May 02, 2007

Daddy's little girl

Posted by Nakia at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)

The Pope Family (in blue!)

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April 26, 2007

Good ideas are better than speed

I should be home right now, napping. Eleanor decided her "wake and lively time" (i.e alternately breaking your heart by looking at you with her blue-brown eyes and crying her lungs out) would be from 2:30 AM to 6:00 AM. Sarah and I handed her off, but Sarah did most of the heavy lifting, since a lot of that waking time was hunger. Eleanor is also doing this thing where she wants to eat a little bit every hour or so for 2-3 hours at a time.

So we didn't get much sleep. My plan was to get into the office by 10, grade, and be out by 2:00 so I could go home and nap. Then, I would grade some more tonight. But I got to talking about my on-line course and a few other things with a colleague and, lo and behold, a lot of good ideas about the course and some concurrent research were generated. It's pretty exciting, which is why I am still here at 3:40.

Posted by Nakia at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)

April 25, 2007

A Good Wednesday

Exams have begun here at Winthrop. I know it's early, but we did begin a week before most other universities. I am glad the semester is at it's end. It's been a hard one for a variety of reasons -- most of them baby related. Eleanor's development, birth, and now infancy has certainly distracted me from focusing 100% on school. I am glad I have the summer to spend with her and Sarah, while adjusting to having her around in terms of focusing on and managing my workload.

My students don't have a traditional final. Instead, they present their group projects on the ideal school. I'm looking forward to hearing what they come up with. I'm also turning this assignment into a research project for myself. More on that later.

Sarah's parents left yesterday after being aroud for a week. They were a huge help -- doing laundry, making dinner, running errands. I want to thank them for all they did and was glad they were able to spend time with their new granddaughter.

Now, it's a beautiful Wednesday afternoon. Bright sun, warm air, and a nice breeze. My wife is at home with our new daughter, who is doing great. She's gaining weight, trying to figure out how to hold her head up, and sleeping a lot (except from 4 --7 AM, when she wants to be entertained). It's a good day.

(Oh, and I know the comments are screwed up. My brother is on it, but he just bought a house so I am cutting him some slack).

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April 17, 2007

Eleanor at night

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April 16, 2007

Eleanor at home

We brought our daughter home on Friday. So far it's been a tiring, wonderful, amazing thing to have her with us.

Now, for example, it's 7:50 AM. I've been up since 6:30 or so, staying up after I helped get Eleanor to sleep. The past few nights, she's been active from about 3:30 until 6:30 or so. She'll cry for her feeding and Sarah and I will both get up. I'll get her ready, checking her diaper, while Sarah preps with the Boppy and gets herself comfortable. Sarah will start to feed her while I prep the forumula. I'll deliver that to Sarah and then lay back down. Eleanor inevitably falls asleep while feeding (she usually feeds for 20-30 minutes), so Sarah will have to work to wake her back up for the formula. The feeding formula with the syringe takes at least an hour. After that, Eleanor will usually want more to eat from Sarah, will often need another diaper change, and will then be awake for a bit. I am only semi-conscious or asleep during most of this time, but will try and wake up to help change her again or get her to sleep.

Yesterday, Eleanor stayed asleep until almost 9:00, giving her mother a good 3 hours of sleep. Today, unfortunately, I am going to have to wake them both up soon. Eleanor's first visit to the pediatrician is at 10:30. I am praying he'll say it will be okay to take her off the formula suppliments. That will make things much easier. I think he will; she's clearly no longer jaundiced and, if her *ahem* excreatory functions are any indication, she's getting plenty of food. So hopefully she'll have gained some good weight and we'll be able to avoid the two hour feedings that have taken up most of our time lately.

I'll be the first to admit it's hard, especially for a guy who likes and needs his sleep. It's hard on Sarah, who wants to take care of everything, including trying to assure that I get my sleep, and entertain anyone who comes to visit. But when Eleanor looks at us with those dark eyes (we still can't figure out the color, though they look kinda dark blue now) or grabs our finger, we'd have it no other way.

More pics soon. We've only taken about 6,000 since she came home.

Posted by Nakia at 07:50 AM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2007

Eleanor, Day 2

It's Eleanor, day 2, here at the hospital. Got a little more sleep last night, but one thing I've come to realize about hospitals is that they never leave you alone for more than an hour. Someone is always coming in and checking or emptying something.

Our doctor told us this morning (at 7 AM. He does is rounds at 7 AM. Who is coherent enough at 7 AM after sleeping with baby to understand medical directions?) that Eleanor had a pretty high bilirubin count and had lost a little more weight than he would have liked, so he told us to start suplimenting her breastfeeding with formula. Sarah was pretty bummed -- she's pretty dedicated to breastfeeding. I called the doctor after a little while to get some clarification. We just need to give her an extra ounce of formula after each feeding and we can give it with a syringe. After a couple of days, when she's older and both her and Sarah are used to feeding, she can probabll go back to breastfeeding only. So, it's some extra work for a couple of days, but no big deal. We should get to go home tomorrow.

Posted by Nakia at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2007

Another Eleanor pic

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The New Pope

Eleanor Rose Pope Born April 10th, 2007 at 10:39 PM. 7lbs, 5oz. 20 inches long.

And awesome.

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April 10, 2007

Labor beginnings

We're up after a decent nights sleep in the hospital. It would have been a good nights sleep, but the alarm kept going off on the fetal monitor. Nothing bad was happening, just the settings on the monitor were turned up too high, so it beeped every time BGP's heart rate dropped below 120. They finally adjusted it about 2:30 AM, so we got some good sleep after that.

They came it about 6:45 and hooked Sarah up to the pitosin drip. We saw the doctor a few minutes ago. Of course, the on call doctor today is the one doctor we never got to see during the pregnancy, but he seemed very nice. He checked Sarah out and said that we didn't need to get impatient, because it could be a long day. Sarah's having a few contractions now, but it's just the beginning.

Posted by Nakia at 08:17 AM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2007

At the hospital

Sarah and I are chilling out in Labor and Delivery room #1 at The Women's Center in Piedmont Medical Center in Rock Hill. Yes, they have internet. And, yes, I brought the laptop. Sarah's due date was Friday, but no baby then, so we went back to the doctor today. He told us that the fluid in Sarah's uterus was getting low, so we should probably get the baby on out of there. We checked into the hospital at about 7:30. They are about to give Sarah some medicine to help thin her cervix, then they'll start the pitocin tomorrow morning which will induce the labor. So, maybe this time tomorrow Baby Girl Pope will be here!

Posted by Nakia at 08:50 PM | Comments (0)

April 02, 2007

A family weekend

Sarah and I capped a weekend spent with family by hearing from the doctor this morning: no new family member this week. So, we're still waiting. If there has been no change by next Monday, we'll starting thinking about inducing.

Friday Sarah and I watched The Prestige, which was lots of fun. The movie looked cool, had an interesting structure, and Christian Bale was awesome, as usual. Someone needs to put him in a role where he can get noticed by the Academy. Plus any movie that has David Bowie as Tesla is good. Still I think I liked The Illusionist better, albeit only slightly.

Saturday we went into Charlotte to watch my cousin, Shanna, play in a vollyball tournament. Shanna is 14 and plays for a club team in Conway, which was competing in this giant tournament (over 100 teams on 18 courts) at the Charlotte Convention Center. Robert and his kids came as well; it was fun to watch and cheer Shanna on. Dad came into town in the afternoon, so we all cooked out over at Robert's house that evening. We watched some basketball in HD, too.

Sunday was breakfast with Dad, then church, then a quick trip to REI in Pineville. Instead of a daddy diaper bag, I bought a new day pack which will serve diaper and hiking duty. I needed a new one and this was a good reason to get one. We ate lunch at our favorite Mexican place (in Pineville), then chilled out at home for the rest of the day.

Posted by Nakia at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2007

Sarah at nine months

It's almost time!

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March 27, 2007

Happy Birthday!!

Big Happy Birthday to my brother, Andre!! Thanks for all you do and for being a great brother.

Posted by Nakia at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2007

BGP = Gymnast?

The version yesterday went pretty well. BGP turned over (yeah!) after some pushing and prodding from two doctors. It was odd to see them making dents in my wife's stomach, but Sarah seemed okay (they gave her some medicine beforehand) and BGP rolled on over. We had a bit of a scare when Sarah's blood pressure and BGP's heart rate dropped significantly, but they laid Sarah flat on her side and everything quickly returned to normal. We were in the hosptial until about 2:00 and spent the rest of the say resting at home -- we watched Babel.

While I know there are things we need to do at home still -- put all of BGP's clothes away, hang some stuff on her walls -- I am ready for her to come. I want to meet my daughter.

Posted by Nakia at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2007

Quick baby update

Well, BGP is not cooperating. She's been breach for two weeks, so Thursday we're headed to the hospital for an attempt at a version(sp?). Hopefully, that will go okay, she'll turn her head down, and we'll procede as planned. Sarah would like to avoid a c-section for obvious reasons, but the most important thing is that mother and baby are safe and healthy.

Posted by Nakia at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)

March 15, 2007

A Goal Has Been Achieved

In the process of writing my film paper, I have achieved a major personal and professional milestone:

I have managed to use Ferris Bueler's Day Off in an academic paper.

After the stuff I posted on Tuesday, I have a section of the paper that attempts to develop a pragmatist view on film. In doing so, I address three vital pragmatist concepts that need to be explained in order for that view to be understood -- educational experience, aesthetic experience, and culture. I don't discuss any one of them enough, but it's a good start to bring to the panel.

Ferris Bueler comes in when I discuss culture. One of the things I argue for is that film needs to be understood in two ways. One, is as a work of art. As a work, it does all those things we expect art to do, including provide new categories and vocabularies for understanding and interpreting our experience. This isn't terribly new or insightful, although seeing art as a function rather than a quality of an object is a different way of seeing art. Two is as a part of our cultural experience; we live in a culture where movies are part of a shared body of experiences. We all see movies. Many of us see the same moveis and talk about them. Many of us have seen the same sets of movies over and over, to the point where they become part of the way we communicate. I use Ferris Bueler's Day Off as an example of a film I've seen over and over, can recite almost by memory, and can reference casually in a way that others can pick up on and recite back. I think a failure of film theory and aesthetics that talk about film is the fact that it does not address the way in which films, as popular art, becomes and inescapable part of our cultural experience.

