The discipline dedicated to telling stories - poem

The discipline dedicated to telling stories – Reuben Dylan

Not all stories have happy endings but
some stories only end if you assume the story's about you.
I started a degree in English; the discipline dedicated to telling stories
on Day One, I met a beautiful girl with no ears, and no heart and
I was blinded by her beauty
and she was deaf to my story.
She fell in love with me
and I fell in love with her.

It felt like love, but it didn't taste like it.

We used to fight a lot, because every story needs a villain.
Every good love story needs a great lover
And every good horror story needs a great monster.

I don't know if monsters can miss people, but part of me likes to think this one did.

Our story is resting inside the diaries on my shelf, gathering dust-
God made Man out of dust.

Sometimes I'll have a glass of wine and flip through old photographs.
They say that smell is the best sense for retrieving memories, but it's actually:
Nociception~
The sense of pain.

And we're still together in old photos and my prayers-
Man made God out of prayers.

She had a happy ending that I wasn't in.
Some stories only end if you assume the story's about you
and now I'm the storyteller with no eyes, and no heart
For what better way to fight the monsters than by becoming one?

Thank you.

The Rise and Fall of the English Major Part II

Continuing from my previous post, why do we make students study English in high school?

OK, first of all, you have to until you finish Yr 12. So...there's that. Why do we privilege English and mathematics by making them the compulsory subjects students must take? Perhaps our society would be better served if every student had to take four out of five years of their high school careers learning one of the hard sciences. We may not have much demand for novelists and poets, but we sure have a demand for students who could grow up and cure cancers (plural. Look it up- there wouldn't be one single cure for what is a multitude of diseases that we label under the umbrella term “cancer”). Perhaps that is vicious hyperbole, but I suppose what I am addressing is the application of subject knowledge in “the real world”.

OK, so first of all, I stand by what I said when I stated that the things you learn in English like essay-writing or poem-composing may not directly impact your job, in the same way that other high school subjects might. An electronics course might improve your efficacy as an engineer. Knowing some basic exponential math is going to come in handy if you're a statistician. Being able to run really fast will come in handy when you're working as a prostitute catering to the crystal meth market (I hear those guys are wily, but they're often confused by bright lights). We have a massive surplus of people who want to be professional authors, poets, screenwriters, and journalists and only a tiny number of employment opportunities for these occupations. Obviously, we, as a society, could stand to lose a few aspiring poets in exchange for people who take the time to learn more about human biology and consequently won't oppose, and can actively explain to others the benefits of vaccinating children (my feeling about this is if you have a blanket policy about not vaccinating kids en masse, you either don't understand the science as well as you think you do or you actively hate children). The question remains, why study English? Again, I have an English degree so clearly I didn't think it was as much of a waste of time as watching Pretty Little Liars (I also have a Media degree so my opinion's very slightly valid there too).

So, I think it's pretty clear by now that in my soapbox-crusade in promoting English in schools, I'm going to have to deal with my reasons one post at a time so today I want to talk about the transference of skills. For simplicity's sake, look at the idea of multiplication. When you're taught in schools that 7 x 8 = 56, you aren't rote-learning specific numbers so that you also have to learn 8 x 7 = 56, but you're learning about a concept that can be transferred, so that when you're later working out how many pieces of pie you'll need for a group of kids you can work out that 3 x 13 = 39. In much the same way, essay-writing is not actually about the ability to write essays (if your boss ever makes you sit down and write an essay about your job, I do feel really bad for you). What essay-writing, as a skill, enables you to do is learn how to critically analyze and apply reasoning to a specific situation, gain a perceptive awareness of what's happening, and structure how you want to articulate your thoughts in a serious, formal manner. These three skills will come in handy in later life, and it's difficult to teach these skills for specific jobs so we have to teach them in abstract. Learning film language (high shots, low shots, soundtrack, sound effects, et cetera) isn't about learning film analysis, but about learning how to recognize the structure of systems where you aren't necessarily told what you're meant to be observing. This might come in handy later if, let's say, you're a firefighter and you have to look out for weaknesses of the structural integrity in a burning building. Having experience with learning such systems like film language make it easier to learn systems in later life.

