Long form avoidance behavior.

A few things I've been reading lately:

they are awesome.

On the Williams sisters: this and this. I only just read the Times Sunday Magazine piece today; found the Kottke comment tonight. I liked the Times piece more than he did--it felt, to me, poetic.

On David Foster Wallace: this, this and this.  I ran into the review of the new D.T. Max biography of Wallace on Slate, and the other two links were in that review.

This is where I went to college. Or BYU, I forget.

I also listened to this, then ran into this (also via Kottke). After awhile, you run into enough of this stuff, and stop panicking, either because it's kind of fascinating, or because you've become numb, or maybe both.






Also this, which I'm sure you've already seen, plus this excellent comment from a local blogger, which you might not have seen. Loved both. Trying to come up with a cogent way to thread this into my online class. 

It goes without saying that I listened to and read most of the above instead of doing other, more worthy stuff. Obviously. So factor that in, however you do your factoring.

In which I am taken to task yet again.

At breakfast:

Grandson (4 and a half years old. Conversationally):  Our tree is down.

Me:  Really? Mine is still up.

Daughter 1:  MOM.

Me:  What? I've only had it for two weeks.

Daughter 2:  MOM!

Grandson:  You need to take it down.

Me:  But I like it! It still smells good and it looks pretty.

Grandson:  Christmas is over! We opened all the presents!

Me: I might leave it up a little longer.

Daughters: [roll eyes, collectively]

Grandson: Take down it.

Grading.

Or, procrastinating?

Last night at the Sufjan Stevens concert, I persisted in believing that I would get up so early! this morning to read midterms. Also, I believed somehow that we might be home at around 10:30 p.m., from a concert that began at 8.

On the way home from the concert:

Me: I think it's hilarious how, after all this time, I still chronically underestimate how much time things actually take.

The historian: Like what?

Me: Like, I thought we might get home from the concert by about 10:30.

Historian: (snickers)

An actual snicker, the people.

Anyway, the Sufjan Stevens concert was amazing. Epic. I wouldn't say that SS's every aesthetic decision was perfect. But I would say that I felt at almost every turn that I was witnessing an artist--not "artist" the way people talk about a pop star as "the artist," but "artist" as in, a person who's making art. The whole thing was immersive--textured and layered with sound, visuals, movement, joy. I could discern antecedents (the Talking Heads of the Stop Making Sense era) and peers (the chameleonic, ever-inventive Beck), but no exact equivalents, and it really was pretty intense--revelatory--to be there.

I also loved that pretty much the whole show was new music, and most of it from the more bracing The Age of Adz rather than the prettier All Delighted People EP--bold, not at all ingratiating. I had previous listened to this music, or at least some of it--it was kind of great to experience it, really, for something like the first time in this way. The music that wasn't from The Age of Adz--"Seven Swans" from Seven Swans, and a four-song set from Illinois ("Chicago," "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois," "Decatur," and "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.") that concluded the show were a kind of gift--but I felt that the new material really put these songs in a bigger picture--they're great songs, without doubt, but they're not the best SS will ever do.

Well! having thus discharged my responsibility with regard to the review of the concert, and having confessed how yet again I have lied to myself about getting up early, the duration of things, and how much I will realistically accomplish on any given morning, I must do something: read some midterms? grade some online discussions? record a video response to a class discussion? go home and nurse this little cold that is now stalking me? Who can say?

Give me a G! Give me an R! Give me another R!

What's that spell? Grrrrr . . . . ading.

I like to have a method for everything, the people, and I know you like me to have a method too, so I can blog about it. Here's this semester's method:

1. Make a grid, with the students' names, the various categories for which there are possible points, a column for total points and a column for the grade. This is what's known as a "gradebook." They make them in both print and electronic versions. I like to make my own.

2. Put points in the grid that I should have been tracking all along, but why? when I can do it now?

3. Lie to myself in a grandiose, extravagant, and not-remotely-attached-to-reality fashion about how long it will take me, viz., "Oh yes! It will be done by Friday" (posted on Tuesday).

