I've never had to grade papers for a class of undergraduates at a large university, but, from the impression I get from my instructor this semester, it's easier than ever to plagiarize a written assignment. For this reason, I was required to submit my first paper of the semester to a web-based organism called Turnitin.com, which is supposed to check your documents to make sure they aren't plagiarized in parts or as a whole. How it works is beyond my comprehension of the internet, but, from what I can gather, it searches the web for instances of phrases and similar writing that the writer may have used without giving proper credit. Oddly enough, one of the FAQs on the board has a question related to using one's own previous writing, and, it states that if you don't credit yourself, you're are, in fact, plagiarizing. Plagiarizing one's self? I don't know how you'd do it, but I'd love to see someone sue themselves for plagiarism.

Tainted Memories
I count myself as one who was not surprised to hear that the author of the memoir A Million Little Pieces, James Frey, fabricated or embellished large portions of the text. As a New York Times piece proclaimed, the incident is nothing more than a continuation of the blurring of the line between reality and fiction. Oprah Winfrey, who chose the book for her book club, has even chimed in to state that the message is what is important regardless of how it's ultimately delivered, or something along those lines.

The ramifications of this are obvious to anyone who has a vested interest in keeping the separation of fact and fiction plain for everyone to see. In a previous post, I wrote about the possibility that our news is creating reality as well as vice versa. In the post I discussed the New York Times' seemingly obvious attempts to create a mood in the White House. Are they really nervous, on edge, etc. about any number of things, or is that how the Times wants to perceive it as being? I don't know, but if true it seems to speak to a sense of hypocrisy on their part to blast Frey for his embellishments.

I don't know how much he manufactured. Really, I don't care all that much because these types of books do not interest me in the least, but the industry for them is increasing substantially. I find it hard to believe that any of them are spot-on in their accuracy. It just seems like the premises for a lot of these books are works of fiction spun around a few facts interspersed throughout. As I said about dream recollections that seem flawless in narrative, I just think that writers know that a fractured narrative isn't likely to sell very well, so they fill in the gaps with all sorts of fluff that acts as an epoxy to hold the whole thing together.

The impression I get is that Frey essentially lied about large portions of his life in order to write this book. That, I think, is wrong, and it's equally wrong to label the book as a memoir when it should be labeled, if not just plain fiction, then at least a memoir with embellishments.

Dreamreader
Do your dreams really mean anything? It is one of those eternal questions that will probably be asked forever with no definitive answer. Personally, I do not subscribe to the notion that dreams are anything more than the random thoughts and images that can, and often are, induced by many different means, be it coffee, food, or alcohol. I am not saying that dreams cannot be a part of everyone's normal sleep cycle, but I have a hard time swallowing the hyper-narrative details that some people claim to recall from their dreams. It's not that I think they are lying, but, as with any good narrative, dreams can benefit from a good editor who fills in the logical gaps with any number of devices in order to comprise a whole.

What I will admit is the distinct idea that dreams can be terrifying beyond belief. Some of the common occurrences in my dreams that bother me more than anything else are those in which I cannot speak or my voice will not project properly even though I know what I want to say. For example, I have had my New York Times stolen on several occasions. So, what happens? I have a dream where I'm looking out of my window down upon someone in the midst of taking my paper. I am yelling at this person, but they do not hear me because my voice is not projecting properly. This happens a lot. The other example of really troubling dreams I have are those in which someone, usually a stranger or an intruder, remains in the dark. Another example, my roommate and I are pushing someone out of our apartment, but they remain in the dark because the hall light will not come on. Of course, I am yelling at the person, "Who are you," and they do not respond.

I do not claim to know what any of this means. To me, it is probably just two examples of things that are troubling to think about and that most people fear, being without a voice in moments of trouble and an intruder who you cannot see or will not tell you what they want. Other than that, I think dreams are not windows into the soul or deep interpretations of some Freudian psychology. They just occur.

