And so it goes

2 things.

1 is that there were elections yesterday, something that feels far removed from my life here. Part of that sense of displacement comes, I think, from the fact that I spent the last ten years living in Madison, which is more politically active than here. No, that's not quite what I want to say. Even as I wrote that sentence, the claim that Madison is more political doesn't feel right to me, because Oklahoma is every bit as political as anywhere else. It just masks its politics under claims of common sense, family values, small government, and old-fashioned values, or under the misguided belief that it is somehow separate from national politics.

In fact, more times than not, I tend to feel overwhelmed with just how political Oklahoma is. But being here, rather than Madison, does feel different on the day after an election. An awareness of the political stage, both local and national, and, more importantly, an awareness of how deeply politics is embedded in our everyday lives, was more present in a place like Madison, and I am definitely feeling that lack right now. My inadvertent (on my part) disenfranchisement has probably also contributed to these feelings of distance - I hadn't planned for Oklahoma's 24 day cut off period for registering to vote, so by the time I sent in my info, that deadline has sailed right by. No voting for me!

But, as I said to a number of people, it's not like my vote would have mattered here anyway, which I think is more at the core of my feelings about election day. On the one hand, I have often felt that my vote in this overwhelmingly right-leaning state has little to no chance of being cast in favor of a candidate who will win. Much as I would have liked to see Fallin go, it never seemed a likely proposition. In fact, voting in Wisconsin always gave me an extra thrill, because it was the first place where it felt like my vote really contributed to a result.

But, on the other hand, I am a bit disgusted with the sense of pointlessness and apathy that I brought to this election, try as I did to register. Does voting only matter when you have a good chance of winning? It seems like there is something in the process that should matter, that there is something that *matters* by just showing up, even if (or perhaps even more so when) you know the candidates you support are not going to win.

But that sense of importance gets dampened when, in the course of my day, the people I often encounter don't seem interested in or motivated by the issues that seem so desperately important in another places. Of course, all of those issues trickle down and circulate around Oklahoma, but the shield is pretty thick. And, to be honest, I imagine I don't seem particularly motivated either, outside the bickering I do with family members over things we will probably never agree on.

2nd thing. This first semester is almost over, so much so that I am trying to plan, and replan, by calendar for next semester. I'll be teaching 5 Comp II course and 1 American Lit course, so there's a lot of book-ordering and schedule-revising to be done. The biggest challenge right now is figuring out the role of research and the research paper in my Comp II class. I don't really like how the research paper has gone. I feel like my students benefited from early exercises in exploring research in the world, and research with the OED, and even the annotated bibliography and oral presentations on the information they found. I am less convinced, however, of the benefits of the traditional research paper itself, though whether that's a failure of teaching or of learning, I don't know. I imagine it's both. But I am increasingly aware that this particular brand of paper writing is not the best use of time and energy in a one semester class, even if there are some arguably transferable skills. So, the question is, what do I do instead? A research paper is a required component of Comp II here at TCC, though what exactly "paper" means is not specified. I am thinking I might go back to the journalistic mode I used the last time I taught composition at UW, but that needs to be tweaked.

Other than that, the classes are going generally well. The retention difficulties and lack of completion is new to me, but it is generally understandable. It's a challenge, but, given all the factors affecting community college students, withdrawing from a class is not the worst thing to do.