Parts-n-Pieces

Typepad has a new service....microblogging that isn't Twitter. This might actually be an easy way to post content to the blog without the hassle of writing a formal blog post. I can post images and videos here, and I'm not limited to140 characters. Whohoo!

NaNoWriMo: Day #1

I'm not writing a novel, but I can use this challenge to write each day.  Maybe those days, like today, won't have much writing in them, but I will put fingers to keyboard daily.  Starting...... now.

The Game of Life (Coming to a Comp Class Near You)

In a writing class a few years ago, students were discussing the argument that many people make about poverty, that there really shouldn't be any ... that if people would "get off their lazy asses and get a job and not accept welfare," then they could support themselves and they wouldn't be poor.  The students stated-- with the firm conviction of those who had ever had never been impoverished-- that those in poverty could just stop being that way if they really wanted to.

We had a talk about logical fallacies. But what I wanted to do was bring out Hasbros, "The Game of Life" and let them have a turn at spinning the wheel. 

What Happened to Civility?

"What happened to civility?" was the USA Today headline on Tuesday, September 15th.  A few nights before, Kanye West had interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for a video of the year award to say that he believed another artist should have won the award Swift held in her hands.  A few days earlier, Senator Joe Wilson interrupts the President of the United States during the President's address to Congress in order to call him a liar.  Serena Williams, when she disagreed with the call a line judge made during the U.S. Open, threatened the line judge with bodily harm (through a profanity-filled tirade).  Citizens at recent town-hall meetings, meetings scheduled to discuss the nation's health care reform, have interrupted those proceedings with profanity-laced tirades of their own.

When did we become a nation of individuals where this kind behavior is acceptable?  Or, as my grandmother might have said, "were these people raised by wolves?"  (That wasn't meant to disparage wolves; they are lovely creatures.)  What has happened to civility?

If public personalities (politicians, athletes, musicians) act irresponsibly (and without significant consequence), doesn't it follow that the average citizen will behave in a similar manner?  Then, isn't it easy to believe that if average citizens behave badly (and there are no consequences for that behavior), their children will pick up those traits?

It becomes a vicious cycle that no one seems to want to (or can) stop.

Over the past 10 years of teaching at the collegiate level, I have had my share of students who demanded certain things (higher grades, leniency on some class rules).  And I've had my share of students who were convinced that they knew more about the course content than I did.  Today, however, I had my first "I pay your salary" conversation with a student who demonstrated an extreme lack of respect.  This student demanded that I do something differently than I had.  I was appalled at the student's rudeness, but more than that, I was surprised at the incivility of tone and voice.  When, in the world of higher education, did it become acceptable to yell at one's professor?  When did this become OK?

If we teach children or if we have children of our own, we know that children learn these boorish behaviors from those who are around them.  Children are born as selfish little creatures, but they can learn selflessness.  They can learn restraint.  They can learn civility.  Their parents can learn these traits, too.

But someone has to teach it to them.

Photo credit.

Five Good Things (presemester edition)

As I'm overwhelmed and overstressed, I need to refocus my energies.  Therefore, I write a "Good Things" list (and today, this was actually hard to do):

• I have a daughter who amazes me everyday.  OK, I always list her in a "good things" list, but she is, well, a good thing.  We spoke tonight and she told me about her team's first win of the season in double-overtime  . . . how the coach and the assistant coach on the opposing team knew her from her undergrad institution . . . and how tired she was from working hard all day.  I'm amazed that she came from me.  
• I have an office at school that remains at a constant 68^oF.  This might seem too cool to some, but it feels great to me.  It's hot and humid here.
• I am confident that all the stressors of the last week or so will eventually go away.
• I am going to get referral $$$ from my apartment complex because I referred another new professor to complex and she leased an apartment. w00t!
• I have social plans for tomorrow, and this is a good thing:  a "welcome to the year" party at a professor's house. 

With that, I go to bed. Tomorrow will be a good day.

