I'm feeling sick--I know, it's completely crappy, particularly because I've got a bunch of vocal stuff going on tomorrow, and I'm tired of getting colds before solos--and so I'm watching the Travel Channel to make me feel better. Why, you may ask, does the Travel Channel make me feel better? Well, I will tell you: it's because they always, as now, have features of Alaska. Right now, it's "1000 Places to See Before You Die," and it's great. It's so funny to me, though, that the very fact that I live so far away is what allows me to see hours of TV about my home. I mean, let's say I lived in Valdosta, GA. How many travel shows go there? But every travel show worth its salt has at least one episode featuring AK. It's also funny that, when I was at home, I used to watch "Rudy" to see ND, and now I'm watching TV to see AK. Can I never be happy where I am?
But the funniest--if in kind of a sad way--part of the whole thing is the pronunciation of different place names. They've been talking about the Kenai Peninsula (because they're in Seward, along China Poot Bay right now) and the narrator keeps calling it "K'naihy" instead of the proper "Keeenai". You and I both know it's because it sounds like he's trying to make it sound really proper and Native, and just fekking it up.
Right, I'm going sleepies now. Stupid head cold.
"It's hard to believe you can find a place so much like Paradise as Alaska."--traveller
"The people here in Alaska are very diverse and free-thinking, and not afraid to say what they think."--owner of Capt. Mike's Charters
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Have You Met Miss Jones?
B.J.'s Diary. It really is one of the best movies around; not for anything that Siskel or Roeper or anyone looking for a thoughtful movie might consider valuable, but for its acknowledgement that not much has changed since Jane Austen first sketched out the screenplay. Dysfunctional families collide, bad romantic decisions are made for the sake of mind blowing sex, the things we write bite us in the ass--and the carrot of hope is dangled that, despite it all, you may end up with Colin Firth, the most obnoxiously hot man alive.
Obnoxious doesn't usually go with hot, you're thinking. You're right--perhaps I should explain. It's that he has an attainable hotness, tempered by many character flaws that make him seem realistic. Women love Colin for the same reason men love Rachael Ray: she's no Giada di Laurentiis, but how many men actually get a Giada? But Rachael--she's normal; girl-next-door cute, attainable. Giada would take half an hour and look like the front of Vogue, but Rachael would take 5 minutes, be ready to go bowling, like all of your friends, and might have a problem swearing that you don't find out about until you're living together, at which point it tickles you because it's so unexpected.
Right...having read that, I suppose that, in all honesty, Colin really is more like Giada...although give him half an hour and he'd be in a Savile Row suit, sipping The Macallan 25 and pondering an economically plausible world peace. But he'd also be the kind of person that you have to knock off his high horse every once in a while, just so he could view the world from his back. Mmm. Anyway. Yes. Colin Firth, man o' my dreams, obnoxious in that his physical appearance isn't that of an Orlando Bloom or (dare I say it?) a Brad Pitt, but that his fame, still undeniable smouldering sex appeal, wicked accent and serious relationship with some lovely Italian woman make him completely unattainable. Oh, btw--yes. He lives in Italy. Yes, he can speak Italian. Yes, hotness points are attached to the ability to speak one or more Romance languages that are not French.
Song of the Moment: Heaven Help--Angie Stone
Obnoxious doesn't usually go with hot, you're thinking. You're right--perhaps I should explain. It's that he has an attainable hotness, tempered by many character flaws that make him seem realistic. Women love Colin for the same reason men love Rachael Ray: she's no Giada di Laurentiis, but how many men actually get a Giada? But Rachael--she's normal; girl-next-door cute, attainable. Giada would take half an hour and look like the front of Vogue, but Rachael would take 5 minutes, be ready to go bowling, like all of your friends, and might have a problem swearing that you don't find out about until you're living together, at which point it tickles you because it's so unexpected.
Right...having read that, I suppose that, in all honesty, Colin really is more like Giada...although give him half an hour and he'd be in a Savile Row suit, sipping The Macallan 25 and pondering an economically plausible world peace. But he'd also be the kind of person that you have to knock off his high horse every once in a while, just so he could view the world from his back. Mmm. Anyway. Yes. Colin Firth, man o' my dreams, obnoxious in that his physical appearance isn't that of an Orlando Bloom or (dare I say it?) a Brad Pitt, but that his fame, still undeniable smouldering sex appeal, wicked accent and serious relationship with some lovely Italian woman make him completely unattainable. Oh, btw--yes. He lives in Italy. Yes, he can speak Italian. Yes, hotness points are attached to the ability to speak one or more Romance languages that are not French.
