Monday, November 01, 2010

NaNoBloMo 2010 -1

NaNoBloMo 2010 -1



So it's November, and I'm trying to get a bunch of things in order, so what better way to do it than to vow to blog daily for a month. Today's post will be somewhat random, and therefore bulleted...

  • I'm planning to respond to a lot of interesting blog posts this month...

  • Jason Isaacs is terribly attractive,even when playing the dreadfully unpleasant Lucius Malfoy. Gary Oldman is also strangely compelling. But did you ever think that just perhaps we might want to take Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix a little bit more in the way of an object lesson? Because really, every single death in the story is pretty much down to Harry and his amazing lack of self-reflection.

  • Guy Halsall's blog is starting to annoy me, because he's writing really interesting stuff I don't have time to read

  • You may also hear about my going to the gym. This is because I've been terrible about taking care of myself for the last year or so. And that is largely because there has been a lot of crap going on in my life, primarily professionally. That you won't be hearing about.

  • Speaking of which, spinning classes are hard, but not as hard as yard work. I'd forgotten all about that aspect of home-owning

  • again, or still, I'm amazed by how some faculty react when they hear the word "assessment" -- It's as if the word means, "we don't trust you to do your jobs and are going to scrutinize every little thing you do, and if it's not perfect, there will be Consequences!", when really, it mostly just means, "what is it that you want your students to learn, how can you tell if they are learning it, and what do you do if they aren't?" Instead of getting that it's perfectly ok to fail, and then fail better (as long as you document it), they instead talk about "gaming the system" -- even though the system is generally up to faculty to define. I mean really, it boggles the mind.

  • Meanwhile, I'm going to be trying to post boring updates about my research projects, just to keep me honest.


and that is my first post of the month. Sorry it's a bit dull.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heh, I just watched OOTP on Sunday. And yes, Jason Isaacs... mmmm. I'm not sure I understand your last sentence on that, though. Every single death? I thought there were only two in that story - the Muggle caretaker at the beginning, and Sirius Black. I can sort of see how Black's death is due to Harry's lack of self-reflection, maybe, but not the caretaker's.

Another Damned Medievalist said...

I forgot about the caretaker. And you're right, not all deaths -- but there are injuries and bad things that happen, most of which are down to Harry, even though Dumbledore takes all the responsibility at the end.