Here's a New Year's resolution: post more frequently.

Dilemma Exchange
I'm sure a lot of people who work in an office setting run into the same dilemma each and every December, whether or not to participate in the annual Christmas party/gift exchange/karaoke sing along. It's always hard to assess the risk associated with boycotting the aspects of the entire affair that seem to be either wasteful or unappealing. How will one be perceived if one does one, the other, or both? In all likelihood, it doesn't matter one iota whether or not you choose to participate in these events, and that goes double for people who are lower in the hierarchy of the dreaded pay scale. But the issue really isn't whether or not one can afford to participate, and I'll admit freely that the money is not the issue. Well, it is, but not in the sense that I can't afford to part with it. The issue is, at least what I perceive to be, the notion that it's a waste of money and not in fact a real gift.

If you think about it, when one is approached with the offer to participate in these types of events, it is done is such a generic manner that it's almost impossible to assume the guise of someone who is really gung-ho about the prospect of buying an unspecified gift for a particular amount for an anonymous person. Isn't it hard enough to buy presents for people you do know, like your family? How can you purchase anything that will make you feel as if it's a really good gift if it's just something chosen because it fits into the price parameters? It's not as if you're buying something that you think the recipient will enjoy because you know their tastes, likes and dislikes. That's at least somewhat intriguing, but the random, anonymous gift is more of a headache than anything else. This is what I think of when overactive spending during the holidays is mentioned.

What compounds the absurdity even further is if the institution in which you work has several separate parties with the same format. If one were so inclined, you could attend more than one of these events and relive the awkward experience over again. How fun does that sound?

It's not as if this is even earthshatteringly important, but it's something that I see as putting somewhat of a damper on the holidays even though it's supposed to be part of them.

What's Really Going On?
At the risk of sounding as if I've betrayed the very nature of the political word embedded in the address to this site, I've become more and more fascinated about the very possibility that our sources of news, namely newspapers and cable news networks, create the reality in which they are reporting on. In other words, how much of what we consume is actually true to fact and not as perceived by those reporters who are employed by a politically influenced conglomerate? Who is just towing the party line and who is reporting the facts on the straight and narrow? It's hard to say, and I think the notion that "unless you've been there" takes on new significance in our world that is proliferated by sources of information that can be finely attuned to the very ideology of the reader him or herself. If one were so inclined, they could find just about any reportage on any topic as seen through the lens of one's choice, be it liberal, moderate, or conservative in nature. In fact, that may be the very problem with the advent of the numerous venues in which it's now possible to foist one's opinions on the world. One would assume that it's possible to locate a reasonably balanced opinion and reportage in at least one venue, but I'm not so sure.

Nearly every day the New York Times publishes an article about the inner workings of the Bush administration, and, obviously, they print more when there is a particular event that dominates the headlines, and they seem to publish even more when there is an event that can be described as being bad for the administration, which, at this point, you can take your pick of many. What worries me is that on these occasions, it's easy to find articles and editorials that report on the mental state of the those who make up the inner circle. For whatever reason, they almost always seem to reveal that the administration is concerned, worried, or in a frantic state over some event or another. I'm not suggesting that they shouldn't be in any of these conditions; in fact, they probably should be if they're affected by anything at all. However, what concerns me is that I wonder on occasion how much of this is real. Are they really in such a state of panic, or is that the way the reporters want to perceive the situation, and, further, are they writing as such because they know that their editors and, ultimately, the publisher wants to portray things as such?

The issue grows even more troublesome after days pass in which one encounters the same descriptions. The story, as they say, "grows legs" and it assumes a life of its own and, more importantly, a reality all its own. I read these passages on, what seems like, a daily basis, and I wonder, "Is this really how it is?" For an administration that's supposedly in such a state of panic, they sure act as if they're in control. They never seem to betray the fact that they are in the midst of a crisis. Of course, this particular group never seems to act as if anything is going wrong, so it's hard to judge what exactly is going on with them, and I put nothing past them in their efforts to appear in control. I just find it beyond comprehension that this reporting is in fact reporting the real situation. Nothing seems to change because of it, and one would think that a group afflicted by so many crisis would eventually reach a breaking point. Of course, they don't and things return to the status quo, whatever that may be.

