I am not doing well with the daily rhythm of writing -- as the gap of time between the last entry and this shows.
But the official start of school (as opposed to the unofficial start with orientation) has been smooth, the week is starting to find the pattern that will hold until December, and maybe now I will make regular time for this.
And maybe I will figure out how to write in this space so that it doesn't feel forced or an impossible hang between what is in the written journals I've kept so sporadically but also so long and what is in the published stuff.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Saturday, August 20, 2005
academic support
Go read the badgerblog about the experiences of writing a dissertation, raising a son, and sharing life with a husband who has terminal liver cancer, and then go contribute .
is there a better time...
than a Saturday morning when it feels safe to procrastinate? AND it's sunny and warm and was quiet?
I drove in from the lake this morning to join the ever wonderful, smart, and beautiful Kristin C. for breakfast atMarie's Vickie's. Given that I kept falling asleep during a round of Tetris last night ("Tetris" itself ought to be a clue about how I was doing last night) and then slept for almost 10 hours (dreaming about being with my nieces along a dream-shaped California coast watching men carrying motorcycles across tide pools), I drove in with the "guaranteed to get the blood unsludged" CD on car-rattlingly loud, windows open, scaring off the deer as I wound my way in on the dirt roads singing screaming along with the music.
A little warm up with "What's My Age Again?" and then "Light Enough to Travel", "Hey Ya!", "Little Red Corvette" (which makes me very sad I never got to take part in a karaoke night with Dave at the Green Light), "Gloria", "Teenage Riot", "Videogame Heart", "Little Bird," "Fell in Love with a Boy", "Smells like Funk", "When I Win the Lottery."
In Lake Linden ("Gloria") someone had changed the lettering on the sign outside the once-was-a-Catholic-school building. Last night, the sign said something about a large rummage sale with 6 families. This morning, it said "Large Ass Family Rummage."
Lake Linden was fuller this morning than it ever is except during the Fourth of July parade. There's an estate sale AND the large ass rummage sale. The parking lot of Dairyland was packed.
As I got closer to Mason and the sunken slanting dredge, there were two guys out fishing, sitting quietly in their little boat and the still lifting mist. This is when I was providing the All Girl Summer Fun Band to the deer and now evidently the fish.
The trees are in their late summer yellow-tinge, and I was sort of noticing it whilesinging shouting along, and sort of noticing that there was a slight breeze sliding through the leaves.
I did not turn off or down the music in order better to hear or see those various languages of nature. I would have had to stop and get out of the car and walk back in a ways and dig myself down into leaf mould for several hours to even begin to hear something other than my heart experiencing a needed sonic defibrillation.
I drove in from the lake this morning to join the ever wonderful, smart, and beautiful Kristin C. for breakfast at
A little warm up with "What's My Age Again?" and then "Light Enough to Travel", "Hey Ya!", "Little Red Corvette" (which makes me very sad I never got to take part in a karaoke night with Dave at the Green Light), "Gloria", "Teenage Riot", "Videogame Heart", "Little Bird," "Fell in Love with a Boy", "Smells like Funk", "When I Win the Lottery."
In Lake Linden ("Gloria") someone had changed the lettering on the sign outside the once-was-a-Catholic-school building. Last night, the sign said something about a large rummage sale with 6 families. This morning, it said "Large Ass Family Rummage."
Lake Linden was fuller this morning than it ever is except during the Fourth of July parade. There's an estate sale AND the large ass rummage sale. The parking lot of Dairyland was packed.
As I got closer to Mason and the sunken slanting dredge, there were two guys out fishing, sitting quietly in their little boat and the still lifting mist. This is when I was providing the All Girl Summer Fun Band to the deer and now evidently the fish.
The trees are in their late summer yellow-tinge, and I was sort of noticing it while
I did not turn off or down the music in order better to hear or see those various languages of nature. I would have had to stop and get out of the car and walk back in a ways and dig myself down into leaf mould for several hours to even begin to hear something other than my heart experiencing a needed sonic defibrillation.
Friday, August 19, 2005
people are starting to plan their syllabi...
I am impressed. I am brain-dead, but impressed.
