Soms...

Soms lopen dagen niet zoals je het graag zou hebben. Soms is het allemaal niet zo makkelijk, of leuk, of gezellig. Normaal loop ik rond als de optimist zelve, klaar voor een gezellig praatje, of een geintje, klaar om een vastgelopen student verder te helpen, of een luie student vooruit te prikkelen. Maar, zoals een bekende Nederlandse reclame ooit zei; "Nu even niet!"

Met twee semesters achter de rug, weet ik ondertussen dat dit soort mindere dagen vaak exponentieel toenemen naarmate het einde van het semester in zicht komt. En het lijkt erop alsof dit keerpunt deze week is bereikt. Deze week is het namelijk advisement week; de week waarin studenten hun vakken voor volgend jaar kiezen. Voor de eerste-en tweedejaars is dit een vrij simpele procedure. Zij zitten vast aan een bepaalde rotation, en behalve als ze gezakt zijn voor bepaalde basisvakken, dan stromen ze makkelijk door in de meer geavanceerde vakken. Voor de juniors (3e jaars) en seniors (4e jaars) ligt dit vaak anders. Deze studenten hebben vaak al een afstudeerdatum op het oog, wat betekent dat ze zich aan een strak regime van vakken moeten houden om die datum te halen. Helaas blijkt regelmatig dat deze studenten, ondanks hun enthousiasme, niet alles gedaan hebben zoals het hoort, en dus een, of soms zelfs twee, semesters langer op de universiteit moeten blijven. Als ze zelf hun optel –en uitrekeningsommetjes goed zouden doen zouden ze hier ook zelf achter kunen komen, maar helaas is het vaak de adviser die hen met de vervelende waarheid moet confronteren. Voeg hier aan toe dat het semester op het einde loopt, en alle grote opdrachten tussen nu en twee weken binnen moeten zijn, en het wordt al snel duidelijk dat de sfeer onder de studenten soms verre van ideaal is.

Dit is niet is dat alleen voorbehouden is aan Amerikaanse studenten. Ook Nederlandse studenten kunnen heel goed mopperen en klagen over alles wat er mis is met de opleiding. Het grote verschil is dat je als docent op een Nederlandse universiteit lang niet zoveel interactie hebt met je studenten als hier. Zo kan ik me niet herinneren dat studenten in Nederland op elk moment van de dag je kantoor binnenlopen met problemen die uiteenlopen van vragen over vakken en opdrachten, opmerkingen over de aanwezigheid van andere docenten, vragen over mogen gebruiken van mijn printer/telefoon/internet, of het lenen van plakband, nietmachine, en kauwgum, tot aan vragen over relaties, ouders, en huisgenoten toe. Door deze hoge mate van student-docent interactie wordt je hier dus ook veel meer geconfronteerd met de (on)vrede van de studenten.

Zo heb ik vandaag mogen vernemen dat ik niet alleen veel te streng ben, maar ook onaardig, en gemeen. Daarnaast ben ik ook nog eens verschrikkelijk oneerlijk omdat studenten van mij allemaal extra vakken moeten doen die ze, volgens hen, eigenlijk niet nodig hebben. Volgens een student was ik veel te kieskeurig met het nakijken van zijn werk, en volgens een ander zag ik er veel te netjes gekleed uit. Op zulke momenten kan ik niet meer doen dan heel erg diep zuchten. En bedenken dat het allemaal wel weer over gaat. En nog maar eens diep zuchten. En me realiseren dat de Amerikanen goed weten waar ze het over hebben als ze weer eens opmerken dat “you can’t win ‘em all”.

En op dagen zoals dit kan een beetje humor, zoals hier van Paula Poundstone, helemaal geen kwaad!

Dreamers

I don’t know if it’s just our students, our university, or my becoming an old cynic, but the students I teach these days are possibly the most amazing dreamers I have ever run across in my life. And they dream big. They want to be the programming director of a major radio station, the next Christiane Amanpour, the next Oprah Winfrey, a music producer, a researcher on a par with George Gerbner, and the biggest DJ ever known to the entire US. I love nothing more than meeting our sophomores for the first time in Comm 2001, and having them tell me about what they will do with their degree. But as our students move up through our program, sometimes all their dreaming worries me. Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t dream. It’s cool to dream. You should live, eat, and sleep your dreams. By all means, dream away. But at one point you have got to start getting real, and starting making plans about how to realize that particular dream. And that’s where I’m not so sure about some of our students.

