librarian, vent thyself

There are times when I truly hate - with an aspirated 'H' - the general public -- even when that 'general public' is the fairly select demographic of a university student body (though 'fairly select' when, apparently, over 50% of A-level students scored in the highest grade range is dubious). I truly do believe that the university must be an institution open to all - anyone who wants to learn should be welcomed.

But that's the catch - wanting to learn. Not simply filling a chair (and the university's coffers), making use of the 10% discount at some high-street shops, and getting quicker access to a surgery. And I do - call me rather pedantic - believe that wanting to learn does not get compartmentalised - wanting to learn should be all-encompassing, not goal oriented; that lovely, sadly anachronistic, anti-utilitarian desire to learn for learning's sake. If you want to learn, you learn - you learn everything and anything that can be taught. Okay, this sounds like I expect everyone to be an expert in everything - impractical at best. Allow me to try to explain.

Learning - again, this is all from my perspective (um...obviously! it's my blog) - requires interest; I cannot teach an uninterested student. At best, they will recite back to me, with no real learning, what I have said in seminar, or what they've read from some secondary source. I don't particularly care, in the long run. But there are few people more boring to spend time with than those without interest - curiosity - critical engagement - enthusiasm. And that bleeds into all things. If I can teach one thing in any course, it is always just to be interested in something - anything but be interested and take responsibility for that interest: feed it, satisfy it, increase it.

Huh. Well this is going to sound silly. But see there's this alarm that goes off when someone tries to use their student ID more than once within a certain time period at the campus library. Okay - I know - silly. But when you are working at that station for an entire hour and that bloody alarm goes off every 10 minutes...well, by the half-hour you are ready to strangle the next reader who sets it off. And I especially love the ones that go through and turn around to let their friends through - the very reason the time delay was installed. Why unleash this particular rant here? Because it seems to me that someone at university would have the sense to see that there is a reason that EACH student has a unique ID. I also particularly enjoy the student that stands there, zombie-like, repeatedly passing his card over the sensor as it beeps merrily away...

I say nothing of those to whom the entire concept of a 'library' belongs to a brave new world. Nor of those who confuse 'customer service' with 'customer servants'...

I really am going to be the most crotchety old lady one day...

pillow talk

Now I'm not saying that laughter can't be part of great sex. Not just the low-in-the-throat, seductive chuckle - real belly laughter. To laugh like that heralds comfort and security - a recognition of the intimate relationship between the sacred and the profane (bedfellows always).

Writing sex scenes is difficult I'm sure - particularly in print where there is no picture/soundtrack to direct/manipulate the viewer. Bad sex in film would be a topic and competition all its own. Consider the difference between, say, Don't Look Now (one of the best sex scenes on celluloid) and...um... Titanic, or Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet (both contenders for the worst sex scenes of recent film).

Anyway, this is what stimulated this particular ponder - a close contender for my all-time favourite literary mock-competition (which is this one).

Furthermore

As we played mancala last night, we discussed the event in Sudan that I blogged about yesterday. Which gave me more to ponder. I think now I was too harsh on this teacher and perhaps blame should be more fairly apportioned round. I'm not recanting completely but it seems to me, on further reflection, that a good old fashioned sit-down and chat would have been more appropriate than an arrest. And as Nasser points out, it is possible that the reportage, even in such a worthy rag as The Guardian, might not have the whole story.

So there. A lesson in pondering any ponderable at least twice before professing.

My bedside book right now is Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich. I'm not sure how to work it into my research profile - but I will find a way. I'm working slowly but surely towards theology and literature - it's not so far from law and literature in many ways (which I'll go into later...). Anyway, my paper in January at BSECS is about hagiography and historiography in Sophia Lee's The Recess and I'm hoping to look at how Mary's Catholicism, which is never overtly referred to in the text, emerges through Lee's strategies of writing...Obviously, I need to think more on this...

My viva is in two weeks.

A bear by any other name

This is a disheartening story in many ways. My initial reaction was one of slightly weary annoyance: honestly, it's a freakin' teddy bear. But then I took myself to task, shook myself from my library-induced lethargy and pondered a while (in between dealing with readers' questions and checking out books).

