Mountains Made Low

I’ve talked a lot lately about my reasons for moving back to Ohio. And I’ve talked about things like family, isolation, and a general discontent or disquiet with my life and my work in North Carolina. All of that is true.

It’s true, but even all of that taken together would not be enough to take the leap of faith I’ve taken and make the change I’ve made.

By that, I mean that I feel very good about the choices I’ve made in the past six weeks or so. Even though there’s a leap of faith involved (in terms of owning my house in NC and moving here), I’m very much at peace with what I’ve done, in part because I know that I’ve done it for the right reasons.

Even with all the right reasons, though, the comfort comes from some things I’ve seen in terms of the job I’ve taken. I’ve had a lot of encouragement from friends and family in terms of the choice of institution, and that means a lot to me. I also feel that the community college setting is a better “fit” for me, my teaching, and my personality, at this point in my life and my career.

Beyond that, though, not any old community college position would have done. Not even any in Ohio. And that’s what I mean about “doing it ‘right’”—there’s one major thing about this job, the work itself, that attracted me.

For some time now, you see, I’ve had a dream of how I want to teach. Particularly of how I want to teach composition. I think the seeds of this dream fell on the soil of my mind while I was in grad school at Purdue, but they didn’t really take root until I was working, in my first job, and they have continued to grow in the past four years.

In that time, I’ve tried to make that dream a reality. And it’s been a struggle.

I was convinced that the struggle was due to the fact that the approach I wanted was innovative (to put the best spin on it) or just plain weird (to explain the resistance I felt like I was encountering). And it really was a struggle.

But where I’m going now, my dream for teaching composition (or at least something that looks a lot like it) is already the reality.

When I start the new job in the fall, I’ll be teaching composition classes that are divided quite nicely into “lecture” and “lab.”

Instead of all the instructional time being devoted to lecture, discussion, and activities, half of the instructional time for each course each week is set up as a lab time—a time in which students can actually work on their projects. In my presence. With me there to help.

They may not get all of the work done during the lab time, but they’ll be able to do the actual work of the course in an environment where I can be there to help, provide guidance, and demonstrate things that need demonstrating.

This is my dream. Or, at least, something very like it.

I have long loathed the disconnect between the classroom “content” of the course and it’s out-of-class “assignments.” And it’s looking like I might be living my dream in the fall.

Don’t get me wrong, though. My experience last year has taught me not to go in expecting things to be a dramatic improvement over the last place. What I do is a lot the same no matter where you do it. I know that.

I am thinking, though, that I’ve found a place and an approach that can be more than an incremental improvement.

And I hope I’m right.

I’ve got my Internet access back. I’ve got to say that KAS was right: When they give you a “window” for when they’re gonna show up, you can plan on them showing up at the end of that window. The window was 8:30 am to 12:00 noon. The guy got here at about 11:30. And he ended up rewiring the whole house, though it was a pretty straightforward job. He was out of here by about 1:00 pm.

When he left, I had cable and Internet, but no WiFi. Then, about one-half hour after the installer left, the cable modem just up and died. Dead. Nothing.

Nada.

So I exchanged the modem at the local cable company office, and got the new modem set up. And got the WiFi working. And then found out that my AIM connection was coming and going.

By 5:45, though, I think I got everything set-up and working. I’m not 100% sure yet, but it’s looking good.

So, anyway, I’m back in the wired world, but by a very circuitous route. And now there are still boxes, but there is also a baseball game—I live in a place again where the cable includes STO and, therefore, the Indians. All’s right with the world!

It’s a beautiful rainy-ish morning here in Ohio, and I’m waiting patiently for my week of limited internet access to come to an end! The cable guy will be here “late this morning” to do the installation.
Once the installation is done, I’ll be back! There will be a couple of rapid-fire blog posts—ideas that have been marinating in my head this internet-free week.

But enough self-promotion and teasing. Suffice it to say, I’ll be back—wired as the world expects Mike to be—by this afternoon.

Which means no more pecking away at a blackberry key pad to blog!

Written Sunday, July 27, 2008 – 10.05pm

You know, I thought it was me. I thought I was the cyber addict. I’ve been thinking all day, as I’ve been using my phone to google things—I didn’t realize until today how many times a day I click on google—that it’s me, that I’m the one with a “problem.”

Yes, I knew that my phone gets email from two of my addresses, that it gets any updates that come in from Facebook (wall posts, inbox messages, pokes—but I can’t play Word Twist or Scrabulous…damn!), and that it gets the Internet. And I knew that I make use of these things when I’m away from my computer. It was weird, today, to see, though, how often I go to google for information, though I should have seen it coming.