Billie's Summer Camp 2009

This summer, I took a quilting class, scheduled a pottery throwing class, joined a book club, participated in a camera club, won one-1st and two-2nd place ribbons in a photo contest, grew vegetables and herbs, took day trips to small towns near me, practiced yoga, traveled to Florida and Louisiana, and built a bracelet holder for my closet.  I got to swim several times in a pool, in the ocean, and in the Gulf of Mexico.  There was pizza and lots of homemade ice cream.  In short, I've been to summer camp.

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But camp is coming to an end, and I'm ready to get to work.

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The time off has been good for me in significant ways, as I've never had such concentrated time when I wasn't working and going to school and rearing a family (and and and), and doing several major activities simultaneously.  Having the time off and a wide open schedule was a new experience.  I finally had the time to take some care of myself. This summer I've rested, I've taken afternoon naps, I've written (and scheduled projects), I've begun to meet local nonprofit directors and leaders, I've planned my courses for fall, and I have re-envisioned how I want my life to look.

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Billie's Summer Camp has been a lot of fun, but I'm ready to get to work.

Photographic Directions

I take photographs.  When I was younger, I wanted to become a photographer, a photojournalist, a fashion photographer, a photographer who created art.  National Geographic.  Rolling Stone.  Something. I wanted to take photographs.  I wanted my vision of the world to be what others saw when they looked at a magazine or read a book. 

My life didn't quite work out that way.

But over the past few years, I've rekindled this love of images and have honed my vision.  Project 365 (2007, 2008, and 2009) was a wonderful experience.  The time and effort it took to take photographs everyday pushed me to slow down in my life and recognize the compositions around me, the colors, the shapes, the events.  Two and a half years of daily photographs, though, became tiresome.  Project 365, 2009, has fizzled out and died.  

And I needed a new photographic direction.

Bill Wolff (from Rowan University) and I are collaborating on a photoblog project:   "Composing Images."  Each week we each post a photograph to the blog that depicts our individual interpretation of that week's theme.  This type of collaborative work has pushed us to think creatively about our themes.  The creative challenge is exciting.  I'm re-energized about taking photographs.  To collaborate with someone I've never met has been an exciting endeavor.  From time to time, however, I'll post a photograph here and I'll continue to post non-"Composing Images" photographs on my photoblog. 

It's not National Geographic or Rolling Stone. And that's OK.

Start Up Funds (The Faculty Club Secret)

When I accepted the tenure-track position that begins in a month, the Dean said I would have a certain amount of money available to me for "start up" funds.  I told her "thank you!" but quietly asked friends what I was to do with "start up funds."  The reply:  "you receive funds to purchase things you need in order to do your job....you know, to 'start up' your research."

"What," I asked, "like staplers, pencils, a trash can?"

I realized (yet again) that I couldn't know what I didn't know.  No one prepared me for "start up" funds.  I had no idea what they were or what to do with them.  To be fair, maybe most folks don't need preparation; they know about and expect to receive start up funds; their graduate programs prepared them well.  I didn't, and I wasn't. 

But before you continue to read this post about startup funds for a tenure-track position, watch this video.  The context is important.  Go ahead. Watch.  I'll wait (more text after the jump/video).

....

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Pre-Position Anxiety is a Bitch

The time before one begins a tenure-track position-- the months of applications, the months of interviews, the months of campus visits-- is all stressful.   The entire process is long, difficult, and anxiety provoking.  But this point, mid-July before a position begins in August, should be easy, relaxing, and stress free.  One would think.  And maybe for some people it is.

For me?  Not so much.  Online friends have reminded me that the anxiety I feel now is "normal."  Somehow I don't think so, but I'm striving to believe what they tell me.

Five things I will do (starting tomorrow) to alleviate this anxiety:  

1. Exercise (maybe I can sweat the anxiety away)
2. Write (I need to start a few projects anyway)
3. Photograph (Composing Images is a good outlet)
4. Yoga (this isn't exercise as much as a moment to meditate and focus)
5. Connect (not with busy future colleagues but with community members)

Five good things:

1. Learning to quilt
2. Meeting people in this new city
3. Feeling the discomfort of a new life (this sounds negative, but in the discomfort good arises)
4. Recognizing my limitations and striving to overcome them
5. Having the opportunity to make these changes

Five Good Things on July 1st

1. The ability to speak "truth to power."   (I don't fear any longer.)
2. The time this summer to resituate my life, my health, my heart.
3. Understanding the quotation, "If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done" -- Wittgenstein.
4. A photographic eye.
5. Choices.

