looking back

So with a moment to breathe I look back at what I've written on this blog in the last six weeks and see a lot of failure. Wanted to get back on the wagon and lose some weight. Didn't. Wanted to start blogging again on a regular basis. Didn't. Wanted to find a good balance between administrative duties and writing/research and other facets of my work. Haven't.

Sounds awfully negative, I know, but completely true. Directing a writing program is immensely rewarding much of the time but you have to question its "worth." Hours on campus have increased exponentially. It's not really the kind of work where you hear "hey, nice job" very often. More frequently it's "Oh, you didn't do that? Okay."

Likewise getting on the wagon. I have no will power and am totally focused on food. I eat too much. I could lie about it or fake optimism, but I'm choosing to tell the truth. Not sure why it's so hard for me to do that: tell the truth about negative stuff. My impulse is to nod, say I'm fine, etc., but I don't think that impulse has been productive or healthy.

I can keep trying to change: find balance, treat my body better, say no at work without guilt. But, frankly, I'm not optimistic.

Where's the cafeteria?

In the past seven days I've spoken at new faculty orientation, opportunity scholars orientation, writing center staff orientation, and honors program orientation. I'm oriented! I know where to park and everything. When you're the WPA (writing program administrator), you get invited to "come say a few words about writing on campus" quite a bit, which is fun. Here's a strange late-August phenomenon: waiting for school to start so that life's less hectic.

Growing Up

I'm turning forty in two months and most of me doesn't give a shit. At times, though, I'm surrounded by reminders of how much more quickly the years pass. Two days ago, my fourteenth wedding anniversary. Three days ago, giving a presentation at New Faculty Orientation I realized that September marks the start of my ninth year at UM-Dearborn. That night, dinner with old friends from the seminary who I've known twenty-five years, and we reminisced about people and events I hadn't thought about in at least two decades. The melancholy music of The Smiths has soundtracked the last few weeks, mainly because of the discovery of this, but the sardonic humor and the sentimental snark of their lyrics has been a good fit for the tiny part of me that does give a shit about the imminent onset of forty. Oh, and I reckon I've been listening to The Smiths for about twenty-seven years.

Surprise

A decade out of graduate school (!) and I'm directing the writing program at my University. My PhD program emphasized program administration and I thought I'd find myself in an administrative role much sooner. Thankfully I didn't, instead having the luxury to focus on teaching and research in the years leading up to tenure, and the enjoyment of lots of time teaching abroad in the years immediately after tenure.

Much to my surprise, I like directing the program. A lot. I find myself spending many more hours on campus and sometimes struggling to spend as many hours writing as I'd like (though the latter, I believe, has more to do with being in my own head recently), but I really appreciate the opportunity to influence and support teaching across the whole program, not to mention spend more time with the lecturers and writing center consultants who make the program run.

I'd consider further administrative work in my future if it didn't mean having to dress up.

Here's What We Know

Here is what we know about young Kevin Cordasco. He and his friends liked to order pizza and watch "Breaking Bad." He connected with the way BB's protagonist, Walter White, tries to maintain some power and control over his life once he finds out he has terminal cancer. He became friends with some of the television show's cast and crew and visited the set. At 16, he died of cancer last year, but not before "Breaking Bad" head hauncho Vince Gilligan offered to reveal to Kevin how the show ends. He decided not to take Gilligan up on his offer and died months before his favorite show's finale.

I get the impression Kevin was a kid who allowed himself to be touched by stories. He let a violent, pulpy, brilliant television program into his own imperfect life, let the story mean something to him. I wonder what music filled his hours. Tupac and Eminem or Weezer or maybe The Beatles. Did he read graphic novels or fantasy series or Stephen King? I don't know why he didn't want to hear any spoilers about how Walter White's saga ends, or whether his choice was "incredibly sad" or "suitably badass." I hope he dug Bryan Cranston visiting him in the hospital. I hope he's in a heaven with pizza and a tv set so he can watch the finale the same time as all of us, just like he wanted.