Posted by Nakia at 12:09 PM | Comments (2)

March 13, 2007

Spring Break and the film paper

Spring break is proving relaxing, fun, and productive. Our friends Laura and David are visiting, so we've been cooking with them, playing lots of dominoes, and showing them what Rock Hill and the surrounding area have to offer. We're about to head up to campus and take a Professor Pope led tour of Winthrop.

Speaking of Winthrop -- Go Eagles! Beat Notre Dame!

I've also been working on the film and philosophy of education paper. It's coming together pretty well. Here's what I've got so far (in rough, note-like form):

1. Introduction:
The visual and narrative elements of philosophy have been with the discipline since the beginning. See Plato's Cave. (Thanks to Winston). These narratives have been used to explicitly illustrate philosophical ideas in a different/more understandable way. Aesthetics has also been a part of philosophy since the beginning, which seeks to explore questions of art and, in so doing, asks what philosophical content is expressed by works of art. Film is a new and a self-conscious art. That is, it is an art that has consciously attempted to justifiy its status as art since its inception. In this attempt, a body of theory has developed about film that has evolved into its own discipline. Film theory has evolved as something distinct from philosophy or aesthetics (or philosophy of education).

2. What is the panel doing? (Heavily influenced by Carl Plantinga's "Film Theory and Aesthetics: Notes on a Schism")
We're not really engaging in film theory, at least as film theory has traditionally been understood. Contemporary film theory draws heavily upon continential thinkers (Lacan, Saussure) and their accompanying activities (psychoanalysis, semiotics, deconstruction). Our film analyses are not explicitly political. We are not approaching these films with a feminist, Marxist, or other political framework or analysis. Nor are our analyses "cultural" in the contemporary film theory sense of that word. For film threorists, then, our work at best, probably doesn't count. At worst, it engages in dangerous hegomonic practice, that marginalizes the important cultural content of film.
Nor is the panel really engaging in Anglo-American aesthietcs, as understood traditionally/contemporarily. In pedigree, we don't reference Danto or other contemporary aesthetic scholars (except Shusterman, actually). In activity, the typical aesthetic issues of beauty, representation, and the like are not explicitly considered.
The difference, I believe, between what this panel is up to and those two broad categories of scholarship is the explicit concern with the pedagogical content of film. This is expected, given our background, but it is an approach that situates us between these two sides of Plantinga's schism. It also puts our sort of analysis in what I will call a Deweyan aesthetic vein (except, no one really mentions Dewey).

3. A short explanation of the Deweyan aesthetic, it's relation to pedagogy, and film analysis in that vein.
Forthcoming

Posted by Nakia at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2007

Thought for the Day

The way we live our lives is a testament to those who have worked to help us achieve.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Posted by Nakia at 05:57 PM | Comments (2)

March 09, 2007

To Columbia and SAAP

It's the Friday before spring break. I'm in the office getting some things done. This afternoon, I am headed to Columbia to attend part of the annual meeting of the Society for Advancement of American Philosophy. It's a good organization, one I was involved in a bit while at Texas A&M in my Master's program. I had to reprioritize my professional organization membership once I moved over into education, but am still interested in the stuff that goes on at the conference. I hope to run into some old friends, as well as see John McDermott, my MA thesis director. I also have definite plans to get together and eat dinner with Eric Bredo, my dissertation chair. Some philosophy and fellowship this afternoon in Columbia. I am looking forward to it.

Posted by Nakia at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2007

Just an update

I haven't post much in the way of substantial personal stuff to the blog in the past couple of weeks. I've got lots going on at work and with getting ready for the arrival of BGP. I was sick last week -- from 9:00 PM Monday until 9:00 AM Wednesday I slept 24 hours. And, last weekend I had a full-fledged meltdown/freakout about my impending fatherhood that prompted a very large "discussion" between my wife and I that resulted in what I call,without hyperbole, a breakthrough and generally led to both of us feeling better about everything. There was just lots of unspoken stress and worry that needed to be put out there and dealt with. We did, and now we're better for it.

So, what am I up to now? Spring Break is next week, so I am trying to clear my desk as best as I can so I can have a couple of days off. Our College Station friends Laura and David are coming to visit; I'm looking forward to hanging out with them. Next weekend is the Philosophy of Education Society meeting in Atlanta. I am on a panel that's discussing philosophy of education and film.

My original contribution to the panel was going to be a discussion of the films Before Sunrise and Before Sunset in relation to Dewey's aesthetics. But a reviewer of our proposal asked "Why is this sort of thing even necessary? What are you trying to contribute?" and suggested our panel may be philosophically "light." I think those are good questions, so I have divereted my paper to trying to answer them. In order to do that, I have undertaken a crash course in film theory. Texts on the basics of film theory have occupied my reading time over the past few days (the No TV rule has helped me out here). Most of the film theory is rooted in semiotics, Marxism, and Lacanian physchoanalysis (and Continental philosophy more generally). Thus, it treats film as a medium that seeks to promote certain ideologies to the unwitting spectator. The job of film theory is to interpret and critique all that. I am not sold on all the film theory stuff for a variety of reasons which I am still struggling to articulate fully. In the meantime, I am trying to touch on the following questions in my presentation:

1. What does film (as text) offer that traditional philosphical texts don't? (One of the reviewer's questions was something like: "Why do I need to watch Before Sunrise to explore Dewey's aesethics? Why can't I just read Dewey?")
2. Is there a lens for the interpretation of film that isn't based on those vocabularies of film theory that is still critical and helpful? That is, is film always about ideology (and class, race, gender -- culture)?
3. Can film as text supply vocabularies for the interpretation of other texts and/or experience? (It's clear that film is a text that can be interpreted using a variety of existing vocabularies. That's what most film theory does; it critiques film using the vocabularies of cultural theory, semiotics, etc. I just wonder if the converse is tue, and if so, how).
4. What/how much/does pedagogy matter in all this? What are the pedagogical advantages of using film to explore philosophical or other academic vocabularies with students? What are the disadvantages?

These are the things I am thinking about on a Thursday morning before spring break.

Posted by Nakia at 09:23 AM | Comments (4)

March 07, 2007

Sarah at Eight Months

Only four weeks to go!

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February 25, 2007

Sarah at seven months

Eight month photo coming soon!

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Sarah at six months

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Sarah at 4 and a Half Months

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February 22, 2007

Lenten Promises

Lent started yesterday. I am giving up:

1. Fast Food
2. Television

The fast food thing is easily done. Well, it may be hard to do, but requires little planning on consideration on my part. I've fallen back into eating way too much crap after all but giving fast food up in Charlottesville. By my definition, fast food includes any place that has a drive through.

The TV thing is harder. Not only will it be hard to do, but I have had to build in some caveats. I can't avoid TV alltogether. If I go to a bar or something and the TV's are playing, I am not going to sit with my back to them (which is hard to do, because in most places they are situated to be seen from every angle). This caveat will also let me watch some of the NCAA tournament when it gets rolling. Second, I will still watch DVDs. Movies and shows on DVD are okay. The point of this promise is to stop me from just randomly watching crap because it's on TV.

Note that Sarah has not given up TV, so there will be a lot of me sitting in the bedroom reading -- which is okay by me. I've got two new books ready to go.

We're also trying to go to church every Sunday, contribute regularly to the offering there, and get to the gym at least three times per week. While I have been to the gym twice this week already, we missed Ash Wednesday service because of some last minute complications with a real estate deal Sarah's working on. Not a good start, but we'll get back on track.

Posted by Nakia at 04:21 PM | Comments (8)

February 05, 2007

Sarah at 3 months

A few folks have asked for photos of Sarah and the baby, so what follows are a series that show her over the past few months. I'll have ultrasound pics up soon.

Posted by Nakia at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)

February 03, 2007

All I need to be a good dad is a powerpoint presentation and a video.

(Warning. Lots of birthing talk to follow which may be disturbing to some younger viewers).

Seriously. Or at least I felt that way after our childbirth class today. Sorta. Okay, I am kidding. Except the class would have been a lot more useful if it would have had a powerpoint and they had shown the video first.

Sarah and I were at The Women's Center at 8:30, where are childbirth class was supposed to last until 1:30. It was taught by a very nice labor and delivery nurse who had apparently been doing this for over 30 years and was from Canada. At least that's the reason she gave for pronouncing "centimeter" something like "sontomater". We wrote our $40.00 check out to her, which I also thought was odd. Was she really even a nurse at the hospital? For all I know, she could have given the security guard at the desk $50 to use the conference room. Of course, we got certificates at the end, so that means everything is totally official.

Here's the deal. I will confess my ignorance and accompanying nervousness at being a parent. I feel good about it. I want it and am ready for my daughter to enter the world (aside from the fact that, if she came tomorrow she wouldn't have a place to sleep yet. Or we don't even have a seat to get her home from the hospital). But I know there are a lot of choices to be made about the labor and delivery process, not to mention afterward. What I need to help me make those choices are a fairly straightforward presentation of the medical facts involved and how the process usually works. What we got instead was some odd mantras -- "If it smells like pee, it's pee." -- a bunch of anecdotes, some useful information, and a hospital commercial.

There was useful information given. I learned stuff. Sarah and I practiced breathing (or she practiced breathing and I practiced counting and tapping her arm). We are going to work on a birth plan. But give me some visual aids! Don't just thow what seem to be important terms and points of decison making (the drugs available instead of an epidural, when we have to decide these things, when we need to call the doctor) between voicing subtle disdain for obstetricians, telling us why your hospital is better than the one in Pineville, and mentioning that you sneak your laboring mothers graham crackers.

Maybe I am hyper-critical because I am an educator, but just a bit more organzation in this presentation would have helped me out immensely. I have friends and family who can give me lots of stories about how their labor and delivery went. What I need from the hospital is . . . wait for it . . . medical facts.

I am also beginning to realize how poiltical this whole process is. It's like you are choosing sides in the childbirth war or something -- breast feeding, car seats, pain managment -- everyone's got a side.

At the end of everything, we watched a video which detailed the labor and delivery process, complete with footage of births. Sarah cringed a little (understandably so -- "That's gotta fit through where?!"), but to me, that was the highlight. Not only did it lay things out in a straightforward manner, but by showing the actual footage of women giving birth it helped me deal with part of my nervousness. It sounds dumb, I know, but I wasn't sure how I was going to handle the sheer physicality of the process. Would I be freaked out, even though it was my child and my wife? Yet I found the birth footage interesting and, in many cases, moving. It's just such an amazing thing. I can't wait for it to happen to us.

