Nuggets

Conversations in recent weeks with colleagues and fellow academic advisors have sent me running to my notebook or iPad to jot down the gist of their insights. Here's a sample:

From a faculty member and active advisor (professors on our campus devote varying degrees of time to their contract-required advising duties): I'd like to help students move away from the belief that they are consumers and we are here to answer their every need. 


From an associate dean, on this idea that students are customers or consumers of education: There is great satisfaction, as indicated on teaching evaluations, from the customer when things are easy, smooth, fun. But what the experts (the instructors) know is that getting dirty, having to grapple with knowledge is what a person needs to learn.  


I see this need for ease and fun very clearly in my own kids. Homework is a bother, not necessarily because the work is confusing or not understood, but because it requires sustained attention. Focusing on any one thing for very long is just not fun for iGen.

From the college students who visit my office daily, they seek customized ease when scheduling classes. Not too early, not too late, no Friday classes, please. The concept that there may be only one time that a literature or film or education class they need for their major is offered is entirely new. College is one of many endeavors that the Millennials give equal weight.

Gone are the days, it seems, when university life inspired devotion and a singular focus.

It's all academic, or not

You know how once you get interested in a certain car, or someone at work buys a new vehicle, you suddenly start seeing those models every third block? That's how my interest in generational differences seems to be unfolding. Titles at bookstores jump off the shelves, articles appear in the popular press (TIME, Parade Magazine, Wall Street Journal) faster than I can keep up, academic publications (the Chronicle of Higher Education, the National Academic Advising Association journal) jump in the fray.

Even my Valentine's Day gift contributes to the conversation. Sitting in the exact spot at the kitchen table from where I am now writing this post, I opened Bossypants by Tina Fey on the evening of Feb. 14. It was an unexpected gift. I thought I had spoken out loud how I wasn't interested in reading the comedian's tome. In large part, I turned away from the latest in a long line of memoir-like publications because of the cover. Yep, I judge books by their covers. The hairy man arms attached to Tina Fey's lovely face are a huge turn off.

I do think the 2008 Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton respectively, is one of the funniest acts I've ever seen. However, I don't find 30 Rock the least bit captivating. Thus, my ambivalence about reading Fey's book. But, I put my trust in Molly and dove into her gift not quite a week ago while sitting in a massage chair at Foxy Nails, my feet immersed in a warm bath. (I think Tina would find that anecdote hilarious, maybe even enough to write it into her next sketch.)

Tina Fey is squarely (I mean that literally, see Bossypants) a child of the seventies and teenager of the eighties, and her observations strike me as spot-on commentary about Generation X. She graduated from high school a year later than I did, which immediately endeared me, and made me inwardly admit, I'll read this book, by gum. Generation X has been much maligned, in my humble opinion, and so I find Fey's engaging humor to be a refreshing look at the group of people labeled (unfairly!) as slackers. If you just interpreted that last sentence to mean I am enjoying the read, then you, too, are spot-on.

Though, as indicated in my last post, I do find myself wondering if I hold any of the characteristics of GenMe, I proudly identify as a member of Gen X. The difference in how popular culture views my generation and my kids' is the driving force behind my investigation. Pleated eighties bossypants Tina Fey is showing me how that investigation doesn't have to be all academic.

A shift

I can't figure this blog out. Not tonight's post in particular, I mean the blog as a whole, an entity, a living chronicle of my writing. A spurt of momentum and regular posting is replaced by looming guilt that I should post something but don't know what and don't feel like it today and who's reading it anyway? 

Three years now I've been at the endeavor and finally tonight, a lightbulb. It's the topic, silly head. You have repeatedly lost desire because the topic of yourself and your family gets too boring, too well known, explored enough already. Plus, the guilt that I should be posting interferes with a move in my professional life toward more research. 

Since reading Generation Me, by Jean Twenge, in early Fall, I have immersed myself in a topic on a level never before undertaken. Unlike a tenure-track professor, for a creative writer like myself (and before that a journalist) the broader my knowledge the better able I am to pursue my craft. But something about the sociological and psychological research on the current generation of college students is captivating. 

