Holiday travels

I live at some distance from most of my family, effectively the entire width of the continent.  Consequently I don't see them often, nor they me.  In theory technology is supposed to bridge the gap, but I find that is largely not the case.  Perhaps this is a peculiarity of my family as opposed to others, but out-of-sight often means out-of-mind.  Plans to Skype regularly simply fall by the wayside, in part because the nieces can't be convinced to get as excited about that rather than whatever is going on in their neighborhood.  I can't blame them.  Playing the distant uncle is lonely.

I do try to visit every year, but this usually falls on the semester break, or the holiday season and this is, by my reckoning a poor time to visit.  Travel is unpleasant (although my flights out were uneventful, early, and surprisingly not entirely packed), and at the holidays, as my siblings get older and have children they are pulled in multiple directions by their spouses, local friends, and the like.  Friends are often difficult to see for the same reason.  Upon my arrival back home I always vow not to make the trip the next year, but lose my resolve over the months that follow.  One feels a great deal of guilt about this, especially if one has the time and the resources to make the trip.

The Battle of the Somme

I have just completed William Philpott's book Three Armies on the Somme.  As a younger man I read quite deeply in military history, and then stopped, and am now delving back into this literature.  I am sure that at least some of the push comes from the centennial of the war's outbreak in August of 1914, and my own dissertation was vaguely a Great War topic, so perhaps I am not returning so much as re-awakening an interest.

It is a tome, so I won't bore you with a detailed review, but what I enjoyed most about the book was its direct argument.  In the decades after the end of the war, the 1916 Battle of the Somme was held up by historians, especially British historians, as the finest example of the stupidity of the generals and the noble sacrifice of the commoners of Great Britain, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, India, and Canada.  The 95,000 dead from the British Commonwealth, and the 420,000 casualties in total would be the rallying cry for isolationists, appeasement advocates, and scholars against the war and to expose the dull reality that modern mass society had led rather directly to mass death on a factory scale.

But Philpott advances a provocative argument; one that I find compelling.  In short, the Battle of Somme was the first successful Allied campaign of the war, even though it failed utterly of its stated purpose.  The battle did forge an effective mass modern army for Great Britain, essential for its contribution in the last two years of the war.  The battle revealed that the principle Allied advantage was in material and manufacturing.  The war would only be won with material, and that required the exact grind-it-out practices that the Somme so bloodily illustrated.  What broke the back of the Central Powers was their inability to sustain the losses of men and material as well as the Allies could and the acceptance by the Allies that victory was only possible through an extended war of attrition.

What they don't teach you in Graduate School

I earned a doctorate in history after twelve years of effort (not constant effort, but quite a bit of effort nonetheless).  I completed classes in all genres of history, methodologies, research skills, and a foreign language (German, now mostly forgotten).  I have written book reviews, literature reviews, original research, syllabus rationales, and countless other bits and pieces of prose.  I have delivered lectures, talks, papers, witty and informative asides, diatribes, and participated as a speaker and moderator on panel discussions, roundtables, and conversations.

The expectation of my mentors, professors, and instructors as I worked toward that doctorate was that I would then teach at the university level, and I have done so.  Given the nature of work in the contemporary academy I am "almost-actually-kinda" successful.  I landed a tenure-track job, I have won teaching awards, I receive a decent salary, and most of the time I enjoy my work and the satisfaction that comes from teaching.  I even landed a position despite that I work in a not terribly sexy field: business history.

Yet, nothing in all of that prepares you for the human-side of teaching.  As I am now nearing my tenth year of working in collegiate instruction (I offered my first class as the instructor-of-record in the fall term of 2004 while not yet ABD) what has become apparent to me is how woefully inadequate my training was in reality.  Not in terms of content, or even delivery -- these I either understood naturally or because I emulated the faculty who had inspired me over my years of being the student -- but in terms of psychology.

During the two years that I was an assistant professor at a state university in southern Georgia a significant portion (probably a solid majority) of the student population was either active-duty military, reserve, retired, or spouses and dependents of  military personnel.  Given the pace and scale of our military deployments overseas since 2000 (of longer duration than any previous sustained conflict in US history with the possible exception of the "Indian Wars" of the 1870s - 1890s), I had 22-year old freshman who had completed tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, or multiple tours in each theater and who has seen friends killed, maimed, injured, or had themselves come to physical or mental injury.  It is one thing to enjoy teaching a World Civilizations class where half of the class can speak with deep knowledge of the Sunni/Shia divide in the Muslim world, it is entirely different to have a student show up in your office hours telling you that she hasn't slept a full night in weeks because when she does sleep her dreams are a grim catalog of each and every soldier or civilian who died on the operating table where she was a field nurse, or the other student, a former Army Recon battalion non-com who disappeared for two weeks mid-semester only to return having just been released from county lock-up after a drunk and disorderly charge was compounded with a spurious "assaulting an officer" charges.  They looked to me for help and I had nothing to offer beyond human compassion.  I walked the first over to counseling services on campus, but even those folks were not in a position to help someone suffering so terribly with PTSD.  The second eventually dropped out, and is probably in prison.  He had developed a drinking problem in order to calm his nerves, and results were not pretty.

