Category: school

Ben Katchor at Carleton

As I often say, one of the best things about working at Carleton is going to all the excellent events that the College sponsors. Tonight’s example was a wonderful lecture by the cartoonist/graphic novelist Ben Katchor, best known for his comic strip, Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer – a strip I discovered in the Chicago Reader newspaper soon after graduating from Macalester and moving to Chicago. It was then unlike anything I’d ever read, and Katchor’s lecture – which he said he delivered to meet a special request from someone here – was no different: a “picture story” entitled “The Great Museum Cafeterias of the Western World: An Illustrated Lecture on the Design and Culture of Museum Cafeterias.”

Yes, that really was the topic, and yes, it really was that weird, as well as charming and hilarious and moving. More than anything, the story reminded me of the sort of story that Jorge Luis Borges might have written – a few bright threads of truth and reality woven into a cloth of fiction. Katchor’s story had some magic realism, some silliness, some heartstring-tugging , some facts, and tons of great pictures, of which my friend Doug Bratland took some shots (thanks for sharing them, Doug!):

"Mnemonic Merchandise" (Ben Katchor)
"Mnemonic Merchandise" (Ben Katchor)
"The Idea of a Sandwich" (Ben Katchor)
"The Idea of a Sandwich" (Ben Katchor)
The Museumgoer (Ben Katchor)
The Museumgoer (Ben Katchor)


Registration Circus Tent

Carleton has a lot of good traditions, but those centered on “New Student Week” are especially good. The best one: upperclass students line up at the formal campus entrance and cheer – loudly and energetically – for the first-year students as they roll onto campus. The noise is joyous and wonderful.

Another good, if more practical, tradition involves putting many of the check-in activities under a huge tent on the campus quad. I’m not involved in that affair, but I do like to see literally all the first-year students (and their hovering parents) lined up and waiting for their life at the college to start…
New Student Week Registration Tent

School-Tuckered

Today was the first day that both girls had to go to school – albeit an hour later than usual for Julia, and only a 90-minute preschool orientation for Genevieve. Still and all: they were wrecked when I arrived home, just after a screaming/hitting fight (and consequent time-outs) over some toys.

In the scant time I had with them before they went peeplessly to bed at 6:45, each girl had at least a couple exhaustion-induced meltdowns. Vivi cried, for instance, because we ran out of jam at dinner and because I unthinkingly wrote a “Z” down where she had written the letter backwards. Julia simply fulminated about everything (even rolling her eyes!), and told me (for the second night in a row) that she didn’t want to go back to first grade because it was too tiring. This came after telling me a dozen or so funny anecdotes about the day, so it was clearly the tired talking.

Throughout all that, though, Julia played school with her Little People toys, openly and adorably processing the new experiences of first grade. She named the bus driver, the teacher, the “recess guard”/librarian, and all the kids, and she put all the kids through her full day of activities, from “greetings on the rug” to “lineup for bus 14.” Had I taped her playing, we would have had a 1/10-scale replica of her first-grade day. The day ended with the kids being dropped off at home – and then Daddy coming home from his job (“where he just sat at a desk all day”) and being late for dinner.

Point taken, kid.

Summer Semester

Today, I submitted the final grades for the online course I taught this summer for Metro State University in St. Paul, “World War II – A Global History.” This is the twelfth time I’ve taught for Metro State since fall 2003, and the third time I’ve taught this particular course, always online. I felt like I finally had it “down” this time, thanks in part to some particularly strong students. The discussions, the midterm and final exams, and especially and the five-part cumulative paper assignment (an idea I stole from some Carleton faculty) really worked well this time around, which is almost as pleasing as teaching the course was sometimes tiring and frustrating.

My Metro State students are usually about half traditional-age college students and half “grown ups” who are either getting a second college degree or finishing their first one. It almost goes without saying that the working adults are the harder workers – though at the same time they tend to be less imaginative and more inclined to connect the dots. (Not unlike their instructor, in some ways. He too has a “day job”!) The best individual students are often the traditionals, young men and women who I think would succeed at most colleges.

