The Little Professor

Hazards of Academic Regalia: A Serious Consideration

(N.B.: The following applies to full Ph.D. regalia only.)

• There's a high risk of being stabbed by someone else's mortarboard.
• In high winds, mortarboards may fly off and accidentally pin an innocent onlooker to the nearest tree.
• Graduation season frequently causes a local shortage of bobby pins. 
• Mortarboard hair.
• Unwitting faculty may aspirate their tassels, necessitating immediate application of the Heimlich Maneuver.
• An inability to keep one's tassel in place may lead to unforeseen emotional breakdowns.
• The bagginess of academic robes may tempt faculty to use them to conceal books, exams, XBoxes, or a picnic setting for four.  The administration takes a negative view of such things. 
• An unknown number of faculty die every year after being strangled by their hoods.
• Flapping robes may make faculty bear an uncomfortable resemblance to something out of The Crow.
• Woolen robes + summer temperatures = heat stroke.
• The price of full regalia may require new Ph.D.s to take out a second mortgage.
• Cheap rental regalia may be semi-transparent; faculty should be sure to wear actual clothes, lest students and colleagues see more than might be considered desirable.

Thursday Duck Blogging: "Hey, Kids, Get Off My Lawn" Edition

Ducks hanging out on my (soon-to-be-reseeded) front lawn.  No duckling sightings yet.

How does your garden grow?

I've always felt like a bit of a fraud when teaching Romantic nature poetry, because Nature and I do not have what I would call a cordial relationship.  Owning a house means taking care of the garden and lawn, of course, but my mother is responsible for more of the current garden than I am.  It's not like I want to pave Nature over, or anything, but Spring's arrival always triggers a raft of puzzling discoveries:

1.  Are you there, lawn? It's me, Miriam.  My house's previous occupant worked for the park service,  and he had a thing for trees.  What he didn't have a thing for, it seems, was landscaping.  Ergo, my front and back yard are clotted with Random Trees, which in turn interfere with that one thing necessary for the lawn--namely, sun.  Needless to say, I don't have shade-friendly grass--in fact, in several spots I have no grass, period--and my occasional gardener (by which I mean the one who does this for a living, not Mom the Retired School Administrator) feels skeptical about reseeding under the current landscape conditions. But I can't axe the rare American Chestnuts, and the other trees are so large that I can afford to remove them only one at a time.  To make matters worse, while mowing my weeds lawn a couple of days ago, I discovered Mysterious Ground Cover, which is currently in the process of, ah, covering the ground.   (I'm having the much-sunnier front yard reseeded sometime this summer, though.)

2.  Tiptoe through the tulips.   Last year, I had leaves, but no tulips.  This year, many tulips.  I see that there was also some tulip-related Gardening by Squirrel, although not bizarrely so--e.g., no tulips growing out of the middle of my lawn. 

3.  Death comes for the azaleas.  Going into last winter, I had five living azaleas; now I have one.  "But, officer, I didn't do anything different!" I cried.  Then again, I haven't done in the rhubarb (which I could live without, honestly--I always let one of my neighbors abscond with it), and the holly bushes I planted last summer are, amazingly enough, looking pretty cheerful.  I probably can't take credit for the survival of the hostas, given that, as a friend of mine pointed out, killing hostas is more of a problem than keeping them alive.

4.  Blowing a raspberry.  I've tried to eradicate a badly-located raspberry bush twice now, and the darn thing keeps coming back.  In fact, not only is the bush practically a phoenix, it has mysteriously spread to the back property line, possibly as a result of Gardening by Squirrel, Bird, or Rabbit. 

5.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Ground Cover.  When the front yard was regraded a few years ago, the new topsoil apparently contained the seeds of some Mysterious Ground Cover (not, incidentally, related to the Mysterious Ground Cover currently threatening my back yard).  This MGC appears to be completely invincible.  Pulling it doesn't work.  Digging it up doesn't work.  Brush killer doesn't work.  With my luck, it's going to demand to have a go at me one of these days. 

A quick observation, apropos of gardening

As a general rule, it is much easier to water the lawn when the water in question only emerges from the hose's nozzle, as opposed to random holes in the middle of the tubing.

I am not entirely sure why there are random holes in my garden hose.  When asked, the hose was not especially forthcoming, although I think my query was reasonably civil.  (Or, at least, not laced with excessive profanity.) 