The Third Stage of Life

Stage one:  I survived a violent and difficult childhood yet still grew up to be creative and tenacious in what I wanted from life.  I attended 18 schools in 8 years.  My family lived in a several states and dozens of cities in those states. I graduated from  high school without being pregnant.  At 25, I married a man I did not know well and we lived in Japan.  The marriage didn't last, and I returned to the United States.

 

Stage two:  I returned from Japan with a baby, a box of baby toys, a suitcase of our clothes, and a perspective about life and culture that I could not have gained had I not lived in that marriage.  Back in the US, I had to figure out how I would rear the child and form a meaningful life for us.  And it was hard.  I worked a series of meaningless jobs that paid a little more per week than the cost of child care.  We struggled. 

Returning to school seemed an idiotic choice (as others told me), but I felt it was the right thing.  I'd always wanted to go to college, but I didn't know what it looked like.  I didn't know HOW to go to college.  Nevertheless, I signed up for courses at the local community college.  I reasoned that if I earned an AA degree, I'd get a "great" job and I could provide for my family.   I continued to the BA degree then the MA degree, all the while rearing my daughter, providing her a home, being involved in the community and youth activities.  I held full-time jobs while attending school, but with increasing amounts of education, I could get positions that allowed us to live a more comfortable life.

During this phase, my daughter grew to be a creative, generous, talented, and forceful young woman.  She grew up in one neighborhood.  She attended school with many of the same children throughout their 12 years of required education.  She graduated from college and now is in graduate school.  She is not a statistic.

Earning the Ph.D. was a struggle in and of itself for me.  It took nine years, but it's finished.  Finally.  With the Ph.D., I can move onto stage three of my life.

Stage three:  It begins now.  With all that has lead me to this point in my life, I am anticipating significant growth and change to occur in this stage.  I'm ready for it.  It begins now.

RBOC: 'Cause It's All I Can Muster

Earlier this week I realized that I'm done.  I can't do any more.  I can't.  Finishing (and defending) the dissertation, conducting a national job search, teaching eight classes, handling a recurring medical issue, and dealing with the ordinary occurrences of life . . . I'm done.  I can't do any more of anything.  I can't.  Who knew this year would end up being so hard.  I surely didn't.

Therefore, some random bullets of crap:

• The dissertation has been electronically submitted to ProQuest . . .  all 454 pages of it.  If I had it all to do over (and thank the gods I don't), I'd scale so far back . . . I ended up writing the quantity of two dissertations and both of them were badly written.  (Wishing I had had a little more direction with these two dissertations, but there you go.)

• The Bundle came home for Easter.  It's wonderful to have her home.  I'm beginning to understand what it's like to separate from her and be OK with that separation. She thought looking for Easter eggs was a real pain . . . until she found the first one, then she had fun.  (There were only 15 of them and they were all in one room.)

• The students this semester (most of them) have been just wonderful. There are others, however, who are about the worst I have ever had.  Apathetic, entitled, superior, rude . . . and rest assured, these are the students who will be the first to complain when they don't get the "A+" they expect. 

• Maybe it's my deep fatigue, but the snarky (OK, just hateful) attitude of some people who are in positions to know better just astounds me.   It is people like these who give this profession a bad name.  Trust me on this one.

• My dreams lately have been oddly disturbing:  old boyfriends (each night a different guy) and we were doing something indicative of that relationship (music, motorcycles, literature).  Maybe it's a way to say "goodbye" before I move on.  Who knows.  Still odd, though.

• I am so ready to move on I can't explain it.  I'm ready.  Now.  Desiring to shake the dust off my boot soles (the boots with the bootstraps I've used to pull myself up) and move on.

Good Things (I should renumber these)

• Knowing there are seven class days left in this semester, and that's seven too many.  I need this semester to be over.  But the good thing?  There are only seven class days left.

• Feeling so very ready to move on.  I want to, I need to move on today.

• Donating so many things to the Salvation Army and the local Domestic Violence shelter.  I need to make another pass through the house...downsize more.