At my current institution the problems are not nearly as severe at first glance, but just as troubling to me.  How does one comfort a student who has been beaten regularly by his boyfriend and cannot turn to his family for support because they disapprove of homosexuality?  Where do we learn to reach a student who suffers quite clearly from "affluenza" - the distinct inability to see beyond the wealth and comfort to which they have become accustomed? 

The illusion of second chances

Perhaps it is something that happens to me when I travel (and I am away at a conference while I write this) the solitude of the flights and the panels causes me to engage in self-reflection.  Rarely does this mental motion take me to a happy place, and lately I have been thinking a great deal about what I am doing, really asking myself, "what will I make of my life?"

I am increasingly of the opinion that I have treated my life as though it was a dress rehearsal for most of my adult years.  In other words, as though I am going to get a second chance at this and consequently can be somewhat cavalier about what I do now.  This seems a poor way to live, as that second chance is an illusion.  I guess that this may be the mid-life existential crisis, but I haven't the other trappings of that trope (spouse, children, house), so perhaps this is something different.

I don't know what to do with this revelation.

Tell me a story

Today, and for the next couple of days, I am interviewing candidates to serve as Student Ambassadors for the university.  Ambassadors give 99% of our campus tours to prospective students, and often are the only students these campus visitors will genuinely interact with.  It's an incredibly important job, and a prospect's ambassador experience can sometimes even determine whether they will apply, or ultimately attend, the university.  

I read somewhere that one hiring manager's favorite interview question wasn't even a question, but a command of four little words : "Tell me a story."  It's an intriguing concept, requiring something completely unplanned and unstructured, something "real," and it's exactly the type of thing I would do.  So today, before any and all other questions, I looked at each candidate and asked them to tell us a story.  

At first they would look at me with that unique combination of "terror," and "he has to be joking." They'd usually ask "What kind of story?" or "Can it be about me?"  And then, as the panic subsided, they thought about it for a second, and .... something wonderful happened: they opened up, like a freshly cracked walnut.  We learned how one candidate bonded with a ten year old at a camp this past summer.   Another told us about how they came to have a crippling phobia of bodies of water - and fish, in particular.  A third recounted how she had come to fall in love with music after teaching herself to play the piano, and my favorite told the story of how she adopted a stray cat that behaved like an angel during the day and turned into a hellion at night, climbing her walls (yes, with it's claws) and destroying everything in sight.  So she did what any dutiful child would do ... she gave the cat to her parents. 

And then I found five dollars.

About a boy

Perhaps you remember the 2002 Hugh Grant film in which the life of a layabout playboy happens to intersect with that of a good-hearted, but bullied and clueless, twelve-year old boy.  Heartwarming comic hijinx ensue.   It's an odd couple that only a Nick Hornby novel could provide... until now.

Enter Lunchbox*.  Lunchbox is my first cousin once removed (my cousin's son) and he's 11 years old.**  In the coming weeks, months, and perhaps years, I will be his mentor.  One of the crippling realities of life is that it's very hard to say no to your mother.  Truthfully, I had a lot in common with him at that age - I too loved video games, food, and saying inappropriate things at inappropriate times.  However, our home lives could not have been more different, thus the need for a steadying male influence in his life.

What are we going to do you ask?  Great question; you always were a sharp one.  Thus far we've gone out for Mexican food, went to Wal-Mart (I now know more about Skylanders than you do), and taken in The Lego Movie (most excellent).  There will be some homework and tutoring.  We'll cook, starting with things that use ground beef and a box, eventually graduating to things that involve ground beef without a box (my specialty)  When the winter ends I'll no doubt force him to go on walks around the neighborhood, hopefully without having to use a rope to pull him around.  Perhaps we'll go to bars and pick up chicks.  The world is our oyster!

*Note: Lunchbox is not his real name.  

** His mother is 9 months younger than me.  Imagine if I had an 11 year old son (shudders involuntarily).

Absence etc. etc.

It has been two months and five days since I last posted to this corner of the information super highway - please forgive me.  I don't have a good reason to explain my absence other than that I have been figuratively "down" since this past October, and gradually my motivation withered and fell from the vine.   Winter, with its cold, snow, and incessant darkness has a way of magnifying life's perceived troubles and I just happened to find myself in the mood to wallow in them and play video games.  Lots of video games.