This desk accessory was designed by someone without a degree in feline psychology

No self-respecting cat would deign to sit in this, as opposed to walking in front of the computer screen/flopping down on your papers/draping its tail over the keyboard.  (Via CO.) 

Accented

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent."  You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas.  You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

 

I've always thought of myself as having a recognizably Southern CA accent; perhaps I got Midwesternized while living in (amazingly) the Midwest for several years.   (Via New Kid.) 

Ow(l)!

I've got construction workers beneath my office window.  Other people, however, have owls.  (Via Metafilter.)

Rules of Academic Calories, Ongoing

If your conference organizers provide an endless supply of yummy baked goodies, those goodies contain no calories.

Scattered Musings

• I'm off--not to see the wizard, but to see IU Bloomington, where I've never been.  The occasion is the British Women Writers Conference, where I'll be discussing torture by candle, dying at the stake, and similarly uplifting topics.
• And then, week after next, comes NEMLA, where dying at the stake will not figure in my presentation. Handsome Young Jesuits, however, will make special guest appearances. 
• It must be spring: the ducks have wandered away from the pond and are hanging out near my house.  I'm also beginning to see the usual signs of Gardening by Squirrel (the squirrels dig up and replant the tulips, marigolds, etc.; they also managed to plant some raspberry bushes along my property line).  If I were a better gardener, I would no doubt be upset by gardening by squirrel, not to mention by the bunnies that reside in the back yard.  However...I'm not a better gardener. 
• Has anyone ever done a history of the playbill biographical sketch? Thirty or forty years ago, you still saw biographies that opened like this: "Though there were but 1153 people in the capacity audience at the premiere of 'Cabaret' on November 20, 1966, the uproar which followed Mr. Grey's opening number, 'Wilkommen,' may well have rocked the seismograph at Fordham University.  Such were the hosannahs which greeted his characterization of the whitefaced, decadent master-of-ceremonies that he was forthwith elevated to stardom and saluted with the Tony Award at season's end."  (First sentences of Joel Grey's program bio for George M!.)  Compare this to David Hyde Pierce's bio for Curtains, which appears to have been written on an entirely different planet.  When did the oratorios of fulsome praise give way to straightforward lists of credits? And why did the Playbill Biography, Old Style go out of fashion?

Instructional exercises

Thanks to the pedometer I'm wearing for part of a campuswide health competition, I've discovered that I walk as much in class as I do while trudging the half-mile to school.  (Mom the Retired School Administrator: "So you're a Peripatetic?") This prompted me to wonder about a more systematic exercise regimen for the professoriat...

CARDIOVASCULAR WORKOUTS:

• INTELLECTUAL STATIONARY BIKES.  While spinning your wheels, revolve the theoretical debates of the day--without getting anywhere.
• PUBLICATION CLIMBING WALL.  Attempt to scale a wall of peer reviewers without losing your grip.  If you fail to follow reviewers' suggestions, you may be forced to climb an entirely different wall. 
• PAPERWORK TREADMILL.  Evaluations, self-evaluations, applications, proposals, amendments, revisions.  Improve your heart's health by filling out administrative paperwork again.  And again.  And again.
• CRITICISE.  The academic successor to "Jazzercise."  While listening to upbeat music, grade papers at steadily increasing speeds.         

STRENGTH TRAINING:

• PREREQUISITE RESISTANCE MACHINE.  Strengthen your pedagogical chest muscles by teaching students who absolutely have to be in your class (and, therefore, absolutely do not want to be there).  Repeat sets several times per year.
• ANTHOLOGY FREE WEIGHTS.  Hardbound Longman and Norton anthologies can be used for bicep curls during class; bind several volumes together to increase weight.  Other disciplines may substitute their own textbooks.  If necessary, use two or more laptop computers instead of hardcopy.
• FILING CABINET DRAWER LEG PRESS.  Most commonly performed while trying to stow a decade's worth of paperwork in a single cabinet.  Do not attempt to perform this exercise while seated on a rolling chair. 
  
• SCHOLARLY PUNCHING BAG.  Take one academic article and pummel it to within an inch of its life.  An advanced exercise, generally restricted to graduate seminars; may have unpredictable effects on academic strength if used at conferences.

SUPPLEMENTARY EXERCISES:

• PROFESSIONAL WOBBLE BOARD.  Maintain intellectual balance while riding shifting academic fads. 
• INTERDISCIPLINARY STRETCH.  Increases mental flexibility.  While maintaining one foot in your own department, extend the other into the department down the hall.  Warning: overstretching may rupture your credibility.