30 Day Challenge

In order to keep myself actively posting through the holidays, I am going to steal this facebook trend and use it as a blog motivator. A blogivator, if you will. Here's how it goes:
Day 01 - A picture of yourself with fifteen facts.


As you can probably tell, this is not me. I will not post pictures of the real me, not yet. Maybe, internet, if you all start being my friends and commenting, I will one day repeat this with more real (realer? Is it time for holiday brain yet?) pictures. I digress.
1.) If I were an anime character, this would be me. Scissors and all.
2.) Today I completed the longest paper I've ever written.
3.) Tomorrow I will start and complete a shorter paper.
4.) I am knitting a fashion-scarf.
5.) I am an excellent dancer.
6.) I haven't stretched in weeks because I've been tired and busy- must get back into it!!!!
7.) I have two rabbits. They are lovely.
8.) I have one husband. He is also lovely.
9.) Avacados are my favourite food.
10.) I drink too much coffee.
11.) red wine is probably my favourite beverage. I can drink an entire bottle myself. This will become a problem when we decide to have babies.
12.) I dream of having a whole room dedicated to books (instead of the half-room we currently have dedicated to books)
13.) I fell down the stairs last weekend- I did an entire summersault!
14.) I am very lucky I didn't break my neck!
15.) I don't have good enough words to talk about the Montreal Massacre. You should look it up and have a moment of silence for those brainy, brainy ladies.

It's that time of year again...

... Exam time is here again! And my mom!

Alright, so I don't actually have exams... but I do have a ton of essay writing and marking to do, and five application packets to get together for PhD programs, and am still in a state of constant exhaustion. Plus I am researching for someone, plus I am working two days at a diner. Except that, well, I'm not. I've taken my last three shifts (one and one half weeks!) off because of school/stress. There aren't enough hours in a week to accomplish everything I need to. There aren't enough hours in a week to spare the eleven that my current job is taking from me. Don't get me wrong, I love this job. However, when I was on the phone with my boss this morning, explaining that I had asked another girl to cover my shift for tomorrow because I just can't do it right now, I secretly hoped she would fire me. Yup, you read that right. I hope she would say "you're taking too much time off and you're being a huge pain. Please pick up your cheque and don't come back." In real life I really hope that when I leave this place I do so on excellent terms- they've been wonderful to me as friends, employers, and coworkers. I love the job, but I hate how tired I am all the time. Waking up and thinking "I don't want to go to work today" is especially terrible when what you reall mean is "I could really use that six hours for writing or researching."
On the plus side, the prof that I am currently working for has offered me another job helping with formatting on an anthology she and another academic are working on. We're waiting to see if she gets the grant she's applied for, and then how many hours she'll be able to pay me for. If it all works out, and I can get enough hours, I am going to consider leaving my other job. Maybe. I always feel bad quitting, even under the most terrible working conditions. Leaving a place that I love sooooo much will be even harder. I'll keep you updated.

Have any of you had to leave a place you loved working?

A tangled end-of-term rant.

There will be no paragraph divides in this post, because I feel like torturing you the way first year essays sometimes torture me. Not that I blame the students 100%, not even close. Right now, in a single class I've got several students that are writing pretty medium to well papers. They exist on a range of "pretty okay argument that you maybe should have thought about a bit longer so your ideas would be better organized" to "this is an excellent thesis, great work!" Their writing ranges from "I can understand what you are trying to say, and this excites me!" to "once you develop stylistically your writing will probably be pleasurable to read." It's great. Why, you ask, have I grouped this wide range of students together (I forgot to mention that I am only including a small portion of the class). Because they are all consistently telling me about "the kings hat" and how "three king's went to buy a hat." Do you see the problem? They all know that there is a rule here, and they are all messing it up consistently. This wouldn't be so bad, if the rule were not to end a sentence with a preposition. This rule sometimes makes writing more terrible. Yes. It can make writing terrible-r (my ipad actually won't let me do this without the dash). Example (courtesy of a lovely friend and lovelier conversation yesterday): "That is something up with which I will not put." Yeah. Because so many students are going to read something as convoluted as that and think "that's way easier and clearer than writing "that is something I will not put up with," thanks grammar handbook!" How will these students tell the difference between "students work" and "student's work?" Most important to this particular rant, how did a whole group of students coming into university at the same time learn this mistake so well? I am suspicious that they may have all had the same high school teacher, and this makes me sad. In other news, I am reaching the end of my term as well, and am hammering through seminars, papers, and research that I should not have put off so much earlier in the term. Lesson learned! I am also sliding into procrastination mode, but it is a very new kind of procrastination for me. Rather than cleaning the house instead of doing work, I have been rewarding myself for doing work by giving myself breaks with which to clean the house. Is this an effect of grad school, or simply a sign that I am getting old?

