Misplaced Yinzers, Old Friends and Steelers Nation

Crap. 6 months or so went by without a post. The grand irony of teaching writing: I never actually get to do any writing.

I haven’t put into words the joy of walking (yes, walking) across the Macedonia-Albania border. Or getting a ride with a charming U.N. lawyer after sharing grappa in Kosovo. Or the color of the water in Kotor, Montenegro. But I will.

But for now, this Misplaced Yinzer must share some writing from the professional world that I did get to complete: to help my old deskmate from my days at The Beaver County Times, I reached out to the other misplaced and talked Steelers.

Enjoy. http://sewickley.patch.com/articles/misplaced-yinzers-in-good-company-when-seeking-steelers

Only Connect (or, why travel)

E.M. Forster’s famous tag line in Howard’s End seems ridiculously appropriate today.

“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.”

Yes, Forster’s opus deals more with connecting across different social classes (another favorite theme of mine), but as I gear up for my latest big wandering, I’m realizing it’s human connection — getting back to people I love and miss, and the delicious thought that new connections could await at any corner — that drives me, far more than the pretty pictures in my Lonely Planet guide (though those help).

On Friday, a day when I should have been grading the 49 essays I needed to grade or packing my (still-unpacked, less than 24 hours before I’ll leave) backpack, I drove out to Rutgers University to do a presentation for a group of teachers about to depart on a six-week Fulbright seminar to Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Connecting with Hungarian colleagues, last June

The Hungarian Fulbright director, Huba, told me I was just to talk about my life in Hungary, and as I began showing slides and listing tips for enjoying the life magyar- style, I realized I was talking far more about people than the “stuff” there. One teacher told me later how she felt so excited to depart, because “you just seemed so happy discussing your time there.” Then, one of the other presenters recognized our mutual friend, Veronika in a slide (who I taught with at Pazmany Peter when I loved abroad, and who had spent the previous year on a Fulbright at Rutgers). While we discussed her awesomeness (for she is truly awesome), Huba joined in and I thought about how odd it was: one community college teacher from Virginia, a Rutgers history professor and an older Hungarian man, all connecting over another Hungarian, a Shakespeare scholar and all-around wonderful literature teacher.

The sights of travel are great. Gorging on local delicacies is also lovely (as the teachers I spoke to probably noticed, given my attention to lángos and pálinka during the presentation). But it’s the connections I make when traveling — and how those burst forth into more and more chances to meet, understand and experience this array of great people you might otherwise miss — that make it worth the jet lag, low bank accounts and less-than-stellar wardrobe and furnishings.  Earlier this week, I’d actually been feeling a bit guilty. Who am I,  a teacher who makes (most gratefully, most thankfully) a decent, livable wage, but nothing near an eye-popping salary, to go to Europe for a month? Isn’t it irresponsible, financially? Shouldn’t I learn to settle down and stay still, a bit (I do have some gray hair, after all…)? Today, I’m taking the Forester-philosophy: connecting is more important.

Now, to tackle that backpack…

(Un)Timely Russian Burgers

Why, oh why, do I feel like I am never in the right place at the right time? According to a post made just moments ago on The New York Times,  just ONE measly block from my Arlington abode, at the dee-licious Ray’s Hell Burger, President Obama and Dimitri Medvedev were grabbing burgers.

Curses! I could be chowing down with two of the world’s most important leaders…but I’m 19 miles away, giving a final to my literature class.

Last year, I noticed how after living through two innagurations in D.C. where I only went as a protestor, I was an ocean away for the first one I would want to celebrate. When Pittsburgh made it onto the international map with the G-20 summit, I was stuck in D.C.  I’m sure that the second my plane takes of for my Euro vacation next week, something amazing (the ghost of Michael Jackson rises from the street,  Glenn Beck announces he’s been wrong all along about “real America” and instead supports gay marriage, etc.) will happen back home.

It’s all in the timing. But from now on, I’m swinging by Ray’s at least daily.

Talking the talk

I’m getting ready to misplace myself again! I’ve got one and a half weeks left to teach my summer course, and then it’s back to beautiful Budapest and then off for a new adventure in the Balkans (Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro …and, the newest country in the world, Kosovo!) with the lovely Ms. C. , the most famous English-language blogger in Bulgaria.

While attempting to grade some quizzes on Othello this afternoon, I got engaged in a conversation with a fellow Balkan-lover, my friend Ari. Having lived for a year in Croatia, he actually speaks some Croatian (which is, after all, quote similar to all the other languages…save Albanian…but don’t tell that to anyone who lives there.) Although my own sorry attempts at Eastern-Euro language learning have been amply chronicled during my maygarul lessons last year, I was willing to accept a bit of advice:

Ari: you need to master this phrase naravno, ja cu probati

me:  What does that mean?

Ari:  of course, I will try that!

me:  hmmm…that sounds like a phrase that could get me in a lot of trouble.