Song of the Moment: Heaven Help--Angie Stone
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
So Much to Do, So Little Time
That I forget all the things that I need to be productive at home. At this point, though, it would be silly to go home and get them, because I can almost guarantee that I'm going to fall asleep if I so much as think about home.
Or, thinking about it--I could potentially do laundry while working. This plan will only work, though, if the roomies are all out. Which, honestly, they tend to be during the day...hmmm...this plan could work.
Somewhere in the plan for the day I need to make a list of places I could live, once I get home, and the benefits of each place. I mean, I'll be able to live with my parental units (and by "able" I mean, I'll need to and they're willing) as long as I want, but I'd really like to spend the summer hoarding a little nest egg and move out sometime in Sept., depending on the job I'm able to get. Right now, the debate is do I want to live with someone, or do I want to try being out on my own? Obviously, each depends upon the job I get, but it's nice to start thinking ahead, especially ballparking rents, etc.
Yeah, that was a whole paragraph that essentially said nothing. Wahoo.
Song of the Moment: Seventy-Six Trombones from "The Music Man." For no reason whatsoever.
Or, thinking about it--I could potentially do laundry while working. This plan will only work, though, if the roomies are all out. Which, honestly, they tend to be during the day...hmmm...this plan could work.
Somewhere in the plan for the day I need to make a list of places I could live, once I get home, and the benefits of each place. I mean, I'll be able to live with my parental units (and by "able" I mean, I'll need to and they're willing) as long as I want, but I'd really like to spend the summer hoarding a little nest egg and move out sometime in Sept., depending on the job I'm able to get. Right now, the debate is do I want to live with someone, or do I want to try being out on my own? Obviously, each depends upon the job I get, but it's nice to start thinking ahead, especially ballparking rents, etc.
Yeah, that was a whole paragraph that essentially said nothing. Wahoo.
Song of the Moment: Seventy-Six Trombones from "The Music Man." For no reason whatsoever.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Exercise
Ah, writing exercises. This is by no means a poem, not yet anyway, but I kind of like it so I'm letting it out.
I woke in the desert this morning
spread eagle and finely dusted with corn
dust like pollen, like seeded sweat
in one hand a prickleless pear
blue agave spine in the other
body wrapped in fine linen going
dingy, wrinkling to store the dust
a wearable map of sleeping
and this is no religion, no God
found in the pointing of succulents
though I brought one to my mouth
bit and spat and sucked the stored
water that tasted musty and fresh
all arid paradoxes, this morning
no, this morning was a gift of dreaming
an odd syncopation of heartbeats
until finally a gecko, desert sybil
clung wall-less to my brow
high and wide and open like a basking
rock where he began to know the day
under the the waking lizard, mouth
smeared with cactus dew
eyes dilated despite the rising sun
this was a gift of dreaming and
revelation--some dreams belong
to the waking hours
to the deserts that rise between
waking and working
some deserts need no rain to bloom
when the sand itself is blossom
I woke in the desert this morning
spread eagle and finely dusted with corn
dust like pollen, like seeded sweat
in one hand a prickleless pear
blue agave spine in the other
body wrapped in fine linen going
dingy, wrinkling to store the dust
a wearable map of sleeping
and this is no religion, no God
found in the pointing of succulents
though I brought one to my mouth
bit and spat and sucked the stored
water that tasted musty and fresh
all arid paradoxes, this morning
no, this morning was a gift of dreaming
an odd syncopation of heartbeats
until finally a gecko, desert sybil
clung wall-less to my brow
high and wide and open like a basking
rock where he began to know the day
under the the waking lizard, mouth
smeared with cactus dew
eyes dilated despite the rising sun
this was a gift of dreaming and
revelation--some dreams belong
to the waking hours
to the deserts that rise between
waking and working
some deserts need no rain to bloom
when the sand itself is blossom
Oh, Vanity
I was styling my hair today--for those of you who just started freaking out, no, I was neither on medication nor did it have anything to do with dye or high- or low-lights--and started thinking, "man, I have great hair."
Yeah, I know--for the love of cheese, who puts that kind of thing into a blog? Me, because it's all I could think about to write, and I was in a writing mood. Anyway, back to my hair.