At this minute I am sitting in our meeting room, and the Orientation group is over there talking in pairs, developing statements of purpose for their syllabi. They are as tired as I am, all of us having now been through 2 and a half days of really thick thick presentations and discussions about students at Tech and rhetoric and assignments and assignment sequences and technology policies and and and... and they are talking quietly, enthusiastically, and very smartly (at least the conversations I can overhear) about how their syllabi will shape their relationships with their classes and what sorts of tone of voice they want to use in order to encourage and support learning.
And then (I got sucked away from writing the above and am now back) they made very sharp observations about the sample syllabi we passed out.
And now (written 1 hour later when I get a chance to come back to the machine) we are done for the week -- people are heading out to rest and space out and I need to do that too.
Thank you all, once again.
At this minute I am sitting in our meeting room, and the Orientation group is over there talking in pairs, developing statements of purpose for their syllabi. They are as tired as I am, all of us having now been through 2 and a half days of really thick thick presentations and discussions about students at Tech and rhetoric and assignments and assignment sequences and technology policies and and and... and they are talking quietly, enthusiastically, and very smartly (at least the conversations I can overhear) about how their syllabi will shape their relationships with their classes and what sorts of tone of voice they want to use in order to encourage and support learning.
And then (I got sucked away from writing the above and am now back) they made very sharp observations about the sample syllabi we passed out.
And now (written 1 hour later when I get a chance to come back to the machine) we are done for the week -- people are heading out to rest and space out and I need to do that too.
Thank you all, once again.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
because it continues to be Saturday
I go to the other side of the house, to sit in the rocking chair to read, and there is a little metal boat out on the bay, someone fishing in this light wind. The boat is drifting, a bit. Why else fish here on a Saturday if not to drift, to go where the water does?
When I was a teenager in Annapolis, I was invited sometimes to sail with different friend’s families on summer days. We'd sail up the Severn to one cove or another, where we’d anchor and swim and doze on the deck and go with the water in the shade of the overhanging trees. Sometimes we’d be loud as we jumped into the water and we’d splash but mostly my memories are of the quiet, of how we’d all be seduced into summer water afternoon time.
The other water time of those summers grew around eleven or midnight when a friend and I would canoe out to the end and then around from the inlet off the South River where she lived. We'd never know how long we'd be out, we'd bring along a can of baked beans and a soda (and sometimes some wine we’d snitched), and we'd sit out on a sandbar or on someone else's dock, watching the heat lightning on the horizon. There’s no way to recreate what we talked about in the dark, or even that we talked, but we must have, about school or sex or the possibilities of college, all the stuff that was then for us as dark as where we were but without the lightning even. My memories of those nights have only the time of paddling, sitting, watching and I do not remember ever ever paddling back and climbing out to go to bed -- just as I have no memories ever of sailing back from those coves along the Severn when it got to be time to go home for dinner.
When I was a teenager in Annapolis, I was invited sometimes to sail with different friend’s families on summer days. We'd sail up the Severn to one cove or another, where we’d anchor and swim and doze on the deck and go with the water in the shade of the overhanging trees. Sometimes we’d be loud as we jumped into the water and we’d splash but mostly my memories are of the quiet, of how we’d all be seduced into summer water afternoon time.
The other water time of those summers grew around eleven or midnight when a friend and I would canoe out to the end and then around from the inlet off the South River where she lived. We'd never know how long we'd be out, we'd bring along a can of baked beans and a soda (and sometimes some wine we’d snitched), and we'd sit out on a sandbar or on someone else's dock, watching the heat lightning on the horizon. There’s no way to recreate what we talked about in the dark, or even that we talked, but we must have, about school or sex or the possibilities of college, all the stuff that was then for us as dark as where we were but without the lightning even. My memories of those nights have only the time of paddling, sitting, watching and I do not remember ever ever paddling back and climbing out to go to bed -- just as I have no memories ever of sailing back from those coves along the Severn when it got to be time to go home for dinner.
because it is Saturday
Because it is Saturday, the woman next door is buzz-cutting her lawn, as later in the week she will pluck at it and prune it and worry over it and sulk. I am still waking staring out the kitchen window at the overnight spiderwebs in the lawn, how they hold dew and shine therefore, and the movements of little brown birds between the trees catch my seeing so I shift to them in front of the tree leaves moving in their straight darting lines across the yard and then they are not there. Their movements are faster than my eyes.