Our students here have all the opportunities imaginable to start building a pathway to a successful career in media, or media research. We have a television station, a radio station, a student newspaper, and endless opportunities for student research. Yet very few students seem to take advantage of all this. Many of our students don’t seem to take the time to go out and shoot a packet for the news broadcast, or write a good clean news article, or produce a weekly radio show. Yet these same students, when asked about their dreams in class, will voice grand ideals about a career in media.

And it’s not that we don’t tell them about what it takes to be successful. We do. Endlessly. We talk about the need for a reel if you want to go into television, the need for an awesome portfolio if you want to be a journalist, the need for research experience if you’re looking into graduate school. We tell them that only lots of hard work will get them close to where they want to be. We remind them constantly that the real world is only a few years away. But with some students, it doesn’t seem to hit home. They prefer to dream.

Now in my world, dreaming is just the first step on the road to success. If you don’t get past the dreaming-stage, you will most likely never get anywhere beyond a “Would you like fries with that?” Just yesterday I told a student who is about to graduate that “success has nothing to do with talent, and everything to do with determination.” It’s all about the work you put in. “Could-a, would-a, should-a” never brought anyone success.

The problem is that in order to truly be successful, you need to be intrinsically motivated. You need to want something from your smallest toe to the top of your head. Only then will you have the dedication to fight your way to wherever you are headed. And I’m not sure if many of our students really want what they say they dream about. I think many of them have been told that success and a famous name is what they want so often, they have started to believe it themselves. Many of them may have also been told that this is what they want because it’s possible. After all, many of my students have parents and grandparents who distinctly remember all the things they couldn’t be and do. Now that this generation has all that within reach, why shouldn’t they want it?

By the time our students get to college, they have been exposed to so many motivational speakers telling them to believe in themselves, to dream the unthinkable, to believe in their dreams, to not let anyone bring them down, that perhaps our students have forgotten to look deep inside themselves to figure out what it is that they want. And us professors, we can talk all we want, but if there’s not a little fire lit inside that tells you to do whatever it takes, there is little we can do. I like to compare it to running. Almost everyone can run a 5k on adrenaline, the crowds cheering them on, and the inspiring speeches before the race starts. But if you want to finish a 15k or even a half marathon, those outside factors won’t make a single difference. Your desire to finish needs to come from deep inside of you. And you know what, I don't think attaining success is a 5k race.

So then the question remains; should I be just another motivational speaker telling my students what is they want, or should I let them flounder and discover for themselves whether or not they have that little fire pushing them forward?

A small new leaf

“The truth shall set you free…”

Just when I had resigned myself to living in a world where “sure” means “no”, saying “that sucks” leads to at least a gasp and a “oh my”, “crap” is considered a cutting-edge cuss word, and no matter how many times people ask you how they are, they still don’t really care, I shared a completely eye-opening truth-filled moment with a friend this weekend.

It started because we both attended a social on Saturday where I spent the better part of two hours feeling slightly awkward. Although the women there were really friendly, and the food was great, I still could not help but feeling like an anthropologist on her first field trip. It started when a lady new to town (and dear to me already) said “Well that just pissed me off” and had at least two other ladies in absolute shock. It got worse when I heard one woman ask another how she was. The second lady apparently decided to throw all Georgia etiquette in the wind, and said; “Well, it’s okay”, which is the southern equivalent of saying that you are just about ready to throw in the towel. Instead of asking what was wrong; we were, after all, at a church, the first women smiled, said; “Okay”, and moved on. And I knew this wasn’t going to be my party when a third woman told me her husband’s return from his first deployment had been postponed indefinitely, but that that was “really fine, oh yeah, I mean, I’m having a great time! ”.

Now imagine my complete relief, total surprise, and absolute delight when we got home and my friend turned to me and asked; “Wow, did you find that as awkward as I did?” It was a total epiphany to find that someone, who in my eyes was, and is, the perfect southern lady (I mean she’s nice, polite, knows how to get along with everyone, and is a great cook to boot), felt the exact same way I did.

It got even better when I mumbled something like; “And this whole cussing thing gets on my nerves. Sometimes I feel so repressed, I just want to run off my mouth like a sailor, and she replied; “I know! Me too!”
“You do not swear.” I said unbelieving.
“Hell yeah I swear. You should hear me at home sometimes.”

