Oh blog, I haven't forgotten you. I just don't know quite what to do with you. These are my hangups:
1. What do I even talk about? Do I talk about work? Family? Students? Daily life in Broken Arrow? I'm don't know what to focus on and, when I do think of something, I end up being conflicted about whether it is appropriate to write about it all, whether that is due to privacy issues (students/teaching), professional concerns (community college, never-ending admin stuff), or kindness worries (how does anyone ever publish a memoir without pissing off everyone they know?). So, I think about things, and then I let them slide out of my brain as I rush off to watch my nieces at gymnastics practice.
2. I don't know how to write about things without a text in front of me. I need a text in front of me in order to feel qualified about making any claims. I wonder about things I see, situations that seem particular to the community college experience, or to the Oklahoma-life experience, but I can't help but feel...uncomfortable about making any broader claims based on those first hand experiences, or even knowing exactly how to articulate them as experiences, without attempting to put them into a context, or get some background info, or compare them to a greater statistical sample. I guess that's just my training.
3. I'm trying to figure out a way to bring these two issues together, or at least use the second issue to address the first. I mostly keep thinking about "coming home" texts I could analyze. There could be an entire Bruce Springsteen Day! And weeks upon weeks about Dr Who! More on that later, I hope.
As for now, I figure I might as well jump into the TV pool. I made it, what? 4 posts. Longer than I thought I might. So, here's what I'm watching/preparing to watch:
1. The Good Wife - strong opener, fast-paced (maybe a little too much?), still one of the strongest examples of how to construct a good narrative on conventional TV (or any TV, really)
2. Castle - I love it. I don't care if its groundbreaking TV (though there is a paper to be written there). A little concerned about the new showrunner, but I gotta believe.
3. Forever - watched an ep tonight. Liked it. Will watch again.
4. Dr Who - I am out of control into it. Why did I wait so long? I am so in love with River that everything else kind of takes a backseat. Tbh, I am still
working my way through the seasons. Despite everything I believe in and hold
dear, I haven't watched the episodes in order. I watched the first
season, then jumped into the middle of the Matt Smith years, and I am
now watching the Tennant and Capaldi eps alongside each other. It'll
eventually all join up in the middle, much like the relationship between
11 and River, but hopefully without the epic heartbreak. There's something about the relationship that both River and 11 have to death and to finitude that I just can't shake. I'll do a whole post on it this weekend, I think.
I like
Tennant a lot, increasingly so, and I think Capaldi is terrific (Listen
was a great episode), but 11 is my doctor. And those Ponds! They got me with that group.
5. Started Season 3 of Damages to watch on the treadmill. Still interesting, can't-turn-away TV.
Showing posts with label pop culture reasons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pop culture reasons. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
The Long Way Around
Sooner or later, we all go home. That's the message pop
culture often throws our way. The Salvatore brothers return to Mystic
Falls. Ed heads back to Stuckeyville. Raylan Givens is exiled to Harlan Country. Odysseus finally lands in Ithaca. Lebron eventually goes back to Cleveland.
And then there's me. After finishing my undergrad degrees at the University of Oklahoma in 2001, I left the state to attend graduate school, first in England and then in Wisconsin. I left for many reasons, but it mostly boiled down to the fact that I wanted something different. I didn't know exactly what that difference was or should be; I just knew it was something different than what I had.
And so, I left.
But I also returned, time and again, for equally complicated and simple reasons: my family was there, many friends were there, and, in many ways, I was still there. I loved the land and the wind, I bristled at the politics, and, regardless of where I was, I still thought of myself as Oklahoman.
Still, 13 years went by. I finished my Master's in Women's Studies and English literature in England. I traveled and waitressed and worked at Star Trek conventions. I was on the academic job market for three years. I kept waitressing. I finished the PhD in Literary Studies at Wisconsin.
And, after three years of applying for jobs across the academic spectrum (visiting and tenure, research and teaching, state universities and liberal arts colleges), I've now accepted a position as Assistant Professor of English at Tulsa Community College, where I'll be teaching composition. I grew up outside of Tulsa, in a place called Broken Arrow. I went to high school here, I went to church here, my parents and siblings still live here. In fact, I'll be living, first, at my parents' house (in my same middle-school room) and then, presumably, on my own. I'll shift from teaching one course per semester at a 4-year research institution, writing a dissertation in contemporary American literature, working as a public radio producer, and waitressing at a chain American Chinese restaurant to teaching five courses a semester at a community college, attending soccer and baseball games, and doing research as my schedule allows. It's going to be different.
