Learned it from the comics

I'm often amazed at what I learn and where I learn it. Today's haul was entirely from the comic strips:

• I heard about the Red Sox Truck Day (which is tomorrow) from "Non Sequitur".
• "Sherman's Lagoon" introduced me to the box jellyfish, a genuine animal which possesses one of the most lethal toxins on earth.

Going to get published

The pastor of my church has asked me to write a short column for the monthly church newsletter. How cool is that! From his comments I conclude that he thinks church members are isolated from the world and need to know something about the "outsiders" and how they think.

Just yesterday, I was asking myself two questions: Why do I feel so alienated from this church? Why don't I simply go elsewhere? I've never had a satisfactory answer to number two, but number one is a no-brainer. I teach in a secular university, love art and music, and generally am not at all afraid of the world. Over the years, I've gotten to know Muslims, witches, and militant atheists. My secretary at Ashland is firmly convinced that I'm Jewish. I love thinking—both my own and other people's. By contrast, many of the people at the church (particularly the ones who have been there for a while) absolutely dislike thinking, and have a very firm "us/them" view of the world. In this construction, the outsiders have a plan going to sink Christianity, and (apparently) have meetings to discuss strategy. To listen to the rhetoric, you'd think the church is planted in the heart of the old Soviet Union, not in a place where Christians are the majority and the outsiders fear us.

I don't think the above is my first column. I'm not sure what will be, but apparently I'll get to do it. Probably better get a draft going so I can get it through the editorial process.

Facebook loses its mind

Just when I thought I had the world figured out (I found the raisins at Kroger and assembled a Sauder chest of drawers), things got weird again.

The new Facebook layout apparently shows me everyone else's comments, but I can never see my own. How weird. So if I make a comment in the "What's on your mind?" space, it will never appear with everyone else's. (Yes, I know I can find it my clicking "My profile," but I had sort of expected it to be out there on the "News Feed" page.)

Maybe there's some odd self-effacing thing going on here that I'm not supposed to be that interested in my own comments or what people respond to them. I'm hoping others can see them.

Late-breaking

Oh ye of little faith! It does move my stuff over there—it just takes between 30 and 40 minutes to do it. That really changes the dynamic of an online conversation. It's not like a talk. More like sending old-fashioned paper letters back and forth. Post something. Go make dinner. Come back and see if it worked. Someone has something to say. Maybe another hour and my response will get back to him.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this were some form of "flood control." I would be tempted, if things moved faster, to actually have large group conversations. As it is, the "wall" metaphor is more like painting graffiti and seeing whether someone has responded the next evening.

Snowed in (sort of)

It's not really that bad out there, but mentally I'm so set up for a snow-in. Got lots of food. Cleaning the apartment. Baking oatmeal raisin bread. Did three loads of laundry this morning.

I wonder how my mother's doing. She's probably unaware that the Washington area is totally shut down. They turned off the subway and stopped the busses. The interstates are closed and the government offices sent everyone home early on Friday. I wonder what it would be like if Washington simply stopped doing anything for a little while.

The center of the universe

I'm about to grade more papers (surprised?) and I know what the first one will be. I assigned the students to read and respond to an article from Time magazine.  One student's response is that the article is stupid because it uses big words that she can't understand. I get that a lot. The Universe has one center. It's me, and everything else is judged by my standard. Do I like Shakespeare? No. He's stupid. Is Robert Frost too intricate for me? Yes. He's an idiot. Do I think a comma belongs here? Of course—and that settles it.

The problem, of course, is that these ultimate deciders usually have a very limited experience of both literature and plain old vocabulary. So if they are right (and which one do I choose to worship?) I can't say "superannuated" (a word in the article that caused particular trouble).

College is a pain, too, when you are the smartest person in the whole place, all the textbooks are beneath you, and nobody will recognize that. You've got to suffer all these idiots for four years to get your B.A.

Adobe lazy?

Steve Jobs thinks so.

I dunno. They gave me quite a workout tonight. I just wanted to print out a PDF with a margin larger than 1/8 inch (maybe I could actually see the letters on the edge that way). 40 sheets of paper later and several failed work-arounds, and I got it! I feel properly exercised! And it only cost me about $2 in printer supplies!

I'd tell you the secret, but no. You LIKE the output to run outside the printable area. Adobe knows that.

Life Changes

Job

Put in an application for a full-time permanent-ish job at North Central State College. It's about the same amount of work as I do now, but with less driving and the possibility of health insurance. Do I want to move into a school where the point has always been to find excuses to fail people? Do I want to teach students who all think English is a way for the college to extort more money from them? Will NCSC realize that they were unreasonable to post a job that begins in the middle of the semester? Only time will tell.

Roommate

I'm less than 24 hours from Jared moving in. I really like him and I'm looking forward to this, but it will be a very difficult change. Suddenly I won't be living just for myself. Suddenly I'll have to keep track of someone else's schedule because he needs me to be in a specific place at a specific time. No more wandering through the house in my underwear before I get coffee made. No more spontaneous decisions to just stay in Akron very late.

Neither one of is us particularly neat by nature, but the clutter of two of us put together will be impossible. I'll absolutely NEED to enforce some order around there.