Now, I'm not saying that I always do great things with my hair. Absolutely not. I mean, I have style, but I have been the victim of some pretty huge fashion faux pas, some mine and some other people's. There are, of course, the (multiple, if you can believe that) instances of dye+Nyquil=flamehead, which then had to be rectified; the time I thought that bangs were the best thing in the world, when they're big and barrel-curled (thank God that only lasted a year or so); the pigtailed french braids every day for a month (variety is the spice, and Heidi is no spice at all). And the cuts: the Katie-cum-Alsatian really long hair of senior year of high school; the flat pixies of senior year of college; any time I have two antenna-like curls, one on each side of my head a la Francesca's wedding (rest of the hair looked good, though); the tall nouveau flock-of-seagulls that caused my boss to comment, which in turn made me cry and run to the hairdresser who made it worse by giving me; the post-chemo spike cut; and any time I'm in the process of growing my hair out when it's in the 'tween lengths.
You'd think, with all those errors in judgment, my hair would be the last thing I would write about, except that the hair itself is awesome. It's wicked thick (sorry, Dad), does pretty much anything I want it to (which makes those mistakes listed above all me and not the fault of the locks) and is pretty sweet color wise. I used to call it my mood hair, because depending on the day it can seem reddish, blondish, or brownish...and then will change again when it's exposed to sun. It really is my favorite thing about myself. It has also garnered me the most interesting(albeit weirdest and most out of place) compliment of my life:
"You have sex hair."
My response was, clearly--"Excuse me?" And yes, I had heard him correctly (a friend who shall remain nameless). He said "sex hair." I had no freakin' clue what that meant. At that point in time, I had the Paige Davis (Trading Spaces host) hair from the first couple of seasons; spiky and flipped in the back, side swept bangs, textured in the front. Fun hair, but it needed to be styled every morning and all I could think was "If he means it looks good the morning after, he'd be terribly disappointed...I normally have a faux hawk when I wake up...anything but attractive."
That is not what he meant, however. He meant my hair is sultry; it has attitude but is still touchable, has movement, swing and style. And, doing my hair this morning, I thought, "yeah, it does!" So, yay me, winning at least one round in the genetic lottery. Not gonna lie, probably wouldn't have called it "sex hair," but he's a guy, so that was the best he could come up with, and when it's an eh kind of day, it's something nice to have in my pocket. The compliment, not the hair, which is clearly on my head and not in my pocket. How creepy.
Song of the Moment: "Trashin' the Camp" from Tarzan... I was trying to think which version, but I like them both...Phil Collins + Cast, as well as Phil Collins + *NSync
Yeah, I know--for the love of cheese, who puts that kind of thing into a blog? Me, because it's all I could think about to write, and I was in a writing mood. Anyway, back to my hair.
Now, I'm not saying that I always do great things with my hair. Absolutely not. I mean, I have style, but I have been the victim of some pretty huge fashion faux pas, some mine and some other people's. There are, of course, the (multiple, if you can believe that) instances of dye+Nyquil=flamehead, which then had to be rectified; the time I thought that bangs were the best thing in the world, when they're big and barrel-curled (thank God that only lasted a year or so); the pigtailed french braids every day for a month (variety is the spice, and Heidi is no spice at all). And the cuts: the Katie-cum-Alsatian really long hair of senior year of high school; the flat pixies of senior year of college; any time I have two antenna-like curls, one on each side of my head a la Francesca's wedding (rest of the hair looked good, though); the tall nouveau flock-of-seagulls that caused my boss to comment, which in turn made me cry and run to the hairdresser who made it worse by giving me; the post-chemo spike cut; and any time I'm in the process of growing my hair out when it's in the 'tween lengths.
You'd think, with all those errors in judgment, my hair would be the last thing I would write about, except that the hair itself is awesome. It's wicked thick (sorry, Dad), does pretty much anything I want it to (which makes those mistakes listed above all me and not the fault of the locks) and is pretty sweet color wise. I used to call it my mood hair, because depending on the day it can seem reddish, blondish, or brownish...and then will change again when it's exposed to sun. It really is my favorite thing about myself. It has also garnered me the most interesting(albeit weirdest and most out of place) compliment of my life:
"You have sex hair."
