Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

adventures / friends / Ireland / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
10
Mar 26

So where are we?

We have arrived at our intended destination. All went according to plane. Onto a plane quickly and easily. Flight departed on time and landed on time. Plane landed at the right airport. I actually slept a bit on the plane. You can’t count on all of those things, particularly the last one. But it happened — sleep, I mean — and now I am cured of jet lag.

I am a notoriously bad flier. I can feel jet lagged by staying in the same time zone. It also takes me a two or three days to feel like a human again after a trip begins (or ends). Some of this is surely about how much I sleep in the days leading up to a trip. Usually that’s not a lot, but I usually don’t sleep that much anyway. Then there’s the travel. The moving stuff around, making faces at the airport, dealing with luggage, the dehydration of the whole travel experience. The miracles of modern travel, whatever. And then I’m just not sleeping on a plane, even when you’re supposed to. Too much noise. Sleeping as you perceptibly move is a weird idea. I have stuff to read, or work to do. And there are movies and things. Then there’s that seat, which is not designed for someone with a spinal column. And always the guy in front of you. And the noise associated with the perceptible travel. Oh, I can make a lot of excuses for it all, but I’m just a lousy traveler. I just hope I can remain decent company.

And to stay awake the next day, which is today. This, Tuesday, Dé Máirt, or Purplasday or whatever day this actually is.

Never mind the when. You had to figure out the where. Here’s one more hint.

We walked around with friends, people from other states and from other countries as we all assembled and were trying to keep each other awake. I ran across one more hint on our pedestrian journey.

Later, we walked by this building and everyone pointed and laughed at this mural. I was too tired to understand the joke, so I took a photo so that I could figure it out later. I still have no idea why it was funny, but many smart people thought it was.

And we have successfully stayed awake on our first full day in Dublin. We are here to attend two conferences, which start tomorrow and Friday. I will be networking and presenting research and grading. I have a lot of that to do tomorrow. And that, somehow, will be how I bleed off the last of the jet lag.

adventures / Monday / photo — Comments Off
09
Mar 26

We’re going on an adventure

You’ll have to guess. And this will take some doing. Here are all the hints you are getting. Look carefully, and maybe you’ll be able to figure this out from context clues.

We are going back to 2020!

Or at least dressing our faces that way, because germs, man. So you see a mask. And if you look near the top right corner there’s a hint. I’m wearing an overstuffed blue hint. Also there’s another hint covering my ears.

It’s a plane, yes, congratulations. But to where? You have until tomorrow to figure it out.

Friday / Rowan — Comments Off
06
Mar 26

Three-out-of-four, then two-out-of-three

I had four meetings — count ’em, one, two, three, four meetings — on my calendar for today. Researchers were trying to wedge one more in there in between the few null spaces in my day. Me, I’m the researcher.

My first meeting, which was to be the best one of the day, was postponed or canceled. It’s that time of year for everyone, not just you or me. This meeting was to be about a presentation we are delivering next week. This was the get our ducks in a row meeting. Guess who’s ducks are all out of sorts?

Not ours, because we have a plan and a great slide deck. I am working with an amazing colleague on this particular presentation.

My second meeting was a regular committee meeting. We meet for half an hour, every other week. Lovely people. Just happy to be around them. Thoughtful, curious, dedicated, wanna-take-part, sorts of folks. We talked for about 25 minutes about the details of our work and how we might invite this person or that person or all of these people in to a meeting to talk and take a lot at the whatsits and the whosits. And finally, it occurred to me, we’ve been asked to focus on just this one group, not all of the groups. And so we returned to the start of the meeting, essentially.

My third meeting was about sustainability in the classroom. This one was led by a departmental colleague and it was more of a workshop than a meeting. A PLC, they call it, a professional learning community. This meeting is filled with smart people from all number of fields and they are, right now, looking for ways to weave this and that into their own classrooms. I don’t do a lot of that in my classes at the moment — the thises and thats of the environment and ecology conservation and so on. You might think, “You teach sports communication and communication studies, how could you?” And I would say, Thanks for reading my bio.

Then I would say, I have an idea for a future class that fits in nicely with some of what this PLC does. If I’m ever allowed to pitch and offer it, it is going to be awesome. I am trying to get my arms around more than just the basic details.

Today they were using some tool called Padlet which felt very 2.0 Wiki, to share ideas. It is a subscription-based customizable bulletin board with options to populate with text, images, audio, videos, and links. It is like Jamboard. It’s a fun little thing to type in. So people typed in stuff they were working on, and cast about for ideas. I read all of them, because I’m trying to learn stuff and project my project into it. I was also able to add two or three ideas for people, so time well spent.

Then, finally, I wound up the work day with one more webinar, a Q&A session about this work packet I’ve been going on and on about. This was the last minute session. There are a few people on campus who devote just huge amounts of time to this particular chore for everyone else, and good thing, too. We’d probably all be in a much different place if the help didn’t exist. I had three questions, myself, and the answers can be boiled down to: 1.) don’t use that form now use it later, 2.) yes use that form now how did you not know that, and 3.) you are probably correct about the last form, but continue asking around. Two out of three, late on a Friday, is not bad at all. Some other people had questions, and some of which were unexpectedly useful, too, so it was 80 minutes well spent.

Also, today, I got a bit ahead of some class prep for my online course and my in-person Criticism class. And, now, this. So it felt, more or less, like a productive Friday.

I hope yours was too.

Wednesday — Comments Off
04
Mar 26

Should I put ‘Write book about Want To Do lists’ on such a list?

