Season Six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer concerns Buffy’s troubles with finding her way in the world. After dying (at the end of season five), and being resurrected, Buffy is having some problems finding her purpose in life. In the musical episode, “Once More With Feeling,” she sings that she just wants to “feel” and that she wants “something to sing about.” Spike sings to her, “Life's not a song/ Life isn't bliss/ Life is just this/ It's living.” (I know that sounds uber-corny, but trust me, the show is masterful at making the trite meaningful. Plus the way Spike – James Marsters – looks at Buffy at this moment is enough to make your socks melt).
ANYWAY, I love me this stuff, but as many times as I watch this episode, I’m always left sitting there thinking, “Come on Buffy, what the crap? You have super-slayer powers, a dreamy dude worshipping you, a stylish yet affordable wardrobe, cool friends, and perpetually shiny and bouncy hair. What is it you’re sad about again?”
And then I am spiraled into self-reflection, because I know it’s true that I complain too. But I know I shouldn’t. I have a lovely life. I am paid to read books that interest me and to talk about them and write about them in a beautiful place with smart people. I think of my friend Maggie at Mizzou who would talk about how she drove a forklift for ten years before coming to grad school. And why am I complaining again? And as much as I complain about teaching, it brings me incredible joy. Seriously. I woke up at 5:30am this morning because I was so excited about creating a lesson plan centered on Jeopardy. That’s joy.
So I’ve decided to just not complain anymore, because every time I complain, I am giving myself permission to be ungrateful for the good things I’ve got. I am giving myself permission to NOT “be here now,” to NOT “be mindful,” to live in some fantasy world where I’m thinner, have a car, and everyone thinks I’m smarter than they are.
I am currently reading Thomas Merton’s Zen and the Birds of Appetite, and I find that Merton makes a similar point: “I might suggest a fourth need of modern man, which is precisely liberation from his inordinate self-consciousness, his monumental self-awareness, his obsession with self-affirmation, so that he may enjoy the freedom from concern that goes with being simply what he is and accepting things as they are in order to work with them as he can.”
So here are some ground rules:
1. I am only allowed to “complain” to people who can do something about it. So if for example, I have a problem with a professor, I am only allowed to talk to the professor about it. This will also keep me from gossiping.
2. I am only allowed to complain about things that I can change or that can be changed (the wisdom to know the difference, etc.)
3. Before I complain, I’m going to think about how my complaining might come off to someone who, for example, has to work 60+ hours a week in customer service for less money than I make. In short, I want to look at myself the way I look at Buffy.
4. I am allowed to debate, analyze, and criticize for the purpose of furthering my own beliefs or for the benefit of others. For example, I can criticize a book we read for class, and discuss what I don’t like about it, but I am not allowed to complain that we have to read it in the first place.
We shall see how this works. I’m already feeling more positive.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Choosing between my money and my life
I’m reading a very interesting book called Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, recommended by one of the productivity blogs I read, zenhabits. The book has a lot of great anti-capitalism messages, essentially showing how society programs us to want more and more while making us less happy. The goal of the book is to help you figure out how to get what you want from money. In this way, it’s very zen because you’re supposed to focus on what you want, as opposed to what TV ads or your friends tell you that you want. You need to find what is “enough” for you. It’s also filled with fun soundbites like “If you live for having it all, what you have is never enough” and “Most people have no idea how much money has entered their lives, and therefore no idea how much money could enter their lives.”
The book points out that we don’t tell people how to spend their money because it’s their “right” to spend it how they want in a free society. We take our “right” to consume to heart, sometimes even placing it above other rights, privileges, and duties of a free society. We also have the idea that it’s un-American to reject consumerism: “We have absorbed the notion that it is right to buy – that consuming is what keeps America strong … a day at the mall can be considered downright patriotic.”
I thought I was doing pretty well with money, and I thought that this book would be good “advice” but that I didn’t really need it.
Then I checked the mail on Friday and got my electric bill.
And it was $180.
Now, this is an unusual bill. LaRue was here for a couple weeks, and obviously two people take up more energy than one. And it was incredibly hot, and it’s cooling down now. BUT OH MY GOSH ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLARS IS A LOT OF MONEY. I don’t even want to think about how many hours I’ve slaved over grading papers this semester that have gone simply to keeping my apartment a balmy 80 degrees while I’m not even there.
