were playing. Now I've heard it: while I was fixing feline breakfast this morning, Fred began rubbing my legs (ever so lightly) and purring. That's a first for Fred-instigated contact, as well as the first time I've heard his purr.
Posted by senioritis at 08:05 AM | Comments (1)
July 20, 2005
Calcific tendonitis
Typically in people over 30-40. Check. Typically in people with diabetes. Check. (Well, I'm borderline diabetic, but whatever.)
I was worried that it might be an injury to the rotator cuffs (I have it in both shoulders), but the orthopedist I saw today (one of those specialists who's so detached from his patients that when he introduced himself and I reached out to shake his hand, it took him several seconds to figure out what I was doing, and then several more seconds to free his hand and actually shake mine) assures me that I just have calcific tendonitis that will probably go away on its own. Which is good, 'cause it's painful. I can't reach behind myself (like to scratch my back!), and I can't sleep on my shoulder.
So yeah, I'll go get the PT, and I'll do the exercises. And I'll have this fine but usually harmless thing to bitch about. Check.
And I'll have had the fun of watching those online videos (scroll down to the bottom of the linked page) of what happens when they do actually have to do surgery. It involves puncturing the calcium deposits, and then the calcium squirts out of them. Kewl.
Posted by senioritis at 10:25 PM | Comments (2)
When is a deal done?
A deal is done when everybody has signed the contract and you have your copy in your hands (or your safe deposit box). As a perennial naif, I have to remind myself of this from time to time. Alexandre Vinokourov sure has just received his own personal reminder. Prior to the Tour, his switch to the Discovery team was rumored to be a done deal, and Vino himself said that he'd either stay with T-Mobile or go to Discovery. And since he was so much on the outs with Ullrich (and since T-Mobile seems unwilling to formulate something resembling a team plan for a little event like the Tour de France), I was certainly one who thought the deal was done.
But Vino hasn't ridden all that well in this year's Tour, and guess what? No Discovery contract.
Posted by senioritis at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2005
Australian women's national cycling team
Having been hit by a car driven by an incompetent old person, I know how vulnerable you are when you're on a bike. The publisher of Cycling News puts it this way:
Every cyclist has all-too-often had their brushes with death; the cars and trucks that have swerved or braked way too close, approached too quickly from behind, as we ride along, looking slightly above and thinking, "he's going to see me and go around". The fact I'm writing this means they have, for me at least.
So this kind of news fills me with rage and sorrow.
Rest in peace, Amy Gillett.
Posted by senioritis at 08:14 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2005
Back to business
Delivered Brother to the airport today. Vacation over.
Best meal of the vacation: Duke's in Harrisburg PA. Trendy little bistro overlooking the Susquehanna. We dined on the deck and ate good sandwiches.
Most exciting moment: When Greatnephew 1 sliced his finger open on the edge of a "safe" dartboard. Six stitches, courtesy of the ER doctor in Washington County, Maryland.
Most horrific moment: Discovering that there were innumerable tightly embedded spiderwebs under all the lawn chairs. Two hours before a picnic for 50 people.
Most reassuring moment: When Son told me how much he likes his new position and how optimistic he is about his future in it.
Best moment: The entire thing. Brother and I visited with the entire family: Son, Daughter-in-Law, Niece 1, Nephew-in-Law, Grandnephew 1, Niece 2, Grandnephew 2, Niece 3. I came home smiling.
Posted by senioritis at 09:52 PM | Comments (3)
July 12, 2005
The Chronicles of Plagiarizing Administrators
A commenter on one of my earlier posts lists former president Eugene Tobin's plagiarism (and the ensuing fallout) as one of the scandals from which Hamilton College alumni must rescue their institution.
When the dean at UMKC decided to plagiarize, he had the good taste to go to top-notch sources. Tobin plagiarized from Amazon reader reviews, whereas this guy went to Cornel West.
Swofford, Ben. "Recent UMKC plagiarism scandal highlights issue of academic dishonesty." The Current [University of Missouri-St. Louis] 11 July 2004.
Posted by senioritis at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)
Dershowitz
More sources:
Howard, Jennifer. "U. of California Press to Publish Book That Alan Dershowitz Has Criticized as Anti-Semitic." Chronicle of Higher Education 11 July 2005.
Dershowitz, Alan. Letter to the Editor. Chronicle of Higher Education 11 July 2005.
Posted by senioritis at 07:54 AM | Comments (0)
Aerial bombardment
The cats are getting along remarkably well. Fred is a little pushy when I crack open a fresh can of cat food, and Ruth is still trying to herd him around the house. But it's going well. Luigi, who we thought would persecute Fred, is instead afraid of him.