Ari: exactly

Yeah, exactly. Also sounds like the type of thing which might land me in a Balkan jail…or drunk in a Balkan ditch… or with a Balkan baby, or something. Methinks I’ll stick to the Lonely Planet guidebook’s suggested phrases instead.

Here’s Hoping My Syllabi Are “Good ‘Mericans…”

The State Attorney General of Virginia (henceforth known to this Misplaced Yinzer as “The State That Proves We Should Have Let the South Leave When We Had The Chance”)  is at it again.  Not satisfied with just suggesting that Virginia’s public schools that they should end protection on gay rights -- because isn’t legalizing discrimination what real ‘Mericans are about? — he is now busy launching a fraud investigation at the University of Virginia. because of the “radical” idea that — gasp — global warming might be real.

According to the article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, A.G. Ken Cuccinelli is going after thousands of documents (down to every e-mail sent) from a climate change researcher previously working at U.Va, The Chron asks:

Is Mr. Cuccinelli, as he says, safeguarding taxpayers’ interests by making sure that Mr. Mann did not seek money through a state university based on manipulated climate-research data? Is he misusing his prosecutorial powers to bash higher education for political gain, as critics assert? Is he fishing for potentially damaging information at the behest of climate-change skeptics, as Mr. Mann suggests?

Um, based on his past, I’m guessing its more like options B and C.  And it makes me a little worried. I was going to assign some class theory for my literature students this term, but that might involve the name Marx.  And what if  Mr. Cuccinelli decides I’m  “defrauding”  Virginia’s taxpayers … taking their tax dollars as salary and trying to churn out little Communists?  I mean, I’ve already got Toni Morrison on the syllabus, and she believes in another idea Virginia’s current leaders think just too far lefty -- you know, that slavery was a big, bad stain on America and maybe, just maybe, the Confederacy shouldn’t be celebrated — and adding anything else that goes against those  “real ‘Merican” traditions might be pushing it.

And, all those e-mails to Hungary are definitely going to raise flags if he subpoenas my work.

Gambling is Bad, Gardens are Good

Well, the day came:  I wore that most foul of words across my chest. In public. OHIO.  And no, there was no escaping this Mistake on the Lake on this Misplaced Yinzer. Always a believer that we should simply do away with the state always pushing on Pennsylvania’s door (say, perhaps, settled some of this national debt by selling it to the Maldives? I hear they need a new home.) , I had those four letters prominently displayed on my chest for several hours during my last ‘burgh-ward bound trip.

As mentioned before, I had gambled on what was supposed to be a “sure bet”: Georgetown would beat Ohio University in the first round of the NCAA basketball tourney. As my dear friend Mike (a.k.a. Uncle Crappy stated, even he, loyal Ohioian that he is, wouldn’t have dreamed they’d actually win.) But win they did. As as his blog so lovingly displays, I gamely pulled on my big green shirt … and pulled out my wallet to buy some brews.

But that’s not the real story. The real story is the bar where we met — Hollywood Gardens.  It’s in Rochester, a small community within Beaver County.  Some context: when Mike and I worked together at the Times, a photog friend accurately described Beaver County as “living in a Bad Springsteen song.” Rochester is the municipality where, as a reporter, I received a police report that stated a man had been arrested because, while the cops where interviewing his neighbor, he leaned down to pat the neighbor’s dog and a rock of crack and a crack pipe fell out of his shirt pocket. According to the report: “The suspect looked upward, appearing surprised, and asked ‘Now, where did that come from?’” and tried to slink off.

And yet, it is home to a bona-fide find of a pub, a place where quality beer can be appreciated — and trust me, if a Craft Beer School Graduate, like Mike, says it has good beers, it does. It looks like a rather plain, brick box from the outside, but inside, there are friendly bartenders, a very beer-savvy, happy-to-teach-you owner, and a beer cave lined with an astounding array of taps, showing off their creative collection. And, behind the bar, not the usual Iron City/IC Light/Rolling Rock combo of Yinzer Bars past, but rather 12 creative selections, from local faves like Full Pint and The East End Brewing company (whose Black Strap Stout alone is worth the 5 hours and $10.30 turnpike toll) to more far-flung deliciousness.

The best part? When I went to pay the tab — 3 beers for me, and 4 for Mike — it was so astoundingly low for my D.C.-price-based mind that I had to remind the bartender I was paying for both tabs. She gave me a slightly concerned look “They’re both on there,  honey,” she said, looking at me like she felt a bit sorry for me.

It’s almost enough to make me want to move back. (almost. In the meantime, Mike, I’d talk to the Beav and see if you can swing doing all your reporting from a bar stool there.)

Martenitsa, Or Re-Awakening

My blog has been in a winter, of sorts… a hibernation, if you will. And that’s because any type of writing I wanted to do for myself just couldn’t be touched, buried as I was under a mountain of assignments to create and essays to grade.

