A Big Day

Yes, if you'll look closely this is Joy writing and not Andrew, and yes, I almost never write on our blog. To be honest, blogging stresses me out. Sounds stupid, but it's very very true. I greatly digress....so, what would bring me out of blogger hiding to write? Some very exciting news for Andrew. (He doesn't know I'm doing this. He forgets I can login to our account.) Drum-roll, please...

Yesterday Andrew was given the "Chancellor's Early Career Award for Excellence in Teaching"! Yep, out of all the young, assistant professors at UMKC, Andrew was chosen for this prestigious award, which is "UMKC’s highest honor for excellence in teaching for an assistant professor." If you'd like to know more of the specifics of how he was chosen and exactly what this means, you can read here. It's really pretty cool.

Needless to say the boys and I are awfully proud of him! Congrats, Andrew. We love you!

Classical Listening Journals

For those of you who like to keep up, my first round of listening journals in my undergraduate writing intensive class is now up for your enjoyment. Just head over to the class blog, peruse the blogroll for Spring 2010 listeners, and find something that interests you.

What Excited Me in the Superbowl

I'm not much of one for the Superbowl. In fact, I can't recall ever actually sitting down and watching one. In grad school, Joy and I often used the sporting event as an excuse to go to the movies when attendance would be low (though we attended strange art house movies that weren't hurt by the Superbowl, but it was a good excuse nonetheless). However, we often get invited to Superbowl parties and so I'll go and play games and take breaks from the games to watch the commercials.

For those of you who watched the Superbowl and know of my previously stated love/hate relationship with autotuning also know which commercial was my favorite:

Sure it wasn't actually the best Superbowl commercial, but what is a better punchline than T-Pain autosinging about guacamole?

Words for Muggles

For your Friday, here's an excellent graduation speech on the power of failure and imagination, two ideas I would love my students to take to heart (thanks to Peter Witte):

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

Last Weekend

We've been quiet around here because we've been busy. And we've been busy because last weekend we traveled to Champaign-Urbana to do research, attend a concert, and see friends. Having those three intersect was fortuitous, and Joy and I decided to take advantage and brave the possibility of snow and the likelihood of children meltdowns to travel.

We left Thursday morning later than we expected, but Noah, who had decided not to sleep the night before, decided to sleep for over half the trip. So we were able to make record time to Champaign and only had to entertain one child for most of the time. Things were looking good for team Granade.

Friday morning, I packed myself off to the archives to do a bit of Partch research (discovering a wonderful review of a Partch production by Roger Ebert, of all people), while Joy met up with our friends and their children for a playdate. Here was the result:Yes, everyone got so carried away that they stayed past the saturation point into full-boil meltdown (even our even-tempered Noah is getting in on the action).

Saturday morning, we all met at Barnes and Noble at story time so the kids could be afraid or indifferent to Clifford the Big Red Dog, who was making an appearance, and instead play with trains or books or stuffed animals or each other. All went so well that we decided to try dinner that night:Ah well. At least Sam was the only one tired of this party. He had places to go, people to see, bedtimes to miss. That's right, we decided to put him and Will, son of our friends with whom we stayed, in the same room for sleep. The first night, Sam crashed. But the second night, we heard them giggling and getting out toys and saw the light come on in their room. We reminded them that it was nighttime and threatened to separate them if they didn't stay in bed. We checked later and the light was out and though we heard soft giggling, thought nothing of it. When the giggling didn't die down, we investigated further only to discover that they had shut the door so we wouldn't see the light and had been up playing from 9:00 until after 10:00. They are already outsmarting us at four; I worry for fourteen.

Saturday night after dinner, I attended the excellent concert of Mikel Rouse's Gravity Radio, a composer I'm starting a project on who writes incredibly interesting and marvelous music. By Sunday's drive home, we were all happy but exhausted, a condition we are only now remedying but happily took upon ourselves because we had such a fantastic time. (and thanks to Jaime for the pictures.)

On Easy Nostalgia

Every once and a while, you get one of those opportunities like I've had this weekend, to remember former times in a physical, not just mental, manner. It is too easy to romanticize the past, especially when the present is as difficult as it always is, and forget the true lessons of life in favor of easy nostalgia.

This lesson was brought home yesterday while I was having tea with a former grad school colleague. We're both finished with the degree, officially with Dr. before our names, and so spent time catching up on shared friends and experiences. Stories, as they often do, turned to those who didn't make it through school for one reason or another and our own times preparing for comprehensive exams.

I bring this up because I'm drowning in comprehensive exams from the other side at work. We're gearing up for the comps in history and theory that all DMA students take, I'm writing my own comps for student committees I'm on, and I'm also part of a committee re-examining our comps process and making changes. In all the discussion about current and future comps, it is too easy to romanticize my own experience, to talk about all I learned and mastered and conquered without remembering the struggle and long sleepness nights and attempts to connect the process to my ultimate goals. Meeting with my friend was a good reminder that when dealing with students and milestones in their career, easy nostalgia is no substitute for honest appraisal.

Neglectful Parent Sleeping Lesson #1

Last Sunday night, we had a visioning session at our church that went very late into the night: we finally left at 8:30. Now, 8:30 might not seem all that late to you, but when you have a 4-year-old and an 18-month-old, and the church is 18 minutes away from your house, 8:30 might as well be midnight.

Our neglected children chose not to fall asleep in the car on the way home, even though I put in Sam's "Naima" music. So by the time the kids were asleep it was 9:30, a full hour and a half after bedtime.

Then, a miracle happened. Noah, who usually wakes up around 1:00 or 1:30 and fusses until I bring him to bed with us, slept until 5:30. That's right, he slept through the night. Our neglectful style of parenting worked in our favor! Go us!

Until we realized that we merely reset Noah's body clock so 5:30 is now an acceptable time to wake up - and stay up. *sigh* Maybe if we kept him up until 10:30 tonight he'd sleep until 6:30?