I hope that ma chérie amour won't mind my purloining a bit of her Canfield composition today...The amount of coincidence involved in the buildup that led to an armed officer doing a sweep of my home today (with gun drawn, mind you) is absolutely not coincidental... I should probably go buy a lottery ticket today.
The younger of the twins (we'll call him Simon) is quite the talker and gadget hound… Always sneaking away with an iPod touch or an iPad and playing some games we play together. He has called about everyone on my wife's cell phone. On several occasions. With abandon. Finally put a lock on the cell phone. I found out today that 911 is not included in such locks!
So… the twins (we'll call them Simon and Levi) were caught red-handed dismantling their closet AND/OR dumping chemicals on the carpet that have no business being on the carpet AND/OR orchestrating general mayhem in their room, at which point they were grounded to sit on their beds while my wife took a shower. Simon must have thought that she went to lie down ( I got tired just hearing the story!) and decided to see who he could call to gripe about his "incarceration" with the contraband cell phone he managed to smuggle in ...please enjoy the following dramatic transcription of one of his 6 calls to the 911 call center:
"911, what is your emergency?"
Response: heavy breathing.
"Hello? This is 911. What is your emergency?"
Simon: "My Mom is not talking to me. She's tired."
Operator: "Why is she tired? Is she sick? Is she hurt?"
Simon: "She tired. Of me. She's sleeping."
"Can you wake her up?"
Simon: "No, she not talking".
Operator: "I'm sending a unit. Can you tell me your address, Honey?"
Simon: "Wee-vi and I make a mess in our room. We in trouble".
Operator: "Honey, where do you live?"
Simon: "My neighbor is building a swim pool". (of course… Simon can't remember his address… but notices out his window that the neighbor is building a swimming pool… Makes perfect sense, doesn't it ?)
Going on just that information, Officer Krupky does a sweep of the neighborhood until he hears the blood-curdling screams of the "incarcerated" Simon and Levi, and proceeds to enter the home. Fortunately, my wife managed to finish showering and dressing at this point, but I can't imagine that assuaged her much as she met an armed officer on the stairs who didn't know whether she was a victim, suspect, or person of interest at that point.
Needless to say, Simon had the riot act read to him today...and he's mulling the "wait till your father gets home" soundbite over and over, I'm sure.
Simon...you in trouble all right...but I think the mess in the room is the least of your worries!!!
Friday, August 19, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Day the Left Bank Died....
Waxing nostalgic....I LOVE this video:
It has the flavor of "American Pie" (with all of the embedded cultural references) with French twist, of course. Watching the imagined draining of the Seine still brings a tear to the eye. I used to offer this song up as the "road to an automatic A" if a student could identify and explain all of the hidden cultural references. They worked like gangbusters for a week or two, then figured it was easier to just do their homework. But they would hound me about it semesters after the course was over.
Somehow, I don't think Alain needs to worry as much anymore about US, given how impuissant we've become....
It has the flavor of "American Pie" (with all of the embedded cultural references) with French twist, of course. Watching the imagined draining of the Seine still brings a tear to the eye. I used to offer this song up as the "road to an automatic A" if a student could identify and explain all of the hidden cultural references. They worked like gangbusters for a week or two, then figured it was easier to just do their homework. But they would hound me about it semesters after the course was over.
Somehow, I don't think Alain needs to worry as much anymore about US, given how impuissant we've become....
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Cloud, meet Atlas. Atlas, meet Cloud.
Somebody with two similar Windoze machines running atlas.ti needs to try something for me…
Theoretically, if one were to put one's hermeneutical unit within a folder in Dropbox, along with all associated files, one should be able to call all of that up on two separate computers running atlas.ti, non?
Well, I've poked at least one hole in that theory…
I can open up the hermeneutical unit… no problems. However, the primary documents do not appear, as they cannot be found. The problem seems to be the fact that atlas.ti links PDs to the HU using * absolute pathways*!! And since pathways on a Mac running Windoze are not absolutely identical to the pathways on a PeeCee running Windoze... you see the problem.
Dear Atlas.ti: * relative pathways*...learn them, use them. And while you're at it, port your program to MacOS already!!
Dear rich fat-cat with two PeeCees running Atlas.ti: will you please try this experiment with your computers and report your results here? I'm dying to know if this works between oranges and oranges, since it obviously doesn't work between Apples and oranges.
I'm sorry, I meant to say lemons...Apples and lemons....
Theoretically, if one were to put one's hermeneutical unit within a folder in Dropbox, along with all associated files, one should be able to call all of that up on two separate computers running atlas.ti, non?
Well, I've poked at least one hole in that theory…
I can open up the hermeneutical unit… no problems. However, the primary documents do not appear, as they cannot be found. The problem seems to be the fact that atlas.ti links PDs to the HU using * absolute pathways*!! And since pathways on a Mac running Windoze are not absolutely identical to the pathways on a PeeCee running Windoze... you see the problem.