• Printing out my dissertation earlier today:  420 pages of crap.  Truly.  It's not that great.  But it's done.  That's the good thing.

• Thinking I might work at another degree:  and MFA in photography.  My new institution offers such a degree.  Might be a good thing.

• Remembering someone from my past . . . and thinking good thoughts about a good person.  The good thing?  Age helps us understand.

• Hearing from a couple of cousins today and yesterday who live in the area of my new position.  I'll get to reconnect with them.  Good thing.

Lessons Learned (from a lifetime of work)

As I ready myself for the next stage of my life and a new career, I reflect on the work I have done in the past.  Jobs.  I have had a lot of them.   Some have been perfectly fine what they were -- ways to earn money.  Others taught me a lot about myself or about what I wanted from life.  Others taught me that I did not want that kind of existence.  But I learned from them all.

A representative sample of the jobs I have held:

o

My first "real" job:  For a few years, I worked at Mott's Five-and-Dime store.  I don't know if they are still around.  At the time, Mott's sold plastic flowers, plastic and tin kitchen items, polyester fabric, Butterick/Simplicity patterns, sewing notions, hardware, school supplies, candy.  It had such a unique smell, the smell of cheap and dust.   The "sales girls" all earned $1.00 an hour for our time, and we worked about 15 hours a week.  The manager could get away with giving us only $1 an hour because we were all underage, 13, 14, 15.  At the time, I didn't realize how wrong that was ... to hire underaged girls.  But then, how else could the assistant manager show his employees porn?  Anyone older might have said something.

• The Perks?  I was able to earn enough money to pay for Drill Team camp (uniforms, etc.), fabric for prom dresses (yes, polyester prom dresses), and furnish my first kitchen with plastic and tin items.

o

My shortest job:  For one day--or one shift--I worked in a greenhouse pulling growth shoots off tomato plants.  I was in high school.  It wasn't a bad job, but it wasn't too terribly interesting or challenging.  However, I never remembered which was a "shoot" that would stifle tomato growth or which was the "branch" that would eventually grow a tomato, and for that one shift I pruned the wrong part of the plant.  Maybe it was more challenging that I gave it credit for.

• The Perks?   Uh, um.  I like tomatoes.

"Same Old Story" (bits of musical history)

But it's new.  To me.

Lannie Flowers, someone I knew and cared about long long ago, has finally produced an album of his own music, a CD called "Same Old Story."  It's about time.   I always loved his voice and the music he could create.   I'm glad he was able to do this this.  (To be fair, he's been involved in other recordings, but those recordings were in groups.)  Reviews state that "Same Old Story" is "45-minute pop collage."  Good description.  None of the song snippets on the CD are more than two minutes long, and there are 36 of these snippets.  It's an interesting concept, the song snippets. The parts.  The pieces. The pieces of history, Lannie's musical history.  It allows one to recreate the whole from the parts.  I find this highly interesting, as any number of "wholes" are created from those parts.

I do, however, wish I could hear the entire songs that were created / crafted from these snippets.

As I listen to this CD, I'm reminded of his musical influences, those artists he introduced me to when we were teenagers:  Artful Dodger, Elvis Costello, the Tubes, Mott the Hoople, the New York Dolls, the Velvet Underground, the Ramones (we did the pogo at Panther Hall*), Patti Smith, the Sex Pistols, and oh-so-many more musicians and artists.  He introduced me to Springsteen's music.  He probably didn't have any idea the impact that introduction would have in my life, but there you go.

But give the CD a listen.  It's Barthian.  It's postmodern.   It's different.  It's good.

o o o o o o o o o o

* You'd have to know the place and its history to understand how truly bizarre this actually happened to be.  Fun yet bizarre.

50 Ways to Transform Yourself (Tom Peters)

One of my favorite professors in grad school gave me a book:  Tom Peters' Reinventing Work: The Brand You 50, Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an "Employee" into a Brand that Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion.  I pulled it off the shelf the other day after reading a book very similar to it but not as good:  Me, 2.0. 

