Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here’s the highlights of what I’m thankful for from this past year:

1. Friends who came through for me when my father died and in general when my life crashed down. Even the little gestures like a phone call or message from someone I hadn’t talked to in awhile meant so much.
2. My job. Being unemployed is rotten for a myriad of reasons. Even if my job is challenging I am thankful that I have it.
3. Old professors. I keep in touch with them, and they mean so much to me. Though they can’t always help, their support is truly astounding.
4. My coworkers. My job is difficult but at least I have supportive coworkers who will at least commiserate with the challenges.

I guess what I’m most thankful for are the people I’ve had in my life this year who’ve helped make things easier on me.

I spent yesterday sick. Coincidentally, right as I began administering the exam for my students, my nose began dripping like crazy. I came home yesterday and slept like crazy. Dance class (I was going to try drop in ballet tonight) is not in my best interest right now.

However, I do plan on starting back with practice. I know how drill, even if my notes and DVDs are still in Chicago. I can with that and should I get exhausted, break. I do plan on looking at new DVDs. I don’t want to do a drill DVD necessarily; I think I’ve more or less have a good background on drilling practice from class or other DVDs. I’m looking more at technique right now. Something to sharpen mine and create new ideas for me when I start choreographing again. Any amazing DVDs people have come across, either in the past or very recently?

Part of what makes teaching, especially being new at it, is trying to figure out what makes the most sense to do. At this school, exams are heavily weighted (20% for 3 tests, 20% for a final), so it’s important that they do well. Everyone here has a system to help the students do better. One professor allows for infinite number of retakes. Another allows for students to make up their own problems and submit a correct solution.

Here are my strategies with the exam:

• Give a practice exam in class. They receive a study guide about a week earlier to complete on their own; the study guide consists of problems that are more or less the same as the problems we do in class/homework. At that point, they may have seen those problems 3 times or more. The reason I give an in class practice exam is because most of my students don’t have great studying or test-taking skills. It forces them to look at what they don’t know; I’ve seen a few of them look at problems and think they understand what’s going on, because they have a solution right in front of them. The practice exam either builds up the confidence of those who have been working diligently or gives the student feedback immediately what they don’t know. In terms of test-taking, it is very different to take a test in a room with other people at an hour you’d rather be asleep than when you’re at home in conditions you set.
• Exam corrections. I allow for exam corrections on the condition that they provide a good reason why they didn’t get the correct answer. Confusing numbers, adding incorrectly, calculator errors (we have a ton of those), etc. I think in the heat of the moment, they confuse weird little things. They cannot correct problems where they don’t show enough work or if they give a poor reason, like they didn’t study or they didn’t understand the problem. For the students who actually care, they can easily catch their mistakes. For those who do not, they don’t do much.

My system isn’t flawless. For some students, this class is very simple. For the rest, though, they struggle to get a passing grade on the exam even though the practice exam resembles the real exam. With exam corrections, I have to make tough judgments whether the student really understood the problem; I don’t want the exam corrections to turn into a system where the student blows off the exam and then receives full credit for essentially copying notes. A few of them struggle to understand why every problem is not eligible for corrections, but we’re working on that one.

I’m in the process of revamping my test taking policies for the students. I’ve decided that I’m not allowing them to redo most of the diagrams and debating about whether I should allow them to earn extra points for forgetting units. What is your take on what I should do?

My advisor decided I needed to update a graph that I made used Matlab. A small theoretical curve graph, nothing fancy or labor intensive. I thought that it would take 5 minutes to make the small changes. I was wrong, it turned out. Matlab became screwy after I upgraded to Snow Leopard (the latest Mac OS). It won’t let me save graphs and displays my y-axis label oddly. I had one of those midnight moments where I didn’t think it was possible to change it. I considered editing the graphic under Photoshop, since the changes were really cosmetic (a frame, a thicker line) but couldn’t figure out how to make a credible thicker graphed line.

Then walking for my coffee, I realized that all I graphed was an equation and I could redo it in Mathematica (which still functions). Solution worked. However, I learned a very important lesson: don’t upgrade until everything is done.

Everyone has their theories on dance training. Some dancers are adamant about keeping their dance “pure”, ie. not studying other forms of dance. Others relish in cross training. I’m in the latter category.

I love Middle Eastern dance, don’t get me wrong. However, I do get bored occasionally and like to check out what’s there. Although I love Odissi and Bharatanatyam, I think I want try a “Western” classical dance. A lot of dance friends have said ballet has improved their posture, arms, and carriage. It looks like something that could fun and ultimately improve my Middle Eastern dance. I have decent posture, arms, and carriage, but I could always improve.

Going to ballet will also help familiarize me with ballet terms. A lot of dance teachers use them, even those without much ballet training. Rather than have to guess at what second position is, I hopefully will be able to understand without much thought.

I’m not convinced ballet will be something I love, but I think it can indeed be useful and enjoyable.

Lately, there has been discussion of what good is Twitter for. A lot of people seem to think it’s for the extremely narcissistic. Why else does someone need to know what you’re doing at any given moment? While I’m sure that is true for some,I think Twitter is can be an extremely valuable and useful for tool.

