User-agent: * Disallow: / <center>HistoryDetective's Not So Private Journal</center>

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Blog Update Day

It's interesting that today is Blog Update Day because in the last couple of days I have been thinking about how this blog is more or less dead. I rarely take the time to update it any more. I've wondered what to do with it. I know that some people completely erase blogs that they no longer actively use. Others hide them from public view. I know that I definitely do not want to erase it. Even though I do not actively update any more, this blog was very important to me at one time. It is a record of who I used to be on my way to becoming who I am.

The new semester began about two weeks ago. This is going to be a very busy semester for me in terms of teaching and advising. Instead of having two classes (four sections total) to prepare, I have three classes (four sections total). The extra time that it takes to prepare a three hour class will definitely give me a lot less free time. Two of those classes are the senior seminar and senior pro-seminar, which makes them heavy reading classes for me as well as for the students. This combination of classes is the cornerstone of a History major: all of the students complete a major research project using primary sources. That only adds to my workload since I will be directing twenty-two research projects in addition to my other responsibilities for each class. Fortunately I really like my students.

I am also very involved in campus life. I am serving on several committees this year, so that means lots of meetings. I am also affiliated with various campus programs. I usually arrive on campus around seven in the morning, work until six in the evening, and then head over to the pool to swim. At least two days each week I stick around for an evening event on campus after I am done in the pool.

In addition to the teaching and service components of my job, I am also attempting to keep up a research agenda. It looks like much of what I would like to accomplish as far as research and publishing is concerned will have to wait until winter and summer breaks, but I am slated to give two papers at conferences in the next four months. I need to factor in time to write and revise those as well as travel to Tampa and San Diego for the conferences.

Even though I am very busy with work, I feel like I am managing to achieve a bit of a balance at home. Boyfriend and I combined residences over the summer. I usually work on Saturdays, but it is nice being able to spend time with him on Saturday evenings and Sundays. Knowing that we will have some sort of adventure together over the weekend (even if it is just going to the grocery store) helps to keep me energized throughout the week. He is almost as busy as I am, working forty hours a week and taking classes to finish his degree. I appreciate that we both understand the pressures the other one faces. Since he works second shift, we manage to find time once a week for him to visit my campus and have lunch together.

I don't hop around to other blogs like I once did, but I do make it to RTVW/OT fairly regularly to skim through stuff when I take a five minute break to eat a granola bar or banana. I miss the conversations I once had, but I still enjoy browsing many of the discussions even though I cannot sustain the kind of participation I once enjoyed.

I would appreciate it if somebody would let me know when it is time to sign up for the cookie exchange. That is a tradition that I really treasure. It helps me to feel grounded in December. The end of the semester is always hectic, but baking for a faraway friend helps me to relax.

posted by HistoryDetective @ 9/16/2009   4 observations

Monday, August 03, 2009

Mad Men Manga

posted by HistoryDetective @ 8/03/2009   0 observations

Monday, July 20, 2009

Scenes from Maritime Canada




posted by HistoryDetective @ 7/20/2009   1 observations

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

A Suggestion

Yes, your nifty motorized wheelchair is really handy, but when a perfectly good sidewalk is available then maybe you should travel along it rather than down the center of the street, especially during rush hour.

posted by HistoryDetective @ 6/16/2009   4 observations

Monday, June 15, 2009

A Little Bit of Everything

I was on campus for Orientation all day on Saturday. I ran a course selection workshop in the morning, attended the luncheon for parents, and then met with advisees throughout the afternoon. (This gave me plenty of chances to gather up cookies and brownies to bring home to Boyfriend.)

My last advising session ended at six o'clock so I was rather hungry when I got home. I asked Boyfriend if he had any ideas for dinner. When he said that he was in the mood to go out, I suggested that we walk down the street to Armsby Abbey. We have drinks there about once a week, but it has been a while since either of us ate there.

We both got carded when we arrived. There was a table available out on the sidewalk, but we opted to head inside. All the tables at the front were occupied. We opted to simply sit at the bar. I like to sit there because the bartenders are always very friendly in offering suggestions. Considering how many beers they have on tap, I like to hear what they have to say. I ended up starting off with a microbrew from Michigan (in honor of my home state) before moving on to a Stone Levitation (from California).

Boyfriend loves hot food so he decided to try the Jamaican Jerk sandwich. I reiterated the warning on the menu that they serve an authentic jerk that is very hot. I have heard the servers warn novices off from the sandwich. It really is only for those who like really spicy food. The sandwich came with a layer of cole slaw as well as tabouli on the side. I ordered the mushroom swiss burger. When I requested mustard, they gave me some Dr. Gonzo's Black Fly Mustard (made at the shop a few doors down). The burger would have been good all by itself, but the mustard really made the meal!

We returned home after we finished eating. Since I had to be back on campus on Sunday morning to teach a model class, we watched an episode or two of Supernatural and then headed to bed.

