slightly less exciting than Cairo

Clearly Carrie and I have been lagging on our blog but incredible things have been happening to keep us WOA (women of action) occupied.  

1.  Being the very important WOA that Carrie is, she recently took a trip to hotlanta and SC to attend a conference and visit her cousins in SC.  Notice how happy they are to see her (well the kids were anyway - I hope this works, I lifted it from her FB page).....

She had a good time at the conference too - learned a lot, gave a kick-ass presentation about eportfolios to 70 or so people and was schmoozed by publishers.  Not bad for "First Year Lady".

2. I have been busy conducting a national study on Veterans for Peace which has so far resulted in over 400 surveys (10% of the paid membership) and 27 interviews with female members.  The interviews vary from 15 minutes to over two hours - some of these were conducted by my trusty student sidekicks Dovey and Nicole this summer but since fall I've been doing the interviews over the phone in my kitchen.  I have an inexpensive little headset that compels me to want to ask "do you want fries with that" which I have to refrain from saying or my participants will think I've lot my mind.  I have at least ten to twelve more people interested and will be happy if they actually follow through.  My next challenge is to figure out how to download the survey correctly so I don't lose all my data.

 

3. Carrie's reward for being my bff was to come up to Maine for the second time in two weeks to attend my first dance party of 2011.  Her first trip up at the end of January was for our friend Ruth Hill's concert - it was most excellent.  In addition to playing some new songs, Ruth had fiddler Ellie Buckland, bassist / guitarist Andy Buckland, vocalist Wendy Oakley and singer songwriter / guitarist / banjo player / mandolin player Jud Caswell performing with her.  She had about 170 people at the show here in Farmington - it was pretty awesome.

While Ruth was also one of the people who came to my dance party, there certainly were no where near 170 people at the event.  It was a smaller crowd than the last party of 2010 but all the cool kids were here and despite the mini-plague that was settling into my lungs, a good time was had by all.  You can tell my immune system had worn me down as I actually was ok with having my friend Kristen take a picture of me and my pal Tom (her hubbo also known as her baby daddy) dancing to a favorite 80s tune.

4. Of course Carrie's reward for coming to the dance party was to spend a couple hours helping to demolish Doug and Judy Rawlings sauna which burned after xmas and then she got to buy me cold medicine and 'bad for me' juices (hawaiian punch) to help me get better from the nasty cold / laryngitis I've been fighting for a week now.  Thus the blog - I've been housebound and mostly horizontal for two days now.  I am feeling better tho'. 

Certainly there are a lot of exciting things going on in the world - not just Obama's budget but all the stirrings in the Middle East and the resignation of both the leaders in Tunisia (I believe his title was President aka Dictator) and Egypt in fairly non-violent ways.  These protests are largely being organized by the youth in these countries which I think is quite powerful.  Hopefully all is well with you on this Feb. 14th - commercialism aside - keep loving people and maybe we can make some good changes in our country as well.  If all else fails, just throw a dance party it seems to make things better. - Kristina (and Carrie but she has no idea I've written this....).

the lucky seven

As with many of you, Carrie and I are hanging out at our respective homes enjoying a snow day.  I was actually going to go into work today for day two (out of four) of the academic suspension hearings and then Carrie said: "How can they ask you to come in during a storm when school is closed?  I wouldn't go in. That's not right."  So I followed her sage advice and stayed home.

Today's blog is going to focus on her adventures with her new neighbors and any other random things we come up with.  If you're lucky, we might say something clever.

Highlights of her new neighbors:

1.  Right now Carrie's town is under a winter storm warning; businesses and schools are closed and she just told me how her new neighbor "Muffy" just cleaned around her car - with a broom - and after getting stuck a few times drove away.  Apparently one of the neighbors was snow blowing and as he was putting his snow blower away, he looked at Muffy, shook his head and went inside.  She managed to leave and returned approximately seven minutes later.  Clearly she didn't know the entire city of Quincy was closed.  Muffy's roommate "Bess" is now cleaning off her car.