Actually, yes, I can wait nine more weeks. That's plenty of time, thank you. At least let me get a car seat and a crib.

Posted by Nakia at 07:37 PM | Comments (4)

January 02, 2007

Back to work

Ideally, I would have spent the past few weeks off engaging in reading and writing, perhaps getting ahead for the upcoming semester (which starts January 8th). Of course, little of that happened. I did finish The World is Flat and begin Shame of a Nation, both of which are related, albeit somewhat tangentally, to my scholarship and teaching. I guess Same of a Nation is more than tangential. Anway, I am officially back at work today (even if I am currently working from home). My modest goal for today is to completly redo my CV; my old one was a mess. Tomorrow, I'll get some work done on a grant application that's due in February. Thursday will be my day to revise my syllabi for this semester. Friday morning I meet with the student that's working with me on this grant proposal, then it's off to do something fun for our 5th anniversary. Then, back to the semester at hand on Monday.

I am teaching my normal three sections of 110 and the graduate social foundations course (EDUC 600) which is called Teaching in a Democracy. I really enjoyed that course last spring and am looking forward to teaching it again.

Posted by Nakia at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2006

Why We Were Looking For A New Car

Friday, December 22nd, Sarah and I were in a car accident. We were running errands in town, getting ready to head to Conway for Christmas. The last stop was my office, where I had kept Sarah's Christmas present. There's a light at the intersection my office sits on (Charlotte and Eden Terrace). We were turning left from Eden Terrace onto Charlotte. There were a bunch of cars turning left onto Eden Terrace, but the other direction (my right). Those cars were out in the intersection, so it was hard for me to see oncoming traffic. I thought it was clear, so I turned, but I was wrong. A car slammed into the passenger side of my Mazda, going 35 mph or so. It drove us back through the intersection onto the opposite curb; there was lots of sliding because it was wet.

Everyone was fine. The driver of the other car was okay. Her airbags deployed. I was just shaken up. Sarah's hip was bruised from her door bending inward and her shoulder was scratched from the seatbelt. Everyone involved was helpful and professional, if not nice. The other driver was as concerned about Sarah and I as she was her own car. The cops came, the tow trucks came, and everything was taken care of. I was charged with the accident.

After we got everything home, we decided to take Sarah to the hospital to get the baby checked out. Sarah had felt her moving around since the accident, but better safe than sorry. But when we went out to crank the Escape, it wouldn't start.

My cousin Robbie had picked us up from the accident and came back to get us to take us to the hospital. Big thanks to him. Sarah had talked to her doctor, who told her to go straight to Labor and Delivery where he was on call anyway. They admitted Sarah, strapped on a fetal monitor, and we hung out in the hospital for about five hours. It was a huge relief to hear baby girl Pope's heartbeat and to feel her kick against the monitor. The doctor checked Sarah out, they ran some blood tests, we ate dinner, and they let us out about 9:30 PM.

After Robbie took us home, he stayed around for a bit to make sure we were okay and help we with the Escape. We got it cranked, but it would only stay running as long as you gave it gas. As soon as you let your foot off that pedal, it would cut off. I vowed to take it to my mechanic in the morning, get it fixed, and get rid of it after Chirstmas. The accident was bad enough, but having your only working car not start when you have to take your wife to the hospital really made me upset and scared.

Saturday morning Robbie came over. We got the car started and he began to follow me to the mechanic. At stop signs, I would have to put it in neutral, keep my foot on the gas, then pop it back in drive when it was time to move. But about halfway to the garage, it started working fine again. I dropped it off at Palmetto Tire. They had done all the work on the Mazda since we moved here and I trusted them. They were always nice, fair, and didn't do work if it didn't need doing.

Later that afternoon, we stopped back by Palmetto Tire and they told me they couldn't find anything wrong. They hooked it up to the computer, looked at everything, and even drove it around. We concluded it was some bad gas and/or some piece of trash in the fuel system that temporarily clogged things up. The gas in it was from the Bel Air Exxon in Charlottesville. Damn you expensive gas and good sandwiches!!

So that's why we were looking for a new car. State Farm was certianly on top of things despite the holiday and they called me Wednesday, telling me the car was totalled. Everyone we have dealt with so far in this process has been nice and helpful. Even the trip to the DMV to get the title to the Mazda went smoothly, despite the crowd there yesterday morning.

Sarah and I have decided that the thing with the Escape was a freaky accident and we're going to stick it out with that car for awhile. Once school starts again, we will be on similar schedule and can share the car. We're taking the settlement from the Mazda, putting most of it in savings and using some to pay off some nagging credit card debt.

That's the saga. I am glad it's over. Most of all, I am glad and thankful no one was hurt in the whole thing. I am also really thankful for Robbie, who was a huge help. And I am also thankful for all the people who were just nice -- the people at State Farm, BB&T, the DMV, Palmetto Tire, and everyone else I interacted with in the process.

Posted by Nakia at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2006

Car Hunting

Due to recent events which I will detail later, Sarah and I are considering getting a new car. With the baby on the way, we're thinking family sedan -- something with some room and good safety features. We've narrowed it down to a Hyundai Sonata or a Toyota Camry. There is also a pretty good chance we won't get a new car at all right now. We've driven both. I think the Sonta rides a little better; it's quieter and has better acceleration. The Camry has a little better fit and finish, tighter steering, and two more airbags (it has knee airbags in the front!). The Sonata also has a better warranty, a bigger trunk, and lists for about $1500 less. Everyone knows what you get with the Camry, but the Sonata gets good marks from Edmunds and Consumer Reports says decent things about the newer models.

Sarah and I will reach a decision tonight, I think. If I HAD to get one right this minute, I'd probably go with the Hyundai. But like I said, there is a pretty good chance we won't get a new car right now at all.

Posted by Nakia at 05:02 PM | Comments (3)

Happy Holidays

A LOT has happened in the past week for Sarah and I, not all of it good. I'll get to that later (we're doing fine, so don't worry). But I realized I failed to wish everyone a good holiday season. So Happy New Year to everyone. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a great Hanukkah. And a good Kwanzaa, too.

Posted by Nakia at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2006

Another glimpse of parenting

I was given a vision of the teenage years on Sunday at Chili's, which was a little scary. But I'm also getting a glimpse into the toddler years as well, thanks to Claire. Sarah is back to being a nanny, at least part time, for my colleague Lisa's daughter. The past couple of days Claire has been coming to our house, so I get to spend a little time with her in the morning as I finish getting ready for work. Although she certainly prefers Sarah to me (and who wouldn't?), having the little 16 month old girl there in the morning actualyly makes it harder for me to leave -- and she's not even my daughter! She's sweet and loveable and supremely interesting, to the point where you just want to hang around and watch her get into things. Kids that age need a shirt that says -- "Be Careful -- Consciousness Being Formed" -- because that's what happening. And it's fun to watch.

Posted by Nakia at 10:34 AM | Comments (2)

December 10, 2006

A glimpse of the future?

Sarah and I like to eat at Chili's on Sunday night. We don't go there every Sunday, but probably hit the place once a month. It dates back to when we were looking for houses here and couldn't find anywhere to eat on a Sunday except Chilis; now it's a habit.

Tonight we were eating when four 12-14 year old girls were seated at the table behind us. They were made up and decked out, one with one of those fancy purses that are stupidly expensive but look as if my grandmother made it from the remainents of a quilt (I forget the name brand). The all proceded to order virgin strawberry daiquiri's (execept the "sophisticated" one who ordered a virgin pina colada). I overheard them asking "Virgin means 'without alcohol' right?" They then ordered from the kids menu, making sure each of their totals was under ten bucks. Dinner conversation was who liked who, who was ugly, and who didn't like who. They ended the evening by filling a fry basket with ketchup, barbeque sauce, and ranch dressing.

God was giving me a vision of my parenting future. I was more than a little afraid. I am not sure it's entirely fair that I, who had absolutely no clue about women whatsoever until my wonderful wife had the graciousness to stick it out with me and teach me a few things, am now tasked with raising a girl. I mean, is it acceptable to tell your teenage daughter "You can't be like that, because those type of girls didn't talk to me when I was in high school!"? Probably not.

Posted by Nakia at 08:01 PM | Comments (3)

December 08, 2006

The dreaded white space

That is what the blog has become lately , in some ways, just blank white space. Scary. Does it mean I am devoid of thoughts? Or perhaps uncaring, not wanting to let people know what has been going on? Maybe I have retreated like a turtle into his shell, not wanting to participate in the outside world. Or perhaps just intimidated by the white space, the blank void of creation, the virgin emptiness that begs to be filled. But with what? Words and Pictures. Those are easy. It's Meaning that's hard. Purpose. Is it all ego, casting oneself out into the void, expecting to make a difference, to leave a mark? You are not a special and unique snowflake.

More like mundanity. The Grind. Overwhelmed by commitments both present and imminent. Big Things Loom. Get It Together. Is it priorities -- A over B? Or perhaps a lack of them causes Everything Urgency then Shutdown and Withdrawl. There's that turtle again, back in his shell.

But peeking out. . .

Posted by Nakia at 06:56 PM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2006

It's A . . .

Sarah and I found out last week we're having a girl! In all the Thanksgiving business I didn't realize I hadn't posted it.

Yeah us!

Posted by Nakia at 02:42 PM | Comments (3)

November 21, 2006

I almost made it

Three weeks to go in the semester and I was all but counting on finishing things up without getting sick. The past two semesters I've got some cold/flu thing at some point and I was hoping to avoid it this semester. Just when it looked like I was going to make it, it hit me yesterday around lunch. You can feel it happening, the illness crawling over and in you, and are powerless to do anything about it. It's just a head cold, but it made my sleep miserable and is making it hard to grade this giant stack of research papers on my desk. So I am sucking on a Cold-Eze. dinking lots of water (I probably drank two liters yesterday), and taking ibuprofin. I just need to figure out how not to get sick in the first place.

Did see the new James Bond movie on Saturday with Dad and Sarah. Lots of fun -- the best Bond in a long time.

Posted by Nakia at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2006

Tenure

If Indiana Jones can't get tenure, then I am screwed.

Man, I love McSweeny's.