If I were to make an animation of this, I could not make what I see. I could not show the birds flying in their lines and then just disappearing in front of the tree. The settle so fast into and among the leaves -- where they are then invisible -- that it looks as though they have been erased from where they were. Imagine you were watching someone walking down a busy city street and of course without any thinking you are attaching to him his predictable trajectory based on how he moves and you have all these unaware expectations of where he will be as the seconds build and then even while he is swinging his arms and legs he vanishes so fast you can't see the vanishing, a cut not a dissolve. This was how it was with the birds.
But you couldn't animate them this way. Even though this is how I see them, really, vanishing into the trees, this would (like the man walking down the street to vanish) violate my sense of how the world is supposed to work for me, the human. My eyes are supposed to be fast enough to see it all. There are not supposed to be things I cannot see. So in an animation those birds would have to visibly stretch out their little talons as they approached their landing spot, and they would settle onto their branches in open spaces where I could see them doing what I know birds are supposed to do.
I would therefore not be distracted from whatever the storyline is by having in front of my face evidence that possibly things happen in dimensions for which my physiology is not the right size.
If I were to make an animation of this, I could not make what I see. I could not show the birds flying in their lines and then just disappearing in front of the tree. The settle so fast into and among the leaves -- where they are then invisible -- that it looks as though they have been erased from where they were. Imagine you were watching someone walking down a busy city street and of course without any thinking you are attaching to him his predictable trajectory based on how he moves and you have all these unaware expectations of where he will be as the seconds build and then even while he is swinging his arms and legs he vanishes so fast you can't see the vanishing, a cut not a dissolve. This was how it was with the birds.
But you couldn't animate them this way. Even though this is how I see them, really, vanishing into the trees, this would (like the man walking down the street to vanish) violate my sense of how the world is supposed to work for me, the human. My eyes are supposed to be fast enough to see it all. There are not supposed to be things I cannot see. So in an animation those birds would have to visibly stretch out their little talons as they approached their landing spot, and they would settle onto their branches in open spaces where I could see them doing what I know birds are supposed to do.
I would therefore not be distracted from whatever the storyline is by having in front of my face evidence that possibly things happen in dimensions for which my physiology is not the right size.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
crowbath
Four crows just took baths in the lake, and now they are arrayed in the sun, each to its own piling, preening and warming.
First there was one, standing on the sand over on the little beach at Ruotsala's camp. This crow walked along the little wave edges for a bit, sometimes bouncing and running, but mostly just walking slowly back and forth. It put its foot into the water, pulled it back, and then put in its other foot. Then it waded a bit, keeping its belly above the water, tilting its head to eye the water. It sipped a bit, too, and then was sloshing in the water dipping its head in and out and rubbing its feathers together with splashes, shaking its wings and tail feathers, rolling side to side, bouncing.
When three more crows cawed their ways on down from the white pine, the first crow flew up to a piling. The new three repeated what the first had done, walking the edge, then wading, then splashing. They looked like tentative round old people until they splashed. Each took its own time, and the last one splashed the most vigorously. Before it flew up to its piling it looked to me almost as though it had rolled completely over in the water, but that would probably be giving up too much crow control and dignity.
I'd like to spread out beach towels for them all, and distribute drinks with paper umbrellas, but I really should go back to the revisions to the textbook cover.
First there was one, standing on the sand over on the little beach at Ruotsala's camp. This crow walked along the little wave edges for a bit, sometimes bouncing and running, but mostly just walking slowly back and forth. It put its foot into the water, pulled it back, and then put in its other foot. Then it waded a bit, keeping its belly above the water, tilting its head to eye the water. It sipped a bit, too, and then was sloshing in the water dipping its head in and out and rubbing its feathers together with splashes, shaking its wings and tail feathers, rolling side to side, bouncing.
When three more crows cawed their ways on down from the white pine, the first crow flew up to a piling. The new three repeated what the first had done, walking the edge, then wading, then splashing. They looked like tentative round old people until they splashed. Each took its own time, and the last one splashed the most vigorously. Before it flew up to its piling it looked to me almost as though it had rolled completely over in the water, but that would probably be giving up too much crow control and dignity.