It felt like rediscovering my friend all over again. Suddenly we both just opened up, and found that we both get so tired of the lack of authenticity, the people who pretend to care but don’t, the judging, the pressure, the competition, and all the other things that have been bothering me for the past year. So during our run we decided we were going to do things differently from now on. No more pretending, no more playing along with the “my kids/husband/family/home/career/faith” is better than you game, no more hypocrisy. We were just going to be real. Hallelujah, life is going to get a whole lot better now!

“…and thank God Almighty I’m free at last!”

Letting go

Just for the record, I get attached to things. Now although I’m not one of those scary people whose house is so full of coasters, empty soda bottles and used USPS boxes, that they make it on Oprah, it can get a tad annoying for both myself and the people around me. This is mainly because the things I get attached to are, at times, a little out of the ordinary. Odd things that you wouldn’t expect, like handkerchiefs, old school planners, little notes people wrote me in bygone days, an ancient field hockey skirt, and all of my racing bibs.

Apparently, bank accounts now belong to this group of oddities too. See, I have two Dutch bank accounts. When I was a little five-year old, my parents opened up a savings account for me at one bank, and then when I went to college, the free gift and checking offer induced me to open a second account at another bank. So pretty much for as long as I have had a semi-steady income, I have had these same two bank accounts. Now that I don’t live in the Netherlands anymore, however, the need for two accounts has pretty much disappeared. Calculate in the fact that both still charge me a quarterly fee, and you see why I really should close at least one bank account. So last night, as I was trying to fix an address change gone awry with one of the two banks, I realized it was time to let go of the least active bank account. I made up my mind, and went to bed happy. But this morning, all sorts of thoughts have begun to run through my head, and I started to doubt last night’s decision all over again. I mean, the account I hardly ever use is the one my parents opened for me when I was five. I’ve had that account for decades; do I really need to close it now? Plus the people at that bank are really much nicer than the people at the other bank. Maybe I should just transfer some money from the other account and start using this one more often. But somewhere in the back of my head, a little voice is saying; It’s a bank account for crying out loud! It’s not your first shoes, your first doll, or even your swimming diploma, it’s a series of numbers! And so the battle continues inside my head.

Trust me, this is nothing new for me. When I had to give up my Dutch driver’s license to obtain a Georgia one, I cried. And not just in the car, I cried inside the DMV. I cringe when I think about it; I mean, I sniffled over a pink piece of paper that never fit in my wallet, and was torn and scruffy from years of use. But you see, as I explained to my husband, it was the driver’s license I had worked my but off for. It was the driver’s license that I actually had to earn. I mean, no offense to American drivers here, but when you can obtain your license at 16, after having driven around with your dad, and taking a 15-mins spin around a parking lot, you haven’t truly earned it. And, most importantly, that ugly oblong piece of paper felt like one of my last ties to Holland.

And I feel the same way about that second bank account, the old bookcase that we really should get rid of, some of my clothes, and the content of at least three boxes up in the attic. They all come from Holland, or even France or Germany. All places I’ve called home, and that I will probably never again see like that again. Now when I said I’m not a packrat, I did mean that. I can and do limit myself to the kind of stuff I can hold on to. Once a year I will force myself to go through all of my things and do some seriously cleaning up. Sometimes I wonder though if all that does is make me more attached to the odds and ends I do decide to hang on to.

And, honestly people, how much room does a bank account take up? Could I please just not keep it and then maybe reconsider next year? Please…?

