Writing Maternity

rbo wednesday

• I've read and responded two four of the nine thesis drafts.  They're all coming in at 70+ pages, so this is not small.  The bad news is that I really have to finish them by the end of the day on Friday, and I have four hours of meetings tomorrow.
• I've made three people quite happy by calling to tell them that they're finalists for a good job.  It's nice to be on this side of the academic job market.
• I've just sent out 52 (yep) invitations to students to apply to work as Writing Center tutors.  Surprisingly enough, precisely 50% are male and 50% are female. I'm curious to see what the return rate by gender is.  Bet it ain't 50/50.
• Tricksy has what might be her first serious verb ("come!") and what I'm quite certain is her first three-word phrase ("I got it!" or, in Tricksese, "Igollih," with the "l" well-swallowed and preferably said multiple times in conjunction, thus: igollihigollihigollihIGOLLIH!)  (Parents sometimes take a while to clue in.)

And, with that, it's time for bed.

thesis watch 2008

(updated at 8:38 PM, PST) (and again at 10:12 PM) (the last one came in at 6:30 Tuesday morning, but this means that we're good -- they'll all finish, at least.  whew.)

As the conductor of the departmental thesis seminar this year, it largely falls to me to set and police the deadlines before The deadline next Friday.  So at the beginning of the semester I told them that they needed to give me a complete draft by March 24th at the latest.

There are nine students writing theses this year.  (We started the year with 12, but there was a bit of attrition.  Students can complete the major and graduate without departmental honors without writing a thesis.)

As of now, I have drafts from 5 8.  I'm confident that I'll see solid(ish) drafts by the end of the day from 2 more.  The last 2 have me worried. One of the two that came in this evening was one of the two that I was worried about -- the other was pretty certain to come in when and as it did.  Two are still out-standing.  The only one left is -- oh, dear! -- the one I've been most worried about for some time.  The student's advisor has been telling em quite directly for weeks that it was time to panic, and at this point I'm just hoping that em pulls off something em doesn't feel ashamed about by the final deadline .... I do think that em'll manage to finish, but I'm not even completely certain about that ...

honesty

On Tuesday evening, while G was playing tennis, Squiss and I had a fairly serious conversation that included two unexpected breakthrough.  Talking to Ms. Montessori about it on Thursday morning, I learned a bit more that makes it all make sense.

It all started with a very, very small act of disobedience.  We were moving toward getting ready for bed, and it was a good bit past the normal time for doing so.  Squiss wanted to look at one of the two boxes of egg-coloring stuff that we'd bought the previous Sunday, and I said that she could, very quickly.  Right after she finished, she asked if she could look at the other one; I said no, that we needed to go and get ready for bed.

I turned my back for about a second, putting one of Tricksy's toys away.  As I turned back around, Squiss was hurriedly restoring a drawing to the second egg kit.

"Squiss!"  I said.  And then, a bit more gently, "what did you just do?"

She refused to tell me, looking a bit embarrassed and guilty and stubborn.  And while the actual act of disobedience wasn't a big deal, the refusal to admit it felt more problematic to me, and worth pursuing.  So we talked for a long time, as I tried to get her to see that when she did something we'd told her not to do, it was really important to admit it.  I didn't make much progress.

So I told her a (fairly long and completely true) story, about how when I was 9 or 10, I'd snuck into my parents' bedroom and tried on my mother's pearl necklace.  Unable to undo the clasp, I broke the necklace.  I told my mother what happened, and her first words were, "Well, I guess I'm glad you told me."  No punishment, no scolding, nothing -- because I'd told her what happened, rather than waiting for it to be discovered, lying about it, etc.

Squiss got really caught up in the story.  "And was Naama angry with you?" she asked worriedly at one point.  We worked through it pretty thoroughly, but she still wouldn't talk about her own (much smaller) act of rebellion.  She was fairly upset at this point, though, and much of the conversation was taking place in a snuggle on my lap.  I can't remember what the catalyst was, but at one point, she burst out, in tears, with: "Mama, sometimes I don't want to do what you and Papa tell me!"