Sporty

So I stuck to my two-day (modified) juice cleanse, consuming mostly home-juiced veggies and fruits on Friday and Saturday. Aside from some plain canned tuna, skim milk, and a boiled egg, I stuck to three big glasses of juice per day, and felt energetic throughout both days. I drank a lot of water, too, and exercised on both days. I may try this again in a few weeks and eliminate the tuna, milk, and egg. Nothing but the juice--beet, apple, carrot, grapes, cucumbers, all kinds of citrus, in various combinations. Wouldn't do it often, but, as an experiment, I count this as a success, mainly because I felt more energetic than usual (is it all the sugar?), but to a lesser degree because I dropped about six pounds.

Which might have had something to do with all the biking. I rode about 20 miles on Saturday, through Berkley, Oak Park, Royal Oak Township, and the Northwest side of Detroit down to UDM at 6-Mile and Livernois. I rode around campus a few times, too, taking advantage of a water fountain in the Student Union. Funny thing is I had just watched the episode of "The Sopranos" where Tony makes the comment that "Remember when is the lowest form of conversation." Maybe so, but I hope it's not the lowest form of a bike ride. I rode by Smith Media Center, just off campus and the former home of the school paper, site of many late nights circa 1993 and 1994, and by all the dorms in which I lived, and of course by the Liberal Arts building where I earned nearly every undergraduate credit hour. I go to church across the street but rarely return to campus, maybe because I share Tony Soprano's ambivalence toward nostalgia, which is always at least a little sad and sentimental.  UDM=the past

Sunday's ride was more about the present. University of Michigan Dearborn organized a 15-mile-or-thereabouts ride through downtown Detroit, cycling through Lafayette Park, the Heidelberg Project, historic Elmwood Cemetery, and Eastern Market. There was a nice mix of students and faculty and was surprisingly relaxing. My legs were a bit sore from the previous day's ride, but Sunday's pace was relatively slow, thank God. This was the first time I ever biked in a large group, and it was a lot of fun--and felt very, very safe--to be with others out on the road. Also helped that it felt like an Autumn day, with cool breezes and a slightly overcast sky.  UMD=the present.

Yikes

New Dunkin' Donuts menu item: glazed donut breakfast sandwich. Here's the requisite Upworthy graphic.

Juicy

File this under firsts. I'm doing a modified, two-day juice cleanse today and tomorrow. Really curious to see how my body will react. I do feel energetic, but it's just mid-morning on day #1 so that's got to be psychosomatic, right? Or maybe all the sugar? For breakfast, I juiced a combination of swiss chard, cucumber, green grapes, and an apple. Mid-morning snack was a fruity mix of grapefruit, orange, and kiwi.

I'm too scared to go all-juice during the two days, so I'm planning to have some skim milk, a boiled egg, and plain tuna (no mayo or mustard or anything), just to keep up with my protein. But if all goes well, next time I'm doing just home-juiced concoctions for the two days. I've read that drinking lots of water is a must, so I'll follow that rule.

Later today: "The Detox," featuring ginger, beet, carrots, and an apple.

I've been eating healthy (home-made black bean burgers, salads, etc.) all week, and working out every day as well, so I'm five days "clean" and hoping to be even cleaner, and perhaps lighter, two days from now.

Still Re-Entering

A few weeks ago I blogged I was back. Re-entry is, realistically and at best, a work-in-progress. Still trying to figure out the best way to stick to the commitment to lose weight, the commitment to write every single day, the commitment to blog regularly, to escape the muck of Summer, 2013, the thick muck of re-entry. Things seem swampy, though, and I keep coming back to the existential "whattaya gonna do?" that Tony Soprano used so frequently. Indeed.

Thoughts on Tony Soprano

I'm finally getting around to watching "The Sopranos," a decade after the show's peak in popularity and seven years since the series went to sleep with the fishes. I grew up loving "Goodfellas" and "The Godfather" (not to mention films like "Moonstruck" with funny and spot-on Italian-American characters who aren't in the mob), so it's about time I catch up with Tony Soprano and company.  In no particular order, some reactions:

