I officially exist...according to Amazon

It has taken a while, but my "book" (a publication of my dissertation) is now posted on Amazon. If you promise to not buy it -- as it is ridiculously expensive and only, really, intended for libraries -- you can see the details here.

I chose the cover myself. See how the crooked lampshade implies inversion/perversion?! Ha!

the other side

Classes are now over -- hooray! I survived my first year of teaching! Finals and graduation are this week, and by the 27th (when my mom and dad arrive) I will be done for the summer. I am looking forward to spending even more time outside with all of the stuff that is growing. There is something to be said for the ability of a long, hard, snowy winter to make you appreciate every moment of the spring and summer.

I have been rather delinquent in posting much about the domestic projects. There is a brand-new master bedroom (pictures to come) and - TA DA - a garden. The latter has been taking up much of our time these days. Rhonda is wonderfully maniacal about the whole thing, and can usually be found reading Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening , tending her many seedlings, or devising ways to build things we need from stuff we have. We have a group of co-gardeners who are lending expertise, muscle and enthusiasm. It has been fun and exhausting. We have dirt under our fingernails, the start of some serious farmer's tans, and the tendency to fall asleep before nine pm.

Here are some of the pics of what we have been making/crafting/ growing of late (more can be found through the link to my flikr page).



Rhonda made a compost bin out of wooden pallettes and chicken wire (all salvaged).














Our garden is 25 feet wide and 50 feet in length. We built a fence around the perimeter (to keep out deer and rabbits) and made it out of buckthorn and maple. The buckthorn is an invasive species that we want to get out of our woods, and the maples were already fallen due to erosion (facilitated by the buckthorn). Dan was our master fence builder, having toiled many a summer day on his family farm in New Hampshire.



We are gardening in a series of 4x4 boxes. There are complex mathematical calculations that determine how many of each kind of plant can live in a square foot, and in the sixteen square feet of the box. Rhonda is in charge of the analysis. I dig holes and make the frames for the boxes (grunt).

These are our first sets of lettuce and arrugula (which we grew from seed).


The lemon cucumber are also from seed. They are going to go in the ground soon. (but not today -- there is a frost warning tonight!) We will also be planting a set of heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers recently obtained through the UWGB plant sale, along with a whole batch of starts that Jane has at home.

thick plots and things that grow

The garden is tilled, the lettuce is sitting in the cold frame having its day in the sun. (Putting plants out for the day and bringing them in at night reminds me a bit of Dr. Spock's c. 1950 advisement that mothers put their infant outside in the pram for a good hour of sun and airing every day!)

The sun is out, and, the semester is nearing its end.

It is hard to believe that we have been here a full nine months. Perhaps because of the connection to birth that nine months seems significant. We have now experienced all four seasons, and all but two months. The sweetest of months, in my book, are yet to come.

I am eagerly anticipating summer. Thrilled to actually have one. A real one. Sure, I will be doing things like planning a Women's Studies course (exciting!), and revising my chapter that is appearing in a forthcoming book, but most of the summer will be spent working in the garden, spending more time with friends, and reading for fun. We are not planning on going anywhere -- sorry mom and grandma. Instead we are going to stay on our little seven acre plot and watch things grow. I am heartily looking forward to the laziness of hot days, the boredom of midsummer, and that delicious feeling -- usually experienced in early August -- of the anticipation of starting the cycle all over again.

My advice column - a preview

I am the faculty adviser for the campus Writer's Club. My very ambitious students have recently begun publishing a c.w. 'zine called The Quill (you can find the recent issue by scrolling down to the Writer's Club entry here). I have been enlisted to write an advice column that we named "Ask Dr. A." I just finished the most recent column and I am quite proud of my little piece. I though I would share. (The question was actually written by a student.)

Dear Dr. A,

I have a dilemma. I love myself, but I caught myself cheating on myself with me. I don’t know if I should forgive myself and take myself back or if I should let myself go. What should I do?