The following items come from the Introduction to Peters' small book, in what he calls a contrast between "a-Day-in-Dilbertland-in-'Right-sized'-Towers" and the "Liberating-New-World-Order-of-brand-new-Brand-You" (6-7).  I give you 10 of the 20 he lists:

	“Brand You” World		“Employee” World
1	Working on a memorable (WOW) project. (If it’s not WOW…I’ll make it WOW…or bust trying!)		Doing what’s been assigned.
2	Committed to my craft.  Intend to be incredibly good at s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g.		Working assiduously on inbox contents.
3	Don’t waste a single lunch …  networking is my mantra.		Lunch is my business!
4	Willing to take a “lowly” task if I can turn it into something “cool.”		Don’t try to push bullshit off on me, bro.
5	Understand that Projects-Are-Me. Period. (This ain’t funny: I am my project “portfolio.”)		I  show up.  I don’t make waves.
6	Think “fun” is cool!		A day at work is a day at work. Don’t make a congressional case out of it.
7	Am (frequently) angry at our slowness to change.		C’est la vie.
8	Love bright colors.		Gray is beautiful. (Invisibility rules.)
9	Embrace life.		There’s enough shit that comes your way without asking for more.
10	Chose this project because it will add to my learning / because it will s-t-r-e-t-c-h me / because it allows me to hang with cool people.		It’s what the boss told me to do.

Not everyone will "get" this list, and that's OK.  For those of us who do get it, well, we get it.  But I  I need to revisit this book from time to time, especially as I make changes in my life and remove myself from an "employee" world.  If nothing else, this list reminds me that I recently made a very good decision.

The Fourth Stage of a Ph.D. (the Job Search)

A few years ago, a grad school professor told me there were three stages one must go through on the road to a Ph.D. He said there was coursework, the exams, and the dissertation. The coursework is the work you do, he said, as you learn what others have contributed to the field, and you do this work with other students and under the guidance of a professor. The exams are the work you do synthesizing the information from others into your own argument, and you do this, mostly, under the direction of a committee. Then there is the dissertation where you create your own "original" argument, and this work is done--more or less--by yourself.

I believe now, now that I'm going through it myself, that there is a fourth stage of this process, a stage that the first three stages do not prepared you for. It's that stage of professionalism that comes when one is on the academic job market. This stage has allowed me to know where I might fit in the larger scope of higher education.

Nowhere but academic job talks and campus interviews would I have had an opportunity to talk about my current or future research projects or how my research and my teaching inform one another; additionally, I have learned how to tailor my research to a specific location and population . . . to an audience who is (for the most part) really interested in what I have to say.

To also have the opportunity to visit a number of campuses has significantly broadened my perspective about the role of higher education in America. Institutions, depending on the population they serve and even their geographic region, have different missions and purposes. Clearly, one mission or style is not better than another. They are merely different, different purposes and different goals. Meeting administrators and faculty who oversee the implementation of these missions has helped me to not only understand the role the institution plays in its community, but also how I might (or might not) be a part of that system.

I have had the opportunity to visit different types of campuses and these visits have helped me know where I might be the most effective. As I started the job market process, I intentionally selected teaching institutions, as that is my strength, and over the past month or so, I have visited several teaching-focused universities: large state universities, satellite campuses of large state universities, small private colleges, rural universities, HSIs (Hispanic Serving Institutions), or HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). I have been to universities that value Division I-A sports, but I have also been to Division II and Division III institutions where the sports culture isn't quite as prevalent.

The schools have been in the North, the South, the East and the Central United States. Snow country, pine trees and woods, oceans, mountains, prairies. Cloudless skies, open skies, lead skies, fiery sunsets, brilliant sunrises.

Student populations differed: some were very conservative and traditional (18-22 years old), some were returning students, some second-language learners, some were overprepared academically and some were underprepared academically, some were students who were resided on the campus and some commuted to campus.

I have learned about the job search process from a search committee's perspective. I have learned all about the "you snooze, you lose" process and the importance of timing in job searches.

The roles I would occupy at each also differed, so I was able to see myself in various positions within the academy. Some were positions that limited my teaching to only first-year writing (this limit would be for years). Other institutions allow a broad range of teaching and mentoring opportunities at the undergraduate and the graduate level. Some other positions combined teaching with administrative duties. Some institutions value community interactions and service-learning. Others avoid technology. All cities had a Starbucks (but one).

