I Am Starting To Believe

Posted on | July 28, 2010 | 2 Comments

I do have a degree in information technology and computer science from a very old, very well-respected engineering school, but I stayed miles away from anything resembling sci-fi while I was there. I was a senior before I saw the Star Wars trilogy, and my introduction to Star Trek was last year’s blockbuster film, plus a little bit in a grad school class on Moby-Dick. (Incidentally, I also never played video games until we bought a Wii last summer, and I still, well, never really play them. Those neural pathways continue in their dormancy.)

Yet since I was a kid, I have always had a strange fascination with space. Not space travel, or planets, really. More with the weird stuff that might go on out there.

After I was finally convinced to watch (and then converted to the cult of) Battlestar Galactica, the single most chilling moment for me is still when someone is shot out of their craft and freezes while free-floating in outer space. I think I may have had a recurring nightmare of a similar event in the past.

Sunshine, a flawed but deeply thought-provoking (and incredibly scary) sci-fi film that Danny Boyle made a couple years ago, has a similar theme of being abandoned in deep space, without plans or ability to return home. I only saw the film once, not long after it released to DVD, and I still find myself thinking of it, chilled by it. (Despite its flaws, I highly recommend it.)

Anyhow, the point of all this: We started watching X-Files earlier this year, when it came to Netflix (all nine seasons, streaming!), and I have been holding my breath all through the first season, knowing that this is going to bust wide open. I don’t really watch the hour-long drama genre – certainly not the vaguely cop/crime kind – but I got into this really fast. It’s been standalone episodes, but we just finished the first season and I’m delighted that an arc is emerging.

I do recognize that I’m the last person on earth (ahahaha) to actually watch the show, but that said, I insisted we dive directly into season 2. My hopes for this season include the Mulder/Scully romance that is obviously going to emerge, some kind of actual face-to-face alien contact, and, most obviously, a much better wardrobe for Scully.

If you’re inclined to comment, please resist the know-it-all urge and don’t ruin anything for me. :)

Category: Eggheadedness

Friday morning

Posted on | July 23, 2010 | 5 Comments

Two announcements:

  • My dear friend Jenni (who I have known from a distance for several years and am delighted to be rooming with at The Glen in a week or so) has been working very hard on the Art House America site – and it’s finished, as of last night. So go read, gawk at the loveliness, and enjoy.
  • I’m delighted to be the faculty advisor for the newest women’s house at King’s, named for Corrie ten Boom. (You can read the announcement here from last spring.) I know several of the girls from my class last year, and I am very excited to be joining them as they embark on their first year, and to be able to engage in student life at King’s in my first year.

Things I am pondering:

  • The perennial question: M.F.A. or Ph.D., or both, and in which order? Do I need to study craft or history? Where, how, when? Do I need prerequisites? And how can I avoid paying for it? These things roll around in my head a lot, and they’ve come back lately in a kind of aggravated existential crisis. (What do you think?)
  • I asked this question of a number of teacher/writer friends in an email, but I’ll ask here, too: if you do both, how do you manage both? Do you schedule time for writing into your office time? Or is it haphazard?
  • Similarly, blogging friends: do you find that blogging takes away from or enhances your writing time? I used to say that blogging was exercising the writing muscle. Then I stopped blogging. And I think maybe I was right, but it’s hard to start again.
  • Jim Belcher’s book Deep Church, which, besides being incredibly engaging, compassionate, and reasoned, is also challenging, expanding, and clarifying my thinking in ways that few books have done of late (Jamie Smith‘s Desiring the Kingdom being one of those few). If you care about church and have been scurrying around the periphery of both relatively traditional evangelicalism and vaguely emergent churches for a while, like me, you can’t afford to skip this one. I promise: you haven’t read it before. And you’ll also enjoy it.
  • Speaking of Desiring the Kingdom, I’m struggling with how to develop thick practices in my students through teaching. I’m already committed to not setting deadlines for big assignments for Sunday night or Monday morning, because I know students, and many will not make Sunday into a day of rest if they know a project is due. I don’t want to teach them that behavior – it will burn them out. I’ve been there. I know. And I also plan to focus on Sabbath the week we also focus on poetry and description in my first-semester writing class this fall. But what else? I’m thinking about, for instance, Andi’s article on shelter and my own new (even if shared) office.