Posted by Nakia at 06:30 PM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2006

Dipping my toe in the waters of fatherhood

Our first year in Rock Hill, Sarah took care of a fellow professor's new daughter. Said professor's anniversary was this week, so Sarah and I agreed to take care of professor's kids last night while professor and husband went to the NIT preseason tournament in Charlotte. The kids are 15 months and seven years. Everyone around the office was joking it was a trial run for my immenent fatherhood.

And things went fine. I teach later on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I didn't get over to the house until 6:45 or so. By that time, Sarah had the kids fed. The seven year old helped Sarah give a bath to the 15 month old while I ate my dinner. The baby went to bed at 7:00; Sarah put her down while I got my butt kicked in NBA Live on the Playstation by the son. Then, Sarah and I helped him read a chaper from a Junie B. Jones book before he went to bed at 8:00.

Sarah and I then crashed out and watched TV in the bedroom (I now see the wisdom of having a bedroom TV). I dozed off at 9:30*, but got up and brushed my teeth and really "went to bed" about 10:15. The baby has been a little sick, so Sarah ended getting up twice in the night to clam her down/check on her coughing -- once at 11:00 or so and again at 4:15. We all got up by 6:30. Sarah got the kids fed while I showered and got ready for work. I fixed Sarah and I breakfast, then took the boy to school. I was at the office by 7:45.

I didn't sleep as well as I normally do, but all in all it was a good trial run.

*This is the second time this week I've fallen asleep before 10:00. I attribute it to all the sickness going around school and me needing the rest to fight it off.

Posted by Nakia at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2006

Another photo from our hike

Here's another one from yesterday's hike. I loved this tree.

Posted by Nakia at 05:25 PM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2006

Enjoy the silence

There are a few things I am concered about regarding my impeding fatherhood. Okay, there are a lot of things I am concerned about, but one in particular has been put into relief this week. I am a quiet guy, an introvert who enjoys space and peace and calm. I have this fear all that will go away come April and that will leave me a nervous wreck.

This week, Sarah and I are watching our cousin Robert's children while he and his wife Amy are on vacation. The kids are teenagers -- 16, 14, and 12 -- and great, great kids. They are very self-sufficient. They make their own breakfasts and do their own laundry. There is no real worry about any of them getting into trouble. But being in a house full of children has made me realize just how hard it is to find quiet. Someone is always watching TV, or two of them are teasing each other, or one of them is asking Sarah or me a question about something. Like I said, the Bryson kids are great kids, so this is not a compaint about them in particular, just an observation about the general din created by multiple children. That din will soon be in full effect in the Pope household, which gives me pause.

To be a healthy person and a good dad, I need to create some quiet space for myself and Sarah both before the baby (we could go away for a weekend, say), and after. Not sure how to create that space in the after, but I think it is important I do so.

Posted by Nakia at 09:32 AM | Comments (4)

November 04, 2006

Sarah and Mikayla

I am not turning this into a photoblog (yet, when our baby comes I make no promises), but this photo was too good not to share. Mikayla looks like her dad.

Posted by Nakia at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2006

The new niece!

While I am here in Spokane, Sarah is visiting Jen, Robert, and their new daughter Mikayla (I am not sure I spelled that right). Sarah sent me a photo with her phone:

Posted by Nakia at 07:06 PM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2006

Sarah's first listing

As most of you know, my wife Sarah is a realtor. We has cause to celebrate last week as she got her first listing! If anyone knows anyone who is looking for a house in Fort Mill, South Carolina, tell them to get in touch.

The listing can be seen here.

Posted by Nakia at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

October 16, 2006

A Big Announcement

No beating around the bush:

Sarah is pregnant! I'm going to be a father!

We've known for some time, of course, and have told a bunch of folks already. But last Tuesday I went with Sarah to her second doctor's appointment and heard the heartbeat. It made it all very concrete. We're very, very excited. Sarah's had a great pregnancy so far, with no morning sickness and only a little fatigue. She's been excercising and eating well; I'm very proud of her! The baby is due in April, so we'll spend the next few months enjoying the pregnancy and our last gasp of non-parenthood while preparing for our new arrivial.

We'll keep everyone posted via the blog, of course. Yeah us!

Posted by Nakia at 11:27 AM | Comments (6)

October 04, 2006

Baseball, ethics, and Lost

I'm about halfway finished with the book review that's due next week. It's on a text titled Ethics and the Foundations of Education, which argues for a postmodern, autobiographical approach to teaching ethics. There is some good stuff in there, but the approach frustrates me a little. The book makes some assumptions and is sloppy in places. More as I finish the review.

As I was at the gym yesterday, I caught the beginning of the Twins/A's game while on the eliptical. I love playoff baseball, even though the Red Sox tanked this year and the Yankees look poised to win it all. I am pulling for Detroit, but if they can't beat the Yankees I may have to hope the Dodgers win it all.

And Lost starts tonight. Whoo-Hoo!

Posted by Nakia at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)

October 02, 2006

Where I've been

I have seriously neglected the blog lately, to the extent folks have been leaving random comments under random posts just to communicate. This week I'm getting back on the ball. Here's what I've got going on:

SAPES conference in Durham this Friday and Saturday. I've already written the paper.

A book review due to a journal October 11th. Still reading the book!!

NNER in Cincinnati October 18th-21st. I'm collaborating with Lisa Johnson on a paper about technology, community, and democratic education. Paper is still in progress.

AESA in Spokane, WA November 1-5. This paper will be very similar to the one I'm working with Lisa on, but a little more related to the on-line course development I did last summer. I was hoping to do an alternative presentation, where I could show off the blog and some of the other development work I did, but got lumped into a traditional paper session. Most of this work is already done, I just have to complile it in traditional paper form. I still have to make my travel arrangements, though.

So I am really busy, but I'll keep on bloggin.

Posted by Nakia at 03:00 PM | Comments (2)

September 19, 2006

Apparently, I am Dr. Geek

I was just interviewed by a student for an article on Dungeons and Dragons that will run in next week's issue of the student paper -- The Johnsonian. Some of my student gamers are friends with a reporter, so she developed a story idea and they told her to come talk to me. It was a good interview, I thought. I talked about what role playing games were, the role of the game master, and did my best to counter the usual gamer stereotypes. I'm anxious to see the article.

Posted by Nakia at 09:58 AM | Comments (4)

September 08, 2006

We Do More Before 9 AM. . .

It's 7:23 AM. This has been my day thus far:

3:30 AM -- Wake up for no apparent reason. Try to go back to sleep.
4:00 AM -- Unable to go back to sleep because of too many thoughts in my head, get up to make a list of stuff I need to do or am thinking about ("open loops" in Getting Things Done parlance)
4:15 AM -- return to bed
4:30 AM -- Still unable to go back to sleep. Get up to do a couple of things on that list I just made. Send an email about gaming.
4:40 AM -- return to bed
5:00 AM -- Realize there is no way I am getting back to sleep. Decide to get up and start the day, with hopes of getting enough stuff done to take a nap this afternoon.
5:00 AM -- 5:45 AM -- Send more emails, balance checkbook. Get paper as it is being dropped off. Eat bowl of ceral while reading paper.
5:45 AM -- 6:30 AM Shower, get dressed, get stuff ready to take to the office. Realize that I am completely ready to go to work, as well as having accomplished a few minor things, by the time I am normally about to get out of bed.
6:45 AM -- Arrive at office.

Thus far, I've finished grading a set of exams, as well as averaging and entering them into the gradebook. I've got an 8:30 meeting. I wonder if I can accomplish enough by the time of that meeting to go home afterwards. I was pretty awake and energized after breakfast, but am starting to fade a bit. This would be coffee time, if I drank coffee. And it's still too early for a Coke. *Yawn*

Listening to: David Gray White Ladder

Posted by Nakia at 07:27 AM | Comments (5)

September 05, 2006

I Don't Ever Have This Problem

I like games -- all kinds of games. Board games, Role Playing Games, Card Games -- all kinds. For Christmas, Andre and Heidi gave us Scene It, a movie trivia game that comes with a DVD. We've played it a few times and have always had fun when we've done so.

The problem I don't have is ever seeing myself in one of those DVD clips. Wil Wheaton apparently, has this problem.

His blog is great, btw. He's a good writer and seems like a really cool guy.

Posted by Nakia at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)

August 31, 2006

Better Blogs Than Mine

A conversation with good friend and colleague Kurt Stemhagen today turned me on to The Wall -- a blog maintained by several other philosophers of education who comment on current educational policy.

That blog led me to Sherman Dorn's site. Dr. Dorn is a professor at the University of Central Florida has has a very well thought out, organized blog/website that's pretty thought-provoking.

Both of these sites make me feel bad about writing about Steve Perry.

I can do better.

Posted by Nakia at 02:58 PM | Comments (4)

August 22, 2006

Smooth -- Like the surface of the MOON!

I had this great entry planned for today about the rhythms of academic life, about how one is reborn every year in late August. I was going to carry this theme forward and use it to kick off the semester and reinvigorate the blog.

Then I got to school and realized the textbooks for my course had been messed up, which prompted an emergency rewrite of the syllabus on the day classes began. That consumed my morning.

Then Sarah and I went and bought a car on my lunch break. That ate up my mid-day.

Then I come back and find out that the textbook snafu was not my fault and new textbooks are being ordered, which makes my syllabus revisions from this morning optional at best and detrimental at worst. Too late to change things now, so I am using the new textbook I didn't really order. I think I like it better anyway.

Class starts in an hour. I am looking forward to it. Hopefully, nothing else will ex or im plode!

Posted by Nakia at 02:27 PM | Comments (4)

July 27, 2006

Sports Guy Question

I just got finished catching up with Bill Simmons on ESPN.com. Not literally, of course. I was catching up on the columns I've missed over the past month or so. I am a semi-regular reader of Simmons; I don't check his stuff every day, but I do binge and read 8-12 columns at a time when I think about checking his site. I even read the NBA draft columns, which make no sense to me whatsoever. Having caught up with The Sports Guy, I have three questions:

1. Is it possible to really be a columnest anymore, since everyone has a damnned blog and can do the same thing you are doing?

2. Is Bill Simmons just the Everyman white guy of my generation (steeped in pop-culture, loves sports, has trips to Vegas, rags on his friends) or have the white guys of my generation just adopted Simmons' style? It may just be a chicken or an egg situation, but this question bugs me.

3. Why don't my college friends and I have a weekend getaway? I blame Winston. Actually, I blame the fact that all of us went on to some sort of post-gradaute education and school and money kept us from going to Vegas or the mountains or wherever for guy time. We would all be free of that now, if Harper hadn't returned to law school. Dammit Harper! Or maybe there was guy time and I just didn't get invited. Wait a minute. . .

