Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

My take on the effects of PowerPoint and overhead projectors:

– Though ostensibly “aids” to the presentation, they prevent both audience and presenter from focusing on each other. The audience stares blankly at the projection while listening to a disembodied voice explain what they’re seeing, and the presenter moves frantically between his notes and the projection behind him to see what’s going on. I’m sure it really helps to establish the authority of the presenter when he’s continually craning his neck around to see what lies behind him . . .

– All attempt at eye contact and speaker/audience is abandoned. The presenter stares fixedly at his notes, so all the audience sees is either the top of his head or the big blue screen behind him.

– The presenter either repeats the text that’s written on the projection (yes, pal, thank you, we can read) or does an awkward dance between reading what the projection says and interjecting his own elaborations. This has the nasty effect of tying him fiercely to what is written on the projection even as he tries to show that he has more to say than the twelve words that fit on the PowerPoint slide. I have never seen a presenter who managed to make it clear to the audience that he was in control of the projector, rather than the other way around. It too often seems as if the words on the screen came from on high and the presenter is left scrambling to adjust himself to them. We end up with a nasty tension between the nicely-formatted words being projected and those hastily interjected by the presenter from the dark.

– That’s another thing. Why is the presenter in the dark (audience too) while the projection is the only thing illuminated? With overhead projectors, it’s even worse: the machine casts weird shadows on the presenter’s face, making him look more like a Halloween ghoul than an authority, and he’s immediately cast into shadow anytime he raises his arm to emphasize a point. Come on, people, this isn’t a seance!

– Rather than allow the presenter to hide behind the props, these “aids” often reveal somewhat embarrassing flaws in him. If he’s nervous, the audience will be able to see his hand shake as he works with the projector or maneuvers the mouse. If he’s left something embarrassing on his desktop or doesn’t know his way around a computer, the audience gets a very different show from the one intended.

– The projection gets the front-and-center position, and five technicians and the presenter fuss before the talk to make sure that it gets the prized spot. The presenter then stands off-center or behind a small podium or behind a computer. Very Wizard-of-Oz.

As you can tell, I’m not much impressed by what technology has brought to the world of academic conferences–and, increasingly, everyday life!

Erin

When I went in to get the oil changed today I learned that I’d worn my tires down to the bars and needed to replace them. Let’s be clear about this: I hate buying tires. Emphatically. Hate. Which is why Sydney has never yet convinced me to buy winter tires. We’ve shoved, slid, pushed, and muttered our way through three Ithaca winters with what are laughably known as “all-season tires.”

But now, looking at buying a new set anyway, and with winter setting in, I had winter tires put on, which means a) I will not be pushing the car this winter and b) I will need to buy a new all-season set next spring, right about when baby arrives.

Oh yes, and I see buying winter tires as the best way imaginable to ensure that Sydney and I will get jobs in a warm place and thus end up using those pricey winter tires for tire swings . . .

Erin

Last night Sydney and I came home late and starving. We quickly made pizza with leftover dough and various veggies and sauces from the fridge. We had to split the pizza down the middle, though, since Sydney’s leek-and-apple topping made my stomach turn. I opted for tomato sauce and pineapple.

Since my pizza crust is really thin and we’d only topped it with some veggies and cheese, I was worried we’d still be hungry after we’d inhaled it. Boy, was I wrong!

Halfway through our plates we were edging toward full, and by the time we were done we were both stuffed. I know that, particularly with evening meals, I simply don’t have a lot of room for food. Apparently the baby takes up a fair amount of room in there. But yesterday Sydney had the same trouble! So when we were done we both stretched out full-length on the couch. We then spent the next hour recovering from dinner, trying to figure out why the same food that we’d had just a few days ago would now knock us out! I was utterly incapable of bending, so for the rest of the evening I did the awkward-pregnant-maneuvering of a woman several months further along. It’s just too bad the cat was the only one there to observe the comedy—and she seemed more alarmed than amused!

Erin

I’m going to be pregnant over the holidays.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Erin

This afternoon my mom passed along the following story. I think she’s looking forward to seeing children wreak havoc on my life . . .

“One day my mother was out and my dad was in charge of me. I was maybe 2 1/2 years old and had just recovered from an accident. Someone had given me a little ‘tea set’ as a get-well gift and it was one of my favorite toys. Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when I brought him a little cup of ‘tea’ which was just water. After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my Mom came home. My Dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of ‘tea’, because it was ‘just the cutest thing!’ My Mom waited, and sure enough, here I come down the hall with a cup of ‘tea’ for Daddy and she watches him drink it up. Then she says, (as only a mother would know) ‘Did it ever occur to you that the only place she can reach to get water is the toilet?'”