You know, just an average Friday morning.

Category: Eggheadedness, Faith, Pedagogy, Poetry, Quotidianness

On Teaching and Other Things

Posted on | July 14, 2010 | No Comments

Dove straight back into real life after returning – Tom started his new job on Monday, and I feel like I’ve been climbing an endless mountain of to-dos. I can’t believe tomorrow’s Thursday already!

Sometimes life seems settled, and I know roughly what to do next and have a manageable list of things to accomplish. Other times it is crazy. Inevitably the craziness hits when I want to be reading books and spending time outdoors and planning for the months ahead. But today I agreed to a position of some influence on the lives of some students, which I am terribly excited to announce soon, and that makes me realize anew how blessed I am in the work I do, or rather the work I fell into quite unexpectedly.

My friend Allison’s piece on growing into a teaching vocation reminded me today that teaching comes naturally to no one, that it’s something we learn. Some get to learn it from great classroom teachers. I didn’t have many of those before I began teaching (a couple great professors in college and one in grad school excepted), but her observation is heartening:

Often we see vocation as something to claim, not something to grow into. We do this, I think, because vocation identifies us, not only to the world, but to ourselves; carrying a label wards off fear, insecurity and mystery. And we label ourselves as “masters,” our insecurities hidden, the future predictable and bright.

A true leap of faith.

———–

One small note: this Sunday, our dear, dear friend Angela is getting married to the very best of Peters at the New York Botanical Garden, something we’ve been very much looking forward to since we, well, met Peter on New Year’s Day this year. Tom will also be taking a few photos, not as the primary photographer but filling in a few gaps, and I’ll be playing the piano for two congregational hymns. (And we’re very much looking forward to dim sum the day before.)

Category: Pedagogy, Work

We left and came back

Posted on | July 12, 2010 | 1 Comment

On Wednesday, June 16, I was waiting for my plane at LaGuardia, en route to a work trip to Hamilton, Ontario (which also, by extension, is filled with a lot of fun), when Apple called and said that no, my dead computer wasn’t covered under warranty because it was showing liquid damage to the logic board and I could either pay $750 to fix it or just cut my losses.

It’s two years old, so I chose the latter option, which of course means I’ve been computerless, since I immediately hopped on a plane (with my husband’s laptop), came home two days later for twenty-four hours or so, then boarded another plane at another airport bound for Dublin. (After much deliberation, I ended up ordering a netbook from Asus. I hate Windows – a feeling that has not abated but grown since I started using it again – but the iPad lacks a lot of functionality I need from a portable computer, and I lack the funds to buy another MacBook.)

Dublin, though, was great. We immediately rented a car and headed out of the city for a few days to Cashel and other places, spent the night in Kilkenny, then climbed a very tall hill in Glendalough before returning to Dublin:

Not nearly a good-enough photo. It looks quite low and uninteresting here. More pictures to come.

Back in the city, we visited galleries, museums, old buildings, new sights, and more, winding up at the end at the Guinness Storehouse (as one does in Dublin). We spent evenings in pubs, watching the football, and had a great time.

A week later we moved on to Glasgow, where we stayed with very kind friends, and spent a few days tooling around Glasgow and Edinburgh – two very different but very interesting cities. We saw the Queen’s Scottish home and some underground streets and the fabulous cathedral in Glasgow, above which towers, perhaps ironically, a statue of John Knox:

John Knox atop the necropolis behind the cathedral in Glasgow, the only one to survive the Reformation in the country. Irony?

England was last: first Bristol, where we stayed with the marvelously longsuffering and generous Beldmans, and visited both beautiful Bristol and the best place in the world – Bath – where we went to the contemporary hot baths and soaked in a warm pool on the roof overlooking the Georgian town, and visited Jamie’s Italian twice in one day; then London for two nights, where we went on the London Eye, ate Indian food, and spent a day in the Tower of London, which is enormous and fascinating.