I don’t have the firmest grasp of my readership, so I won’t put my earnings here, but suffice it to say I am living on a grad student salary, which cannot typically bear that kind of stress. So I pulled up my checking account online, made a budget, and decided to make some changes. I’m posting some of these ideas to hold myself accountable and to perhaps give other some ideas:
1. I read online that you can usually downgrade your internet speed and generally you won’t even notice the difference. So I called the cable company and asked how much I was actually paying (before reading this book, I would have just set up automatic bill pay and forgotten about it). I was paying $30/month for high speed internet. “I want to downgrade,” I told the woman on the phone. “I want the $15 per month tier.” “Okay,” she said, “but it’s going to be a lot slower!” Guess what? She changed it, and I can’t tell the difference.
2. I live down the street from a place that buys, sells, and trades books, DVDs, music, etc., so I’m going to go through my stuff and see what I can get rid of.
3. I’m going to buy:
a. An energy efficient showerhead
b. Energy star light bulbs (I have some, but not in all my lights)
c. Glass pans (which retain heat and cook faster, meaning that the oven doesn’t have to be on as long)
d. Pots for the stove with flat bottoms and tight covers (I’m also going to cook with the lids on)
4. I’m going to look into getting reflective film for my windows which will let in the light but not the heat. Also, I’m going to consider getting ceiling fans.
5. I’m going to try to do my cooking early in the morning or late in the evening. Last night, for example, I made pasta and tofu to take for my lunches this week. That way, I don’t have to keep heating up the stove (and thus the apartment) every day or during the heat of the day.
6. I’m going to study on campus during the heat of the day, so I can leave the AC off in my apartment.
I’ll keep you posted. Anyone have other energy-saving ideas for me?
Thursday, September 13, 2007
That Quiet Kid
It happens every semester.
There is one student (in my mind, usually male) who never talks. Sometimes he's in the back, sometimes he's in the front, but he just sits there and stares (sometimes under the brim of a baseball hat).
Then, inevitably, this kid writes a brilliant paper. And everything you said on the first day of class about the importance of participation, about how you have to talk to learn, about how we're all in this together and you have to contribute to learn right along with everyone else, etc. doesn't make sense. Because this kid said like one or two things the entire class thus far and yet seemed to get it more than anyone else.
I was always baffled about why this happened, up until this last week reading Living Speech by James Boyd White. White argues that much of what we say is "dead" speech -- cliches, empty phrases, chatter, propoganda -- it lacks meaning and life. He discusses briefly Quaker church services and Trappist monks, both of which are marked by silence. In a Quaker church service, everyone sits in silence until someone feels as though he or she has something meaningful to say. Similarly, the monks take a vow of silence not to alienate others but to clear away the clutter of daily life, to perhaps hear God better. (Though perhaps not as erudite of an example, there's an episode of Buffy where everyone loses their voice -- a similar point is made about how little of what we say actually means anything.) I mentioned this (the silent student, not the Buffy ep) to my professor, who remarked that studies of gifted children show that they spend a good portion of their day staring out the window.
I believe in silence in the classroom. After I ask a question, I usually let the silence stretch for quite some time -- silence gives students time to think. Sometimes you can't just answer a question right off the bat. Sometimes you need to look at your notes, or the reading, or the book, or sometimes you just need to stare out the window.
There is one student (in my mind, usually male) who never talks. Sometimes he's in the back, sometimes he's in the front, but he just sits there and stares (sometimes under the brim of a baseball hat).
Then, inevitably, this kid writes a brilliant paper. And everything you said on the first day of class about the importance of participation, about how you have to talk to learn, about how we're all in this together and you have to contribute to learn right along with everyone else, etc. doesn't make sense. Because this kid said like one or two things the entire class thus far and yet seemed to get it more than anyone else.
I was always baffled about why this happened, up until this last week reading Living Speech by James Boyd White. White argues that much of what we say is "dead" speech -- cliches, empty phrases, chatter, propoganda -- it lacks meaning and life. He discusses briefly Quaker church services and Trappist monks, both of which are marked by silence. In a Quaker church service, everyone sits in silence until someone feels as though he or she has something meaningful to say. Similarly, the monks take a vow of silence not to alienate others but to clear away the clutter of daily life, to perhaps hear God better. (Though perhaps not as erudite of an example, there's an episode of Buffy where everyone loses their voice -- a similar point is made about how little of what we say actually means anything.) I mentioned this (the silent student, not the Buffy ep) to my professor, who remarked that studies of gifted children show that they spend a good portion of their day staring out the window.