What about making posters?

I got no idea about that one.

The Rise and Fall of the English Major Part I

So, update on what's been going on in my life- finished editing the newest draft of my friend's novel. I'm putting my English degree to its best use, by becoming a book editor! Sadly, the majority of people equate editors with proofreaders. While I am a stickler for grammar, most of my editorials involve story structure, character development, and backhanded compliment- there's very little on the actual prose. Still, it's a way to say to myself “those three years of university weren't a waste of time”. However, I have another reason for saying that getting an English degree was worth it.

Let me get this out of the way now- I don't think you could ever make a quantitative argument that a degree majoring in English at a New Zealand university is worth it, dollars spent in tuition fees balanced by a fixed income when you contrast that degree with earnings from other Arts degrees. I am aware that many, many people see English degrees as just a hobby and a way for you to be able to more eloquently explain why you're on unemployment benefit (har har, that joke is as fresh as day-old sushi). However, we force students to go through English education throughout high school all the way up to Year 12. Why? To teach kids how to read? No. At age 5, most of them can do that. So why do we teach English?

Well, that turns out to be a difficult question to answer with many reasons why but I'm going to give the answer that I think is the easiest to understand. First off, there is such a thing as emotional intelligence. There is skill in being able to recognize, interpret, resist, and exploit the emotions of yourself and others. Don't believe me? Consider times when you've done things impulsively, or done things you've regretted, or acted in a way that was self-destructive (smoking, binge-drinking, gambling). We are creatures of emotion, and we need to be aware of this (teenagers, I feel, are particularly lacking in this type of intelligence).

So, how do you teach someone what to do when they're unbearably sad? How do you teach someone to understand that they have an insatiable, irrational desire for something? Well, make them read books, watch films, write stories so they can have experiences that aren't their own, and put these feelings into words which can be communicated to others. I might not know what it's like to lose a parent, but I've seen Forrest Gump and (spoiler) the titular mother's character dies, and I was very sad. Although it will be much sadder when one of my parents actually dies, I will have, in some small way, have experienced this before and recognize it for what it is.

So, why do we need to recognize our own emotions? Because we aren't in complete control of them, and if we let them, our emotions can spiral out of control and leave us broken. This is why we have art- because art isn't always supposed to make us happy, but make us feel something.

I suppose I'm writing this because I've been feeling down lately.

This is nothing new. The end of semester is always hopelessly anticlimactic to me because I always imagine it to be full of parties and drunken shenanigans, but I have come to accept that it is more than likely stressed cramming for exams and mid-winter blues. As a postgraduate student, I don't have exams- I just have that gnawing feeling that my Master's degree is never going to pay for itself. I suppose lately what's happening is that I've been feeling ennui- that feeling of restlessness, boredom, frustration of the tediousness of life. Incidentally Sylvia Plath wrote one of my favourite lines of poetry about ennui- “tea leaves thwart those who court catastrophe”.

However, I started this blog in order to write down some of my feelings (dear god, if I ever end up famous for becoming a bestselling novelist or the first person to ever overdose on cappucinos, please don't include the majority of my scribbles in my complete biography). What else am I feeling? Tired, I suppose. Annoyed with myself at being unable to do any serious writing of my new play. I tend to subscribe to the John Green method of writing- just allow yourself to write terribly, and eventually the few granules of quality will amass as you refine your work. I like John Green, and I like his ouvre, but that is not really how I work.

How do I work? Well, this isn't exactly a proper answer but the usual response would be “as little as possible”.

Seven Degrees of Separation

It's that time of the year again when I have a bunch of university work to do, so I took the day to catalogue some more of the educational qualifications of some of my favourite fictional characters!

Honourable mentions:

Brian Griffin from Family Guy: One paper short of completing his BA from Brown University (he was too honest to cheat). Still working on that novel...?

Rupert Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Incomplete history degree from Oxford. Giles dropped out of Oxford to rebel against the family tradition of being a Watcher to the Slayers.

Arnold Judas Rimmer from Red Dwarf: BSC and SSC (Bronze Swimming Certificate and Silver Swimming Certificate respectively)

Anna Greens from Failure: Certificate in Google Adwords.

