CUTTING THE APRON STRINGS

No, this is not some Freudian essay on psychological adulthood. The title of my conference presentation earlier today was "Cutting the Apron Strings with CALL: Turning ESL Students into Self-Sufficient College Writers" for the CALICO (Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium) Conference here on the ASU campus.

It was scheduled for 3:30 Saturday, the last session of the last day of the conference. I was expecting no one to show up, but about 6 colleagues (also attending the conference) and three other unrelated audience members were sitting there. But as anyone who does these presentations knows, the important thing is to get your proposal ACCEPTED (hurdle #1), then actually deliver it in a non-humiliating fashion (hurdle #2). Then it gets to occupy about 3-4 lines of your CV. So the fatness of the crowd at the talk is pretty irrelevant. You gave it!

Last week was kind of a "perfect storm". This past week, it was finals week at AECP, so I had piles of exams to occupy my evenings when I should have been getting ready for the conference presentation. Then final grades. Then student conferences with students about their grades.

Last weekend should have been more productive, but then after church and a good home-cooked Dutch-American meal with Uncle Jack and Aunt Joan, I spent a good part of Sunday preparing for, then having a first phone interview with editor Nicola Perry of EnglishTown.com, an international ESL program online based in Shanghai. (An old Illinois colleague works there and introduced my name to their people as a possible materials writer.) It would have been great except that in the back of my mind I was thinking about all the data for the conference I was NOT looking at just then. Weekend gone, mostly, except for one batch of research tests scored.

So, I'm embarrassed to write that I was tweaking the presentation at my office with another co-presenter up until 15 minutes from the presentation hour today! But the conference venue was only 5-minutes walk away across campus, and Sarah Jarboe and I had practiced it ahead of time and switched confidently back and forth for 45 minutes as we worked our way through our PowerPoint presentation.

Another notch in the CV belt. (mixing metaphors, I realize - but it's safer than mixing drinks!)

ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER ...

Another first (after learning Mah-jongg several weekends ago): I tasted absinthe at a "1930's Shanghai Mardi-Gras" party a fellow teacher threw on Feb. 21. Its history makes it a bit intimidating: made from the leaves and flowers of the poisonous wormwood tree, the mystical green liqueur was a cult favorite among Bohemian Parisians (e.g. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Toulouse Lautrec)at the turn of the last century and is reputed to have "visionary" effects on its imbibers. It's normally mixed with water, creating a milky-looking substance.

So, it was a bit disappointing to discover that it tasted much like any other anise-flavored liqueur: ouzo, arak, grappa. (Fortunately, I happen to like anise-flavored drinks.) No parting of the veil, no sudden vibrant colors or mystical Amazonian panthers. Perhaps I was too modest in my quantities (one shot), but I was planning to drive home and didn't want to be any more DUI than I had to be, boring, respectable middle-class citizen that I am. But driving at 65 down a Phoenix freeway at night is not the time one wants to encounter "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". Call me a prude, but ...

LOGIC - IN THIS ECONOMY??

I have had yet another run-in with the run-away economy. My application with Chase Bank for refinancing my mortgage (from 6.95% to 5.75%) ran afoul of their underwriters in the end. They were concerned that my monthly income wasn't high enough for confidence in writing a new loan. But since Chase already HAS my existing higher-rate mortage (inherited from WaMu), it's hard to fathom the logic that a loan they think risk-worthy in their loan portfolio at 6.95% is suddenly dangerously unworkable at a lower rate of 5.75%! A conflict of interest, anyone?? Needless to say, I am out shopping around once more.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE



Don't know if I've mentioned this previously, but I ended up teaching one elective this term called "American Movies". Since the Academy Awards fell propitiously in the middle of the course, I had my students watch to find out who won the biggies: Best Actor, Best Actress, etc. As most Americans who follow any news source already know, the Best Picture award was won by "Slumdog Millionaire", a rags-to-riches story (literally) in Mumbai/Bombay. Since I taught the class, to avoid a "Physician heal thyself" accusation, I felt duty-bound to see the film myself, so last Saturday I did.

It's a very riviting movie - a lot darker than I was expecting. But is it a "great" film, worthy of inclusion in a class with "Gone With The Wind" or "Citizen Kane"? I doubt that future generations will agree. Hype has a way of running away with people, even members of the Academy of Film Arts and Sciences. India is very "hip", has been for quite a while. And it's fusion with Bollywood, multi-culti, and all that. But after seeing "Iwo Jima" directed by Clint Eastwood a couple of years back and coming out overwhelmed, feeling it was ... "perfect - I can't find any fault with it," I just can't call "Slumdog" "great" in the same way. It's admirable, well constructed, etc., etc. But the relentless drive to a "happy ending" seemed all too predictable in spite of all the Mumbai crime/slum trappings. Little tension in the end. Horatio Alger would hardly have been ruffled by anything it. But don't get me wrong: it's definitely worth a see. So, I'm giving it one-and-a-half thumbs up!