Driving to work - James Joyce style *

Thank heavens I’m off the interstate. I really hate that last part with all the concrete barriers on either side and trucks racing by you like there is speed limit, I swear one day I’m going to get hit from behind while trying to exit. Well at least it’s light out now although that probably won’t last long either and then I’ll be driving to and from home in the dark. The dark just makes me sleepy when I drive, is there any tea left in this thing, I better not drink too much or I’ll have to stop to go to the bathroom, wow it’s foggy here too I can barely see that semi up ahead and it’s not that far away, I hope everyone remembers to turn their lights on or I will have an accident. Oh, another deer on the side of the road… aaawwww… well at least it’s still in one piece and doesn’t have its body parts all strewn across the road, maybe I should stop and pick it up and get it stuffed and be really southern. Yeah. Oh man, if there’s a deer crossing the road right now I am so dead, I can’t see a thing in this pea soup… ooooh… but those woods sure look pretty with the fog swirling between the trees. And look at those cotton fields, it’s almost like a fairy tale with the sun lighting up the fog and the endless fields of brown bushes, hhmm.. why I can’t see the cotton as well now as I can in the evening and afternoon, I wonder if cotton closes up at night like flowers, I should find out about that because that would be really neat…ooh...look at that shack over there it is really starting to fall apart, maybe I should stop and take a few pictures to put on my blog, the fog makes everything looks so surreal. I always say I’m going to stop and then I never do, and then the next thing I know the shack will be gone and I’ll be all like, ooh, I wish I had taken a picture of that Dude if you pull out in front of me I am going to be up your butt like nobody’s business. Good you decided not to, sheesh, idiot. Dang, this bridge sucks all my windows always fog up around this lake I wonder why. Oh, Bryce’s BBQ shack I really need to stop there one day and pick up some ribs for D he loves ribs, maybe I should call him later today and ask him if he would like me to do that on Friday. “And I will try to collect all the pieces you left I will carry them all and let you forget”, that song is so sad. What if my parents got Alzheimer and wouldn’t remember me or my youth then what would be left of me? I don’t even live in the place I come from, well, I don’t really have one place I come from anyway, but still who would remember me as a child, that is really sad… hhmm…but who I am is also who I was when I was little so don’t you always carry that around with you regardless of who remembers? I can’t wait for my parents to get here I wish they lived a lot closer so we could just stop by for tea. Time goes by too fast, I can’t believe M doesn’t fit the jeans we bought him at the beginning of the school year anymore, why can’t they just stay little a little while longer? Whoa…did they just say “Transsiberian orchestra”? They sure did something about them giving a large tip, how is that news, you can tell the election is over, because the news is starting to get weird again. Look at that church all shrouded in the fog over there in the middle of the fields it’s so pretty. I wonder why they lock their parking lot with a gate though there is nothing around who would park there? Hmmm..shrouded is a pretty word kind of like pickle relish that sh sound is really neat. Sssh..ssshh..now I sound like Bjork, let’s see if I can pick up the university station here oh yeah, I like that jazz I hope can catch some of the morning show..whoa is that school bus stopping? Oh no, it’s just using its blinker, sheesh, it’s like a Christmas tree, well at least you can see it in this fog. Oh, why is that semi stopping? Oh, it’s the traffic light. Huh, did you know that you don’t see a light for about 80 miles on this trip, that is so weird. You do know you think way too much on your drives, yes you do. I wonder if I can remember all this when I get to work.

* For those who are wondering if I have lost my mind, or my ability to use proper punctuation, rest assured, I haven't. If you want to know more about James Joyce and his "stream of consciousness" technique, please check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_writing

Ik ben d'r klaar voor!

Na twintig maanden van praten, weken van heftige spotjes en telefoontjes ben ik er helemaal klaar voor. Ik zit aan de buis gekluisterd, laptop, drinken, snacks, en een deken (voor het geval het afkoelt en ik niet helemaal naar de thermostaat wil lopen) binnen handbereik, en van mij mag het eindelijk beginnen: de uitslagen van de Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezingen.

Tijdens de primaries dacht ik dat we het ergste wel gezien hadden, maar alle campagne activiteiten van de laatste weken hebben heel duidelijk gemaakt dat het altijd "higher, better, faster" kan. Elk reclame blok werd gevuld met minstens twee politieke advertenties, en we werden minstens een keer per dag gebeld door het kantoor van een of andere kandidaat. Nu is er op zich niks mis met goed campage voeren. Als je eenmaal leert hoe hoog je moet springen om niet over alle advertentiebordjes in de berm te struikelen, kan zo'n intensieve manier van campagne voeren zelfs nog wel eens leerzaam zijn. Maar het politieke circus van de laatste tijd was de fase van echt educatief ver voorbij. De negativiteit van alle reclames voor de lokale verkiezingen hier was bijvoorbeeld zo erg dat manlief en een gegeven moment had bedacht dat hij misschien wel op geen van beide Senaats-kandidaten wilde stemmen. De zogenaamde "robo-calls" hielpen ook niet echt om het positieve gevoel in stand te houden, en de eindeloze discussies op de radio en de televisie over wat er zou gebeuren als kandidaat A of B verkozen zou worden maakten dat wij bijna de behoefte gingen voelen om dagen te tellen tot D-day. Of nou ja, E-day.

