Archive for work-life
Fall term …
… starts today at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I have 85 new students, and life is very good.
Teaching
This week I start my twenty-first year of teaching at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Artificial Intelligence technology like ChatGPT has required that I prepare a layer of adaptations to my curriculum this semester. It will be a new experience and perhaps a fun one.
I started university teaching forty years ago, at Stanford – as a graduate student TA in Larry Friedlander‘s famous Shakespeare class. Heavenly bliss (and no personal computers, let alone no internet). I went on to create and teach my own classes there.
Before Kwantlen and after my initial Stanford years, I had taken a couple of lengthy breaks from teaching but stayed in the same mental neighbourhood (writing, editing, mentoring, and publishing). I have always known what I wanted to do.
It’s a sweet gig!
Applications for two full-time regular faculty positions in my department – Applied Communications – are being accepted until February 10. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please encourage them to apply. This is the link to the job posting. Kwantlen Polytechnic University is a fine place to work.
My train
My friends know I love a good train ride. And more than that, I count on one particular line, the Amtrak Cascades, to bring me to and from loved ones in the States. Discontinued at the start of the pandemic, Amtrak restarted partial service a few months ago, and in March Amtrak is bringing back the second train – early morning southbound to Washington State, night-time return to beautiful Vancouver. They’re hiring, and I could not be more pleased.
Below are photo tributes I made to my home stations, in Vancouver and Seattle, a few years back.
The new year
Literally nothing has gone according to plan during my holiday break, except for the love shared with my family and friends. I had to throw away Plan H earlier today.
Classes start next week – two sections of Advanced Professional Communications and one of Technical Report Writing (more fun that it sounds). I am looking forward to meeting my new students.
Eyeballs
I had laser surgery on both eyes yesterday, less than an hour after my fine doctor found tears in each retina. I had my first such surgery less than a year ago, on my right eye. Reason: old age, no other proximate cause. Never had to open my wallet, though.
An editor’s help
An autumn evening, 1979: I was visiting the office of my university’s student newspaper to say hello to my colleagues. Joe Simon, the managing editor, was there. He told me he liked this week’s “Phaedrus,” my regular column, scheduled to appear the next morning. “I changed one word,” he said. “You said a woman’s lips were chartreuse.” Joe had a dictionary on his desk, open to C. I looked. “I trust you meant ‘ruby red.'”
I sure did.
Summer teaching
This weekend I will be fine-tuning teaching notes for next week’s classes.
At Kwantlen Polytechnic University, the summer term is starting. I’m teaching third-year courses: Technical Report Writing and Advanced Professional Communications. I’ve made a couple small changes in the curriculum to streamline my students’ efforts (I hope). This will be the first semester since spring 2020 I’ll be meeting students face-to-face in a classroom. I doubt my mask will conceal my real excitement. I am truly thrilled.
On Monday I will be visiting, via Skype, a classroom at Brooklyn College. The class: “Parapsychology: A Critical Examination” (PSYC 3585). I’ve been an invited guest to this class since 2017. I discuss what it was like to be part of organizations that promoted skeptical interpretations of paranormal and psychic phenomena back in the 1980s and 1990s. The students and I always have really wonderful back-and-forth discussions.
I am blessed to have my gig.
It’s now Lucy Sante
Such a terrific writer. I’ve followed her work for decades, beginning with her New York Review of Books pieces. She has a fine website.
“righteous certainty”
I’m a big fan of Atrios and his blog, Eschaton. Here’s a worthwhile thought on which to end a year that ought to have been instructive:
There’s a kind of righteous certainty among people who succeeded because they knew how to check all the right boxes when they were 15, a belief that if they (and you) do check all the the right boxes then everything will go as planned. High fives! (Snuffy Walden score!) [link added]
Not a lot of self-doubt, not a lot of self-recrimination. Among other things, it’s a worldview which is very unsympathetic to the failure of others, failures that could not have resulted from anything other than a failure to check the boxes.
New domains
This morning the registrar Internic.ca invited me to purchase the URL basil.sucks at a “discount.”
This seems like a lot. Here’s the pitch:
Whether you want to safeguard your brand, provide your audience with a savvy way to share feedback, or execute creative marketing campaigns, .SUCKS stands out from the rest as a bold and brave domain.
I used to gobble up domain names but decided to pass on this one. I passed on this one as well:
I did get basil.photo and basil.help, though. Not too expensive! My ideas are already percolating.
(If I decide to write that memoir, no doubt I will very much regret not having basil.sucks!)
Fall semester!
Classes at Kwantlen Polytechnic University start this week. One of my three courses was going to be face to face. Unaccountably, though, the province required that students be vaccinated to enter any room on campus EXCEPT the classrooms, so I moved that class to an online platform for everybody’s peace of mind and safety (the administration gave a green light to all faculty for that). I was truly hoping to step into a classroom again. (I am a lot funnier in person – I try to graft Johnny Carson onto Professor Kingsfield while talking about not necessarily enchanting topics.)
At any rate, I’m looking forward to meeting my new students in our online environment. I am very grateful I have this blessed gig.
7 Sept. – New guidance from my university today: “Individuals can remove their masks while actively consuming food or drink when seated in classrooms.” Pot luck time!
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