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Well, we’re here, in the idyllic Cotswolds… the World’s Greatest Mother-in-Law (TM) has taken the boys off to the flat we’re staying in, and I’m chillin’ in the living room of Moorwood Stables, listenting to Muse and the Foo Fighters with the World’s Greatest Sister-in-Law (now with complimentary bump) and one of my two outlaw brothers.
We spent the afternoon at the the Cotswolds Show (pictures on flickr). We’re headed to Wales tomorrow and Glasgow next week. Our tickets are booked for the next Harry Potter movie. The WGM-i-L continues to be the WG chef. My favourite dog of all time, Scrabble the horse herder, remembered me and was satisfyingly happy to see me.
Life’s good.

The plane leaves in 12 hours…
…maybe I should pull the suitcase out from under the bed and start packing….

Lest you fear that I have been the victim of some terrible accident, perhaps involving an enraged platypus*, I have taken some time from my “vacation” to post this update.
When last we spoke, I had aged a year overnight. This was, one might argue, because it was my birthday; I prefer to think it was a direct result of overextending myself for the last four or five months. Consider June, for instance: I finished marking all the late submissions from the winter semester and updated my already-submitted marks; I wrote a short commentary for the Philosophy of Education course I took in the winter semester; I wrote a longer paper for the same course; I reflected upon and revamped my personal teaching philosophy, again for the same course; I complete three journals, one academic paper and one term paper, including a new teaching strategy, for the Dynamics & Diversity course (i.e., Sociology of Education); I created a 185-page course text for my new Formula Fiction course so I could bring it in to the bookstore so that it’s ready for the fall semester; I reviewed a 300-page textbook for a publisher; I spent an afternoon with a colleague going over his courses for the fall semester; I moved from one office to another; and I read 150 placement tests for incoming students. There may be other stuff, but for some reason I can’t think of anything else right now.
On the home front, the kids have been off school since last Friday; there have been various end-of-year events and projects to deal with, naturally, but they’re home now, and we’re alternating between ‘I love being home with my boys’ and ‘when are you moving out?’ Over the month, there have been a few birthay parties and at least one wedding on the weekend. We’ve had the front of our house rebuilt (Really. I’m serious); I have done the tiniest bit of gardening, and since the winter semester was a little distracting, we’ve done a very late spring cleaning. The big clean was partly because we’re currently hosting two visiting couples, Mark and Erika visiting from Sweden, and Alison and John, with small Joshua, from Halifax. Since Mark and Alison are both former Montrealers, they have other friends in town, so last night we hosted a gathering of some of these friends. Oh, and on Wednesday – after making a salad for a potluck lunch for fellow M.Ed. students in Point Claire and picking Alison et al up at the airport – we went out en masse to our latest discovery, a teeny tiny Mauritian restaurant that is walking distance from our house, then all hopped on the Metro and went to Laronde for the fireworks.
Tomorrow, Robert has a playdate and we have two birthday parties to attend. Sunday, we’re driving out to the Eastern Townships, for brunch with the Muir-Wylie clan, then supper with my parents, and a Monday-afternoon stopover with a friend who’s visiting from Stateside.
Oh, and did I mention that the boys and I are flying to England on Tuesday?
*I have no idea where that come from, so don’t ask.

Gray hairs notwithstanding, I do not colour my hair because:
~ there are fewer gray hairs than one might expect, given my advanced age*;
~ the gray hairs that there are were well-earned;
~ colouring my hair would be an act of vanity;
~ colouring my hair would be an admission of concern about aging.
In other words, not colouring my hair is an act of vanity. Hmmm…
Really, I am just posting so you guys have a post on which to comment on this most special of days 😉
*I am aware that “advanced” is a relative concept. For those of you over 50, I am but a youngster. But believe me, as far as my students are concerned, I am decrepit.

Term paper, Philosophy of Education (a.k.a. what I’ve been losing sleep over this week)
This spring, Quebecers went to the polls in a provincial election. Political scientist Henry Milner took the election as an opportunity to conduct a study, the purpose of which was to determine the efficacy of financial disincentives. For the study, Milner recruited 143 students from Vanier College, and offered them $25 to cast their ballots – but also asked them to complete two sets of questions about the main issues and candidates involved in the campaign. The study concluded that money was “not conclusively” a voting incentive (Howarth); more to the point, it revealed an alarming ignorance of local politics among college students. In interviews with the students, Milner learned that few students engage in political discussions with their parents; clearly, students are not discovering their political world in the home or the classroom. If students are not learning about the politics that shape their lives – politics that determine the content of the courses they are taking, the standards against which their success will be measured, the wage they earn, the age at which they can drink or drive or consent to sexual relations – how will these same students become engaged, motivated, contributing members of a democratic society? Regardless of detractors who would have us believe that politically engaged teaching amounts to indoctrination, educators must accept that one of the most crucial roles we play is that of model citizen, and that our job is not only to provide our students with knowledge and skill, but also to initiate them into life outside the academy.