I enjoy having these things pointed out to me in very practical ways.

So I thought it was me with the problem. And I’m sure that some people out there will still think that I do have a problem, that my online behavior borders on (or crosses completely into) the obsessive. But it’s not me. Or not just me. My computer seems to have this problem, too.

I fired it up tonight because I wanted to write a blog post (which I may yet write, after I finish this one, but this notion superceded the one I had in mind, when it struck me). And I spent the first few minutes it was turned on convincing it that it’s okay that it couldn’t find an Internet connection.

Now, I’ll grant, that it probably has something to do with the way I have it set up—with gmail and google calendar notifiers on the desktop—it looks for the google email and calendar servers right away when it starts up.

But I’m already feeling pretty well Internet deprived (my phone’s splendid abilities notwithstanding), and having to actively convince the computer that it’s all right that it can’t find the Web…. Well, let’s just say that it’s not helping.

But as I was having this conversation with the computer, I got to thinking about how short a time ago it really was that I had only dial-up Web access, and how shortly before that I dialed in to an upload/download email server (anyone remember Juno?), and how shortly before that I had no connectivity whatsoever.

I just remember the days when the Internet was not my primary concern—or the computer’s.

But those days are, apparently, gone.

This week has been exhausting. But my mom made a good suggestion yesterday: since I had left my cat at Mom and Dad’s house, I should stay the night when I went back to get Tigger. I’m happy I did, because I got a good night’s sleep, and I’m ready to face the drive west and the task of organizing and unpacking that’s ahead of me.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve said a lot that I’m tired but happy, and I’m standing by that, except that I’m really not tired right now. Happy, yes. Sore, yes. Exhausted, yes. But I got a good night’s sleep after my tiring day yesterday, and I’m ready to go back to my new house and begin the process of unpacking, organizing, and setting up.

Also, I had some really good help yesterday. I’m afraid I overworked my parents a little bit, but they really did help. And my Uncle Ken, and my cousin, Jeff, came out to help. We unloaded everything in a few hours in the morning. Then everyone else left, and I did a little setting up and organizing. But there’s a lot left to do.

Right now, I’m sitting in Mom and Dad’s living room, enjoying the last reliable Internet connectivity I’ll have until Wednesday (though I may well make it to the library tomorrow or Tuesday). But that’s how moving works. And I’ve got plenty to do without surfing the Web.

Besides, I get most of the online stuff I can’t live without on my phone.

So, anyway, I’m about to head back to Fremont to get to work on setting up my new house. I’m sure I’ll continue to be exhausted, for the next couple of days, at least—moving is exhausting. But I’m also content with this new place and the new direction in my life and my work. We’ll see what happens, of course, but, so far, so good!

I went to grad school at Purdue with a guy who was known for his ability to pack a moving truck. There were several people, one notable individual in particular, who moved often, and there was a crew of regulars who always helped out with the move. Most of these regulars had things they were known for in the process—I was one of two known for strength and general “manly competence”—but there was one guy who was known for his moving-truck-packing ability. It was said that when this fellow arranged things on the inside of your moving truck, you couldn’t fit an additional playing card on the thing.

Hyperbole aside, though, and will all due respect to this other guy and his skills, I think I equaled that accomplishment in moving-truck-loading yesterday. Granted, between my moving truck and my own truck, I didn’t quite get everything (which is okay, because I know there’s at least one trip back to NC in my future—and probably two or three, in reality—anyway). But it wasn’t for lack of trying. The 17′ Uhaul truck is full, and I mean full, and it took every ounce of strength, “manly competence,” and spatial reasoning ability that I had to get it that way.

Then this morning, I loaded a few more things into my truck, loaded my truck on the trailer, and drove the moving truck towing the trailer with my truck to my parents’ house—with a pissed off cat riding shotgun. And tomorrow it’s the almost-2-hour trip to Fremont and the unloading.

But a certain irony of this struck me midday yesterday, as I stood there facing the empty 17′ truck and the prospect of loading it—sofa-bed, appliances, and all—by myself. And knowing that on Saturday, I’d have plenty of help unloading (parents, uncle, cousin): one of my expressed reasons for this move was the idea of being closer to family, and the fact that I’d felt isolated all this past year in the mountains of NC. My move out of the mountains gave me just one more, very practical illustration. I’ve got family to help on this end, and on that end, I loaded alone.

Today’s my mom’s birthday. No long tribute this time, not because she’s any less important to me than others in my life, but because she doesn’t read here. I’ll call her and say nice things later on.

But for now, a shout out—Happy Birthday, Mom!