Computer Writing and Research Lab | University of Texas at Austin

SarahJett's blog

I'm Not There

This weekend, I saw the movie I'm Not There. Afterward--actually also during--my sister complained, "This movie is too long! It's hard to follow! And why is Richard Gere even in it? I don't get that part. They should have made a normal biopic and had Cate Blanchett play Bob Dylan the whole time."

In the Shadow of the Moon

I recently saw the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon. In fact, I've seen it twice, and I wish I could take my students on a field trip to view it. I found so compelling their strategy for responding to the recent, ongoing rumors that the moon landing was a hoax. First they showed countless interview clips with Apollo program astronauts, carefully edited and placed to present a coherent narrative about the experience. They also mixed in tons of footage of the various moon landings.

The 2008 Election????

The title of this post is pretty vague. In fact, its haziness reflects my knowledge (or lack thereof) of the 2008 candidates in the ring so far. As someone who's trying to figure out which candidate to vote for myself, is there some online resource (or print resource, I suppose) where I can refer my students who are curious about these hopefuls? I mean, is there a specific place where reliable information can be quickly obtained?

No Explosions Yet

I keep waiting for something catastrophic to happen in my classroom, so I'll have something interesting to post on this blog. So far, though, the semester seems to be ending not with a bang, but a whimper. Recently, however, I have noticed a strange trend. Three times in as many days, when I've mentioned to people that I'm a graduate student teaching a college class, they've eyed me strangely and asked me if I have any plans to teach high school. Now the strange-eyeing element of this could be paranoia on my part, but why is everyone so quick to mention teaching high school? When they ask, they make it sound far more logical than continuing to teach in a college setting.

Seeking Suggestions

Posting on blogs makes me so nervous that I've been torturing Mary Tang for ten minutes whining about it. To shut me up, she finally suggested that I post under someone else's name. I pointed out that everyone uses their own name...unless somebody is using the name of someone else in the department. I like that idea, and I'm hoping that it's made everybody suspicious of my own entry, and now nobody thinks I'm really me.