OneWord with emilyjones: Teaching, Contradictions, and Plantmaxxing

It goes without saying how many things that is.

1. Teaching

I taught my two discussion sections today. The questions I prepared took about fifteen minutes for them to work through. During those fifteen minutes, I played them some music from my descriptively-titled "Playlist #92." Talking through the questions took less time than I anticipated, though, so there was an extra fifteen minutes near the end when I had to improvise. Rather, I had to come up with more questions to goad (Goat them?) into engaging with the concept of genius, instead of it arising naturally from the reading questions. I asked them if the 18th/19th century version of genius still carried any weight in today's culture, and they seemed to unanimously think it did. I asked them who is talked about as a genius in today's discourse, and I got some interesting answers: Kanye West (in the before times), Jacob Collier, whatshisname from Geese, Eddie Van Halen (from our resident Van Halen obsessed kid). I asked what made those people geniuses, and everyone's answers might as well have been written in the 18th century: "They're original!" "They're unique!" "They're prodigies!"

It wasn't until the end of each section (actually, at the exact same point in each section, and in both cases by a male student sitting in the exact same chair. Spooky glitch-in-the-matrix moment) that someone pushed back against the very concept of the solitary Romantic genius.

Call today's sections the movie Yesterday because they took place in a universe without the British invasion.

2. Contradictions

I got into my meeting with Mary Ann a little after 2. Nick heard me in Mary Ann's office.

"Emily! I had your sections in my calendar for 2. I went into the classroom at 2 and you were Ian!" (Ian teaches in that classroom right after me)

"Sorry Nick, won't happen again. Promise I'll never be Ian again."

But after that, the meeting continued as normal. Mary Ann said that there were a lot of good things in my practice essay, but she said that I didn't read the question very carefully. Reader, I think what it really was was that I didn't fully understand the direction she was expecting me to go with it. I came up with a bunch of examples that dealt with the same keywords as her question without completely answering the question she had in mind. She told me I covered a lot of ground, and it was all correct (boo ya) but that it wasn't terribly interesting or complex (not boo ya). However, it was definitely an essay that would pass (Back to boo ya again. When you're in a meeting with Mary Ann you need studio audience "Yay!" and "Aww" buttons, so you can alternate between them with each one of her sentences)

She said that my essays definitely demonstrated that I'd read all my materials and that I knew my lists. She said that Rubina's essays were possibly the most thorough and detailed ones she'd ever seen, so she thought we had been talking to one another.

What it boils down to, and hence the title of this section, is Mary Ann's main criticism: my main goal was to demonstrate that I'd read the lists, and I did that to the exclusion of having a hot take.

Reader, you might remember a quote I paraphrased from my advisor just two days ago: that I can defer having an interesting opinion so long as I can objectively say what happened in my readings. But the day that Nick and Mary Ann give me the same advice will be the day Hell freezes over.

However, Mary Ann told me specifically that I should try to be weirder and quirkier with the essays, and try injecting some hot takes, and finding some points of contradiction within the readings, and go deeper with them.

For a four-hour essay, though, I think I did pretty well. Mary Ann's other criticism was of the people I was writing about. Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, Pauline Oliveros -- "They're all just women in the 60s". And I get it.

3. Plantmaxxing

For this section of the blog, I am just going to brag that I have eaten thirty different plants this week. Now, this week it was especially easy, because I bought all those fruits to serve at my little brunch get together. But I consider it a big success when I can reach thirty plants while only having one meal that I order out. Because it's super easy to eat a lot of different plants when you're spending stupid money at different restaurants and stuff. But the proof is in the vegan pudding, baby!