Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

This was the last week of classes for the semester, and it sure was busy. Besides the normal stuff that keeps me busy, the faculty on the job search committee finally had the applicants narrowed down to the so-called ‘long list’, which is where I as a student on the committee get involved. Since the committee is meeting early next week, I read through fifty or so dossiers this week. Also, the graduate students in my department are hosting another visiting speaker this week and, since I’m somewhat involved with organizing this series of events, I picked up the speaker at the airport today and then had a lovely dinner with her and another student. All of this is either interesting or fun — well, maybe reading the dossiers is demoralizing — but it sure didn’t allow for much else.

In other news, my passport arrived in the mail today so one long ordeal is now officially over. By the time I go to bed tonight, the passport will be signed and locked in the fireproof safe.

Sydney

Yesterday I was sideswiped by a migraine, so I stayed home and, after a nap and a look of loathing for my computer, picked up a Willa Cather novel, O Pioneers!  It’s not anything I work on, so I didn’t feel compelled to take notes, and it was so nice to stare at paper, rather than a computer, for the evening.  Today, after Sydney and I got home, I realized a new Better Homes & Gardens had arrived (hey, it’s my one non-academic subscription), as well as six volumes of Jane Austen.  Looks like my holiday from work has been extended to two days . . . but I promise to stop after one Jane Austen book!
Erin

A couple of weeks ago my office became too busy for my reading, so I settled into a chair just outside the door–within five feet of Sydney’s office door.  I knew his officemate was holding a conference in his office, so I looked up when a young girl walked up to his door.  Learning that she had a conference with Sydney, I offered to take her to the philosophy lounge, one floor down, to find him.  On the way there I inquired as to whether she was overwhelmed with end-of-term tests and papers, and I got an enthusiastic and voluble response that lasted the entirety of the walk to the lounge.   We met Sydney coming out of the lounge, who actually showed a bit of surprise at seeing his wife and his student chatting away.

When I asked Sydney later that day how his conference with his student had gone (amused by the thought of Ms. Ponytail and my serious husband working through problems of cultural relativism), he shook his head.  “I don’t know what to do with these doe-eyed students.  They just sit there, pay attention to whatever I say, and then try to do that.”  What, not pleased by obedience?  “I want to know what they think, what position they actually might want to argue for, not just whether they were listening to what I said.”  Sydney’s in the unusual position of having a philosophy section that is half women (in a discipline that is still mostly male), and he’s not quite sure what to do with them.  I told him I have 14 very strongly opinionated women in my class that I could loan him, in case he started thinking all women were like that.  In the meantime, I’m enjoying seeing him unsettled by earnestness.

Erin

Pretty much every time I read or hear a discussion about homeschooling, somebody says something to the effect that they know some people who homeschool and that these people are crazy (anywhere from somewhat antisocial to raging, wild-eyed religious fanatics). Alright, suppose for the moment that these reports are true, i.e., that the person speaking really does know crazy homeschoolers (myself, I’m inclined to doubt some of these reports, but that’s perhaps neither here nor there since I am confident that there really are some crazy homeschoolers around somewhere). I take it that these reports are somehow supposed to be part of an argument against homeschooling. For example, in an oral discussion the person who makes this sort of observation will subsequently look at whoever was defending homeschooling as if the defender now ought to make a response.  But it beats me what the argument is supposed to be. Does someone want to take a stab at filling in the argument, i.e., supplying the missing premise(s), so that it would at least approach being reasonable?

In order to avoid some false starts, let me point out a few reasons why I have a hard time seeing how this observation about crazy homeschoolers is going to provide for much of an argument. First, there are obviously also crazy people who, say, send their kids to public schools. To be sure, most people who send their kids there are normal, decent people. But not all of them. So does the fact that some crazy people decided to send their kids to public schools entail that it’s a bad idea to send kids to public school? Surely not.