I'd like to spread out beach towels for them all, and distribute drinks with paper umbrellas, but I really should go back to the revisions to the textbook cover.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Tammy is sitting next to me in the computer lab, muttering under her breathe as she types. She's staring into the screen with a mouth a little turned down at the corners. She and I are the only people here, among the buzz of the fans. Much earlier, Molly, Erik, and Shalini came in with Avalon. Shalini played Dora the Explorer games online while Molly looked up insurance stuff and Avalon slept in her car seat, until she woke up -- and then I got to hold and rock her for a while. The soothingness of baby-body-against-chest while rocking has probably carried me through this far. I ought to be asleep after that.
I've been in here since 2, after a morning of meetings at the Motherlode, and it is now almost 7. Karen and Christy and I went through the Orientation schedule one more time, finding bits and pieces of things we need to finish, fine-tuning the daily stuff. I wonder if they think I am nuts to have written down a description of every single session -- just sketches, really, but enough to keep us on track and make sure we cover what we need to. But having all that down helps me know that we can do what we need to, although the people in Orientation are going to be a bit overwhelmed by how much we are doing, I think. We may need to take some reckless breaks and haul everyone off to the Houghton Beach so we can play chutes and ladders and remember that there is more to life than room 108.
And now, off to a reception at the Northern Lights, for the Tech Comm Institute Bob Johnson is pulling together. Bill H-D will be there, and Carolyn Miller, and Jim Zappen, Brent Faber, Steve Katz: it will be fun to see these people in Houghton, and to see them seeing Houghton, and to hang for a bit in the Nothern Lights with its view of the Portage (and our house). If I do not fall asleep first.
I've been in here since 2, after a morning of meetings at the Motherlode, and it is now almost 7. Karen and Christy and I went through the Orientation schedule one more time, finding bits and pieces of things we need to finish, fine-tuning the daily stuff. I wonder if they think I am nuts to have written down a description of every single session -- just sketches, really, but enough to keep us on track and make sure we cover what we need to. But having all that down helps me know that we can do what we need to, although the people in Orientation are going to be a bit overwhelmed by how much we are doing, I think. We may need to take some reckless breaks and haul everyone off to the Houghton Beach so we can play chutes and ladders and remember that there is more to life than room 108.
And now, off to a reception at the Northern Lights, for the Tech Comm Institute Bob Johnson is pulling together. Bill H-D will be there, and Carolyn Miller, and Jim Zappen, Brent Faber, Steve Katz: it will be fun to see these people in Houghton, and to see them seeing Houghton, and to hang for a bit in the Nothern Lights with its view of the Portage (and our house). If I do not fall asleep first.
Tuesday, August 9, 2005
the distracted
On the feeder seconds ago were an indigo bunting and a goldfinch.
All day the goldfinches having been coming and going, their yellow eye-hurting on a dim grey day like this. Sometimes three will be on the feeder, chirping and swallowing, and then they scroll off into the air, roiling about each other and tweeting. From where I sit, their fights are elegant and breezy. It is the ground squirrel chittering around on the porch that seems churlish and thick. The chickadees cut through it all, hitting the feeder only long enough to grab a sunflower seed and then slide off fast.
But I guess it’s mostly the body I inhabit that is churlish and thick, after sitting so long finalizing workshop plans. Would I enjoy being goldfinch yellow and sharp? Only if I could do it while remembering the weight of the computer in my lap and my butt in this chair.
All day the goldfinches having been coming and going, their yellow eye-hurting on a dim grey day like this. Sometimes three will be on the feeder, chirping and swallowing, and then they scroll off into the air, roiling about each other and tweeting. From where I sit, their fights are elegant and breezy. It is the ground squirrel chittering around on the porch that seems churlish and thick. The chickadees cut through it all, hitting the feeder only long enough to grab a sunflower seed and then slide off fast.
But I guess it’s mostly the body I inhabit that is churlish and thick, after sitting so long finalizing workshop plans. Would I enjoy being goldfinch yellow and sharp? Only if I could do it while remembering the weight of the computer in my lap and my butt in this chair.
Getting down to business
…I am going to leave this message public for now, even though it is about what we have been doing to prepare for Orientation.
