teaching uniform, January 11
January 11, 2010
I really need to take these earlier in the day, before I teach, instead of later when I’m worn out and rumpled and all the light is gone. Today was a rough day, as I woke up so sick I almost thought I wouldn’t make it to class. But, with only one class per week, we only have ten classes after today so I swallowed an insane amount of ibuprofen and took a 20 minute nap. It did the trick, but now I feel like I could keel over from exhaustion.
Good class today, though. I wish I could have taken some photos of my students while they drew, but we had a live model so no recording devices allowed (this is one area in which my teaching philosophy is definitely not “do as I say, not as I do”). Hopefully some of the homework drawings they’ll be turning in next week will be good enough to show. Perhaps I should try out a tough love approach, looking at the work they submit and telling them it’s not bloggable quality, in the same way Daniel W. Dingler once told me that all of the lithographs I’d done during a summer independent study with him were “horseshit”. But, although I can see a lot in my teaching style that comes from Dan, I can’t quite bring myself to say things like that to them; instead I just tell them the “my professor told me all my work was horseshit” story. I am, however, going to take a cue from something Daniel once did to me and tape sticks to their hands next week. JUST WATCH ME.
In related news, I’m already well on my way in establishing myself as the crazy professor. I might have said something to my printmaking students during our very first class about how buffet restaurants are an extension of Manifest Destiny. Oddly enough, they seemed like they got what I meant. Unless they were all just nodding their heads and biding their time until they could get to a computer and drop my class.
Posted by jodi on January 11, 2010 at 6.52pm
powerlines, winter sky
January 10, 2010
People in North Bay keep telling me how lovely it is here in fall, in a tone that suggests they’re apologizing a little for the winter and for the fact that pretty much my whole time here, from now until sometime in April, will be winter. When, in fact, I’m walking around the place grinning like a goon and taking pictures of the snow and the bare trees and the cold sky like someone who’s in that giddy first phase of a brand new love. And then posting them online like they’re something special and not totally boring in that special way that someone else’s new-love-giddiness is: crushingly, eye-rollingly boring. Sorry, y’all. The novelty will wear off eventually, once I realize that North Bay farts in the bed or cuts its toenails in the kitchen or something like that. Once I get tired of being cold.
Posted by jodi on January 10, 2010 at 9.54pm
it doesn’t matter where in Canada you go
January 9, 2010
There’s always something familiar looking about the scenery.
Posted by jodi on January 9, 2010 at 4.35pm
lime rickey (caution: this post is about The Knitting. for real. and there aren’t any pictures of snow)
January 8, 2010
When Stacie visited in the fall, she brought me one of her lovely handspun yarns (along with some other amazing stuff, including an old factory punch-card clock I’m still deciding how best to use in a project). The colours are a little bit shocking, with all shades of grass and lilac jumbled together like a delightfully overgrown garden, and I didn’t want a pattern too complicated to fight with the striping. So I started knitting Anne Hanson’s Trevi, thinking that the chevron stripes in these colours would look old fashioned and cozy in a grandparents’ rec room in the 1970s sort of way. I got about this far
before accepting that the pattern (which is lovely) and the yarn (doubly so) were in no way flattering to one another. And that this was in danger of becoming the Ugliest Shawl in All Creation. Here’s a closer, if somewhat blurry, look at the mesh pattern (and at my inky fingers, which I totally didn’t wash after teaching printmaking, and then put all over my beautiful yarn because I am a COMPLETE SLOB):
So back into the ball she went. Since I think dead simple is the way to go here, I’m now trying out Citron from the latest Knitty to see if it’s any better. I’m still not sure I’m completely sold on the combination, but it’s definitely an improvement even if the striping does hide the beauty of the pattern shaping a bit. Here’s what I managed to knit up this morning while waiting for our faculty meeting to begin:
I think I have some better yarn for Trevi as well. Too bad I’m 687 kilometres away from my stash right now. D’oh.
Posted by jodi on January 8, 2010 at 11.51pm
something other than snow
January 7, 2010
My new teaching uniform is basically variations on this:
-necklace/scarf: UNIFORM natural
-short sleeved shirt with smocking, thrifted over the holidays (Value Village)
-skirt: this one’s a little more casual than most of the others, but I thought that might offset the non-casualness of teaching in high heels. Value Village.
