Well, take one slightly-at-loose-ends doctoral student, some free time, some gingerbread, and a ridiculously deep love of Stargate: SG-1, and you get this. I give you, the USS George Hammond, in gingerbread.

Just for fun I documented the process, so here we go…

First, I found one of the few images of the ship online.

Next, came the gridding process. I numbered the faces of the ship and then, as best as I could, drew them out in 2-D on graph paper.

Then came the gingerbread part. I rolled out the dough as thin as possible, then cut shapes and carefully laid them out on the sheets to bake. It got a bit confusing at times!

Early launch bays, drying after initial frame-in. I went through loads of icing! It was actually pretty good physical therapy for my still-healing hand.

The roughly put-together version.

Adding detail to the launch bays.

The nose of the ship with the two smaller launch bays. I’m assuming those are for the gate-ships, not the X-304’s.

The main body of the Hammond. I’m not a good enough icing piper to spell out the entire name, so I went with the initials. The red/white strips hint at the nifty ship patch they’ve used in the show.

L’ artiste at work!

The completed ship! Left oblique view.

Head-on view, as if flying by in an X-302.

Right oblique view.

A completed project!

Overall, the entire project took about 72 hours, if you add everything up. Lots of fun and very relaxing.  Now, onto other things.

Tonight: Dinner out and Avatar. Yay.

A small little house for my buddy Tony.

My ginger village.

The artist at work. Note that I am *not*
working on my literature review. :::sigh:::

So, it’s that time again. It’s pouring here in LA and I *love it*! Can’t get enough rain, if you ask me, I really do love it. I finally got a leg up on my lit review, the last of my four heavy-duty semester assignments.

My grades are posted, the LR is 1/3 done, so I treated myself to an afternoon of playtime. No Gingergate this year, but made a gingervillage instead.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/Happy Kwanzaa/Happy Hanukkah/Good Solstice/Etc…to all and sundry.

Tonight: writing for fun.

I’ve checked for an official Meredith website and was unable to find one so thought I’d leave a little note for her here. Will she read it? Most likely not.

I felt every jitter of nerves you were probably feeling, Meredith, during your announcement on the Today Show this morning. I know how hard it is to say those words out loud. I’m sure your palms were sweating and your knees shaking. I’ll bet you had second, third, and 1,000th thoughts right up until the camera turned to you. Internal and external debates aside, Meredith, you executed fantastically, with grace and style. I thought you were tremendously brave.

It is one thing to come out to yourself. Another to your children. And to your family. But to make an announcement like that to the world…that takes sheer guts (and a nearby bathroom).

Matt Lauer. Well, I was impressed. I can say with heartfelt gratitude that it was not Ann Curry doing the interview. I couldn’t have stomached the false intensity of the contrived ‘lean forward, rest your hand on the guest’s knee, gaze deeply into her eyes, lower your voice, and ask…”how does it feel?”‘ Nope. That would have sucked. Matt was great.

The interview, if you missed it, can be found on YouTube here.

For those who will read this and start the usual whinge of “nobody ever comes out with, ‘I’m straight’” news…suck it up. Nobody has to come out as straight, it’s an assumed norm, with anything else being perceived as the “other,” with the ‘other’ being connotatively construed as wrong. (If any of those words confused you, look them up.). As Meredith said in her interview, she was putting a personal face on the issue. This is a woman who represented a generation to many of us, and iconic ideal. If she can be a lesbian an loved, why can’t we all?

I went to a Hallowe’en party this year and met Alice’s Queen of Hearts. Fabulous costume designed and made by the wearer, also a wonderful (male) fourth grade teacher. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think we’re teaching your kids in the grade and high schools/colleges/universities. Are we recruiting? Absolutely not. Are we everywhere? You bet your ass we are. Don’t like it? Tough. Live with it.

If you don’t like lesbians, don’t sleep with one. Same goes for gay men. If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t marry a gay person.

What you did today Meredith was well done, indeed. Thank you.