Now March approaches and with it spring in name if not in deed, so here's to flowers, chocolate bunnies, and a brighter blogging tomorrow.

No Rain, No Change

A quick commentary on the California mentality.  As many of you may know, the entire state of California is on the edge of a potentially catastrophic drought.  If no additional rain falls in the next three to four weeks (a likely scenario) then we will receive no statistically significant rainfall until next year.  So, what do I observe every morning on my way to work?  Folks watering their deep green lawns so excessively that water runs down the gutters for hours.

Stupid People.

Zebras, internal combustion, Christmas, and a bow tie.

[I am inspired to recount this story after reading my esteemed co-author's offering of the life and death of the Mercury Topaz]




This was Christmas day, oh, call it (as Flaco Jimenez does) "Nineteen Hundred and throw it away," (or around 1991) and I was the owner (proud owner) of a 1967 VW Westfalia Camper.  Neat, yes, all the more-so for its delightful paint scheme: Zebra stripes, top-to-bottom, roof included.  I bought the beast that way, and remember to this day my mother falling to the ground with laughter when first I drove it up to the house.

Now, this VW was somewhat on the conspicuous side, so I drove always with caution, and with strict adherence to the rules of the road.  The double-reduction gearboxes in the hubs that limited the top-speed to about 55mph helped in that effort, as did the roughly 54 bhp motor!  In any case, I drove the bus, on and off, for about 3 years, with only one instance of unwarranted police attention, which is the source of this story.

Having spent the day with family, I departed the manse and proceeded to gather two good friends, D and M, as we planned to head to the house of a friend of another friend, in nearby Carteret, New Jersey.

D sat in the front passenger seat, dressed, as was his norm, in a leather biker's jacket, Dr. Marten's and a stern expression, I was wearing combat boots, a flight jacket, but hardly menacing with my John Lennon glasses and long hair.  M sat in the back, on the rear bench.  Since the bus was a camper, that was the only other seat.  M, as always, dressed neatly, button-down shirt, and possibly a bow-tie, proper shoes, and the like.  This will come into the story later.

The trip between our hometown and Carteret is usually short jaunt north on Route 1.  We entered the empty highway (slowly, it had snowed, and the bus was not speedy), quickly exiting our hometown and entering Edison Township.  Crossing over the township line we passed an Edison police officer sitting  alongside the road who promptly pulled out and began to follow us, first behind, then coming up on the left side, then the right, then pulling out in front, and finally falling in again behind us.  He was looking for a reason to pull us over, but I kept the vehicle in good running order, all the lights worked, and I was, as usual, paying careful attention to the rules of road and compensating for the unfavorable driving conditions.

All of this was for naught, as just before we would have passed beyond his jurisdiction, the office flipped on his overheads and pulled me over.   I turned off the motor, but turned on the hazard lights.  The bus didn't have any hear anyway, so there was no need to potentially antagonize the office by leaving the vehicle running.  The officer took his time approaching the bus, so that by the time he approached I had my license and other papers out for inspection.  He ignored my polite inquiry as to the nature of the stop and collected my papers and D's license.  He asked where we were going and from whence we had come, all questions that I answered politely, but with minimal detail.  He made a thorough inspection of the interior of the bus with his flashlight as he walked both to the bus and back to his cruiser.  We sat for sometime, ten minutes, perhaps more.  We could observe him speaking on the cb several times, and taking notes.  Eventually he returned to the bus, returned our papers and did another inspection of the interiors.  He lingered especially in looking at M.  He asked D to move aside so that he could stick his head in the window to speak with M.  This was the exchange:

Officer:  "Sir, are you okay?"
M: "Ahh.....yes?"
Officer:  "Sir, are you certain that you are okay?"
M: "Yes."
Officer:  "Sir, are you being held against your will?
M: "What?"
Officer: "Sir, are you being held against your will?" "Do you know these two men?"
M: "Excuse me?"
Officer: "Do you know these two men?"
M: "Yes, one's my college roommate and the other is a life-long friend."
Officer: "Are you certain that you are not being held against your will?"
M: "Yes."

He returned my papers and told us that we could depart, which we did, passing into the next town 100 yards up the road, where we were promptly tailed by a Woodbridge Township police cruiser, which passed us over to a Carteret cruiser that followed us to the friend's house.

Syllabus tidbits, no. 3

The last for today:

"I require the use of the Oxford comma; call me old-fashioned.[1]

---

[1] Yes, I am aware that Vampire Weekend has recorded, released, and performed a song entitled “Oxford Comma.”  And I know as well that they don’t care much for this essential, traditional, and unfairly maligned bit of punctuation; a pity really."