-several layers of tights and long socks: it’s cold up here in the Great White North! And from what I’ve seen so far around here, I seem to be the only person in North Bay not wearing trousers.
-mary jane pumps: Zellers
But wait a minute! You wanted more pictures of snow, right? Everybody wants more pictures of snow. And who could blame them, really. I got your snow pictures right here:
This afternoon after class I took a chance and walked home down the winding snowy path that used to be a road (no longer a road because the hairpin turns it took to get up the big hill were too dangerous). I’d been told that the path wasn’t plowed in winter but was well-traveled enough to be good and packed down. My plan was to check it out on the weekend, when I didn’t have anywhere to be, in case I got lost and ended up walking in circles or getting a huge soaker in my boot. But tonight I didn’t feel like waiting half an hour for a bus and I sort of had to pee, so I went for it. Turns out it’s impossible to get lost, and it’s faster than the bus! Plus two dollars cheaper. And when I got to the bottom of the path where it picks up the other road, I could see my bus stop from there. This town is so much tinier than Google Maps makes it look.
I’m betting it’s not quite so quick a trip going the other way, uphill. But the extra cardio workout is going to be worth it.
Posted by jodi on January 7, 2010 at 6.13pm
dorkitude
January 6, 2010
I’m pretty much just keeping my camera in my coat pocket all the time right now, so I can whip it out at a moment’s notice to take umpteen jillion more photos than anyone really wants to see of snow and snow and MORE SNOW. But, look how pretty it is, all perched atop the bush in its luscious little piles:
Here’s one of the screen block wall at Monastery Hall. I would build a wall like this on our house if I could figure out a tasteful way to integrate it into a 1911 Sears kit house.
Deer tracks crashing through a snowbank at the side of Monastery Road.
I’ve taught my first class in both of my drawing courses, and will teach my first printmaking class tomorrow afternoon. Soon I’ll have things to write about that aren’t snow related, I promise. But for now the novelty is still fresh, and, you know what? Also? There’s all kinds of really nice snow around here. Really!
Posted by jodi on January 6, 2010 at 4.04pm
of flesh and blood I’m made
January 5, 2010
Here is my 2009 überlist wrap-up. Every year I write down my list of goals in the front of my year-of-the-what datebook, then promptly forget to ever check the list, pretty much ensuring that only the ones that are actually important to me get done. This year it was worse: I spent the year up against a profound creative block that I couldn’t shake, and even though I had the time to devote to my studio work, I didn’t have the energy or the emotional fortitude to take advantage of my situation. So the items on the list that were the most important, those that were work related, did not happen. As well, most of the work around the house type stuff didn’t happen. This year I’m going to repeat some of last year’s goals in hopes of really getting all new-leafy for reals this time, and I’m also going to try and make the list as a whole more realistic. As for the creative block: I have a feeling my new job is going to have a great impact on getting rid of that, and allow me to focus my energies on my studio practice again.
Because I want to dwell on the positive here (in fact, I think I’ll put that at the top of 2010′s list), I’m only listing the items I accomplished. All the others are just dust in the wind as far as I’m concerned. I’m also going to give myself half points for a few that I half-accomplished. As incentive!
Goals I met in 2009:
1. no refined sugar for at least a month: half points, because I don’t know if I ever managed to go a whole month in a row without slipping at all (I do occasionally use a small amount of sugar, usually demerara, in cooking), but I did limit my sugar intake to pretty close to nothing all year.
7: 365 days flickr project: I did that, and ended up mostly hating it. In fact, I think it killed my other picture-taking-and-posting activities. I missed a lot of days but I’m still taking the point for sticking it out even after I was completely done with it in my mind.
9: use chopsticks once a week for practice: maybe not every week but pretty close to it, and often several times a week.
12: eat more greens (2 x or more a week): yup.
13: drink more whiskey: hell yes.
18: clean up my work table: Points for doing it once, since I didn’t specify otherwise. I did not, however, get points for the following item, which was to keep it clean.
21: try a new recipe from every cookbook we own: half point. I tried a lot of new recipes this year, some of them from books I hadn’t really cracked before. I tend to rely more on my favourite vegan food blogs for new recipes. I’m going to try this again for next year.
23: organize my fabrics and sewing stuff: It didn’t entirely stay organized, but I did do it in tandem with the filing cabinet clean-out.