My response was, clearly--"Excuse me?" And yes, I had heard him correctly (a friend who shall remain nameless). He said "sex hair." I had no freakin' clue what that meant. At that point in time, I had the Paige Davis (Trading Spaces host) hair from the first couple of seasons; spiky and flipped in the back, side swept bangs, textured in the front. Fun hair, but it needed to be styled every morning and all I could think was "If he means it looks good the morning after, he'd be terribly disappointed...I normally have a faux hawk when I wake up...anything but attractive."
That is not what he meant, however. He meant my hair is sultry; it has attitude but is still touchable, has movement, swing and style. And, doing my hair this morning, I thought, "yeah, it does!" So, yay me, winning at least one round in the genetic lottery. Not gonna lie, probably wouldn't have called it "sex hair," but he's a guy, so that was the best he could come up with, and when it's an eh kind of day, it's something nice to have in my pocket. The compliment, not the hair, which is clearly on my head and not in my pocket. How creepy.
Song of the Moment: "Trashin' the Camp" from Tarzan... I was trying to think which version, but I like them both...Phil Collins + Cast, as well as Phil Collins + *NSync
Friday, March 16, 2007
I'd Be A Crappy Telemarketer
So I'm supposed to interview a living church music composer for my theology class. Normally, not a problem--I mean, holy crap, I spend three days a week with two of them, right? No, not right, because (despite what the assignment says) Roman Catholic composers are off limits, and the only ones I know strangely enough happen to be Catholic. I also misread the assignment, and thought the composer had to be from the hymnal that we wrote about in a previous assignment, which in my case was the Trinity Hymnal. Note: only about 15 composers from Trinity Hymnal are still alive, and of them, only 6 are younger than 70.
SO I finally found a composer and made contact through her publisher. I'm supposed to call her tonight at 9, and my stomach is in knots about it. We have a shitload of questions we're supposed to ask, and I'm calling her on her own time to help me do my homework. I hate this! I even typed the questions up and emailed them to her, hoping she'll choose to respond that way and I won't have to talk to her.
I hate cold calling. Which is why I would be a shitty telemarketer.
SO I finally found a composer and made contact through her publisher. I'm supposed to call her tonight at 9, and my stomach is in knots about it. We have a shitload of questions we're supposed to ask, and I'm calling her on her own time to help me do my homework. I hate this! I even typed the questions up and emailed them to her, hoping she'll choose to respond that way and I won't have to talk to her.
I hate cold calling. Which is why I would be a shitty telemarketer.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Goodbye 2.0, Round 1
When I finally head home--two months and 6 days from now--one of the things I will miss most is architecture: columns and shutters and gingerbread trim and soaring ceilings; wood paneling and arches and turrets and spires that speak romance to the eye--that make the viewer want to know who lived and worked within those walls.
I will miss copses of oaks and sycamore, and the tulip magnolias that weep ivory and bruises in the spring. I will miss the bigness of sky that so terrified me when I got here, six and a half years ago, and the smallness of towns that are little more than hamlets...osteoperotic brick buildings huddling against one stop sign fire, backs to the prairie wind.
I will miss accidental encounters; the knowing that, if I am in a given place at any time of day, someone there will know me, and care. I will miss history, and watching the people who make it, and midnight jam-and-journal sessions, and sitting in empty classrooms after hours.
I leave here a piece of myself; a large piece that, this time, I will not be back to retrieve. I leave so many firsts, a dozen lasts, and the remnants of my idealism, though not my ideals. Those, and so many other things, innumerable and immeasurable in value, I take with me, to soothe the swelling ache that creeps in, now and then, of goodbyes and the tears that always follow them.
This, I imagine, is what Heloise might have felt after a reunion with Abelard: the passion of the first loving and anguished first leaving, and then--in Rome or London or Paris, at some meeting of abbots and abbesses or papal summons--the moment when eyes meet and love and lust return, the need to define self by the boundary of another's arms. This moment, then, is the morning two years later, waking in the abbot's cell to realize that once, she lived without and survived. In that realizing--the beauty but unnecessity of this love--she knows it is time to leave, and that from now on all letters will be merely sincere. That she has been the abbots whore, and is ready to be the emperor's wife, has had comfort and is now ready for challenge.
I will miss copses of oaks and sycamore, and the tulip magnolias that weep ivory and bruises in the spring. I will miss the bigness of sky that so terrified me when I got here, six and a half years ago, and the smallness of towns that are little more than hamlets...osteoperotic brick buildings huddling against one stop sign fire, backs to the prairie wind.