Dear Atlas.ti: * relative pathways*...learn them, use them. And while you're at it, port your program to MacOS already!!
Dear rich fat-cat with two PeeCees running Atlas.ti: will you please try this experiment with your computers and report your results here? I'm dying to know if this works between oranges and oranges, since it obviously doesn't work between Apples and oranges.
I'm sorry, I meant to say lemons...Apples and lemons....
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
While other places have ponies, or parrots... we have dragons.
I am in transcription hell. I would have quit well over an hour ago were it not for the lovely and talented Dragon.
Looking at a multimodal transcript after-the-fact is pretty fun, but, just like sausage, no one should ever have to see it made. It's not pretty. How "not pretty" is it, you ask? Let me tell you...I'd rather take the GRE over and over... how's that for you?
At least my fingers are not throbbing and popping... love the Dragon... feed the Dragon...
In my scholarly meanderings this week, I came across an interesting article that I started to read ( I probably should be reading the stuff I should be reading, but I couldn't resist the shiny PDF), not because I really believe in it, but it's helping me to separate a ( flavor?) of DASP from other flavors and from other theories:
de Rosa, A. (2006). The “boomerang” effect of radicalism in Discursive Psychology: A critical overview of the controversy with the Social Representations Theory. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 36:2, 161–201.
It offers itself up as a critical overview of the catfight between radicalized DASP and this "SRT", but it does a really good job of giving you the range of DASP stances and some theories, affinities, and battles on the margins. Or so it seems so far.
Looking at a multimodal transcript after-the-fact is pretty fun, but, just like sausage, no one should ever have to see it made. It's not pretty. How "not pretty" is it, you ask? Let me tell you...I'd rather take the GRE over and over... how's that for you?
At least my fingers are not throbbing and popping... love the Dragon... feed the Dragon...
In my scholarly meanderings this week, I came across an interesting article that I started to read ( I probably should be reading the stuff I should be reading, but I couldn't resist the shiny PDF), not because I really believe in it, but it's helping me to separate a ( flavor?) of DASP from other flavors and from other theories:
de Rosa, A. (2006). The “boomerang” effect of radicalism in Discursive Psychology: A critical overview of the controversy with the Social Representations Theory. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 36:2, 161–201.
It offers itself up as a critical overview of the catfight between radicalized DASP and this "SRT", but it does a really good job of giving you the range of DASP stances and some theories, affinities, and battles on the margins. Or so it seems so far.
Monday, April 4, 2011
bof...
Participant observation this week...not looking forward to transcription. JT comes to mind this week...(Well, JT channeling GJ...actually, AG does a nice version):
"Well, I'm just a researcher, and I don't like my work...but I don't mind the data at all...."
Fortunately, I don't feel like this often. I guess if I ever get to the point where I have "translated" the entire song, I need to pack it in and content myself with praxis and anecdote...
Potter/Edwards/Hepburn...burn...burn...burn Sacks...
Did you know that the 1200 pages of the Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning was insufficient? That there is a second volume of similar magnitude?
This week, I pine for the simpler days....
"Well, I'm just a researcher, and I don't like my work...but I don't mind the data at all...."
Fortunately, I don't feel like this often. I guess if I ever get to the point where I have "translated" the entire song, I need to pack it in and content myself with praxis and anecdote...
Potter/Edwards/Hepburn...burn...burn...burn Sacks...
Did you know that the 1200 pages of the Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning was insufficient? That there is a second volume of similar magnitude?
This week, I pine for the simpler days....
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
WWJD?
Went to see J.'s defense today. Stunning… absolutely stunning. However, stunning in a very affirming, unexpected way.
J. would never in a million years talk about herself in these terms, but many of my colleagues (and myself) talk of her in terms that echo people from my former life as a medievalist. There were professors and students all those many years ago who were lovingly (love meaning in this case admiration, respect, collegiality, but mostly idolatry tinged with a perceptible hue of envy) referred to as "sick-savant". The professor who could quote pages upon pages — verbatim and in Middle English — from the Riverside Chaucer and most of the secondary literature... the student who had seemingly memorized their entire dissertation, the annotated bibliography of their literature review, and most of the major articles they cited. We were all so much in awe and amazement, yet at the same time so conscious of our own foibles and feelings of imposterism that the quasi-natural reflex was to pathologize the behavior, because to do anything short of painting their performance as non-normative would have us all asking for their autograph and then running back to our offices for a dose of our Cymbalta (actually, back then it would have been Elavil or Pamelor, but I digress.....).
Today, I think a lot of us saw side of J. that those who know her much better likely take for granted, but which makes the rest of us think that we could actually emulate her in many respects and be the better for it, regardless of whether we're quite as brilliant. I can't speak for everyone else ( they all have their own blogs...) but I wanted to share at least a couple of places where I took great solace and comfort from what J. had to say. This is not to say that these were the only places where I felt great solace and comfort... there were a lot of places where expository snippets of her theoretical and methodological perspectives resonated strongly with what I want to do, and brought some of those things into sharper focus. I'm more interested for now in what follows.