I believe in silence in the classroom. After I ask a question, I usually let the silence stretch for quite some time -- silence gives students time to think. Sometimes you can't just answer a question right off the bat. Sometimes you need to look at your notes, or the reading, or the book, or sometimes you just need to stare out the window.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Notes on Literacy
For my first unit in my composition course, I’ve decided to have students analyze and write their own literacy narratives. We’re spending the first week of class or so figuring out what a “literacy narrative” is, so I thought I might post some ideas here while I think it through for myself.
Questions
1. What does it mean to be literate? I just read David Russell’s introduction to Writing in the Academic Disciplines, and he writes, “”Literacy is thus a function of the specific community in which certain kinds of reading and writing activities take place … As Brazilian sociolinguist Terezina Carrahar notes, a professor may, without irony, express pleasure that her maid is ‘literate’ because she can barely decode recipes and take down phone messages, but complain that her students are ‘illiterate’ because they do not yet understand the conventions of written discourse in her discipline” (13). (We’re gonna go ahead and breeze through the idea that a professor could ever make enough money to hire a maid to take phone messages, and while we’re at it, we’ll forget about the complicated ethics of such a decision.)
2. How do different people/groups define literacy? What is the link between literacy and community?
3. What different kinds of literacies are there? Whenever I am around new people (as I have been recently), I often try to evaluate their pop-culture literacy, because pop culture is important to me and because I make a lot of pop culture references. In fact, even in writing this blog I’ve thought about how literate my readership is with respect to the various references I’m making. In this way, I’m sort of defining literacy as “knowing stuff about stuff” but more specifically in reference to people who read entertainment news, watch TV and movies, etc.
4. Who is our “best” audience for our writing? People who are literate in the same way we are? One of my pet peeves is people who randomly quote movie or TV show lines and then just stare at you as thought you’re supposed to know what they’re talking about. One of my favorite things though, is when people make those references and I get them. It’s like we’re sharing a literacy! So part of knowing your audience is knowing their literacy.
5. What literacies do I have? (Note: Word put a squiggly red line under “literacies”)
6. A literacy narrative is basically a story about language, speech, reading, or writing and learning. How does the style of the narrative reflect the literacy being explained?
7. Are most literacy narratives stories of failure or success?
8. How do we measure literacy?
9. Are some literacies valued more than others?
Questions
1. What does it mean to be literate? I just read David Russell’s introduction to Writing in the Academic Disciplines, and he writes, “”Literacy is thus a function of the specific community in which certain kinds of reading and writing activities take place … As Brazilian sociolinguist Terezina Carrahar notes, a professor may, without irony, express pleasure that her maid is ‘literate’ because she can barely decode recipes and take down phone messages, but complain that her students are ‘illiterate’ because they do not yet understand the conventions of written discourse in her discipline” (13). (We’re gonna go ahead and breeze through the idea that a professor could ever make enough money to hire a maid to take phone messages, and while we’re at it, we’ll forget about the complicated ethics of such a decision.)
2. How do different people/groups define literacy? What is the link between literacy and community?
3. What different kinds of literacies are there? Whenever I am around new people (as I have been recently), I often try to evaluate their pop-culture literacy, because pop culture is important to me and because I make a lot of pop culture references. In fact, even in writing this blog I’ve thought about how literate my readership is with respect to the various references I’m making. In this way, I’m sort of defining literacy as “knowing stuff about stuff” but more specifically in reference to people who read entertainment news, watch TV and movies, etc.
4. Who is our “best” audience for our writing? People who are literate in the same way we are? One of my pet peeves is people who randomly quote movie or TV show lines and then just stare at you as thought you’re supposed to know what they’re talking about. One of my favorite things though, is when people make those references and I get them. It’s like we’re sharing a literacy! So part of knowing your audience is knowing their literacy.
5. What literacies do I have? (Note: Word put a squiggly red line under “literacies”)
6. A literacy narrative is basically a story about language, speech, reading, or writing and learning. How does the style of the narrative reflect the literacy being explained?
7. Are most literacy narratives stories of failure or success?
8. How do we measure literacy?
9. Are some literacies valued more than others?
Monday, August 13, 2007
Yo Soy Movando
(Note of oddness: I picked out the photo on top for my blog in early June, when I first started the blog. The phot directly above is taken from the patio of my condo, which we didn't get until July -- weird)
Many thanks to those of you who have inquired about my move! Mom and I have been very busy furnishing the condo, and thus I have not had much time to contact people. Still, your messages are much appreciated!