I am still warming up to blogging, and to being a regular writer. Because we are moving back and forth among the camp, the Ripley house, and school, the moving and the crappy dialup at the camp get in the way of me having any schedule -- and I can see that that is what I am going to need. I can post on the fly, sure, but -- knowing me -- it will be better if every morning early or every night late I sit my fingers down and make my brain follow. [I also need to stop caring what anyone else is thinking while reading this, which is for me the weird aspect of blogging: a journal, yes, private thinking, no. I know from experience that if I do keep a regular journal that some useful and teasing work emerges.]
So I am trying to think now -- before Orientation starts and we warm each other up, initially, with writing prompts -- about how to think visibly about Orientation. (“Revisions” is the course in written, visual, and oral communication that all new GTIs will be teaching.) Since this is public, finally, to some degree, I'll start with our goals for the Orientation workshop:
And yesterday we worked back through the workshop schedule and saw that we had addressed all those goals, in at least preliminary ways. We are good, at least in theory and for now. I'll be posting on the reality of the implementation starting next Wednesday.
And…
If I keep this up, some day I too might be the Bitch or Clancy or Collin... Some year I might even figure out how to do a blogroll without utterly minxing the unsteady organization of this blog I am not yet proud to call my own.
I am still warming up to blogging, and to being a regular writer. Because we are moving back and forth among the camp, the Ripley house, and school, the moving and the crappy dialup at the camp get in the way of me having any schedule -- and I can see that that is what I am going to need. I can post on the fly, sure, but -- knowing me -- it will be better if every morning early or every night late I sit my fingers down and make my brain follow. [I also need to stop caring what anyone else is thinking while reading this, which is for me the weird aspect of blogging: a journal, yes, private thinking, no. I know from experience that if I do keep a regular journal that some useful and teasing work emerges.]
So I am trying to think now -- before Orientation starts and we warm each other up, initially, with writing prompts -- about how to think visibly about Orientation. (“Revisions” is the course in written, visual, and oral communication that all new GTIs will be teaching.) Since this is public, finally, to some degree, I'll start with our goals for the Orientation workshop:
- Learn a rhetorical process for analyzing and producing texts using written, visual, and oral communication — including a base analytic vocabulary for doing this work.
- Learn the generally shared characteristics of students at MTU, and learn strategies for teaching to the strengths of those students.
- Develop a support network of other new as well as more experienced GTIs in the department
- Meet faculty from within the department who are pedagogical resources in various areas of approach (ie. tech comm, modern languages, technology, rhetoric, etc.)
- See modeled the kind of learner-centered, active teaching we want to have happen in their classes.
- Experience a range of effective pedagogical activities (both sequential assignments and individual activities).
- Learn a range of effective strategies for responding to, assessing, and grading student work.
- Consider their own teaching styles and kinds of authority they wish to develop in the classroom
- Develop a syllabus for their first semester of teaching.
- Develop the major assignment sequences for the semester.
- Have the first week of classes planned.
- Try out a range of practices for reflecting on our own teaching.
- Learn how Revisions fits into the General Education program at MTU.
- Learn the pedagogical resources of the department (CCLI, WC, etc.) and where to go for help in using those resources
- Learn the practical resources of the department (payroll, copying, supplies, etc.) and where to go for help in using those resources
The goals of the Orientation workshop
Through their work in the Orientation workshop, GTIs will:
pedagogical
practical
institutional
And yesterday we worked back through the workshop schedule and saw that we had addressed all those goals, in at least preliminary ways. We are good, at least in theory and for now. I'll be posting on the reality of the implementation starting next Wednesday.
And…
If I keep this up, some day I too might be the Bitch or Clancy or Collin... Some year I might even figure out how to do a blogroll without utterly minxing the unsteady organization of this blog I am not yet proud to call my own.
going public?
Karen, Christy, and I have been noodling about with these blogs, getting nowhere serious -- yet.
Yesterday we came up with prompts for the various Orientation sessions, to get people started and continuing to write -- we hope.
I had wanted to get this far before writing to Brian and Barclay about hooking up the teachers starting out in our various programs -- but they beat me to it.
(What is the figure for ending each sentence with a qualifier -- anacoluthon, perhaps the closest?)
So it is time to step out, and to see where we go.