4. Buy a Christmas tree. Decorate it.

5. Add many new blogs to my Google Reader. My old blogs were getting a little sparse, a little threadbare (yes I'm talking to you if you don't post very much I hate you Facebook).

6. Define milestones. For instance, grade a whole set of this. Then rest. Then grade a whole set of that. Then go to a movie. Why rush? There's no need to rush. Christmas is, like, next week. That's days and days away.

7. Check the Facebook updates of people who are finished grading. Curse them. And love them, but: curse them!

8. Have a small crisis of self-worth. It goes like this: why did they (the students) do (pick your disappointing student behavior--fail to turn in X, scatter their group project documents hither and yon, fail to complete crucial, culminating project Y, etc.)? I am a terrible teacher. Their failings are my fault.

9. Regroup. Strategies for regrouping: toast. Cookies. Mid-grading blogging. Repeat step 8/step 9 sequence as necessary until all milestones (see step 6) are completed.

And yet, having completed a milestone, I am feeling rawther cheerful about the grading. Hello, I must be going to a movie. More grading later. Ta ta.

Fa la la la la la la la la.

1. Crafts extravaganza.

In which the first seasonal episode (surely the last!) of egregious overspending at the craft store leads to a swell morning with grandchildren.

Retro buttons, dressmaker pins with pearly heads, styrofoam cones. Five grandchildren, ranging from age 2 to 6. That's right, sharp objects and small children. Four children and two adults made button trees, which are, I think we can all agree, damned cute and very merry.

Cloves, oranges, a nail for pre-poking the holes for the cloves, tea light candles. That's right, another craft including poking. The kids mainly vetoed this, the pomander craft. They wanted to move on to the cookies. And really, who can blame them.

Sugar cookies (Dr. Write's recipe, thank you very much as it worked beautifully and tasted great), icing in three colors (white, red, green), and about a dozen different kinds of sprinkles. Can you really have too many sprinkles? I don't think so. Each kid decorated about six sugar cookie trees, with optional icing-sprinkles-icing-more sprinkles layering. Also, intermittent cookie eating.

Lunch: paninis or peanut butter and honey or peanut butter and jam, or all three. Carrots, chips, grapes, oranges. Root beer. This was a big hit.

2. I really should be grading.

In which I yet again procrastinate moving from pre-grading (organizing scores, seeing what I have and what I don't, and yet again sending the "did you forget . . .?" e-mails which I swear swear swear to myself I'm going to stop doing) to the grading, and buy a Christmas tree.

It is beautiful, I only had to discard two strands of lights after having first tested them to see if they worked, and they worked, and then I put them on the tree and they didn't work. But that only made me a little sweaty. And now it is gorgeous. My grading will occur in a much more festive atmosphere. And it will be finished by Friday. Oh yes! It will be finished by Friday.

See for yourself:

TAGS: crafty, overspendy, festive, O tannenbaum, pre-grading

Definitely.

1. "I've just come from Modern Poetry class, and boy are my frontal lobes chafed." (My Science Fiction Twin)

Don't usually feel that way about modern poetry myself (although, come on, it really depends on the poet, doesn't it?).

2. Too much grading to do? so many students asking for extensions your head is coming unscrewed? suffering from brainmelt? Then bake, I say. There's a beautiful Procrastination Cake coming out of the oven any minute now. That comes after the Procrastination Thai food and the Procrastination movie (Fracture) (otherwise known as the Procrastination date, otherwise known as the Procrastination dinner-and-a-movie. And cake.)

3. Those who have opined within my hearing that there's nothing good at the movies, oh my gosh. You are crazy! There's so much good at the movies, including, and to wit: The Namesake, The Lookout, The Hoax. Also, Fracture was a completely good popcorn movie. Also, Becket, as in Richard Burton, is at the Regency. That's not to mention that Will Ferrell ice-skating movie which I am totally planning on seeing and totally laughing my ass off at.

4. But really, it's time to start finishing my work. That's tomorrow. That's after watching another track meet and taking the dogs to the park and maybe scrubbing my shower until it knows who's boss. And having some next-day Procrastination Cake.