2009 – A Retrospective

12/31/2009 – 6:30 pm

2009 flew past, didn’t it? Quite a bit better than 2008 I must say, and I’m looking forward to what 2010 has in store.


Well, first things first. 2009 was definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, dominated by the one we call G-Man, G-Money, the gooch, the goon, Mr. Moo, and every so often we actually use his name: Grey. He arrived late morning on May the 4th and it would be cliche’, stating the obvious, and completely accurate to say that life hasn’t been the same since.

Being a parent is exhausting work but we have a great little boy with a very easy going disposition. He sleeps well, he eats pretty well, and he’s all-around healthy and happy, and for that we are truly grateful. All of our friends assure us that things don’t slow down from here, so we’re bracing ourselves for the first steps, first words, and all the other many firsts that tumble out of babies.

2010 will present Grey with a number of firsts inflicted upon him as well. He flew well back in October, so we’re upping the ante by traveling internationally just after his first birthday. We’re heading to Switzerland to visit Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Todd and who knows where side trips might take us. Germany? France? Who knows? One thing we do know is that wee man will get some English culture in him as we’re spending another few days in London on the way home. Have baby, will travel.


Writing has been a great year despite an extremely low output for me. The year started with a bang as my story “Eskhara” was selected for John Joseph Adams’ anthology Federations, and then I was blown away to find out my story “The Hodag” had been chosen by Ellen Datlow for The Best Horror of the Year #1, which is by far the most significant achievement of my still-young writing career.

2010 will also start out with another publication, this time in Zahir, a smallish magazine that I’ve always admired. They’re going entirely online this year and my story “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter” (which was part of my Masters final project) will appear in the first issue of the year.

I’ve got big ambitions for 2010. This includes submitting a bunch of new stories as well as making the final revisions to my first novel and shopping that around as well. 2009 did not afford me much time to write at all, but with school work winding down I’m looking to rectify that situation.


Speaking of which, I submitted the last seminar paper of my graduate school career a few weeks ago. No more coursework (ever) for me, but I do have my preliminary exam in the spring. I’ve mentioned this exam before, but in brief I’ll have three days to write three, 15-page papers that cover a book list of about 100 or so titles. I have it on good word that it is not nearly as bad as it sounds, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Three of the four courses I took in 2009 were in professional writing, a discipline that makes many of my colleagues shudder but I find it pretty interesting. Once I put a final portfolio of my work together (also this spring or even in the fall) that means I’ll have fulfilled the requirements of getting a special emphasis in professional (i.e. business and technical) writing with a specific focus on information technology. I should teach my first professional writing class next fall too.

I also taught two new courses this year, one in creative writing and the other in college research writing. I’m teaching these again next semester and have a good idea of how I plan to improve both of them, although my students seemed to like them both as it was. The old saw that teachers learn from their students is pretty true, and I hope to be getting better with each passing semester.


‘Twas a dreadful year for reading—only 43 books in a list that includes 10 graphic novels. That’s down from 54 books last year and 64 (!) the year before. There are many reasons for the decline. The biggest is that my courses in 2009 assigned way more articles than books; I probably read nearly 100 articles this year, or the equivalent of about 10 books. The second big reason is that I starting listening to footie podcasts rather than audio books, so that counts for at least another five or so. The final reason is that normally I cram some pleasure reading in over the summer, but see the first item of this blog post to understand why I spent my free time sleeping this past summer.

Even though I read fewer books, there were some doozies in the list. M y favorite were Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon, Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (I finally finished every story), The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, and probably my favorite of the lot, Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar, which I finished today, the last day of the year. I plan on hunting down the rest of Cortázar’s short fiction this year.


There’s way too much to sum up succinctly about the beautiful game, but it’s worth noting that Spurs’ stock has steadily risen over the last twelve months, even though I fight back any kind of optimism whatsoever. They lost to Wolves and Stoke at home for God’s sake, so you can’t get too carried away even if they did stuff Wigan 9-1, tying a Premier League record for biggest win.