Until recently. She's beginning to get comfortable around him, which for Luigi means she's preparing to take him on. And it's clear that a plan is forming. She has decided to become a Luigibomb; she wants to drop her 18 pounds on his 8 pounds from the greatest height possible. Feline Shock and Awe, as it were. Luigi is fixin to squish Fred; it's just a matter of time before she musters the courage to seize her opportunity.
Posted by senioritis at 07:20 AM | Comments (1)
July 11, 2005
Day 41
Fred slept in our bedroom last night—first in a basket in the window, then on the covers that had drifted onto the floor at the foot of the bed.
He also now feels very comfortable about sniffing a finger or hand that's held out to him.
And when I'm at my desk, he's on a big pillow on the floor about 3 feet away from me. He's either sleeping, or he's waiting for somebody to come play with him.
We are madly in love with him. This is the best summer ever, in part because of the delight of taming this sweet little feral. Every day we see small progress.
Posted by senioritis at 08:20 AM | Comments (1)
July 10, 2005
Cruise-o-matic
I know lots of you folks out there are genuinely annoyed by Tom Cruise's latest antics. I know, I know. But still, it's funny as all hell, and these guys get that.
Via Metafilter (natch)
Posted by senioritis at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
Vacation week
This week my brother arrives to spend his vacation with me. I can't wait. I admire and adore him. The men in my life—my partner, my brother, and my son—are all just fun to be with. So I get to spend the coming week with my brother, and we're planning to go down to Maryland to visit with our nieces. (BP is staying here, minding the garden and the cats. I want to wish him a lot of luck with Freddie, who spends all his time in my study, demanding attention.) On Sunday we'll have lunch with my son in Harrisburg. (He couldn't get time off this week, alas.) And then the following week it'll be back to the grind for moi.
Posted by senioritis at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2005
Ritter essay
I love reading fresh, sound scholarship on authorship, especially on student authorship. When I started working on the topic in the mid-80s, there wasn't anything to speak of. The scanty publications were mostly procedural: what to do with plagiarists, whether to kill 'em or just maim 'em. Now, however, there's a body of scholarship that can soon collectively claim the adjective "substantial."
Ritter's essay brings an insistence on looking at how students themselves represent their own authorship. She doesn't link her contemporary research to the historical work conducted by Sue Carter Simmons, but that conjunction would be worth pondering. She coins a potentially very useful term, whole-text plagiarism (606). And she interprets whole-text plagiarism as the result of students' seeing themselves more as consumers than as authors. For Ritter, this choice can be swayed by teachers' engaging students in an understanding and appreciation of textual ethics. I'm never comfortable with ethical discourse, and Ritter finds some slippage in my own treatment of that topic (607). I agree with her that current endeavors such as the Turnitin solution are ineffective. Certainly an emphasis on academic values is a good idea.
I think that perhaps even more effective is an emphasis on the rewards of learning—the learning that comes from doing one's own work. And of course pedagogy has to actually enable that learning, not just espouse it. Am I too idealistic in thinking that's possible?
But what's not yet a part of the rhetorical scholarship on authorship is study of the effects of various efforts. Neither honor codes, Turnitin, Ritter, nor I have yet demonstrated what happens when our recommendations are put to work.
Ritter, Kelly. "The Economics of Authorship: Online Paper Mills, Student Writers, and First-Year Composition." College Composition and Communication 56:4 (June 2005): 601-631.
Simmons, Sue Carter. "Competing Notions of Authorship: A Historical Look at Students and Textbooks on Plagiarism and Cheating." Perspectives on Plagiarism and Intellectual Property in a Postmodern World. Ed. Lise Buranen and Alice M. Roy. Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1999. 41-54.
Posted by senioritis at 10:21 PM | Comments (1)
First day in the mountains
"We really tested his legs, and we saw that he is in pretty good form, but that his team is not," Vinokourov told reporters, according to The Associated Press. "Even though this is hard to judge in a medium mountain, it's good for morale. It's a good sign."A good sign, that is, if you're a T-Mobile fan. If, however, you're a Discovery team fan, you're more than a little nonplussed by the collapse of the team today. Lance was out there alone, holding off the attacks. Tomorrow's stage ends with a Category 1 climb, and the team had better be there. Big George may have been there for the first climb today, but he and every other Discovery rider had been dropped by the finish.
