On the joys of a freshly cut lawn

I've had several jobs in my life which involved a huge end of the night cleanup. And I've always found them satisfying. Even if I don't like the cleaning, I love the outcome. There is a simple satisfaction in looking at a clean and sterile canning line that less than an hour before was covered in blood, guts and gills. I find the same thing with mowing the lawn. I don't particularly like it, or weed-wacking but I love sitting on my back steps looking over the nicely kept yard.

Perhaps it is some deep down sense of renewal and a reminder of the cyclical nature of existence that makes it special. Maybe it is the simple animal enjoyment of making something happen that we never get over. Look Mom I stacked cans. Look guys, I shotgunned 12 beer. Look dear, this wet spot is huge. The simple act of interacting with the world is always enjoyable on some level.

Not a terribly interesting post, but at least I wrote something. I think I'll have a beer on my steps to celebrate.

A writer writes?

Further proof I'm not a real writer seems unnecessary at this point.

I guess if writers tend towards writing, then grad students tend towards procrastination. Or maybe that's how I justify doing too little for too long--the classic 'that's how everyone is' defence.

But, let me get back to the point of this blog. I need to write each day. (This sentence started as: "I need to try and write each and every day". Holy fuck, try and edit in your head goofball...yikes). I sometimes stumble because I am worried I don't have anything to write about. However, that too is a transparent excuse for inaction. I have lots of these excuses. "I don't have time to finish that article, so why start". "This is my only day off, and I do need to recharge". "I can't possibly work until I have coffee, and read Bill Simmons column, and listen to the Carolla podcast and watch some Youtube clips and masturbate and nap".

Okay, that last one was only mostly true.

Let me try this thing again, starting today. (Really? 'starting today'? That's a necessary description--of course it is starting today). I will try to write, read and edit each day. It is shocking how much easier it is to work, when I just start working. Yesterday I decided to tidy up my downstairs and ended up vacuuming, mopping, doing dishes, dusting and cleaning up most of the paper and clutter in the house. I am hoping this blog will work the same way. Just fucking start jackoff.

Speaking of jackoff comments, I talked to my Mom the other day and called someone a jackoff. She started to agree and said, "he is a bit of a jack...rabbit". It was pretty cute. My Mom doesn't swear a lot, and I must say it has some impact when she does. Of course, the impact is normally everyone chuckling like school children but an effect nonetheless.

Okay, that was a start. Go Me.

Why grades are not the enemy

Graduate students, and many profs, have a weird aversion to grading their students. It seems disingenuous, at best, since high marks have given them their privileged positions. However, I think this movement is built on three interconnected phenomena. Many graduate students are lazy; many academics are socially awkward; and academia has a fair bit of ingrained narcissism. Let's look at these in order.

Many graduate students are lazy? Despite being able to produce a tremendous amount of work, many grad students falter when things do not come easily to us. For many of us, myself included, the reason we chose grad school is it represented the path of least resistance towards a good career And for those of you who balk at this description allow me to answer--working for a living is much harder than graduate school, it isn't even close. So, when we discover the difficult process of grading, we sometimes resort to calls for the abolition of grades instead of working to be the best teachers we can be.

Also important, is that academics are often socially awkward. Graduate students and profs are more socially inept than your average person. As such, they do not deal with conflict very well. It takes real self-assurance and strength of character to tell someone that their work is not good enough. Of course, if university wasn't so insistent upon people's work equalling their worth, this might be less of a problem.

These first two points are exacerbated by the fact that too many academics are wildly narcissistic. We are not willing to discuss the possibility that many people are not suited for university education. This is the path I chose, and I'm clearly smart, therefore it is the path others should choose---makes sense. However, many of us are here because we have the right set of intellectual tools, not because of a belief in the power of education--even though we may espouse that belief. And because their is no immediate and measurable penalty for producing poor social scientists, we do not weed out students like they do in Architecture or Engineering.

Just as I would not make a great musician, despite playing most of my life, some people are not meant for university. If you need to learn somatically, perhaps you should be a dancer, or actor. It seems that the drive of academics to make all people eligible for a university experience is missing the point of the variety of human experiences. Some profs talk about the number of different learning styles, and they are probably on to something. But if you are a person who doesn't learn through reading, writing and thinking critically you don't need to be a university student--at least not in the humanities and social sciences. Be an artist, they have always been better at questioning the world we live in anyway.

In sum, grades are not our enemy. Our own laziness, inability to negotiate social conflict and narcissism are our enemies. Granted, thinking critically about grading and the system of education is useful but let's focus on the elementary or secondary system that everyone is compelled to go to. Let's find ways to inclusively teach everyone in grade 3, and then they can decide for themselves whether they want to train their critical thinking skills in university or experience the world through dance or whether they want to feel their way through life using a trade.

(And yes, it is obviously more complicated than that--just making a point).