Bad Pedagogy at Home Depot

After a two-hour workout, I decided to meet Meredith at the Home Depot so we could learn how to tile our bathroom. I was tired, sore, and hungry, so my brain was translating the aluminum bleacher's texture at the talk site as doubly uncomfortable.

Anyway, Home-Depot-Tile-Guy arrived and removed two largish plastic soda bottles from a grocery bag. I got worried after he had done that because that meant he was going to teach for a long time. He then basically asked the twelve of us seated on the benches if we had any questions.

Uh . . . yeah? Lots? Maybe you should direct the order of your talk a little better?

So then insane-million-question-lady-in-the-front-row starts asking questions about her house, how to build a shower, how to tile a jacuzzi, how to tile the underside of her car, how to tile her cat. I mean, SHUT UP!!!! Insane-million-question-lady-in-the-front-row kept going on and on. When people had their own questions, insane-million-question-lady-in-the-front-row would cut them off, throw in a question, REALIZE that it wasn't related to the topic at hand, and then proceed to rephrase a question so it would fit her problem. Half the time she didn't even know what topic we were on. The other people on the bleachers were rolling their eyes. If I had hair on my head, I'd have pulled it out.

We ended up leaving the session early, but the damage had been done. I'd been put in a foul mood.

This is for the insane-million-question-lady-in-the-front-row:

Do-it-yourself is not for people who need to work on life skills first.


And this is for the Home-Depot-Tile-Guy:

1. Have a planned trajectory for your talk
2. Allow for questions if they're on topic. If they're not, politely tell the questioner that you'd be happy to speak with them after the session.
3. Keep the session on time.
4. Actually DEMONSTRATE how to tile instead of giving us product pitches.

(pissy mode off)

***

Students wrote pantoums in my poetry class. Funny form. The danger of it is you've really really really got to have some damn fine lines worth hearing more than once.

They're writing ghazals now. I hope Agha Shahid approves wherever he is.

The last two forms will be the villanelle and the sestina. Please give me the strength.

***

The last of the job candidates comes on Monday. I hear somewhere some school's conducting six searches in the same department. Talk about cruelty! One's hard enough!

***

PJ Harvey is in heavy rotation on the iPod.

Oopsie

I made an oopsie today. A clerical error, to be precise. It seems Furious Lullaby has moved along quite nicely in a particular contest held by a particular press and I neglected to inform them of the manuscript's latest status. I received a notification about this happening and I turned beet red upon hearing the news.

I'm very embarassed by the whole thing and I profusely apologized to the press. I'm usually quite good about things of this nature, but somehow this one slipped by me.

I hope they don't hold it against me in the future. They're a great press publishing poets whom I admire.

***

Many job candidates have come and are coming by campus. They're all so good and all so hireable. I've been so preoccupied with these searches . . . clocking in longer hours on campus than normal.

We've got two searches running, and let me tell you, there are so many talented scholars out there these days. I'm so very glad I'm not in the job search this year. More power to my friends who are on the hunt.

***

Super Bowl prediction: the Bears and the Colts will score an equal number of points by half time, prompting Prince to perform an extra hour and a half, thus allowing Peyton Manning and Rex Grossman to collaborate on a razor blade endorsement for Mach 6 Razor Blades--the most advanced shaving system consisting of six blades for the closest shave ever, after which several consumers of the new razor will cut arteries and die from severe blood loss.