2.  One of the amazing things about Muffy and Bess is how loud Muffy is and Bess isn't.  Muffy is an interesting character.  For example one of the highlights of their moving in was drunk night where we could hear (I was visiting Carrie for New Year's) Bess mumble and Muffy talk about "I like Kevin but I don't love him and he's nice but I broke up with him and now I just don't know what to do and I'm really in love with (different name we couldn't hear) and miss him so much".  Later that night we heard "OH MY GOD I just farted!".  Of course we probably shouldn't be listening but its impossible not hear them and you know, we're sociologists, we watch and listen to people.

3.  Muffy has an interesting way with people.  One day she met the cable guy - who was so enraptured by her he not only gave her his phone number but also left his clipboard with important papers on it behind Carrie's car in her driveway.  When cable guy was leaving, we heard a lot of giggling and "Oh yes, I am definitely going to call you... thank you so much... you're really cute and I've been really sad lately so I'm going to call you."  I didn't realize that cable instillation came with a date.

4.  Apparently Muffy has religious super powers. Carrie found out why she was she was sad it was because a friend hers has cancer and she thought she was going to die.  Just a little reminder, this is all being heard clearly in Carrie's living room while Muffy is on the phone in her apartment across the hall.  Carrie and Muffy have never actually met.  Muffy was talking to someone and explained that her friend's cancer can be removed and that she felt that her friend was getting better all because of her.  She said that "she decided to pray for her friend.  She was lying in bed, looking at the ceiling and crying and kept looking at the ceiling."  She emphasized that "she doesn't normally keep her eyes open when praying, she usually keeps her eyes closed because that's how she was taught to pray.  But she was lying there with her eyes open and prayed Please God don't let her die.  You can't do this to me."  And lo and behold within a few days she got a phone call that said that her friend was going to be ok and it's all because of me, because I asked God".


5. Compare this to the fascinating things I've been hearing at the suspension hearings.  For example - "I didn't turn in my paper because on the day it was due the word processing program I was using ended because apparently it had only a three month trial period and the note I had of things that I had to do became corrupted on my computer so I couldn't open it and I didn't know what I had to do.  I realize that I'm a little disorganized so to get better I'm going to invest in a memory training kit and acquaint myself with getting a tutor and will meet with my professors about how I'm doing."  Of course he, like many other students we talked to, didn't realize that a lot of his problems could be solved by looking at this thing called a syllabus.


6. Cmte:  "what do you think is a good grade", multiple students:  "C or C-".


7. This is the worst one - picture a student with a blank face throughout this whole exchange: Cmte (to a third year student who has 40 something credits to go): "in order for you to earn a 2.0 overall GPA, you're going to have to take seven semesters of coursework with a 3.0 gpa each semester and you've never had a 3.0 gpa and you have to take 300 level and higher courses and have never gotten above a C- in any class over 200 level."  Student:  "I worked it out with my advisor that I only have to take six semesters of classes left to graduate."  Cmte:  "with the plan you have with your advisor you'd have to take eight semesters (four courses each semester) because you're retaking classes you didn't pass before and that still doesn't mean you'll earn a high enough gpa to have a 2.0 overall."  Student repeats what they just said.  Cmte: repeats what it just said (x a zillion times).  Eventually Mom pipes in:  "so you're saying hard work doesn't matter.  Why are we just finding this out now?  Why did you let this go so far?"  Cmte: "We had this same exact conversation a year ago with (insert name here) and there's been no improvement.  This is (insert name here) third time before the suspension committee and (insert name here) has been on probation most of their time at UMF and there's been no significant change in (insert name here) academics."  Needless to say, we upheld the suspension.


Clearly Carrie and I are living the dream.
 

Sleeping out to learn about social justice

Tuesday was the Social Justice Sleep-out where my students learned about homelessness while sleeping out on the quad overnight.  I learned that 36 hours is about the maximum that I can go without sleep.

As you can see the students started out quite happy...

The President and Deans came to visit along with one of the night classes.  We had some group conversations about values, integrity and the benefit of a liberal arts education.  And then the rain began ... so we let them come into the "soup kitchen" to have something to eat...

Just as the torrential down pour occurred we kicked them back out into the night to figure out where they were going to sleep and to try to stay dry.  Some settled for under the staircase...

Others went behind the bike rack...

And others wrapped themselves in plastic and slept under the overhang of the building...

When they finally all fell asleep it was about 3am so Karen and I posed for pictures beside the sleeping crew!