Selfless in Seattle

Dear Selfless,

Inscribed in the courtyard of the temple of Apollo is the aphorism “Know Yourself.” You , my dear friend, may have the distinct honor of knowing yourself too well. Woody Allen, himself a champion of narcissism, once wrote that masturbation is the only guarantee of sex with someone you love. Funny, yes, I agree. Nonetheless, you must move beyond the love-of-self or you will end up just like Woody Allen: really old, creepy, and married to your adopted daughter.

This brings me to the next topic which is that too much love of self leads to slightly incestuous tendencies. Freud addresses this very issue of the connections between narcissism and incest in Totem and Taboo and Narcissism. To completely butcher the ideas and work of this great thinker: it is my guess that all of your problems can be explained by your inability to detach from your mother. Do some deep soul searching and see if there isn’t a little truth to this idea.

Considering the tangle of family and self-identity issues implied in your conundrum, I would suggest that you take some time for celibacy. You might want to remove yourself to a monastery for a period of time; there are some jam-making monks in the UP looking for new membership. Or, you may just take to the woods for a period of solitude (again, I might recommend the UP as an ideal destination). Whatever your selected retreat, I encourage you to come to some closure with yourself, and then get away from it all.

This is to say that it is definitely time for you to let yourself go. But be gentle. Maybe you could take yourself out to dinner and give yourself flowers. Write a letter explaining that your love of self is unyielding, but you must move on to a healthier relationship. Don’t mention any other lovers just yet. Simply explain that you feel it is time to move on. Be honest and firm. You will thank yourself later.

Advisedly yours,

Dr. A

D.I.Y.

I just put the finishing touches on my office space (meaning I cleared out the paint and nailed the baseboard back in) and I am feel particularly proud of my accomplishments. This is, I think, the first project I have undertaken -- and actually completed -- mostly by my self (with due credit to Rhonda the wallpaper scraper). So, I will self-indulge with a photo of my accomplishment. Isn't it lovely? It should really make me want to go grade papers right now...

Spring. Break.

I have been quiet for a while... trying to finish a load of stuff before spring break. I am so excited to have a week off. Why don't we do this every semester? I still have to do lots of grading and such, but at least I get to grade in my pajamas.

I have also been busy with a whirlwind of house stuff. Suddenly I feel like doing lots of house projects again. This week stripped wallpaper and primed and painted. The far wall in my office is going to be *green*. Though, I have discovered that painting paneling is a pain in the bum. I stripped the paper, primed, sanded and painted, and I am sure it will require at least two more coats. anyway, that is a boring topic...

What else? Buddy had his anal glands expressed today. The very nice (very gay!) vet was incredibly helpful and explained how we can do this at home (it s 24 bucks per gland expression ). He used all kinds of formal, veterinary language until he described the "upwards motion towards the butthole." His assistant said " hmmm... butthole. Is that the technical term?"

What else are we going to do during the week of break? Sand, paint, plan a garden, play with the dog, have friends over, play Life and Monopoly, cook, sleep, and grade some stuff. Oh, yeah, and then we are going to Minneapolis for a few days to see Emily and Elizabeth. Hooray!

Finally, I want to say congrats to the many of you who have recently accepted jobs. It is really exciting to hear the stories, and even more exciting to not have to actually do the work of looking for a job. It is a sad state of things (in the PhD job market) when you have a 50/50 chance of *ever* getting a job. That makes your various successes even more exciting and hard earned.

More soon.... A

Whiteness

Rhonda enjoyed the "stuffwhitepeoplelike" link (below) so much that she took to reading it to me as we were finishing dinner last night. She looked at me with Rhonda-serious face and said, "You KNOW we are those white people, right?"

And we are.

The stuffwhitepeoplelike blog is really, I think, about what young, white, urban, liberals like. My parents, for instance, definitely don't know, let alone like, Mos Def, and I am pretty sure they don't really like being the only white people around. But for me, so much of this is true. The first entry I read when I first read the site proclaimed: white people love being the only white person around. especially in an "ethnic" restaurant. So true. It is a sign of authenticity. Conversely, seeing lots of white people in, say, a Chinese restaurant is a disappointment (especially in Seattle) meaning that it is americanized Chinese food. According to this logic, if a lot of white people like it, the food isn't good. Which brings me to a new contribution:

White people like thinking they are better than, more sophisticated than, other white people. (I am hugely guilty of this -- read the rest of this post for further proof.)

