The job. Is nearly done for the term, sort of.  I need to post a “tips for taking the exam” message for this term’s crop of students, create three exams for that one class (urgh!), and ultimately mark those exams when they’re finally taken, but the assignments are evaluated, teaching is done, and I’m down to working on course and course website development for a new program starting in the fall.  So, how do I think it went?

Truthfully, there are things I’d have liked to have done differently, but I was also limited by circumstance and some things were simply Murphy’s Law while others were simply not in my control.  For instance, I’d planned for the course to handle the material on a chronological basis, but the chaos and incredible SNAFU with the text order meant that plan went out the window; you cannot study that which you do not have.  I gave them context and background for each text as we went, and we spent a few weeks talking about literary movements in American literature, but because we were forced to pull things out of chronological context, they had trouble seeing the big picture and, if I may mix my metaphors, putting the pieces together.  We had to finish with the earliest of our texts, which worked out in that it gave me a chance to put things in perspective for them, but it would have been so much better had we been able to follow the plan.  The course was a short survey course designed to give them a sense of the different voices, issues, and progression of American literature, and I think that concept was also difficult for them to truly grasp until the last meeting.  Only when they were able to look back were they able to see that we weren’t talking about a single theme, or a single issue, or a single type of writing.

The other issue which came up was the obligatory assignment.  I divided it into two parts, with the first part a prospectus and annotated bibliography, and the second part a continuation of the bibliography and an essay of roughly 1000-1500 words.  Most of these students—even though this is their advanced course—have had little to no experience writing a serious piece of literary criticism using formal academic structure and voice.  Even fewer of them have any concept of scholarly sources.  For some, Google was initially their only source, and if they chanced to use Google Scholar, they thought they’d found the key to all academics.  They’d simply never been introduced to academic sources, much less asked to actually use them.  Even more importantly, they’d never been asked to consider themselves scholars and put themselves in dialogue with other academics writing about their topic. While this is an assignment my stateside students would take in stride without blinking—they’ve had more experience in most cases, and have generally been required to write these kinds of essays since high school—it’s a frighteningly new environment for the students here.

But they did it.  And while explaining the requirements, teaching the structure, and helping them find sources took much more time than I’d planned for, I am so pleased with most of them.  They hadn’t thought they could do it, often thought the assignment was too difficult, and there was the usual whining and kvetching along the way, but most of them really put a shoulder to the proverbial wheel and gave it a good try.  And those who actually took it seriously?  Well, I would like to hope that they began to gain a sense of themselves in a scholarly context, and an idea of what constitutes solid academic literary criticism, as well as  how to find it and, hopefully, an idea of how to create it.  Do I think they understand the value of what they’ve done?  In reality for most of them, no.  Not yet.  Many of them may only perceive the assignment as a writing exercise, but I earnestly hope that they understand things better with the benefit of hindsight and a little more experience.

All in all, I think it was a success, although not one without its flaws.  But if I have the opportunity to repeat the experience—and it’s something I’d very much enjoy doing—there will indeed be some changes.

Looking ahead . . . I need to finish the work for the new program which will begin in the fall, and it looks as if I’ll have a bit of work for the university.  What and how much, however, is still up in the air, and I don’t expect answers on that front until closer to September.

On the fiber front, there’s been relatively little activity.  The “comfort” spinning during this past month or so of work has been Happy Hooves Sock batts from Enchanted Knoll Farm, and I think I’m seriously hooked on Josette’s batts.  They are simply wonderful.  They’re superwash merino with personality, glitz, and imagination.

First there was this:

Fiber: Superwash Merino with glitter, Enchanted Knoll Farm batts, “Cabaret” colorway, plied with black superwash single.
Starting Weight: > 6 ounces.
Yardage: 850 yards.
WPI / TPI: Thick-thin, 2-ply.
Spun on: Rose

This fiber taught me two lessons.  The first lesson was an old one:  While you can shock a superwash single to some extent, one which is spung thinly and softly is still not going to hold together.  When I started this spin, I’d intended it to be a two-ply laceweight, but I enjoyed the singles so much that I decided to try and leave the yarn as singles.  That, of course, was a total bust, and in the process of trying to shock the singles to hold them together, the extreme hot water caused some leaching of the colors, and I lost most of the lighter tones; instead of jewel tones and golds, the singles became the stormy sky we find in the South just before or after a frightening storm—full of depth, blues and greens, all overcast with a bruised grey.

When I realized I’d failed with the singles, I put them aside to rest and see if I could come up with a way to salvage them; the fiber was too lovely to lose.  After a while I had a small epiphany, so I dyed up some of my own superwash in a mottled black, span it into a very thin single, added more twist to the Cabaret singles, and then plied them to the black.  It ended as with a thick-thin, slightly bubbly yarn that I must say I rather like.  And I’m decidedly pleased that I was able to rescue what had promised to be a total disaster.

So, what were my lessons?  Well, I was reminded that while you can use superwash singles for some things, they have to be spun at a bulkier weight and higher twist in order to hold together.  And I was reminded that a yarn can nearly always be rescued and turned into something lovely, despite our goofs.

