Newsworthy.

Eli is quoted in an article in the school paper today. I have to say that I find the idea of a reverse glass ceiling for men ridiculous. Men, even in traditionally female fields of work like nursing, still get paid more on average than their female counterparts. This reporter doesn't seem to take that bit of information into consideration.
But I can't fault Eli for the oversight--she didn't even tell him what the article she was writing was about, just asked him about how it feels to be a man in nursing. In any case, I'm so proud of him. He's worked very hard and is a credit to his profession. Way to be, Eli! You rock.

"Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too..."

My women's studies class went well today. We're discussing domestic violence and rape this week--difficult subjects to tackle. For Thursday I'm having them read up on the term "gray rape." There's a recent article in Cosmo about it and it's a hot topic on the feminist blogosphere--see Shakesville and The Curvature, for example. I'm really interested to see what my students will have to say about it. Sometimes I'm dismayed to find how conservative they are and how seemingly anti-feminist. It's hard (and just plain weird) to see young women so convinced that they don't deserve equal rights. But I remind myself that that's why I'm here, after all. To get them thinking, questioning, musing about issues of relevance. I've seen the wheels turning in more than one head this semester, and that's a start.

Ah, Monday.

I started reading a book last night--The Thirteenth Tale. More interesting than the book itself is the fact that I'm actually reading something that isn't part of my course materials or a student essay. This is thanks mostly to Eli, who cleaned the house this weekend while Eliot and I were gone. I do love that man. I was so shocked to come home to a clean house with no laundry and no dishes to feel guilty about not doing that I settled down with a book. I like it so far, but it made for a weird morning. It's one of those books that suck the reader in. I was so transported that when Eliot woke up from his nap I had to remind myself what my here and now consisted of and that I wasn't in fact at an old woman's English estate looking out the window at a rainy garden landscape. And then I came to work. I can't really describe how awkward that transition is. Maybe it has something to do with today being a rainy, dull sort of day as well. So I'm looking forward to jumping back into the story tonight...though I shouldn't, because I have essays to grade--a new batch just today...
I feel like my life is divided between having essays to grade or not having essays to grade. They loom over me so.
I hate that.
I also hate Mondays, by the way.

T minus one day...

In less than 24 hours I will be strolling through Parke County Indiana's Covered Bridge Festival, otherwise known as my Christmas. My calendar year hinges on this event, when the women in my family get together for a day of kid-free, husband-free pure joy. Just thinking about chocolate dipped frozen cheesecake on a stick makes me deliriously happy. And it couldn't come at a better time--the past two weeks have been so hectic, with essays, student conferences, Eliot's allergic reaction to squash (we think), Eli working overtime, and me basically losing my mind. So, watch out cheesecake, here I come. Oh yeah, and pumpkin roll, and hot ham 'n' cheese, and blackberry dumplings, and roasted corn, and lemon shake-ups...

In the midst of an essay barrage.

Grandma Connie came to visit this weekend, taking care of Eliot while I graded papers pretty much all day Saturday and most of Sunday. I got a chance to get rid of some of the backlog of work that has been piling up on me, but I'm still behind. Oh well. I think if all goes well this week I might be caught up by Friday. One can hope.
Sometime Sunday as I was staring at the computer screen wondering why I was typing the same feedback over and over ("Your essay has no thesis statement. You need a thesis statement. Don't leave the introduction without providing a clear thesis statement for the reader.") I heard giggling...
Baby giggles and Grandma laughs were reverberating from somewhere downstairs. Needing a break anyway, I tiptoed down to do some spying and found Eliot helping Connie with the laundry. He was sitting in the laundry basket with clean sheets and pillowcases on his lap. He saw me and grinned that gigantic smile that takes up his whole face. What a goofball! I grabbed my camera and snapped what is probably the 3,000th picture of my little boy. If I knew how to post pictures I'd put it up here. Maybe later. Right now I'm sitting in my office wondering why one of the students whose essays I scrambled to grade over the weekend is fifteen minutes late for his conference...Argh. There is simply no justice.

What the hell is short'nin' bread, anyway?

So Eliot has this baby apparatus thing-a-ma-jig with dangling thingys that play music (yes, that's about as specific a description as I can make), and I caught Eli singing along with one of the tunes one day--"Mama's little baby loves short'nin' short'nin', Mama's little baby loves short'nin bread..." He claimed he wasn't making it up, that those were really the lyrics of an actual song, and as usual, I thought he was full of crap at first. He's always creating fictitious factoids and then laughing his ass off at me when I believe them.
So this morning, out of curiosity and procrastination, I got on "the Google" and looked it up, and I'll be damned if it isn't a real song. You can hear it and read the lyrics here. It's a somewhat disturbing little song, as I've come to find out most children's songs are.
When Eliot was just a few weeks old I was rocking him one day and trying to sing him a lullabye, but I quickly realized that I didn't actually know the words to any lullabies, so I just started singing "Fulsom Prison Blues" to him. (Eli and I had watched Walk the Line again a few weeks before he was born.) It was the only song I could think of at that moment that I knew all the lyrics to. Anyway, now I sing it to him all the time, but I'm fairly sure it puts him to sleep not because he finds it soothing, but rather because he has come to realize that sleep is the only means of escaping Mommy's tonedeaf, nasal voice. Oh well. Whatever works. We were in Walmart (otherwise known as hell) the other day and "Fulsom Prison Blues" was playing on their Musak. I was like, "Hey buddy, they're playing our song!"
Anyway, to make a long story longer, after I read the lyrics to the weird short'nin bread song I didn't feel so bad about my own choice of lullabye. Shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die might be sinister, but whatever the guy does with the gal making short'nin bread probably isn't any better.

Activity Analysis.

Today was the deadline to submit our "faculty activity analysis" forms at my university. The form asks faculty members to report approximately how many hours a week they spend working. I normally just mark 40 and turn the stupid thing in, but it always strikes me as incredibly pointless. How can I really be expected to give an accurate count of the hours I spend at my job? And which hours should count? Was I "working" today during my scheduled office hours when I was sitting here thinking about what I want for supper? Or was I "working" when I was running possible wording for new assignment prompts through my mind from 2-3 a.m. because I couldn't sleep? Am I "working" when I brainstorm new ideas for peer review while I'm washing the dishes? Or am I working when I'm showing a film in class? I planned my semester thinking that I could compartmentalize my life--work stays at the office and real life happens at home--but it's turned out to be impossible, and not even desirable after all. I never cease to be Mom/Wife/Sister/Daughter when I come to campus; neither does the teacher in me turn off when I pass through the door of my home...