Author Archives: Christene

Planning Ahead

I will be going to a conference in a few weeks. I don’t have time right now to do anything about it since there are so many other things going on in the next week/weekend, but I do need to start planning.

I have my paper written, but it could probably use some editing. Then there is the actual itinerary. I will be in Portland for four days, but only going to the conference for two of those days. I need to see about the car rental, and find out when my plane lands, and figure out how to get from the airport to the hotel. I scheduled it all several months ago, and have now forgotten everything.

However, I was looking at the conference schedule, and on one of the days I was excited to find that there is an entire panel dedicated to Romanian literature. I am not very familiar with the authors being discussed, but I have heard of them, and am quite curious to see how they will be presented and have been studied in academia.

There are actually numerous panels I would like to see so I need to sort all of that out as well.

Then I have to figure out where the giant bookstore is, because that is pretty much what I have planned for all of Saturday with maybe a quick lunch break.

As you can tell, I am very excited. But I do wish this could have been in November instead.

So Confused

Over the last few weeks I have realized two things about teaching. First of all, I absolutely love teaching! Love, love, love! Secondly, I hate grading. I am required to give them a certain amount of assignments split between in-class and take-home, which creates an exorbitant amount of grading on my part. In fact, I have been doing nothing but grading for the last three weeks, and will be doing nothing but grading for the next two weeks with only a one week repose before beginning again.

I don’t mind reading their papers. In fact I am quite happy with how much of the material they understand. I taught them the concepts they are supposed to be getting, and introduced them to different literary works, and thus have done my job. But someone down the line was supposed to teach how to write and at some point dropped the ball.  So I read their papers and they can explain Nietzsche. Great! But then they don’t understand how to use correct tense, verb form, or punctuation. Crap! How do I grade?
Do I grade them down because they don’t know that “he say that we don’t just not admit to doing something but we also deny that we even want to do it and our memory help us forget our sin that way because we pretend that we would never do that” is not a proper sentence?
(The above is in reference to the quote: “‘I did that,’ says my memory. ‘I could not have done that,’ says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually the memory yields.'”)
I only quoted one sentence of her paper, but the rest is definitely an admittance to understanding. The concept is reiterated there, as Nietzsche intended. In fact the entire paper demonstrates a grasp on the themes discussed. But the writing… oh the writing…
What am I supposed to do with this??

A Dictionary Definition

I don’t read the dictionary for fun, so sometimes I need to be reminded of what things are. Today’s word of the day is “whore.” Please remind me of its meaning, because obviously I don’t know. And I am sure you can do a far better job than Webster. You know, provide the necessary context, give examples and such.

I used to think it was an adjective, but apparently in its noun form it is a method of categorization for women according to a very specific set of rules.  If a woman is found to have been with one man, then she must have been with thirty. Because that is the female nature, specific to the whore. Therefore every man she has ever spoken a kind word to must have at some point ended up in her bed. Maybe they should all get ill constructed emails. Include some more definitions in there while you are at it.

The whore creature, according to you, is very fascinating and fantastic. She can span entire continents within seconds and allegedly exist in multiple locations at once. There must be a shortage of men in the general vicinity as she must fly to Alabama and Tennessee to conduct herself. What’s that? There is a man in Texas? Well then, off she goes! No, no, that man could not possibly just be a friend. This is a whore, and that is what she does.

And her talents are so magnificent she has the capability of converting men who would otherwise be uninterested in women. Keep in mind, this is no ordinary woman. Whores are special beings imbued with myriad forms of exotic alchemy specialized in transforming others’ sexual orientations and preferences.

She is also a rather flighty creature. It doesn’t matter that she has known a man for decades, uninterested in him in the slightest, because one day, out of the blue, her true nature will prevent her from resisting him, with the assumption that there is actually something to resist. What a wily little thing!

“Mommy, look, we found a whore! Can we keep her?”

I also recall you stating that the whore has a natural habitat. You weren’t entirely clear on this, but I have to say, I am curious to learn. All the evenings I spend at my kitchen table have not made me privy to this creature’s environment.

What started as a simple catalog of female traits specific to this being, has now elevated the whore, in scientific terms, to an entire species in its own phylum. And here I am going from learning new dictionary definitions to watching a Special Editions episode of the Discovery channel where I can learn how to spot the ever elusive whore, should I happen upon one.  But whatever I do, I shouldn’t startle her, she will run away and take residence elsewhere. You see, despite all of her amazing abilities the poor thing is a little dim witted – she takes flight only when provoked and is incapable of premeditated actions or genuine thought.

My goodness what a complex critter!

Thank you for the rare opportunity at such a lesson. I can’t believe in all my years of schooling I never encountered a seminar on this topic. Perhaps you can email me again tomorrow and we can discuss the whore’s diet, or really get into it and take a look at her evolutionary history.