• Tony Soprano strikes me as somehow more monstrous and hard to like than the so-called anti-heroes his character inspired (Walter White, Don Draper, pretty much anybody on "The Wire") on other marquee programs. Tony's a coarse bully. Walter White and Don Draper do some despicable shit but Tony is an even worse husband. He's got Catholic guilt but no remorse. His guilt is all sub-conscious; he has freaky dreams but never hesitates to kill, hurt, or embarrass people with less power than him.
• He's not really respected as much as feared. His "friends" are sycophants; even the goons who are related to him maneuver against him when they sense vulnerability or when the anger and resentment against him boils over.  (Possible exception: Silvio)
• Compared to other tv/movie mobsters, this group is pretty pathetic. Nobody is as glamorous as Vito or Michael Corleone. They hang out at a dumpy stripclub, struggle to "pass" anytime they're around civilians. They have monetary mobility but rarely cultural mobility. They don't know how to code switch when they go to a college campus or a charity function. I'm not saying their working-class ethos makes them pathetic--it's their lack of self-awareness. Lots of working-class people, both real and fictional, are much savvier and more flexible than Tony Soprano et al.
• Tony's life is ugly. He and his crew engage in domestic violence (in some cases with both their wives and their mistresses), abuse drugs, and suffer profound, visible, pyschic damage as a result of being criminals. This isn't just like Michael Corleone looking sad after killing his brother or even Henry Hill acting all paranoid and red-eyed as he keeps a look-out for helicopters and makes sauce. It goes beyond that. In "The Sopranos," we get prolonged images of, say, Christopher shooting up and Tony sitting in therapy. Like I said, they don't express any remorse, but we see the damage and destruction constantly. Even if he wears expensive clothes, Tony Soprano does NOT make this life look desirable.
• Last thing: James Gandolfini was brilliant in the role. The strained breathing, the compulsive eating, the non-verbal reactions to others...has anybody ever embodied a character this well? All the stylized camera work and heavy-handed symbolism (eggs! birds! prosciutto!...every object signifies something, as if David Chase had Joseph Campbell on his desk every time he wrote a script) help the cause but Gandolfini's acting was perfect. I think "The Wire" boasted better, more consistent writing. "Breaking Bad" is more addictive. But Tony Soprano was a vivid, compelling, despicable person thanks to brilliant, brilliant acting.

Groggily Returning to Motown

Here's a surreal experience. I dozed during part of my flight back home yesterday. I had also popped a couple Aleves to combat some neck pain from sleeping wrong in Savannah (get off my lawn!). So I was groggy and let most everybody get off the plane before me. Upon stepping off the plane onto the jetbridge, I saw my nephew Ali standing there behind an empty wheelchair.  He looks at me and says, want a ride Uncle Bill?

Now, Ali works at the airport assisting seniors and others who need help going from gate-to-gate, but I wasn't thinking about that. For a split second, I thought the plane had gone down and this was my journey to the afterlife. Ali was like some kind of Anubis figure, accompanying me as I passed. I came back to reality and realized he was just working.

Savannah Part 2

It's a rainy and humid Sunday in Savannah. Perfect day for soul food at the United House of Prayer for all People, a church that has its own cafeteria, the Masada Cafe. Soul food places better have all the sides: greens, mac-n-cheese, candied yams, corn bread. Masada has all of the above and more, including "red rice," already spiced but begging for gravy. I had the meatloaf, fork soft, not too salty, and perfectly paired with the sweetness of the yams.

Savannah

At the WPA workshop and conference, the annual gathering of the Council of Writing Program Administrators, we drink wine courtesy of textbook publishers, share research and ideas, and chat with people we went to grad school with. It's Savannah, so there's shrimp and grits to be had too. Last night after sundown, the heat but not the humidity having lessened, two friends and I walked around old Savannah, through gothic-looking cemeteries and squares, by gigantic homes with even more gigantic front porches, and down to the river, where an electric guitar called us into a place called the Bayou Cafe. A trio, never caught their name, was playing the blues, guitar, bass, and drums. Three young guys, locked in, amps turned way up, wailing, at a place with no cover charge. Behind the band, through a window, you could see a riverboat on the Savannah. They did a version of the Stones' "Monkey Man," with no piano or rhythm guitar, their ax guy recreating the slide guitar parts on his regular electric. Wild.

Change of Venue

I've been going down to my office at the University most every weekday. Days when my program faculty are grading placement exams are really the only days I need to be there, but I've been meeting with various folks about the curriculum of our honors writing classes, working on some scheduling issues, brainstorming programming for the Writing Center this year, and doing a bunch of other administrative things.  It's just easier to be present than to figure out how to do these things at home, plus there's something about just being present.