Posted by Nakia at 12:23 PM | Comments (3)

July 18, 2006

Did my eyes deceive me?

At lunch (McHales) I was watching Sportscenter while eating my teryaki chicken sandwich. The sound was off and I wasn't paying that much attention, but it look like David Ortiz STOLE A BASE in last night's game versus the Royals. Did this really happen? Why? The Sox only won by a run, so things looked pretty tight. And how bad does the Royals catcher feel that he gave up a stolen base to David "Best Clutch Hitter Ever but Slower than Your Grandma" Ortiz.

Posted by Nakia at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)

July 05, 2006

Ka-Boom

Sarah remarked yesterday that we weren't going to see any fireworks this year. The Rock Hill display was on Saturday and we certainly had no plans to drive into Charlotte for their big uptown fireworks show. We were home from the Bryson house by 7:30 or so, watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and were generally chilling out when loud explosions rocked our street. I peeked outside to see out neighbors shooting what seemed to be metric tons of colored high explosive into the sky.

Our negihbors are friendly folks who obviously had a lot of people visiting for the 4th. A camper was parked in their back ghbors were safe and careful; they even cleaned up everything when they were done. That's more than I can say for the rest yard and three or four cars were parked along the street. A crowd was gathered on their front lawn, while a couple of guys were in the center of our cul-de-sac lighting fuses and getting away. These were serious fireworks, rivaling the professional display sponsored by the ciry for the Come See Me festival back in April. Sarah and I sat in our camp chairs on the front porch and watched the show. It was pretty impressive, but I could not help but wonder and the general wisdom of selling such high powered fireworks to anyone and everyone. Is their another state (besides this great state of South Carolina) that let's people buy any and every type of pyrotechnic and rocket known to man. I would not have been surprised if our neighbors pulled out an honest-to-god mortar and started firing.

Our neiighbors were safe and careful; they even cleaned up everything when they were done. That's more than I can say for the rest of the people on our street. I drove though piles of Black Cat debris and over expended rockets on my way to work this morning. It's all further proof that I am getting old, as I complain about the noise and trash. Next I'll be spraying the neighborhood kids with my water hose and shouting "get off of my lawn!" I'm not quite there yet, as we did enjoy the show our nieghbors put on; we didn't even have to leave our porch!

Posted by Nakia at 09:02 AM | Comments (4)

June 30, 2006

Coco's Catch

Was anyone else watching the Red Sox/Mets game last night? Did anyone else see Coco Crisp's SPECTACULAR catch in the top of the 8th to end the inning and save one, maybe two runs? WOW.

Johnny Damon doesn't make that catch. I'm just sayin.

Posted by Nakia at 08:47 AM | Comments (4)

May 05, 2006

Don't Use Expedia. Ever.

Because my father reads this blog, I will refrain from launching the profanity-laced tirade that I wish to lauch against Expedia and their "travel services". I'll just say this: It's almost exactly 72 hours before we have to leave the house for the airport and our trip to Ireland. I do not have any plane tickets as of now.

This is a week-long saga at this point that involved me being on hold for three hours Wednesday along with phone calls to Expedia on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It involved outright lying on Expedia's part -- an "it's in the mail already" situation. I just (15 minutes ago) recieved notice that my tickets are being expressed mailed to me. This was when I was told yesterday that they were already in the mail and would arrive today. When Sarah and I express mailed the tickets back, we put them in the mail at 4:00 on Friday and they were delivered by noon on Saturday. I can only hope the same applies in reverse.

If I don't get the tickets this afternoon or tomorrow, I don't know what I am going to do.

So, do yourself a favor and tell all your friends. Don't use Expedia. Ever.

Posted by Nakia at 11:46 AM | Comments (2)

May 02, 2006

Walkin' (for your love)

Today, a fine late spring day, I parked my car at the free downtown parking lot and walked to Winthrop from there. It's a little over a mile and took me maybe 30 minutes. I basically walked straight up Oakland Ave.

It was great. The weather was perfect - not hot enough to really get sweaty, but warm enough so that it felt good in my short sleeves. The route was nice; Oakland Ave is treelined and flanked by old houses that are mostly law offices and churches. I got some needed exercise. Very pleasant.

I miss walking. I walked a lot in Charlottesville. I'd walk to the downtown trolley stop from our home on St. Clair and/or home from that stop almost everyday. When the weather was really nice or I wasn't in any hurry, I'd occassionally walk all the way home from the University (about 3 miles). Sarah and I could walk downtown from our house, which we did farily frequently.

My biggest complaint about our current home is that there is nowhere to walk. I can walk around the neighborhood, or around the adjacent neighborhood that connects to the country club, but I need somewhere to walk to -- I need a destination, even if it is just to the convience store to get a Coke. It's about six miles from our home to my office, which is pretty far (that's a couple of hours) and pretty dangerous along parts of the route (no sidewalks and a busy road).

I don't know what it is, but I love walking. I remember walking from my grandparent's house to a big park nearby with my grnadfather. I couldn't have been more than four, but I remember walking up there and walking back, sometimes along the railroad tracks. There is something about the pace, the speed, the methodical right-left rhythm. You see more, smell more. There's also something romantic about it, something old and timeless and spiritual. Keroac putting back boot to road, Whitman meandering the streets of Manhattan, Jesus, as they say, walked.

Not to draw any sacreligious comparisions. It's a nice May day and I walked a mile. Call me again in January, when it's windy and rainy and cold, and see how I'm doing. Call me when my feet are the only means I have of getting to work or school, when it's uphill both ways. Let's not over romanticize things, or forget that walking is the primary means of transport for most of the worlds population. For me, it's exercise and a bit of a luxury.

Still, I like it. And I am going to do it as much as I can. The downtown parking lot is free, the sidewalks are open, and the weather is nice. Get walking.

Posted by Nakia at 12:10 PM | Comments (1)

May 01, 2006

BackpackIt

In my constant quest to find new material to make my life easier, I stumbled across this site/product:

BackPack

It seems almost ideal for what I am looking for. Anyone tried it?

(Thanks to kiznit at CircvsMaximvs for posting about it).

Posted by Nakia at 12:40 PM | Comments (2)

April 29, 2006

Ireland Trip: Wrinkle One

File this under "I should have taken care of this two weeks ago".

I called Expedia yesterday to confirm things as well as check on our Boston -- Ireland connection. We only had an hour in Boston; I wondered if that was enough time to take care of the transfer. What I was really scared about was having to collect our baggage from USAirways and manually haul it up to Aer Lingus.

Expedia customer service has been nothing but great thus far. My call yesterday was no exception, other than the representative not explaining things particularly well without me asking lots of questions. She was very pleasant; she just needed some work on the "clear and concise explanation" part. Regardless, this is what I found out:

First, USAirways had slightly rescheduled our Charlotte-Boston flight, which would result in a later arrival. This late arrival gave us less than an hour to make our transfer. Given that an hour is the minimum transfer time at Boston Logan AND the fact that we would have to claim our bags and recheck them, something had to be done. The Expedia rep was going to check on things and call me back.

She ended up booking us on an earlier Charlotte-Boston flight. Because of this change and the fact that we had already been mailed paper tickets for our flights, we had to send the tickets back to Expedia and they would issue us new ones. This led to a frantic call on my part to Sarah, who met me at my office (I took a break from the student presentations that served as my final exam) to get the mailing info and then ran to the post office. She Express Mailed our tickets back to Expedia (who is in Atlanta). Expedia will then express mail us the new tickets upon receipt of our old ones.

Now I have no plane tickets to anywhere, which is a little scary. I am sure this will all work out, but having this major wrinkle only ten days before departure is stressful. I am glad I called at all, but I really should have taken care of this two weeks ago.

Posted by Nakia at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2006

Ireland Trip: The Plans

Sarah and I leave for Ireland in ten days. Wow! We've fgot a lot to do before then, as I finish the semester and Sarah takes her state real estate exam next week. But we're very excited about our trip and the plans are all finally coming together.

We're renting a car, driving around and staying at Bed and Breakfasts for most of the trip, with three nights in Dublin at the end. Thus we don't have a set intenerary, per se, although we do have some general plans. I'll post them here for comments. Maybe folks have suggestions for some not to be missed places or activities.

8 May -- we leave Charlotte in the afternoon (I still have to arrange some airport transportation) and fly to Boston. Then we take an overnight Aer Lingus flight to Shannon, then on to Dublin.

9 May -- We arrive Dublin at 7:30 in the morning and will go pick up our car. I've reserved us a room at the Grove House in Carlingford. Carlingford is only about an hour from the airport, but I know we'll be dead tired. We'll also be getting used to driving on the left, steering from the right, and shifting gears with our left hand. Look out, Irish motorists. We'll see stuff close by this day -- the Hill of Tara, the tombs at Newgrange, and some monastic ruins with high crosses near Carlingford. I'm sure we'll crash out after dinner, but we'll try to go to bed at a reasonable Irish hour to get rid of the jet lag. We'll also have to figure out a place to stay the next night, probably somewhere near Sligo.

10 May -- We're go to try and get up early and head into Northern Ireland, all the way up to the Giant's Causeway. (I say "all the way up" but it's maybe 90 miles. Living in the U.S., one's sense of distance is a little skewed, I think). Our original plans were to stay here for a day or so and take a trip into Belfast. I wanted to see some of the murals and learn more about the Troubles. But we now have a connection in Cork, so we're going to eliminate Belfast from the interary and head south. Depending on time, we may stop in Derry, but we'll end up somewhere in Sligo.

11 May -- I'd like to see Yeats' grave, which is right outside of Sligo. I'm not a huge Yeats guy, but "The Second Coming" is one of my favorite poems. I've started to read a bit of Yeats to prepare for the trip, and this is his part of the country. Not sure what else will do, but we'll continue south.

12 May -- Have no idea what this day has in store for us or where we'll end up. We both want to see the Cliffs of Moher (aka the "Cliffs of Insanity") and poke around Connemarra, so we may stay there or in Clare somewhere, or we may continue on to Cork.

13 May -- One of my gradaute students is good friends with Stephen Housden, the gutarist for the Little River Band. He and his wife live in Cork. They've said they's like to meet us and show us around a bit of we get down that way. Because Stephen is a musician, he often plays out around town, so this may be our chance to hear some "trad" -- or at least hang out with a rock star, which is pretty cool in and of itself.