Over the next little while, I have choices to make-- and I'm so very fortunate to be in this position to have choices (this I know)-- and the choices come more easily after this job search experience. I am more and more certain of my professional identity after experiencing this fourth stage of a Ph.D.

Two (Black Male) Students = Three Police Cars

About 1:00 p.m. this afternoon, I was walking to the library.  As I crossed the street that hundreds of people cross each day, I noted a small group of students standing on the median of this busy street.  They appeared to be talking and laughing.  One young woman was wearing a campus t-shirt, as she could have been a tour guide or something.  With her were two African-American men.  I noted this because when I see African-American male students on campus, I look to see if I know them (the campus has such a small number of minority students, and I have had a very large percentage of them in my classes).  I didn't recognize them.  They continued their conversation; I crossed the street.

As I crossed the street, I looked back.  A police cruiser had made a U-turn and come back to talk with the students who were standing on the median.  He had his lights flashing.  Suddenly, two more police cruisers appeared, also with lights flashing.  Two officers separated the two men, each speaking with one of them.  The third officer spoke with the woman in the campus t-shirt.

From my vantage point across the street, it looked as if the young woman was trying to explain (the situation?) to the police officers.  The officers seemed to listen to her, but they did not seem to listen to the young men.

After about 10 minutes, the police officers drove away and the students crossed to the far side of the street.

In my 3:30 class this afternoon, a class of juniors and seniors, I asked them if they had seen what happened earlier that afternoon (this intersection is a very busy one that most students cross each day).  None had.  I showed them this photograph and asked them what they thought had happened.

It was a brief exercise in stereotypes and perceptions.  (Early each semester, we spend one class session talking about stereotypes and why we believe them . . . as this helps students recognize the logical fallacies in their (and others') writing. 

The students' responses:

• "The two guys were trying to rob the girl."
• "The girl called the cops."
• "The cops stopped because they saw two black men."
• "Maybe there was a robbery down the street and the cops thought it was those two guys."
• "Somebody broke into my car the other day; maybe it was them."

I asked for evidence for any of those scenarios.  They could not provide any . . . other than the stereotypes they (and others) believe about those different from themselves.  No one mentioned that the police officers could have been racial profiling the two Black men, that they seemed alarmed to see Black men on this predominantly White campus talking with a White woman, that there could be any other reason other than Black men being wrong / criminal / evil / whatever.

To be fair, I don't know why this incident happened.  But I watched the situation from start to finish.  I don't know if anyone called the police, but it didn't appear as such.

I think often about teaching students to write more effectively, and I am reminded every day that writing is not a skill that we learn just once.  Writing is a skill that we have to learn over and over and over.  We learn and relearn each time we sit down to write.  Maybe challenging prejudices and preconceptions are the same.  We cannot erase those stereotypes by just a quick exercise one time in one class.  It takes learning these lessons over and over and over.

But even then, I don't know that learning how to overcome prejudices and biases is quite that simple.  It's just not simple.

Good Things #915 (or something)

I have lost count of "Good Things" lists, so I make up numbers.  Hmmm. This sounds oddly like my bookkeeping strategies.  But I digress.  In order to shake off the sense of impending doom this job search creates, I think of the things for which I am grateful:

• My daughter.  In the shower this morning I remembered again how fortunate and blessed I am to have had her.  She changed (and saved) my life.

• My ability to rear her to become a strong, healthy, smart, generous young woman.  Ann Coulter (and her secondhand children article) be damned.

• Starbucks.  This is not news to the people who know me.  I'm grateful, though, to have found a place where I can just be for a while, where people know me but don't bother me, where I can relax, read, work, whatever.

• My classes.  I am teaching two brand new courses this semester, and while the pacing of these courses has been compromised because of the job search (and a rogue "snow day," the students seem OK with it all.  The work is interesting-- they think (and I believe)-- so it'll all end up OK.

• A tax refund. I'm getting one even though I lost one dependent this year.  Getting the refund surprised me.  Thank G-d for the ability to itemize.