This week has been a struggle. Four major assignments are due in the next two weeks and we have the rubric for only one of them. One of the four is a statistical analysis project, and that has been fun to do. Another is the aforementioned (see blog post “More Doctoral Work…”) “Signature Assignment” which I’ve–finally–completed. There’s the lit review for the stats class that I feel pretty good about, and then there’s the “Issue Paper.” That is where we’re supposed to pick an “issue” from our institution and address it in a 10-page paper, using the theory and readings thus far discussed in the semester, backing up our assertions with current and relevant lit. No problem except…well…again, see prior post.

I’ve been at my “institution” for 16 days.

16 days.

Okay, it’s really been 16 weeks, or 32 days, since I’ve been there two days a week. But, if you add up my hours, it really comes down to 8 hours per week for sixteen weeks; therefore, 16 days.

As I’ve said before, I’m lucky I can find the secretary’s office. I have yet to find my own office. I am told we adjunct’s have one, but, as I say…I have yet to find it. I’ve looked up the building it’s supposed to be in on the campus map, but said building isn’t in the indicated spot. Therefore, I have instead arranged office hours online, at Starbucks, in hallways, in the faculty “work room,” but never in my very own (shared with 12 others) office.

I don’t think “I can’t find my office” is a significant enough issue.

If I had a grading rubric, I might know that for sure, but for now I’m simply going on instinct. Nope, pretty sure “can’t find it” doesn’t count.

My “to do” list for this weekend was as follows:

• Write COMM 103 final exam
• Write COMM 101 final exam
• Upload finals to copy team for repro for exam week.
• Create COMM 101 quiz for this week (weekly event)
• Upload COMM 101 quiz to copy team.
• Upload notes to class site (covering chapter we only had brief time to address)
• Rerun and doublecheck stats project, adding in Dr. C’s notes and making that one change he requested.
• Create “Jeopardy” quize/final exam study guide for COMM 101
• Ditto above for COMM 103
• Write Issue paper
• Create Issue paper PPT lecture for class discussion

The items crossed off are the things I’ve accomplished up to this point.

Wow, it really helps to make a list and then check things off. I was pretty sure I had accomplished nothing this weekend. Still no “Issue” paper, but…well, I don’t really have an issue with that.

Tonight: some ‘for fun’ writing and turkey leftovers.

74 days to the Olympics!

When I was in college (waaay back when, LOL), I called my mom and asked for her chicken and rice recipe. It’s not a particularly unique recipe, I’ve since found it online in several variations. It is, however, the ultimate comfort food for me. The aroma of the sauteed onions and celery in the browned-chicken drippings, the moist rice…yum.  So, since I’ve been sick with both the flu and strep this week, and since Wednesday is usually “my” day for cooking, I decided that I needed the comfort. I’m mostly over the strep, the flu seems to have abated to “just” exhaustion, yes…it’s time. I pull out my dog-eared recipe card and begin. And once again I realize that the final product, while edible, won’t be just right. Why? Because it wasn’t made in the pan.

THE pan.

The chicken-and-rice pan.

The one used in our house since the dawn of time – or in this case – my childhood. The pan, as far as I know, resides with my mom in Florida. It, like many of us so many years later, is somewhat the worse for wear. The handle is mostly gone, the sides are dinged, the cover, if it’s even still in the vicinity of the actual pan no longer has a handle. But…that’s THE pan. The right pan. With that pan I can make some pretty amazing chicken and rice.

Without it…eh.

So-so.

I am nearing the end of my first semester in the doctoral program. The “real” work has finally kicked in and, as challenging as it is, I am enjoying it. My main struggle this semester has been (aside from the recent death of my father, the continuing struggle with melanoma, hand/ligament surgery, strep throat, and now the flu) has been the looming prospect of no teaching jobs for the upcoming spring 2010 term.This despite pretty outstanding, if I do say so myself, teaching evals and observations.

Zip.

Zero.

Nada.

Every place at which I have either taught in the past or applied for the future has no classes to offer. The State of California is going bankrupt and taking its higher education institutions along for the ride. It’s gotten so bad that I’m applying in Phoenix and in northern California, figuring I can fly and/or drive home for doctoral classes/weekends if needs be.