For dancers, I think it is an excellent way to communicate with others. I find out a lot of information I wouldn’t normally be privy to, like what it’s like to be a professional dancer. It is a small glimpse and is very interesting. As a dance student, I’m more inclined to take classes or workshops from a dancer I see frequently being talked about in a positive manner on Twitter. There is also the human element that is appealing, that you can grow to like the person.

At my office, we’ve been talking about Twitter. No one is particularly pro-Twitter; many are neutral at best. When I was in grad school, two profs created Twitter pages. The one was particular useful, because we could tell where he was since he did his research off-site. That was useful for when we needed help. The other prof’s page was funny and gave him quite a colorful personality. I’ve heard of schools using it to make announcements to the school. I’m thinking about starting a Twitter page for my students so that they know when things are due. They seem adverse to logging into email and using the college class management system, but maybe they’d use Twitter.

While I don’t believe that Twitter is the ultimate piece of technology, I think it can be quite useful. Don’t discount it until you try it.

Aziza is releasing a new instructional DVD, right before the holiday. I think it’ll be a winner. The title is “Hands, Arms, and Poses.” Aziza has fabulous, well, hands, arms, and poses. Her other DVDs that I’ve seen (the veil one and the practice companion) were good in terms of information and production quality. If you are familiar with her vaguely, she is an absolutely charming person.

And if anyone wants to gift this DVD to me, I won’t complain.

I’m preparing my students for the next exam, which is fast approaching. I forgot how long the semester system can be; when I was doing my graduate degree, we were on quarter system. That means we would end right before Thanksgiving. I used to prefer the semester system, but now I’m not so sure. Perhaps it’s just what you’re used to at the end of the day.

Although I enjoy teaching, I could use the break myself. It’s just nice to relax, you know? Relaxing is relative, though. I finally received more edits in the mail for my thesis, so that’s how I intend on spending my time, hustling out those edits. It would be nice to have a real break, but at the same time, I’d rather be finished with my thesis than have a break break.

I’m starting to get settled more things. I think this weekend I may finally start doing yoga again. I’m starting to incorporate little dance practices for when I go back to dance class (I’m thinking next month, right before the New Year). I’m surprised that shimmy is still there and that I can still isolate muscles. I suppose muscle more really does exist.

Moving and working means I’ve been quite busy. Last week, I was keeping myself afloat best I can in life. I luckily have been able to keep myself ahead of the game with the students, but I’ve also had a mound of grading to do. Then I come home to clean, figure out how I’m getting certain items I don’t have (pots, pans, whatever) from Craig’s List or otherwise. My cats have been adjusting, as well, which has been some work; my one cat was having a hissing fit with the other two.

Last week, besides the moving stress, was a bit stressful because students like to argue grades. I’m not sure if it’s the nature of the beast, being female, or being young (or a combination), but a handful of students have mindblowingly crazy attitudes. It varies from telling me that I’m not fair for holding their grades to the syllabus, which they not only received prior to me but also we talked about when I did arrive, to being mad at me when they don’t understand what’s going on in class because they were absent and refuse to visit me during my tutoring hours. I’m not trying to be mean or harsh, but sometimes I’m astounded with the lack of accountability on the students’ behalf. I understand life is hard, but you have to take control of things. Thank goodness it’s only a handful, but they can sour things fast. I luckily have some fantastic students who may not totally understand physics, but they’re willing to work at it and not become accusative.

I’m also trying to make decisions on the rest of my life. Do I go to grad school next year (or rather, try to)? What kind of job do I want? And so on. Our work schedules for the next semester have not come out yet, which is stressful. While everyone at work insists that they keep people on as long as they can, there is no guarantee. I’m not trying to be negative or think for the worst, but the reality is I have a contract for so long. So in addition to trying to make long term plans, I am trying to keep my options open for the shorter term.

During my spare moments last week, I’ve also been exploring dance options. I discovered that the studio I used to attend offers a work-study program for dance classes, so I applied to there. I’m also looking at taking a drop-in ballet class. Once I have a feel for my job situation, I’ll likely return to Odissi classes here (or possibly Bharatanatyam). I would love to find a Flamenco class, but I a) don’t want to overextend myself and b) don’t know where one is.

A good part of me is interested in establishing a social life here of sorts; the last time I lived in the area, a bunch of my friends were here. They have either moved away, or we’ve gone very separate life paths at this point. I don’t want to go out all the time, but it’d be nice to hang out with some other people.

So that’s me in a nutshell for now. I think that I should be able to update more frequently next week, but who knows?

To a completely different apartment than the last one I had described. This one was simply a better deal. The apartment has more than enough space for me and three cats. I have a room I intend on using for a dance/yoga studio, which is nice. It’s plenty of room for veil. I’m also on ground floor, so if I resume to louder forms of dance (Flamenco, Odissi), noise won’t be much of a concern.

It is weird having my own space and having to maintain it after literally living out of a suitcase for the past 2 months or so. It is strange to be alone and only surrounded by cats. I don’t mind it necessarily, this is just s change. I feel like I’m slowly getting myself into a routine. I’m a fairly habitual person. I’m not so stuck in my ways that I won’t ever change, but I do appreciate consistency to some degree.

I will resume blogging more once I have better internet. I am currently using the town’s wireless internet (no contract, first month only 1 dollar), but it’s spotty.