Long-time readers of this site will know that I lean towards Real Madrid if forced to choose between the Spanish giants, but I (along with everyone else on the planet) have to admire what Barcelona has accomplished this year by winning everything in site. I get very tired of Barcelona fans, but I can’t say that I dislike any of their players now that Eto’o left (although Zlatan Ibrahimović’s ego is enormous and annoying) and the football they play is pure class. Unlike some teams that I will not name here, Barcelona plays the most beautiful football on the planet, they win things, and they remain humble. There’s not much here to dislike.

The US National Team had more lows than highs in my opinion. The Confederations Cup run will live long in the memory, but just like 2002, the team needed a hell of a lot of luck to go their way. They looked pretty dodgy and uninspiring throughout qualifying despite winning the group, but is it because they’re an average team or because they play down to their opponents? Either way, they were gifted a lovely draw for next summer’s World Cup and the need to figure out how to play better more consistently if they want to take advantage of it.


That should wrap it up. This past year was not great for blogging either and I expect that to continue, but thanks to all of those folks who read this space, whether it’s through our past friendships, through following links from Facebook, or via f-lists on LiveJournal. Happy holidays, hope your 2009 was a good one, and all the best in 2010.

Current Mood: Fine |

By Trent | Posted in General, Parenthood, Reading, School, Teaching, Writing | Comments (0)

English Graduate Studies – A Very Short Introduction

12/18/2009 – 11:51 am

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Oxford University Press has a series of books called Very Short Introductions and they’re quite good. Two years ago in a class I took on visual narratives we started the course by reading Dada and Surrealism – A Very Short Introduction. In a separate course, another instructor strongly recommended we read the VSI on Literary Theory, which I duly bought and read. Both were quite good.

They’re like the Dummies or Idiot’s Guide series, only they assume a fairly high level of intelligence. Rather than assuming you’re a dummy or idiot who wants a dumbed down version of a topic, the VSI approach is that it’s a big, complicated world and people often find themselves wishing they were conversational in intellectual conversations about, for example, modern art, or perhaps animal rights, or maybe you want to know more about film studies. The VSI series do a good job giving a high-level overview of the given topic and, most importantly, clue you in on what to read next to learn more.

Coming into graduate school for English I knew virtually nothing about literary theory. For me, this created some low-level anxiety as I felt a certain expectation that somehow I should know all of this stuff already, but I’d never taken a theory course and had no idea where to start. Over time, I read a little Foucault here, a little Derrida there, a slice of Barthes, drizzle in works by some structuralist theorists, a dose of postcolonialism and it all started to come together. I should mention the dozens upon dozens of Wikipedia searches too—can’t forget those as a part of serious scholarship.

My program does indeed offer a survey class on criticism but it didn’t fit in my schedule the one time that a) it was offered, and b) I knew about it. Why this course isn’t a requirement, or at least strongly recommended by advisors when you enter the program, I have no idea. I wish I would have known about the VSI series a few years ago though because I think reading a core set of these little books would have helped me have a firmer grip on much of my coursework. The books are short too, about 150-75 pages so they can be read over a weekend. Here’s what would have been quite valuable to have read back when I started as an MA student, more or less in order of importance:

> Literary Theory
> Postmodernism
> Poststructuralism
> Barthes
> Foucault

Other less essential titles would be:

> Postcolonialism
> Capitalism
> Marx
> Dada and Surrealism
> Feminism
> Continental Philosophy
> Kafka

I’ve read Dada and Surrealism, Literary Theory, and I’m almost done with Kafka. I’ve flipped through portions of Poststructuralism and Postmodernism and I’m quite curious about Barthes and Foucault because I plan on reading their primary texts once prelims are out of the way. Some of the older books in the VSI series list Derrida as a book that’s coming soon, but I don’t see it listed in later editions which makes me wonder if it has been dropped.

Anyway, this reminds me a bit when I worked at the UW medical school I noted how the educational culture was one where novices or initiates to that world (med students) were made to feel their ignorance very keenly, perhaps as a motivational tool for these students to work harder. For me, this is crap. A healthier idea is summed up by something one of my professors said a few years back: “We have to remember where our students are at, not where we wish or where we expect that they would be.”

Current Mood: A Bit Relieved the Semester is Over |

By Trent | Posted in Reading, School | Comments (5)

World Cup Draw Winners and Losers

12/4/2009 – 4:50 pm


I was positively giddy today watching online as the balls emerged from the pots. The draw is crucial for every team, even the big boys who want a game or two to get their motors running before the knockout stages. Here are my initial thoughts for winners and losers.