Meanwhile, I do my own version of hills—hills that would register as "slight inclines" on Tour flat stages. I'm doing slightly tougher "hills" each day but sensitive to the fact that I can't do real hills right now: with all the weight I'm hauling, I would ruin my knees. (I am, inevitably, reminded of that wonderful NYT pic of the old woman and the cyclists.) So, inspired by Atabey and other friends and family (my nephew-in-law has lost 50 pounds on Atkins!), I'm (gulp) setting off to diet. Mountain stages of Becky's Private Tour de Central New York are just about my favorite activity in the world, and if I have to diet to do them again, then diet I shall. And if it's hard to lose weight at my age and metabolism, I'll just have to be tough (she said, resolutely).
The guys on the Tour have been getting rained on, and so have I. Unlike them, I can cut my ride short on accounta rain: I did only 13 miles today instead of 16.
The OLN broadcast of tomorrow's stage starts at 6:30 a.m. here on the right coast. I'll be glued to my tube.
Posted by senioritis at 08:27 PM | Comments (0)
Preventing the accusation of plagiarism
Dershowitz has a whole new approach: it's not that he's making sure he doesn't plagiarize; he's making sure nobody calls him on it.
Posted by senioritis at 06:42 AM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2005
Campus politics
- Churchill files a complaint against himself.
- Via RFP: Hamilton College continues its debate about whether free speech will be sponsored or even tolerated on its campus. The administration is winning by cutting the Kirkland Project's funding. Meanwhile, just down the road from Hamilton College, Colgate's right-wing version of Hamilton's leftist Kirkland Project is thriving.
Posted by senioritis at 07:05 AM | Comments (2)
July 07, 2005
Another kosmic Q
So, how weird is it that on the first three visits to your new chiropractor, they're playing Pachelbel's Canon in D on continuous loop?
7/8 update: Uh-oh. Today, no Pachelbel. Today, a CD of late 50s/early 60s movie themes, like "Al Di La" from Rome Adventure. Ohhhhhhhhh
He's a really great chiropractor. I keep reminding myself. Even though his fiancee wears PINK nail polish and either plays strange music or plays good music on continuous loop and doesn't seem to notice. (I'm just jealous about the pink, dontcha know. I had to give up pink when my hair went orange.)
Posted by senioritis at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2005
Chinese names in bibliographic entries
I'm powerfully annoyed when I can't figure out which Chinese name is the family name. Why does it matter? Because in a bibliographic entry, you have to put a comma after the family name. And if I were Chinese and some Anglo schmuck put a comma after the given name, I'd be something ranging from disgusted to irked to contemptuous.
So every time I'm hung up, I write to JB, who patiently re-explains the system to me. This time he gave me a hot tip that I don't want to forget:
"If a person has a two-syllable name and a one-syllable name together, the one-syllable name is the family name." Of course, he also says that if both names are one syllable, it's a guessing game. But at least for those with one two-syllable name and one one-syllable name, I now have a very useful rule of thumb.
Molto grazie, J.
Posted by senioritis at 09:45 PM | Comments (2)
Steve on stealing
Steve Earle teaches a class on songwriting, textual collaboration, and textual ethics:
He says he's blatant about stealing and that he thinks that that's okay (morally) as long as you tell people where it came from. The line between plagiarism and folk music is your intent, i.e., whether you respect the material and are making art or you are just trying to make money.
Via Crooked Timber.
Posted by senioritis at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2005
And now for something completely different
Having finished drafting & revisions on another section of the handbook, it's time for me to take care of a long-overdue project: getting out the prospectus for an edited volume that a publisher is interested in and that many colleagues have already finished their submissions to. I don't know how I get myself into these time-management jams. If it's not a death in the family, it's a major surgery or a big car wreck. I keep committing myself to projects with the assumption that no disasters will occur in my life, but I've had quite a run of that very item.
So now I've roped off space for getting this prospectus out—following my usual writing pattern:
- Prewriting. This can be a few days but is usually a few years. I dump stuff in files politely known as my commonplace book. And I suppose that's exactly what these files are, because I usually have little trouble retrieving and making sense of my prewriting.
- Avoidance. Having marked today as the first day of working on the prospectus, I've spent the entire day doing everything else. I've given myself a peel-off facial; I've pulled some weeds in the garden; I've done some laundry; gone cycling; watched the Tour; tinkered with iTunes. You name it, I've done it. Anything but write.
- Outlining. I use the outlining function in Word, which enables me to move things around and really think through the logic of my nascent argument. After dinner this evening I started that task. Once I've outlined, I can write like crazy.
- Drafting. I'll start fleshing out the outline, drawing stuff from my commonplace book and my brain (yeah, I do have one of those, too).
- Reviewing. The draft either has to rest awhile, or somebody else has to read it. In this case, I have a luckless coeditor whom I can outrun.