Today, though, a nice change of pace.  I'm at home waiting for a contractor to come give an estimate on laying a new front porch (really, more of a stoop).  So I'm doing some writing at the dining room table, plus making black bean burgers from scratch, and contemplating a bike ride later this afternoon, if it's not too hot.  I'll likely spend a little time getting organized for my trip to Savannah, Georgia, later this week for the Writing Program Administrators conference.  Good to smell the veggie burgers baking, good to have a ceiling fan and a snoring dog nearby, good to get back to the writing.

6 Burgers: 2 cans of black beans, 2 eggs, big onion, big carrot, garlic, handful of panko bread crumbs, salt, coarse pepper, parsley, generous squirt of mustard. Blend well, form patties, bake at 375 for thirty minutes or so.

A Lot Of People Won't Get No Justice Tonight

Logging onto Facebook makes it impossible to ignore last night's Trayvon Martin verdict. And while the vast majority of my Facebook friends see the verdict as a gross miscarriage of justice, the sad truth is that we live in a country that values vigilantes and guns and denies racism. By all accounts, George Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin around the neighborhood because Trayvon looked suspicious. We live in a country that wants Zimmerman to be armed, a country that's going to provide Zimmerman with niches in which he'll get rich and famous. Trayvon Martin is dead and now we can watch Zimmerman earn six-figures at speaking engagements at gun conventions. How many days until Zimmerman has a book deal?

Re-Entry

Coming back home hasn't been easy. I miss the surprises of the Middle East, the sensations, newness, and pleasant hardships that come from distance. The rush and push of airports and metro stations. The bread and zaatar and coffee. For the past month I've walked slowly through life at home and on campus and in Detroit. I've watched too much television, had too many migraines, and eaten too much shitty American food. If I say some things out loud, maybe I'll do them. I'm going to finish my book about Lebanon that I've started and stopped writing too many times to count now, and then I'm going to try to publish it. I'm going to lose a lot of weight. I'm fifty pounds heavier than I was when I moved back to Michigan in 2005 and even then I was fat. Blogging's going to be part of my day-to-day life once again. Re-entry has taken a month. That's too long. I'm back.

These Are Days

Natalie Merchant performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra last night. Her setlist emphasized her more recent recordings of sleepy folks songs as opposed to songs she made famous (to me anyway) while fronting the 10,000 Maniacs in the 1980s and early 1990s. She forgot lyrics a few times (she performs sporadically) but the DSO sounded great and her music with and without the Maniacs has always been compelling and pleasant. That word, pleasant, sounds like faint praise but it's not. She has a warm, comforting voice that as much as her lyrics make her songs seem much more like poems. Orchestral arrangements of her songs make all kinds of sense.

A final thirty-minute set without the orchestra found Natalie with her pianist and guitarist doing an unplugged set of songs that people came to hear: These are Days (easily the most recognizable 10,000 Maniacs song) and solo tracks like Carnival. Plus, fun, on-the-fly snippets of motown oldies. It was an unabashedly laid-back, joyful way to end her performance. She reminisced about opening for R.E.M. decades ago at a Michigan show on the evening of her birthday and being given a cake on stage by Michael Stipe. She introduced "These are Days" by telling the audience it was a song they loved in their dorm rooms back in Ann Arbor.

Natalie and the audience owned the nostalgia in equal parts.

Present company included. 10,000 Maniacs was my first concert. Summer, 1989, with Tim Finn of Split Enz as opening act. At Nautica Flats in Cleveland, Natalie sang most of In My Tribe and Blind Man's Zoo, the two classic Maniacs records. I saw them again later that year and once more, a couple years later in college. Their songs were topical (learning disabilities, child abuse) but also imagistic ("he kicked a tumbleweed and his mother called him home, when the Arizona moon met the Arizona sun"), wrought and smart and affecting without seeming too pretentious, when I was 15 and found appealing the idea of a rock band with a worldview and when I was 19 and that worldview seemed less likely to mean life would forever feel alienating. 1992 was a moment, maybe because there was a democrat in the white house for the first time since I was in first grade. Natalie sang a duet with Michael Stipe at Bill Clinton's inauguration and rock stars were writing songs about Anita Hill and Buddhism and touting feminism and authenticity in Rolling Stone.

