it's been fun

I've been wanting to move for awhile, Bostonblogs isn't what it used to be and it's beginning to feel not so much like a community as like a very private online journal. I don't know whether I'm blogging less because there's no one here or whether it's the other way around. Anyway, I moved to WordPress, which I'm really excited about. I haven't done much with it yet (although I've spent two and a half hours working on it this afternoon!), but I will.

Here it is! swordgirl.wordpress.com

crazy IRS games

Sometimes tax forms just sound like an elaborate game someone made up, or a Chose Your Own Adventure novel:

"If line 22 is over $119,975, or you provided housing to a Midwestern displaced individual, see page 32. Otherwise, multiply $3,500 by the total number of exemptions claimed on line 6d."

"If you can stand on your head enter 1, if anyone else you know can stand on their head longer than you then skip to line 8 and enter 0, unless you can hold your breath for more than 30 seconds. In that case see page 54 and print Form 5555 on waterproof paper."

What the heck. This is why I like taxes, though, they tell you what to do the whole time, it's just a game you play to see how much money you win this year!

you can't stop progress

Okay, I was fighting it for awhile, until quite recently in fact, as you could tell if you looked through the pile of graded papers on my table, but I have decided the battle is over. I will welcome our new overlords . . . of arbitrary prepositions. I just saw this on CNN:

Investigators: Shooter unhappy at failed dreams

Now, a week ago I would have said, "at failed dreams"? No, little Jimmy (which, of course, is how I address all of my eighteen-year-old students), it's "with failed dreams." But now I have decided, at, with, by, to, for, behind, WHATEVER YOU WANT TO USE! It's fine with me. You can't stop progress.

Pim's orange biscuits

I found these today at Publix and I keep being distracted by the deliciousness. It makes a nice break from the denseness of rhetorical criticism.

P.S. yes, they are basically French jaffa cakes, but it's just exciting to find any kind of jaffa cakes at Publix!

but they are the darlingest

I'm really excited about the next assignment I'm planning for my students. It's an analysis of some piece of visual rhetoric, and while the suggested assignment they gave us has the students analyzing an advertisement, I've decided to leave it open to all kinds of visual rhetoric. So far in class we've talked about photos and political posters (I brought in my Obama inauguration poster for in-class analysis) and movie trailers (comparing Cloverfield and The Dark Knight). On Wednesday we're talking about graphic novels and comics using Maus and hopefully next Wednesday we'll get to music videos.

I handed out the assignment sheet today and this might be just one of my "my students are the darlingest!" moments, but I got an email from one of them tonight proclaiming his own enthusiasm about the assignment and asking if he could do a video game trailer. I'm always excited when students seem to be leaving the beaten path and the trailer he sent me is fun, too, in a video game kind of way:

I'm excited to see what he pulls out of here.