We horen het elke dag hier, maar het kan eigenlijk niet vaak genoeg gezegd worden; met een vrouwelijke vice-presidentskandidaat, en een African-american kandidaat voor President is dit wel een hele bijzondere verkiezing. Mijn studenten zijn al maanden in alle staten, en toen vandaag een student per ongeluk liet vallen dat ze niet kon stemmen omdat er iets mis gegaan was met een absentee ballot was de verontwaardiging bijna tastbaar. Alhoewel ik het feit dat mijn studenten, meer dan ik ooit ergens heb meegemaakt, zich echt interesseren voor de politiek natuurlijk prachtig vind, is het ondertussen wel genoeg geweest. De boog is nu al zolang gespannen, het is hoog tijd dat er een einde aan gebreid wordt. Zo zijn de emoties zijn onder de verschillende bevolkingsgroepen ondertussen al zo hoog opgelopen dat de burgermeesters van sommige steden in Georgia de bevolking vanochtend al opriepen tot kalmte.

Het wordt hoog tijd om weer over te gaan tot de orde van de dag. De politieke bordjes mogen de tuinen wel uit, en vervangen worden door kerstversieringen, het nieuws moet weer gewoon aandacht gaan besteden aan honden die vastzitten in putten en politie-achtervolgingen, en de woorden "trooper-gate", "my friends", en "Joe the plumber" moeten maar weer gauw in de vergetelheid raken. Om het op een goede southern manier te brengen: "Let's git 'r done!". Voor de niet-southerners verwijs ik graag naar het orakel der wijze uitspraken, de aloude Spongebob Squarepants, die lang geleden al heel wijselijk zei: "Ik ben d'r klaar voor! Ik ben d'r klaar voor! Ik ben d'r klaar voor!"

Here's your sign

Four signs that you are adapting to life in the south (possibly even a little more than you are comfortable with):

1. You start using really interesting grammatical constructions.
I guess that hearing people say “He done gone to town last week” and “She be doing that right now” has finally caught up with me, because on Friday I brought entire family to a standstill, when I said; “Look at what you done now” when husband-dear threw a ball across the room for Zoe and it hit a lamp. Actually, it may have also been “You be doing what?!", or “You done did what?!”. My actual response caused such a whoop and a holler from my assorted family members, and such embarrassment on my part, that I think my brain blocked out exactly what it was that I said. The point is that in spite of having been a copy editor for years, on insisting on using proper grammar in the briefest of emails, and endlessly correcting students’ papers, southern grammar has apparently even caught up with me.

2. Roadkill doesn’t phase you anymore. At all.
And when I say at all, I mean it. The other day I was out running, and found myself in that wonderful place runners call “the zone”. It’s when you don’t really feel any pain or discomfort, you don’t really have any thoughts going through your head, you’re just in your happy running place. Now a year ago, any kind of roadkill was enough to catapult of out of any zone, and send me flying to the other side of the road. Not anymore. Not only did I not notice the squished squirrel on the side of road, I didn’t even realize I was running over it until my feet hit the asphalt again, and I wondered what the soft furry thing was I had stepped on. And the worst part? When I looked around and realized I had just stepped on a dead furry animal, I merely shrugged and went on my way. Yeah. Wow.

3. You think going to Zaxby’s is a treat.
Allow me to clarify that although it tries to pretend otherwise, Zaxby’s is nothing more than an upscale McDonald’s or Chick-Fil-A. You still have to pick up your very greasy order of chicken and fries at a counter, you still are responsible for throwing your own food away and getting your own refills. The difference is that the ambiance is a little nicer and your food is not served in paper wrappers, but on plastic plates. A year ago I would have preferred anything to Zaxby’s. A bowl of soup at home would have seemed more enjoyable (and just for the record: I am not a soup lover). But this weekend, after having run another idiotic distance, I was so famished for something hot and greasy, that Zaxby’s sounded absolutely wonderful. And I really enjoyed the funky roadsigns they had used for the walls, as well as the chicken fingers and fries. It’s a long ways away from dinners at Michelin-star restaurants, and the scary part is that it felt good.

4. You start putting metallic ribbons on your car.
I know I wrote about those slightly scathingly only a few months ago, yet now I have become one of the crowd too. Just recently I purchased an apple-red ribbon that reads “proud owner of an adopted pet”, which was sold in support of our local animal shelter. The color matches my car, I do very much love my rescue puppy, and wish everyone else would adopt a pet too, and I think supporting your local shelter is a very worthy cause. So have I been taken in by the ribbon-mania? Probably. Do I care? Not really.

Thank goodness the confederate flag draped over someone’s mailbox that I saw yesterday still sent me into a five-minute rant on intolerance, otherwise I would have really considered myself a lost cause.