And so, I decided to start this blog, to track my experience of returning to Oklahoma and to consider how humanities research plays out in the community college composition classroom.
In his essay explaining his decision to return to Cleveland, Lebron James gives an account of a reckoning, a departure whose purpose was to teach him the value of home:
"Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up...I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can. My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now."
Odysseus puts it more dramatically: "I long - I pine, all my days - to travel home and see the dawn of my return."
Dorothy puts it more simply: "There's no place like home."
All of these folks make a compelling case for returning home. They leave, swept up in a whirlwind of circumstances, returning only when fate allows, after they achieve greater self-knowledge. For all of them, experiencing the global is a necessary but transient step in appreciating the value of the local.
But as for myself, I have always been less certain about narratives that tell us that its better to go home, that our reasons for leaving are understandable but short-lived, that, upon exploring the world, we should want to bring those experiences back to the place we left. I don't know if the goal of leaving is always to return.
My skepticism about stories of return, however, is at also at least partially rooted in the fact that I am drawn instead to narratives that tell us it's good to break free, that setting out on your own is a desirable choice, that, as the Dixie Chicks explain, taking the long way around is, in fact, the way to go.
In other words, I've always thought that education was my way out, an opportunity I embraced, but now education has brought me back. And so, this blog is also an attempt to wrestle with the stories we tell ourselves, of who we are and what we want, of what makes for a valuable life.
Well, that's the goal. I'll probably also talk a lot about TV. We'll see how things shake out.
And then there's me. After finishing my undergrad degrees at the University of Oklahoma in 2001, I left the state to attend graduate school, first in England and then in Wisconsin. I left for many reasons, but it mostly boiled down to the fact that I wanted something different. I didn't know exactly what that difference was or should be; I just knew it was something different than what I had.
And so, I left.
But I also returned, time and again, for equally complicated and simple reasons: my family was there, many friends were there, and, in many ways, I was still there. I loved the land and the wind, I bristled at the politics, and, regardless of where I was, I still thought of myself as Oklahoman.
Still, 13 years went by. I finished my Master's in Women's Studies and English literature in England. I traveled and waitressed and worked at Star Trek conventions. I was on the academic job market for three years. I kept waitressing. I finished the PhD in Literary Studies at Wisconsin.
And, after three years of applying for jobs across the academic spectrum (visiting and tenure, research and teaching, state universities and liberal arts colleges), I've now accepted a position as Assistant Professor of English at Tulsa Community College, where I'll be teaching composition. I grew up outside of Tulsa, in a place called Broken Arrow. I went to high school here, I went to church here, my parents and siblings still live here. In fact, I'll be living, first, at my parents' house (in my same middle-school room) and then, presumably, on my own. I'll shift from teaching one course per semester at a 4-year research institution, writing a dissertation in contemporary American literature, working as a public radio producer, and waitressing at a chain American Chinese restaurant to teaching five courses a semester at a community college, attending soccer and baseball games, and doing research as my schedule allows. It's going to be different.
And so, I decided to start this blog, to track my experience of returning to Oklahoma and to consider how humanities research plays out in the community college composition classroom.
In his essay explaining his decision to return to Cleveland, Lebron James gives an account of a reckoning, a departure whose purpose was to teach him the value of home:
"Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up...I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can. My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now."
Odysseus puts it more dramatically: "I long - I pine, all my days - to travel home and see the dawn of my return."
Dorothy puts it more simply: "There's no place like home."
All of these folks make a compelling case for returning home. They leave, swept up in a whirlwind of circumstances, returning only when fate allows, after they achieve greater self-knowledge. For all of them, experiencing the global is a necessary but transient step in appreciating the value of the local.
But as for myself, I have always been less certain about narratives that tell us that its better to go home, that our reasons for leaving are understandable but short-lived, that, upon exploring the world, we should want to bring those experiences back to the place we left. I don't know if the goal of leaving is always to return.
My skepticism about stories of return, however, is at also at least partially rooted in the fact that I am drawn instead to narratives that tell us it's good to break free, that setting out on your own is a desirable choice, that, as the Dixie Chicks explain, taking the long way around is, in fact, the way to go.
In other words, I've always thought that education was my way out, an opportunity I embraced, but now education has brought me back. And so, this blog is also an attempt to wrestle with the stories we tell ourselves, of who we are and what we want, of what makes for a valuable life.
Well, that's the goal. I'll probably also talk a lot about TV. We'll see how things shake out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)