30: update in progress section of website: done. Needs to be done again, though.
32: clean out basement built-in shelves (painting stuff): half point, since there are two equal-sized sections (one with doors, one without) and I fully cleaned out and organized the part with the doors. Which, unfortunately, is not the part where the painting supplies are kept.
33: get the rest of my student work onto flickr (spring 2008 lithography class)
34: water plants every week, no forgetting!
37: clean out filing cabinet
39: get a job: I did indeed get a job: a full-time limited term faculty position at Nipissing University for the spring 2010 semester, teaching two drawing classes and a printmaking class. I started yesterday!
59: finish wallpaper in bathroom: the sections I started were finished, and since it’s not my decision alone I deferred to Peter when he talked me into only papering the one wall because we don’t know when we’ll rip out those walls but we’d like to do it as soon as possible. I’m taking the full point, because I never put “don’t make inconsistent and arbitrary decisions” on my list.
63: make a new shower curtain: done. It looks exactly the same as the old curtain, but the problem was with grunginess, not with design.
65: have a picnic in a park with Peter: we don’t do this as often as I’d like but we do it once in a while, usually on trips when we don’t want to eat highway food. For 2010 I’ll aim for some picnics that are strictly for fun and not for convenience.
67: shoot a roll [of film] with the Canon AE-1: I shot two, one colour and one black and white, at Pennsic. Both are sitting unprocessed in the fridge.
69: shoot at least one roll of film with one of the other old cameras we have (the Brownies?): I did not use any of the Brownies, but I did shoot a couple of 12-exposure rolls of old Kodak Instamatic film that I found in Peter’s mom’s basement, expiry date 1976. Both were shot at Pennsic, one with an Instamatic that used to belong to my grandparents, the other in one that was Peter’s grandparents’. I’m not sure yet if I can even get it processed, since it’s colour film. They’re currently in the fridge.
70: join the Printmakers Forum board
71: join the Artcite board
73: get my next tattoo
78: can something I’ve never canned before: picked cauliflower, pickled rutabaga, peaches!
79: go see In the Pocket at the Vic tavern: we did, once or twice. As they play there every week, I’d like to go more often. In the Pocket is a sweet little blues/r&b cover band from Detroit who have been playing Saturdays at the Vic for years. Their signature song is Purple Rain, and you wouldn’t believe how hard they rock it.
80: host 4 dinner parties: half points because I can only remember two. But they were super fun, so this will be on next year’s list too.
82: go to the eye doctor: new glasses!
83: get hair cut at least 4 times (in order to grow it out awesome instead of growing it out gross like last time)
91: shred old files
95: organize craft materials
104: construct features for the front garden (metal bars, helms, hippo): half points. Nothing got built or installed yet, but we spent some time in thrift stores amassing a fantastic collection of plastic dinosaurs and ceramic squirrels, currently in the basement waiting to become lawn ornaments of awesomeness.
105: disassemble the back deck: this was a joint effort: Dylan took out a lot of the boards for us and then Peter and I knocked apart the rest together. Now we are down to the original back porch, which is really as much porch as we need. Now to plan the patio!
107: knit up the leftover yarn from finished socks into blanket squares: half points. I still have some scraps but I did make a heck of a lot of squares.
Total score: 29 out of 109, or 27%. In the antiquated Beverly Hills 90210 scoring system my datebook offers, 29 points makes me a Kelly: “You accomplish a fair amount without much effort, then spend all your free time patting yourself on the back. It’s annoying. Also, you’re boring and nobody cares what you think”. Yup, sounds about right.
In a couple of days I’ll record here my all new list of smaller, more easily achievable goals for 2010. Because the level of boring self-absorption on this weblog isn’t nearly high enough (put it on the list!).
Posted by jodi on January 5, 2010 at 10.35am
my new daily commute
January 4, 2010
This is the winding walk from the bus stop to Monastery Hall, where the fine arts department lives.
Hah! Kidding. That’s a side road that cuts off the road to the Monastery. It’s not maintained in winter, from the looks of it. I plan to do some exploring there later, on a less-cold day.
An abandoned trestle, overgrown with sumac. I’m guessing there must be about a jillion student photographs featuring this thing, what with its obvious photogenic qualities and its proximity to the art school. What a fine location for a sweater model photoshoot, don’t you think?