My point is that I'm finding it harder to separate the buckwheat from the shaft, so to speak, and it's growing more and more apparent to me that there has to be, to sum extent, a bias to news reporting. It can't be both ways, gloomy assessments on one hand and sunny on the other. Where's the middle ground and the actual perception of what's going on?

Year's Best???
This being the end of the year, we are inevitably greeted with the yearly deluge of "year's best" lists that chronicle everything one can possibly imagine being ranked that came out in the previous year. Not one to miss out on the action, Pittsburgh's own City Paper posted its annual rankings from their annual survey of the city's best stuff.

Now, I'm not against this type of thing per say, but I have one qualm about what seems to be an exercise in redundancy. While granting that there are rankings in each respective category for "new" establishments, the majority of the rankings are devoted to heaping praise upon businesses that seem to receive the same honors each and every year. In other words, when you're given only a limited number of choices to pick from year to year, of course the same businesses are going to receive the same votes year in and year out.

To demonstrate, let's take a look at some of the more ludicrous results.

Example 1:
Best place to get bagels
BrueggerÂ’s Bagels
Various locations
2nd Panera Bread
3rd Einstein Brothers Bagels

My two biggest questions are these:
1. Could the choices be any more obvious? (Two of them have "Bagels" in their names)
2. Are there any other places to get bagels other than these establishments, or places that people think of immediately when considering buying a bagel? (Given that two of the business specialize in bagels, wouldn't it be an even bigger surprise if, say, a place really off the wall made the list, like Sushi Two?)

Example 2:
Best mass transit route
54C
2nd The T
3rd 61C

Okay, this one is of obvious concern to me. Keeping in mind this award is simply for the best route and has nothing to do with the service, I still feel a tinge ofapprehensionn awarding the 54C this distinction. Do I really have to spell out why?

Finally, a real favorite of mine.

Example 3:
Best coffeehouse
Beehive
South Side
2nd Kiva Han
3rd The Quiet Storm

Basically, according to this, these are the only three coffeehouses in Pittsburgh, or, in what's an interesting twist of irony, the only three that fit the "coffeehouse" label, because there are many more coffeehouses in Pittsburgh, but they happen to be called either Starbucks, Crazy Mocha, or Caribou Coffee, and I'd wager that these three do much more business than those that are deemed worthy of the "coffeehouse" label.

The rest of the lists are littered with your typical rankings of Indian restaurants, sports bars, and bookstores, all of which you're most likely familiar with, because there just aren't that many choices from year to year to make the rankings anything more than a formality.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that most big cities have their fair share of, for lack of a better term, off-balance citizens. Regardless of that fact, it's little comfort when you're walking down the street and you see the approach of another in a long line of derelicts who will, inevitably, ask you, in a roundabout way, for money. I've reached such a boiling point in frustration with these encounters that I usually just cut them off before they even start into their schpiel with a, "I don't have anything." That seems to be the best medicine for avoiding a drawn out diatribe that always ends in the same pleading request for a handout. This type of thing irks me in more ways than one.

First off, I'm almost insulted by the fact that these people seem to behave as if they are smarter than the average joe on the street. How else to explain the long stories that are a desperate effort to separate you from your money? I also find it interesting that the stories never vary either. Where's the logic behind encountering the same person in two different locations who just happens to have a car that broke down and is in need of gas? That's a pretty unreliable vehicle, my friend. Then there are the people who need money for bus fare. How is it that you got here in the first place? My favorite might be the ones who ask for an uneven, odd amount of change. "Do you have thirty-nine cents?"