Two highlights from the last week:
We arrived at the property early Friday morning, wanting to get one good look around before buying furniture. I opened the front door with the key we got from the real estate agent, and proceeded to try the same key in the second door. It wouldn't budge. Mom tried. Still, it wouldn't move. We twisted and turned the key, threw our weight against the door, and still nothing. It was about 100 degrees (I'm not kidding), and I have technically been homeless since June 1 (special thanks to our summer sponsors, Juliette and Jennifer, for letting me stay at their place this summer). I am tired of moving. We call the real estate agent, who informs us that the lock on the second door is broken, and we just have to push on it and it will open. "Oh," we say. So I threw myself against the door, and burst into my home (and new life in Arizona, etc.) Through the patio, I could see the sun shining brightly on the mountains. It was a glorious moment.
Friday we bought furniture, so Saturday, Mom and I decided to go to Nogales, Mexico for home decor, approximately a 45-minute drive from Tucson. We point the car towards the Santa Catalinas and drive. About half an hour later, the road signs switch from miles to kilometers (that zany metric system!) and my mom becomes convinced that we will accidentally drive across the border and suddenly be in Mexico. We arrive in Nogales, park the car, and because we're white Americans, stroll freely through the metal turnstile into Mexico. We find a beautiful Spanish-style mirror and end tables for the living room. The man selling us the stuff offers to carry it across the border back to our car (did I mention it's at least a mile walk, plus time in customs, plus its 90 degrees, plus there's about a million people milling around?) My mother, the cheapest person I know, insists that we are fine and capable of carrying close to 70 lbs. (50 kg) of home furnishings ourselves. I am bruised and have ruined a pair of capris, but we have gotten a bargain.
I’ve also had a chance to get to know many great people here. I am currently keeping busy designing my syllabus for teaching this year (and watching So You Think You Can Dance – go Neil!) Looking forward to LaRue coming down on Sunday.
More pics are on Facebook!
Two highlights from the last week:
We arrived at the property early Friday morning, wanting to get one good look around before buying furniture. I opened the front door with the key we got from the real estate agent, and proceeded to try the same key in the second door. It wouldn't budge. Mom tried. Still, it wouldn't move. We twisted and turned the key, threw our weight against the door, and still nothing. It was about 100 degrees (I'm not kidding), and I have technically been homeless since June 1 (special thanks to our summer sponsors, Juliette and Jennifer, for letting me stay at their place this summer). I am tired of moving. We call the real estate agent, who informs us that the lock on the second door is broken, and we just have to push on it and it will open. "Oh," we say. So I threw myself against the door, and burst into my home (and new life in Arizona, etc.) Through the patio, I could see the sun shining brightly on the mountains. It was a glorious moment.
Friday we bought furniture, so Saturday, Mom and I decided to go to Nogales, Mexico for home decor, approximately a 45-minute drive from Tucson. We point the car towards the Santa Catalinas and drive. About half an hour later, the road signs switch from miles to kilometers (that zany metric system!) and my mom becomes convinced that we will accidentally drive across the border and suddenly be in Mexico. We arrive in Nogales, park the car, and because we're white Americans, stroll freely through the metal turnstile into Mexico. We find a beautiful Spanish-style mirror and end tables for the living room. The man selling us the stuff offers to carry it across the border back to our car (did I mention it's at least a mile walk, plus time in customs, plus its 90 degrees, plus there's about a million people milling around?) My mother, the cheapest person I know, insists that we are fine and capable of carrying close to 70 lbs. (50 kg) of home furnishings ourselves. I am bruised and have ruined a pair of capris, but we have gotten a bargain.
I’ve also had a chance to get to know many great people here. I am currently keeping busy designing my syllabus for teaching this year (and watching So You Think You Can Dance – go Neil!) Looking forward to LaRue coming down on Sunday.
More pics are on Facebook!
Monday, July 23, 2007
My next writing class
I like to use writing to figure out the way I feel about something. I think the reason that college students sometimes write crappy research papers is that they weren’t genuinely curious. The way a research paper should work is that there is an urgent need to figure out something you don’t know. You begin with a question, separating what you do know from what you want to/need to know. Then, using the tools at your disposal, you find the information you seek, and place it into a form that’s most appropriate for your audience.
