Research ahead

OK. The lecture is done, the language study is going steady: I am ready to start writing the prospectus and to start with some preliminary research. That means that spring break is going to be spent in San Francisco, and more specifically, in Berkeley. There shall be fun having, but also lots of research to get the foundation for the prospectus. By the way, if anyone knows of cheap places to stay in or around Berkeley, your expertise would be greatly welcome!! A hotel would work, or if you know anyone who wouldn’t mind a little extra $ for letting me crash at their pad for a few days, that would work too.

I am also moving to Berkeley (or possibly SF) this fall, and would love some insider know-how about housing

I am going to feel sad about leaving LA. On the other hand, I must follow the sources. And my project, unfortunately or fortunately, is going to require tons of little bits and pieces–the information is not centralized in one or two big archives, and will have me chasing leads across Norcal.

But most of all I am concerned about leaving Mr. P; I think there is a good chance that he will come with me–he is looking for teaching jobs up in the Bay area now–but with the market being the way it is, even an elementary school teacher might have some trouble finding work. So I hope he is able to come with me, but I don’t know. And then…do we move in together? For myself, I am generally opposed to premarital cohabitation, but…rent is pricey. Hm. But doing long distance…ahhk. It’s too much to think about.

On the other hand, I really love the Bay area, and have always sworn (since I was 11, and visiting for the first time!) that I would live there someday. So it would be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, sort of.

Possibilities, possibilities.

Giving a lecture: the post-mortem

Went well! Really! Went very well. I ran about 3 minutes short of the time, but all things considered it was a success.

The only glitch was that the phone on the stage of the lecture hall started ringing like halfway through my lecture. Strange, no? So I picked it up, and just said: this is a lecture hall. Do not call back. Then I hung up. The entire class erupted with laughter. I wish now that I had answered it and found out who it was–but the lecture must go on.

Little things I’ll keep in mind for next time:

• It’s helpful to summarize the preceding lecture briefly–in one or two sentences–before beginning in earnest
• Time really does speed up at the podium…slow slow slow
• Minor brain farts are an inevitability. Just recover, don’t freak out, and return to notes.
• Students are surprisingly generous and forgiving, and looking for opportunities during lecture to laugh or get engaged. Either that, or they are asleep. (I saw a few nappers). If they are asleep, then it’s pretty much impossible for you to do a bad job as a lecturer.
• Reading from a script really is OK, so long as you have moments where you either engage with students, or just speak more spontaneously. But TAs I spoke with afterwards said that it didn’t sound artificial or dry to have read thusly…so! Yes to fully written lectures.
• Slow down some more.

It was a good experience. I feel much more confident about my ability to be an academic…it’s an unexpected feeling. Lecturing is kind of fun.

Giving a lecture: the pre-op

I am giving  a lecture this week. This will be my first lecture; I have been thinking about it for weeks now, and fiddling daily with my outline. The professor for whom I am lecturing suggested that I create an outline with main points, and then elaborate/digress on them as needed; however, I don’t think this is the best strategy for a first-time lecturer.

I have a deep fear of barfing in front of the 200ish students that I will be lecturing to. I have written a point-driven outline, and now am in the process of adding meat to those bones–sentences, prose, bolding and underlining to help me survive the almost-inevitable brain fart. Basically, I will be reading aloud to them, which as a student I have always found interesting and useful, provided that the lecture was interesting, the lecturer confident, and the material relevant.

I don’t anticipate being a robot in doing this sort of reading; I sort of imagine this written-out lecture as a kind of a script, and it’s my job to make it lively and to make not SOUND like I’m reading off the page.

I also have powerpoint slides with photographs and quotes which I would like to discuss with the class–this will be more free form, more ad-libby. The slides will not have bullet point type summaries of my lecture. I generally think that this makes students copy down the powerpoint rather than listen to what is actually being said by the lecturer. As soon as they finish copying the slide, they sit back and their eyes glaze over.

I suppose that the read-aloud type lecturing is not ideal, but again, as a first time lecturer my goal is not to dazzle them with the intricate workings of my thought process, but to get through the material in an organized and clear fashion. I think the clever and imaginative digressions can come later in my career.

While searching for resources about lecturing, I came across this video. This is a lecture given by an MIT professor at Harvard (it looks to be the ’80s or early ’90s) about how to lecture. There were four major points–his “big four”–that I found especially useful:

1. Cycle: that is, repeat and re-emphasize your point. Apparently, about 20% of your audience is listening at any given time, so if you do this several times, you’re more likely to get it across.
2. Verbal punctuation: tell the audience where you have gone in the lecture, where you are going. Numbering of points: first, second, third, etc.  I’m not sure if this is included under the category of verbal punctuation, but pausing seems especially important as well (it seems like inexperienced lecturers tend to speed up on stage. It’s kind of like relativity).
3. Near miss: to discuss what is close, but incorrect (I think). This seems more applicable to teachers of science and math; it’s a little bit more difficult to so clearly identify what is “close but not it” in history, methinks.
4. Rhetorical questions: make them frequent and answerable.

Other pieces of advice he gave: begin with a promise, end with the delivering on that promise. No jokes at the beginning of a lecture. Don’t thank your audience. Watch your body language. Etc. Again, it seems geared towards teachers of more concrete subjects, but I think that much of this would be useful for lecturers in all fields. Plus, I think you get to see famed historian of British history, Mark Kishlansky! Cool!

Post-mortem to come later this week.

Bits n’ pieces

Welcome 2009! I had a reasonably refreshing break, although this one was plagued by concerns that I wasn’t doing enough to prepare for the new term. Eh, too late now. I did pay my bills, give and receive some lovely gifts, and spend time with family and boyfriend and friends…

Notes for the new quarter:

I will, once again, despite all my efforts, be on campus until 5 or 8 for four days out of the week. But! I have a locker at the gym, and can wile away some of those 4 hour blocks between commitments exercising, which is stress-relieving and productive.

God willing, I will have only 20 rather than 40 students this coming quarter.

I need to get started writing that lecture–my first lecture! Woohoo! And it’s on a topic I know almost nothing about.

Really should stop buying lunches/dinners on-campus, because it adds up and is probably unhealthy. Bean burritos and canned chili will be on the menu…beans really pull their weight in terms of cost and nutritional value.

Perhaps I could also bring some curry. I made a spicy Thai green curry with chicken this weekend, and I’m going to try using some firm white fish like pollack or cod the next go around. Put that on top of some brown rice, and–yum. I usually detest brown rice, but have really taken a liking to a 50/50 mixture of long grain white jasmine rice and long grain brown rice. At some point will transition to 100% brown (long grain) rice.

I need need need to go to Berkeley sometime in January, and perhaps February as well. It’s time to really get that damn prospectus started.

I have a terrible, bad attitude towards graduate school–this is not healthy and needs to be worked on. Every time I complain to my friends/parents about wanting to drop out, the response is usually: stick it out. It’s better than the real world. It’s not as bad as you think.

They’re probably right, and I am a big big whiner. With kind of low self-esteem about my capacity to achieve academically. A nice quote from David Foster Wallace (God rest him) comes to mind:

Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

That last sentence rings a bell–ouch. Paradoxically, it seems as if I need to lighten up my attitude towards grad school in order to survive it; obsessing over–worshipping–academic things is only making things worse.

This quarter will be better than the last.