Mouse: Remixed

So our very humane trap caught a mouse within an hour. Yay for us, being so smart and loving! Yay for hippies! Yay for coddling the smug bastard of a mouse into a new home... or... not.
Apparently the husband killed the mouse. I was very upset about this, but did some reading about it- you can't catch and release a mouse unless you are going to release it miles and miles from your home, and it was past 1am and below -20 when the husband came home. I understand not wanting to sit beside mr. smug supreme in the car so that he can be let go. I was still very sad (and took the opportunity to remind the husband that I still need to learn how to drive again- I have kept paying for my license, but haven't driven seven years, and never in the city. Plus our car is standard, and all of my driving experience, except my initial few weeks of training, have been on an automatic)- I was already contemplating letting it go just because it clearly didn't know it was caught. It oscillated between grooming itself and throwing itself at the top of the cup to get more cream cheese. And pooping. I probably should have just knocked the cup over and told the husband that the cup wasn't heavy enough. As far as modes of execution go, the mouse froze to death. Apparently this is one of the most humane ways to let them go, which made me a bit more happy.

This happiness was crushed shortly after when I dragged my lazy bum out of bed an hour after the husband had left (to be fair, I usually stay up quite late working, and then sleep until ten or so) and found that he had re-set his trap. I say "his" trap because we had both made humane traps- he had made the glass trap, and I had made a bowl trap (a ramp for the mouse to get up into a metal bowl that has been oiled- the mouse can get in, but can't climb back out) . So, he has reset his trap, which leaves me a bit hurt. We we had agreed to leave my trap up to give it an equal change at mouse-catching, mostly because we had bet each other a massage that our trap would catch more mice, and here he was mocking me by trying to catch way more mice because his trap is better. Unfair!
And then, I noticed the mouse poops. I immediately put more cream cheese into the glass (it is the more effective trap) so that it would be fresh and attract this other mouse.

How many can there be? Will this trap be successful a second time, or does it now smell like mouse-leader death? internet, if you have a god/dess, please pray for our mouse problem. Pray that I learn to drive in time for our next mouse release, and also that we catch these mice before they give us all the red death. This effects you too, internet. That is how plagues work.

PS: I really enjoyed reading that comment that was mostly me commenting on my own blog. It was great, real satisfying. I know that there are a group of people that are keeping track of when I blog, because there is a flux of traffic here whenever I post. Do you like what you're reading? I am very excited to finally be doing this blogging thing- I think this medium is crazy interesting, effective, and versatile. And I want to keep it up, internet. Tell me what you've liked and haven't liked. And, perhaps answer this question:
Have you had mice? How did you get rid of those mice? How many mice are probably in our walls still if one is dead and one is pooping next to a trap? Were you humane about it? If this were reality TV, would I learn to drive in time to release mouse deux?
Ha! I have fooled you, internet. That was more than one question!

Of Mice and (Wo)men. Yes, this title is that corny.

