Happy Birthday, Ben!

I used to have the goal of always writing a journal entry or a blog post of some kind on my birthday. This year, my birthday came and went, and I never wrote. In fact, this is the longest I’ve gone without writing for quite some time. Still, I’ve never given up on writing about my birthday, even if I failed to write on my birthday. This is the realization of that compromised goal.

My birthday fell on a Friday this year. I don’t have school on Fridays, so I knew Thursday afternoon would feel like the beginning of my birthday weekend, and I wanted the festivities to begin right away. (I’m of the belief that adults should let their birthday celebrations last at least a week, since birthdays aren’t nearly as fun for adults as they are for children.) I decided that we should go out to dinner on Thursday afternoon, once I got done teaching. I chose a steakhouse near campus and had Melanie and the kids take me to school so they could run some errands (re: do some birthday shopping!) while I taught. They would then return to campus, pick me up, and we’d all go to dinner. It never happened. Just as we got to campus to drop me off, our van started smoking. Though the temperature gauge looked normal, smoke was suddenly billowing out from under the hood. I got out and investigated. Everything under the hood was soaked with antifreeze. A lime green river of antifreeze coursed from beneath the van toward a dumpster several feet in front of us. A Good Samaritan came over and counseled us to let the van rest for at least an hour, fill the radiator directly with water once the van had cooled down, and then take the van immediately to a mechanic. Any plans for birthday shopping and a birthday dinner went completely out the window. Sadly, I had to attend to my school duties, so I barely had time to react to the situation before leaving Melanie and the kids stranded on campus. They headed to a nearby McDonald’s, and I hurriedly prepared to teach. The plan was to meet with Melanie and the boys after class and try to get us safely to our mechanic. (To make matters worse, I had forgotten my cell phone that day, which I’ve done only once or twice before.) After class, however, I found a note from Melanie in the van, telling me that she had run into our good friend from church, who gave her and the boys a ride home. I was glad Melanie and the kids could be done with the ordeal and would no longer have to be involved. I filled the radiator with water and anxiously drove toward our mechanic, uncertain how far I’d be able to get before another problem occurred.

Luckily, I made it. The van was beginning to smoke again as I pulled into the garage, but I had made it. Popping the hood, we quickly discovered a huge hole in one of the hoses. I was happy to hear that it would be a relatively cheap and quick fix. At that point, an easy fix seemed a welcome birthday gift. An hour or so later, the repair work was done. I headed home, feeling emotionally and psychologically exhausted. Shortly after I arrived home, we piled into the van with renewed confidence and picked up a couple of pizzas, a kind of consolation prize birthday dinner.

Friday was my actual birthday. I had no plans for the day, other than to make it fun. With Tallahassee, that can be a bit of a challenge. There really isn’t that much to do here. Racking my brain, I finally decided to have us go miniature golfing. It’s something we’d never done as a family before, and it’s one of the few potentially fun things I knew Tallahassee had to offer. We went to the Fun Station, which at noon on a school day was quite dead. With a coupon deal, we paid $12 to have all of us play a round of miniature golf. The good news: Edison absolutely loved it. He thought it was wonderful, so much so that we struggled keeping him with us. He kept running ahead to play the next hole. Eddie’s enthusiasm and momentum was such that, in many ways, it felt like we had taken him miniature golfing and the rest of us were just there to watch. (Melanie and I skipped playing several holes, just to keep up.) The bad news: the mini-golf course was incredibly lame. It was the dullest miniature golf course I’ve ever seen. I’m not kidding when I say that I think only one hole had an obstacle that amounted to something more than going around a curve, over a slight bump, and/or around a small piece of wood. There were no obstacles that required you to time your shot just right. The only genuine obstacle, in my eyes, was on the 2nd or 3rd hole, when you had to go over a little bridge. The ball then ran into a little hole and reappeared out of a rock slightly downhill. But that was the only hole like that. There was no going through or under or around things other than on that one hole, with the exception of the aforementioned single piece of wood. Surprisingly lame. Here are some pictures:

No joke, this was as fancy and complicated as the miniature golf got—a couple of bumps in the road and a small block of wood near the hole. Only one hole was cooler than this. But Melanie seems excited.

Edison gears up.

And it’s outta the park! Home run!

Peter, who was happy to have a green ball, his favorite color.

Peter, perched atop the absolutely fanciest part of the miniature golf course. He wanted to stay here forever and keep making his ball go under the bridge. Can’t say I blame him.

Edison instructs his younger brother on the finer points of the game.

As Melanie would say, proof that Creegan was there. I snapped this photo while holding Creegan and a golf club. Don’t complain.