I will miss accidental encounters; the knowing that, if I am in a given place at any time of day, someone there will know me, and care. I will miss history, and watching the people who make it, and midnight jam-and-journal sessions, and sitting in empty classrooms after hours.
I leave here a piece of myself; a large piece that, this time, I will not be back to retrieve. I leave so many firsts, a dozen lasts, and the remnants of my idealism, though not my ideals. Those, and so many other things, innumerable and immeasurable in value, I take with me, to soothe the swelling ache that creeps in, now and then, of goodbyes and the tears that always follow them.
This, I imagine, is what Heloise might have felt after a reunion with Abelard: the passion of the first loving and anguished first leaving, and then--in Rome or London or Paris, at some meeting of abbots and abbesses or papal summons--the moment when eyes meet and love and lust return, the need to define self by the boundary of another's arms. This moment, then, is the morning two years later, waking in the abbot's cell to realize that once, she lived without and survived. In that realizing--the beauty but unnecessity of this love--she knows it is time to leave, and that from now on all letters will be merely sincere. That she has been the abbots whore, and is ready to be the emperor's wife, has had comfort and is now ready for challenge.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
I Wish I Could Go Back To College...oh, wait...
Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been a great audience. Oh, no—you’re worried that I’m officially leaving the blogosphere, after the semiretirement I’ve been in for the past several months? (Or thrilled that it’s finally happening?) Well, don’t be. I’m not leaving the blog; I’m resigning my attachment to education and academia, altogether. I’m done. Someone get a big damned fork.
Why, you may ask? Because of a foul little surprise I got when I came home yesterday. And no, it wasn’t something Jake had done in my absence or my shoes. It was my weekly edition of U.S. News & World Report.
This magazine is irritating on several levels, not the least of which is that I didn’t want it to begin with. I was simply sucked into one of those stupid Publisher’s Clearinghouse things and now can’t get out of it; they siphon $29.90 a month out of my checking account and ship out my “heavily discounted” installments of U.S. News, Redbook, Fitness, and Glamour. I didn’t choose these magazines, but they keep ignoring my requests for different selections (like Vogue, a magazine for adults interested in fashion rather than Glamour, which is for the woman wants “50 ways to (really) orgasm!” and doesn’t recognize a Gucci purse without the monogram). I’m also not 50 (Redbook), convinced that I can find washboard abs in ten minutes a day (Fitness). And I’ll be getting these things (read: being leeched of 30 bucks a month) for the next two years.
No, what really got me today is what’s inside the U.S. News: the federal government wants a college exit exam and higher “accountability” protocols for colleges. Apparently, the government (and its overly-whiney, overly blameless Baby Boomer sugardaddys) feel that, if college tuitions are going to keep rising, and tax dollars are going to be funneled into colleges and universities, then it needs some data to make sure that the colleges are doing their part to ensure success. Apparently, only 63% of entering freshman graduate in 6 or fewer years, and we must find someone to blame. Parents are paying for this education, the average student leaves college with $19000 in loan debt, and we have nothing that says they’ve learned anything.
First: Diploma = school’s reputation in your hands. If you’re an idiot and they give you one anyway, they’re bigger idiots. Turning out smart people means more smart people will come, which means more money, in tuition, grants and alumni donations. It’s economics, people, that even I can understand. The consumer’s not going to buy a rotten banana, and if she gets one in her bunch, she’s going to switch grocers, tell all of her friends, and said grocer is SOL.
Second—huh? $19000 average debt? There must be a ton of people out there with a lot less debt than that, because with 88k on my own, I’m pretty sure I’ve skewed the average, as, probably, do most of the upper/middle class students at ND and other institutions. Only 7%, might I add, of that was federally funded—does that mean the Dept. of Ed. gets to use my whole educational experience to justify its investment? If I’m responsible for 93% of the debt, do I get to do worse and still pass? And oh, by the way, I still get friggin’ taxed on the money I’ll use to pay it back, so they’re getting interest and taxes, and the principle back. Yes, I know this is ridiculous—but I’m relatively livid, and sick, neither of which is helping my logic skills.
