TITLE: Thinking Hard to Understand
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: March 07, 2007 11:04 PM
DESC: 
-----
BODY:
Heard on my drive to SIGCSE today:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
These experiences have caused him to think very hard about
what he is doing and where he is going.  And the result of
all this thinking is that he now understands he doesn't
know what he is doing or where he is going.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

This quote is about Ray Porter, a character in
<A HREF="http://www.compleatsteve.com/">
   Steve Martin</A>'s
novella <EM>Shopgirl</EM>, which I listened on my drive to
SIGCSE today.  While I am in most ways nothing at all like the
divorced, 50-something Porter, I can certainly appreciate his
sudden need to think very hard and his sudden realization that
he is essentially clueless.  Over the course of my career, I
had grown to feel comfortable in my roles as an academic, as
teacher and scholar.  Which I switched into the Big Office
Downstairs, I just assumed that things would proceed as usual.

But after a year and a half as department head, I experience
occasional moments of "midterm crisis", in which I think that
I don't really know what I'm doing or where I'm going.  I
often have a pretty good 50,000-foot view of what I want, but
down in the trenches I usually feel a little disoriented.
With experience, things have gotten better, but a year filled
with academic program review, two time-consuming searches, and
a curriculum revision have sapped my reservoirs of creativity
and energy.

At least now I think I understand that I don't know what I am
doing or where I am going.  You know what they say about acceptance
being the first step toward recovery!

By the way, I do recommend <EM>Shopgirl</EM>.  I have read the
book and then listened to it several times on tape while driving
to PLoPs, SIGCSEs, and ICFPs.  For some reason, Martin's writing
holds my attention, and the story is sweet enough that I can
get over constantly wondering, "Why does she put up with this?"
Martin is a surprisingly good writer; though he is never going
to win a Nobel Prize, he can spin a decent short yarn.  My first
exposure to his literary work was
<A HREF="http://www.compleatsteve.com/writer/picassoplay.htm">
   Picasso at the Lapin Agile</A>,
a stage play about a fantasy meeting between Picasso and Einstein
at a Paris bar around the turn of the century.

Oh, and as for <EM>Shopgirl</EM> -- I haven't seen the
<A HREF="http://imdb.com/title/tt0338427/">
   movie</A>
yet!  I'm glad that I read the book first, and then heard it read
before seeing the film version.  Just knowing that Martin and the
glorious Clair Danes play the leading roles has changed my experience
of the book...
-----