I don’t think it’s entirely possible in the first-year writing class to create a genuine research situation. Due to the nature of school and grading, it’s always going to be kind of faux. But I believe we can create research paper topics that genuinely interest students. But what would interest a random group of 20-year-olds? What confuses them? What do they want to know more about but do not yet have sufficient information?
Relationships. It seems to me that at the beginning of college students are leaving the high school mode of transient relationships. They’re less hormonal. They ‘re even beginning to think about the future, long-term relationships, even marriage. Though they’re processing all these possibilities, they don’t have it quite figured out yet. This is the perfect occasion for a research question. (Plus, I’m confused about relationships too, so we can all learn together. William Perry shows that students move to higher levels of intellectual development when the teacher is seen as “in the same boat”)
I’m thinking the class could even follow an arc of a relationship.
1. How do you find/create a relationship? How to pick up people, where to meet people. This could also include discussions of phenomena like online dating (rhetorical analysis of a match.com profile?), and of course, the awkwardness of first dates, dating etiquette. (Possible texts: online dating profiles, The Game, that scene from Magnolia where Tom Cruise plays the pickup artist, books that tell you how to pick up women/men, how to find a husband/wife )
2. How do you nurture a relationship? Transitioning from someone you’re “dating” to someone you’re “with” – In fact, think of how much terminology and wordplay factor into this phase. The first time your partner refers to the two of you as “us,” the first “I love you.” (Possible texts: Sex and the City, those self-help books that talk about how to get your boyfriend to propose to you)
3. How do you end a relationship? This is, of course, all a matter of words. How do you break up with someone? What do you say? (Possible texts: He’s Just Not That Into You/It’s Called A Breakup Because It’s Broken, that episode of Seinfeld about “It’s not you, it’s me” – in fact, any number of Seinfeld episodes would work, we could also analyze breakup songs)
4. How do you maintain a relationship? Marriage would be a topic here, obviously, and gay marriage and civil unions (I would have to make sure the class wasn’t too focused on the heterosexual). It might even be neat at this point to have students interview someone whose relationship they admire and ask for advice. (Possible texts: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus)
I’ve been looking up relationship books on Amazon, and they all have comic names like Why Men Love Bitches, and I Used to Miss Him But My Aim is Improving.
Does anyone have any suggestions for other texts I could use?
I don’t think it’s entirely possible in the first-year writing class to create a genuine research situation. Due to the nature of school and grading, it’s always going to be kind of faux. But I believe we can create research paper topics that genuinely interest students. But what would interest a random group of 20-year-olds? What confuses them? What do they want to know more about but do not yet have sufficient information?
Relationships. It seems to me that at the beginning of college students are leaving the high school mode of transient relationships. They’re less hormonal. They ‘re even beginning to think about the future, long-term relationships, even marriage. Though they’re processing all these possibilities, they don’t have it quite figured out yet. This is the perfect occasion for a research question. (Plus, I’m confused about relationships too, so we can all learn together. William Perry shows that students move to higher levels of intellectual development when the teacher is seen as “in the same boat”)
I’m thinking the class could even follow an arc of a relationship.
1. How do you find/create a relationship? How to pick up people, where to meet people. This could also include discussions of phenomena like online dating (rhetorical analysis of a match.com profile?), and of course, the awkwardness of first dates, dating etiquette. (Possible texts: online dating profiles, The Game, that scene from Magnolia where Tom Cruise plays the pickup artist, books that tell you how to pick up women/men, how to find a husband/wife )
2. How do you nurture a relationship? Transitioning from someone you’re “dating” to someone you’re “with” – In fact, think of how much terminology and wordplay factor into this phase. The first time your partner refers to the two of you as “us,” the first “I love you.” (Possible texts: Sex and the City, those self-help books that talk about how to get your boyfriend to propose to you)
3. How do you end a relationship? This is, of course, all a matter of words. How do you break up with someone? What do you say? (Possible texts: He’s Just Not That Into You/It’s Called A Breakup Because It’s Broken, that episode of Seinfeld about “It’s not you, it’s me” – in fact, any number of Seinfeld episodes would work, we could also analyze breakup songs)
4. How do you maintain a relationship? Marriage would be a topic here, obviously, and gay marriage and civil unions (I would have to make sure the class wasn’t too focused on the heterosexual). It might even be neat at this point to have students interview someone whose relationship they admire and ask for advice. (Possible texts: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus)
I’ve been looking up relationship books on Amazon, and they all have comic names like Why Men Love Bitches, and I Used to Miss Him But My Aim is Improving.
Does anyone have any suggestions for other texts I could use?