One, I don't believe any part of your story. Two, even if you don't remember me, I do remember you, so I can piece together the illogic of your story. Three, I'm smart enough to realize that you're just asking for an odd amount of money in an effort to receive what you're really asking for, more money.

The other thing that bothers me is that these people are given free reign to perch wherever they want. There is nowhere where they aren't allowed to set up shop. Pittsburgh has passed a new set of ordinances that are supposed to crack down on the panhandling and enforce restrictions as to where and how long one is allowed to go about this business. Whether or not it's enforced is another thing. The City Paper had an article about the effect the ordinances will have on panhandlers, especially those who aren't aware of them. In an effort to portray the real victims of these laws, the article profiled a woman who asks for money because her government subsidy isn't enough for rent and food. Granted, that's a true case of the system not taking care of those who need it most, but I'll freely admit that I'm prejudiced against all panhandlers because I honestly cannot ascertain if any of them are really in need of money for food and essentials. They mention this in the article, but when you encounter enough people who are obviously looking for a handout for illegitimate purposes, it's hard not to view them all with suspicion.

Aside from some really corrosive acid, is there any substance that seems more destructive in its effects than spilled coffee?

No, in fact, coffee is proven to be the most destructive substance on planet Earth when spilled. It assumes the characteristics of some sort of supernatural entity run amuck when unleashed, no matter how much of it actually escapes its container.

Why is it that coffee seems to be attracted to white paper like a magnetic force?

Like a shark attracted to blood, coffee seems to feel the need to be absorbed by paper of all things. Regardless of where you spill it, chances are it will find paper to stain, and it won't be something harmless like an old newspaper. No, it will find a book. It will turn its pages a darker shade of brown and a warped shape that resembles some form of radio wave.

Is there anything I can do to prevent coffee from spilling on my books?

No, there really isn't a defense against coffee spills. In fact, the more you try to prevent coffee from spilling, the greater chance your coffee will adapt to the drastic measures you are adopting. It's an unstoppable force that will never be stopped in our times.

Before I further address the issue of revision that I wrote about in my last post, I have to clarify some of my comments.

When I wrote that I never had to revise a paper in all my days as an student, I meant that literally. Never once, as an undergraduate student in English and education, did I have a professor require a revision of a paper as part of the course curriculum. It might have been optional, but I just don't recall it ever happening as a required assignment in class.

This was also the same program where I got away with not taking a grammar class until my last semester. Did I suffer gradewise up until that point? No, in fact I did very well, and that leads me to something I've always had trouble with resolving in my head, the differing grading policies of all the professors I had over those years. Some marked my papers thoroughly, others didn't. It makes one wonder about the quality of one's writing. Was it grammatically correct as well as thematically interesting? Was it neither? Did the professors even know how to check for grammar? Sometimes I wondered if they did.

The comment about having a hard time accepting criticism isn't right. That makes it sound as if I had a problem with any comment that wasn't glowing praise written on a paper. I should clarify that to mean that the criticism I have a problem with is that which is written for papers intended to be rewritten. For the most part, these types of comments are vague or unhelpful. When you're confined to writing only three or four pages, you don't have a lot of room to expand upon your ideas. It's a very cut and dry paper. When the grader writes that you should do this, this and this, it's hard to fathom how you're supposed to accomplish any of it within the confines of a three to four page paper.

This leads to the related point that writing a philosophy paper is much different from writing a paper on a literary topic. Arguments have to be formed and concluded within the confines of the paper with little or no room for creativity. I don't like this at all. Parts of my paper that I think are worth keeping are earmarked for revision with little or no reason as to why. It's also not helpful when one paragraph out of the entire paper that is written in a faux-philosophical way is singled out as being what the entire paper should look like. How one is supposed to sustain a style that boils an argument down into, what I would term, talking points is beyond me. I can't sustain a paper that long without writing in a looser sense of creativity. Handcuffed might be the proper terminology to use in this instance.