Erin

I haven’t been able to share my pregnancy news with my advisors until this past week. Although delays in scheduling conferences with them was a big part of my reason for waiting, I was also a bit reluctant to let them know I was expecting without being able to hand them something I’d written at the same time. In the event (however likely or unlikely) that they weren’t going to be thrilled about one of their grad students going off and having a baby, I wanted to be able to prove that I was still in the game. Don’t worry, you don’t need to tell me that there’s something slightly sick about that mind game: I know already. But just in case, I knew that I would be too tired out from the first trimester to handle such discouragement well.

As it happens, I’ve given my two main advisors both a revised prospectus and a paper in the past week, when I also shared my news. They were both very enthusiastic about my work and actually seemed delighted about the baby news. The first one is a rather shy, quiet guy, so I wasn’t sure I had much with which to gauge his reaction for awhile, but today he stopped by to chat as I was reading in the lounge and asked how I was feeling, was quick to assure me I should feel great soon, kept smiling, etc. It was really sweet. And my other advisor was her typical ecstatic self. She told me I had great timing (in avoiding the hot summer during pregnancy) and advised me to get cleats to make sure I had good footing during those late-winter pregnancy months. Very funny all around. I couldn’t have asked for a better reception. Big sigh of relief.

Erin

I promise this will be my last rant about politics for a while.

So I’ve been reading and hearing lots of incredulous remarks about undecided voters. Comments like: ‘I can’t believe that someone could still be undecided’. ‘It’s only two days before the election—you must be crazy to still be undecided’. ‘You don’t know who you’re voting for yet?!’ And so forth. I’m sure you’ve also heard them.

Now I don’t find undecided voters surprising at all. And it’s not just because I expect people to be irrational and the like. Rather, the only thing I find surprising is other people’s surprise about undecided voters. Why shouldn’t one be undecided? And how is the fact that it is only two days before the election at all relevant? If all your views happen to line up neatly with the platform of one of the campaign’s, then presumably you are not undecided. You presumably were quite decidedly decided a year ago already. But if you had a hard time a year ago deciding which of the two candidates violates fewer of your sensibilities, then presumably it is still a close call. And if it still a close call, then any little piece of evidence might sway you. And so you might quite reasonably remain undecided until the last minute, waiting for such additional pieces of evidence. It might even be the case that both candidates score exactly equally well—or badly—with respect to the things you desire in a candidate. Surely, ties are possible. In that case, why on earth should you be decided?

My take on people being surprised by the undecided? They’re merely betraying the unthinking prejudice of those who happen to find it unimaginable that they themselves would be undecided.

Sydney

PS. Erin wants me to add that the only reason she is allowing me to write this post is because her strong feelings might result in unnecessarily colourful language.

Cheating in Cambridge

Recent surveys at Cambridge University reveal that about half of its students plagiarize, and only about one in twenty are caught. Sad, but not terribly surprising given the rise of the internet, wealthy students, and greedy essay-writing internet services. Interestingly enough, 82% reported taking material from Wikipedia (wow, how imaginative).

But this is where it gets truly bad:

“Joint Information Systems Committee found that even repeat offenders were unlikely to be thrown off courses for cheating. Only 143 students caught cheating were expelled out of 9,200 cases – despite almost all universities threatening expulsion as a sanction. The study found that the most common penalty was to have to re-submit work.”

Half of the students cheat, only one in 20 are caught, and of those who were caught, only one in 64 cases resulted in expulsion (and those might well have been repeat offenders). Their punishment? A second chance to turn in the assignment, well after the stressful situation that prompted them to plagiarize in the first place has died down.

Unfortunately, it’s true here as well as in England. I have found out the hard way that punishment for plagiarism comes only if an instructor sticks to his policies; the instructor is put on the defensive, and not the student. It was once suggested to me that I let a plagiarizing student redo his work to make the situation into a “learning experience.” Funny, I think that’s what I’d intended the first time I wrote the assignment . . .

Erin

Tonight Sydney and I attended a concert on campus, with a Brazilian orchestra supporting the saxophone playing of Branford Marsalis (Wynton’s brother). They played a mixture of classical music and Brazilian music, and it was great fun. So nice to hear good music. I was reminded of my saxophone days and thought wistfully of playing in such a group . . . but then thought about how long they’ve been on the road and reconsidered.

Erin

This morning when we went to drop Nelson off at the bus station and then go on to campus (safe travels, Nelson!!), Ithaca decided to bid him farewell with some wild weather. The rain was mostly sideways, with wind whipping the trees. As the day progressed I thought I sensed a difference: that rain was getting louder as it hit my hood, and it seemed to have a bit of ice in it. When we drove home and went up in elevation a bit, that rain turned to snow. Although it’s not really sticking much, it’s certainly coming down. The remaining fall leaves positively glow in the snowstorm.

We reacted as we usually do to wild weather: I made hot chocolate, filled the birdfeeders, started some laundry, dug out candles and thick socks, and we settled in for a quiet evening at home.

Erin