In the morning they were awakened by public safety when an angry faculty member called about them sleeping under the stairs near the door of the building.  When the rain stopped at 9am they headed back out to the quad to finish their sleep-out and wrap up discussion.  They went back to their rooms to sleep, I went back to my office to change so I could work the rest of the day. My students in my 9:30am class told me that once you were awake for more than 17 hours your brain acted like it was drunk -- at 36 hours I think there may be some truth to that.

random things

While Carrie is cleaning up her place and I'm avoiding finishing a task I should get done tonight, I thought I would note a few random things so in theory we can say we have a blog (as opposed to we 'had' a blog).  Sorry no fotos in this entry.

Here are a few things - with no real order or meaning - that have happened since Carrie confessed about the contents of her purse (Foucault would be proud - see The History of Sexuality Vol 1 by him if you want the juicy details on his ideas about confession).

Carrie said she's not going to answer her phone tonight.  Call her, see if she does (wait, I have to hang up first).

For a few months I'd been randomly complaining about an inflamed joint on the top of my right foot.  This was important to me as it was a new place where my arthritis was striking and of course that isn't such a pleasant idea.  Did it stop me at all?  No, not really; I still did construction on my house, had a house work party, taught numerous classes, went up and down my stairs tons of times, helped at a wood party and successfully but sorely completed a 14.7 mile walk (and carried a flag the whole time) with this foot issue.  So I mentioned the inflammation to my rheumatologist a few days ago.  After some x-rays he showed me what the issue was - two stress fractures in my right foot!  We're both happy that it isn't an arthritis thing and that the bones are healing quite nicely but I feel a bit like a major dork - yes, more than usual.  {DANG - I just skimmed our posts - see Sept. 13th}

I finished glazing five windows (= 10 panes of glass) for my porch and am in the process of painting them.  If all goes well they'll be in within the next week or two.  I'm only about 2 months behind the arbitrary schedule I'd set for myself.  At this point I'll be happy when they're done and ecstatic if the panes don't fall out of the frames.

Carrie couldn't think of a word in class the other day in said "well, ah, I can't quite think of the word so let's just say there was a big bruhaha".  Her student replied, "do you mean uproar?".

I went to a conference on trauma and PTSD in DC, complete with some famous goobersmoochers (my friend Gaelyn's word).  David Straithairn sat next to me for about five minutes as I was contemplating leaning into him so I could claim that I touched him, he moved to another place in the room.

I now own five cd's by The National.

Recent visitors to my place:  David & Lucy from Black Mountain NC - Carrie came up to visit as well.  We made jam, went for a long nature walk and had an AWESOME dinner party with my Maine family - Doug, Judy, Gretchen, Ruth, Jen, Dave, Xochil & Josh.  Lauren and Kristi from NYC popped up the next weekend. We took down the garden fences, they dug for potatoes and planted bulbs and then we celebrated by having burgers and beers at the Dugout. 

If any of you need a birthday gift, xmas gift or know of a teacher who wants a calendar for his/her classroom let me know (wolff01@gmail.com) - I've got a bunch of fabulously cool VFP peace calendars that run from Aug 2010 (so you can reflect on the recent past) through to Dec 2011.  All the cool kids have them - $15 to buy and free for teachers.

Some of my students found out in an awkward way that if I said I was coming home late from out of town that I might just be saying that so they don't expect evening email responses - I surprised two of them "santa clausing" my front yard (shiny red garland on my mailbox, red bows and shiny pink balls in my trees, little xmas scenes on sticks, white xmas owl on my door) when I arrived home around 6:30 at night.  Nothing like getting busted in the middle of a prank.

I am going back to my task now and am not going to answer my phone.

If you're still out there checking out our blog, we thank you and love you.

xoxo C & K 

WOA (Women Of Action)

What does Carrie carry?

So I was working from home the other day and happened to watch the Nate Berkus show.  He had a segment on about what women carry in their handbags.  For whatever reason this popped into my head today when I was looking at my purse and I thought it would be fun to let you see just what was in my purse today.  This is my purse...

...pretty average sized as far as purses go.

This is a picture of the contents of my purse - how many items can you name (there are 23 total).