Syllabus Tidbits no. 2

More fun:

On Final Exams:

"The University establishes the schedule for final examinations, and as such I will not offer an alternate examination time, so make your end-of-term travel plans accordingly.  Addendum “A” contains the examination dates and times.  Tell Mom and Pop, or Mom, or Pop, or whomever, now, so they don’t “surprise” you with a plane ticket home.  They certainly will be surprised when they see your grade.  The same rule applies for Spring Break.  Rumor has it that high-stakes quizzes are frequent visitors to the class periods immediately prior to and following this bizarre, but much-lauded, collegiate ritual."  

On Bathroom Use:

"I am baffled by the constant stream (pun intended) of students who walk in and out of classes while they are in session.  By baffled, I mean annoyed, and by annoyed, I mean angered.  Attend to your bodily functions prior to class."  

 On Dressing for Formal Business Events:

“Business professional” attire is required.  To loosely paraphrase a (now retired) colleague: “For men this means a clean, pressed, and presentable dress shirt, tie, belt or suspenders, dark socks, pants or trousers (not jeans or khakis) and a sport coat (with appropriate dress shoes – no matter how much you paid for them, sneakers are not dress shoes) or a business suit; for women, it means clean, pressed (as necessary) and presentable clothing and closed-toe footwear appropriate to a business occasion, not a sporting event or a Hollywood ball.  While you may look stunning in those five-inch stiletto heels, they are not appropriate attire.  If you choose to wear a skirt or dress, and you need to take even a solitary moment to consider how you would sit without embarrassment in a solitary chair facing an attentive audience then it is too short for this event.”  Generally speaking you should seek to cultivate a look that is tasteful, clean, refined, timeless, and forgettable.  You will be representing the University and me while you are in attendance; you do not want to disappoint either of us.  Failure to dress appropriately will result in a reduction of your overall grade.  If the dress requirements for this dinner will present you with difficulties, for any reason, please come and speak with me at least two weeks in advance.

On attendance:

"If you have a legitimate and provable reason for missing class let me know in advance and I will give your application due consideration.  All such applications must be made in writing (by e-mail attachment) and are considered formal writing assignments.  They must be submitted in a memo format.  In the end, it is your responsibility to take attendance seriously.  My ego may suffer some damage from repeated mass absences, but that is repairable given time.  However, it is my experience that students who do not attend lecture diligently usually fail the course (and life).  Please consider the following: if you cannot arrive on time and attend a class for a grand total of 210 of the 10,800 minutes in a week (1.94 %), why would anyone in their right mind want to hire you?  That’s correct; class attendance consumes less than 2% of the total number of minutes in a week.  Most of you probably spend more time each week playing video games, on social media, texting and tweeting, eating, showering, engaging in reckless and disgusting behavior, or simply gazing at the walls of your room."

 

 

Syllabus tidbits no. 1

I enjoy crafting a syllabus.  Much like the clothing one wears, a syllabus can say much about the instructor and the course.  It should work at the most superficial level, providing the necessary organizational details of the course, but also conveying to the discerning reader a sense of the personality behind the pages.

With that in mind, I am sharing a few of my favorite passages.

On Personal Conduct:

"Repeated or excessive tardiness, packing up before the end of class, answering a cell phone, allowing a cell phone to ring, leaving your cell phone on the desk or in view, sleeping, texting, reading and surfing the internet during class are disrespectful and disruptive.  I will order repeated or egregious violators (recidivists) to leave the classroom.  If you cannot survive 80 minutes without viewing, fondling, or otherwise manipulating your cellular mobile telephone then you should take another class and reconsider whether you are ready for college.  It isn’t a lover; it is a device, so let’s have some perspective.  Save those caresses for someone that cares for you and whose affections aren’t purchased on a monthly basis.  The only exception I have ever allowed regarding phone use in class was for a student whose spouse was serving on a forward base in Afghanistan and therefore could not call on a predictable schedule.  I doubt very much if your call or text message meets that threshold of need."

I enjoy comparing their cell phones to prostitutes.

Another from the same section:

"When communicating with me via email you must include a descriptive subject line and indicate the course number: e.g. “BUS 226, question concerning the lab assignment of 12 February.”  I prefer the salutation “Dr.” (which I have earned from many years of effort), not “hey,” (which is available to anyone with a pulse regardless of their sentience).  Emails must conform to the patterns of General Written English, and avoid the mangled and idiotic syntax common to text messages.  Do not expect us to decipher your digital shorthand, as I can be deliberately, persistently, and un-apologetically obtuse when I desire to be so.  Since most email programs indicate when you have made an error in spelling there is no excuse for sending a message containing such travesties in plain view.  This is simply good practice, it should become second nature, so that the day doesn’t arrive when you realize too late that you used the word “pubic” in an email to a potential employer when you meant to write “public.”

That should get a laugh.