Ezra & Elle check out Sandy's new iPhone

Sandy, Sarah and Ezra (of baby-zombie fame) are in town. We’re having a wonderful time catching up, watching Eleanor & Ezra together (although they are largely ignoring each other. Eleanor pays attention long enough to take whatever Ezra happens to have in his hand), and generally just chilling out.

On Friday, we spent some time in Carleton’s library digging up information on Sandy’s grandfather and great uncle, both of whom attended Carleton back in the 1940s. We first made our way to the old year books, where Sandy found a picture of his grandfather as a freshman and his uncle as a senior, hanging out with Cab Calloway when the latter visited Carleton, in the 1941 yearbook. We then headed to the archives, where Sandy got a copy of his grandfather’s transcript. Pretty neat.

Sandy pointing out his grandfather in the 1941 Carleton year book.

Sandy's great uncle with Cab Calloway

What were the children doing while this research was going on? Having a total blast in the stacks of course. Who would have guessed that a library would prove to be so much fun for two one-year-olds? Fortunately, the books are packed too tightly for a one-year-old to pull out, so we really let them run free.

In a wonderful Carleton moment, Emily, Sarah, Ezra and Eleanor were sitting outside the archives office on what is supposed to be the super-quiet floor of the library. Not so quiet with Eleanor and Ezra tooling around. A woman came out of her office and said to Emily, “You know, we don’t usually…” Now Emily thought the sentence would end with something like, “…allow children down here.” But what the archivist actually said was, “You know, we don’t usually have so much cuteness down here.”

I miss the Chicago pigeons. Northfield does not have pigeons. At least, not wild pigeons. I was thrilled to learn some months ago that there are pigeons in the psychology department and, wouldn’t you know, our babysitter is the student in charge of the pigeon-lab. She very kindly arranged for Emily, Eleanor and I to visit the pigeons.

We all had to wear lab coats

After the pigeon excitement (I even held a pigeon!), we headed off for event number 2: our first CSA pick up from Open Hands Farm, which is located about 2 miles outside of Northfield. Nothing special to report except that our first share of arugula, mustard green, turnips, bok choi and spinach was fabulous.

We rounded off the day back at Carleton, where a group of some 520+ students set a new world record for spooning. Each person needed to lie with his/her arms fully around the person in front of him/her for a full five minutes. We merely spectated, although I thought “Spooned with more than 500+ undergraduates” would look good in my tenure review file. Eleanor had a blast. She waited until everyone was in position before ducking under the yellow “Caution” tape and heading over a pile consisting of keys, shoes and a smart phone someone had set aside. She identified the last as most valuable and was planning to abscond with it while its owner was occupied. Sly little baby.

]]> http://thefamilyroll.com/2010/06/freaky-friday/feed/ 2 http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/11/first-term/ http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/11/first-term/#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:20:25 +0000 dmjg http://thefamilyroll.com/?p=635 Although classes ended on Wednesday, today is officially the end of term. I’m waiting for final papers to come in and then it will be two days of solid grading. Except I’m already ahead of the game because I’m dealing with Carleton students: almost half of the final papers have been turned in early. That’s just one sign of the fact that teaching here is, so far, a real treat. When I was at UofC, we were told not to get used to teaching the undergraduates because wherever we ended up the students would, in all likelihood, not be nearly as good as UofC undergrads. I am lucky to be an exception to that “rule”. It’s not just that the students are smart. They are also eager and, what is perhaps most awesome from my point of view, compliant: everyone follows instructions, gets stuff in on time, and overall, creates very little “chasing-down” work for the prof.

They are also very down to earth. Perhaps the best indication of that can be seen outside campus buildings where students leave their bikes. Unlike at UofC, where a good chunk of the bikes are fixies, single-speeds or vintage Dutch-style bikes, almost all the bikes here are super-dorky, Target-brand mountain bikes. I myself ride,  if not a hipster bike, then a not totally-uncool bike (vintage Miyata road bike), so I have no problem with hip bikes. But I do find it refreshing that the students here seem to have no concern for the hipster aesthetic whatsoever. They’re just plain dorks. And as someone who once dressed in uniform to go a Star Trek premier, I like that.

Here, in the tradition of Michael Green, is a picture of my class taken on the last day of term:

]]> http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/11/first-term/feed/ 6 http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/09/week-one/ http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/09/week-one/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:07:12 +0000 dmjg http://thefamilyroll.com/?p=568 Why did we move to Northfield again? Oh that’s right — I have a job. I’ve known that in the abstract for many a month but, having effectively been off for the better part of the last four months, the reality of it only hit me this week when actual professional obligations started to kick in.

I’m only teaching one class this term (we’re on a three-term system, so my teaching load is 1-2-2) and, having come from a place that runs on trimesters, I will not have the shock of moving from 14 week terms to 9.5 weeks terms. All in all, then, I’m fairly relaxed. I’m teaching a course called “Life and Death”, which is basically on the meaning of life. There are 30 students in the class, which is really quite large by Carleton standards, and from what I can tell so far, they appear to be a fantastic group.