Winners
The United States of America – Quite frankly, the only way this could have gotten any better is if they’d been drawn with South Africa as the seeded team. As it is, I think the US should be happy with England as the big name in the group as it means they avoided other much more difficult seeded teams like Brazil and Spain. If anyone is to believe that US Soccer has improved in the last decade or two, they’ve simply got to get out of this group by beating Algeria and Slovenia, two of the weakest teams from Africa and Europe respectively. The US needs to get out of this group, and could even win it. The big question: can they handle this pressure?

Mexico – Just as in 2006, Mexico got a sweet draw. The seeded team in their group is South Africa, although France practically fills that role and that should be an interesting test. Uruguay is a team that Mexico should match up against fairly well so they have to like their chances given France’s dodgy form as of late. The top spot in the group won’t be easy but I think guaranteeing a second-place spot is well within reach. If they advance they’d face a Group B team—Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, or Greece. Four potentially tricky teams, but it’s not like coming up against a Brazil or Netherlands or Spain.

England – They’ll have to feel that this draw set up nicely for them. They’ll expect to get full points off Algeria and Slovenia but starting against the US is less than ideal since a draw or even (gasp!) a loss would pile the pressure on. Still, they’re clear favorites to win the group and face Germany, Ghana, Australia, or Serbia—none of whom will make England shudder in their boots, although they’ll not be wanting Germany.

Netherlands – You’d have to think they’re a lock for the quarterfinals as they should buzz through the likes of Denmark, Japan, and Cameroon and likewise whoever gets out of Group F, which will likely be Paraguay or Slovakia—and they won’t even have to play that well! However, the Dutch tend not to do well when they’re expected to succeed, so it should be interesting.

Spain, sort of – Spain should cruise through the group stage, with the goalfest potentially coming from the match against Chile. They’ll make Swiss cheese out of Switzerland, and Honduran cheese out of Honduras. What will worry them is that they’re opposite the group of death, meaning they’d face Brazil, the Ivory Coast, or Portugal in the Round of 16. Brazil vs. Spain is the final everyone wants, and the Spanish should be able to take the Ivory Coast or Portugal out, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be looking forward to the challenge. Still, if you want to win the thing, you’ve got to beat good teams so they can’t be too put out about it.

Losers
Portugal and Ivory Coast – Ouch. Portugal should be very worried at the moment since they sputtered through the qualifying campaign and historically don’t get off to strong starts. Brazil and the Ivory Coast are not teams they’ll be wanting to face since Brazil is better in all departments and the Ivory Coast play with pace and power, which spells a lot of trouble for Portugal. The Ivory Coast is probably the best African team so they have to feel hard done by getting in a group with Brazil and Portugal who, if they’re on their game and inspired by Cristiano Ronaldo, can conjure up some magic. Worse yet for the second place team in the group is that they’ll likely have to face Spain.

Argentina – The Albiceleste would have wanted a different kind of opponent than what they got. South Korea is sure to hustle and harry them and likely not be overawed by their pedigree; Greece is a difficult team to score against and Argentina is not exactly scoring at will these days. The way I see it, they’ve got to beat Nigeria handily because I see the games against Korea and Greece being draws. If the ball bounces the right way for them I can see them advancing, but not convincingly.

South Africa – They’re pretty poor so it’s hard to imagine a good draw for them, but France wasn’t who they wanted out of the European pot and Mexico and Uruguay aren’t much better. They probably could have done with a Japan or Slovakia rather than two Latin American teams who tend to hold the ball rather well.

That’s my quick take. Only 188 more days until the World Cup!

Current Mood: Quite Excited |

By Trent | Posted in General | Comments (3)

Footie News That Was and Will Be

12/3/2009 – 1:36 pm


I just have to point out that since my last post, Ars*nal have lost twice with an aggregate score of 0-6, are out of the Carling Cup and, for my money, out of the title race. Loverly. I wouldn’t want to gloat, but I’ve been firmly on the (minority) side saying that their squad still looked too lightweight to contend for major trophies. Their opening day drubbing of Everton looks less impressive now that the Toffees are lingering above the relegation zone, doesn’t it? I will say that they’re only three strapping players (a central defender, a holding midfielder, and an old school striker-type) from being very dangerous, but that’s three players too many at present. And of course they have massive injury problems. Unlucky? Well, if you check the news from this date on 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 (you get the picture) it seems to be a recurring theme.

