Poetry Monday, which I never do

OK, so I've never been a poetry Friday kinda blogger, and it's not Friday, but Ianqui has a post about our obligations to catch up ansent students, and I was reminded of this poem, which I've seen a few times, and which I'm sure others have blogged, but which I love (apologies to the poet for the weird formatting):

Tom Wayman

Originally from: The Astonishing Weight of the Dead.
Vancouver: Polestar, 1994.

---

Did I Miss Anything

Question frequently asked by
students after missing a class

Nothing. When we realized you weren't here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 per cent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I'm about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 per cent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring this good news to all people
on earth

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human existence
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered

but it was one place

And you weren't here

Quiet/ Noise

I haven't blogged in a week, but not 'cause I've had nothing to say, just that I've had no time to write: The two big committees I'm on--a search committee and the T&P committee--have both reached fever pitch, and I'm still not entirely on the ball with all my teaching tasks. Though I will be soon. At the same time, I've been doing a lot of I might sentimentally call soul-searching, some of which I may blog about eventually, we'll see.

For the time being, all I've got is this lovely little post about the quiet on the blog and the noise in my head, unless you'd like a little history about patent theatres in London during the long 18th century, a topic about which, until very recently, I knew shamefully little. Otherwise, to bed, and onward into this daunting week of candidate visits, new lectures, exams to administer, and evaluation files to sign.

Snowy Day

When we arrived home at 10:30, half an inch of snow had fallen in the last twenty minutes. It was a good sign.

Now, this place is capable of producing a great deal of snow, but last winter and this fall were both mild on that front, so my winter weather cred is somewhere between stay-in-under-the-covers and causes-competent-drivers-to-have-accidents (which I've never done to my knowledge).

But the fourish inches we got in our backyard today was the optimum opportunity to introduce the munchkins to the joys of playing the snow. They've seen the snow before, but the stars have never aligned that they really got to go out and play in it. Highlights of the day

Lunchtime was preceded by snowy day milk, an old treat of my childhood: warm milk with a tsp. of sugar and a dash of vanilla extract. Pictures were taken in front of the (gas) fireplace.

Good naps were taken. by everybody. This is a key detail, because of recent sleep problems that are starting to resolve...

Snacktime involved homemade chocolate cheesecake. yummy.

Afterwards, though, I bundled the kids up, bundled up myself, and out we went. We slid down the sliding board (fast). We made snow angels. I taught them how to make snowballs. I got to take them on their first ride down the hill in the backyard (on a jelly-roll pan, natch). They tackled me in the snow more than once.

These are the days that the fatherhood recruitment posters and videos (you know the ones...every ad that plays on the pathos of parenthood serves as one) show to lure in the non-committal parents. The ones that suggest that parenthood (yes, even of toddlers) is a great deal of fun, and not also punctuated by long stretches of terrible boredom, battles of will, and more bodily fluids than we care to name. I got to teach my kids how to play in the snow. How great is that?

At bedtime, while reviewing the day with me, Rambunctious cited tackling me in the snow as the best part of his day. Mine too, kiddo.

Minivan 2.0

So Willow's car accident just before Christmas totaled the car, our not-all-that-old minivan, which, despite being a big, ugly minivan, was really practical for us, and honestly not as ugly as all that.

In the interim we had an itty bitty rental that, because it was a rental, meant we didn't want to put carseats and the concomitant toddlers in it. which made it pretty much useless.

Well, the insurance check cleared on Wednesday, which meant it was time for that great American ritual--kick the tires. We knew we couldn't afford a new vehicle that was going to do what we wanted, so we went to a few dealerships with used cars, and settles on two at two different places that we thought would do the trick.

Now every single time I had gone car shopping before, I/we had gone with my dad, who, as a businessman, has a good sense of how to negotiate. Besides the "never let them see you excited" trick, I also learned the "always walk off the lot, even if you want to buy the car right now" trick, because the deal almost always gets sweeter overnight. Other tricks include the silent treatment for any numbers they put in front of you--sometimes, the salesperson will get nervous about the silence and start talking more, which often leads to a better deal. Finally, the trick that really did it for us was to play two sales people off of each other. When you have two cars you do actually want, a bidding war will help matter immensely.

By the time I walked in to sign the paperwork yesterday afternoon, we had gotten our deal at a 5.99% interest rate (better than our credit union), with the actual price of the vehicle about $300 over the NADA average trade-in price, and a full $2K under the NADA average retail price. So thanks, Dad.