Oh, yes, and I was there too!

Wait for me!

Eddie, about to make a hole in one ... of the patches of fake grass.

Before we went miniature golfing, we had stopped at Barnes & Noble, in part to pass the time while we waited for the Fun Station to open at noon. I bought a book, which is a very rare occurrence for me nowadays (excluding school-related purchases). After we miniature golfed, we finally went to a steak dinner. We ate at Logan’s Roadhouse, which I chose primarily because I knew it would feel different. Usually, Outback Steakhouse is my go-to for special occasions, and yet even though we go to Outback only once in a long while, I felt like going to Outback for my birthday would feel too much like the same old thing. So I chose Logan’s, which we had been to once in Orlando and remembered liking. It’s not as good as Outback, but it was fun and felt like we were doing something different and special. I had a steak and ribs combo and felt very satisfied. Then we headed to Best Buy and browsed. I ended up buying Pulp Fiction on Blu-ray, and Melanie sneakily purchased me the most recent album by The New Pornographers (which is probably my very favorite band to come out in the last 10 years or so). Melanie made the purchase while Peter, Eddie, and I played around in the musical instrument department. (Edison and Peter love going into the drum room and banging away on the skins.) Some might consider it a humble birthday, but seeing my little stack of gifts—a book, a movie, and a CD—I couldn’t help feeling like it was the perfect haul.

With the van problems having thrown a wrench into the original birthday plans, the birthday celebrations have continued sporadically since my actual birthday weekend. Just a few days ago, Melanie gave me a belated birthday gift of a new set of bath towels. They feel deliriously luxurious, like you’re wrapping yourself in a blanket after you step out of the shower. I love them, and it makes my birthday haul even more perfect—a book, a movie, a CD, and something practical and yet pampering. What a perfect blend! And then, this past Sunday, Melanie and the boys made me Mountain Dew Cupcakes. They’re quite lemony, and I don’t think you’d think of Mountain Dew at all if you weren’t told that they are Mountain Dew cupcakes, but they were yummy.

The Friday after my birthday, Melanie and I also went on a date to our first concert in years. Believe it or not, The New Pornographers actually came to Tallahassee. I guess you could view the concert as a continuation of my birthday celebrating, but I’ll save the details of the concert for another post. Until then, I’ll just say that things are going well. The van worked well for a couple of weeks, and then something else went wrong, but that’s been the story all along. I’m ready to drive it off a cliff. Happy birthday to me!

Jambalaya

I’m now twice as far into the semester as I was the last time I wrote. Things are still going well. I actually had a student come by during my office hours just to tell me how much she enjoys the class. She stuck around for a few minutes just to chit-chat. It is her first semester in college, and she told me that she’s really happy because all of her professors have been awesome, including me. (For the record, I’m not actually a professor.) Admittedly, it was nice to get such positive feedback. Without even knowing it, she reassured me that many of my desires for the class are being met, at least in one student’s eyes. She said she likes how much class discussion we have, and she says the class feels like a very safe place to share your views, etc. I was thrilled to have the feedback, as bizarre as it felt to receive it. I’ve never had a student show up just to tell me that he/she likes my class. It’s a strange thing.

So, teaching is going well, but I’m sick—again. It’s beginning to feel like I should blog about my health only when I’m not sick. As always, it seems to be a matter of the illness circling around within the family and never really leaving. I was just getting over a cold when the semester began. Then everyone else in my family got it. In fact, many of them are still coughing regularly. They’ve all been to the doctor and hooked up with prescription meds. Eddie, Peter, and Creegan all had ear infections. They thought Melanie might have bronchitis. I haven’t been as bad off as everybody else, but it hardly matters. When you’re a parent, it sucks to have sick kids. You feel depressed on their behalf, and your rest is only as good as their rest. As for my own physical condition, I’m tired of feeling a massive amount of pressure in my head and of constantly needing to blow my nose. Thankfully, I think we’re all finally heading out of this one. Let’s hope for a good two or three weeks before anything else strikes, shall we?

Quick complaint: the weather. It’s late September. You go outside at night, when it’s dark, after 9pm, and you walk from your doorstep to your car. Guess what? You’re sweating like a pig. I’d like to tell Florida to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, but the blasted sun is always shining here!

I’m no further along on my dissertation than I was two weeks ago. Pity. I don’t often feel inspired to work on it, although I occasionally get into conversations with others about it and get kind of excited. I get excited as I talk about it mostly because I feel more and more convinced that I’m right and that I have something to say. But, man, it’s a lot easier to have something to say than to actually say it. It’s the latter that overwhelms me. Philosophy is a picky, picky thing. You have to be so careful and precise. It makes it exhausting. Yes, yes, that’s what makes it so brilliant and beautiful when it succeeds, I know, but trust me, you can be a lot sloppier writing for almost any other field. Sometimes I fantasize about being a psychologist instead. Or even a high school teacher. Shhh, don’t tell!