In part, when I read about Generation Me (also called iGen, the Millenials, the Net Gen, and Gen Y),  I acknowledge I am reading about my two sons. But also, Twenge asserts that GenMe includes people born in the 1970s, which puts me just one short year away from being in the club. Therefore, with each article and book I read, the question Am I like that!? hovers menacingly. 

My interest in this research has led to a formal discussion with a faculty and staff social club, a presentation at an upcoming regional advising conference, and an invitation for a lunchtime talk at the campus Women's Center. The next logical step is to write. And what better place to do so then in a blog where I have the freedom to be both academic and personal? 

The change in design of this blog signals the change in direction to something more focused, more professional, and yet about a topic that I think is universal in its implications. Generation Me is a reflection of the profound changes taking root in our culture. No matter our age, these cultural shifts are changing our day-to-day life.   

Slow roll

My Facebook status currently reads: "Did you hear my non-Washington friends? Gay marriage bill was signed into law today. That's how we roll in the great Northwest."

In fact, that upbeat reaction is overstating things a bit. I wrote it trying to pump myself up, trying to believe it's actually happening, that I could get married to my sweetie just like my best friends, my neighbors, my co-workers.

I've spent my adult life not daring to image that right would be given to me. Even as six other states have passed equal marriage laws, the opposition is so vocal that I've remained emotionally detached. Molly and I had a beautiful wedding ceremony in 2006 that symbolized our deep commitment to each other and to our family. And yet. It meant nothing in the eyes of the state.

Washington's path to this law has been steady, methodical. First, an anti-discrimination law was passed by lawmakers, domestic partnership cleared a legislative hurdle in 2007, was expanded in 2008, and survived a repeal effort in 2009.

When we registered as domestic partners, we gained protections that we would have otherwise had to spend hundreds of dollars sorting out with a lawyer. DPship, however, does not come with understood recognition. Molly and I have carried state-issued ID cards for five years proving that we, for example, have the right to visit each other as family in the hospital or that we are the first line of decision-making for each other in a medical emergency.

What straight couple has to carry proof of marriage?

When Gov. Christine Gregoire announced in January that, after much reflection and a change of heart, she would introduce the bill to the Legislature, the Washington LGBTA community erupted in excitement. Could we be lucky number 7? The seventh state to afford same-sex couple marriage rights?

In the days since the governor's announcement, my excitement has waned out of self-protection. Opponents made it clear they would initiate a referendum effort, which indeed was launched today. If I don't get my hopes up, the dashing of dreams won't hurt as much.

Signature gatherers will be out in force, attempting to get a repeal measure on the November ballot. In other words, the law signed today is in suspended animation. The roll we are on has been slowed down, and I will remain cautious.

But, in the meantime, I'm going to frequent as many retail establishments and public events as I can and gleefully decline signing the petition!

Why not tri it?

If a person can be rejuvenated, shouldn't that mean we can also be juvenated? At least once anyway, then every time after that we are rejuvenated. I wish juvenated were a word. It seems just right to describe what I'm feeling tonight.

Twice this weekend I have rocked the bike on my indoor trainer. Yesterday, the spin was preceded by a walk. Both days it was followed by a good stretch and some core exercises. January overall has been a decent month for practicing tai chi, walking on my lunch hour, spinning at home in the evenings. In other words, I've been relatively consistent with working out, so tonight is not about feeling rejuvenated after being out of shape or out of the routine of exercise. Rather, it's about something fresh and new.

What I feel is excited, inspired, possessing muscles that are well worked. Juvenated, I say!

Seven years ago, about this time in the calendar, I resolved to compete in a sprint distance triathlon. Thoughts of doing another crossed my mind today. The swimming and running are not easy for me, and therefore make a triathlon more of a mental and physical stretch than a long distance cycling event.

It's a good way to live, wouldn't you say? Stretching yourself just enough to feel inspired and excited on a daily basis. My memory of post-race seven years ago was that it felt like the hardest physical endeavor I'd ever accomplished. Between then and now, I've had a hysterectomy, which was done through major abdominal surgery, and whether it is natural aging or the results of being thrown into menopause, I just don't feel as strong as I used to. So, there again, a triathlon would stretch me.