We got home Saturday and have been running around madly since – Tom to D.C. to see his grandpa, me unpacking and cleaning and sneaking in the World Cup finals yesterday in a Hell’s Kitchen bar full of yelling Americans, who, after all, were a bit more enthusiastic than any pub crowd we ran into in the British Isles – go figure.

So here we are – back home. Three weeks and I head to the Glen in Santa Fe. Tom’s working on an action flick in Manhattan beginning today. I’m finishing out my tenure at IAM this month and getting my syllabi put together for my three classes this fall at King’s. We’re attending a dear friend’s wedding at the Botanical Gardens on Sunday. And hopefully squeezing in the Philharmonic’s performances in the parks this week.

Traveling, we find, always reminds us why we’re happy to live in New York, a place where people are friendly when they need to be, where they walk quickly on the sidewalks, where it’s easy to carve out a small corner in a big city if you want it enough, where you can get food or really anything you want past 6pm, and where the subways are VERY cheap (1/4 the price of the Tube!). We’re grateful that we have such a wonderful town to come back to, filled with wonderful people.

Be it ever so humble – or maybe not so humble! – there’s really no place like home.

Category: Quotidianness, Travel

June

Posted on | June 10, 2010 | 1 Comment

The past month or so has been taken up with finishing the semester and planning for the summer online term, which started on Monday.

Teaching online is good, because we are traveling – after Wednesday, I’m out of town until mid-July. We’ll be visiting friends and places in the U.K. and Ireland, and we’re so delighted. It will be great to be somewhere else for a while!

I’m also planning to attend the Glen Workshop again this year. Last year I was in the seminar; this year I’ll be participating in the nonfiction writing workshop, which will be an interesting experience for me. I took one writing class in college which was good, but elementary, given the students (engineering students aren’t particularly good writers). This is on a higher level.

I finished the first draft of my manuscript today after many hours of work on it in the past weeks. I have three half-finished drafts of other essays, but I kept feeling compelled to write about my father again. The story of his death and our wedding is so sad and almost melodramatic that I tried to avoid writing about it, but Tuesday morning it grabbed me and wouldn’t let go, so I succumbed. I hope it’s not too much of a downer for the others. I’ll polish it up before sending it in at the end of the month. I’m so excited to read my fellow participants’ work!

Au revoir.

Category: Remainders

On Employment and Holidays

Posted on | May 14, 2010 | No Comments

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in my world, as I finished the semester, graded stacks of papers, wrote some pieces, traveled a little, finalized summer holiday plans, and generally just tried to keep my head above water.

But the most important news is that I’m joining the full-time faculty at The King’s College (where I’m currently an adjunct) beginning in August. This year I’ll be teaching the same courses I’m teaching now, but more of them, and with an office and more opportunities to interact with students outside the classroom. I am very excited, as teaching has been, by far, the most rewarding occupation I’ve had in my relatively short career. And it also lets me feel like all that reading and writing I do is tied together more tightly. Here’s to a less schizophrenic school year!

The trusty Lonely Planet guides are also stacking up on our table. We’re in the throes of planning a three-week trip abroad this summer – roughly a week each in Dublin, Glasgow, and the general southwest England area, culminating with a couple nights in London. It has been far too long since I’ve been properly abroad (as much as I enjoy my trips north of the border, it doesn’t quite count the same way, and though we went to the Virgin Islands last year, we didn’t leave the U.S.) and I’ve been wanderlusting for a while now.  Tom’s the official day planner when we take trips, whereas I’m more of the logistics person (I book the planes and trains and accommodations and theatre tickets; he handles the actual what-will-we-be-doing part). So we’re planning to stay with friends or stay in absent friends’ homes, and spend a lot of time wandering about. Can’t wait.

