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Chris has gotten me into the habit of watching MSNBC in the morning while I answer emails and do warm up writing like this. I’ve always followed politics, but never to this degree. And I’ve even been using recent debates as teaching tools in the classroom — in critical literacy last night, we watched the SNL parody of the VP debates and talked about what was funny, and why the joke worked. THe idea here being to understand and observe how language and communication work in situations like classrooms, or political debates in  this case.

It’s hard to understand discourses for anyone, and then I give them Freire, another difficult philosopher to read straight (we’re working our way through Pedagogy of the Oppressed) instead of readings about Freire. They’re struggling through it, just like I did as a Masters student. But I didn’t give it to them in order to make them nuts, but because I think Freire’s ideas are best expressed in his own words. It’s through discussion that we begin to understand what he has to say — which reminds me. I should set up a forum for discussion and questions when I hand out their take-home midterm essay so they can ask me and each other questions.

This is probably the fifth or sixth new class I have taught — I have certain classes I almost always teach but at least one course each semester is new to me. That may have been a monumental mistake since it always gives me extra work but I guess I have never been the one to take the easy path. Teaching matters too much to me, and I always need to work to get better at it.

is a hard one. My brain doesn’t work until after the first cup of coffee, or second depending on the night before.  That makes it sound like I am out drinking every night, but I’m not. Like many other people, I am on regular medication for a condition that comes with heavy side effects. In my case — migraines are a serious problem for me and now I have started having every day headaches. New meds, different side effects, and another MRI coming up as soon as I have a chance to schedule it.

Honestly, I am lucky. Of all the things to have as a medical issue, there are meds that do help, even if they make me sleepy, and lots of things to turn to in order to try and figure out what causes this. But I am still frustrated as hell. The weirdest thing is that I have some memory loss — saying or doing things and not remembering that I did them. I’ve been trying to keep this part a secret, but if I don’t explain that this probably has something to do with the meds and headaches, then I just seem like a ditzy blonde. I’m not. I’m just a blonde with something wrong with her head. That doesn’t sound all that different but it really is, I promise.

Smells and sounds you never forget:

• The click and butane smell of a zippo lighter
• Your mother’s thanksgiving turkey
• Gasoline at the filling station
• Your grandmother’s perfume — in my case I think she wore either Chanel No. 5 or Shalimar
• Wet Labrador running through the house to dry off
• Garlic browning in olive oil
• The roses of your bridal bouquet
• Candy corn at Halloween
• The smell of your own bed when you’ve been gone for a while

I’ve been thinking a lot about facebook. Outside of class reading and writing, I would guess that one of the things our students spend the most time on would be facebook. I’ve started checking it not just every morning but throughout the day — wanting to know what people are up to, looking for new people to find me, just killing time. But then comes the question — when I hear from someone for the first time, how do I represent myself? Who am I, on facebook, as opposed to my vita, my conversations with family and friends — we use language to represent ourselves in many different ways.

Facebook, though, is different. In the same space, I am many different people — all of whom leave a trail that can be traced back. I am a professor to those students who friend me, so sometimes they ask me questions but more often, I get a chance to know who they are in a more complete way than I would just in class. I am a peer to other researchers and friends who I know from school and conferences. It’s funny to login to see that someone else just tagged the article I was going to tag — and to know so many other people are part of this larger conversation about what is going on with literacy and technology. Even the venerable gray lady, the New York Times, has started to look at issues of reading today. Their most recent article concerned gaming and literacy and, judging from the comments, did not get the most positive reception.

I am also a former seventh grade teacher whose students have reached out to her; I am a former colleague from those teaching days. I am a new professor revving up for tenure. I am a friend even to people I know through other people but not in my own right. There’s something pretty new and interesting going on here, that much I can say.

The interesting thing about facebook (well, one of many) is that it allows you to connect with people you have not talked to in years. My students from the first seventh grade class I taught found me. A teacher I knew well just contacted me. And I have a lot to explain — I am back to my married name, but with wedding photos on the site. I go by Dr. I live in NJ after a couple of years in the city — I’ve come a long way from a girl in Colorado Springs who was told that community college was her best option and I like that a lot. It makes me feel really good.

I watched the debate last night and it seemed that one person had a script she was going to follow regardless of the actual questions, and that the other person wasn’t “flashy” enough. When are we going to understand that the election is not an audition for American Idol?

So let’s talk about my weekend. First, I turn 35 tomorrow. I don’t like the sound of 35. 30 was ok, but 35 sounds like halfway to something I really don’t like to contemplate: my own death. Of course there’s no guarantees when anything might happen to me, so let’s talk about something I am sure (fairly sure) to face in the next year or so: tenure.

I’m already sick of the term, and of realizing how much is riding on it. Getting back to my blog is actually in some ways related to tenure in that, with all the teaching and other things I was doing at the University, I hit a wall with my writing and got very little done over the summer. That’s just not going to work. So I am trying to get into a regular writing practice, which starts with just a five-minute writing spree before going back into the book or an article or whatever. And a blog is a great place to do this (unless I am writing about something I don’t want anyone to see). So, at any rate, I am worried I won’t get tenure. I’m trying to do everything right, but that might not be enough. Tenure is hard because you don’t know what might be enough — it’s a case by case basis.

I just gotta keep writing.

Why do I have the feeling that the women in this election have set women’s rights backward instead of forward? Now of course this is just my opinion, and should be treated as such (as well as the fact that I slept late after teaching late last night) but neither Hillary or Sarah Palin have helped women at all. Hillary wouldn’t let it go until absolutely the last minute and if she’s been campaigning for Obama, I’ve missed it.

And then we have Sarah Palin. As a westerner who has actually fired a shotgun (although never field dressed anything — now I hear she hasn’t either), she’s making all of us look bad. The vague answers, the naive assumption that proximity to Russia equals foreign policy experience, and the use of the interviewer’s name when she can’t think of the answer (”Charlie, what do you mean by the Bush doctrine?”) make me nuts. Depending on the outcome, she could either be elected to the second highest office in the land, under a man whose health is in question, or she could lose. Either way, she’ll give people plenty of reasons to distrust women in politics and that’s exactly what I don’t want to happen.

Tonight’s debate will help shape which way this goes. I hope something good comes out of it. And I kinda wish Hillary was debating Palin — I have a feeling that she’d eat Sarah Barracuda alive. If things are going to be as bad as this, we might as well turn it into a cage match and not let anyone get away with saying stupid, vague things. The country is in crisis, you idiot politicians. Now is the time to step up and be counted.

I read about politics with my first cup of coffee and got to plunge the toilet by the next (no correlation between the two, we’ve just been having some plumbing problems). Am hoping the rest of the day goes better.

Yesterday, it became really clear to me that I have put the teaching and service portions of my job first, rather than the writing — because I am scared. What if I fail? What if what I write isn’t good enough? Am I not theoretical enough? How do I know the answers to these questions?

All of them pertain, by the way, to the book project, which is only coming along in fits and starts. I am terrified I can’t get it done, that it’s just too big. Yet I still think it is an important project and one that will have lots to offer for teachers and faculty who are interested. But am I kidding myself to believe this? I have colleagues and friends who routinely publish top rate papers seemingly endlessly and I feel as though I am in some sort of endless tailspin that began with my dissertation. Much of the work I published initially was coauthored and had begun before I finished grad school. Now let me just say this point blank:

I don’t know how to balance a three-three teaching load, college/community service, and my teaching and still have time to nurture a new marriage. Yes, I know I need therapy. But maybe even more than that, I needed to just sit down and write for a few minutes to get my brain started. I wish I could kick it into action — I feel so damned slow.