Way down at the end of this road is Monastery Hall, nestled in a winter wonderland. It’s a gorgeous 1970s building with liberal use of concrete screen block, which is one of my very favourite building materials. I’m sure I’ll be posting many photos of this building over the next couple of months. Here’s me back in August when I visited Nipissing for my job interview, posing in front of some screen block in the balcony overlooking the chapel (now a sort of conference room):
Posted by jodi on January 4, 2010 at 7.30pm
notes from a day spent in transit
January 3, 2010
A 4am wake up call is especially brutal when you sleep the sleep of the elderly, logging nearly as much lying-awake-time as sleep-time. Cold Indian restaurant leftovers don’t go down too badly at 4:30am but next time I’ll skip the apple I ate afterwards. Talk about queasy making.
A woman behind me in the Air Canada check in line was annoying the hell out of me with her chirpy, pushy efficiency writing out those little name tags for all of her and her husband’s bags. At one point her husband made a growly noise and then tore up and threw out something that I think was the bag tags she had just made for him. Three seconds later she was at the counter again, doggedly filling out tags.
I guess you don’t have to take off your shoes at security when flying within Canada. How come nobody told me that last time?
Inside security, Chipper Lady’s husband lost his two dollar coin in the pop machine. She told him to press every button for every kind of pop, to press the money return button again, to press every button AGAIN, then said “are you sure you put your toonie in?” (huh?). The husband then flew into a rage, slamming on the machine and shouting “fucking piece of shit! fucking piece of shit!”. Oddly enough, airport security didn’t say squat to the guy about his behaviour. And he didn’t get his pop, or his two dollars back. I hoped they weren’t going to be on my plane.
On the plane I heard another woman talking about how she hoped “those Americans” wouldn’t be on our plane. Meaning Mr Rage, I guess, in that charming way some people have of assuming anybody who’s a jackass must be American. I sort of doubt he was (American, I mean: he was clearly a jackass). He was flying from London to Toronto, after all, and his wife said “toonie” without any sort of emphasis to indicate it was a novelty to her. Anyway, Mr Rage and Chipper Lady WERE on our plane, but they were drowned out by the engine noise, so, yay.
The plane to North Bay had only ten passengers on it, and loads of empty seats. Fortunately none of the other people were significant to me in any way and we did not wind up back on the Island. Phew.
Our plane out of London was so slow to take off that turnaround time in Toronto was only fifteen minutes instead of an hour. Guess what that means? My luggage did not make its connecting flight on time. Whee! This is my first ever experience with Delayed or Missing Luggage. Next flight from Toronto gets here at 3:30 this afternoon, so here’s hoping.
Here is a picture of Lake Nipissing from the plane:
It’s frozen!
There was a young woman from my plane (with stringy hair, giant floppy dread-hat and hippie shawl) standing talking to the people who were picking her up (parents?) while we waited for our bags that didn’t arrive; she said something about being served chili with brown rice (yup, hippie food) and the woman (mom) wrinkled her nose magnificently, drawing up both corners of her mouth up Billy Idol style at once (I had no idea it was even possible to do such a thing with a mouth) and said, “What? Chili on RICE?” like it was Just the Craziest Thing Ever. Heh. Awesome.
I have always eaten chili on rice, by the way. I guess that makes me a HIPPIE. Too bad my patchouli oil is currently lost somewhere with my baggage.
In the checkout line at Zellers later, feeling as if I was struggling to stay awake after a long, long day, I caught sight of a digital clock over the cashier’s shoulder. 9:50am, people. The realization was nearly enough to make me fall asleep standing right there. Also, I blame the fatigue for making me not think to get a toothbrush or underpants, so worst case scenario is I’ll be teaching my first class at Nipissing in the grubby clothes I traveled AND slept in! First impressions FTW.
The view out the front window of my new temporary home. Yup, there’s a portajohn across the street. Could come in handy!
Posted by jodi on January 3, 2010 at 2.44pm
cold (and getting colder)
January 2, 2010
It’s currently minus-11° here; minus-22° in North Bay. Which is where I’ll be moving tomorrow, for the next four months, for a limited term teaching job at Nipissing University. I bought extra long johns.
Posted by jodi on January 2, 2010 at 11.40am