Bertie Wooster from Jeeves and Wooster: Unknown degree from Oxford (possibly Scriptural Studies, taking Latin as this was a mandatory subject for all undergraduates at the time), unknown if completed. Wooster was also educated at Eton before attending university.

Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs: BSc (presumably) double-majoring in psychology and criminology from the University of Virginia, graduating with honours.

Walter White from Breaking Bad: BSc (presumably) majoring in chemistry from Caltech. As a New Mexico high school teacher at the start of the series, he would also have been certified in Secondary Education (which involves 24 credit hours in a Secondary Education program including student teaching, 3 credit hours of reading education, and 24 credit hours in a specific content area, 12 of which must be upper level classes).

Frank Underwood from House of Cards: LLB from Harvard Law School.

Perry Cox from Scrubs: MD from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (interestingly, the character of Gregory House was inspired by Perry Cox and also attended John Hopkins). Cox also attended Hale University, a fictionalized version of Yale University.

Dr Evil from Austin Powers: MD from Evil Medical School.

Bunsen Honeydew from The Muppets: PhD or MD (unknown which, or both) from Carnegie Mellonhead University.

Temperance "Bones" Brennan from Bones: PhDs (one each in anthropology, forensic anthropology and kinesiology)

Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth from Futurama: Unknown, but he does hold a tenured post at Mars University (when asked what he is teaching, he responds: "The same thing I teach every semester, the mathematics of quantum neutrino fields. I made up the title so no student would dare take it"). The title of 'professor' derives from one's teaching or research post at a university (a professor is a "person who professes" in their field). A professor usually holds at least one higher degree (Master's level or higher) as the series is primarily set in the year 3000AD, the standards of academia may be different than modern ones.

Emmett “Doc” Brown from Back to the Future: PhD or SD (institution unknown).

Ross Eustace Gellar from Friends: PhD in paleontology from Columbia University.

Barbara Gordon from Batman/Batgirl: PhD in library science, likely from Gotham University.

Amy Wong from Futurama: PhD in Applied Physics (received in the episode “That Darn Katz!”)

Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code: PhD (presumably) in Symbology from Princeton University. As a professor at Harvard University, the least Langdon could hold would be a PhD. Symbology is not a real academic discipline.

Charles Francis Xavier (popularly known as Professor X) from X-Men: BSc (presumably) age of 16 from Harvard University. In graduate studies, he receives PhDs in Genetics, Biophysics, Psychology, and Anthropology with a two-year residence a Pembroke College, Oxford University. He also receives an MD in Psychiatry while spending several years in London

Gregory “Greg” House from House: MD with a double-speciality in infectious disease and nephrology. Completed at University of Michigan Medical School (where he would meet his future employer, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, MD) after he was expelled for cheating during an exam at John Hopkins Medical School.

Lisa Cuddy from House: MD specializing in endocrinology from the University of Michigan Medical School where she would meet the man she would later hire as Head of Diagnostics and date, Greg House.

James Evan Wilson (the Cy Young of medicine) from House: MD specializing in oncology, an undergraduate degree (presumably a Bsc) from McGill University. Wilson references having degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

Eric Foreman from House: MD specializing in neurology from John Hopkins Medical School where his future employer Greg House attended. Undergraduate degree (presumably Bsc) from Columbia University.

Robert Chase from House: MD having a double-speciality in sports medicine and critical care, Bsc in pre-med from the University of Sydney.

Allison Cameron from House: MD specializing in immunology (institution unknown).

Dr. Leonard Leakey Hofstadter, PhD from The Big Bang Theory: PhD (likely in particle physics), Bsc from Princeton.

Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, from The Big Bang Theory: BS, MS, MA, PhD, and ScD

Dr. Rajesh Ramayan "Raj" Koothrappali from The Big Bang Theory: PhD (likely in astrophysics)

Mr. Howard Joel Wolowitz from The Big Bang Theory: M.Eng

My Learning Journey: Only a Sith Deals in Absolutes

One of the things I had to do for my teacher training was present a "learning journey" at the end of the programme which reflected on how my year of being a student teacher made me a better teacher. I'm reproducing the text of that presentation here:

So, this is mainly going to be about the development of my professional disposition as a teacher. Before I begin, I'd like to mention the behavioural science paper “Why the Unskilled Are Unaware: Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-Insight Among the Incompetent” which notes that people are typically overly optimistic when evaluating the quality of their performance on social and intellectual tasks. In particular, poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. I bring this up because I'm a “lifer”, I went from school to university to this programme, and I assumed that I would not be in for any surprises at all. Boy, was I wrong about that.

So, like the paper mentions, I was overly optimistic about what I thought being a teacher was, because my idea of what a teacher was was a Jedi, from Star Wars, taking in young Padawan learners and honing their craft to use the Force. My first significant moment then, came from the first week of Edcursec classes about lesson plans, and curriculum documents, and that's when I realized that being a teacher is way more like being an office worker or low-level administrator than I ever imagined [show lesson plans made]. You have to be comfortable dealing with paperwork, and that really changed how I look at teaching. I used to think that a teacher's role was predominantly inside a classroom, but it's more preparing for the classroom. This only really struck me when I was on practicum and scripting and, even sometimes, rehearsing lessons.

My first practicum school was Lynfield College which is where I actually went to school, so that was deja vu. Until that point, I hadn't really talked to kids since I was a kid so I had to relearn how to establish relationships. LC has this line in their code of conduct for student teachers about professional distance, and I went way overboard with this. One student saw my ring and asked if I was married or a bachelor, and I told that student “I am an English teacher”. The students learn about you as you learn about them and so over time I did try and learn everyone's name with crazy mnemonics. I also got ATs who had taught me and I really changed my outlook on how they were as teachers. I used to think that teachers had noisy classrooms because they were too nice. Now I know better; now I know that there's an element of chemistry in student-teacher relationships that's necessary for a productive classroom. I'm also more culturally responsive to New Zealand's sports culture- I think kiwis all lose their mind over nothing when it comes to rugby- but I'm much nicer about that now in the classroom and I pretend like I support anyone playing against Australia.

One of the things I did at Lynfield which has a BYOD policy was to improve my skills with e-learning, and that was often by just telling students to switch off their devices. There was an OECD report published recently which shows research which notes that there is no correlation between devices and improved achievement, and I was always seeing students use their tablets to play games or be on Facebook. In my opinion, no one over thirty-five can responsibly conceptualize what a 14-year-old will use a tablet for in a classroom. Students hated that I wouldn't let them use tablets, but it wasn't so bad after a couple of days. It dawned on me how much we shouldn't be using devices constantly.

I also learned that teachers need a level of attention to detail that I didn't think was possible. Ngaire Hoben asked me a quite-cutting question, she asked “did you ever find anything in school hard?” and no I didn't so it was difficult for me to comprehend some students' lack of savvy study skills. One of my handouts for Media Studies had a checklist on how to answer the question, and my AT very sternly told me to put boxes next to the items on the checklist and I thought it would be a massive hassle to re-copy thirty papers but I did, and man, did those boxes come in handy. Students love ticking things off.

My second practicum school was Avondale College and it was definitely there that I really came alive and kicked ass as a teacher. English is a really tough subject to contextualize transference because it's often hard to see how knowing film language is going to come in handy in your job. In my first practicum my attitude was just “you're here for an hour, I'm here for an hour, let's just get do this one hour together”. Now I'm much better at explaining metacognition and how academic qualifications signals to employers that you have the ability to think in certain ways. I think the real problem with my attitude in first practicum was just too narrow. My attitude in a classroom now is simply “you're here. I'm here. Let's do this- together”.

So, I suppose that this all comes down to whether or not I think I'm ready to be a full-time teacher, but only a Sith deals in absolutes. All I will say is that this is the most ready I'm ever going to be. May the force be with you.

Update: A Creature of Bad Habits

Update:

So, I haven't posted in a while so I thought I'd just write a quick blog to say how things are going.

“As good as can be expected, I suppose”.