Having said all that, I will admit that the paper I had to revise did need revising. The problem, though, relates back to what I was talking about earlier. I had a class over the summer where my papers weren't confined in any sense, and I was allowed to expand at length on the points I wanted to make without any fear of it being marked as being lengthy for no reason or off-topic. Again, it probably depended on the fact that I had a different grader than I do now. Both are teaching assistants, but one has a doctorate in comparative literature and the other does not. Obviously the former has a much more extensive knowledge base with regards to grammar and writing and that accounts for most of it. What I'm boggled by is the fact that the papers that we're ripping apart in our section from the other writing section seem to be awful. One of those papers happened to be the only one that my instructor deemed worthy of granting an A, an A- but an A nonetheless. I thought the paper was terrible and asked why it was granted that grade. Saying that, I realize that I might sound bitter at my grade, which was right in the heart of the majority of the distribution. I'm not, because, like I said, it definitely needed revising to some extent.

I don't know that this clarifies much of anything that I wrote previously, but I think it fleshes it out a bit.

I never revise papers. At least I never revised any of the papers I wrote as an undergraduate or graduate student. I don't think my writing is beyond reproach, but I never felt the need to write a rough-draft and revise it before turning in a final copy. I also never had a class where you were given the assignment to revise a paper. That is until this semester.

Literally, I just finished my revision before writing this post, so the juices are still flowing with regards to my opinions on the practice. I understand the need to revise and rewrite, but I have a hard time accepting the criticism that goes along with it. I won't claim that I feel all of my papers are works of genius, but I like my writing, and I like my writing of papers even more.

Heck, even in creative writing class I liked my work the way it turned out when I was done. Revise a poem? Are you crazy? It just didn't seem right.

Perhaps I believe that the process of writing is special in and of itself and shouldn't be tampered with after the fact. Writing, when you're writing, has the finality to it that other activities seem to lack. I don't want to go back and try to capture the flow I had when composing the work the first time. It's never there.

It's reminds me a lot of those times when I'm drifting off to sleep and I'm thinking of writing. My mind seems to flow in such a smooth way. Inevitably, I wake up and can't recall what I was thinking about. Where'd it go? Wherever it went, I can't bring it back just like the flow of writing a paper and hitting the final keystroke for the last word. Once it's gone, it's gone.

I'm getting buried by print. There's too much to read and only twenty-four hours in a day.

I sat there thinking to myself, "Why am I in this class? Why would someone with an English degree need to take a class with an optional writing practicum when I already know how to write?" Why indeed?

Several weeks into the semester and it's abundantly clear why I need this class. As much as it pains me to admit, I don't really know how to write a good, solid philosophy paper, a paper with premises that support a conclusion. It doesn't sound hard, but take a look at some and make a feeble attempt at it, and you're likely to come away shaking your head in frustration as to how you're supposed to get from the argument to the conclusion without meandering about for paragraph after paragraph. This is nothing like writing about the significance of the black veil in Hawthorne; this takes a certain sort of finesse and a rigorous mind that grasps the fact that your case will most likely fall apart with the slightest bit of criticism, and that fact alone isn't such a bad thing when philosophy is concerned. You can't charm your away with dense thoughts and even denser prose. There has to be something there that you can extract and say, "Here's what I believe and here's how I can prove it."

So, on the first day when the instructor assigned a one-page paper based on the argument of whether or not the class should be graded on a curve, I was blindsided with the reality that this is a lot harder than it seems it should be. One page? How can you accomplish anything in one page? First off, you can try to fall back on the old five paragraph essay format from grade school. Do you remember that? It's one of those relics of old that a lot of people seem to feel is overrated and too constraining. Why, I don't know. It's also apparently something that no one teaches in school any longer. How do I know this? Well, part of our class is devoted to writing, and we've had the opportunity to harshly criticize the writings of our classmates in the other section. All I know from this is that if you want to boost your ego a bit, try reading some undergraduate writing. You'll feel like Melville compared to some of these malcontents.