Then there was this:

Fiber: Superwash Merino with glitter and sari silk, Enchanted Knoll Farm batts, “Roses in Winter” colorway.
Starting Weight: > 6 ounces.
Yardage: 439 yards for 3-ply; 26 yards for gold; 57 yards for pink.
WPI / TPI: 3-ply, 20-22 WPI; gold and pink trim 2-ply yarns = 26-28wpi.
Spun on: Rose

I like this 3-ply!  I’m working on remembering how to spin softly, and the final result truly is soft!  The glitter and sari silk add interest, and the muted pink is far from saccharine sweet.  There was enough irregularity in the singles that I ended up with leftovers in the pink and gold, which then turned into 2-ply yarns.  There’s enough yardage of the 3-ply to turn into a rectangular scarf/shawl, and the 2-ply yarns can be used as trim.  That should work.

Of course, that means that I need to actually do some knitting instead of spinning for a change, and I haven’t exactly had the focus for that.

Comfort spinning is just what it says it is:  comfort spinning.  It’s spinning we do when we don’t want to think about mechanics, and often happens in fits and pauses.  For me, that means that I tend to pay less attention to consistency than usual, and just allow myself to enjoy the process of spinning without really thinking about it.  It also  means that the yarns are generally a bit thick and thin, regardless of what I may have intended at the start.

And yes, that’s perfectly fine.  After all, the purpose is the process and the activity, and not necessarily the result.

Etsy/Trenchwork. I’ve finally decided to make it active, hence the badge at the top of the sidebar.  I’d love a new carder, but the fiber will have to help support that purchase.  I’d put those few items in the shop to see how the system worked, but I haven’t advertised it so it has been sitting there waiting patiently for me to decide what to do with it.  There are still a number of things I’d like to load, and now that the semester is winding down, I should actually have time for it.  Let’s see how it all goes.

On other fronts, Stalker Cat is back, and looks the worse for wear.  He’s limping fairly heavily on his front left and has an ear that’s a bit down and that side of his head is missing a fair amount of fur.  He looks like he’s been in a scrap, although I don’t really think he’s been in a fight.  Rather, he looks as if he’s gotten caught in something and had a bit of a battle getting out.  There are no rips or cuts as you’d normally find had he been quarreling with another animal, but he’s definitely bunged up.  We fed him, and I’ll watch for him tomorrow, but I have to say it really ticks me off.  I’m convinced someone has abused this cat—he’s too skittish around feet and reacts as if he’s been kicked a few times—but he’s not wild.  He has no manners to speak of and some serious trust issues which make you need to be very careful and very slow handling him, but if he belongs to someone at the moment, I’m sorry . . . that person should be taken out behind the barn for a very serious life adjustment.

And this whole business of believing cats should be allowed to run free without supervision?  Forget that.  It’s nonsense.  Cats need as much mental stimulation as other animals, but letting them come and go at will and without protection and guidance is irresponsible, puts the cat at risk, is problematic for other people, and yes—I believe it counts as animal cruelty.  We don’t turn loose children, dogs, ferrets, or any other animals.  Why in the world would anyone think turning loose cats in town (we’re not talking about barn cats on a farm out in the country) is ok??  I don’t care what they say; it’s not ok.  Not when it results in cases like Stalker Cat, or worse.

Sigh.  I really didn’t mean to rant, but it bothers me.  Can you tell?

And on yet another front, today was our anniversary.  I find myself a bit amazed that we’ve been married for twelve years, but you’re talking to the gal who had to do basic math a few days ago to remember how old she is.  Somehow, time plays tricks on us.  And no—I wouldn’t trade those twelve years for anything.

The first was his notion that while writers of English overlap specialty areas in other countries—in other words, a fiction writer may also write poetry, and a poet also write fiction—that doesn’t seem to happen in American literature.  But that’s not really correct.  We have a number of American writers who have and do write across the genre, and I frankly suspect that Dr. Blaise would remember some of them if he stopped to think about it.  But, there’s also a grain of truth here in that we seem to classify our writers a bit simplistically, and I’m wondering if we don’t minimize secondary fields.  For instance, Gretel Ehrlich is a poet, but she has also developed a reputation for outstanding creative nonfiction. Louise Erdrich writes fiction, but she’s also published in other areas.  Rita Dove is a recognized poet, but that is certainly not the only thing she’s written.  If we move back to an historical perspective, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a bit of everything.

We absolutely cannot make general sweeping statements (such as that American writers don’t write in more than one genre), but Dr. Blaise may well have an unplanned point in that our writing programs place a divisionary emphasis on genre.  We seem to suggest that our students need to specialize in fiction or poetry, and occasionally include creative nonfiction and drama.  But rarely do we seem to offer them the option of doing more than one genre or specialization.  I think the option is there for, for instance, a dual-genre thesis or dissertation, but somehow we seem to not so much discourage it as simply not consider it.