Now my annoyance is turned onto this teacher. I just cannot believe that she is unaware of the level of sensitivity that situations like this demand. This is not the first time that an issue like this has made the news in the past few years. While my initial reaction remains - I cannot understand that level of devotion to a name (surely there are people bearing the prophet's name whose lives constitute a slur on his memory - in the same way that not everyone named 'Jesus' is likely to be a saint) - it is not my faith and I am not called to understand it. I would like to believe, were I in this teacher's place, that I would be aware of the culture in which I am working and living.

It's a teachable moment badly missed. I think it would have made a lovely lesson to ask, when a child suggested 'Muhammed' as a name for a teddy bear, why they thought it would be a good name. What does the name mean to them? Given it's popularity as a boy's name, perhaps whoever suggested it had a brother called Muhammed or a father or uncle, or was so called himself. I'm wondering if, from there, it might be an interesting way into teaching them a culture/history/religious lesson on the spot. Why couldn't the bear be called Muhammed? What does the name mean? What does it mean to hold something sacred? I appreciate that I'm likely oversimplifying it and I don't teach young children and it's a very complex and large problem. I also think that that is crap. I'm particularly interested in the way that this teacher is implicitly absolved because she tried to teach the children a lesson about democracy instead...

And I will not countenance any whining claims that this is 'PC gone mad'. Few statements - usually accompanied by a liberal toss of the head and stamp of the foot - irritate me more. This has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with sensitivity and tolerance. I know that some reactions to this serious - but innocent - lapse in judgement will cause problems as well - there will be people (apparently there already are) who wait for events like this to excuse or explain violence. And that's a shame too. More than a shame. But I think that it is a separate issue and what I'm interested in now and shall go off and ponder is how big the world has become and how much more is demanded of us when we go out to play.

the C word

for the benefit of more constant readers, i feel it necessary to make it clear that the voice behind this post isn't kaley this time (i realize that i am at best an intermittent contributor to this blog, but perhaps in a few weeks, that too will change). for the purposes of distinction, my posts will be distinguished by a refusal to follow standard rules of capitalization (and a penchant for parenthetical asides) - oh - and an affection for dashes that would make emily dickinson proud.

this morning, kaley arose from sleep (reluctantly as always), and, while i prepared our morning tea, attired herself for the day. but today was not a typical day - this morning, she is going to meet with a person to discuss getting some temporary employment at a nearby university. now, i know better than anyone that she's perfect for the job - the quality of kaley's thought, her commitment to her students, and her unflinching professionalism bear the hallmarks of the best academics that i have had the pleasure of meeting.

(and here's the but)

she came downstairs in an outfit that i disagreed with. the conversation went something like this:

"you can't wear that"

"but i like this"

"you look like the Little Mermaid heading to the gym. you should wear your tweedy skirt and a black top - now THAT says i am an academic. hire me or your students will be lost "

in the end, she went for the more subdued look and kissed me on her way out the door - all is well in the land of nas. but now i am feeling some misgivings. if it's true that she's got everything it takes to fill the post, what should it matter how she looks? and where did i get the idea that appearance makes a difference?

i know, i know - the clothes make the man (see above picture for proof [or disproof]) - but in an information society - and perhaps the university was an information society long before there was ever an internet - how much relevant data is encoded in our clothes?

in other words, why do i err on the side of (and here comes the C-word) Conservative attire in job situations? surely we have passed a point where one's appearance (as long as it remains hygienic) influences one's reception? my fear is that if we haven't transcended this outside = inside economy, then what do we do with those aspects of our appearance that aren't so easily changed? i 'mask' my baldness by shaving my head, but i can't do anything about being brown. and if i am participating in a visual economy (as i have clearly demonstrated through kaley this morning), then what's to stop others from making judgments based on the same, retinal, evidence? is there a difference between racism and sartorial snobbery (when pitched in these terms)?

obviously, i can't propose anything like an answer here - and i don't think there is one. but what ultimately fascinates me is my ability to hold increasingly divergent (and even contradictory) ideas simultaneously. when i finish this post and go out into the world, i am going to sidestep teens in tracksuits, avoid eye contact with anyone dressed in a uniform that connotes religious zeal (be they mormons or muslims); i will assume that the man in unwashed clothes has no money to clean them (or he would) and so give him charity - and i will assume that people who dress like me are my equals, even while aspiring to dress better than i do presently, all the while mouthing the nice liberal pap (while in the company of my peers) that "looks don't matter - it's what you are on the inside that counts".

but what this all amounts to is this: kaley - if ever i ask you to change your clothes again, remind me of this post (or just smack me).

update: kaley got the job. we should all rain congratulations upon her.

ties that bind

It's sad when a great mind veers into narrow-minded prejudice. I'm worried that it is happening more and more - there was Dr James Watson and his comments last month; now it's Martin Amis.