It's not all for naught, though. You can extract some nuggets from the filler, and believe me there's a lot of filler for a one-page assignment. Most of it's disorganized, poorly reasoned, and apparently without any real regard for even the most basic forms of organization (breaking points up into separate paragraphs isn't too popular amongst the kids these days). Even I am not immune to some hasty mistakes. I didn't even write it on the actual topic. I argued against curves in general and not specifically for this class.

One other thing I've learned so far is that "pious" isn't a very flexible adjective.

Almost like the changing of the seasons, new books by favorite authors seem to appear with greater frequency after an extended literary dryspell. This year, so far, has been filled with a few books, most of which have either disappointed outright or appeared to be less than stellar efforts, and, yes, I'm talking about you Palahniuk and Chabon. To add to this, Palahniuk seems to be everywhere for coverage of one his more mediocre works and seems on the verge of burning out his schtick just when it is supposedly reaching its peak (Any more mentions of audience members "passing out" during his readings due to their lurid content should be exorcised from the record right now.). So, it's refreshing to see not one but two literary ghosts reappear. Both Bret Easton Ellis and Cormac McCarthy have been out of the limelight for quite some time; the varying reasons why couldn't be further apart on the scale for these widely divergent authors.

Ellis, who seemed to have drifted off into oblivion after all the hubbub from American Psycho, has resurfaced with a book, Lunar Park whose main protagonist is, I guess appropriately enough for an author who litters his works with incredibly narcissitic characters, Bret Easton Ellis. I have to confess I didn't read the entire novel due to the incredibly bad luck of receiving a copy that only circulates for seven days, which I seem to be a magnet for at the library. Anyway, what I did get to read wasn't bad, and the story seems to be a mishmash of memoir, horror story, and the usual behavior that Ellis thrives on. I have to admit, also, that I figured Ellis was burned out at this point. His books, although never masterpieces, were at least iteresting in a surface way to keep me reading. Strip them down to the bones that fill in the gaps between events, and you're not left with a lot of variation. Ellis and a few others thrived on capturing the mood of the Reagan 80's, but to try to make a long term career out of this repetitious nonsense is a little too much to sustain. I will grant that his writing seems a lot more formal, a little denser, and with a sense of purpose that his previous books lacked. When I get to finish it, I'll have a better sense of how well he accomplished this.

McCarthy, on the other hand, never seemed to be a case for burnout, but rather a master craftsman who took his time writing. Supposedly, he has several novels in various forms of completion ready to be published. No Country for Old Men isn't McCarthy's best, but it's not his worst either. It's a quick read, but you get the sense that it wasn't written quickly. Some authors just traffic in books that are so slap-dash in construction that it's not hard to imagine them cranking them out very rapidly. McCarthy is one of our better writers, and it's easy to see that what he writes serves a purpose. There's no filler, nothing seems to be unnecessary. Blood Meridian might be his best work, and, if you recall, I named it one of my five favorite books of all time. I'm hoping that at least one of those unpublished novels in waiting may have a fraction of the quality Blood Meridian is filled with from beginning to end.

There have been numerous stories over the last year or so regarding the potential negatives with having a blog online. Employees have been fired for revealing company secrets, complaining about the workplace in general, or just posting material online period. Every institution apparently has its own set of guidelines to follow regarding what types of activities are condoned and what is unacceptable. Since blogging is such a new and recent phenomenon, it has probably caught a lot of people off guard, and it makes the task of enforcing some sort of acceptable guidelines that much more difficult. As if the above mentioned instances weren't enough, an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education only served to highlight yet another troublesome aspect of blogging, having potential employers read your blog.