To get me out of my funk, several good friends have pointed out to me that I am missing a golden opportunity. I have a good many writing projects in the works; a solid screenplay pitch that’s already gotten good feedback, a manuscript under review by a well-known publisher, several other stories and/or script ideas just begging to be written. Those projects have been sitting dormant because of my normally busy schedule. Perhaps it’s time to dust them off?

So, with their words in mind, I am concentrating again upon my writing (in addition to, of course, the doctoral work, which has priority). I have been stressing and worrying, fussing over my CV, subjecting myself to painful self-examination and hyper-critique, wondering why I can’t land a permanent teaching gig. And then the “apostrophe” hit (Spielberg’s Hook reference, look it up.) I have decided that perhaps the problem with my CV and my applications is the same problem that I am having with the chicken and rice.

I just need to find the right pan.

Tonight: so-so chicken and rice and completing my SLO paper.

Flu + strep throat.

Not much else to add.

Will update again later this week and/or weekend.

In our doctoral class tonight we discussed, ironically enough, the report on the Virgina Tech shootings. This report was issued by Gordon Davies. His bio states:

Gordon Davies served as Director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, from 1977-1997. He was the President of the Kentucky Council for Post Secondary Education from 1998-2002.  He has taught at Yale University, Richard Stockton State College, and Teachers College at Columbia University.  He was a founding dean of Richard Stockton State College, New Jersey.

Born in New York City, Dr. Davies is a navy veteran; he was worked in computer sales with IBM Corporation.

Dr. Davies earned his degree from Yale University:  BA English, and MA and Ph.D. in Religion.

Dr. Davies currently serves as a senior advisor to a Lumina Foundation project, Making Opportunity Affordable, and to the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

He directed a project to improve state higher education policy from 2002-2006, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.  In 2007, he served on the panel appointed by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to investigate the shootings at VA Tech that left 33 dead.

The irony in this is that today’s shooting at Fort Hood was executed by a ‘97 Virgina Tech grad. Irony, thy name is Virginia Tech, or handgun, or…right to bear arms in the name of freedom. Topic for another blog.

What was amazing most of all is that Gordon spoke with us via Skype. He was in Ramala, Israel (“A” on map above), and we were in Northridge, California (“B” on map above). 7,550 miles from our campus. It was 6 am his time (11/6/09), 8pm our time (11/5/09). Save for the occasional ‘jet plane’ sound, he came in as clear as if he were in the room with us. Now that is what I call “distance education.”

Tonight: more studying

Took a break from studying to day to carve a pumpkin. The front is, as you can quite clearly see, an active puddle within a Stargate. The back (carved in for ventilation purposes) holds the symbol for Earth. As I was taking the picture I realized I was also seeing the reflection of the Earth symbol behind my pumpkin which made for a nifty shot.

The pumpkin was grown in our own garden and has given its life for posterity (and fear-mongering) such as it is. The idea of an active wormhole so close to my house should frighten you just a bit anyway.

I am now 10.5 weeks into the 156-week (3 year) doctoral program, which means I am .07 complete! Woohoo! Can you tell I’m doing quantitative analysis this semester? Yummy. Stats. Gotta love ‘em. What’s the p-value of your data? Have you eliminated the null hypothesis? What are your variables? Wheeeeeeee.

Off to read. Tonight: faculty costume party. Maybe I should go as a professor? I am attending with Peter Pan. Yes, the Peter Pan.

So, the doctoral work continues, and thus continues the whining. I know this is the first time this program has been offered and I know we’re in the growing pains stages, but let me tell you…three hours once a week and six hours on a Saturday of listening to “leadership lecture” is enough to make a woman beat her head against a wall.

It is becoming increasingly clear that they are making this up as they go along. I wonder if they (the directors of this program) actually consulted with other programs. Yes, ours is the first to split the K12 cohort from the Community College cohort, but really…can there be such a huge gap in educational leadership that the first three hours of the six we must attend once a week be as mind-numbing as it is? Really? Wow.