And then there is the 'traditional family' debate - the phrase alone elicits the same response I have to nails on a blackboard or metal scraping metal. I don't know the source of this anxiety that seems to grip defenders of the 'traditional family'; frankly, I have no interest in plumbing the depths of intolerance and ignorance. But here comes another volley from...yes, the RC church, closely followed by perennial bedfellows, the Conservatives. 'Another blow struck against fatherhood'? Are men really that insecure with their role in reproduction? How, exactly, does a lesbian couple, or a gay couple, represent a threat to the 'traditional family'?

There is a link between Amis' comments and Cardinal Murphy O'Connor. Both seem slightly obsessed with being overpowered - a fear of colonization. It's bizarre. I'm typing this surreptitiously at work so I can't really get my thoughts together.

yarrrr...

Pirates clearly either A) had some remarkable physical resistance to hangovers, B) just stayed drunk their entire lives or C) didn't have anywhere near the dissipated lifestyles we ascribe to them now. I know this because I spent Saturday night as a pirate and Sunday on the couch recovering. And I wasn't even drinking rum! I know...some pirate.

Which made today less than the greatest Monday ever. Physically, I'm completely over the hangover. The thing is, the older I get, the more I find hangovers stick around in my mind far longer than I'd like. So everything today has a sheen of frustration: the world is still a bit too sharp for me; deadlines are too pressing, I am stretched too thin. This temporary subdued state of mind was not improved by retrieving the essays I've got to mark for my classes... I take marking and teaching too personally, I think. I'm sure every missed comma or careless spelling error isn't actually personal, but it feels like it. Particularly, when I say repeatedly in class that I'm happy to look at drafts, or answer questions; when I go over again and again the correct style of referencing only to get bibliographies that look intentionally misleading. I think I'll leave them for tonight and mark them in a happier state of mind on Wednesday.

On a more positive note - we saw Persepolis on Saturday at the Leeds Film Festival. It is brilliant. I haven't read the graphic novel but Christmas is coming... (nudge nudge, family!).

There are so many things that I mean to write about on this blog. They are, for the most part, fairly trivial things meant to feel like a conversation with my family far away: walking to work on a very windy morning, the how I made granola last night and how good it was for breakfast, ideas I have for Christmas dinner menus...things that, if I were closer, I'd send in a text, or call.

I did make granola last night - and it was, in fact, really good. Clearly, in spite of giving up those long, flowing India cotton skirts and blouses in my early 20s, I am a barking hippie. But then, I'm also a frugal one. Granola is a complete scam in the shops. I also learned a valuable lesson about baking parchment - it's only good for one go in the oven. After that, it just catches fire like normal paper... And I didn't actually have any ideas for Christmas dinner. Usually, I've had at least five fully-planned and distinct menus by the beginning of November. This year, thesis, teaching, working, and viva have taken over my brain and body almost completely. It was exceptionally windy this morning walking to the library. It's been a very blustery week and now the wind has got that November edge to it. The leaves have been ripped entirely from the trees the past week as well. That always takes me by surprise: one minute they are resisting autumn with all their arboreal might and then next, a grand surrender. I think the tree must feel a wonderful sense of relief letting all those leaves go.

i can has money plz?

I love phishing emails. It gives me a perverse pleasure to know that somewhere in the world, there are two people engaged in what I can only describe as a battle of hope and greed - the Phisher hoping that the person he/she is pumping for bank details actually HAS any money, and the Phishee hoping beyond hope that there actually is 19teen Milion United State dollars in a metallic box somewhere in the Cote d'Ivoire.

Not to mention the fact that someone is somewhere receiving a random email and thinking 'You know what, I'm just going to help this poor sod out of an obviously tight jam simply by handing over my banking details, and if I net ten percent of his fortune (like it's some kind of a tip for services rendered), well then, that's just great! Everybody wins!'

I won't even use this phrase.

I got this one today, and it's a beauty:

"Having known my condition, I decided to Contact you and Reveal to you in person Regarding my Heritage from my Late husband after my late husband brothers
has neglected me and has well sit on my late husband properties and his bank accounts."

Compare the use of third person present tense between the Phisher and the infamous LOLcat.

Perhaps I'm onto something here?