At the pinnacle, Chelski look damn good, don’t they? The team they remind me of most at present? Brazil. Not because they’ve got Rio flair, because they don’t—and neither does Brazil. However, both teams are full of technically gifted, gigantic players. This is why I think why Chelski will win the Premier League. And possibly the Champions League.

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And also why Brazil will win the World Cup. If you had a skills contest for a starting 11, I think Spain and Brazil would be close to dead even, just as they in the current international rankings. However, the Spanish players are small—Xavi and Iniesta are about my height, 5′ 8″ or so. The Brazilians are mostly over 6′ and are built like brick walls, yet can sprint with the best of them. If in all the skill categories the two teams are equal, the bigger one will eventually find a way to win.

The best example of this, in my mind, comes from Euro 2008. Portugal was slightly more technically gifted than Germany, yet Germany won out, and I feel it was due to their size in midfield and defense. The German goal came from Michael Ballack barging into the box, remember? Spain, however, was quite a bit more technically gifted team than Germany, and thus they won out in the end.

This is why I have almost no hope for the US to do anything wonderful in the World Cup this summer. There are too many teams that are more technically gifted and/or are bigger than them. The US is going to draw one seeded team (who will be more technically gifted and/or bigger and stronger), one non-seeded and probably African team (who will likely be bigger and stronger), and then one other team that the US should be able to handle. The problem here is that the US needs to play well and have a good dose of luck just to get out of the group. If they only play at their potential, instead of above it, they’re doomed. In 2002 the US played lights out football and got lucky to get as far as they did by having other results go their way, and encountering Mexico in the second round. Despite playing very well, they were stopped by Germany who were just a little bigger and better in every department and luck did not go their way.

If you think about this, this is how their run in the Confederations Cup went as well. Played fairly well against Italy, had no luck, and lost. Played poorly against Brazil and were well-beaten. Played great against Egypt, got really lucky thanks to other results, and went through to play Spain. Again they played fantastically well, got really lucky (both Torres and Villa were off their games) and made it to the final. Against Brazil they played really well, maybe had a little luck… but Brazil were just better than them in all areas of the pitch. You can only ride your luck so far, and I wouldn’t put money on luck over skill when it comes to World Cup predictions.

The draw is tomorrow. Will I be nerdy enough to watch it live? Yes, probably.

Current Mood: Sure |

By Trent | Posted in * Footie, - England/EPL, - US/MLS | Comments (0)

Big, Big Weekend in Football Action and Picks

11/27/2009 – 12:07 pm


Whoa Nelly, it’s a big one this weekend. The Merseyside Derby, Ars*nal versus Chelski, and Villa versus Spurs. These games are big for different reasons. Everton need a win to move into a more comfortable spot in the table, and Liverpool need a win to get a foot back in the top four spots. Chelski need a win to consolidate first place, while Ars*nal need a win to show they can hang with the big boys. Villa need a win at home to show they can challenge for a top four spot; ditto Tottenham. Draws will not be welcome by any of these six sides, so I’m hoping for some explosive football-type action.

My picks: Wins for Liverpool and Villa and a draw for Chelski and the Ars*. Not confident picks mind you, but picks nonetheless. Last week’s “Last Man Standing” pool ended in a push, as I picked Stoke (1-0 winners) and Larry picked Spurs (9-1 winners). No bonus points for a blow-out thankfully, and this weekend we both took Man Citeh over a suddenly resurgent Hull. Since neither of us can win or lose, we chucked this one and re-picked. I took Fulham at home over Bolton. C’mon Dempsey! Grab another brace, son!


Equally exciting is the top o’ the table clash betwixt Barcelona and Real Madrid over in sunny Spain. Madrid is somehow topping the table despite not playing all that well (a close look reveals they’ve played mostly crap teams thus far) while Barcelona is head and shoulders the best team in the world when they’re on their game, yet they have also been falling into cruise control and drawing games they should win.