I decided to stay home and work on projects around the apartment this morning. I figured that since I was on campus both Saturday and Sunday that I could spend some time with Boyfriend before he left for second shift at the hospital. My phone rang while we were working on some home improvement projects. It was the dean. She had tracked me down because there were a few students who signed on for Orientation at the last minute so she was looking for an advisor and wondered if I would be willing to take them. I agreed.

When Boyfriend left for work I headed to campus to pick up the files. I spent some of the afternoon preparing for tomorrow's meetings with the students before moving on to other projects. I ended my time on campus with a trip to the pool. Since the pool is closed on weekends during the summer, it had been a few days since my last swim. I must have felt full of energy because I swam a mile and a half. Several hours later, my right ear is still clogged. That is driving me crazy!

posted by HistoryDetective @ 6/15/2009   1 observations

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Parent Orientation

The college sponsors a parent orientation that runs simultaneously with the events for incoming first-year students. It has been very informative to observe the programs presented to the parents and even more interesting to hear the questions that they ask. I have had several interesting conversations with parents over the past couple of days.

Several of those conversations took place at meals. The college arranged for faculty doing advising at orientation to eat lunch with the parents in the dining hall while the students ate lunch at the campus "pub." After I finished a conversation with a mother of a first-year student and a colleague from Business Studies, I noticed a friend from Natural Sciences sitting by herself so I joined her. "It's too bad you weren't here a couple of minutes ago," she told me. "I was talking with two parents whose children are interested in History. I know you could have told them a lot more about the program."

A couple of minutes later one of the parents came back to pick up her purse. When she told me how much her son was looking forward to his History courses I made a point of looking at her name tag. She had the same last name as one of the students I would be advising later in the day. "Is Brad your son?" She was pleased that I knew who he was --- and then amazed that I was able to tell her that I had read his file so closely that I knew he was an Eagle Scout who was enrolling in both the Honors sections of the Western Civilization Program as well as the Tagaste Project.

Her friend, the other parent with a student interested in History, then joined us. She had a very distinctive last name, another one that I recognized as a student I would be meeting later in the day. I was able to tell her that I knew her daughter had been invited to join the First Year Program and that she was really interested in digital photography and had won some awards for it. We talked some about her daughter's concerns about college. I also told her that I planned to steer her daughter toward the Art department's course on digital photography for the fall semester.

Some parents might think that they hear some sort of generic promises about how faculty are interested in working with their children, but I hope that I demonstrated to these parents that I take my advising responsibilities seriously, that I was investing time and effort in making their college experience as positive as possible even before they arrived on campus.

posted by HistoryDetective @ 6/11/2009   1 observations

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Reward

To celebrate the end of our first day of advising at summer orientation, several colleagues and I ventured out for Indian food (and Indian beer). We had a good mix: two veteran faculty, two who had been at the college for several years, and two of us who are relatively new. That meant that we had several different perspectives represented as we reflected on our day.

The food was very delicious. We started with some vegetable pakoras and sesame naan. We each ordered our own entree, but passed them around once they arrived. I cannot remember everything we had, but I do know that I opted for the chicken mangoli (with, as the name suggests, chicken and mangos --- and some broccoli too). Somebody else ordered my favorite dish, chicken tikka masala. When the little platters arrive they always look so small, but it turns out that they have a lot of food on them! We came nowhere near finishing all of the food. My colleagues were good enough to send home many of the leftovers with me so I could share them with Boyfriend. Considering that we went to his favorite Indian restaurant without him, having something to share when he got home from the hospital was a good thing. (Besides, I forgot to grab him some of the leftover cookies from the advising session earlier in the day.)

Worcester may be the redheaded stepchild when compared to Boston and Providence, but I am generally excited about the restaurants that we have in town. Sometime soon I should take a few minutes to update my restaurant links to highlight places I have eaten in Worcester. (I never did add any links for Halifax.)

posted by HistoryDetective @ 6/10/2009   0 observations

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Orientation and Advising

Tomorrow is the first day of the first summer orientation session. It will also be the first time that I do any advising. (Faculty at my college are not expected to take on advising responsibilities until their second year. The first year is supposed to be devoted primarily to teaching. We are one of the few colleges that still matches undergraduates with faculty advisors rather than having a separate office and professional staff that handles advising. This is different than being a mentor. The main purpose here is to help students select courses and make sure that they are meeting all the requirements for general education classes, electives, and majors, minors, and programs.)

I picked up the files for the students I will be advising tomorrow. Before having a one-on-one meeting with an advisor, all students participate in a course selection workshop. They are supposed to fill out a worksheet of classes that they would like to take that should also help them progress toward fulfilling various requirements. They should also be courses that are an appropriate level for incoming students. Well, the students may or may not arrive at their appointment with a complete list. Considering how much information is being thrown at them in such a short time, there's no reason to expect them to be able to map out every last detail of their first semester by the end of their first day of orientation.