The vehicle we ended up getting is almost exactly what we lost--we had a 2001 Grand Caravan, and now have a 2005 Chrysler Town and Country, which, I'm not kidding, looks exactly the same. Here are the all of ways that this new car is different (and better):

• Traction control (important for our hilly neighborhood on snowy days like today)
• Seats that fold under instead of lifting out when we need the room
• The driver's side back door is automatic (the other ones are too, but we already had that)
• The rearview mirror has some sort of automatic light sensing thing...I haven't paid much attention yet.
• CD player and DVD player(which the munchkins love) in addition to the cassette player
  
• Cool volume and radio preset buttons on the back of the steering wheel
• Ummm...it's blue.
  

So this must have been how Michael Knight felt after KITT was wrecked and rebuilt with a few new features (like super aerodynamic fins and a convertible option: I LOVED Knight Rider)--The thrill of a new car with all of the cosy familiarity of the old one. 'cept this one's a minivan. So it's a lot less cool than KITT.

My next car will be cooler. I swear.

Sleep deprived

Bel Imperia has, off and on, had some sleeping problems...at 18 months, she still wasn't sleeping through the night, and right after we moved at 20 months , she went through a brief phase where she would sleep unless she was in our arms, and any time we tried to leave her in her crib, she was actually crawling out. We had to get a crib tent, zip her in and wait for her to cry herself to sleep. It was heartbreaking.

For a while though (the last year and a half, really), her sleep had stabilized, and we had been able to make the transition to a big girl's bed. Things have gone smoothly, until we noticed recently that she had been getting out of her bed and sleeping in the big comfy chair in her room, and then more recently, she's been getting out of bed at night and coming into our room.

The number of guests we had in and out during the holidays didn't help, and then I was away at MLA, and this past weekend, Willow was out of town visiting friends, and soon, poof! the sleep routine was out the window.

The last few nights, we've had to take the lightbulb out of her lamp, we've set up a rewards and penalties system, which, during the day, she assents to happily, but as soon as it's time for us to leave the room, she flips out. Crying disconsolately at the door, she wants us to stay and talk to her.

Last night we had to put her back in her room 5 times, holding the door shut several of those times, before she eventually gave up and went to sleep--in her chair (suddenly, that's a battle we no longer are fighting). To get Bel Imperia to nap, Willow had to go in and read while the child fell asleep--on her lap.

Everyone's sleep is affected right now (except Rambunctious's, which has almost always been deep and sound, bless his heart). Willow and I were supposed to go out to celebrate our recent anniversary tonight (seven years and counting), but we can't leave a babysitter with this scenario, so we're staying in, and having the couple who had offered to sit for us stay for dinner instead.

The research on sleep and children has always been helpful in the past, though somewhat painful implement. But most of that is geared toward infants and to a lesser degree toddlers. By the time we get to the "Ages 3-6" chapter, the advice is less specific. It's going to be a long couple of weeks around this house until we get everyone sleeping right again...sigh. I'm going to take a nap

It's Nice to Hear

The big committee I'm on this year deals with annual review and tenure and promotion cases, and in today's meeting (I'm not divulging anything here, by the way), an issue came up about whether and how to document the kind of good citizenship things we do around the department, like informal mentoring and collegial activities.

I mentioned that I'm not sure I would even want to list that stuff, since I simply consider it part of the fabric of academic life rather than a duty, and the committee chair (a former department head and now a named chair) remarks off-handedly, "Well, when you're up, you certainly won't need to."

I think there are a lot of ways to read this, but I actually think he was saying that based on what he'd already seen of me, I didn't really need to sweat the tenure thing. Of course, I'll sweat the tenure thing, but it's nice to know that some folks think I'm not at risk of falling short.

Disadvantage

One of the limitations of pseudonymous blogging is that you can't brag about things like publications (and at this stage of my career, I still feel the need to brag about even the most minor of publications). But I can say something about that paper? the one that I was moaning about less than two months ago? The one that got ripped apart in the workshop? The one that I revised and presented at MLA? Yeah, that one.

Well, serendipity as it is, while no one attending my panel was really actually interested in the issue (they were all personal friends and colleagues), the other panel on the same topic had a panelist who just happened to be editing an online journal that just happened putting out a special topics issue on the very topic of my paper, and just happened to be soliciting short articles.

Well, a few email exchanges later, some mutual flattery and viola! a publication. Online, of course, and short, but publicly consumable, and more than I had expected for this piece. Fate smiles once in a whle.