So we've had a mouse. Not just any mouse, but a mouse(!). This thing is the smartest and boldest rodent I have ever met. Seriously. We've had trouble with mice before, as ours is a hundred year old house with plenty of mouse-doors and such. We've also had trouble with humane traps- mice quickly become too smart for any trap at all, and our mice are organized! We had tried everything- live traps, snap traps, poison (I hate this, btw. This is inhumane, plus it almost killed my aunt's dog the day before our wedding, which is another post for another day. Also, the poison has never killed a mouse). We have tried glue traps. The only glue trap that has ever caught a mouse in this house was the one that my husband forgot about for years. We didn't know this particular mouse was in the house until it started screaming. Don't use glue traps. Just don't. Not only are the inhumane, but mouse get way too smart for them very quickly. In fact, our mouse was all "bitch, please. What do you think I am? A vole?"
Did I mention that our mouse is bold? Yeah, so bold that he started calling himself "sir mouse-a-lot." So bold that he not only stole food from our rabbits, but mocked them. "Oh yeah," said our mouse, "well your mama's ears were so big she couldn't wear fashionable hats!"
(Ophelia, our lop, responded by saying:

and Wolfgang Van Halen the 2nd replied to with:


That's right, mouse. We know all about hats.
Aside from terrorizng our loving and lovable lagomorphs, this mouse was mostly a terror and a pain. And besides all of this, we caught him, and we did it with a trap that was pretty much free, and without killing/torturing him. Heck yes.
Here's how we did it:
Get a glass (about a dollar ten at ikea)
Put something delicious at the bottom (free: anything in your fridge that is spreadable. We used cream chees)
Prop the glass up onto a nickel (0.05$ in Canada)
Wait (also free)

It took less than an hour for us to catch our mouse.
For me, being too squeamish to remove the mouse, and with the husband being gone and all, this meant two hours of mouse-mocking.
I saw him throw himself at the top of the glass to get the cream cheese. I contemplated letting him to and blaming it on a bad trap. I had to leave the room to stop myself from doing this.
Anyways, humane traps, all the way. Also, they are cheap!

You've been Busy, internet.

There will be another post later today, and it will be better than this one. Right now I am mostly trying to deal with a hangover while also dragging myself to autopac to renew my driver's licence and change my name. Unhappy face. In the meanwhile, internet, we need to talk yet again. I almost had a heard attack this morning, because one hundred and forty five of you looked at my blog. On one day! (<-- there will be more excitment when I am less hungover). So, onehundredandfortyfive, what have you been up to? You can't possibly *all* lurk forever.

*UPDATE*
Frozen edamame beans= best hangover food ever. Seriously. In five minutes (the time it takes to cook the frozen edamame beans) I went from "kind of nauseas and 100% shitty feeling" to "Hey- I feel pretty okay!" Consult the frozen foods section of your local grocery today!

On Marking

*warning: this is a really heavy post, all about grading and stuff. There is fluffier content at the bottom, if you don't feel like reading my thoughts on grades*