The second point he suggested was another I disagree with, but where there may again be some degree of truth.  He suggested that American fiction deviates from other forms of fiction in that it always has a nearly apocalyptic and violent conflict resolution.  Here too, I think general statements are problematic and in this case, they fail on both sides.  There are stories which have their resolution founded in peaceful means, and which have more open endings.  There are also non-American fiction pieces which do exactly the opposite and do have violent resolutions.  And, of course, some of that is connected to the genre.  For instance, I would expect a more violent resolution in a crime or detective story.  I need to think about this, but it seems to me that the more cataclysmic resolutions seem to happen in genre texts more often than in literary fiction writings.

But it raises a question I’ve seen time and time again with my own students as they consider literary fiction.  If the ending is not conclusive, they’re frustrated.  They don’t like that openness, and I’m convinced that the problem is two-fold.  First, most of them aren’t accustomed to reading outside of genre writing, and much as academic might like to suggest otherwise, literary fiction does not rule the world.  Nor will I even allow suggestion that one is better than the other.  That’s frankly nonsense.  They’re different with different skill sets, vehicles, and techniques.  Period.  But if students have only read genre fiction, they’ve not learned how to adjust their expectations to a different set of approaches.  They still want the ending to be neat and tidy and all the bad guys put in prison or buried, the good guys rewarded and sent off to live happily ever after, and all to be right with the world.

It seems to me that perhaps it’s not just a matter of broadening horizons, but adjusting real-life expectations.  It strikes me that they want their literature to do what they want their lives to do:  to have nice, neat, happy endings.

Life isn’t like that.

Literature need not necessarily be so either.

Sorry for the delay, folks; I’ve been a bit under the weather.  And the weather is wild at the moment!  We’ve had about five days of serious wind, and while the temperatures have been all over the map from -16C to +2C, that wind cuts!

Classes have begun, and it looks as if it’ll be a lighter load this term—which is a good thing.  The first meeting was last week, and our reading was Chesnutt’s “Goophered Grapevine.”  If you’re not familiar with it, take a look at it.   It was first published in 1887 and is a frame story with the interior tale narrated in black slave dialect.  The language is spelled nearly phonetically, and the easiest way to understand it is to read it with your best exaggerated Gone with the Wind accent.  Even my stateside students struggle a bit with this one, so to say that the Norwegian students found it something of a challenge might be an understatement.  But it’s really worth the read, because it raises so many issues for discussion.

So, last week we did something I typically never do, and won’t do for any other story this term:  We had a reading hour.  Literally, I read them the dialect portion with a true Southern accent, then translated it into straight English.  It took a fair portion of the class, but since only about a third had understood what they’d read, it was worth it.  Not necessarily exciting, but valuable.  We’ll finish up that discussion tomorrow, then launch into Sarah Orne Jewett’s “The White Heron,” which is a much easier read.  I’m looking forward to seeing what they think of both stories now that they’ve gotten their feet wet.  Beyond that, they have an eclectic reading list:  William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”; Henry James’s “The Real Thing”; Flannery O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find”; Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man; Louise Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves; Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette; and Edith Wharton’s Summer.  While I don’t expect them to necessarily like all the texts, I’m hoping they like at least some of the stories.  My real hope, however, is that they’ll come away from the course with a sense of the different voices, issues, and histories that are part of American literature—and on the eve of a new President and US leadership, I can’t help but think that carries extra weight.

Between the illness and lesson plans (and really, I’m doing better so don’t worry), there’s been a little spinning and knitting and fibery stuff.  First, this is finally finished:

Fiber: Fake Cashmere from Kendig Cottage
Weight: 15.5 ounces
WPI / TPI: roughly 20wpi, and chain plied.
Yardage: 812 yards
Dye information: Hand-dyed with acid dyes.

Ok, guys, this was some very cool stuff.  It’s a version of nylon, but it’s downright surprising.  It handles very much like soysilk, but it’s incredibly strong.  It took brute force for me to break a laceweight single.  It’s got a long staple and wants to gather static the same way black pants gather cat hair.  Ask DH how many times he got zapped over the past month of spinning this stuff.  No, don’t; he was totally entertained while it was me who seemed to catch the worst of it!  Talk about a charged relationship and electric kisses!  Sheesh!  In a normal humidity, I don’t think it would be a problem.  But our house tends to be dry, and I could power a small city during the winter months.

That digression aside, the fiber took the dye quickly and easily, with absolutely no compacting of the roving.  It stayed light and fluffy.  And yes—the yarn is very soft and has great drape.  This fiber would be simply awesome blended with wools for laceweights and sock yarns.  It would lend both softness and strength, but there’s a surprising amount of sheen here as well.  I’m not certain how it’ll wear, but given the nature of the fiber, I can’t think that it would be tender despite its softness. While most folks would not want the pure synthetic, this particular batch is headed to a friend who’s allergic to wool.  There’s enough for her to knit a project in pure form or knit several liners to other projects, such as hats, headbands, or wrist warmers.

I won’t say the spinning is perfect.  It’s not.  The grist varies a bit along the way, and the chain plying has plenty of features.  The fiber absorbs a lot of twist, and I found myself again wishing for the accelerator head for the Rose.  But I think most of those features will “vanish” when the yarn is put into use . . . and I hope she likes it.