I kept on eye on both of these teams in the Champions League this midweek and if their form extends to the weekend, I would bet my house and the lives of everyone in it on Barcelona beating Madrid like a rented mule. Barca absolutely shredded Inter whereas Madrid stuttered and herked and jerked against the world powerhouse that is FC Zurich. Los merengues can be frighteningly good when they’re firing on all cylinders with Kaká and that Ronaldo kid looking particularly dangerous, yet too often their play doesn’t result in clear-cut chances. Barcelona on the other hand always end up threading the ball through the fourth dimension, finding players in the box without a soul around them, and they duly stuff it in the net. Seriously, it borders on black magic.

Prediction: Barcelona 3-0 winners.


I’m enjoying the brief calm before the storm of work that starts raining down at midnight tonight when my research writing students submit their final portfolios, followed by my creative writing students’ portfolios on Monday night. I’m reading about 44 draft portfolios, all of which are around 20 pages each, and giving feedback before the final drafts are due Wednesday, December 9th.

‘Tis a lot of work, but hopefully well worth it in the end. The only thing that drives you nuts is when you put in the considerable effort to provide thoughtfully commentary, and that commentary is then ignored and you see a final copy that’s identical to the draft copy in the final portfolio folder. Such is life.


One of my students is writing his research paper on Bob Marley and Rastafarianism. Natty Dread and Rastaman Vibration have been on heavy rotation for the last couple weeks. Happily, Baby Grey digs it!

Current Mood: Is That A Baby Stirring? |

By Trent | Posted in * Footie, - England/EPL, - Spain/La Liga, Music, School, Teaching | Comments (0)

Main de Grenouille

11/26/2009 – 1:09 pm


Zeus writes:

How can you leave out the Frog handball incident in the only soccer blog that I read?

I’d completely forgotten about it, to tell you the truth. The main de grenouille incident (”hand of frog”) has been well-documented. This video clearly shows Thierry Henry double-handballing the ball in the crucial play-off game between France and Ireland; the first hand ball seems like an involuntary reaction any player of the game will recognize, but the second one is quite deliberate as he uses his hand to keep the ball in play before squaring it to Gallas for the winner. Clearly cheating and the correct decision would have been to disallow the goal and give a yellow to Henry for deliberate hand ball. Not to mention two French players were offsides when the free kick was taken as well…

On the podcasts I listen to the topic has been beaten to a pulp and frankly there are some lunatic opinions out there. Here are my calm, rational, and utterly irrefutable opinions on the matter:

* As an avid Ars*nal hater, I am no fan of Henry. I do not view his as the immaculate sportsman others do, but I don’t think he deserves the vilification he’s been getting in the press. In that situation, I think plenty of players would have done the same thing. It’s happening so fast I find it hard to criticize.

*However, I think Henry’s true(r) colors happen in the aftermath. Henry claims to have told the referee it was a handball and thinks a replay is the fairest solution. This feels utterly disingenuous. First, off “telling the referee” would look something other than wheeling away in celebration, wouldn’t it? If Henry did tell the referee, it wasn’t until much later. He could have, for example, shook his head, pushed his teammates away and made it very clear it was a handball. And suggesting a replay is the fairest solution after the fact is ridiculous. There was no chance of it happening, so Henry has nothing to lose by suggesting it to look like a good guy?

* FIFA are fighting a losing battle against technology being brought in because the public clamor is too great and the solution is too easy. Their problem, however, is that it complicates influencing games. As fans of Italy and Spain know, something wasn’t quite right about South Korea’s march to the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup. That something would be multiple blown offsides calls against Italy and disallowing two perfectly good goals for Spain, errors that are inexplicable and easily corrected via video replay, just like the handball against Ireland. Unfortunately for FIFA, there was a strong suspicion that they wanted France in the World Cup (bigger stars, bigger television market) and wanted one of the host nations (Korea/Japan) to go deep in the tournament to show how far the sport has come in Asia. Even if it isn’t completely fixed, it seems awfully convenient that referees make crucial mistakes in games that turn out exactly how FIFA had hoped.

* The ol’ “it all pans out over the long haul” excuse as well as “Ireland benefited from bad calls earlier in the campaign” are absolutely ridiculous. This was in extra time in a World Cup playoff. There is no evening out, just like you never get another chance when you’re screwed in the knock-out stages of the World Cup. It also seems like an odd argument, that nothing should be done about hideously wrong referee decisions.