If you look closely you should be able to see:
wallet (excavating this is a whole different entry)
tube of Excedrin
2 contact cases - one old school, one new-aged
tin of mints
library call number note
cigarette case (used to store rewards cards for stores I frequent)
box of contact lens solution
magenta flair pen
glittery chap stick
4 bracelets
gum
sunglasses
ticket stub
California Pizza Kitchen box with 2 pieces of pear gorgonzola pizza
pen
phone
sweater
2 bags of loose tea
envelope with parking receipts
form from eye doctor
photo album (to keep my coupons organized)

Kristina thought I should also mention that I had one gum wrapper, a Hershey's miniature wrapper and a paper clip in there as well along with an excessive number of tampons (all of which did not make it into the picture).

Finally, this is what you get when a pen explodes in your purse and it will be a lesson to me in not carrying your colleague's pen that doesn't have a cap.

What's in your purse or bag?

Things I heard today...

As I was walking to and from my classes today I heard the following:

1. "Dude, really, she was hanging out with a bucket all night."

2. Student #1: "Hey I need to apologize to you for last night."  Student #2: "Last night?  No you don't.  I don't remember anything from last night!"

3. "You wouldn't even believe it, I was @!*#ed up!"

And when I got to my sociology class and many of them were missing I asked, "where are all your friends today?"  The response was, "probably in bed, apparently there was some big party last night!"  To which I replied, "yeah, I know" and it freaked them all out.  When they asked how I knew I simply said, "How? Powers of observation and inductive reasoning - look it up it will be on your test."  I got a smile from most of them.

a true sick day

Apparently my ability to control my rheumatoid arthritis all the time is not possible.  For the past couple of weeks I had developed a painful limp with my right foot as some random joint (or two) on my foot - perhaps the talonvulcutor (?) has been acting up.  After my fabulous work party [where my incredible friends put in four windows and got my washer and dryer going] I was feeling a bit run down but didn't think much of it.

Yesterday (Sunday) I puttered around the house but was getting really tired [JC - this is what I'm going to be like when I'm a old lady...], and felt achy so I took prednisone for the second day which I knew would run havoc with my emotions in hope that things would calm down in arthritis land.  That night I started to feel a bit weepy and when talking on the phone with Carrie, started to relay how I started to cry when the dryer didn't work correctly - I think it needs something new with the starter - no biggie and I was fortunate to have a free dryer and managed to get my clothes washed and dried so I'm set with underwear and other things for a while.  I had a feeling today would not be so pleasant.

I just realized I'm slurping my yummy homemade carrot ginger soup - clearly all hell has broken loose in my little casa today.  So this morning I felt pretty crummy as the weather keeps changing and I believe (although there's no scientific evidence for this) that is contributing to my achy-ness and whatever I thought was allergies was clearly actually a cold.  I believe Carrie gave it to me even though I haven't seen her in weeks.

I woke up at 4:30 but refused to get up so dozed until 5:30 and decided to get up and get some work done before school.  I felt really crummy and kept dropping stuff because my hands weren't working so hot - of course I was becoming very frustrated.  About the time I was getting my lunch ready, the prednisone kicked in and I realized that not only could I not physically teach but when I was sending emails to all my students, I could hardly write and when I called in to tell my pal Angela that I wasn't coming in, I started crying.  I guess it was a good decision to stay home.

The best moment - aside from craving soup and tea which is another sure sign that I'm sick - of the day was when I actually fell asleep in the late afternoon (another sure sign I'm sick as I'm not a napper), and was dreaming that I was pulled over by the police.  I was driving and saw a cop car pull up behind me with flashing red lights and I swear I could hear a siren.  I wasn't overly concerned about it and as the cop came up to my window I leisurely rolled down the window and said, "so you probably need my registration and stuff, huh?".  The cop was pretty pissed off - of course she looked just like a cop in one of the police dramas I'd watched in the past 24 hours (but the three glee episodes wasn't enough sugar and spice to offset the crime dramas) - and told me she'd been following me for about 20 minutes.  I started to feel concerned when the phone rang in real life.  Needless to say, I was happy it was just a dream.

So my plan of doing some work in bed didn't pan out - I had a true sick day and am hoping that I can get off the prednisone after tonight or tomorrow because goodness knows I don't want to cry in class and would like to write a much more interesting blog than this.