In a column entitled "First Person," Ivan Tribble, a pseudonym for a humanities professor at an unnamed college in the Midwest, the title pretty much says it all, "Bloggers Need Not Apply." This is followed by a subtitle/quote, "Job seekers need to eliminate as many negatives as possible, and in most cases a bloc turns out to be a negative." Tribble explains how three potential candidates were undone, not completely mind you, by the content of their blogs. One devoted his to a topic other than the humanities which worried the hiring committee that they would be devoting more time to this other area. Of course, you're not paying someone to be a humanities professor only to have them hang out in a the computer department, but this strikes me as nothing more than a hobbyist's outlet for a subject near and dear to them. Another had a personal blog that "scrupulously avoided comment about the writer's current job, coworkers, or place of employment." This was troublesome only because it had some content that was heartfelt and opinionated. The third apparently divulged how they had misrepresented some aspect of their resume to sound much more involved and important than it really was. Fair enough, but depending on the degree of exaggeration does that really disqualify a candidate? Who doesn't misrepresent themselves to some extent in a job interview?

Granted, some of these candidates actually chose to include the address to their blog with their application materials. Others were found easily by searching their names on the internet. To me, this seems wholly unfair when weighing a candidate's credentials. Sure, if you lie outright, that's a problem, but if you have a blog that isn't something you publicize yourself, then it seems to me like the most glaring form of gossip mongering. Tribble even mentions that it's hard to turn away from a blog filled with such juicy revelations. It seems hypocritical to indulge in such an activity only to then turn around and condemn the writer of the bloc as being not quite the applicant to fill the job. He also mentions that the blog wasn't the only factor in deciding against a candidate, but it's hard to imagine someone who spews such venom against the concept isn't weighing it pretty heavily in the end.

The best graffiti I've seen in the last few days:

One of those flashing arrow signs with the billboard area on the bottom positioned right beside a portable toilet proclaiming: "Pee."

The letters on a Burger King sign rearranged to read: "Try A Ultimate Whore."

On the side of a random building: "Pasta."

Everything you say is correct, to some extent. Nothing you say is wrong, and any comment you make can be greeted with some form of positive reinforcement, as long as it's not completely off the wall. At least that's what I've come to believe in the four weeks I've been in my current class. No clearer evidence could have been given for this notion than in last Thursday's class.

One student in particular has a real knack for giving answers to questions that are so incredibly vague in nature that it's almost a given that he hasn't done the readings or, in this case, watched the assigned film prior to class. My guess is that his responses are simply just that, responses for the purpose of maintaining his class participation grade. On the one hand, I should thank this guy for at least speaking. There are a handful of us who make an effort to contribute to the class discussion, but there are a few zombies in it as well who have yet to utter a single syllable. (My favorite of these muted malcontents did make an attempt to tell the instructor the name of an artist that he couldn't immediately think of. He hasn't been heard from since.) On the other hand, I'm driven to the point of insanity by the instructor's inevitable response of "good" to every one of his remarks before making an effort to either clarify his original query or, in a roundabout way, correct the remark as being not quite correct.

I'm not advocating that teachers need to have the personalities fit for third-world dictators in order to elicit responses that are genuinely thought out before being unleashed on the rest of the class, but isn't it better to just say, "No, that's not correct" than to allow someone's comments that are entirely off base to color the content of the class in the wrong way?

I am not and don't claim to be an outstanding public speaker or instructor, but I do believe I'm competent enough to construct a lesson around a specific topic or topics that progresses in a logical manner from one point to the next and eventually culminates in a desired goal of understanding or acquisition of a new skill which can be done in the span of a class period or multiple class periods. I attribute this to the fact that I do have an undergraduate degree in secondary education. As would seem likely, some of the courses required for the acquisition of this degree deal specifically with how to complete the very task mentioned above, construction of a lesson plan or a unit. This seems like a logical and necessary skill to obtain in the quest to becoming an effective, efficient teacher. This leads me to question why this very same skill isn’t required for instructors in higher education. What exactly is the difference between teaching twelfth-grade seniors and college freshmen? I don't see any.