Nothing so far this month has diminished my New Year's sense that 2012 was going to be a big year, and I dare say this feeling of juvenation is the next natural step. Choose a tri, the little voice in my head is saying.

Birthday sweetness

Tomorrow morning, at precisely 7:16 am, my phone will ring. It will be my mom. Every January 26 for years now she's called at the exact hour and minute I was born. Each time I hang up, I chuckle to myself and thank the stars I wasn't born at 2:53 am, or some other unearthly hour. Next year, when my birthday is on a Saturday, I might have to put in a special request for a call, say at the precise moment that my dad arrived at the hospital. He was at work on that ghastly rainy Sunday morning in 1969, and apparently I was born within 15 minutes of my mom walking through the doors. I figure my dad must not have made it until 8:00 or 8:30.

Molly knew a family while she was growing up that would tell the birth story of each kid on the annual celebration of their birthday. She does it sometimes for A and R. I can tell they like it. Since I've been around to hear the stories, the conversation has turned more than once to questioning about who had the most hair and who weighed the most.

Sometimes I think with awe about how amazing it would be if we had memories from our first hours, days, and months. I would love to be inside the brain of 3-month-old me. What made me decide to put my thumb in my mouth? What did that stuff in the bottle taste like? How, when I was 9 months old, did I decide to walk instead of crawl?

Knowing my birth story is a nice substitute for an absence of memories. Is that why we celebrate birthdays? To remind ourselves that we really are alive, to make memories that we can keep?

My birthday memories from this year started a couple of weeks ago when my officemates completely surprised me with a giant chocolate cake. It was the middle of the first day of winter quarter classes on our campus and I had been meeting with students nonstop for hours. Our secretary finally convinced me to go into the break room and there were all kinds of people, festive signs, and the happiest cake I'd ever seen. Two other colleagues have January birthdays, so it was for all of us, but something about being the last on the scene made it feel all about me (insert smiley emoticon here)!

Tonight, an equally brilliant cake greeted me upon my arrival home. Four layers of chocolate cake from scratch with homemade buttercream frosting. So tall that LEGOs are propping up the cake dome. That is a memory and a half. It is the cake that my grandma made for the first 19 years of my life. When she passed away, my mom and I realized she had never written down the recipe. Through trial and error, we figured out the cake is the recipe on the Hershey's cocoa can. Molly has reproduced the closest to the frosting we've ever come, but the ultimate secret for frosting with just a touch of sweetness and that hardened ever so slightly will remain with Grandma Wagner.

The cakes have brought me much joy, but really, it's the people behind the cakes who bring the greatest joy, who make the memories all the sweeter.

Untouched

Turns out, discs fly just as well in 30-degree weather as in 80-degree temperatures, and hiking through the hills and trees of our local disc golf course is super fun on snowshoes. It especially appeals to me because there is no dust and grime coating hands, shoes, legs. We tried out a few holes today and it was a blast.

Snow Jabba minus Princess Leia

Yesterday we spent an hour or so in the front yard, building a snowman that turned into Jabba the Hut with a pipe and button eyes. Being outside has been delicious. The winter can wear on me with spending so much time inside. I really appreciate the warmth of indoors, and the safety of dry floors (no ice to slip on or slush to slop over the tops of your shoes), but sometimes I just need to feel small.

With a ceiling always close overhead, furniture, cabinets, and other obstacles in my home and my office, I sometimes get to feeling just too big, too much of a human in an artificial space. Today, at High Bridge Park, I felt especially free and insignificant. The pine trees soared above me, the clouds blew aside to reveal blue, vast expanses of white, untrampled snow replaced what is normally grassy open spaces. Even when we tromped around in our snowshoes, leaving oblong tracks, plenty of snow remained smooth as hospital sheets snapped crisp across a bed.

I like knowing there are spots out there left untouched by people. Uncluttered. So many times, in the 11 years I have lived in the Northwest, have I exclaimed about how much I love the snow. Tonight is the first time I've understood it's because freshly fallen snow leaves a yard, a neighborhood, a park, utterly uncluttered.