July 25

Energy? Focus? Motivation? It’s July. What do I expect?

1966

Went to the club today - saw Miguel Angel. Nice guy…but he isn’t Juan. Went home early, like I always do now. Juan talked to me for 1/2 hour. I like him. Does he like me? I hope so.

1979

Feh! No wonder, when the humidity is in the 90s and I wake up with a head full of damp spongey brains. Maybe it’s reading mysteries that does it. For me, it’s reading, period. It’s always made me rather spacey; I get so far into my reading.

Comment 2023

The famous story in my family is the time I was reading Laura Ingall’s Wilder’s “The Long Winter” when my dad announced we were going out for ice cream, and I went and got my coat. It was summer.

1984 (Norway)

Oh, my aching feet!! I have done too much walking and also too much sleeping. I am leading a discussion section in 10 minutes and here I sit, quite bleary-eyed, on the tram. No breakfast. Ah, well.

I am finding that it is easy to get lost in Oslo. It was probably easy to get lost in Copenhagen, too, but I didn’t stay long enough. Here, I go wandering off at least once a day, and soon find myself heaven knows where.

Had a hard, brief bout of homesickness, which happens whenever I get lost, hungry and/or tired.

Later: 

I took the afternoon off to rest and reflect, after a very hectic and intense morning. I didn’t set my alarm, got up at 7:20 instead of 6. I didn’t get to the 8:30 discussion I was supposed to lead until 8:20. (Not bad, considering I rolled out of bed an hour earlier.) At any rate, I ate breakfast afterwards and had an interesting chat with some folks, then headed back to Stabbet College and slept nearly two more hours.

Then I had a chance to look at my maps, guidebooks, etc, and plan out my remaining time. It’s odd. Even when I’m all alone, I fill my days up with activity and clamor. Here I am, sitting on a hillside far above Oslo, with a breathtaking view of the fjord, and my mind won’t shut up.

Even later:

I slept a bit upon coming home, but then woke up with a start. Looked at the clock - - 9:30! - - and panicked. A look out the window gave no clue as to whether it was morning or night, but gradually I convinced myself that it was still Wednesday. 

I continue to puzzle over the problem of providing useful information about “technology” to developing nations. The situation is such a patchwork of existing information, new research, some of it more accessible than other. I think solutions will require a lot of preliminary detective work.

What information bases already exist? In what form? Who can access them? What do they cost?

How do we fill the gaps between various information bases?

How can this information best and least expensively be made available to those who need it? Periodic publication? Response to direct inquiry?

Is this information usage as is or would it need to be re-written, updated, and translated? Who would do all that?

How much would it all cost? Where would funding come from?

These ideas really excite me, but they scare me, too. 

Comment 2023

They ought to scare you, 1984 Jo. You had absolutely no training, no expertise to solve the problems they were discussing at this conference. For example: in a panel discussion introducing the general topic of “technological needs in developing countries”, which was focused on women and families, an American speaker was all “desktop computers!!” and one representative from a developing nation replied that they didn’t have electricity and needed better access to clean water. For the life of me, I can’t even remember why I was at this conference…so out of my depth!

2005

I am back home, in my blue chair by the fireplace. Jannik (our AFS student) is in my office for a few weeks, to be followed by Bob and Bonnie. My handwriting is so much better when I am not a the train! 

What a year so far. Applied for a Graduate Research Board grant: turned down. Applied to be a Carnegie Teaching Fellow: turned down. Applied to be Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies: turned down. Applied to be Director of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities: turned down. 

So it’s been year of attempts at change, but being blocked. I am not sure how I really feel about that. The Associate Dean position was a great fit, but full time, which was not at all appealing. The MTH position was half-time, but not a great fit. I can not see myself being a good fund-raiser, or even wanting to be.

So here I am, back home, with work to do but not a whole lot of energy. Or focus. Or motivation.

There were successes. AMST498J gets better and better. My UUMAC workshop was amazing!

Comment 2024

What in interesting entry! I was coming off a long period (since 1992) of re-tooling myself from a dress historian in a textiles department to being useful in various ways in an American Studies department. The only avenue not open to me was teaching fashion and dress history. So I had focused on teaching innovation: email discussions, student web pages, online and hybrid courses, active learning, service-learning. Some of that can be seen in the things I attempted, unsuccessfully and successfully. AMST498J was a service learning course that I still consider one of the high points of my career: a team-taught service-learning course combining popular culture and mentoring students at a local high school. The workshop at our regional Unitarian Universalist summer conference was also about service-learning, but as a spiritual practice. 

The truth is, I was stuck for nearly half of my professional career. Stuck at associate professor, sidelined into administration, unable to continue the research that defined me when I was in the textiles department. But those were also the years when I came into my own as a teacher. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.

2024

Energy? Focus? Motivation? It’s July. What do I expect?