Outside of class, there is a fair amount going on academically — I’m supervising a student’s independent study on compromising one’s moral ideals, there’s a three day retreat coming up at a cabin in Wisconsin with Susan Wolf, where we will read a bunch of her unpublished work, I’m attending the lecture series at the U Minn bioethics department, where I’ll be giving a paper in spring, and I’m part of a faculty writing group where we share our work with each other. So, thus far, it’s a satisfying philosophical life.

I leave you with the quotation that I started the class with (from Joel Feinberg):

[Consider] the case of species like the salmon, whose members struggle and strive heroically, swimming against the currents, battered against the rocks, plundered by predators, until the survivors reach the headwaters of their native streams, tattered, torn, and dying. Even then the ordeal is not over, for the males at least must fight off their own intraspecies competitors for an opportunity to entice females to lay eggs, to fertilize them, and only then to die. What is the point of all this effort? Simply to produce another generation of tiny salmon to start all over again, feeding and growing as they head down river toward the ocean, then after a time in salt water, heading back upstream amid the dangers and against all odds, to reproduce and die.

Discuss.

Today was my first day on campus actually doing something. This morning I played in a jazz quartet for a group of visiting college students from Japan. I can tell you, in case you didn’t know, that long hair with bangs, dyed auburn is all the rage amongst Japanese college girls. The class was part of their American Studies course and if you’ve never heard a classroom full of Japanese students singing “The Sunny Side of the Street” then you haven’t lived. Although, as Em pointed out, it would have been much funnier to have them sing “Love Letter” or “Like a Lover.” That would have been ridcurous. In all seriousness though, it was a lot of fun and we’re rehearsing again tomorrow night in preparation for our gig this weekend as part of the Northfield Jazz Festival. After the session I went to my office (let me say that again: my office. Mmmmm — that sounds nice doesn’t it?) and did some real live philosophy. That also felt pretty good. So my professional life at Carleton is a go.

Last week we hung out with our faculty friend, Annette, who, through various odd coincidences, was known to us before we got here (that’s her holding Ellie). She is Canadian and so we briefly commiserated about the challenges of explaining where we work to Canadians. The biggest issue is that “college” in Canada denotes technical or community colleges. So undergraduates do not go to college. They go to university. As do graduate students. Everyone goes to university. Canada does have undergraduate-only universities, but they’re not called liberal-arts colleges. Rather, they’re called “primarily undergraduate institutions.” Trips off the tongue, no? Anyhow, when I first moved to the US and people asked where I went to college I couldn’t understand why everyone thought I went to college and not university.

I now face a similar challenge explaining where I teach to Canadians. The moment they hear the word “college” in “Carleton College” they assume it’s a community college. Why not help them along by calling it Carleton University? Because there is a Carleton University and it’s in Canada, so everyone has heard of it. So, I think I’ll just start calling it “Carleton Primarily Undergraduate Institution” when I’m back home.

And no, I’m not so vain as to think that you’re back on the blog to read about me. You’re here for more pictures. We’ll take more house pictures when we have things set-up a little more. Future posts: “First trip to the Cities”, “Fun in the garden” & “Considering vermiculture” (thanks to this blogger and her readers).

In other news, Eleanor is definitely getting bigger. We have the official weigh-in on Wednesday, but we did an unofficial weigh-in on Greg and Claire’s digital scale (weighed myself first, then weighed myself with Ellie). She is now just a little shy of  9lbs, which means she has gained about 1.5 lbs in 3 weeks. But she is still smaller than her younger, and more substantial, compatriots: Ezra and Veronica.

Developmentally, Ellie is chugging along nicely. We’re seeing more and more smiles, which, of course, we find completely captivating. We’re hoping that she’s doing full-fledged social-smiles in time for her introduction to Abba next week. Sleepwise, things are going along swimmingly. She’s given us two nights in a row with a 5 hour sleep which was followed, last night, by a 3.5 hour sleep (Em only got up once). During the day, we’ve discovered that her hotsling (thanks Uri and Noa!) works as well as the magic boob.

Socially, we had a wonderful week spending time with Sarah & Sandy and Claire & Greg since everyone has a very very high tolerance for sitting around and talking about babies. It’s a lovely way to pass the time and we will certainly miss them when we decamp to Northfield in a month (a month!).

Finally, a small bit of Carleton news. I got an e-mail about Carleton’s new wellness benefits provider, which offers your run of the mill health and financial services. And then there’s this not so run of the mill service:

“Fear of Flying Program – Provides telephonic counseling by a commercial airline pilot, who is also a counselor, to address anxiety about flying.”

I might pretend to be afraid of flying just so I can talk to a pilot. And to top off a good week of Carleton related news, the department sent Ellie a Carleton bib and Carleton socks. Alongside her Carleton t-shirt and Pomona Sagehens (best team name ever?) onesie courtesy of Michael Green, Ellie is accruing an enviable collection of elite liberal arts college paraphernalia.

The pictures are from this album.

“Hello Carleton Faculty and Staff,

The Heywood Society is offering free ice cream, while supplies last, tomorrow (June 24) from 11am to 1pm in Great Space (the Snack Bar area of Sayles Hill).  Please help yourself to a cone or a dish of mint bon-bon ice cream in celebration of another successful Reunion Weekend. Enjoy!”

Am I going to a great school or what?