This week in my 102 classes I am showing a film by Saul Williams called Slam! It is a movie about a young black man in D.C. who struggles to find his way through poverty and violence while writing. He is a poet and a writer who uses these skills to survive.

I have used this film in teaching before. But, I have never showed it to a room of entirely white students. The only exception of whiteness in my classes these days are my international students from Asia. And when preparing to watch this film, one of my international students openly balked: Y, from Russia, said " Professor. I have hard time understanding Black people talking."

Y is not alone. Her American counterparts also had a hard time understanding the movie. And they are confused by and afraid of Black people. They don't know any. The community here is reported to be 98% white. Some of my students are a small part Native (as we are in what was the center of the Menominee nation). Nonetheless, these students still identify as white. The one student who seemed to really like the movie, came up to me after class and said: "I, like, totally got it... 'cause, my boyfriend is Black."

But, back to the point. The white liberal in me is definitely uncomfortable being surrounded by all white people, living in a mostly-white town, and being completely immersed in white culture. I feel lame, I feel like a sellout. I do feel REALLY white.

Tired

It has been a long week. Last Tuesday I had my last (in a series) of incidents with a mentally unwell student whose favorite pastime is ranting against the establishment and, in the last instance, ranting against me and how I am a really really shitty teacher because I didn't teach her how to do proper citation technique for sociology papers.

I can't say too much about the situation or the student, but it was a definite low point in a semester that went -- in all other ways -- very well. But somehow I am letting this last bit of drama really get me down. It is the combination of endless hours of grading, pms, long to-do lists, and getting ready to leave town for several weeks. I feel tired and miserable. And now, I feel like a bad teacher.

And before anyone comments "oh, you are not a bad teacher Amy..." I should say that -- at the deep logical core of my self -- I know that I am not. But I know that it is a very emotionally difficult thing to have a student lambaste you in front of your entire class, and even more trying to process the consequences when simultaneously trying to grade four classes and complete your first-year retention portfolio. My mind is reeling, and I am one irritable chiquita. (poor, poor rhonda.)

All I really want is to curl up with a cup of tea, a good book, and spend a day not playing teacher/social worker/den mamma to the world!

don't wanna

i have papers to grade and classes to plan. it's the last week of the semester and i'm tired. pooped.
xausted (sounds like ZAW-sted).
Rhonda expresses it perfectly when she says:
dontwanna dontwanna dontwanna!

students

pregnant. addicted. virgin. autistic. hearing voices. unable to get pregnant. published. domestic violence. single mom. caretaker. felon. divorced. Iraq vet. broken heart. laid off. honors student. drinking. slacker. religious. first generation. Native. dyslexic. never read a single book. high school dropout.

These are some of the things my students have told me about themselves.

Guns for Education

I have been in an excessively good mood for the last several days. In part, I get really hyper and excited after teaching. And, since I teach twice a day, I have lots of high-energy occasions. I find myself surprised, charmed, and engaged by the students in my class. I have the most interesting range of learners: a retired armchair historian, a few single moms, and students with a wide range of differing abilities and life-challenges. And they show up to class every day. They seem really excited to be in college (if not always in my class) and they surprise me both with their insights and, at times, the lack.

And then there are always the turkeys. You learn to expect a certain element in your classes; in my experience at Washington it was often the Frat boys sitting in the back of the class with their baseball caps on, dressed in Abercrombie, snickering with disinterest while trying to recover from the weekend's parties. You are just a glitch in their day, and they are cocky as hell. The good news: these cocky, strutting beasts seem not to be in my classes (at least this semester). However, there are the loudest, strutting, look-at-me-I'm-cool creatures who like to traipse through our yard early in the morning. TURKEYS. Real, wild, loud, turkeys. Saturday morning (the day to sleep in, mind you) we were roused at 7am by no less than 20 wild turkeys parading under our bedroom window, across the driveway, and through the yard. Like wild kingdom, but real. And the best part about these enormous birds who live in our woods and eat our bugs is that they are just part of the status quo. No one pays them any mind. Of course, it is NORMAL to have large, 20+ pound birds grazing freely in the neighborhood. Yes, they probably live in your woods. And, yes, sometimes they like to cross the road very slowly. It is all part of the way of life in this neck of the woods.

