Steve Speaks out

DixieChick is a wonderful accident. After earning an "arts van filosofie" in Social Science with a minor in "konijn-tonijn" studies, she joined the American military and moved to Georgia. It was by relocating to the American South that she ended up being hired, two years ago, at the same small university I was. I say accident because it's purely geography that allows her to be here – she's a fierce advocate for our school and our most outstanding contributor, but we frankly don't deserve her, and are too myopic to realize it, too. She and I set up a little campaign with a political action committee last year in order to ensure that the school would be smart enough to rehire her as tenure track and give her an exorbitant raise. Fortunately that worked, and now she's working on her tenure portfolio and wearing boots and short skirts on days when she meets with the promotion & tenure committee. We still don't appreciate/understand her, though, because she has the misfortune of knowing how things should be done, properly.

Our workplace is very old fashioned and traditional. This tends to rub DixieChick the wrong way. She is quick to explain that, "in Nederland," various things are done like this or like that. This is fun for me, as my job is to play devil's advocate and tell our precious Dutch transplant why she's wrong. Trouble is, she's very stubborn and sticks to what she knows to be right (a true conservative :P). Honestly, we agree on most everything important (we originally bonded over being cultural and political misfits in rural Georgia), but I can't resist in trying to convince her that:
· Her students' excuses are valid
· Her supervisors know what they're doing
· The humanities and social science approach are equally valid
· Whitey is always to blame
· She's being unreasonable
· One should work six days a week

No progress, yet, but I'll keep y'all posted. I'm not just picking on DixieChick for fun, though. She is really sui generis. As I'm sure you're aware, she commutes 3 hours a day in her little car. She's at work every morning before nearly anyone else in our building. I usually arrive a little later than the bulk of our neighbors, but even if I come in at 8 o'clock sharp, she's already there. I think she's there at 7am. Only a few times have I ever made it in before her, usually because something catastrophic has happened, like she hit a flock of geese on the highway, or had to run a 5k before she got ready to come to work. As a consequence of coming in so early, and from so far away, she does end up being the first person to leave the office each day. After I come back from a lunchtime meeting or session, I'll look around and wonder, "where is Dr. D?" Gone! But her commute and hours are far from being the strangest things about this perfectly accentless professor. She is wonderfully quirky, and gets very excited about small things. She was hopping up and down just the other day in my office, excited over received a shipment of Dutch candy. Having someone goofy (but "normal" in the ways that matter) at work to talk with about the funny and odd details of life keeps me sane. She is an entertaining coworker/friend/weird foreign person. One that faithfully gives me full updates on how many kilometers miles she ran/biked/swam (it makes me tired!). She likes to shout down the shared and reverberant hallway at no one in particular, not caring who hears her acting out Family Guy lines, cursing out her Senior Project students, or threatening to poison the departmental secretary. The great thing about DC's quirks, though, is that I can pick on her ad nausuem, to the point where it would annoy or insult most people, and she doesn't care. She even thinks it's funny sometimes. I've found that she has a very thick skin and an absurd sense of humor. Try as I might, I haven't been able to make her cry. Apparently only bureaucrats, immigration officials, and our IT staff have the ability to produce DixieChick tears.

Students fear her for her challenging courses, but they also realize she's a damn good teacher. She pours her heart into the classroom, and when she's not in the classroom, she's poring over her notes, examples, assignments, and teaching strategies. Next year, she'll be eligible for a teaching award…

So now you've gotten the "Steve" perspective on your favorite blogger. Everything you've read in Southern Tales is true. About every morning over coffee, DixieChick will shout through the paper-thin walls: "BLOG'S UP!"