Third: I was under the impression that we were adults. And yes, I mean past tense, because it looks like achieving the age of 18 and leaving hearth and home for 8 months of the year no longer make us adults, or accountable for our own performance in college. More and more I hear professors, TAs and advisors talking about the parents who call to ask about their children’s grades, and how the instructor should be doing more/grading easier/grading more equitably/grading according to the student’s potential rather than his performance. WTF? I’m sorry, but the last time I checked we lived in a meritocracy, where personal performance was everything; if college is supposed to be preparing your child for that, why are you making excuses? Are you going to call the kid’s boss when he gets a poor evaluation at work? No, and he’ll have no idea how to deal with it—the fact that his actions determine his path and rewards. Why? Not because college didn’t prepare him for it, but because you as parent never let him fall on his ass, realizing in the process that the rest of the world does not exist to kiss it.
Essentially, this “government oversight” is just an extension of the bitchy parent, wanting to blame someone else for the fact that Straight-A, 1600 SAT Suzy (or is it 2400 now? bigger numbers make people feel better about themselves, you know) dropped out of college because she decided that drinking every night was cooler than studying, or that she really does want to be a hairstylist and doesn’t need a degree to do it, or that if her parents will let her couch surf for the rest of her life while blaming other people, why shouldn’t she? It may be fiction, but at least Mr. Wilder accepted that it was Van—not the school—that was proving to be a bad investment, an error in his own judgment. The “Me” generation is doing what it does best: holding others accountable for its own poor judgment. The Baby Boomers wanted warning labels on music because they couldn’t be bothered to listen to their children’s tunes, rating systems because they won’t watch movies before showing them to their children, parental locks on computers and TV because they’ve never told their children “no” and meant it. In other words, they want someone else to be the heavy, someone else to make sure that there’s no way their kid can screw up.
Thing is, I thought that, through loans—from parents, from the government—we weren’t investing in the institution, but rather in the student. So why would a student’s poor performance—or great performance—have a bearing on the school? Let's face it--college is where we get to see the "voucher system" in action, precisely because the money follows the student to his choice of schools. Bet the Bush Administration never thought of that comparison, because if it had, it would seed the interior conflict to its desired educational policies.
Regardless, the quality of my instruction, as a teacher, doesn’t change if the student fails to show up, but that won’t matter to the feds. The quality of the books in the Hesburgh won’t diminish because the student prefers The Library to the library. The math department can be amazing, but can’t be held responsible for the fact that my hatred of algebra keeps me from opening up to it. And it is not a reflection on the school if it takes me 4 years or 27 to graduate—it’s a reflection on me, my priorities and my life challenges. The education isn’t worth less if it happens at night after work or more if it happens all day every day. What matters is ultimately—and only—what I do with it, and that can’t be measured in anything but my lifetime of successes and failures; certainly not by a test in three hours at the end of senior year.
In other words: after making it through public education just before NCLB fekked it up, I really want the feds to keep their hands off the colleges. College students are as successful as we choose to be, and the last things we need are more tests, designed by people who have no idea who we are, what they want us to learn, or how we’d use that information once we had it. Shut up, sign the check (guys—it’s a loan, not a gift; you’re getting interest, so get your nose out of my classroom) and please—let us at last learn how to take care of ourselves.
Why, you may ask? Because of a foul little surprise I got when I came home yesterday. And no, it wasn’t something Jake had done in my absence or my shoes. It was my weekly edition of U.S. News & World Report.
This magazine is irritating on several levels, not the least of which is that I didn’t want it to begin with. I was simply sucked into one of those stupid Publisher’s Clearinghouse things and now can’t get out of it; they siphon $29.90 a month out of my checking account and ship out my “heavily discounted” installments of U.S. News, Redbook, Fitness, and Glamour. I didn’t choose these magazines, but they keep ignoring my requests for different selections (like Vogue, a magazine for adults interested in fashion rather than Glamour, which is for the woman wants “50 ways to (really) orgasm!” and doesn’t recognize a Gucci purse without the monogram). I’m also not 50 (Redbook), convinced that I can find washboard abs in ten minutes a day (Fitness). And I’ll be getting these things (read: being leeched of 30 bucks a month) for the next two years.
No, what really got me today is what’s inside the U.S. News: the federal government wants a college exit exam and higher “accountability” protocols for colleges. Apparently, the government (and its overly-whiney, overly blameless Baby Boomer sugardaddys) feel that, if college tuitions are going to keep rising, and tax dollars are going to be funneled into colleges and universities, then it needs some data to make sure that the colleges are doing their part to ensure success. Apparently, only 63% of entering freshman graduate in 6 or fewer years, and we must find someone to blame. Parents are paying for this education, the average student leaves college with $19000 in loan debt, and we have nothing that says they’ve learned anything.