On a knitting front, some of the leftovers from DH’s Cobblestone turned into a simple watchman’s cap (no photo), and he looks like a pretty tough dude in his grey nubby sweater and cap. 

There’s been some carding as well, but I’ll have to hold a bit to show later since it’s destined to go to someone this week.  I’ll post after she receives her package.  The black fibers from the previous post, however, are slowly turning into this:

There’s more than this photo shows, some already on a bobbin, and the photo doesn’t do the fiber justice.  I’ll try and get a better shot when I finish the batch, but for now you have an idea. I’m guessing there will be about 25–30 batts by the time all’s said and done. I am, however, an idiot of the first water. I had what my students would call a “brain fart” and lost my mind when I dyed the silk black. It was normal sliver, and you know you have to open sliver when you dye it in order for the dye to get through to the center.  See those white bits in the photo?  Guess who forgot.  Sigh.  So much for inky black.  But it’s turning into a black, velvety-looking yarn with small flecks of light here and there.  I’ll decide when I’m done what I think about it, but I think it’ll be ok.

And last.  Margaret—lovely, lovely Margaret of lotsofyarn.blogspot.com—sent me this equally lovely neckwarmer:

It’s handspun BFL, soft, and warm, and perfectly timed for someone who’s been coughing her fool head off. I love it, and I appreciate it tremendously.

Roughly 40 essays a night.

54 essays remaining for tomorrow.  Piece of cake.

87 hours.

87 hours and 17 minutes.

8 hours of sleep.

Say g’night, Gracie.

Seriously, it’s been the slightly sadistic work-place version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, but I tend to believe that I can do almost anything as long as I don’t have to do it forever.  Two months is about my limit on “forever.”

In other words, the worst is over, and while I know there are a ton of things which I’ve forgotten and truly do need to remember, and several things I know I could have (and even should have) done better, well, that’s past. I’ll recoup those things I can, make notes of the things I cannot, and move forward.

One of the things I’ve done in the past three weeks was to spend two weeks in student conferences:  one every 20 minutes, with breaks for teaching and the occasional sandwich or run around the desk.  Conferencing with students about their writing is always tiring, but it’s generally something I enjoy.  For the most part, Norwegian students are glad to receive the feedback; they receive so little feedback on their writing that they’re happy for nearly everything, although they are often far too (and understandably) uncomfortable about little slips.  They’re not accustomed to workshopping a piece of writing, have not learned to NOT apologize for their writing but rather to talk about their writing objectively, and haven’t discovered yet that even the best of us make truly stupid mistakes in our writing sometimes just because we’re too close to it or have looked at it too much.  (Ask me about the time I left the “L” out of “public” in a professional document; the spell checker truly does NOT catch everything!)  They haven’t yet figured out that mistakes in their writing do not reflect on their worth as individuals or their professor’s perception of them as worthy individuals.

But they are, I hope, learning.

Most come to conferences feeling self-conscious, but are glad to talk things through with you.  In this round of nearly 200 students, I only had one student I found truly problematic.  The student was loud, hostile, accusatory, and not willing to listen.  I can generally defuse those particular bombs by finding a middle ground—a place where the student and I can agree about something regarding the text, the assignment, or the topic—but this young man simply changed his attack.  He announced that he understood the assignment, accused me of saying that he was stupid because I was repeating what I’d said in written comments, and simply was not willing to have any sort of productive conversation about his text.

I understand the problem.  I recognize that part of his behavior stems from his own insecurity and self-consciousness at having his work critiqued by someone else.  I recognize that he may never have been told that he had missed the mark on an assignment before; his language skills were generally excellent and they may well have earned him easy grades in other environments.  I also recognize that he may have been reacting to receiving that criticism from an American versus a Norwegian.  Even more problematic in his view, he was receiving that criticism from a female who—while middle-aged—doesn’t look like a 60-year old professor in a tweed jack with leather elbow patches.  (Although I always thought those jackets were rather cool . . .   How’s that for nerdy?)

Telling him that had he understood the assignment, he wouldn’t have gone so far astray wouldn’t have helped much.  I did, however, reach a point where I could only put my notes away and suggest it was time for us to end our discussion if he did not intend to actually discuss the work.  I cannot remember ever having felt a need to do that in a student conference.

But I have to say that this student disturbed me in a way I’ve not been disturbed in years.  While I didn’t feel physically threatened—let’s face it, after growing up with 2 brothers and spending 10 years in military service on one level or another, I’m fairly comfortable in my own ability to defend myself, escape, or cause compensating damage if it comes down to an unarmed scrap in an office—I found myself wishing for a window in the door, or a signal light of some sort. 

I recognize that times have changed, that there is a cultural difference at play, and that insecurity and a perceived challenge to an ego can create the unexpected reaction, but I also found myself wondering if, somewhere, we are not also failing to teach simple respect and courtesy for other individuals.  I would never have spoken to or—intentionally or otherwise—attempted to intimidate a teacher, professor, supervisor, or coworker in this manner.  I can, on occasion, speak before I think about the repercussions, or be a bit oblivious to surrounding events, but I know I’m not alone in making the occasional foot-in-mouth gaffe now and then.  (‘Fess up; you’ve done it too!)  I also know that there are individuals who violate those perceived standards, but  . . .