Continue reading “Climbing Down from the Tower”

When it comes to hockey, I’m a fair-weather fan; furthermore, since Dr. T is not into blood sports, we tend not to watch. Last night, though, he was away for his usual Wednesday evening of Scrabble, and I was hosting my usual Wednesday card night, the participants in which are true hockey fans. So I tuned in to CBC just in time for the pre-game chatter, and am delighted to present the award for best out-of-context line to the following gem:

He’s got really soft hands, a great imagination, and a bit of a mean streak. He’s hard to handle.

My kind of guy.
Turns out the commentator was talking about some hockey player, but whatever. Regardless, however tempted I may have been to watch the rest of the series as a result of that line, I have decided I cannot watch the cup go to the Mouseketeers. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed that someday soon, nos glorieux will rise again.

*Trudeau, not Timberlake. Yes, he is my friend. Facebook rocks.

I know, I know. It’s been two weeks without anything new here on the old blog. I’m sorry.
I realize this is no excuse, but I’ve been working. Correcting essays, setting make-up tests, correcting those, reviewing my files to be sure I haven’t missed anyone’s assignments, preparing book orders for next semester, etc., etc.
Also, I’ve had more than a few meetings, including a couple for the Valedictorian selection committee, which has been a blast so far, because we get to talk to students who love school and everything about it, and want to shout it from the rooftops (or at least from a podium on a stage).
Oh, and I discovered facebook.
Anyway, tomorrow morning I’ll be on campus to collect the last of the stragglers’ papers, and then this semester will officially be put to bed. Or put to sleep, whichever metaphor makes more sense, once I’ve read those last papers.
I still have a few things to wrap up for the philosophy course I am taking this term, and the new one, on ‘dynamics and diversity in the college classroom,’ starts tomorrow afternoon. In other words, things are slowing down, but they have not come to a halt yet.
We’ve been having a great time with our weekends, which is part of the delay in getting all the work stuff taken care of ~ last weekend we took the boys to Laronde (in fact, we got a season family pass, so count on a few more visits), and this weekend, while Dr. T. was defending his Montreal Scrabble Tournament championship (unsuccessfully, unfortunately), the boys and I headed off to the family cottage, where we had a great time getting the place ready for the season, along with my parents, my sister and her crew, and my cousin, Brian. We raked, we mowed, we scrubbed, we painted, we weeded, and we drank a lot of good wine and barbecued the biggest chunk of cow I’ve ever seen (sorry Patra!).

Anyway, I’m not promising daily posts; I did want you to know that I haven’t collapsed under the weight of the essays or moved to a remote island without Internet access (as if).

It occurred to me today that breaking up with someone is very much like a really huge pimple:
~ painful
~ obviously must be dealt with
~ dealing with relationship/huge pimple provides a curious sense of relief and satisfaction mingled with vague self-loathing
~ the aftermath is usually pretty messy
~ one hopes there’s no scarring.
I haven’t broken up with anyone. You do the math.

I’m still at a loss for words, or at least a loss for the intellectual energy required to reflect on what’s going on in the world ~ at some point, maybe I’ll have something to say about the Sheryl Crow TP debacle (um, she was kidding ) or the Jessica Lynch affair (they were lying), but for now the best I can come up with is a list of neologisms inspired by my own question in the previous post.
How self-absorbed am I (enough to get by on one square, perhaps)?
So I have been thinking along the lines of “blodging,” “retriblog” or “blogsplanation,” having rejected a series of phrases, such as “bloggier-than-thou,” “hot-blogging” and “a real bloghard.” Mum’s suggestions were interesting, but would no doubt lead to me referring to myself as a “blithering” idiot, and frankly, there’s already enough of that without me doing it to myself.
Right now, my personal favourites are “self-bloggelation” and “mea blogpa.”
Further suggestions will be entertained, of course.