14 May -- We certainly want to go to Mass somwhere. I'm looking forward to that. After church, we'll head back to Dublin. Blarney Castle is near Cork, so we may do the tourist thing and go kiss the stone. We have to return the car this day, so we'll do that then check into our hotel: the O'Callaghan Alexander. We used one of those package deals from Expedia to bundle our hotel and airfare together, so we got a good deal on this hotel, which looks very nice. (I love Expedia, btw).

15 - 16 May -- Two full days in Dublin. I want to see Trinity College and the Book of Kells. Sarah wants to see the Guinness Museum.. I'm sure we will not spend any time at all in the pubs of Temple Bar. Nope.

17 May -- Back to the U.S. Our flight leaves at 1:00 and we'll be back in Charlotte at about 9:00.

Very excited about this one!

Posted by Nakia at 10:07 AM | Comments (1)

April 18, 2006

Virgina = Big Brother?

I received a letter in the mail yesterday from the University of Virginia. This letter said my wages were going to be garnished because of a tax lien from the City of Charlottesville. There are several problems here:

1. I have not worked for UVA for almost a year.
2. I have not lived in Charlottesville for almost a year.
3. I have received no tax notice of any kind from the City of Charlottesville

As a result of this letter, I made several phone calls. I learned the following:

1. The City of Charlottesville and the DMV of Virginia still think I live in Charlottesville, despite the fact that I have a SC driver's license since June of 2005.
2. Because of #1, the city claims I owe $80 in personal property taxes.
3. Apparently, I was supposed to let the city and DMV know that I had moved.
4. They want me to pay my taxes anway and they will "refund me the difference when they receive verification that I no longer live in Virginia."

This sucks, because I now have to come up with $80 and trust the good city of Charlottesville will refund that money to me. I guess I could just send the verification and not the money, but I am worried about my credit rating.

The larger question is why do I have to let one state know I am leaving (other than to reduce hassles like this)? Does the state have any reason to know where I am living, other than I am NOT living in their state? Wasn't the fact that I turned in my VA driver's license to get my SC license enough?

Virginia seems to be the only state this anal. I moved from SC to Texas and from Texas to Virginia. Neither one of those states seemed to really care where I was going. I paid my state income taxes and they were happy. Well, Texas doesn't have state income taxes, but that's beside the point.

Come to think of it, when Sarah moved to Virginia, she filed a "partial year resident" return that first year. Virginia sent her a letter basicly saying "partial year resident, eh? Well, where did you live before that, huh?"

I guess it's just Virginia being vigilant against tax fruad, but give me a break.

Posted by Nakia at 11:18 AM | Comments (7)

March 27, 2006

Happy Birthday Andre

Just wanted to say Happy Birthday to my brother. Andre turns 26 today. At that tender age, he already has his own company and a great wife. He does good work and is the reason I have this blog. I'm proud of him.

So Happy Birthday, Andre!!!

Posted by Nakia at 10:18 AM | Comments (1)

March 23, 2006

In Rememberance

Last Friday, March 17th (Sarah's birthday), my grandfather passed away. Troy Pope was 90. He had 9 children, 18 grandchildren, and 17 great-grandchildren. He had been sick for some time, full of the ailments of age, and had not been able to care for himself for several years.

I cannot claim to have known Grandaddy Pope, as we called him, well. But there are some things I do know. He had been a farmer, shoe-repairman, and lumber mill worker. He loved to fish. I tried to take him once, after my grandmother had died. We drove up to the creek in Little River, just to look around. He procliamed that the fishing wasn't going to be any good, so we turned around and went home. He worked hard. He went to church every Sunday that he could. He sat in the third pew on the right. He had a gravelly, scratchy voice that could get quite loud. He had a favorite chair by the fire. He cut and split wood like it was a religion. He could stack that wood so that you couldn't put two fingers in between the logs. He fussed over the cats that lived in one of the barns outside the house. He raised earthworms that he used to fish. He helped teach me how to bait a hook, which we dropped in the pond across the road from his house. That pond used to be called Grandaddy's Pond, at least by those 18 grandchildren.

Grandaddy's death is sad in many ways, even as it was not unexpected and, in some ways, a blessing. One of the things that strikes me the most is his death will lead to the fragmentation of the Pope family. There's no one in that farmhouse now, no one to call the children and grandchildren back home. All nine children and all but three grandchildren were present at his funeral; I'm almost certain that Monday was the last time that farmhouse will be that full. I didn't realize how much I would miss that until now.

Farewell, Grandaddy Pope. Be at peace.

Posted by Nakia at 08:25 PM | Comments (1)

March 16, 2006

Grass and ants!

It's spring break here at Winthrop, so I've taken some time to do things around the house. Yesterday, Sarah and I put new grass seed down in our front yard. I chose bermuda, since it does well in direct sunlight and is pretty resistant to heat and drought (both of which happen in the summer here). I know, bermuda goes dormant in the winter and turns brown. But, it's the winter, dammit! Your not supposed to have green grass in the winter.

Sarah and raked the yard to losen up the soil and get rid of some rocks. Man, do we have a lot of rocks. I'm not sure why the builder saw fit to turn our yard into a gravel pit, but that's clearly what happened. We then spread a few bags of Scotts Lawnsoil on some of the bare spots. I then spread the seed and put out some starter fertilizer. Finally, using our new sprinkler, I watered the yard. We probably won't see any real results for a couple of weeks, since bermuda is such a warm weather grass. But any results are better than the red clay and rock festival that is our yard now.

I'm new at this home ownership thing, so I am not sure I am doing the lawn thing exactly right. But I'm trying to be patient about things and learn. I do know I liked working in the yard MUCH more than painting the bedroom. Those summers doing landscaping work must have paid off. Maybe I'll leave the interior stuff to Sarah.

The ants are in my office. I literally had to stop typing this entry because they were IN my keyboard. Because it is the break, the university is closed today and tomorrow, so it will be next week before I can call anyone about the ants. That's what one gets for having an office in a building that's 96 years old, I guess.

Posted by Nakia at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 06, 2006

Basketball Weekend

This weekend, watched a lot of basketball. Well, two games, which is a lot for me.

First, I went to the Big South Conference Finals here at Winthrop and watched Winthrop eek one out over Coastal Carolina. (Final score 51-50, for those of you who don't follow Big South Basketball regularly). It was a great game if you like defensive basketball and don't mind nail-biters. Coastal was very physical, despite their aqua jerseys. I'm kinda bummed this school can't even fill up the arena for a game that determines whether or not they will go to the NCAA tournament, but with only 7,000 students at a school that, until recently, was almost entirely a commuter school, what are you gonna do? I'm glad we're going to the Big Dance, but we'll get seeded 15 at most and have to play a Villanova or Duke in the first round. Maybe we'll get lucky and get Gonzaga again, which underperforms in the tourney. Maybe we'll get real lucky and get Gonzaga and Adam Morrison will get the flu or something.

Speaking of Duke, Sarah and I watched the UNC/Duke game Saturday night on TV. Good game. I spent a summer at Duke in 8th grade for some gifted and talented camp, so I've kinda rooted for Duke ever since, at least until I attended UVA and had another (crappy) ACC team to support. Now, I'm pretty neutral on the whole Duke/UNC rivalry. My 8th grade affinity has worn off, I know a lot more NC fans than Duke fans, and Duke has kinda become the Yankees of College Basketball.

Good basketball stuff.

Posted by Nakia at 11:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 21, 2006

The White Space Scares Me

Wow. So I pulled up the blog today and it's just a big white space. That's what I get for not updating in so long. There's no really big reason for my inactivity, just lots of small ones. I was sick (again) for a couple of days; it was all I could do to stay on top of my classes. My Annual Report was also due last week, which was a considerable amount of work. I gave my first batch of exams to my 110 students, so I was grading those at the end of last week and over the weekend. Plus, there was Sarah's trip to the Emergency Room on Saturday. Nothing huge, she just cut her finger at work. But it still involved some sitting in the ER at a hospital in Charlotte and a couple of extra drives into Charlotte for me.

Now, I feel caught up. I got here early and took care of a couple of Powerpoints for my classes. I also wrote a handout/class activity we'll do at the beginning of next week. Now, I've got a couple of posts to take care of for those classes and my precis papers to grade for my 600 students. But I've reigned things in a bit better and will endavor to keep them that way.

Just wanted to let folks know I was still around.

Posted by Nakia at 11:10 AM | Comments (2)

January 24, 2006

Summary

Summary post of the last flu days:

Saturday: NC Game day in Raleigh. Having fun!

Sunday: Back from Raleigh. Good to be home. Panthers getting killed by Seahawks. Begin to feel ill, not just from football team's performance. Go to bed feeling really bad. Wake up numerous times during the night, unable to swallow.

Monday: So much stuff to do, but achy and generally feeling crappy. Stay home all morning and sleep, but have to teach from 2 until 8. Buy and take Day-Quil. Let's hear it for pharmaceuticals! Teach my classes while sitting down, asking my students to call 911 if I pass out. Then they can leave. Monday night -- KFC mashed potatoes for dinner. Go to bed by 10.

Tuesday: Wake up numerous times during night. Wish I had purchased the Day-Quil/Ny-Quil combo pack. Wonder if the Maker's Mark in the cabinet will work just as well. Check email at 4:30 AM. Go back to bed and sleep through my office hours at work (but had let the secretary know I probably wouldn't be in during my 4:30 AM email session). Get up by 10:00 and feel a little better. Only one class today, so I'll teach it and go home to nap. Getting behind on the work, but what are you gonna do?

Posted by Nakia at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2006

Quick Note and Virginia Coalition

Just a quick note to the readers:

You may have noticed posts on the blog that are clearly directed at my students. I'm trying to use the blog as a teaching tool; it's a bit of an experiment. My students will only be able to see entries that are listed under the "Classes" Category, so they won't be subject to my ramblings about movies or gaming or whatever. I'm still working on a way to keep that category hidden from everyone else, so everyone else won't have to read about stuff for my classes. Until then, if folks NOT in my class would refrain from leaving comments under entries for my class, I'd appreciate it.

Last night, Sarah and I took our date night and ate at "The Master Chef" -- a walk up greasy spoon I drive past every day on my way to work. Good burger and really good curly fries. Then we went to see Virginia Coalition at Tillman Auditorium on campus.

