- I know I've not really posted anything of any interest to anybody in what seems like weeks. Blame the end of the semester.
- You also might blame that I'm actually trying out the whole "discretion" thing, it being the better part of valour and all that. It doesn't really come naturally to me, so I suspect I'll be giving that up as soon as the semester is done.
- Well, except I have always been fairly discrete about the details of what's going on at work. I don't know - I suppose I'm a selectively discrete person. But lately I've been trying to be somewhat discrete about things that in a past incarnation I might have blabbed about without end.
- So, yeah, enough of that. What else? Allergies are a motherfucker.
- I'm really annoyed with a handful of students right now. I've come to learn that the only thing that students really do to annoy me is to expect me to spoon-feed them even the most obvious information. So, like, just for example, they will totally resist the peer review process, which they need and which they would benefit from, only to show up at my office to ask me to "proofread their paper" and "tell them how to fix it." You know, I want to be there for students, and I want to give them personal attention. But I do not want to wipe their asses for them, and that's what the above feels like. Grrrrr.
- I've considered the whole, "New Name for Coffee Guy" thing, and have realized that he is now and will forever be "Coffee Guy." It's the name he's had for lo these last three weeks or so, and so it is his name. I feel kind of bad - it might be the most boring pseudonym in the history of pseudonyms. I usually try for something with a bit more flare, more panache.
- So, this is it - the end. This is the week of celebrating retirements and the end-of-the-semester generally with events that eat away at one's schedule, it is the week of student evaluations and needing to finish writing finals, it is, really, the home stretch.
- Rather than accomplishing what I need to accomplish, I've been rereading a book that I do not need to read (while not reading a book I do need to read). What am I rereading, you ask? Julian Barnes' Talking It Over. It's such a fun book. Well, fun in a kind of dark way, I suppose, but fun nonetheless.
- I really just wish I were more motivated. I'm so not, right at the moment.
12 years ago
7 comments:
Heh heh, quietly chuckling at the idea of you being discrete...
i don't know...coffee guy is infinitely more interesting than the folks who refer to their children (or pets) as "the boy" or "the girl." no offense to dean dad or anything. it's just not particularly creative. It's a little bit like Kizzy naming her stuffed rabbit "bunny rabbit." coffee guy at least rises above that level.
Your "nothing" is infinitely more interesting than my "nothing"! The end of the semester is like that... just full of nothing. And I like "Coffee Guy"; one day it'll feel nostalgic referring to him that way.
Better discrete than discreet, I always say :).
You could start calling him General Foods International Coffee Guy, to add a little flavor/flare/panache.
You are correct that "discrete" is much less offensive than "discreet" - I stand by my misspelling :) (And besides - it really is more about separation than about judiciousness - I've blabbed to people all across America and Europe about everything - just not on the blog - hee! That's the fun of me!)
That would be one way to try to salvage the Coffee Guy moniker, though I fear that such an addition would seem forced and slightly strange, as he is neither international nor a general food. It's really a problem.
And I do suppose CG is a slight improvement to just "the boy" or something such as that. It's just I've found such evocative names for people in the past - this one caught me by surprise for I named him before I thought I'd do more than have coffee with him. Ah well, at least the name does not reveal too much about him, as it's not impossible that someday he'd happen upon the blog, and the bland "Coffee Guy" is preferable to many of the non-bland alternatives.
I married my Coffee Guy. Since Coffee is the Giver-of-Life, I think you couldn't come up with a more promising pseudonym.
Also, you should read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell if you haven't. Considering your love for Harry Potter, I think you will enjoy JS and Mr N.
And regarding peer review/peer editing, how do you work that? I was recently vetting a seminar syllabus with peers and their opinions were that it was a waste of time (because I was going to "grade" the peer reviews) and that it's silly to have people who don't know how to write try to tell other people how to write. My answer has been-- then you probably didn't teach peer editing properly and just because someone doesn't know how to write doesn't mean they don't know how to read and think about what someone else is writing. But I'd love to hear your take on it.
L&T - I'll do a real post on peer review/editing this afternoon.
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