- Revising. Piece o' cake. Once I'm really plugged into audience, I can revise like a house afire.
Posted by senioritis at 09:10 PM | Comments (4)
July 04, 2005
But it's all relative
Humbling perspective: these days I'm riding at an average speed of 12-13 mph. On steep downhills I get up to 30-40 mph.
Right now on a flat stage the Tour riders are cruising along at 31 mph.
Posted by senioritis at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2005
Remedy
I already knew that when you get a really awful song (such as the Brady Bunch theme) stuck in your head, you need to put the Ramone's "I Wanna Be Sedated" on the stereo. It'll kick out any pesky earworm.
And today I learned what to do when a C- garage band is playing a back-yard party about 5 houses down from you, doing a really dismal job with some numbers from the Doors and the Dead: you put Madama Butterfly on your iTunes while you continue to write. Puccini will distract you from a really poor version of "Peace Frog," even when the garage band has a half dozen drunks howling encouragement.
Posted by senioritis at 09:43 PM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2005
Let the games begin
All set. I'm plugged into OLN's pre-race show, perched in the enormous barcolounger-type chair that BP bought for me while I was recovering from my recent surgeries. (Now it's just an indecently comfortable chair for watching TV in. You don't sit on this chair; you sit in it.) It's a cool (!) summer day: windows open, breezes blowing. I've got my laptop here, with the IM turned on so that I don't get so wrapped up in the race conclusion that I fluff my 1:00 conference with AJ. I'm sorting through my crate of student writing samples for the handbook. Life doesn't get any better than this. Well, it could be a little bit better: I could have declined to eat that undercooked, overspiced chili last night. Oh. My. Word.
Posted by senioritis at 10:41 AM | Comments (1)
July 01, 2005
Friday cat blogging
To commemorate Fred's one-month anniversary as an indoor cat, I give you the Teakettle and Fred show:
Posted by senioritis at 04:36 PM | Comments (2)
Just what the world needed
Some of SU's security people now have peace officer status. If you click the appropriate links at this site, you'll find that this theoretically authorizes them to carry firearms.
Anybody want to put down money on whether they indeed will?
Posted by senioritis at 04:00 PM | Comments (0)
Ode to snap peas
Twenty-five years ago, BP and I were in grad school in Morgantown, West Virginia. Living in Morgantown in the summer is like living in a greenhouse; it's a gardener's paradise. I remember planting a Big Boy tomato right outside the kitchen door: by July that baby was taller than I and bearing fist-sized, juicy, sweet tomatoes. Ah, the halcyon gardening days of yore. Here in upstate NY, if you're brave enough to plant tomatoes, you get to harvest the first ones just a couple of weeks before the first frost. It's a race.
We were gardeners even in grad school. Gardening was a great way to escape the terrors of humanities PhDs. We lived in a student slum called Sunnyside; if you've heard of the outrageous furniture-burning outdoor parties that can follow a good WVU football game—yep, that was our neighborhood. We rented the downstairs of a house that had a little back yard. Well, "back yard" was a euphemism: it was a nightmare of weeds and trash—trash that included everything and a kitchen sink. We found part of a toilet out there.
Because yes, we worked for a year to clear that yard. And then we planted it. We grew everything under the sun, we ate like royalty, and our stress level was as low as it can get when you are a harried, wretched grad student.
Among my favorite grad-school gardening memories is J and the snap pea fence. At the far edge of our back yard we erected a chickenwire fence and grew snap peas on it. And J, a little boy then, would stand at the pea fence, picking and eating snap peas and singing. He was just about as happy as a kid gets. And BP and I would watch him and smile, just about as happy as grownups get.
Yesterday BP and I stood at the chickenwire fence that keeps the deer out of our melon patch in upstate NY. The snap peas are ripe, and as we stood there picking and snacking, we considered whether we should sing a song in J's honor. But we couldn't figure out what the song should be. Meanwhile, J has just started a new job so will probably miss the snap peas this year, cuz he lives four hours away. Time passes.
Posted by senioritis at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)
Power breakfast
Frozen yogurt bars.
16 oz fruited yogurt
1 c fresh or frozen fruit, cut up
2/3 c instant nonfat dry milk
2 T honey
2 C Grape-Nuts
Place yogurt, fruit, dry milk, and honey in blender; blend until smooth. Fold in 1-1/2 c of cereal. Pour into 8" sq pan. Sprinkle with remaining cereal, pressing down gently. Freeze 4 hr or overnight; cut into 8 bars. If desired, wrap bars individually in foil and store in freezer.
Posted by senioritis at 09:48 AM | Comments (1)