Many grad students will work either as student markers or TAs, who have grading of their own. My school only has seven MA programs, and no PhD students, and so many undergrads get to do these sorts of jobs as well. I have had the good fortune to have two and a half years of experience as a student marker under my belt, and I want to take this opportunity to talk about it.
Grading is not as simple as a letter at the top of an essay, though in a lot of ways it is fair to say that this is really what it amounts to. Having marked for four professors in the same department over a relatively short period of time I can say with confidence that most professors both love and hate rubrics. Those professors that I have worked for that have given me rubrics in the form of complex, organized charts loathe the essays that refuse to fall into their neat little boxes. I don't mean to say that these professors desire to categorize and label their students (though I am certain that there are some out there that do), but mean to comment on the mostly arbitrary nature of the rubric itself. Sure, a rubric is designed to be a set of guidelines for assigning grades, and many are highly organized into someone's professional opinion of what makes an A thesis, a B thesis, a C thesis, and how to discern which arguments are an A and which are a D. Most rubrics of this sort are based on experience. They are formed around the types of papers that have been received by a professor in the past, and are modeled to reproduce the same distribution and standardization of grades in relation to one another that is already occuring. Still with me? The standards for an A paper are based on A papers gone by, and this differs from professor to professor for a wide range of reasons I don't have the energy to think about. These charts are problematized by papers that don't fit easily into a letter grade range, by the students with "A" ideas but only "C" communication skills, or by those that have a "D" thesis, but prove it like an "A" student. This is frustrating. More frustrating, in my experience, is how difficult the damned things are to interpret. I once marked for someone that moved the grades I assigned to students up or down an entire letter grade routinely. I was initially hurt by this (the third year, anxiety ridden form of myself was, anyway), and so I asked about it. The professor and I sat down and went through a few examples, and we both gave our reasons for choosing the grade we did. In the end, either of us could have been right, we simply had different ways of reading the rubric.
I know what you're thinking. You're sitting there, all smug in front of your screen going "yeah, but I worked for a prof that didn't have a rubric. She hated them, and called them useless. What about that? Where's the love/hate in this one-sided relationship of ... erm... hate?" Well, internet, you see, I have also worked for this professor. Twice. All I can say for these professors is that I strongly believe that they adhere to the rubric that haunts academia. The vague concepts of "standards" and "ideas" that make up the illusion of higher learning. Do I mean to say that these professors don't know what they're doing? No way. Many of them know exactly what an A paper (a C paper, etc) looks like. They could likely articulate exactly why they've given any grade to any paper (I've never asked), but they don't dissect each essay and examine its parts in the same way. In fact, many of these professors, in my experience, are better at placing those essays that I mentioned previously, the ones that don't quite fit into any single column of the grading scale. This is likely because they consider each essay as a whole, and evaluate how each piece works with the others, rather than each piece by itself. (Also, this is a simplistic division. There are other teaching and grading styles. If you know about them and feel I need to be better informed please comment, I would love to learn more.)
So, if the rubric is a construct that can be interpreted in any number of ways and also functions in the grading process even when uninvited, what is the use of this discussion? Here it is, get ready: I believe that the most useful place for a rubric is in the hands of the student. How many of us have struggled and slogged through a year of two of university without any concept of expectation? How many of us have written papers and gotten them back with feedback that doesn't really tell us how to get a better grade, but mostly tells us what we did wrong? As much as there are many ways to interpret anything, I really think that having some concrete way of dividing "bad", "medium", and "good" (in the eyes of one particular professor, that is) is probably more useful than a hunch and a few hours of caffeine driven panic.

And Now for Something Fluffy:

Alright, internet. Let me begin this fluff by saying that I don't believe that it is my right to police the body of anyone else. As long as you are being respectful of others, do what you like and like what you do. That having been said, I have a terrible history with diets and eating disorders. I hate them. I hate getting ads on facebook that remind me that I could be twenty pounds slimmer. I already know that facebook, and I don't like myself twenty pounds slimmer. The me that weight twenty pounds less than the me now has no energy, obsesses over calorie counts and exercise schedules, and is all bony and gross. Even if the twenty-pound-lighter-than-me me wasn't all bony and gross, she would still be sick and unhappy, and this is not okay. Winter is an especially difficult time for me. There are fewer opportunities to be active in my daily life (I prefer walking to work over going to the gym, biking to school over going for a run), and I have this desire to eat wonderfully fatty baked goods constantly. And so, in order to combat the guilt that I am always fighting, but even more so during these cold and blubber(in the traditional keep you warm sense, not the fatphobic sense)promoting months, I would like to make a list of celebrated winter foods. Here it is:

candy canes (peppermint!)
stuffing (only twice a year!)
tomato aspic (most normal people find this gross. it is tomato jello with olives, celery, and onions. it is fantastic!)
mashed potatoes (these happen all year, but I crave them way more in the winter. with garlic and butter!)
OMG baked brie (no event tastes more like Christmas than one that includes apple cinnamon brie)
mandarin oranges (in your stocking!)
sweet potatoes (we only have these at Christmas!)
white wine (it goes well with turkey. the rest of the year can have red wine. i don't eat turkey, but refuse to allow this to make me a hypocrite.)
fudge (all kinds)
creamsicle fudge (the best kind)
sugar cookies
egg nog (homemade! one egg and one nog- and a whole bottle of rum!)
spiced rum (see above)
squash
pancakes (on Christmas morning!)
honey (I do not use honey as topping or sweetener most of the time. And then it is Christmas again, and honey just seems like the best thing ever)

What are your favourite winter foods, internet?