Here’s a dilemma. We must complete a “signature assignment” for the class, something on the equivalent of SLO’s (Student Learning Objectives) for our cohort. I believe this is to for the program, should they be asked, to be able to hold this up and wave it around saying, “See? We taught ‘em good!” Whatever. Below is the criteria for the Signature Assignment for the Leadership course:

Signature Assignment: All colleges are responsible for focusing on student learning outcomes.  This focus cuts across the entire institution and is central to the community college mission.   Drawing from your reflection on the readings by Northouse and Senge, develop a conceptual plan and process for addressing the student learning outcomes requirement at your institution. Your plan and process should demonstrate your understanding of the essential elements of collaborative leadership within the community college context. (Support your process design by citing research and related literature).  Your process should consider what steps are important in institutionalizing a college culture centered around student learning outcomes. Provide evidence that substantiates the criticality of this issue and the need for an institutional response at your college.   Develop the plan by which you as a campus administrator would seek to address this priority.  Whenever appropriate, provide illustrations of your committee structures, their memberships, and reporting relationships.

Questions to consider are:

• How is this issue (student learning outcomes) related to the mission and success of the community college?
• Who are the stakeholders in the process?
• What groups (who) should be involved in the development of the institution’s response to this problem?
• How would you keep the process moving?
• What kinds of institutional or program data/research would be needed to formulate a response?
• What are the procedures you would utilize to gain college administrative support for the process?
• How would you build trust in the process?
• How would you evaluate the process?
• How would the process and its outcomes be communicated and to whom?
• How would the college sustain the process (institutionalize the process)?
• What would I do if the outcomes/recommendations of the process do not align with my values or the institution’s values?

Now, there are a few problems inherent to this entire project:

1. I am one of 24 in my cohort, 10 of whom are not teaching at any institution at all…but hey, that’s their problem.
2. Speaking on my own behalf, I have been at my “institution” a total of 16 days (that’s two days a week for 8 weeks). Less time if you count on an hourly basis. Let’s do that. 16 days at 8 hours per day (six hours of lecture, two hours of office hours) is a total of 128 hours. I have met the Dean of my department and the Chair (both of whom I interviewed with, and that constitutes my entire relationship with my Dean). I’ve also met one fellow instructor within the department (we were colleagues as grad students and met quite by accident two weeks back near the copier), and six or so other instructors from various other departments, for a span of about three minutes each. I have, of course, gotten to know my department secretary quite well (a very SMART thing to do), and she’s saved my bacon more times than I can count.
3. Let’s look at: “develop a conceptual plan and process for addressing the student learning outcomes requirement at your institution.” My institution (keeping in mind point 2 above) is just now developing their SLO’s. Scary, but true.
4. “Your plan and process should demonstrate your understanding of the essential elements of collaborative leadership within the community college context. (Support your process design by citing research and related literature).” I am assuming this part (especially the bolded bits) should have come from the lectures we’ve had in Leadership? Nope. I got nuthin.’
5. “Your process should consider what steps are important in institutionalizing a college culture centered around student learning outcomes.” Okay, I think I can pull that from some lit reviews. How do I search that? “Institutionalizing college culture?” Hmm. **scratches head**
6. “Provide evidence that substantiates the criticality of this issue and the need for an institutional response at your college.” Hmmm. Who knew “criticality” is really a word? I didn’t. I just looked it up. Not entirely certain how to go about providing evidence of such, however.
7. “Develop the plan by which you as a campus administrator would seek to address this priority.” Ooh. A plan. I can do that. Plans are my thing. They don’t call me “the General” for nuthin’ you know! But wait! Um, you do remember that this is the very same school that I had an issue with signing the “loyalty oath,” right? Now I’m supposed to be an administrator implementing change? Yeesh. Here’s a change for ya, kill the freaking loyalty oath!
8. “Whenever appropriate, provide illustrations of your committee structures, their memberships, and reporting relationships.” Um…we have committee’s? Hell, I’m lucky I can find my mailbox! Again, see point 2 above.

Ugh. Okay. I’ve broken it down and now I’m depressed. Bleh.

Tonight: Stargate Universe and Sanctuary. Cool beans. The rest is gravy.

I…I have…I have done it. They were right, resistance was futile.

I have a twitter account.

So far it has been…uneventful. But, should you choose to follow me, I can be found here: @polrobin.

Go wild.

Tonight: date night.