On a positive note, this is looking like a great night for TV. I’m excited to see the premiers of The Amazing Race and Sister Wives. And yes, I’m going to watch Pan Am. Melanie and I have been watching a bit more TV this season, and it’s been fun. I’m already ready to bail on a few of the new shows we’ve tried, but it’s been nice to do something different.

And that’s my life.

School, Kids, the Yoozh

I just got done with my second week of teaching. I’ve been wanting to write about it, of course, but it seems there is always something else to be done. As I reported before, I only have one TA to help me out, and the class has actually grown slightly since I griped about that. Fortunately, I quite like the TA I have; he actually entered the program at the same time that I did, so I’ve known him for a while. So far, he’s acted like he’s not too worried about handling the workload. He keeps a positive attitude, and I’m grateful.

Teaching ethics is quite different from teaching logic. It is better in some ways, not better in other ways. Clearly, having literally ten times the number of students makes the class feel less personal. And yet, ethics is something we can actually get into classroom discussions about. I’m not just teaching the students rules, I’m (hopefully) getting them to think critically about interesting things. That’s fun. But it’s also more work. It’s more up to me what I say and how I say it. I have to stimulate their interest, and because I’m not just teaching them rules, it’s not as laid out for me what I should be saying. The last couple of times that I’ve taught, I’ve worried that I’ll cover all the material in 30 minutes and have nothing to say for the remaining 45 minutes. That hasn’t happened, fortunately.

In other news, I can’t believe how “midlife” things feel now. That might not be the best description, but I don’t know what to say. “Established”? Eh, maybe. It’s hard to say that, though, when I’m still in school. But as a family, we’re very established, and it’s kind of mind-blowing. Eddie’s in Kindergarten. Can you believe it?!? And he and Peter had dentist appointments today, and going to something like that just feels so … I don’t know … parental, I guess! What’s more, Eddie is going to start gymnastics on Monday, and he and Peter both started taking an arts & crafts class at a community center on Wednesdays. Somehow, all this “extracurricular” stuff going on with my children just makes me feel all the more tipped over into adulthood. It’s crazy. And probably one reason I feel so desirous to be done with school and actually into a settled job (like I whined about last time). Not to leave Creegan out, he’s getting several teeth all at once. He’s growing up!

Well, there you have it. Another blasé peek into my life. I promise I often have more interesting thoughts and feelings than I ever get around to sharing on here. In the words of Brian May, “someday, one day.”

My Reality Check Just Bounced

Being back in Tallahassee is a rude awakening on so many levels. Utah was wonderful. Really. More than ever, believe it or not. And more than ever, I’m aching to get back there and just settle in. I’m tired of aspiring for something wholly other. I’m sick of the journey, quite honestly. I want the destination at this point. And I’m happy to grow and develop in my own way once I’m at my destination, but I’m tired of life being all about getting somewhere else. Somehow, even before heading to Utah, my mind started opening up and it’s like I started seeing things more clearly and honestly than I have in a while. I’ve been wanting to blog about all my thoughts and feelings, but I feel like I don’t have time, and I know from experience that I’ll get lost as I try to articulate things and end up not saying half of the most important stuff I want to say. Bottom line: I just want to be comfortable and in my place. And right now, I’m not. Being in grad school is a means to an end. And I’m growing tired of it. The best analogy I can think of is when you spend all day long in the same room, and after hours upon hours, you just want to get out and have some new stimulation and take a deep breath of fresh air. I feel like that’s what I’m aching to do. And I’ve only recently become honest enough with myself to say, without assuming I’m somehow mistaken or an idiot or otherwise in the wrong, that my graduate program just isn’t that wonderful or rewarding. Yes, there are extremely smart people who teach here. But I don’t feel like I’ve been inspired or wowed as a student. I thought a Ph.D. program was meant to be incredibly exciting, to take you to new levels, and to groom you to be a professional. I, on the other hand, feel much like I could disappear and nobody would even realize it. I know I’m not the most proactive student in the world, but I thought part of the point of a Ph.D. program was that they took you under their wings and made sure you were ready for the next phase of your life. That’s not happening here. I quite literally think I’ve gotten little more out of this program than I would have gotten out of reading books and articles on my own. That just doesn’t seem right to me.

