Sharing poetry

I heard this poem for the first time in a lecture yesterday, and found it so interesting that I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy!

La Figlia Che Piange
O quam te memorem virgo...

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair -
Lean on a garden urn -
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair -
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained suprise -
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and a shake of the hand.

She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight, and the noon's repose.

-- T. S. Eliot

Confession

OK. So here is my confession:

I am in love with one of my students.

Before you condemn me to an everlasting academic underworld torment of never finished book-reviews, undergrad essay mountains which grow taller the more you mark, and TA peanuts pay for evermore, I should probably explain.

He a mature-ish student (mid 20s), he’s tall, he’s slim, he’s quite attractive. He has small glasses and floppy hair. He wears shirts under tidy jumpers under neat jackets. He looks like he ought to be writing poetry in a garret room. He attends all of the lectures, and he usually has an exceptionally good (or politically interesting) reason if he misses seminars, and he has missed very few. He is informed, he is articulate, and he wants to learn. He has actively sought help from me with his analytical skills. And – and I’ve saved the best until last – he LOVES literature.

You might think this is a strange thing to say, when I earn my peanuts teaching literature students. But it seems to be becoming increasingly unusual to find an English Lit student who actually likes reading books.

The garret poet loves reading. He reads things that are not on the reading list, and he wants to talk about them. And he exudes an enthusiasm for literature and literary analysis, that sometimes leads him astray in his essays, but at least his essays are not in any way mechanical.

The tutor in me wants to nurture and train this enthusiasm into good academic criticism (hopefully without squashing the joy). My younger teenage self, who loved literature and was also fond of floppy-haired boys, is hopelessly in love with the garret poet.

So can I just say: if, after this confession and explanation, you still want to condemn me to the above mentioned academic purgatory of never-ending TA pay, please – pretty please – could it be teaching students like him.

Markers of folly.

From The French Lieutenant's Woman (chapter 34):

He did not like her when she was wilful; it contrasted too strongly with her elaborate clothes, all designed to show a total inadequacy outside the domestic interior. The thin end of the sensible clothes wedge had been inserted in society by the disgraceful Mrs Bloomer a decade and a half before the year of which I write; but that early attempt at the trouser suit had been comprehensively defeated by the crinoline - a small fact of considerable significance in our understanding of the Victorians. They were offered sense; and chose a six-foot folly unparalled in the most folly-ridden of minor arts.

Cakes

I was going to write a serious post about teaching women's writing and feminist theory. Perhaps that is to come - I'm still thinking it through.

In the meantime though, this is a frivolous post about cake.

I like cake. I'd go as far as to say I am a fan of cake. I was talking to someone the other day and he said chocolate cake is best. I think a well made Victoria Sponge could stand up to most chocolate cake, providing the cake-eater is not a chocoholic. Black-forest gateaux, however, is possibly the Queen of Cakes (any suggestions as to why I think cake is feminine?).

So, what is your favourite cake? And why?

Refreshed

I've have spent the weekend eating interesting, healthy, fresh, homecooked (but not by me), delicious, vegetarian food.

I have spent time sitting on a comfortable sofa in front of a wood-burning stove, and on a garden swing near a waterfall in the cool, fresh, winter air reading a book (which I have to read for work, but didn't feel like I was working).

I have gone to bed early and got up early, and spent most of the day wearing no shoes.

I have spent time with a close friend, whom I do not see as often as I would like.

I have spent hours practising yoga, meditating and doing pilates.

And I feel refreshed.

Professional dilemma

I marked all of my students' essays over Christmas. They were an OK batch - none dreadful, none brilliant, but most in the 'pretty good' to 'good' to 'very good' scheme of things. There are a lot of students, and quite a few tutors on the course, so we moderate the grades by swapping a few essays with another tutor, and today I have been looking at 4 marked by another teaching assistant. I find myself with a professional dilemma: some of her comments are, for want of a better word, 'incorrect'. On one essay, she has not corrected a series of factual errors and confusions, and in another the punctuation / grammatical corrections she has made are wrong (in the latter, the student's version was actually correct before she changed it).

Now, for the first essay, I think this is because the essay is on a topic which is outside the tutor's area of expertise (and inside mine, so I would speedily recognise the mistake). Although there is not much in the way of alternative on 'survey' courses, this is one of the disadvantages of having the same tutor teach all topics - there is always going to be something that might catch us out. I'm know that I don't know everything! So, for this essay, I'm not too worried. I don't see it as too much of a dilemma, because I can point this out as being something I might reasonably know that she doesn't. The only problem is that she has written 'good points!' next to some of these errors. Maybe that could be altered to say these would have been good points, if this were true?

But, what about the grammar / punctuation 'corrections'? I feel it is important that student errors in this area are highlighted and corrected. And with this in mind, I don't feel comfortable ignoring the incorrect corrections. But I'm also a bit uncomfortable telling a fellow teaching assistant (who is mid PhD in English, and should be able to construct sentences) that not only is their punctuation poor, but they have done this on one of their student's essays. In black biro. I don't hold a supervisory position over her. We are merely peer moderating. I know I shouldn't be correcting her grammar.

I don't know what to do...

New Year Activity

Well, this is my first post of 2009, so I guess the first thing to do is to say "Happy New Year!" to all readers of Falling Leaves. I hope this year brings you health and happiness, in whatever form that might take.

Today is also my birthday, so for me the beginning of January is not just the beginning of a new calendar year, but also a new year in my life. I'm not just making New Year's resolutions for 2009 because that's what people traditionally do at the beginning of the year, but because there are things that I would like to have done before my next birthday (it's a major one - you know, of the kind that end in 0) and I shall have to be organised if I'm going to do them.

So my New Year's resolution is to be more active this year. I don't just mean physically active, although that wouldn't go amiss. I mean active in a more general sense. Below is a list of what I intend to do. These are not my resolutions; they are the means to achieving my one resolution.

1) I will manage my time better.

2) I will do more research (to be honest, it will not be hard to do more of this than last year) - this will make me more research active, and I will be taking more positive action towards getting a permanent job.

3) I will arrange to meet up with my friends more often. This will stop me talking passively over the internet / text messages, and will help me not to spend my evenings inactively on facebook.

4) I will listen to more music. More can be accomplished when listening to CDs / radio than when watching television.

5) I will find a Yoga class so that I can be active and still at the same time. Yoga also makes me feel physically and mentally better, so I'm hoping that it will contribute to a more positive outlook to help me achieve other things. And adding more activities into my life-timetable will mean I have to be better at time management.

That brings me back to the beginning of the list. And it seems to be enough to be getting on with for now!

May 2009 bring all you wish for, and good luck in sticking to your own resolutions!