But, you will say, I missed the point. The point is that there are far more crazy people among homeschoolers than among public schoolers. It’s that comparative claim that is relevant. Okay, perhaps.  But now the claim being made is a great deal more controversial. Figuring out whether this comparative judgement is true will require a good bit of research and statistical analysis. Importantly, the people who report knowing crazy homeschoolers are making entirely irrelevant observations in exactly the same way that somebody who defends smoking by noting that he had a chain-smoking 90-year old uncle in good health is making an irrelevant observation. For these sorts of comparative claims to be meaningful, we’re going to need a whole lot more data than a couple of acquaintances.

But suppose we find such data. Suppose some researcher does a very good study with a large population sample and with impeccable methodology and so forth, and finds that, say, the percentage of crazy people is twice as high among homeschoolers as among public schoolers. So what?

Suppose a study found that there were twice as many rapacious monsters out to conquer the world for their own benefit among those with a college degree as among those without (a college degree helps with the conquering). Does this mean that the rest of us should decide that it would be bad for us to go to college? Surely not. College may be good for more than one thing and I may know that I have different motivations for going. Or suppose a study found that there are twice as many people with cancer among churchgoers as among non-churchgoers. Does this mean that we should worry about going to church? Of course not.

So why exactly should the presence of wild-eyed zealots among homeschoolers make us worry about the merits of homeschooling? I’m sure there is a better argument to be made from this premise, but I’m not seeing it. Can anyone suggest how this premise is relevant?

Sydney

This afternoon Sydney and I bought plane tickets to England.  It took four hours and I verged on tears and epithets more than once (“What?  They already had the price with taxes!  Where is this extra $150 from?  I can’t believe they tried to sneak that in!”), but we now have two plane tickets to England.  I’ll be there something like 10 or 11 days in January, and Sydney will be there for more than two months, January to March.  I’m still in sticker shock from buying the tickets, but I’ll soon get really excited about the trip itself.  As for Sydney being excited–well, don’t hold your breath.

Erin

After a day of too much internet-surfing (this, despite having a husband across the table studiously translating Latin), I finally settled into some real work–and now I’m really wound up over it. If you have never read some of Virginia Woolf’s short stories, you should. It’s intriguing, sometimes weird, always carefully done, and fascinating, even to one who is generally not (shh, don’t tell) a big short story fan.

Biographical note: V. Woolf was haunted by reviews that proclaimed her a brilliant short story writer . . . but that weren’t nearly as confident that her style worked for novels, which is where the glory is for most writers, including Woolf. I’m working on the novels, but wanted to see the connections between her short-story style and the style of her novels. My dissertation (so far) is on how she makes a novel-length work hang together, despite writing that looks more appropriate for short stories. There, my dissertation in a nutshell. Now I just have to write it.

Feeling loopy.

Erin

P.S. I promise I didn’t kill Sydney off. He’s actually alive, well (well, overworked, but well outside of that), but just happens to be pretty quiet on the blog recently. Let me know if you’d like me to send you an email letting you know when he makes his reprise.

Sydney and I took a walk in the bird sanctuary near our house this morning. I was itching to stretch my legs, and it gave him a chance to try out his new binoculars. Despite the overcast day and the wet-cold, it was wonderful to get outside and breathe some fresh air.

We’ll be having Thanksgiving with our housemate, Christi, and her parents, who live just down the road. Our casserole is cooked, and we’re ready to go. It’s nice to be substitute kids for such nice people!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Enjoy the time with your loved ones.

Erin

Sydney’s off to his last class before Thanksgiving.  I’m at home, grading my students’ final papers.  My goal is to have them done before Thanksgiving and have the final grades tallied, so that I stop juggling the their-work/my-work problem for a several-week stretch.