More immediately, I’m stressed and admittedly rather upset about how my fall semester is shaping up. I’m set to teach an ethics course that currently has 138 enrolled students. When I was a TA for a class that size, I was one of three TA’s. But, due to various constraints that I suppose ultimately tie back to the less-than-stellar economy, I’m being given one TA to help me out with this course. One. To make matters worse, this class is supposed to be “writing intensive” so as to satisfy certain university requirements. That means that I am required to require the students to write a certain amount over the course of the semester and to give them feedback on that writing. With only one TA, this seems virtually impossible. I’ve TA’d for this very same course a few times now, and at my busiest, I was responsible for grading 61 students. At that time, I felt like I was constantly grading. It was a lot to do. So, how in the world am I supposed to make my one TA grade all 138 students that are enrolled in my class? Short answer: I don’t think I really can! But where does that leave me? Do I try to grade half of them myself? That’s not going to work! I’m going to be plenty busy just preparing for the class and, heaven forbid, working on my dissertation. So what am I supposed to do? I figure that even if I spread the writing requirement out over 10 assignments, there will be 138 (rather short) essays to grade almost every single week. And that’s just impractical for one person to grade, or even for two people to grade when one of them also has to teach the course. Being in this situation is irksome. I feel like this is a rather common thing in life, for the requirements to be impossible to satisfy if one tries literally to do so in the proper way. It seems like most jobs tell you that you have to (a), (b), and (c), and yet those things in some sense contradict each other. For example, when I worked at a call center, I was told I couldn’t work any overtime without prior approval, and yet I was basically always required to stay longer than my actual shift (the requiring of which was not to be construed as permission to work overtime). I think that’s pretty much par for the course at most places, and yet it’s agitating. I think most people get away with things by bending the rules, but for those of us who want to follow the rules, it doesn’t work out. And then we look like the incompetent ones because, hey, why can’t we do it when everybody else can?

That’s my rant for today. It’s a shame I feel like ranting because I was actually feeling quite inspired while I was in Utah. My motivation has now been disemboweled by reality, but I guess I should try to muster up some enthusiasm, thinking of it as a ticket out of this place eventually. That was my game plan, and then I was told I’d get one TA. I’m finding it hard to recover from that.

My First Ever Airport Post

I’m sitting here at Tallahassee Regional Airport. My flight was supposed to leave here 40 minutes ago. Now I’m told I won’t be leaving for at least another 90 minutes. I hope that’s the extent of the delay. I’ve been quite fortunate with air travel in the past. I’ve never run into serious delays or problems. The one problem I face now is that my current flight doesn’t leave Tallahassee until 11 minutes before my connecting flight departs Atlanta. Don’t think I’ll make that one. Supposedly I can make the 8:45pm flight from Atlanta to Salt Lake City, but that’s only if my flight isn’t delayed again. And who can say if that’s going to happen? Nobody, least of all the airline.

There are a few things that I’m grateful for at this moment. One, modern technology. Being stranded at an airport isn’t so horrible when you’ve got a laptop and a free wireless connection. I’ve been known to waste an hour or two online at home. Surely, I can do it here. Two, I’m grateful that I’m traveling alone today. As much as I love and miss my family, it would be horrible to be with them right now. Or at least, it would be extremely trying if I had three little kids with me, even if my wonderful wife were here too. Kids can’t handle just sitting around in airport for hours on end. So I’m glad they’re not. I pray we won’t be delayed when we fly out of Utah next week.

Oh crap, I’m tracking things online and I think there may be another delay. They haven’t announced it yet, but it’s not making sense that we can leave at the optimistic current projected time of 7:04pm, given that the airplane we are supposed to be on isn’t leaving Atlanta to come here until 7:14pm. What I hate about this situation is that you get a lot of runaround. They try to keep you calm by bumping the time up just a little bit at a time, but probably somebody somewhere has a sneaking suspicion that it’s really going to be delayed several more hours. They just don’t tell us that. Here’s the thing—I don’t want to fly to Atlanta tonight, just to spend the night in the Atlanta airport and not be able to continue on to SLC until tomorrow morning or something. I don’t even want them to put me up in a hotel in Atlanta. If that’s what’s going to happen, just let me go back to my apartment and start over from Tallahassee tomorrow. If they give me the constant runaround, in my situation at least, it might just drag things out for me unnecessarily.

Well, how about that. They just announced that they’re doing a “plane swap” in Atlanta, and that a plane should be on its way here from Atlanta shortly – and that we should therefore be able to leave here around 7pm, as previously announced. That sounds promising. I’m hopeful. But being hopeful has proven a really stupid thing to be, I’ve learned. At least for things like this. We’ll see. We’ll see.