And then there are the traditionals who are traditional in less appealing ways, like the five students who earned grades of “F” this term (including students who earned 92, 87, and 12 points out of 200 – the last was still emailing me about “catching up” last week!) and the young man who emailed me literally moments before I submitted the final grades:

When are final grades due? Also this has been a really interesting course and you really challenged us. I learned so much from this course.

His grade wasn’t bad, but this blatant appeal made my eyes roll.

But whatever. This is a decent gig, I tell myself, both a good way to earn extra money and a good way to practice at least some of the skills I learned in grad school. As a reward for teaching all these Metro State classes as well as finishing (in six weeks) the infinitely more onerous and unrewarding task of serving on the townhouse-association board, I think I’m going to buy myself an iPad – which coincidentally costs almost exactly as much as one of my Metro State paychecks and which will be pretty handy for using to teach the online courses.

Goodsell Death Ray

All the construction outside Goodsell Observatory at Carleton means that the College has finally begun the construction of our long-awaited death ray.

Goodsell Projects

Once installed, sometime next month, we will conduct preliminary tests on people who’ve let their dogs off leash in the Arb. When the instrument is properly calibrated, we’ll burn a clown nose on the head of the rampant lion on the west wall of St. Olaf’s slightly-too-fancy student center, Buntrock Commons. Finally, with the ray fully operational, we’ll zap our competitors where we know it’ll hurt: in their endowment managers’ offices.

Money-Making $cheme$

In an effort to “juice” the endowment with cash revenues, the College has converted the upper level of the Rec Center into a greenhouse for producing Minnesota folding chairs (Chaairus folderol prairie). Conditions are perfect for growing, as you can see from this shot of the bumper crop. College officials hope to get three or even four crops from the greenhouse before it’s converted back to its intended purpose, holding ultimate frisbee tournaments.
Field House Farming

Summer Giddiness

I had an oddly happy, satisfied, excited feeling all day today. Absurdly, I initially chalked it up to having a quiet, meeting-free day at work in which to get a lot done. I did, and I did, but after dinner, playing outside with the girls, I realized that the sensation was much more due to the fact that today’s really the start of summer, complete with typical crazy summer weather that ranged from deafening thundershowers this morning to hazy, humid sunshine this afternoon.

Narcissistically, summer is full of things to anticipate with eagerness. In a month, I’ll take a work-related trip to a professional meeting that is always valuable and that leaves me energized for the rest of the summer’s work. July is dominated by my second-most-favorite sporting event, the Tour de France, which is as complicated, excessive, and political as it is impressive. The long summer evenings leave plenty of time for sitting out on the patio with a beer and a book – including several good ones that are coming out this summer. And as much as I love being outside in the winter, I also love being outside in the summer: it’s the best season for working out. The heat and humidity (“What does not kill me…”), the sudden squalls, the dusty roads, the greening fields… I plan to take a couple workday afternoons off to do some long bike rides, for instance.

Work changes dramatically when – as it has – campus empties out: three-quarters of the students are long gone, and the seniors are only here through the weekend, with commencement occurring tomorrow. Come Monday, we’ll be in ghost town mode at Carleton. Which is, all things considered, pretty nice, both in its own right (fewer meetings! a less urgent pace! lots of time for projects! summer dress code!) and in comparison to the happy hubbub of campus during the school year.

At home, today was our first pick up at our CSA farm, Open Hands, the produce of which pretty much means “summer” to us. Shannon and the girls went out there this afternoon, caught up with the proprietors and their dog, and brought home a nice trove of produce, including lots of greens and some tiny, fantastically sweet strawberries – which we enjoyed with homemade pizza for dinner.