Dr. G. asked the immortal Dr. G. question: "What do you know now that you didn't know before?" This was the first time that I heard J. talk about her struggle with moving away from the medicalized language of her dissertation topic and the journey of inscribing herself in the critique of the constrained use of language as she wrote. I cannot begin to tell you what a painful process it has been (and continues to be) for me personally to attempt to extract myself from the cognitive nomenclature and discourse that I marinate in on a daily basis. Neo got to take a pill...the rest of us aren't that lucky. I know it has been the source of some critiques of my writing, and I was beginning to think that it was just me. You have no idea what a cathartic moment the answer to that question was to me!
Another cathartic moment was when J. discussed the travails of research… the tedium and neck pain brought on by the transcription process, the mental and emotional exhaustion of participant observation... it is so refreshing to have something so mundane in common with someone you admire so much!
Oh, I could go on... the discussion of what inclusionary communication practices would look like in a radicalized version of higher education, her gracious offer to send those who ask her journal entries pertaining to personal reactions to doing research (by the way, I'm asking...)... What about her avowal/observation/accusation that "This" (she was likely referring to her dissertation but it doesn't take a whole lot of mental horsepower to see that there is a j'accuse about what we do in academics...indeed, what we do period...buried in her confession) "is trafficking in some version of the world."?
So, I'm an unashamed groupie now. I'm making a club. Line forms behind me. I will read her journal, and her dissertation. Anyone who knows Dr. G. knows that she doesn't "blow smoke", so when she holds J.'s dissertation up as an excellent example of clarity for other students to follow, that is genuine praise couched as an invitation to everyone else in the room. I may not be smart, but I know what smart is.....
J. would never in a million years talk about herself in these terms, but many of my colleagues (and myself) talk of her in terms that echo people from my former life as a medievalist. There were professors and students all those many years ago who were lovingly (love meaning in this case admiration, respect, collegiality, but mostly idolatry tinged with a perceptible hue of envy) referred to as "sick-savant". The professor who could quote pages upon pages — verbatim and in Middle English — from the Riverside Chaucer and most of the secondary literature... the student who had seemingly memorized their entire dissertation, the annotated bibliography of their literature review, and most of the major articles they cited. We were all so much in awe and amazement, yet at the same time so conscious of our own foibles and feelings of imposterism that the quasi-natural reflex was to pathologize the behavior, because to do anything short of painting their performance as non-normative would have us all asking for their autograph and then running back to our offices for a dose of our Cymbalta (actually, back then it would have been Elavil or Pamelor, but I digress.....).
Today, I think a lot of us saw side of J. that those who know her much better likely take for granted, but which makes the rest of us think that we could actually emulate her in many respects and be the better for it, regardless of whether we're quite as brilliant. I can't speak for everyone else ( they all have their own blogs...) but I wanted to share at least a couple of places where I took great solace and comfort from what J. had to say. This is not to say that these were the only places where I felt great solace and comfort... there were a lot of places where expository snippets of her theoretical and methodological perspectives resonated strongly with what I want to do, and brought some of those things into sharper focus. I'm more interested for now in what follows.
Dr. G. asked the immortal Dr. G. question: "What do you know now that you didn't know before?" This was the first time that I heard J. talk about her struggle with moving away from the medicalized language of her dissertation topic and the journey of inscribing herself in the critique of the constrained use of language as she wrote. I cannot begin to tell you what a painful process it has been (and continues to be) for me personally to attempt to extract myself from the cognitive nomenclature and discourse that I marinate in on a daily basis. Neo got to take a pill...the rest of us aren't that lucky. I know it has been the source of some critiques of my writing, and I was beginning to think that it was just me. You have no idea what a cathartic moment the answer to that question was to me!
Another cathartic moment was when J. discussed the travails of research… the tedium and neck pain brought on by the transcription process, the mental and emotional exhaustion of participant observation... it is so refreshing to have something so mundane in common with someone you admire so much!
Oh, I could go on... the discussion of what inclusionary communication practices would look like in a radicalized version of higher education, her gracious offer to send those who ask her journal entries pertaining to personal reactions to doing research (by the way, I'm asking...)... What about her avowal/observation/accusation that "This" (she was likely referring to her dissertation but it doesn't take a whole lot of mental horsepower to see that there is a j'accuse about what we do in academics...indeed, what we do period...buried in her confession) "is trafficking in some version of the world."?
So, I'm an unashamed groupie now. I'm making a club. Line forms behind me. I will read her journal, and her dissertation. Anyone who knows Dr. G. knows that she doesn't "blow smoke", so when she holds J.'s dissertation up as an excellent example of clarity for other students to follow, that is genuine praise couched as an invitation to everyone else in the room. I may not be smart, but I know what smart is.....
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