The reason this topic seems interesting to me now is that I've started taking classes again at the university, and it's blatantly obvious that the instructor I have for this class either isn't comfortable speaking in front of others or so disorganized in his thoughts that it's impossible to ascertain whether he's making it all up as we go along or he's actually knowledgeable on the subject. I prefer to believe the latter; otherwise he wouldn't be teaching at this university, which is renowned for its Philosophy department. Also, it'd just be too painful and scary to contemplate the former. What's painful is that his speech is punctuated by "umms" and "I means" in an attempt to gather his thoughts into a coherent set of ideas and points of relevance. And he seems easily rattled by questions that jump ahead in the progression of the class's forward march. I honestly don't know how you can present yourself in such a way in the hopes of obtaining a new position in such a field. It just doesn't seem like you could and hope to succeed.

One of the general requirements for any undergraduate degree is a course in speech. These courses are usually pretty general in nature and serve little or no purpose other than to make you as a student feel a little more comfortable speaking in front of others. This leads me to suggest that this isn’t enough for anyone who is planning on teaching as a career regardless of level. Professors, old and young, suffer from this type of affliction, and it's likely that some, if not all, of this could be remedied by simply requiring perspective instructors to take a class on how to properly construct a lesson plan, which in turn would require them to perform in front of their peers, thus giving them more experience in front of a crowd.

Overall, the content will make the class valuable, and if the presentation is muddied to some extent by the inadequacies of the instructor, so be it. I'm really powerless to say otherwise. Having been out of class for a few years, it was a shocking reminder of how little patience I have. I'll have to learn to accept the style, but I'll keep on believing that it can be remedied easily.

George: Oh, what's the point? When I like them, they don't like me, when they like me, I don't like them. (Seinfeld, The Old Man)

I don't like her. I mean she's friendly and all and a nice person to talk to at work, but there's just nothing there. Part of me appreciates the notion of a "crush," but at this point I feel that there has to be some reciprocity as well.

I play with some guidelines, not many but some. This one definitely fell into one of those guideline areas: too young. Once you reach a certain point, it's time to simply admire and not delude yourself into thinking that it's possible to make something like that work, that being the younger girl/older guy hookup.

Maybe having said something that I shouldn't have led to this, a barrage of emails along with multiple phone numbers and complaints about being back home with her mom and brother. Surely, you can tell someone that you'll miss seeing them at work and not have some sort of consequences that verge on the bizarre, right?

Immaturity is the only thing I can think of, or the revelation that the last boyfriend she had broke up with her to live a life as a homosexual. (I'm not making that one up.)

During one scene in the film Garden State, Andrew Largeman pontificates on the realities of losing one's sense of "home" after you've moved out and lived in a place of one's own. The idea being, and a timeless one at that, is that you can never really go home again. I don't know how much I really agree with that premise (I don't so much agree with the premise as I know that I understand the notion. I refuse, and perhaps sentimentally so, to relinquish that notion of house and home.), but I did notice another phenomenon recently when I was home for a brief stay in which I think some of the residual effect of this idea of losing home is successfully planted.

Communication between you and your parents can and often is difficult regardless of your relationship with them. What I noticed during this most recent trip, though, is that you can sense that your family adapts, as I'm sure we do as well, to life without you. Behaviors change and voices are altered due to your presence. It's odd because you can feel that there's something of kilter but nothing that would in the least feel threatening or emotionally provocative. It's more often than not just an inkling that not having you around has either freed up a different personality trait in each one of your parents or you are now viewed in terms of being a visitor in every sense of the word (In most cases this would seem to imply an negative connotation, but that's not what I'm driving at. It would seem more likely that now you are viewed as being a visitor only in the sense that you're not staying.) in the home where you grew up. You're still welcome and everything that's theirs is also yours, but you're also likely to witness an evolutionary, perhaps that's being overly dramatic, change.