First: Diploma = school’s reputation in your hands. If you’re an idiot and they give you one anyway, they’re bigger idiots. Turning out smart people means more smart people will come, which means more money, in tuition, grants and alumni donations. It’s economics, people, that even I can understand. The consumer’s not going to buy a rotten banana, and if she gets one in her bunch, she’s going to switch grocers, tell all of her friends, and said grocer is SOL.
Second—huh? $19000 average debt? There must be a ton of people out there with a lot less debt than that, because with 88k on my own, I’m pretty sure I’ve skewed the average, as, probably, do most of the upper/middle class students at ND and other institutions. Only 7%, might I add, of that was federally funded—does that mean the Dept. of Ed. gets to use my whole educational experience to justify its investment? If I’m responsible for 93% of the debt, do I get to do worse and still pass? And oh, by the way, I still get friggin’ taxed on the money I’ll use to pay it back, so they’re getting interest and taxes, and the principle back. Yes, I know this is ridiculous—but I’m relatively livid, and sick, neither of which is helping my logic skills.
Third: I was under the impression that we were adults. And yes, I mean past tense, because it looks like achieving the age of 18 and leaving hearth and home for 8 months of the year no longer make us adults, or accountable for our own performance in college. More and more I hear professors, TAs and advisors talking about the parents who call to ask about their children’s grades, and how the instructor should be doing more/grading easier/grading more equitably/grading according to the student’s potential rather than his performance. WTF? I’m sorry, but the last time I checked we lived in a meritocracy, where personal performance was everything; if college is supposed to be preparing your child for that, why are you making excuses? Are you going to call the kid’s boss when he gets a poor evaluation at work? No, and he’ll have no idea how to deal with it—the fact that his actions determine his path and rewards. Why? Not because college didn’t prepare him for it, but because you as parent never let him fall on his ass, realizing in the process that the rest of the world does not exist to kiss it.
Essentially, this “government oversight” is just an extension of the bitchy parent, wanting to blame someone else for the fact that Straight-A, 1600 SAT Suzy (or is it 2400 now? bigger numbers make people feel better about themselves, you know) dropped out of college because she decided that drinking every night was cooler than studying, or that she really does want to be a hairstylist and doesn’t need a degree to do it, or that if her parents will let her couch surf for the rest of her life while blaming other people, why shouldn’t she? It may be fiction, but at least Mr. Wilder accepted that it was Van—not the school—that was proving to be a bad investment, an error in his own judgment. The “Me” generation is doing what it does best: holding others accountable for its own poor judgment. The Baby Boomers wanted warning labels on music because they couldn’t be bothered to listen to their children’s tunes, rating systems because they won’t watch movies before showing them to their children, parental locks on computers and TV because they’ve never told their children “no” and meant it. In other words, they want someone else to be the heavy, someone else to make sure that there’s no way their kid can screw up.
Thing is, I thought that, through loans—from parents, from the government—we weren’t investing in the institution, but rather in the student. So why would a student’s poor performance—or great performance—have a bearing on the school? Let's face it--college is where we get to see the "voucher system" in action, precisely because the money follows the student to his choice of schools. Bet the Bush Administration never thought of that comparison, because if it had, it would seed the interior conflict to its desired educational policies.
Regardless, the quality of my instruction, as a teacher, doesn’t change if the student fails to show up, but that won’t matter to the feds. The quality of the books in the Hesburgh won’t diminish because the student prefers The Library to the library. The math department can be amazing, but can’t be held responsible for the fact that my hatred of algebra keeps me from opening up to it. And it is not a reflection on the school if it takes me 4 years or 27 to graduate—it’s a reflection on me, my priorities and my life challenges. The education isn’t worth less if it happens at night after work or more if it happens all day every day. What matters is ultimately—and only—what I do with it, and that can’t be measured in anything but my lifetime of successes and failures; certainly not by a test in three hours at the end of senior year.
In other words: after making it through public education just before NCLB fekked it up, I really want the feds to keep their hands off the colleges. College students are as successful as we choose to be, and the last things we need are more tests, designed by people who have no idea who we are, what they want us to learn, or how we’d use that information once we had it. Shut up, sign the check (guys—it’s a loan, not a gift; you’re getting interest, so get your nose out of my classroom) and please—let us at last learn how to take care of ourselves.
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