Quandaries

Last week was the first week of the rest of my life.  It went pretty darn well; I soaked up some serious cube time working on lectures, I dropped plenty of historical logic in the classroom, and I got to meet a whole heapin' mess of my new colleagues.  I am, however, faced with a quandary:

You see, it would be pretty easy for someone who actually cared (this would be a mythical beast like a basilisk or an efreet, but bear with me here) to figure out who I am based on this blog.  I refer to the city I live in about once ever other sentence, I write about starting up my new job teaching full-time at a prominent local CC, there are about a million references to the subjects I studied and now teach, etc. etc. etc.  Again, there is no discernible reason why anyone would care, and I don't think this thing is google-able (e.g. google me.  This blog doesn't show up.)  That said, the thing that teachers get in trouble with is indiscretion; talking shit, being overly candid, otherwise opening their great gaping pedagogical mouths in an unprofessional way.

Thusly, I'm kind of left in the position of not being able to openly talk about my experiences teaching, especially since I'm three years of good reviews out from having tenure.  This, too, is kind of a great flaming heap of who-could-possibly-give-a-shit, but on the other hand, I've always maintained that the point of blogging is keeping a running tally of the lives of people who we don't get to talk to or see very often, which for me includes a lot of good-looking peoples I know from grad school who are now scattered all over the place.

Conclusion?  Bummer.  My devoted readership of literal half-dozens will have to continue to make do with vague allusions to my professional life combined with pithy lists of whatever I'm thinking about that particular second in front of the computer.

Elbow Patches and Cell Phones

It's in-service (read: staff and faculty, no students yet) week at The College.  Some good talks and presentations, some less good ones, some nice tours and facilities presentations, etc.  Tomorrow is the big district-wide history meeting, at which I plan to introduce myself to everyone in as succinct, concise, and laconic a manner possible.

More to the point:

1. I bought a new jacket at H+M today.  It is pretty amazing.  It's nouveau-tweed, with pockets and frickin' elbow patches.  I kept resisting elbow patches over the years, despite their obvious applicability to my personal aesthetic, because I didn't feel worthy of them.  I said "when I get my masters," then "when I'm ABD," then "when I finish the doctorate," then "when I'm an adjunct."  Well, now I'm full-time.  That's good enough for elbow patches.
2. I did that as a kind of shopping therapy thing after the idiots at the T-Mobile store destroyed my phone.  Replacement: 9 days out.  Hopefully no one needs to call me to tell me anything important.

It's-A Me, New Faculty Guy!

Monday - Wednesday of this week was the new faculty orientation, waaaaaaay out at the western-most outpost of the educational empire that is The Community College I Work At.  My fellow incoming faculty members were equally giddy about the whole thing.  There was lots of sharing war stories about the hiring process, of past years working as adjuncts, of various policies I'd never heard of, etc.

Tomorrow, on the way home from a quick visit to see my mom (who has been doing a bang-up job recovering from surgery), I'll stop by campus and set up...wait for it...

MY OWN CUBICLE.

This is huge.  I will have my own CUBE.  My own phone w/ PHONE NUMBER.  My own COMPUTER.  Sorry to e-shout, but I am very excited about this.  The whole thing that murdered us as grad students, and continued to suck once I was a part-time faculty member, were the logistical hurdles associated with not having any facilities worth a damn.  The Bunker at UCSC was, you know, funny, but it wasn't actually a great place to work (i.e. a cold concrete room underground with no natural light and computers built in the early modern period, c. 1450 - 1750 CE.)  I shared a cube with several other people while I was part time at The CC I Work At in 2011, which was better than nothing, but I still didn't have anywhere to put anything.

Now I have a cubicle.  It's like winning the lottery.  Phrases I look forward to using in the future include:

• "Come to my office hours IN MY CUBICLE."
• "Let me go get that FROM MY CUBICLE."
• "I'll be IN MY CUBICLE if you need me."
• "What do you think of how I've decorated MY CUBICLE?" 

This is a big deal, you guys.

Power Dome Birthday

I am completely 34.  Last night, my homie J and I went and saw Devo at a ridiculous amphitheater in Vantucky.*  It's the Devo/Blondie tour.  Highlights included:

• Devo was amazing.  I need not say more on the subject.
• J and me playing "who is here to see Devo, who is here to see Blondie."
• The dude with a huge mane of platinum blond hair, big shades at night indoors, and a massive beer gut. (Blondie)
• The woman in the tight silver stretch pants, black bikini top, and her 7-year-old son in tow. (Blondie)
• The 45-ish couple, her in homemade Alice in Chains jacket thing, him in a Styx t-shirt from, say, '87.  (Blondie)
• The bizarre gang of skinheads (?), punks, and 80s stripper girls with enormous 80s stripper hair, all dancin' up a storm.  (Devo!)
• The fact that Blondie sucked so bad, we took off after one song.  But again, Devo was amazing, and J got the tickets for free from one of his employees at the body piercing empire he co-owns, so the night was a raging success.

Anyhoo, here is a pic taken on our way out when we bought t-shirts.  The old stoner merch guy let us wear a gen-you-ine Power Dome for the pics (they were $40 a pop, which was a little steep.)

Fun!

Pirates, Birthdays

1. One of the fun things we did during the four years in Santa Cruz was get together with our homies K and L and go see movies.  They taught us the art of smuggling vodka in to the theater and mixing it with soda from the concession stand.  We'd normally have dinner and drinks beforehand as well.  This practice led, in some cases, to highly inaccurate appraisals of movies.  For example, L and I were particularly intent on reducing the world's alcohol content one evening and concluded that the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie was "really good."  In fact, it is one enormous hallucination that was somehow funded by Disney.
2. That leads me to the discovery of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the almost-straight-to-video one that Johnny Depp made in between laughing himself to the bank.  I got it off of Netflix out of morbid curiosity and it is almost as weird as the third one.  Weirder than the content, though, is definitely that Disney continued to throw money at the project; it's like the Republican party funding some weird naked art experiment because they didn't have anyone on staff look into what the project was before they wrote the check.  There are big-name actors, good special effects, and pretty lavish sets given the context of an already-concluded plot; it's the most unnecessary franchise reboot ever, which is definitely saying something.  I only regret that K + L are not here to watch it with us over about seventy-five bottles of red wine.
3. Speaking of birthdays (huh?), yesterday was B's!  She continues to get better-looking, which I would have said was impossible.