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Classes start next Tuesday. In between my twelve different faculty, departmental, and committee meetings this week, I am finalizing my fall composition syllabus. This is my third semester to teach a themed syllabus, and I’m doing what I always do when it comes to course design: completely reinventing the wheel. I have a new theme this semester, so there are tons of new readings to sort through, activities to plan, and paper assignments to design. It’s exhausting, but I have to admit to loving it. Course planning is one of my favorite things. As I make my final decisions, I keep asking myself several questions. These are all in addition to my concerns about meeting departmental guidelines and goals for the course. 1) Does…

Categories: Teaching

Tagged: composition, course planning, diversity, instructional design, syllabi

When Common Ground Isn’t Enough

LizBR

Posted on August 26, 2013

I have a downer of a post to write in follow-up to my post about not dividing ourselves into allies and rivals. On Friday, I published a short piece about how we shouldn’t constantly measure everyone else by how much we agree or disagree with each other. Relationships should be valued over politics and religion and most disagreements. Today I want to write about how to recognize when a relationship does, in fact, need to be severed. I firmly believe what I wrote on Friday: if you’ve chosen to be in a relationship with someone, whether that is a friend or a partner or someone else, it’s important to hold onto whatever things made you choose a relationship with that person. But how do…

Categories: Current Events, Faith, Feminism, Politics

Tagged: abuse, allies, Facebook, friends, internet, relationship, rivals

Allies & Rivals

LizBR

Posted on August 23, 2013

I don’t want my relationships to be about how much I agree or disagree with the other people in my life. I am tired of receiving messages that everyone in my life is either my ally or my rival. I don’t expect myself to be friends with everyone, or to like everyone, or to ignore people’s bad behavior. No one has to ignore their sense of good judgment just to get along with more people. But when it comes to the people that I am in relationships with already–friends, family members, colleagues, even acquaintances–I refuse to constantly measure the percentage to which we agree or disagree with each other. I’ve seen people write off others because they may agree on 90% of issues, but…

Categories: Current Events, Faith, Politics

Tagged: allies, Facebook, friends, internet, relationships, rivals

What I’ve Learned from My Husband’s First Hospitalization

LizBR

Posted on August 21, 2013

For as many times as we have made trips to the ER in the past seven years, Sunday night was the first time Chalupa has ever been admitted to the hospital. On Monday night, the hospitalist (does anyone else just love the title “hospitalist”?) agreed with the pulmonologist that he needs to stay a second night, although everyone seemed hopeful that he could go home on Tuesday, and that’s precisely what happened. On Tuesday morning, we packed up my lapotp and his iPad, our changes of clothes, and his bags of medicine and headed home. Now we’re back home with Ruthie, who is happy to have us home but still a little angry that she didn’t get to see us for two days, and…

Categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: asthma, Chalupa, chronic illness, doctors, health, health care, hospital

Happy Birthday, Chalupa!

LizBR

Posted on August 19, 2013

I write this post on my husband’s birthday. It won’t be posted on his birthday, though, because we’re currently at the Emergency Room. Again. Third time this summer. He has just been wheeled back to radiology for chest x-rays, which will certainly come back clear, just as they were clear when his doctor ordered some earlier in the week. Tonight I have watched as doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and more surrounded him from the moment we walked in the door and someone ran to get him a wheelchair. Like I’ve written before, this is not an unfamiliar environment to me. And that’s why this post is not about Chalupa’s asthma or his health issues. This post is about his birthday and all the good…

Categories: Parenting

Tagged: birthdays, Chalupa, chronic illness, family, health, marriage, movies, relationships

Chronic Illness in the Summer of 2013

LizBR

Posted on August 12, 2013

Last month, a doctor/blogger named Rob Lambert published an article called, “A Letter with Patients with Chronic Disease.” In his open letter, Dr. Lambert expresses his sympathy toward people who suffer from every form of chronic disease–especially the mysterious kinds that are invisible to the outside observer. He writes: You scare doctors. No, I am not talking about the fear of disease, pain, or death. I am not talking about doctors being afraid of the limits of their knowledge. I am talking about your understanding of a fact that everyone else seems to miss, a fact that many doctors hide from: we are normal, fallible people who happen to doctor for a job. We are not special. In fact, many of us are very…

Categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: Chalupa, chronic illness, marriage