Nicole and I were talking about concerts before the Natalie Merchant show this week and I commented that circa 1993, if certain bands came to Detroit, it was only a question of who I'd go with. Kids from dorm (in Detroit, not Ann Arbor), maybe my pal from high school, Jason, who lived across town. It was rare that a show would be more than $15 or $20 and a couple hundred saved from slinging Taco Bell all summer or a work-study check from the school paper could cover that no problem.

Somehow Natalie's flawed show with the symphony captured both a collective, personal present and collective, personal past. The sleepy present in her main set, the freewheeling past in her encore.

Hey Jack, now for the tricky part: / When you were the brightest star, who were the shadows? Of the San Francisco beat boys, you were the favorite. / Now they sit and rattle their bones and think of their blood stoned days.

a new beginning...

here is the new blog, which I'll be updating live from the United Arab Emirates for the next 5 months:

http://shemesterinsharjah.blogspot.com

We're hiring...

Asst Professor of Multicultural or Multilingual Writing and Rhetoric

Job Summary

Work-Title: Assistant Professor of Multicultural or Multilingual Writing and Rhetoric
Department: College of Arts, Sciences, & Letters-Language, Culture, & Communications
FLSA: Exempt
Posting Dates: September 26, 2012-November 26, 2012
Go here to apply:
http://umjobs.org/search


The University of Michigan-Dearborn (UM-Dearborn) is one of the three campuses of the University of Michigan. UM-Dearborn, a comprehensive university offering high quality undergraduate, graduate, professional and continuing education to residents of southeastern Michigan, and attracts more than 9,000 students. Our faculty comes from respected universities and doctoral programs, are recognized for excellence in research and teaching, and are active in professional and academic service roles in their respective fields. US News and World Report recently recognized our campus as a Best Regional University.

The campus is located on 200 acres of the original Henry Ford Estate. Dearborn is centrally located within one of America's largest business regions. The geographically diverse area provides faculty with a variety of urban, suburban, and rural areas within a reasonable commute, including Detroit, Detroit suburbs, and Ann Arbor.

Job Description:
The Department of Language, Culture & Communication (Composition & Rhetoric Discipline) invites applications for a tenure-track, assistant professor of Multicultural or Multilingual Writing and Rhetoric faculty position, starting September 1, 2013. Funding for this position has been approved.

The Department of Language, Culture & Communication has 17 faculty members representing Composition & Rhetoric, Public Communication & Culture Studies, Journalism & Screen Studies, Linguistics, and Modern & Classical Languages. The Composition & Rhetoric discipline has 7 faculty members and has responsibility for the college-wide Writing Program and Certificate in Writing.

Qualifications:
All candidates with a primary interest in composition in multicultural or multilingual writing and rhetoric are invited to apply. Secondary areas of interest may include multicultural literacies, contrastive rhetorics, teaching in global contexts, transnational rhetorics and literacies, rhetorics of race and ethnicity, or related secondary areas.

Candidates must have a PhD in Composition and Rhetoric or closely related field in hand by 9/1/13 and must show demonstrated achievement in scholarship and potential for publications in the areas of multicultural or multilingual writing and rhetoric. Experience teaching writing at the collegiate level is required. Evidence of familiarity with best practices in the teaching of writing, including within multilingual or multicultural contexts and using computer-mediated pedagogies, is highly desirable.

In addition to teaching writing and rhetoric courses at the introductory and upper levels, the candidate will be expected to pursue an active scholarly agenda, engage in curriculum and program development within area of expertise, and contribute to undergraduate writing certificate program and first-year writing program. We especially welcome applicants who bring culturally and theoretically diverse perspectives to their research and teaching practices.

The University of Michigan - Dearborn is dedicated to the goal of building a culturally diverse and pluralistic faculty committed to teaching and working in a multi-cultural environment. We are an equal access/equal opportunity employer and campus community, and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, color, marital status, age, national origin, disability, veteran or marital status, sexual orientation, or genetic information.

Currently this classification is considered exempt in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Note: Please make sure to upload all your application materials as one single PDF file.

U-M EEO/AA Statement

The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

Peanuts