It's been a very busy and stressful time for me, approaching the end of semester. I have two large research projects going on, which means that pretty much everything else gets put on hold which annoys me. I subscribe to the CGP Grey definition of success- how much of your time do you get to decide what you want to do? At the moment, for me it's “very, very little”. I'm currently writing this post as a way of just getting the language part of my brain warmed up and then it's back to 6,500 words of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and 5,000 words on The Artist.

So, what's been happening? Well...the semester's almost over and it's always at this point I like to take a moment and reflect on how the half-year's been. So far, no complaints but I do have some suggestions. Lately it's been very monotonous so I think a road trip is in order- the destination is unimportant. I really need to take some time to figure out what I'm doing outside of my university work. Certainly, I think I would like to think that I am not codependent on the university- although sometimes it is difficult to think otherwise.

Sometimes I listen to one song over and over again to get myself focused on writing. I've listened to Taylor Swift's “Blank Space” 300 times. I don't even like Taylor Swift- but it is a song which keeps me focused.

I dunno. I really don't have much to say- which possibly suggests that I've shut myself off to new experiences which is never a good thing. I'll do anything once, but I feel like I've not really “done” anything outside of my routine. You start dying when you stop growing, and this is a big problem in my world view, because I am a creature of bad habits, and I do enjoy my routine. Being forced out of my comfort zone is a necessary thing for me to do, but it's never something I'm ever going to be okay doing.

I'm finally out of my back-catalogue so I'll be posting new material here from now on. I had one story I was going to post but it seems in poor taste at the moment so I'm going to just hang on to that one for another time.

Ruby's Dos and Don'ts of Drinking

I've come up with some advice for inexperienced drinkers. You're welcome ACC.

Ruby's Dos and Don'ts of Drinking

Do: Drink with your friends. Humans are herd animals because it's a good survival strategy. If you're in a group, the jerks of the animal kingdom are more likely to leave you alone.

Don't: Drink to make the people around you more amusing.

Do: Drink at bars you like, not bars you think you should like.

Don't: Buy drinks at clubs. Pre-drink (or pre-game as the Yanks say) if you have to, but the cost-benefit analysis of $10 for a vodka shot is near criminally overpriced.

Do: Carry your ID at all times (driver's license, Hanz 18+, or passport). It's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

Don't: Drink unless you have something that says you're old enough.

Do: Dress for the occasion. Suits and gowns at cocktail parties, jeans and T-shirts at house parties.

Don't: Wear an outfit for the first time when you go somewhere. If you're planning to wear something nice, wear it around the house a few times and see how you feel in it. The way we dress affects the way we feel, and if you have any concerns about what you look like, it's best to do it before you get inebriated.

Do: Share. You will have a better time if everyone is having a good time.

Don't: Pressure others into drinking. Offering is fine; insisting is bad. Allow people to drink at their own pace.

Do: Drink what you like. If you're a grown man who likes Smirnoff Ice, drink it! If you're a fan of gin and tomato juice, own up to it!

Don't: Be a drinks snob. No one likes that person.

Do: Enjoy a spa pool or a hot tub when you're sipping drinks.

Don't: Go swimming while drunk. It was nice knowing you.

Do: Go on adventures.

Don't: Go on adventures in a car if no one is sober.

Do: Play drinking games. God Save the Queen and Circle of Death are my favourites.

Don't: Play drinking games at weddings, or funerals, or interventions.

Do: Keep an eye on how many drinks you've had, and bear in mind your body's tolerance to alcohol. It can be very easy to get too drunk and once you're there, the reset button is...unpleasant and located at the back of your throat.

Don't: Top up your drinks halfway through finishing them. It makes counting difficult.

Do: Brush your teeth after you've finished drinking. Liquor on your teeth will make sure you need false teeth soon enough.

Don't: Brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniels instead of toothpaste. C'mon Ke$ha, you're better than that.

Do: Try lots of different liquors throughout your life. As you grow up, your tastebuds will change and you may find yourself liking different things in your thirties than you did in your twenties.

Don't: Try lots of different liquors in one night. That's a good way to get a hangover.

Do: Drink Responsibly.

Don't: Blame it on the alcohol. You're not Jamie Foxx.