I’m reading a book about the role of secondary characters in Victorian novels (fascinating stuff, especially as I can see this being helpful for my dissertation), and I’m running into a problem that I can see will plague me all my academic life.  In his first chapter, the author of the book analyzes Pride and Prejudice.  Although I think I’ve read that book, I am filled with the desire to read it again.  Never mind that it’s 200 years off the stuff I’m currently working on, and never mind that I should be paying attention to some other reading for my exams: that’s the book I want to read, and the sooner the better.  So I’ve found myself a good copy online that should be winging its way here.  It will make for fantastic winter break reading.  Now that I’ve taught some Jane Austen to my freshmen, I have a new appreciation for her style and for her social acumen.  So, although I read that book when I was a teen and remembering liking it, I’m guessing I’ll have a very different (but most likely even more positive) reaction this time around.  I don’t know what I’ll do when I get to Chapter 2 of the book and he begins to talk about another book I’ll likely be interested in reading.

Now that we think we have Sydney’s passport on its way here, Oxford planning is beginning in earnest.  Attempts to find housing are being made, discussions about my visiting are being had, and it’s all looking a lot more likely.  Of course, my jealousy is also rising with every discussion.

Sydney, very busy Sydney, apparently looked up from his work long enough to decide that he needed to have half the department over here for dinner before the term ended.  I’m guessing that he wants to make sure they don’t forget him when he goes away for a semester!  So we’re going to try having a dinner party that includes his advisors, lots of grad students–i.e., a whole lot of philosophers.  Thanks, Mom, for those extra place settings you brought us a few months ago.  I think we’re going to be using them very shortly!

Erin

This weekend was fun.  Like actually fun, fun that other people might recognize as fun.

Sydney’s birthday falls on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so I told him I was taking him out to his favorite Thai restaurant the Saturday before to celebrate.  What I didn’t tell him was that a whole bunch of philosophy students would be meeting us there and then following us home for dessert.  Hey, he’s turning 30; I had to do something special!  Good food and good conversation: I thought it sounded like a Sydney kind of celebration.

Saturday morning was filled with choir rehearsal and then grocery shopping in three different places (hey, we like food).  Unwittingly, Sydney was helping to shop for food for his own party.  🙂  When we came home I spent the afternoon dipping strawberries and orange slices in chocolate, ostensibly for a Thanksgiving dinner the following day.  I also made a fruit compote to go over ice cream.

The dinner was great.  Sydney said he didn’t know our dinner would be for 12, rather than 2, but he didn’t register the surprise in his expression at all.  Yeah, yeah, I know: I should get used to that.  The food was really good, and there were usually three or four interesting conversations going on at once throughout the meal.

After dinner, half-a-dozen friends followed us home for tea, ice cream with compote, chocolate-dipped fruit, and, of course, more conversation.  I’d managed to do some furtive cleaning while Sydney was engrossed in his work that afternoon, and had mugs set out and ready to go, so we were ready for company.

The following day, we got up for church, then went to a theology reading group (which met for the first time and was really interesting), and then to a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner.  Her turkey was great, there were lots of dishes to try (it was a potluck, so much food was had by all), our squash dish went over well, and there were even philosophy friends for Sydney to talk with (he was a little worried about being stuck with English grad students all evening).

After all that fun, I was refreshed and ready to face my students’ anxieties about their final papers (which I’m collecting, a few at a time), and begin my grading.  This week, though, is only two real days before Thanksgiving break, during which we’ll be doing a lot more cooking and tons of eating.  This past weekend was just a warm up for the food extravaganzas to come!

Erin

I just got an email from the Cornell Bursar office, alerting me that they will soon be sending out W-2s.  Wait a minute, that’s what starts tax season.  Are they serious?  I just did that!  Cycles in seasons are lovely, but not cycles in taxes.  Another horrible thought: I may be doing taxes while Sydney’s in another country.  I’m sure he’ll be glad to avoid the tax moodiness, but I haven’t quite gotten my hands into all of his important papers–I may be sending some frantic email in March.  I knew there would be hitches in this whole international trip, but I thought I might not have to learn about them until he was a little closer to going.

Erin