And most importantly, today was Julia’s last day of kindergarten. She’s a first grader now, ready to soak up her first true summer vacation (even if she doesn’t yet know just how lucky she is). Vivi’s been done with preschool for a while, but many things have been on hold until Julia finished up. With K now history, it’s on to summer: soccer and swimming lessons for Julia, summer “school” for Vivi, picnics, lots of outdoor play – all the things that Shannon excels at planning and carrying out. They’re going to have a lot of fun – at least as much fun as these yahoos who were in my yard last summer.
First Swim of the Season

K Graduation

Here – on the eve of Julia’s last day as a kindergartner – are a couple excerpts from Wednesday’s graduation ceremony: her teacher awarding her diploma and Julia reading her poem, “Spring” (text below the video).

Julia’s Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony from Christopher Tassava on Vimeo.

Julia’s poem, “Spring”

Spring flowers blooming
Bright and beautiful
Green, green grass
Dark green, light green
Tulips, daffodils, and daisies as bright as the sun
Apple trees are growing very yummy apples
Spring

Zootastic

Though the rain made today’s field trip to the Como Zoo a total miss as far as photography, the kids enjoyed themselves, and the cadre of chaperones had a pretty easy time of it. I only had to monitor Julia and her friend A., both of whom were perfectly fine – except, predictably, for tiring out and getting hungry. We did get to see most of the coolest animals, and saw some funny stuff like a keeper feeding the penguins, tamarins chasing each other around, and a giraffe using its long purple tongue to eat crackers. A few pictures…

Julia, tiredly (and distractedly)s sitting for pictures toward the end of the tour:
Julia

I liked the surname-pun possibilities of this sign:
Almost a Marketing Sign for my Family

Kids loved the koi pond in the “Sunken Garden” flower area:
Kids and Koi

The garden itself was amazing:
The Sunken Garden at Como Conservatory

Deadline Day Office

I usually keep my office moderately tidy, neither at the “clean desk = sick mind” end of the continuum or the (in)famous “Geologist’s Office” end of the continuum.* But on deadline days like today (especially like today, with two big federal proposals going out), all bets are off. Click through for notes.

Deadline Day Office

*This photo by Alec Soth is part of a stunning 2002 exhibit of photographs of locales around the Carleton campus, “Vantage Points.”

A New Chapter

Today’s blog post goes in the “My Little Girl’s Growing Up *sniff sniff*” category…

The other day, Julia was talking with our next-door neighbor friend, M., a worldly first grader, about the “Magic Tree House” books that the kindergarten teachers read to the kids. M. rhapsodized about some MTH titles that her dad had bought for her, books that Julia thought sounded very interesting.

Lo and behold, when I came home the next day, Shannon had dug out some Magic Tree House books that a friend had passed down to us after her son outgrew them. (Thanks, A.E.!) Being the hyperliterate sort, Julia immediately started in on them; being the eager imitator, Vivi was happy to listen too. So far, Julia prefers to have us read them to her, even though the books are simple and straightforward enough that she could (mostly) read them on her own.

This is a-okay with me, since the books are lots of fun. The chapters are take no longer than a few minutes to read, and unlike many kids’ books, the prose is actually easy to read aloud. And the stories are juuuuust right – interesting, historical, exciting, not too scary. I didn’t expect to be reading the legendary “chapter books” already, but I like it.

Crashing at Carleton

I dunno if it’s the longer days or what, but I’ve noticed a lot of Carleton students sleeping all around campus lately:

  • on the sofas in the student center – sitting up, lying down; one and two to a couch
  • face-down at a table in the library
  • reclining in an Adirondack chair on the Bald Spot
  • leaning against a tree in front of one of the academic buildings
  • on a bench in front of the library
  • sitting in a chair outside the president’s office
  • lying in a spot of sun under an oak tree

I’m halfway amused by the kids’ abilities to sleep almost anywhere, but halfway inclined to shake them awake and shout, “You’ll never feel more energetic than you do in college! Get moving!”