Category: Remainders

N.T. Wright, ProfHacker, Sarah Ruhl, and Faithful Institutions

Posted on | April 20, 2010 | No Comments

sparklin' drops of spring

Image by Steve took it via Flickr

It’s the middle of April, and that means the semester is winding down. A week ago, I realized – to my joy – that it’s the first time I haven’t been scrambling to finish a term paper at the end of a semester in a while.

Then I remembered that I have seventeen term papers to grade once they’re turned in on Thursday.

Oh well. In place of my own sanity, here’s some other good stuff from around the web that’s been occupying my “headspace” (I think I might hate that word):

  • The venerable N.T. Wright is in New York today. I went to his Q&A at King’s (where I teach) earlier today with some of my colleagues from IAM. He’s not only smart; he’s also gracious and interesting, and I am not exaggerating when I say that his book Surprised By Hope changed my life. Tonight he’s speaking at a sold-out event sponsored by the Center for Faith & Work, and I’ll be heading up there in a bit for that. I’m delighted that I’ll be seeing our friend Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Bookstore (who’s selling books at the event), assisted by another great friend, Scott Calgaro of the CCO and the marvelous Jubilee conference. Byron wrote a little about Wright and work here today. And at an event like this in New York, I always see many people I know. Don’t listen to what they tell you: New York is a very small town.
  • Speaking of Wright, the recent Wheaton theology conference (one of what seemed like fourteen different conferences I wanted to be at least week) was a “conversation” with him, and you can now download MP3s of the various lectures (Wright and others, like Jeremy Begbie) at no cost from Wheaton’s website.
  • And by the way, my friend Brett McCracken was at that conference as well as another last week, and he had a fascinating roundup at his blog today.
  • Congrats to one of my favorite teaching-related resources, ProfHacker, for getting picked up by the Chronicle of Higher Education! And to my friend Dr. Heather M. Whitney for joining the team as a contributor. If you teach – in any capacity, but especially on the college level – ProfHacker is an invaluable resource.
  • Since one of my major research interests is in the intersection of religion and art, especially contemporary art, I usually read any article that comes across my desk on the subject – especially if it’s from the mainstream press. But this one on the production of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn is especially interesting, particularly near the end. The Irondale Center is directly across the street from where I live, housed in Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church.
  • And lastly, the equally venerable Jonathan Chaplin is in The Other Journal talking about “faithful institutions.” In my relatively small associations with him via Cardus and Comment, I can assure you that this is worth your time.
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Category: Remainders

Yes, I’m back

Posted on | March 25, 2010 | 3 Comments

My site needed a makeover, so I pointed it elsewhere for a bit, but it’s the very simple site I wanted (at last) and so here I am again. I hope to add some more on my (still fledgling) teaching and research pursuits at some point soon, but this is good for now. Back to grading.

Category: Remainders

Jubilee and beyond

Posted on | February 25, 2010 | 1 Comment

Last weekend I was at Jubilee, conducting two workshops, meeting with people, and generally having an awesome time. We flew in Friday morning quite early because I had an editorial meeting for Comment, which, as it turns out, was a great time to meet – for me, at least. We solved all our problems and then proceeded to solve a bunch of others throughout the weekend.

After the meeting, Tom and I slipped out of the hotel to drop by the Andy Warhol Museum. It feels a bit weird to be reading all about Warhol – who defined a large part of New York’s culture scene in his time, and continues to do so – while not actually in New York, but the museum was quite interesting. It’s not laid out strictly by chronology or by medium, leaving you to draw some conclusions about the work as you work your way from the seventh floor down.

The conference itself started Friday night. The speakers were fabulous, as always – Don Opitz, the inconceivably awesome Bob Goff, John Perkins! and I won’t even try to name the rest. My workshops were fairly successful, and Tom’s was a smash bang-up success – so full that you couldn’t get your head in the door.

But the best part of these weekends is always the connections you make with others, and Jubilee is starting to feel like one giant reunion party with a lot of college students attending on the side. Besides giving workshops, I spent most of the weekend with my colleagues from Cardus (and thereby, most of them, from Comment), who drove down from Ontario, and are some of my favorite people in the world that I never get to see (though I did spent five hours on the “phone” aka Skype in a meeting with them yesterday, which, given the generally dismal state of five-hour conference calls, was pretty pleasant). We spent a lot of time laughing and drinking a variety of substances and talking with various interesting people about the future of the world at large. It was, quite frankly, splendid.