Today I sent off a rough draft of that packet I’ve been working on. It presently stands at about 30 pages, and so I waited a half hour to check for feedback. Nothing yet. Until I hear back it is perfect. Or terrible. We should also allow for the possibility that it is perfectly terrible.

Anyway, they give you this checklist and you attend a whole bunch of meetings and there are more shared documents than you can possibly be expected to keep in your head. All of this in service to this packet, where you are required to write a narrative about your teaching, including student feedback and your response to that, and peer reviews, and your response to that. Then you write a narrative that discusses the service you’ve done in that time, so committee work and projects and things. And then you write a third narrative about your professional development — so research and presentations and every little other thing you can remember. (Take notes throughout is the lesson.) Above these things are some forms detailing classes, and on top of all of that is a fourth narrative, the executive summary, where you finally realize you’ve actually done quite a bit these last few years, and a long nap, a cup of tea and a peppermint sound pretty good right now, in any order you like.

You’re not getting those things, of course, because there are still all of the appendices to append. There’s the batch of student evals, and the peer feedback, and some other forms that have to do with your original job ad, which is hilarious, and then some paperwork that must get signed and some feedback from your previous review …

By the time I’ve spelled all of that out another 30 minutes have passed, and there’s no feedback. So it is perfect.

Anyway, I’ll think about this until March 16th, when it is due, so just two more weeks. But I can have that nap, and tea, and peppermint.

Except I can’t, because there are slide decks for tomorrow’s classes to finalize, and two presentations next week, and a host of meetings for which I must prepare. That master calendar I made last week was a good idea. So far I’ve not only scratched everything off the list, but I’ve gotten to everything scratched off on time. Score one for To Do lists.

I’ve soured on To Do lists. Sounds rebellious, because I am rebellious. There’s an issue with To Do lists, a notion of responsibility, work demanded. The satisfaction of striking things off the list does not outweigh that.

But the real problem is this: I have discovered Want To Do lists. No mystery to that. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Only no one ever tells you about them. Big List doesn’t want you to know about Want To Do lists. But before “they” track me down and bury me under another pile of administrivia, let me speak to you of the truth of this uproarious uprising, this revolutionary revolt: When you start making Want To Do lists you’re doing a powerful thing. I first wrote about this in 2023, apparently, so let’s just consider me an expert.

What you do, right after you’ve made yourself a Want To Do list, is to do one of the things on that list. Do it just for you. The feeling of scratching one of those things off one of those lists, that’s satisfying.

But you have to attend to the Want To Do list. I wonder how many of those I have floating around, still incomplete. At least two, surely.

Well, a few more months weeks, and maybe we can see about some of those thing.

Then, in a few more weeks, it’ll be “Well, in two more months.”

That’s the power of the list. If you just say it, you just say it. The idea floats in your mind and in the air but things out soon enough. But if you write it down — and go stream of consciousness here, rank ordering a Want To Do list is madness — then you can ignore the list. But … But! When you finally get around to it, you have that list in front of you, and you can recall that thing you wanted to do last November. Then you only have to remember why.

And do the thing.

But first, work stuff.

photo / Rowan / sports / Thursday / video — Comments Off
04
Mar 26

Shiver spring?

Here’s the deal I, a southern boy, have made in my decade of living in northern climes. Below a certain temperature, I don’t go outside if I don’t want to. At the same time, I acknowledge that life has brought me to a place where winter happens. (Items one and two here generally take of each other.) If winter is going to happen, it should stick within certain calendar confines. (I never get my way on this one, really, I mean look at us.) Anything after February 14th won’t do, because, back home, trees are budding and the lilies have burst through the soil and the jonquils aren’t far behind. Winter is going to happen, though, and so I will accept days that are cold and bright, or dull and warmer. The wrong combination there is unwanted. And, somewhere in February, because I can’t have spring on schedule, I begin to think things like “Oh this feels awfully warm!” and it is 51 degrees. This is the Stockholm Syndrome that comes in the last third of winter.

The last third, because we’re not done yet.

There has been entirely too much of this in the atmosphere for March.

Walking into our building on campus today I could see my breath. This wasn’t so much about the cold, but the dew point. It was one of those days where everything felt like it would be cold soggy forever.

In Rits and Trads we wrapped up the student presentations of traditions they found. Someone actually showed off the Red Wings thing. While they love it in Detroit, where it is presumably gray until May, this strikes me as problematic for a lot of people.

Another student showed a video from his high school, which was cool, but I’ll never find again. The idea was how they integrated the marching band and the football team taking the field. It was simple, and neat.

Someone discussed the Red Sox playing Sweet Caroline. Fits the bill. Crowd loves it.

And the Buffalo Bills do a Mr. Brightside thing now, which is on its way to becoming a tradition, it looks like.

Admittedly, these guys right here aren’t the best singers, but this is all about the choreographed stadium atmosphere. The Buffalo snow probably helps.

I wonder if they’ll take this song, and emerging tradition, next door to the new stadium this year.

In Criticism, we watched this documentary, which I thought was fascinating, as it takes on issues of gender, politicization, culture, history, and colonization. It’s a slow start, which allows the whole story to breathe, but most of the last half hour feels like a sports film. Also, it shocks the sensibilities a bit to see 8th and 9th and 10th graders having to fight to play a sport they love.

We talked about those things, and a few others, after the film, which is now 10 years old. Apparently not a lot of people have seen it, but maybe more should.

It’s a good way to avoid a bit of winter, I’d say.