I was also feeling, well, wintry — cold, hard, angry — because all this work didn’t seem to be helping much. I had a student in Comp. I who just wouldn’t accept that research was needed for an assignment called “argumentative research paper.” I had a student in Comp. II try to throw down “the teacher hates me” card to a dean when I wouldn’t award a passing grade to a decidedly sub-par essay. Heck, I even had a kid in journalism class — an elective — seem flabbergasted that unless he actually wanted to interview people, he couldn’t do journalism. As more Fridays and Saturdays passed with me in front of the computer, ignoring text messages and e-mails from friends, my chilly funk settled deeper. Why was I working so hard, when it so rarely seemed to matter to the students?

Now, I’m feeling a little more like this:

Those little string things hanging off the cherry blossoms are martenitsa, which I carried back from my dear friend Carolyn’s place in Sofia, Bulgaria last spring, and recently hung up near my apartment. Bulgarians wear these red-and-white string creations starting March 1, and then place them on the first flowering bush they see. It’s a sign of sending off the winter, and welcoming the spring. And, in the past few weeks, that’s how I finally feel: I’m sending off the old season.

I Never Did Like Gambling

Damn.  Really? Ohio? Really?

The Times calls it “the worst tournament loss in Georgetown history.”

Agreed. I don’t even like to acknowledge Ohio as a state. The home of Joe the Plumber. The reason for Bush winning in ’04. The land of mistake-on-the-lake/flaming water Cleveland. But it looks like I’m wearing this next time I head home, due to a little bet with Uncle Crappy.

Ah well. Green is my color anyway.

And Georgetown is still a better school (sorry, had to throw in my school snobbery one last time. I mean, I have to have something to motivate me to keep paying back that 15 grand I still owe them for my … err… fiscally-less-than-rewarding-though-intellectually-amazing … English B.A.)

Basketball & Bets

Georgetown versus O.U. Thursday. 7:25.

In another life, when I was a midwesterner (of sorts — what does one call Pennsylvania?), I worked with many an Ohioian. Now, Ohio and Pennsylvania have long had a rivalry. The Steelers and the Browns face off; we’re two middle-America long-winter-not-so-glam states who feel the need to put each other down to feel better about ourselves; and, ever since the 2004 presidential elections — when Pennsylvania did the right thing (voted for Kerry) and Ohio screwed us all over (voted for Bush, leaving us with four more years of ineptitude) — Ohio seems to represent political foolishness to me .

But now the battle is personal. My beloved Hoyas face Ohio University in the first round of the NCAA tourney. And my Ohio-loving pal, Uncle Crappy, has wagered a bet: so long as my boys in blue-and-gray pull off a win, he has to buy me a pitcher of nice (i.e. not Miller Lite) beer AND wear a Georgetown t-shirt while we drink it together.

Uncle Crappy keeps asking for my shirt size, as I will be buying the beer and wearing Ohio if the Hoyas lose.

But the Hoyas won’t lose.

I don’t actually know much …err, anything … about sports, and I’ve never understood people who just watch football to see some team from another town play. Sports have to equal emotion for me, which is why, save the Olympics, I live in a land where the Steelers always win football games and the Hoyas always win the NCAA. Now, I just hope reality-reality intersects with my reality. Because after that whole Bush-voting thing, I really can’t imagine the word “Ohio” on my chest.

The best email a teacher ever sent a student….

…from a Professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business:

http://deadspin.com/5477230/nyu-business-school-professor-has-mastered-the-art-of-email-flaming

The professor chews out the student for acting entitled enough to think he waltz into a class whenever he wants and then send an email to the professor complaining when the teacher booted him … and some people actually comment that the kid is in the right because he paid tuition, i.e. this little paragon of critical thinking wisdom: “…If you’re paying to go to class, then this make it more of client relationship. I am paying you to teach me so shut up and teach. These kids are paying through the nose for these classes, so they should get the chance to make sure the class they sign up for is really what they think it is. In the real world, if you are paying for a service it is prudent to sample it before committing to pay for it.”

Um. No. Education is not a service. Education is development — culturally, intellectually, professionally, depending on the school. It’s naturally a two-way street, not a buyer-seller demand.  Both parties (teacher and student, or to use  Entitled Business Jerk’s terms, seller and buyer) have to be actively participating in the process. You don’t just “get” and education; you must work for it.  Hence, it isn’t a “service” as EBJ claims. Getting a manicure or an oil change is a service in this sense or  seller = active and buyer = passive. Education, EBJ, is simply not the same. We English Professors would call you out on the logical fallacy of a false analogy.

And I’m saying this as one of the “entitled millennial” generation — my high school diploma has the year 2000 printed on it. The professor in question may or may not be a jerk, but he’s right on the mark with this one

Or, to use his words, to whiny students and people who think education is merely the process of paying for the credits: get your shit together.