All good things come to an end, of course, and we got back Sunday night. This week has been, well, bumpy. Early mornings and too much work, and some really nasty weather. I feel like the avalanche is accelerating, since the IAM Encounter starts a week from today (good, but oy). I’m having a trickier time staying on top of grading this semester, which I attribute to the fact that while last semester I had one essay to grade each week, this semester they’re all kinds of different essays, spread gratuitously all over the semester. It’s okay. By the time I get the hang of it, the semester will be over.

It could just be February slump, though. I’m a New England girl through and through. I like winter, I really do. I like sweaters and scarves and boots, and bundling up, and I like how pretty snow is, especially since I don’t have to drive in it. I like hot drinks. Hockey is far and away my favorite sport.

But by late February, I always am feeling the SAD a bit. It always takes me by surprise, because I don’t consciously feel like I’m tired of it. I’m not even watching the Olympics (and in fact, the entirety of my Olympic watching this year was restricted to some background ice shuffleboard curling while hanging out with with crazy people Canadians). But I guess I could be ready to go running outside without being so bundled up. And I do get excited for toe ring season.

(Am I too old for toe rings? Every year I wonder if my inner hippie will sneak up on my outer chic New Yorker facade and I’ll be suddenly clad in toe rings and flared jeans or broomstick skirts.)

Category: Eggheadedness, Femininity/ism, Quotidianness, Work

A Week of Strange

Posted on | February 12, 2010 | No Comments

I fail at blogging. But at least I’ve been thinking about blogging. That means that I’m remembering I have a blog, which is a positive development.

Every year, for the past few years, I have a number of strange things happen to me in the early months. Last year it was bedbugs, which I dearly hope never to repeat, followed by getting hired at King’s for the fall semester, which has been utterly delightful.

This week turned out to be my week of surprises. First, I got to be on The John and Kathy Show (on WORD-FM in Pittsburgh) on Tuesday, talking about the concept of being a Christian in the scholarly community. Several people asked me why I didn’t alert them to this sooner so they could have listened; I was on at 4:15pm, and I found out I’d be on around 2pm, so hopefully that explains it. But it was good fun and I’m hoping to meet John and Kathy in person at Jubilee next weekend.

Then there was a blizzard, kind of, on Wednesday. This is notable mostly because it doesn’t happen too often in New York City. It was a rather cowardly blizzard, as blizzards go. And I work from home on Wednesdays, so it wasn’t really a snow day. But it was fun to watch it fall and remember that I used to spend all winter dodging blizzards like this when I lived upstate. I don’t miss that one bit.

Thursday requires some explanation. King’s has a “Distinguished Visitor” series, in which famous, intelligent, or otherwise worthwhile people visit at noon for a lecture or a Q&A about their work. I require my students to attend some of the lectures but I’ve never been able to attend one myself.

Until Thursday. It worked out that Tony Hale (aka Buster Bluth) was the visitor, and as my students are studying film, I told them not to miss that one. Then I decided to go as well. Tony, while being hilarious, also managed to reinforce several things I had talked about in my class lecture that day (which I thanked him for). He also lived in New York years ago and therefore knows half of my friends, including my coworkers, so afterward we trekked up to the IAM Space and all chatted a bit whilst eating lunch. I’m used to running into people famous enough to have their own Facebook fan pages, but rarely do I have a great conversation with them. So, thanks, Tony.

So now it’s Friday, and I’m at work, of course. We’re showing Yi Yi tonight at IAM, and tomorrow we’re seeing people all day, and Sunday is Valentine’s Day (though we have no huge plans that I know of).

And I will try to blog before next weekend, especially because we leave on Friday morning for Jubilee. By the way, Ash Wednesday is this week. Isn’t that crazy?

Category: Quotidianness
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