• The Nikon D-90.  I'm so loving this camera.  The battery grip that I bought with it plus the 16gb card  means I can take over 1,000 images in RAW before I have to charge batteries or change the card.  Now, I am not going to let 1,000 images wait for processing . . . but still.  I have that ability, and that's good.  I'm a little behind in posting, but check out the third year of Project 365.

• My ability to be creative, tenacious, fearless, and smart.

• My idealism.  Idealism is not a dirty word.

• The job search.  It's horrible. I never want to go through this again.  But.  But I have options, and I know I do.  I'm grateful for those options.

What are you grateful for today?

Where were you when....

Found via DocMara at SurfnPoetry:  Describe where you were and what you were doing when the following world-changing events happened.

1.) Challenger space shuttle exploded (1986):
I was standing in my all-in-one living/bedroom/dining room in Tokyo, Japan.  I had only been in the country a few weeks, and the only English language I could get was from an Armed Forces radio station.  I heard about it then.  And over the next few days, I heard it over and over and over.

2.) Berlin Wall falls down (1989):
This one I don't really remember.  I was back in the United States, and lived in a small duplex with my very young daughter.  I remember seeing David Hasselhoff standing on the (then) wall. 

3.) Oklahoma City federal building bombing (1995):
I was in an English class at TCU, a British Novel course.  The professor, an older (near retirement age) man began to cry.  I remember asking him if he knew someone there, and if that was why he was so upset. 

4.) OJ Verdict (1995):
I was in a 3rd floor sitting area of the English building at TCU.  A few professors had small televisions so they could watch the verdict, and they told the rest of us what had happened.

5.) Princess Diana dies (1997):
I was home.  Until her death, the death of a "celebrity" had never really registered with me.  It had never really mattered.  Even though I was not a fan, I had seen her marry and divorce, and I noted the magazine covers at the grocery store. I had grown up with her in some ways.   I went to church that day, and many people in the congregation had not yet heard about her death.  It was odd to see so many people cry.

6.) Columbine massacre (1999):
I was at work, and I was horrified.  Traumatized even.  I can't really articulate why, but I felt a deep need to go home and be with my daughter.  I remember at the time the mother of my daughter's close friend was encouraging her daughter and other "cool" girls to gang up on the lesser-liked girls.  This woman did not get the connection between the bullying of kids in school and what happened at Columbine.  My daughter was no longer friends with that little girl.

7.) JFK Jr. Plane crash (1999):
Again, I was at work -- I was teaching a Saturday class.  I don't remember too much other than being very sad.

8.) Bush/Gore crazy election (2000):
I was about a year into my Ph.D. program, and I was so focused on that, work, and parenting that I didn't give the election too much thought.  I wasn't surprised, though, that Gore won, but that Bush claimed the victory.  I suppose I was cynical.  Heh.

9.) September 11, (2001):
I was about to go to a meeting, and I was listening to the radio in my office.  I thought it was a joke-- you know, how those drive-time radio jocks pull bizarre pranks for ratings-- until I walked downstairs, and the library had televisions on that showed news programs.  Dozens of people were gathered around the TVs, dumbfounded.  No one knew what to do or think for a little while.  Then everyone (including me) wanted to go home and be with our families.  I remember seeing the image of Bush in an elementary classroom in Florida with a completely stupid look on his face.

10.) Space ship Columbia disintegrates (2003):
I was sitting in my kitchen making out a grocery list when I heard the explosion overhead.  The shuttle was traveling over north central Texas when it disintegrated.  I heard it go but didn't know what it was at the time.  Just four or five days later, I was in Washington DC for a conference and I went to Arlington National Cemetery and saw where the Columbia astronauts were laid to rest.

11.) Hurricane Katrina hits (2005):
I was at work and it seemed so unreal to me at the time.  What was happening couldn't possibly have been happening, I thought, and what was being said about individual lives and their worth by the leaders (and their family members) in our country was horrifying.  Interestingly, a day or two after the flooding, a student appeared in one of my classes.  It was still early in the semester, and I didn't recognize everyone yet. She introduced herself as a Katrina evacuee.  I was so very touched that the former ICW students in the room (male student-athletes) were the first to welcome her to our campus, to our class.  They offered to help her in any way that she needed.  The ICW students were the epitome of grace and kindness in a horrible time in this woman's life.