VaCo was lots of fun, even for the small crowd that came. They are Barenaked Ladies with more funk with some John Mayer and a lot more percussion. Popy, a little funky, and a little jammy. Good, good stuff.

Big props to Boyd Jones and the Dinkins Student Union for getting VaCo. I'm impressed by the quality and quantity of events the DSU crew bring to campus.

Posted by Nakia at 10:52 AM | Comments (6)

January 12, 2006

Evaluations

I recently received my student evaluations for the Fall 2005 semester. There are all sorts of issues surrounding these things. First, as a research instrument they are pretty unreliable. Lots of research on student evaluations has shown the substantive questions on them are unduly influenced by whether or not the student likes the teacher. In other words, the evaluations tell more about whether or not the student likes the teacher than whether or not the teacher is a good teacher. These limitations of student evaluations are well known.

My university places considerable weight on teaching, a fact that attracted me to the university in the first place. While student evaluations are not the only means of assessing our teaching, they are an important piece of the promotion and tenure process. They are also an important piece of how we go about improving our teaching skills; we see what works and what does not and modify if necessary.

On a personal level, I tend to take these things pretty personally, although that's getting better as I teach more. I'm a little insecure, still a new teacher, and still growing at my craft. The trick is to be responsive to my student evaluations while keeping a thick skin about them and realizing they are only part of the data I should use in evaluating my teaching.

From my evalations, it seems there are three areas of my teaching that need improvement. I received lower scores than I would have liked on "selection of instructional materials," "communication of subject matter," and "demonstration of enthusiasm."

The materials thing is easily explained and easily remedied. I was using a bad textbook. Teaching to Change the World has good ideas and a unique perspective, but is structured poorly and tries to cram too much information in its pages. My students had a really hard time separating the wheat from the chaff in their reading, which carried over in their preparation for the exams. On the free response portion of the evaluations, many students indicated they wanted study guides. I am anti-study guide, especially when I put my Powerpoint presentations on line for my students to download. But, given a confusing text, I can understand the student need for help in figuring out what in the reading was important. I'm using a different textbook this semester, which I hope will fix this problem for my students.

The communication of subject matter is a bit more troubling. Some of it is related to the textbook. My students felt a disconnect between what I was talking about in class and what they were reading. I wasn't "going over" the reading, I was elaborating and expanding on it. I'm still figuring out how to navigate this road. I don't want to parrot the textbook, but I do want to make sure my students understand what they have read.
This communication part also, I'm guessing, refers to general classroom technique -- how I teach, lecture vs other activities, etc. I'm still working on this and believed I got better as last semester progressed. I was using powerpoints for the first time, incorporating more group activities, and trying new stuff out. Some of that is effective, others not so much, but I did learn from both. It's too bad some classes are my guinea pigs.
The final piece of the subject matter thing is just, well, the subject matter. I'm talking about history and philosophy of education from a critical perspective here, which is not something most of my students have encountered before. It's not easily put into a box they already have, so it's probably a little more difficult. Add to that they are mostly freshmen and are still learning how college classes are different from high school classes, and you have some disconnect between what I am trying to do as a teacher and what they expect as students. I can do more to help with that transition, I think. Maybe they do need study guides. . .

The enthusiasm issue is the most troubling to me because it seems like just a personality thing. I like my subject matter and am happy to be teaching it. I'm not, however, a jump around and wave "yipee" kinda guy. Some would say I'm "reserved" or "laid back" or whatever. This type of issue has come up before. I remember when I was pledging the fraternity, I got some serious flack from some brothers because they thought I "wasn't committed". Well, I was committed and serious about what I was doing. I just expressed that commitment in a different way. Those who knew me better knew I was committed and enthusiastic about the fraternity; I just didn't demonstrate those feelings in a patently obvious way. I know it's a two way street -- people need time to learn my mannerisms and personality and I can do more to convey my enthusiasm. I'm just not sure how to do that, exactly.

Wow, long post. Some of this will end up in my annual report for the university, I think. Comments are very welcome.

Posted by Nakia at 09:50 AM | Comments (4)

January 11, 2006

Morning productivity

I'm a morning person. If I go to bed at a sufficent hour and get the recomended 8 hours sleep, then I'm all about getting up early and getting things done.

I tried to do that today; I went to bed by 10:30 and was up at 6:30 or so, showered and out the door by 8:00. I was in the office before the main office even opened and feeling good about knocking out a lot of work before class at 2:00.

My general routine is to first check my email, beginning with my school account. This morning, I had eight emails from advisees with assorted questions about courses, transfers, and others things that adivsees have questions about. Here, I made my first mistake. I did NOT follow the GTD "two-minute rule" and responsed to all the emails before I did anything else. This took awhile and sapped my momentum. As a new professor, I had to look a lot of stuff up in order to answer the questions my advisees had. (My advisees could have looked the stuff up as well, but that's not such a big deal. Advising is part of my job). So those eight emails took almost an hour. Worse, they sapped my valuable morning energy that should have been used for reading and writing. Finding out the answers to my advisee questions could easily have been done this afternoon, when my energy had shifted a bit. Now, it's almost 10:00 and I've gotten no reading or writing done and have all sorts of other stuff cluttering my mind.

Some of that stuff on my mind is my student evaluations, which I received this morning. That, however, is another entry.

Posted by Nakia at 09:36 AM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2005

Contentment vs. Complacency

Occasionally, I'll drive Sarah to work at Pasta and Provisions, especially when we want to go out in Charlotte. I'll take her up there in the morning, come back to Rock Hill and do whatever needs doing, then go back and pick her up when the store closes. It's rather inefficient, but it lets us go out in Charlotte with only one car and gives us a little more time together.

The store is in Myers Park, which is an old(er) money part of Charlotte. It's a very nice neighborhood -- big trees, homes that are nice but not huge or gaudy, lots of people walking around, cool local bars and shops. As I was drving to pick up Sarah on Saturday night, I caught myself thinking "This is the kind of neighboorhood I want to live in. This is the kind of life I want." Then I had to say to myself "Nakia, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

I was abashed at my own materialistic envy of the Myers Park people. I was embarrassed at my own base desires. I was the punk rock kid who railed against the system. I am the philosopher who wants authenticity and discusses Marx. I'm the educator who talks about the fallacious Myth of Merit and the educational inequalities that result from it. Yet, I find myself daydreaming about a house in Myers Park and cashmere sweaters and badger-bristled shaving brushes.

How did this happen? Do I read to many magazines? Am I becoming brainwashed by GQ and Men's Health? Isn't Target just as good as Nordstrom?

Some of it is natural, I think, given my recent assent into "real-job" status, home ownership, and life as a professor. Contrast these things with my rural, blue-collar upbringing and there is bound to be some class anxiety. Add to this neurotic mix five years of living in Charlottesville, where one wore the cashmere sweater to work in the garden and people dropped tens of thousands of dollars on garden furniture (while we and our friends helped them work out, sold them the garden furniture and woodstoves and books), then you have one messed-up, confused Pope.

Sarah and I talked about this and many other things Saturday night. One of the things we tried to hash out was the difference between contentment and complacency (or, alternatively, envy and ambition). We should be happy and greatful for what we have and where we are at. But when does that contentment lead to stagnation? Where is the line between (constructive) ambition to have a better life and sheer materialistic desire for more stuff? Is it the obejcts of that desire and ambition that matter? I want to be able to travel without feeling a significant financial pinch. When Sarah and I have children, I want them to be able to go to college without having to take out the student loans that I did. Am I equating money/financial success with personal growth?

I don't really know the answers to any of those questions. I do know a house in Myers Park will not make me a better person or a better husband or a better teacher. I intellectually know that and the sooner that intellectual knowledge reigns in the base desires (to drop some Plato on you), the better things will be.

Posted by Nakia at 02:23 PM | Comments (3)

December 06, 2005

Student writing and why I teach

Today is study day here at Winthrop. Exams start tomorrow, but since mine is a take home, I'm just hanging out at the office grading the final papers my freshmen submitted last week.

Most of my students need writing help.

Granted, they are freshmen, so they have plenty of time to develop their writing skills. My class is but the first of many they will have to write papers in; I must be wary of expecting too much. Grading these papers has, however, helped make some things clear about why I chose the profession I did. Andre posed the question is his comment to my previous post about the end of the semester. I'm going to try and answer that, in part, here.

Part of (perhaps most of) the reason I do what I do as a professor -- part of the reason I am a professor -- is because of a commitment to the goals of personal freedom and authenticity. I want my students to know more about the world and to know more about themselves so that they will have increased ownership of their own identities, lives, and choices. Since most of the students I teach will go on to be teachers, there is a trickle down effect. Hopefully, my students will help their students take increased ownership in their lives in some unknowable future.

In order to do that, students must posess two skills. First, the ability to reflect on and interpret experience (their own and the knowledge of other's experience granted through texts). Second, they need to be able to process and express that reflection in a way that is meaningful to others. They need to be able to reconstruct their own experiences and represent them in ways others can understand.

Writing is a key part of that second skill. There are other ways of reconstructing and representing experience -- more "artistic" ways like painting or sculpture or whatnot. Writing, to me at least, is a (if not the) primary way of doing that. It is certainly the way most privliged in higher education. It is also the way in which I best reconstruct and represent my own experiences, so I am biased. Writing, ideally, forces a student to think about, clarify, and present their own ideas, beliefs, experiences, etc for public consumption. That's why it is so important to do it well.

Posted by Nakia at 02:02 PM | Comments (10)

December 02, 2005

The End of the Semester

Yesterday was the last day of classes for me for this semester. I gave my students a take home exam, so we will not meet again. I am glad to have one semester under my belt, even if I still have a boatload of grading to do.

One of the things I am trying to do is establish my professional identity -- who am I in this department? Who am I when I am in the classroom? Am I the "young and hip" professor, the one who knows about the bands my students listen to and can relate the classroom material to their lives, because I am not that much older than they are? Am I the "geeky and not really funny" professor who tells bad jokes and embarrasing stories about himself? Am I the "really hard" professor who gives his students essay tests and grades with a red paintbrush? Am I all of those people at the same time?

Any big change, like a new profession, forces us to reevaluate who we are, especially in relation to those whom we serve in the profession. While I think it is always good to question ourselves, evaluate our methods of doing whatever job it is we do, and constantly strive to grow, having a clearer sense of my identity as a professor would make me a better professor, I think.