Sigh.

In any event, I still have some work ahead of me, but I have some breathing space and the wheel is now back in the middle of the traffic pattern in the living room.    I did indeed make it to Lillehammer for spinning, and I’ll post about that shortly.  I’ve finished setting up the new online forum for spinners in Norway and the other Nordic countries.  And I’m about to get back to carding the fiber for DH’s sweater.

And yes—I promise to answer the remaining 20 mails sitting in my box, so if I owe you one, hang tight; there’s more coming. 

• My stateside students need grades for their final exams and term papers, and evaluation of their latest work on the discussion boards and blogs. Then I’ve got to calculate term grades and get those turned in on Monday.

• I need to read and reply to a handful of essays from the participants of a short academic writing course/seminar, and have to do a drastic revamping of the lesson plan for the last class on Monday since we were supposed to handle it as a workshop—and only a quarter of the class has turned in writing. This is typically a problem for this course because of the irregular schedule, but it doesn’t help that another academic unit has sabotaged these students for two out of four class sessions with incorrect meeting information or schedule conflicts. Sigh.

• There are nearly 200 Norwegian student (English proficiency) essays which need to be read, evaluated, and responded to—by Monday. Then those results need to be uploaded to the online system—also on Monday—so that they’ll know whether they have to reaccomplish that essay before they can take the final exam at the end of the course.

• And have I mentioned that those same students start a rather hectic schedule of student conferences at 8am Monday morning, running 1 every 20 minutes until just after 5pm? And that that schedule will run through Thursday evening of week after next? I’ve given myself a 40 minute break for lunch and a short interval in the morning and afternoon so that I can at least have a chance get something to drink (or get rid of it!), but it’s going to be tiring.

• And while I have no other classes than the academic writing group this week, I do need to use *next* weekend to get settled with the lesson plans for the following 2 weeks of class meetings with the literature groups . . .

• I’m in denial about how backed up my e-mail is. We’re just not going to talk about that, and if I owe you a mail, keep the faith—I’ll catch up as soon as I can, but don’t fret if it takes me a week.

With all that happening, I felt like I deserved a break. I’ve not been able to touch the wheel except for the few hours when Wenche came over for a spinning visit, and I’ve given up carrying the spindle in my bag since I never have a chance to use it. I’m having serious withdrawal pains!  (Note to self:  If you ever decide to quit spinning, don’t try to do it cold turkey!)  So, I thought that I’d schedule myself for a small spinning course. Here’s the translation of that previous post:

I’ve decided to reward myself with a spinning weekend in Lillehammer when all the hard work is finished. It’s an intermediate-level course in spinning on 16-18 November. I’m honestly looking forward to just being able to *sit* with other spinners for a couple of days—and looking forward to it terribly. I’ll pick up a Babe wheel as well, and it’ll be good to get away for a couple of days.

The course still has some openings for those who are interested. The price is very reasonable, and runs over Friday evening, most of Saturday, and part of Sunday. Anyone else interested?

Spinnvilt is the only proper spinning shop I know of in the country. They’re fairly new, but have gotten off to a good start, and I truly hope they not only survive, but thrive. The course is a small one with up to six participants, and at the moment, Tove mentioned that there were just two of us: myself and one other. She expects that there will be more participants registering closer to the program date, but we’re still talking about a small group. So for those of you who thought this might be a good opportunity to meet a large group of experienced spinners such as happens with SOAR or some of the other US fiber events, well, think again. However, two is clearly better than none, and I’d still be ecstatic even if it were just Tove and me.

And in the meantime, I’m working on plans to pull some of those invisible spinners out into the light (more on that later), and some of the local knitting group with Hobbyboden is waiting for me to clear my schedule and set them up with an introduction to spinning.

I just have to survive the weekend and next week first.

I remember the universal shock waves that went ’round the ‘net in January when Blue Moon‘s old bank decided that the Sock Club must have been a scam and subsequently refunded all payments and froze their account. Blue Moon Fiber Arts is home of the famous Socks That Rock sock yarn, and while the company may be considered relatively small in some ways, we’re talking about an important name in a very large industry. It’s easy to forgive someone who doesn’t knit for not recognizing a major product, but it’s not so easy to forgive a blend of criminal incompetence and sheer stupidity. It goes without saying that had the bank done its homework, it never would have taken that action—and lost what should have been a valued customer. Had that happened here, the bank would have been forced to provide compensation to Blue Moon. I’ve no idea if Blue Moon received anything from the old bank, or even if they received an apology.

And I understand Stephanie’s frustration when it comes to booking venues for her own speaking and book-signing events. The general perception is that knitting is a small, domestic hobby pursued by a small, aging percentage of the general population; it’s cute, old-fashioned, sweet, and totally irrelevant to anything of any importance. I’m not surprised to find that she and her publicist have to argue for larger rooms, chairs, and microphones. Nor am I surprised to hear that people consider her a non-author.