At this point I started just being proud.  It struck me both as incredibly brave -- talk about speaking truth to power -- and incredibly self-aware for someone not yet five.  And I explained that often when we tell her not to do things it's because they're dangerous -- and I tried to make the distinction between the incident of the evening and such dangerous things.  I also explained that I wasn't angry so much about the incident itself, but that I was a tiny bit angry about her refusal to tell me about it.

This provoked another interesting revelation, also it tears: "But I don't like it when anyone is even a tiny bit angry at me!"

I've noticed this kind of almost hyper-sensitivity to having us seem angry with her before, and haven't quite known what to do with it.  That night, I launched into an explanation of how inalienable our love is -- even when we're angry.  The completely excellent books by Barbara Joosse -- Mama, Do You Love Me? and Papa, Do You Love Me? -- helped me out here, because they gave me a known narrative to draw on:

--What if I put salmon in your parka, ermine in your mittens, and lemmings in your mukluks?
--Then I would be angry, but still, I would love you.

--What if I threw water at our lamp?
--Then I would be very angry, but still, I would love you.

What I learned in talking over the incident with Ms. Montessori a few days later (and I should mention here that one of the many things I love about that school is how easy I find it to talk over such things with the teachers, and how responsive and thoughtful they are), is that not only is this kind of prevarication utterly normal for Squiss's age (I'd been pretty sure of that), but also that they've been seeing a good bit of it in a bunch of the kids lately.  (So they're going to talk to them all about it in small groups over the course of the next few weeks.)  And -- this I didn't know -- apparently in Squiss's group of friends there's some really high stakes language that comes out around compliance and anger: "if you don't do it my way I won't be your friend," etc.

That makes the intensity of her concern about anger make a bit more sense -- and also makes me feel a bit less personally anxious about it.  (I know that I can't control the playground dynamics; all I can do is try to help her build the skills to handle them.)  When Squiss first burst out with it, I'd felt a bit worried -- was there something in the way G and I were expressing anger or frustration or discipline that felt as though it threatened to take love away?  God, I hope not.

I don't have any real follow-up to this; we'll have to wait and see.  We're in the thick of a grandparental visit now, so normal habits and patterns have fallen a bit by the wayside ...

this would be G's daughter

So I'm home from the Big Scary Thing, and I think that by and large I comported myself reasonably well.  I look relatively young, so I'm used to people being somewhat surprised that I have the position I do.  This was one of the first times, however, when I think that that surprise was warranted.  As I said, I was a good 15 years younger than the next youngest person in the group.  I'm not sure that this is either here or there, but I once the adrenalin kicks in (and, evidemment, once the BST is over), I kind of enjoy exceeding expectations because they were a trifle low.  But I'm also just glad that I didn't, say, trip over my own shoes too many times.

Last night -- with G and then with me, too, on the phone -- Squiss was agitating to go to her school's "Parents' Night Out."  You know the drill -- a couple of teachers provide at-school babysitting, and it ends up being a bit of a sleepover.  It's a bit of a fundraiser for the school  Squiss hasn't ever gone before.  G was reluctant, as was I, given that it would be my first night back.  So Squiss and I talked about it last night:

dr: So Papa says that you want to go to Parents' Night Out tomorrow night?
S: Yes!  It will be so much fun.  Miss Teacher will give me dinner, and we'll watch movies, and she's going to make popcorn ...
dr:  Well, that's fine, sweetie, but it would make me kind of sad, because it will be my first night back.
S:  I'll give you a hug before I go!

(Two minutes later she was telling me how much she missed me during this two-and-a-half-day absence, sounding close to tears.)

So we left it that we would decide this evening, and her mind didn't change.  It didn't change when I picked her up at school.  It didn't change when we talked about it at home.  It didn't change when it came time for G to take her.  ("Mama!  I told you I'd give you a hug!")  It was that last piece that surprised me.  As I kid, I might have gotten completely enamored of such a thing and then just had to back out at the last second when separation actually loomed.  G has always been more of a extrovert and less of a homebody than me, and I'm thinkin' that his genes won out on this one.

wavering

So I got tapped last fall to participate in a Big Scary Thing.  Being tapped was both an honor and a pain in the neck (as honors that bring more work so often are), and I'm now in the midst of it.  One minute I feel completely in over my head and the next I feel perfectly competent and okay, if aware of the fact that I'm the youngest person participating in the Big Scary Thing by about 20 years.