We followed the already raucous morning of turkey-watching with an 8am session of "Colleagues with Chainsaws." You do not know this event? Well, it begins when two of your colleagues have plans to go to a gun show. They decide to meet up at your place and to drop off a cooler and a chainsaw. They then decide that we should just have at it and start trimming that tree that is so overgrown. Next thing you know, you have a music Prof, a biologist, and one domestic diva (Rhonda) attacking a 30 ft. Spruce from all angles. (Amy and Buddy watch, far out of harms way.) After an hour, the tree is much improved and the colleagues look at each other and say, "well, should we head to the gun show?" It is only then that I see that said music professor is wearing a t-shirt that includes the words "guns" and "education." Rhonda looks at him and says "In Marinette, even the liberals like guns!"

I can' resist tying this all together by mentioning that it is soon turkey season (and squirrel season!). I have a strange non -resistance to hunting turkeys. Whereas deer have these big, sweet eyes and always seem so scared, turkeys seem quite self-assured and unafraid. Shooting them seems not such a loss. There will be more. Lots more.

What has become of me?

Teaching

It was a good day. I feel excited about teaching, about being here -- in this new and quirky place -- and I feel particularly good about the people. I had my small class this afternoon, and as the discussion percolated at a good speed, I looked around the room and realized that it was perhaps the strangest and most interesting teaching setting to date. I have

the smoking man doesn't know my blog

Today was the first day of class. On Tuesday/Thursday I have an 8am section of English 101, and a 2:55 (yes, 2:55!?) section of English 201. I will write more on the schedule in a moment, but first I should say that the first day went quite well. I was surprised at the diversity (racial) in my 101 class; I had students of color and they were not all international students! I asked the class to write me some words of advice on surviving Wisconsin winters and responses included: don't forget to pay the heat bill, keep cat litter in your car, and "think warm."

One might wonder how to structure a day in which your classes are seven hours apart. In general, I have decided that I will come home between classes. Living half a mile from school makes this imminently possible. (I shared this strategy with my dad who asked "they pay you for THAT?") But, being that it was the first day, I had a lot of details to take care of, so I didn't head home until 1-ish. As I was walking down the lane that leads me (the back way) to our house, I hear this voice ask "You done with school already?" I turn to see this man I have never met sitting on his deck and having a smoke. I looked at him quizzically and he said "oh, I saw you heading to school this morning." Let me repeat that I DO NOT KNOW THIS MAN. And yet, he knew I was coming home from school. Either because he actually knows who I am (small town: word travels fast), or because one can only assume that a woman wearing pinstriped pants and a paisley shirt must be going to the University, that HE KNEW. And, the funnier part being, like my father he seemed incredulous that I could be done already.

I also had to decide what I wanted the students to call me. After much debate and discussion, I have settled on "Dr. Amy." I explained to my students that finishing my PhD was one of the most excruciating things I have ever done and, gosh darn it, I earned those letters. And yet, I do not want to go all the way with this power trip. Besides, Dr. Reddinger makes me sound like a Urologist.

I hope (ahem, Georgia) that I have sufficiently narrated the first day. I am sure that I will write more as the week progresses. I also want to give props to all those who commented on my comments. Rhonda had a good laugh when no one responded to that post for a day or two, but then she was equally excited when the responses came rolling in. I think that blogging is a strange beast, but I have really enjoyed the opportunity to write creatively on a pretty regular basis. I strongly recommend that if you want to try this blogging thing, you should start blogging about things that excite you. So, for instance, Tamiko should write about food and Celia and life with Denmark's most famous composer while Georgia might want to blog about cheese and my space (see comments from last post). Certain friends might want to blog about chickens...

Rhonda took these this morning as I headed off:

Official

My contract start date was yesterday. I officially have an office, business cards, and meetings to go to. As of Tuesday I will have classes to teach. Perhaps what makes me feel most for-real is that I am now listed on the college's web directory. Still not used to the "Dr. Reddinger" references. Ha!