I’ve been thinking about that post since I read it, and watching the numbers of comments rocket. Stephanie has issued a challenge—a shout out to the knitting and fiber arts community—to stand up and be counted and show non-knitters that there are numbers, influence, and economic clout in the percentage of the population she represents. She’s asked for those who are able to show up for her new book launch in New York City on 22 March, and I find myself dwelling on a few specific ideas.

First. This isn’t a new dilemma, and it takes me to something I try and reinforce with my own students. Academia has traditionally been guilty of a kind of literature snobbery: Anything which was not literary writing (i.e., it was genre fiction) was lesser quality. If it wasn’t literary fiction, then it was genre fiction, and genre fiction was the cheap way out of writing literature and required less talent as well as less craft. I remember a creative writing professor who declared that genre writing was generally trash—except for detetctive fiction and while it wasn’t literary fiction, at least it had a few redeeming qualities. For their part, genre writers have typically been put on the defensive and have had to declare that their work required just as much skill and craft as their literary fiction counterparts. Within genre, romance writers are often denigrated; fantasy has been “lifted” a bit by the best-selling Harry Potter series and the film interpretation of the Lord of the Rings series. Writers of humor texts, how-to books, cook books, and coffee-table books have had to face similar attitudes.

More recently, genre writers are recognizing the value of character development and are moving out of stock characters, and literary fiction writers are recognizing the value of plot (something actually has to happen in the story) and are moving away from bathtub stories. Slowly, the two are coming to recognize that they both require skills, performance of craft, and even talent. The performance of those skills may be different, and indeed they may be slightly different in themselves, but they are both valuable. They are both work and both evidence of performance of craft.

Second. I recognize that the individual who told Stephanie that she wasn’t really a best-selling author because her books were about knitting had fallen into the trap of literary snobbery. I understand that part of the motivation here is see-saw egoism; if he denigrates her accomplishment, he casts his own lack of equivalent numbers in a more positive light. I recognize that part of the problem is that she is a female author, and that she still suffers from the stigma of not being a “serious” writer simply because she is a woman. I also understand that another part of the problem is that she’s writing about what is commonly perceived as a domestic pursuit, and that that which is perceived as domestic is usually considered to be trivia and is relegated to the bleachers. (It seems to me that we’re starting to reclaim and redefine “domestic,” but that’s an entirely different discussion.) Finally, I understand that such comments are built on insecurity and narrow-mindedness.

Third. What worries me is that we may be indoctrinating our students into those same ideas.

At least once every semester I have a student who tells me that the mark of good literature is that it “stands the test of time.” Every semester, I challenge that statement. Whose tests and what standards are we considering? It’s not even enough to say that a text must have universal appeal; who makes that determination, and appeal to which universes? If we’re talking about publication numbers, who controls those aspects? It’s an easy cliche that we’ve passed on to our students, and we do them (and ourselves) a disservice. And, it shows up in comments such as the one above: if it is not literary writing, it cannot be “real” writing.

I want literary programs which focus on texts from all genres, and discuss their merits and values across the board. And I want authors who succeed and have even a fraction of Stephanie’s numbers and following to be recognized rather than pat on the head and dismissed while the grown-ups talk about “real” issues.

Fourth. Certainly snobbery isn’t limited to the academic or writing worlds. Even within the knitting community, we have our own snobs. Most often it’s yarn snobbery. We use the term and laugh about it when we do, but some laugh about or talk down to those who use acrylics, while others scoff at the “only natural fiber” camp. They both have value, and somewhere our egoism needs to be set aside to recognize that. If I need to crochet or knit a project that is going to take seriously rough handling, is not liable to ever be handwashed, and needs a certain amount of indestructibility, do you honestly think I’m going to do it with an expensive cashmere or silk blend? For instance, that family who is constantly on the go and wouldn’t remember to handwash a sock—and suddenly has a new baby? Forget it. That baby blanket is going to be made out of Red Heart or Caron or whatever soft, machine-washable, dryer-tolerant, and baby-appropriate yarn I can find. They have enough on their plates without having to worry about handwashing and drying flat something which will cover the only surface which isn’t already covered with baby clothes, laundry, diapers, baby accessories, and the “droppage” of sheer exhaustion when they walk in the door at the end of the day. For them, being able to machine wash and dry something is a gift and an aspect they’d appreciate as much as the object itself. For a friend or family member who wouldn’t mind handwashing something in Woolite and who would value the craft in the gift—that’s a different question, and I’ll cheerfully use my own handspun or a delicate wool or alpaca blend.

It strikes me that, regardless of its forum, snobbery is a weakness in ourselves—a form of egoism which refuses to recognize value in that which is not ours.

Last. Stephanie is going to need a bigger venue and a lot more chairs.

Things have been busy with a lot of cleanup from last fall and some startup for this term, but there’s been some fallout, too.