To accommodate for that, I carefully read each file (including their test scores, interests, survey answers, and a "letter to your advisor"). For each student, I have put together a schedule of classes that I believe will fit their needs. Each course fulfills at least one general education requirement so they can have more flexibility in laster semesters. Each schedule includes a variety of disciplines so they can get a sense of what to expect from a liberal arts education: that means at least one offering from the humanities, one from the social sciences, and one from the natural sciences. Since they are required to take at least one art, music, or theater class, I have suggested a class that corresponds to their interests. While I have focused on classes that match their strengths, I have also suggested one class that will be difficult. (Considering that I do advising for students who indicate that they would like to be History majors, they often identify math or science classes as their weaknesses. Since they are required to have at least one of those, I encourage them to get it out of the way immediately. That way anything they learned in high school is still fresh. Then they do not have to worry about it any more.)

I plan to start each appointment by asking the student about the schedule he or she built during the course selection workshop. We will review the strengths and weaknesses together. I'll keep the schedules I have devised in reserve for students who are really indecisive or confused. For those who have a sound plan, I will let them chart their own destiny. For those who have a good idea for some course but still want help choosing the rest, I will use my proposed schedules to offer suggestions.

I know that the students will be both nervous and excited. As a first-time advisor, I am also excited, but I feel prepared.

posted by HistoryDetective @ 6/09/2009   0 observations

Monday, June 08, 2009

Weekend Update

After the Albanian Festival, the rest of the weekend turned out to be steadily busy and a lot of fun. We drove over to Clinton to wander around in the shops there. We visited a furniture consignment store that had a great matching set of dressers, but the current asking price is out of our range. Like many consignments shops, they lower the price by increments as a specified number of weeks pass. We're going to keep track of the pieces in hopes of buying them at a reduced price. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they stick around until we can afford them.

When we were ready for dinner, he suggested that we get either pizza or falafel. Having had lamb for lunch, I was in more of a pizza mood. We went over to Blue Jeans for a deep dish with "the works" (pepperoni, meat balls, ham, green pepper, onions, and mushrooms). Later in the evening we headed over to Boyfriend's apartment to retrieve the remote control to the DVD player he loaned me. We have been trying to work our way through the first season of "Carnivale," but my DVD player stopped working. He brought over his spare DVD player earlier in the week, but he forgot the remote. On the way home we stopped for ice cream. I had a waffle cone with two scoops, each featuring peanut butter in one form or another.

We slept in for a bit on Sunday and took it easy around the apartment in the morning before heading over to Boyfriend's best friend's house for a barbeque. She lives with her father in a house that has not changed at all since the 1970s! It reminded me of going to visit my grandparents' house in the '80s. The food was really good: hamburgers, hot dogs, and crab cakes along with pasta salad and potato salad and plenty of beer.

We went back to my apartment for a disco nap before walking over to the local Tea Dance commemorating the beginning of Pride Week in Boston. I am not certain that the event merited a ten dollar cover: it was sloppy seconds in Worcester, after all. The music was mostly fine, but the crowd was not especially attractive. Miss Kitty Litter came up from Providence to host the event. She walked up to me and asked, "Are you scared?" When I said, "No," she responded with "You will be." (It would have been better if she had done the Yoda voice when she said that. I think that they went to high school together.) It turned out that she scared Boyfriend a lot more than she did me. She stood behind him the restroom, screaming "You're gorgeous! You're gorgeous!" He was very distracted as a result.

When we spotted one of Kitty Litter's cousins, Boyfriend said, "Look, it's Lady Googoo." I was not impressed. "It looks more like Shady Gaga to me." When it was time for her performance, guess which artist she chose. That's right: she performed a Lady Gaga song. C'mon, if you're going to copy, errr, emulate her look then at least have enough creativity to perform a song by somebody else instead of simply being a sad little reproduction.

Once we had enough of the Tea Dance we went home to watch an episode of "Carnivale" before going to bed. It was so good that we decided to watch a second one, the very last episode of the first season. Now we're stuck with a cliffhanger. I guess that we'll be going back to "Supernatural" the next time we watch television (and arguing over Jensen Ackles).

posted by HistoryDetective @ 6/08/2009   1 observations

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Don't Tell George III

I had lamb kebabs for lunch today.

Boyfriend and I went to the Albanian Festival this afternoon. Our first stop was the food tent. We both got platters that came with rice pilaf and green beans soaked in tomato sauce. I opted for the lamb kebab with green peppers and onions, but he went with chicken instead. We listened to Albanian music as we ate lunch. By the time we were done, we both felt so full that we did not go back for leek pie or spinach pie or even for baklava or any of the other desserts.

I put in some bids on a couple of items at the silent auction, but since we were there on the second of three days I imagine that somebody will come along and overbid me. I couldn't believe the variety of different items they had in the auction, everything from antiques to modern art to brand new GPS systems. I'm not certain that a silent auction is distinctly Albanian, but the proceeds probably help to support their programs.

posted by HistoryDetective @ 6/06/2009   1 observations