The thing is, I was asked to participate because of writing program stuff, and when I'm just called upon to opine about that, it's all good.  It's when I'm asked to opine about some of the other stuff involved that I get all squirrelly and feel as though my comparative youth and inexperience broadcast themselves all over the country.

Worst thing is, while we're working on/participating in Big Scary Thing, we spend all day in meetings and then need to write Major Important Reports in the evenings.  Which means no one orders wine with dinner!

make your sacrifices

So, earlier today meg and I decided that we needed to figure out which Greek deity was in charge of things technological, because clearly it was time to start sacrificing incredibly huge herdbeasts of various kinds.  G and discussed the matter briefly over dinner, before referring it to the in-house expert.

Squiss considered the question carefully.  She then immediately pointed out that, when she thinks of Hera and Persephone, she thinks of them as *queens* of things, not *gods.*  (Of the gods of Olympus and the Underworld, respectively.)  So her first instinct was to think that one of them should be the god(dess) of computers and technology.  Reasoning further, she decided that Hera should be goddess of fairy princesses: because they have powers, and Hera likes power.  (That's what she offers to Paris, after all.)

That left Persephone as the goddess of computers and technology, and queen of the underworld.  She then went over to the fireplace ("where we sing Christmas carols") to say her prayer to Persephone to please keep all the family computers safe and working.  She reported that Persephone heard her, since gods and goddesses can hear you, even if you whisper, and even if you're very far away from Greece or Olympus.

G and I had been more inclined toward Hermes than Persephone, in our own meditations on the subject.  The trickster god, the god of thieves and travelers -- a crosser of boundaries, writ large -- strikes me as a good fit in this day and age.  But I'm more than happy to make my obeisances to both.  Persephone is a more generous and merciful personality than Hermes, and so I like having her there to temper his sense of humor.

(On that note, I'm currently writing this from my fully functioning laptop, connected to the home wifi.  The highlight of the entire 6 hours I've spent with various tech support people at Apple and Verizon in the last two days was, without question, the moment when today's second Apple tech started to direct me to find System Preferences.  Then he interrupted himself: "but I bet you know where that is, don't you?")

(Thank you, oh generous and merciful ones.)

throw money at the education problem

I've said for ages that we really ought to try simply and genuinely throwing pots and pots of money at public education in this country.  While there are some specific situations that challenge this -- and, yes, there are many things we need to do and think about in addition to throwing money at the problem -- I am curious to see what happens when, for example, we pay public school teachers a really good salary. (from Tenured Radical)

random bullets of cuteness

• Tricksy and the Wiggle have a new naptime routine, apparently. Lying on their mats, separated by a low, toodler-height bookshelf, they call "Triiiiiicksy" and "Wiiiiiiigle" back and forth.  As I said to Wild Duck after she told me the story, at least it seems to be working as a lullaby rather than the reverse!
• About two-thirds of the way through dinner, Tricksy tends to get fed up with sitting anywhere but on a parental lap.  We stave her off until one of us is essentially finished eating, but then let her climb on board, since it gives us a bit more time to sit and chat.  The other night, while sitting on my lap, she began to agitate for some dried cranberries from the salad.  (Actually, she was agitating for the frisee, which she doesn't actually eat, so the dried cranberries were G's substitution.)  As G put a small pile on my placemat within her reach, I exclaimed, "Ooh, la la!"  "OOH lala" she echoed.  It's now become a call and response, not unlike her (equally adorable) "Oh nooo!" whenever she drops something.
• Under the general category of "other people's little sisters are SO much fun," it seems that Squiss has taken Gemstone's sister, Smiley, under her wing.  Smiley had a rough transition into Montessori a couple of months ago, but now greets us in the morning ready and waiting to start following Squiss around.  To her credit -- and doubtless because this isn't *her* sister -- Squiss tends to immediately enlist Smiley in some kind of project.  Smiley's also pretty enamored of Tricksy, exclaiming "look at the baby!" whenever she sees her.  (The irony of that is that while Smiley is a good year and a half older than Tricksy, she weighs about the same amount.)
• In a serious supermama moment last night, I deflected both girls' irritability into actually helping with dinner.  We set up a couple of (very large) dishtowels on the floor and then had them rip the kate and chard into small pieces and put those pieces into the bowl of the salad spinner.  The stems went into a different container, to be thrown out. I showed Squiss what to do, and then asked her to let Tricksy helped. They did the entire two bunches, with Squiss gently instructing Tricksy how to do it, reminding her not to put the stems with the leaves, and so on.  G and I told her outright not to tell Tricksy she was doing it wrong, but to help her do it properly, and she rose to the occasion magnificently.
• Tricksy's current favorite book is Where the Wild Things Are. She woke up this morning asking for it, and then was outraged when I wouldn't let her sit and look at it rather than get dressed. Unsurprisingly, given her fondness for Truck, she goes through the book pointing Max out on each page.  Rock star, indeed.
   