Perhaps I can begin with a clearer sense of what I want my students to get out of my class -- a list of goals and expectations. I can then think about how to get my students to know and achieve those expectations and consider my role in helping them get to the place where I want them to be. That's a pretty concrete way to start. I can put it on my syllabus. I can structure the course (and my own place within the course) accordingly. Hopefully, a clearer Dr. Pope will emerge.

And, on a related note, I had several students give me very high compliments and praise after class yesterday. I am sure there are students who did not like the class at all and I will hear about it on the evaluations. Yet, getting a Christmas card with "you were one of the best professors I had in a very long time. I actually learned something I can use in life" makes me feel pretty good.

Posted by Nakia at 12:20 PM | Comments (3)

November 29, 2005

Ionian Schools

Today in class, I had my students break into small groups. Then I gave each group the same problem: You are on a spacehsip to Io, a moon of Jupiter, where you will be the first colonists. You have been put in charge of designing the Ionian School and have been given a blank slate to do so.

Here is the actual prompt:
Download file

Group work is always interesting for me. I hate dividing the students into groups myself; it feels like I am teaching third grade or something. Yet if I let the students divide themselves up, the same groups invariably get made. Often, there is a disturbing racial and/or gender homgeneity to the groups. I don't think that's because of any overt prejudice, but rather due to seating patterns and friendships. Still, it would be nice if my students sought out others who were different from them to compose groups, especially on a creative project like this one.

Homgeneous groups or no, the individual group discussions seemed to be going pretty well as I circulated. Students were coming up with some interesting and creative school arrangements, but I wonder how much they will stray from the traditional 9 month, 7 hour/day calendar, or how they will track (or detrack) students based on ability.

They will briefly present their school ideas to the Colony Leader (me) on Thursday. I'm thinking about making this project a more substantial part of my class next semester, so this pilot is important.

Posted by Nakia at 04:03 PM | Comments (6)

November 23, 2005

Christmas Shopping Help

This sounds very cool. Go Google!

Google Maps Shopping Trips

I didn't see it on Froogle yet, but I didn't look very hard, either.

Posted by Nakia at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2005

Flights and Perches

All we have, all we are, are moments of conversation, of connection, interspersed with down times of habit, of blindness, where we fall into the rhythmic lull of the everyday grind. We come and go, ebb and flow, but the real moments of memory are when that stops, when we're jolted out of the rhythm of the everyday.

Flights and perches, James says.
Rhythm and the consummatory, says Dewey.

Our lives are these moments, held in connection. Touchstones of memory that define who we are, were, and want to be.

How do we find these moments? Can we make them? Can we create space for them to happen, to take us unawares?

We choose and hope. Stand and wait. Move and rest.
Flow like a river. Stand like a statue.

Zen and The Stranger. Buddha and Camus.

Finding moments. Making memories. Authentic perches. Life's unreachable accident.

It's harder to make or find those moments as we get older, I think. we get tired, used to a routine, comfortable. I'm not knocking it, because God knows I want comfort more times than not. And you can't have one without the other. No flights, no perches. No consummatory experience without the ordinary ebb and flow.

Growth comes easier for the young, perhaps as it should.

Posted by Nakia at 11:09 AM | Comments (2)

October 14, 2005

Random Friday Thoughts

It's Friday. I do have a job and I have lots of shit to do.

Grading another batch of tests. I think the best way to take care of my grading is to just do it -- block off a day or two and knock it out. Schedule other things accordingly.

Kanye West's "Gold Digger" may be the best pop song I've heard in a long, long time. LOVE IT!

Nickelback's "Photograph" however, makes me want to vomit, yet I find myself singing along. What makes, say REM's "Nightswimming" so much better than the Nicelback's crap, even though they deal with similar themes? Is it enough to say Nickelback sucks and be done with the argument?

Wilco tonight it Asheville. Pretty excited about that one.

Watched "I (heart) Huckabees" courtesy of Netflix Wed. night. I thought it was great, but then I am a philosopher. Sarah liked it not so much. Maybe I should have my students whack each other in the face with a ball to experience pure being.

I'm also finally catching up/getting into Lost. The first season is coming my way via Netflix and I'm taping this season so I'll be able to watch it once I've figured out what's going on in season 1. I did watch the 'Season One recap show, so I'm not totally in the dark.

Fall, I believe, is my favorite season.

Wilco tonight. Did I mention that already?

I impressed the hell out of some of my students by mentioning I owned the first Dashboard Confessional CD.

Ben Folds is playing at Furman. How come all we got was Allgood about 24 times? It's like Jimmy said "We try to get good bands, but Allgood always shows up."

And I'm spent. . .

Posted by Nakia at 12:19 PM | Comments (4)

October 12, 2005

Getting Grading Done

I'm doing pretty well with the Getting Things Done method. I just filed a bunch of stuff in my 'to be filed" box, actually and my Inbox is almost at empty. There is one thing, though, that constantly derails me. It's an essential part of my job, so if GTD and I are to continue our relationship, then I have to figure out some way to better integrate it into the system.

That thing is grading.

I have to grade. It's a necessary part of my job. I also have to grade in a way that provides feedback to my students. I can't just slap a number or letter on an assignment and move on. I also have to get the assignment back in a timely manner. It's one of the things my students evaluate me on, and it's important that they know how they're doing in the class. Grading, however, constantly derails my program. I lug up the papers or tests and spend a few days focusing almost exclusively on getting the grading done. Meanwhile, other stuff piles up. My Inbox gets full. My desk gets cluttered. Other things don't get done. Then, it takes me a couple of days to recover and set things in order after the grading is finished because I didn't "maintain" very well during the time I was grading. I also notice I am less productive when I have papers to grade even when I'm not actually grading. It's just hard to focus on anything else besides the stack of papers.

I'm not entirely sure what to do about this, but I need to do something, since grading is a necessary and important part of my job. Next semester, I'll be teaching more classes, so there will be more papers to grade. That's why it's important that I figure this out sooner rather than later.

Posted by Nakia at 03:28 PM | Comments (4)

October 11, 2005

About the Wenches. . .

I guess I never got around to clarifying last Monday's comment. last weekend, Sarah and I went to the Carolina Renaissance Faire, just north of Charlotte. It was pretty standard as those things go, but fun nonetheless. We watched the joust and saw jugglers, belly dancers, and a pirate comedy show. We ate beef stew from a bread bowl (no giant turkey legs for us, which is apparently all people know about Renaissance fairs. No one ever asks "How was the joust?" or "was there any cool armor for sale?". Everyone just asks "Didya get one of those giant turkey legs?".) My favorite part was the Ent walking around. A guy on stilts and a tree costume slowly strolled around the fair. It was pretty cool; I'll post some photos whenever, well, I figure out how to post photos.

Speaking of armor, there was only one booth of maille stuff, and it sucked. David makes better stuff with one pair of pliers tied behind his back. Hit the circuit, man!

Posted by Nakia at 12:26 PM | Comments (1)

September 15, 2005

Thursday Afternoon

Not feeling very original today in the title department, but things are going well after a rough start to the week. Nothing horrible was happening, but I was just feeling really stressed out by a thousdand little things -- class stuff, office stuff, house stuff, money stuff. I felt overwhelmed a bit.

Now, though, I've retrenched. Getting Things Done has helped a bit, as I've gone back and looked through the system again. I realized that I was neglecting key aspects of the plan, especially the weekly review. I spent most of the day yesterday getting the system off the ground again -- tweaking my Outlook categories, putting things in the proper places, etc. Getting things off my mind and into some easily accessible place is vital to keeping my stress level down.

We also got cable yesterday, so now we have 65 channels and internet at the house. The later will be helpful in getting things done at the house, while the former will be an occasionally necessary diversion, at least. Last night we watched some baseball and some Comedy Central.

On the house front, we've prioritized the things we can and need to do, with help from my friend and contractor Brian. At the top of the list is to stain/seal our deck. First thing is to see if anyone has a pressure washer to borrow. Then we'll get the stain and some brushes and go to work. Even getting the really nice, really good stain/sealant that Brian recommended, we can get it done for a few hundred bucks at the most. That will make us feel better, because we've actually done something to the house. And, the deck will be treated and look nice.

Things have not panned out so well on the D&D front. They guy I met at the meetup didn't email me back. Maybe I made a bad impression or something. I still want to find a group, but maybe Someone is telling me to concentrate on other things now instead of gaming. Flow with the water and all that.

Horrible Netflix Choice -- Timeline. That movie was bad, except for the cool trebuchets with flaming ammunition. Bad, bad, bad.

Posted by Nakia at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)

September 08, 2005

I hate cars

I want to live in a big city so I won't have to drive. I could seriously do without the automobile. I like my car and it gets me around just fine, but days like today really make me wish I could just take the bus. But it all worked out in the end.

It was time for an oil change. I had a coupon from place #1, which was a mistake. Nakia's Rule's of Life #94 -- Never Get Auto Repair From A Place That Uses Coupons. I dropped my car off this morning, went to the gym, then went back. It wasn't done. No big deal. I went home and showered, then they called me. "We haven't changed your oil yet, but you need new breaks and your check engine light is on" (My check engine light has been on for two years. They're a scam.). Of course something else is wrong, otherwise you couldn't get hundreds of dollars from me! So I tell them "no thanks, just change the oil" and hang up. Ten minutes later I get another call saying they won't change the oil because the previous shop who changed the oil did something to my oil plug and they should fix it. Now I'm pissed, because I'm not getting my oil changed, I have to take my car somewhere else, and that place messed up my car in the first place. So I take the car to place #2.

Place #2 is nonplussed by my probelm, but will look at it right away. I have to get to the office and Sarah has to get to her book group, so I drop the car off, drop Sarah off, and go to work. By noon, I've not heard anything and I have to pick Sarah up. I call them back and they tell me it's ready; if it's ready, why didn't they call? They also say the plug is not broken, but they changed my oil for free.

I pick up the car and get a better explanation; my plug apparently needs a plastic washer or something, and when screwed in it looks like there is no washer at all. Place #1 told me that Place #2 had used a flat washer, so the washer went up into the pan and that was bad. Place #2 assured me they had done the right thing and changed my oil for free.

So, I have no idea who was right. I'm not even sure my oil got changed, to be honest. I should probably check to make sure it has oil in it at all. I'm not going back to either place again, since one or the other is either lying or incompetent.

I wish I could just take the subway. Then I'd have nothing to worry about except muggers.

Posted by Nakia at 03:45 PM |