General Academics/Teaching

I had an interesting conversation with a teacher a little while ago, and I find it still bothers me. The gist of it was that “good students will do well; poor students won’t.” The context was the Norwegian university environment, where required activity and participation is nearly nonexistent. Students nigh well operate in a sort of “independent study” approach, with one large lecture per week, and limited 45-minute small groups which meet once each week for part of the term. Attendance at lectures and small groups is voluntary, and grades are established by a single final exam at the end of the term. The recent budget cuts have made a system which provides little structure to its students even more unstructured; it requires even less of them. Students who have good study and academic work skills when they come into this environment will do the extra work and will at least survive; those who come ill-prepared, however, will struggle and may well fail.

That statement bothers me for several reasons, not the least of which is that it is simply a fallacy to assume that students come to college or university already established as students. While we can place the responsibility for study skill development on the student’s shoulders to a certain extent, we cannot assume that all students have high quality—or even sufficient—or equal degrees of preparation. They are certainly not carbon copies of one another with the same educational, environmental, familial, and personal backgrounds. Equally problematically, working under this attitude does not allow good students to hone existing skills, or poor students to learn how to become good students. In essence, it throws away the poor students before they ever arrive on the college’s doorstep.

I have a problem with that. In my own experience, students come to college moderately clueless about what they’re getting into. They shape their understanding of the environment and the new interactions and the new requirements within that first academic year. Only then do they really begin to grasp the planet on which they’ve landed themselves. It strikes me that to not provide the structure to help them make that adjustment is both shortsighted as well irresponsible on our (academia’s) part. College is not high school in a new location. It is certainly all part of the academic family, but making the shift is a learning experience all its own, and I firmly believe that if we want to encourage success in our students, we need to lay the groundwork. If we do not, then “poor students won’t do well”—but the fault will be as much ours as anyone’s.

This Week’s Reading

“Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton, Magret by Anne Karin Elstad (the second in the Folket på Innhaug series; in Norwegian), Eldest by Christopher Paolini, and The Care and Feeding of Spinning Wheels by Karen Pauli. How much more eclectic can one get? (By the way, the Eragon movie? If you read and liked the book, don’t waste your time with the film; it’s a waste and a terrible shame given the rich potential of the written text. The only folks who seem to like it are those who’ve not read the book.)

Writing

Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to Anne B. Ragde—author of Berlinerpoplene, Arsenikktårnet, and a host of other things—while she talked about her writing and herself as writer. One of the things that particularly caught my attention was what she believed were the key elements to any good fiction: motor og troverdighet, or drive and believability. There must be something which makes you turn the page, and you’ve got to be able to buy into that story. This is something I’ve tried to explain to younger writers, and it’s something we have to work at incorporating in our own work. What we say may be interesting but there must, after all, be a point. There must be a reason why we thought this particular story was important enough that we needed to write it—and important enough that our reader should read it.

“Believability” is a flexible concept, but equally important. While what we might believe changes from text to text based on our expectations of that text, we still have to be able to accept that characters behave the way they do, or that circumstances are and become what they are, and we have to care about those characters. The moment we stop caring or believing, that’s the moment we put the book or story down—and at that point the writer has failed.

I was pleased to see how solidly Anne B. understood those concepts—I would have been surprised had she not—but I appreciated too her sense of her writing as both work and craft. I think this is something that comes with time, but I’ve yet to see a successful writer who doesn’t make these very basic concepts a part of his or her writing identity.

Knitting

There’s been precious little of that happening since the legwarmers were finished. What there has been is:

Spinning

Since I finished that first test bit of spinning, I’ve been slowing working my way through some 3 ounces of Cormo roving. I have to admit that I like that wool! It’s very soft, and while I know my spinning hasn’t done it justice, even the finished yarn is soft and squishy despite a good amount of twist. I still have to work on consistent thickness and keeping my joins from turning into blooming blobs (literally), but I can look at this skein and see a real difference between it and that first test spin a few weeks ago.

It was not, however, a completely painless process. I really missing having a warm body at hand to point out when I’m screwing up or overlooking something which more experienced folks would do automatically or consider common sense. As my favorite Chief Master Sergeant once told me, “The problem with greenhorns isn’t that they don’t know enough to ask questions. The problem is that they don’t know enough to know what questions to ask.” That said, the reality is that I’m just a stubborn wench determined to figure things out, so I really don’t mind stumbling into things. If nothing else, it makes the learning process entertaining.

For instance, did you know that you should stop your single when you have a bit less than half the amount to fill your plying surface? You did? Ah, then you sorry bugger, why didn’t you tell me? (grin) In the process of spinning those three ounces, I cleverly (I thought) joined every new spindle-full to the end of the previous one, ending with roughly 200 yards of a single single. Since I wanted to make a large skein with no knots and as few joins as possible, I thought that was rather clever. I loved my long single, admittedly in part because it gave me a chance to even out the twist over longer lengths. The problem is that there is no way to fill your plying surface and keep plying without breaking the yarn and starting with a new batch. Once the spindle or bobbin is filled, you have to cut it and start again. Of course, if you only have one spindle and no wheel, that makes the problem even more annoying.