geekery

One thing about having your primary (work) computer stolen is that it potentially inspires a complete revision of how your organize your computing life.*  Rather than have my institution replace my stolen laptop with another one, I opted to have them buy me an iMac and bought myself a Macbook.  I figured that I'd migrate everything from the iMac to the Macbook, use .Mac to sync iCal and the like (because when you use iCal and your computer is stolen, you lose every appointment and deadlines, too**), and then, in addition to routine back-ups to the school server and a whole variety of other things and places, I'd have two -- two! -- almost identical repositories.

That was the plan.  I still like this plan.  But it's still merely a plan.

The iMac arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I'm quite loving it.  The big screen is great, the keyboard is great, etc.  The Macbook arrived on Monday, and this is where my problems have arisen.  Feeling all clever, I hooked the two up with my FireWire cable and started migrating.  The migration seemed to go smoothly, and I thought that life was great.  Then, when I took the Macbook home at the end of the day and went to start it up and get going, I discovered a wrinkle: it seems incapable of logging me in if it isn't using the iMac as a target hard drive.

(Can I point out that this renders the two computer project, not to mention the laptop project, utterly useful?  I don't need two computers sitting on my desk at the office; I need one computer there and one at home and at conferences and so on.  Rrr.)

It's now three days later.  I've re-installed Leopard twice, thinking that I'd just wipe everything out and start over.  No deal: we always come back to the same problem.  At 9:00 this morning, I finally called Apple.  After two hours on the phone and multiple approaches to the problem, the product specialist (I've forgotten his name) walked me through the migration and seemed to think that I was peachy.  Foolishly, I let him off the phone at that point, because once I restarted I had precisely -- precisely -- the same problem.  I'm now back on the phone with them, and we seem to be trying a new set of approaches, eerily similar to the first.

* Combine this with having your daily computer BAG stolen and you have a recipe for a fairly radical work-life organization system overhaul.  The bag replacement process is almost happily complete.

** So, yeah, to address that problem I used some birthday money form my mother that I hadn't yet spent to buy an iPod Touch.  I'm liking it even more than I anticipated -- and I haven't had any setup problems there.

Update at 12:59: I just got off the phone with Jim -- another product supervisor -- and we seem to have fixed things!  (furious knocking-on-wood noises)  In my own defense, what I thought had happened had, in fact, happened, even though I didn't have the language to explain what it seemed to be.  So perhaps I'm not quite as much of an idiot as I was feeling all along.  Still isn't clear how it happened, though.

nostalgia

Squiss was sick today and so had to stay home.  When I emailed two students to cancel a meeting, I got the following separate responses:

A speedy recovery to your daughter! In a backwards kind of way, that news makes me a little nostalgic for the days when my mom would stay home from work to take care of me... but still, being sick is no fun.

I hope your daughter gets better soon! It makes me nostalgic for the days when being sick actually meant getting a break from work, but all the same it's still no fun.

I can identify with them.  There's nothing quite like getting sick when it means that someone takes the time to simply care for you -- not to mention when it doesn't simply mean that you'll face an even larger than usual pile of stuff to deal with.  But I'm not sure that Squiss could identify.  Although she isn't feeling crummy enough to really hate life, she's been marking the day by observations about what she thinks her friends at school are doing.