Yesterday we came up with prompts for the various Orientation sessions, to get people started and continuing to write -- we hope.
I had wanted to get this far before writing to Brian and Barclay about hooking up the teachers starting out in our various programs -- but they beat me to it.
(What is the figure for ending each sentence with a qualifier -- anacoluthon, perhaps the closest?)
So it is time to step out, and to see where we go.
thunder. fire?
No new news about the fire, but it is raining here now, which means it will be raining out that way shortly.
Channel 6 reported this morning that lightning might have caused the fire, and that the fire was 50% contained this morning -- and their report was posted before 9am.
So: we wait.
Meanwhile, I distracted myself until almost 4 this morning figuring out a bit more on getting these pages to look as I want. The calendars on the Archives pages do not line up as I would like, as with many of the elements on the Comments pages -- as you will see if you poke around.
But, well, for a girl who started with HyperCard and never had any kind of formal programming classes, I am tickled to get this far. Easily satisfied, I am.
Easily distracted, too, or easily aware of the things that distract me from thinking about what fire does and how the cat who was out at the lake house when we weren't allowed to go back out must be either hiding behind the upstairs door or down in her space under the stairs, feeling abandoned, lonely, and frightened.
Channel 6 reported this morning that lightning might have caused the fire, and that the fire was 50% contained this morning -- and their report was posted before 9am.
So: we wait.
Meanwhile, I distracted myself until almost 4 this morning figuring out a bit more on getting these pages to look as I want. The calendars on the Archives pages do not line up as I would like, as with many of the elements on the Comments pages -- as you will see if you poke around.
But, well, for a girl who started with HyperCard and never had any kind of formal programming classes, I am tickled to get this far. Easily satisfied, I am.
Easily distracted, too, or easily aware of the things that distract me from thinking about what fire does and how the cat who was out at the lake house when we weren't allowed to go back out must be either hiding behind the upstairs door or down in her space under the stairs, feeling abandoned, lonely, and frightened.
Monday, August 8, 2005
and while it gets later...
So, yes, I have wreaked havoc.
The page with my entries works okay -- but the calendar and comments pages are munged.
I am not up to figuring them out.
I have already gotten much behind tonight on all the other things I should be accomplishing.
But Fela Kuti is on, so I'm good for 30 minutes more, I think.
The page with my entries works okay -- but the calendar and comments pages are munged.
I am not up to figuring them out.
I have already gotten much behind tonight on all the other things I should be accomplishing.
But Fela Kuti is on, so I'm good for 30 minutes more, I think.
while there is lightning outside...
I have been working with LiveJournal. I broke down and paid for an account, so that I could modify my pages to get something I can live with. This has meant I have spent several hours modifying someone else's code, slowly losing control but also learning bits and pieces about the conventions and what does what. I have undoubtedly made some real messes, except that this page now looks more like something I want. I still want to add pictures, and play with color and spacing a bit more, but I am gaining on it.
Thanks to Taion for the basic design, and I apologise to him for any mess I have made. But the basic page layout -- "A Novel Conundrum" -- was quite lovely.
I appreciate better what LiveJournal can do, now, but it has been a bear to figure out how to get to and where to edit the code. We'll see if I can find it again tomorrow....
Thanks to Taion for the basic design, and I apologise to him for any mess I have made. But the basic page layout -- "A Novel Conundrum" -- was quite lovely.
I appreciate better what LiveJournal can do, now, but it has been a bear to figure out how to get to and where to edit the code. We'll see if I can find it again tomorrow....
I apologize for LiveJournal
When I first started thinking about using blogs for the new GTIs, I set up one in Blogger. It was easy to make and edit entries, and easy to modify the page. By comparison, LiveJournal is cloodgy. It is hard to figure out where to go to make stuff happen. For example, after it took me a minute to figure out where to go in Blogger to edit entries, I understood the logic and it was all easy. In LiveJournal, I still -- after several entries (some of which seem to have disappeared) -- have to work to figure out how to get from the actual blog pages to where I go to edit. And in Blogger I personalized my site -- totally, by editing the CSS files -- almost immediately. I can't figure out if I can do such editing in LiveJournal. I've picked a new 'theme' and colors, but the list where you change colors gives you no idea what it is really, that you are editing.