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Why I'll Miss You
I have written in this blog previously that I wanted to be little parts of different things; specifically, I wanted to glob together a bunch of religions and make them all my religion. I have since come to consider this further and maybe I think the integrity of each religion is a good thing. In fact, maybe I think each religion should just fully strive to be what it is, instead of making concessions to other religions and therefore diluting itself.
But I have decided that when you leave people (as I will be doing in just under two weeks), you can keep little parts of them. You can keep the story they told you and tell it as an anecdote at a party when you’re getting to know someone else. You can remember the way they handled themselves in a tough situation, and when faced with one yourself, you can draw on what you saw them do. You can treat people the way they treated them. You can remember one of their clever observations and use it to view the world. You can adopt their sense of humor, their taste in movies, their delights in simple things. You can tell stories with the certain inflection they always used. In a class this last semester, we talked about the plagiarism hysteria currently sweeping the country, and leading to phenomenon like turnitin.com, which victimizes students and polices the outcomes of plagiarisms without examining its underlying causes. But I think that when you’ve really gotten to know someone, really spent time with them, you plagiarize them. Little bits of them become all of you, and in this way, it’s like they never left.
So this is why, if you’re a person I’m leaving behind, I’ll miss you because I won’t be able to cheat off you anymore; because there won’t be any more stories or movies or observations to challenge me and shape me. I’m recording here some things I’m going to plagiarize from some of my good friends who won’t be in Arizona. In short, these are things that I admire about you, and I hope that in some small way I have learned from you.
Kristin: The way you feel comfortable in any group or setting, how you laugh
JR: Your ability to make people feel comfortable, to tell a good story (usually with impressions and hand gestures)
Jennifer: Your serenity, how it seems like nothing ever fazes you
Catherine: Your ability to accept things as they come (Daoism, I think it’s called)
Emily: How you embrace, unapologetically, your “dorkiness”
Dustin: Your humility and graciousness
Elizabeth: How you always rave about others, your loyalty
Angela: Your friendliness (and neighborliness)
Aaron: Your ability to BS
Reify: How you adapt to any situation (including hordes of English graduate students)
Juliette: How you always have a smile for everyone, no matter what their story
And the list goes on! I was just going through my Facebook friends list to create this, and I only included people who I thought wouldn't mind making an appearance here. In fact, it reminds me of my favorite goodbye line, from The Last Battle, the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia:
And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
But I have decided that when you leave people (as I will be doing in just under two weeks), you can keep little parts of them. You can keep the story they told you and tell it as an anecdote at a party when you’re getting to know someone else. You can remember the way they handled themselves in a tough situation, and when faced with one yourself, you can draw on what you saw them do. You can treat people the way they treated them. You can remember one of their clever observations and use it to view the world. You can adopt their sense of humor, their taste in movies, their delights in simple things. You can tell stories with the certain inflection they always used. In a class this last semester, we talked about the plagiarism hysteria currently sweeping the country, and leading to phenomenon like turnitin.com, which victimizes students and polices the outcomes of plagiarisms without examining its underlying causes. But I think that when you’ve really gotten to know someone, really spent time with them, you plagiarize them. Little bits of them become all of you, and in this way, it’s like they never left.
So this is why, if you’re a person I’m leaving behind, I’ll miss you because I won’t be able to cheat off you anymore; because there won’t be any more stories or movies or observations to challenge me and shape me. I’m recording here some things I’m going to plagiarize from some of my good friends who won’t be in Arizona. In short, these are things that I admire about you, and I hope that in some small way I have learned from you.
Kristin: The way you feel comfortable in any group or setting, how you laugh
JR: Your ability to make people feel comfortable, to tell a good story (usually with impressions and hand gestures)
Jennifer: Your serenity, how it seems like nothing ever fazes you
Catherine: Your ability to accept things as they come (Daoism, I think it’s called)
Emily: How you embrace, unapologetically, your “dorkiness”
Dustin: Your humility and graciousness
Elizabeth: How you always rave about others, your loyalty
Angela: Your friendliness (and neighborliness)
Aaron: Your ability to BS
Reify: How you adapt to any situation (including hordes of English graduate students)
Juliette: How you always have a smile for everyone, no matter what their story
And the list goes on! I was just going through my Facebook friends list to create this, and I only included people who I thought wouldn't mind making an appearance here. In fact, it reminds me of my favorite goodbye line, from The Last Battle, the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia:
And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
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