Coming to that realization was an adventure. I tried moving my singles from the spindle to nøstepinde to spindle and back, then to a combination of both, then to a center-pull ball. The house looked like a scene from Arachnophobia; singles were spun everywhere, and nothing—not even DH—risked moving. Thanks to some good advice, I finally understood that what I was trying to do was frankly impossible and that I needed a bigger plying surface. In other words, I needed a bigger spindle.

I improvised a CD spindle on a 24″ shaft using a 3/8″ dowel, a couple of CDs, some foam packing wrap (no grommet), and lots of tape. Ugly as sin, spun badly, wasn’t exactly ergonomic, but it worked. I unplied the several yards I’d already plied and then got busy. A few hours later and thanks to a couple of chairs, some miscellaneous furniture and body parts, a couple of dowels from two disassembled paper-towel holders, a yarn swift, a pot, and one entertained hubby, I had tightened the formerly-plied singles and plied the entire length with the CD spindle. I set the twist last night and hung the skein to dry, and I have to tell you that I’m pleased with my progress. I have another four ounces of Cormo to spin, and we’ll see how it compares with this first batch.

Wanna see?

I didn’t measure it, but based on what came off the yarn swift (oh, yes; it came out to play too), there should be somewhere around or above 75 yards.

For gauge context, there’s a dime on the left, and a Norwegian 1-kroner piece on the right.

You can see where I struggled with consistency because those areas bloomed more than the finer strand around them. In most cases, those were places where I joined the fiber. It’s something I need to work on.

On other fronts, MIL has decided I should use her grandmother’s old wheel. I don’t have much history, but I do have a little. MIL knows that her grandmother bought the wheel at a farmer’s market type of event (Martnan) in the Skogn area (Norway) in 1881, and that it was used when it was bought–which means that it’s older than that purchase date. She has no idea how old it was when her grandmother bought it, and I have no way to guess at it. A valuator would be able to figure it out, but all I have to go on is that conditions in Norway at that time weren’t great, and possessions–especially tools–were definitely not considered “disposable.” That means that the wheel could have been anywhere between a couple of years old or much older, and sold for economic reasons, or because the original owner died and the family either didn’t want or couldn’t keep it. The last option is less likely than the first given the Norwegian tendency to keep “arvegods” (inherited items) in the family.

The wheel isn’t in the best shape; it’s going to need a lot of work. The leather bearings are gone or need to be replaced, the footman needs to be replaced, the treadle is cracked, the wooden nails are slipping out of the wheel and need to be tightened, one maiden is broken, and the flyer is missing. All of those things are actually no big problem given a carpenter/woodworker, except for the missing flyer. The odds are that it was broken and then thrown out without someone realizing what it was, but I think we can find a similar wheel in the area and build a replacement. With luck, the neighbor—who happens to be a master carpenter/woodworker—will be interested in taking on the challenge. Cross your fingers.

13 Jan UPDATE: The neighbor did indeed agree to see what he could do. Even if the wheel never again spins properly, at least it’s now in safe hands and a part of DH’s family heritage will be preserved. That alone counts for something.

One of the disadvantages of being an adjunct is that you find yourself obligated to take whatever work is offered you for fear of closing a door on one opportunity or not having enough work. In itself that’s not a terrible thing, but not having a normal schedule—or more accurately, a schedule of your own design which is also under your own control—can really play havoc with the rest of life. I finished organizing the stateside students’ grades at 3am last night, tidied off the loose ends today, and am slowly plowing my way through 100+ Norwegian student basic composition essays. Thankfully, they’re short. Less thankfully, I need them all done by Friday noon so students can be notified of pass/fail status that day. Can you tell what I’m doing tomorrow?

Tomorrow evening, however, I’m breaking free for a couple of hours to go to the knitting group meeting; even two hours of knitting and yarny stuff will be refreshing. That should also help me regain my perspective on the essays I’m reading.

In an other note, my Mittens Swap partner received her package today, and I’m pleased (and much relieved!) to know that the mittens actually fit!

I’ve done a fair amount with the Norwegian uni over the past year, and as I set up materials and watched the flurry of activity on the literature class’s discussion board, I have to confess that I have missed the routines and expectations of the American system. Monday was a holiday, but by Wednesday, virtually all the class had responded to half the assignments scheduled for this first week, and which are not due until tomorrow. It strikes me that the Norwegian university system does its students a disservice by not building regular interaction into part of the course requirements, or by not expecting that level of activity. Ultimately, they survive, but I find myself wondering if they come away with the richness of experience I wish for my own students in the U.S. system. Certainly that is not to say that all American students have that experience, either; while I hope for it, I cannot even guarantee it for my own students since so very much depends on them. Yet, I’m half convinced that North America’s stricter structure and higher degree of active engagement in the higher education system paves the way for these students in order to facilitate that possibility. I rather fear that the troops I meet here are far too often left with wandering and solitary paths—and while learning is an individual experience, it is so much often more easily attained (and enjoyed) when one has company.

Nevertheless, I cannot say how pleased I am with the level of engagement I’ve seen with my American students this week. They’re an eclectic group, literally circling the country, and I’m very much looking forward to working with them.