The only reason we are here is because of the friends feature. If we are to write about classroom events, without having to worry about students, then we need to have pages that are private. Sigh.
I hope the new grad students -- who very likely will be overwhelmed by all that goes with teaching for the first time or teaching a new class at a new school, with having moved recently to a far-away place -- will not feel that asking them to use this not-so-well-designed interface is an imposition. I think that -- I hope that -- blogging will be useful for people settling into all this newness.
The only reason we are here is because of the friends feature. If we are to write about classroom events, without having to worry about students, then we need to have pages that are private. Sigh.
I hope the new grad students -- who very likely will be overwhelmed by all that goes with teaching for the first time or teaching a new class at a new school, with having moved recently to a far-away place -- will not feel that asking them to use this not-so-well-designed interface is an imposition. I think that -- I hope that -- blogging will be useful for people settling into all this newness.
fire on the unseen horizon
We learned this afternoon that there is a fire out toward our camp.
There is no one place to go for information: I spoke with someone at the State Police, tried to reach the Houghton Office of Emergency Management (where, in true Houghton fashion, you get one man's answering machine), and then I spoke with someone at the Daily Gazette. Everyone with whom I spoke confirmed that there was a fire, but exactly where it is is hard to determine; everyone confirmed that people are being evacuated from the area. Channel 6 finally just posted something: they say the fire is now taking up about 100 acres, and that they are evacuating along the Big Traverse Road.
Dennis tried get to the camp, because, well, of course, we left the cat there when we came into work today. He tried two different ways in, and got turned back at roadblocks that were placed much earlier than we would have thought. Given where the roadblocks are, it seems that the fire -- at least when Dennis was out there -- was headed toward Gay or the Post Road.
I spoke with Stephen and Daniel, who are just across the bay from us. They said the fire -- based on all the smoke they could see -- was quite far away from our camp and headed in the opposite direction. They promised to call us in town if they saw any changes. Stephen and I also talked about how they could kayak across the bay to get the Little One (who would not be happy in a kayak, even with people she knew).
I spoke also with Kristin, whose mother was evacuated (it took 3 visits by the police to get her to leave) from their place on Big Traverse. We compared notes -- and what we both were thinking was that if this was caused by the blueberry guy again, doing his "controlled burns," that there would be just a little bit of anger in the community, since he got off so relatively lightly last time.
The wind is still going, and even though the weather this morning included a possibility of thunderstorms tonight, it doesn't look likely now.
I'd rather be swimming out at Daniel and Stephen's place now. I was there yesterday at this time, forgetting myself in the cool blue water right above the waved sand.
There is no one place to go for information: I spoke with someone at the State Police, tried to reach the Houghton Office of Emergency Management (where, in true Houghton fashion, you get one man's answering machine), and then I spoke with someone at the Daily Gazette. Everyone with whom I spoke confirmed that there was a fire, but exactly where it is is hard to determine; everyone confirmed that people are being evacuated from the area. Channel 6 finally just posted something: they say the fire is now taking up about 100 acres, and that they are evacuating along the Big Traverse Road.
Dennis tried get to the camp, because, well, of course, we left the cat there when we came into work today. He tried two different ways in, and got turned back at roadblocks that were placed much earlier than we would have thought. Given where the roadblocks are, it seems that the fire -- at least when Dennis was out there -- was headed toward Gay or the Post Road.
I spoke with Stephen and Daniel, who are just across the bay from us. They said the fire -- based on all the smoke they could see -- was quite far away from our camp and headed in the opposite direction. They promised to call us in town if they saw any changes. Stephen and I also talked about how they could kayak across the bay to get the Little One (who would not be happy in a kayak, even with people she knew).
I spoke also with Kristin, whose mother was evacuated (it took 3 visits by the police to get her to leave) from their place on Big Traverse. We compared notes -- and what we both were thinking was that if this was caused by the blueberry guy again, doing his "controlled burns," that there would be just a little bit of anger in the community, since he got off so relatively lightly last time.
The wind is still going, and even though the weather this morning included a possibility of thunderstorms tonight, it doesn't look likely now.
I'd rather be swimming out at Daniel and Stephen's place now. I was there yesterday at this time, forgetting myself in the cool blue water right above the waved sand.
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