* I do like the fact that football rules are slow to change, and changes tend to improve the quality of the game. When draws and conservative play were killing the game, FIFA passed a number of rule changes (3 points for a win rather than 2, liberalizing offsides rules to benefit attackers, ‘keepers can’t use hands on backpasses) that sped up the game and awarded attacking play. The current problem is that one middle-aged referee and three assistants can’t keep up with the modern athlete. The run of play and the speed and trajectory of the ball is ridiculously fast, too fast for the human eye to follow with any degree of accuracy and certainty.

* A couple simple rules would fix most of the problems. An official watches the game with the benefit of twenty-two different camera angles. If there’s a controversial moment in the penalty area relating to fouls, handballs, or offsides, this official has, say, 30 seconds to overrule the call on the field. If the 30 seconds passes because it’s too close to call, the call on the field stands. Substitutions and injuries take at least this amount of time, so the critics who say it would destroy the flow of the game don’t seem to have a leg to stand on. Also, I think dives and violent play should be reviewable after the game and penalties assessed accordingly.

It seems pretty easy and straightforward. Which is why nothing will happen anytime soon.

turkey
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Current Mood: Hungry |

By Trent | Posted in * Footie | Comments (0)

The Bimonthly Update

11/24/2009 – 1:07 pm


Things are winding down quickly in school; I only meet with my classes one more time as a large group and then in individual conferences. Teaching two new classes in my last semester of coursework isn’t ideal. Generally I was writing or modifying assignments each week based on how things went. Next semester should be much easier since I’ll have a better idea of how things roll out over the course of sixteen weeks and all the assignments will have been written. I also won’t be taking any classes, just doing reading towards my preliminary exam that’s scheduled for April. I’m looking forward to this.

Next fall I should be teaching another new course, one on business writing. That’ll be a nice change, and then in the spring I asked to teach a short story class focusing on fantasy, science fiction, and horror. I’m pretty sure I’ll get it, and I’m doubly sure it will fill. My plan would be to spend the first half of the semester educating students on these three oft-misunderstood genres, and the other half would be pure workshop. Sounds like fun, right?


I received my contributor’s copies for Best Horror of the Year #1 and reviews have started trickling in. None have mentioned my story “The Hodag” specifically, but the reviews have all called it a solid anthology without a clunker story among ‘em.

Some other narcissistic googling revealed a couple really negative views of my story “Eskhara” in the Federations anthology, both from Eastern European bloggers. What I find particularly interesting (and telling) is that both more or less say the story sucked because it’s a shameless and transparent parable about the current war in Iraq with a preachy, obvious conclusion. Of course readers are free to interpret it however they want and it’s not for me to say whether they’re right or wrong, but I will say that I’m relieved that other, more positive reviews seem to suggest that there’s perhaps a little more complexity than that. Also, I’d be interested in hearing what the heavy-handed conclusion would be, since I can say there was absolutely zero intent on my part to write a neat and tidy story with a clear moral at the end, and I would suggest there’s plenty to there to support other readings. But to each their own…


Glory glory Tottenham Hotspur! 9-1 over Wigan on the weekend. Having watched the replay you have to say Wigan played their part in the route with some shambolic defending, and you think they’d make an adjustment to give Aaron Lennon a little less room on the right after goals two, three, four, and five piled in…


The same weekend that Spurs claimed the second-most lopsided victory in Premier League history, I got quite a bit schadenfreude watching Ars*nal lose 1-0 to Sunderland. To be fair, this lot are a lot better than I thought they would be, but they’re still not nearly as good as the legions of sycophantic bandwagon fanboys want me to believe. They’re still injury prone and lightweight in the middle. Yes, they can hammer the minnows and the goals start flooding in after the first goal forces the game to open up a little, but I still see them as a tier below Man Ure and especially Chelski.

Granted, they’re no Liverpool! I didn’t think they’d slump quite so badly but you’d have to say that the race for fourth is well and truly on. Villa made a serious run for about 2/3rds of the season last time but ultimately the squad, not the team, failed them and they ended up well short to Ars*nal. This year, things are very different. Liverpool’s squad is thinner than Posh’s sticks and you’d have to say that Man Citeh and Spurs have equivalent, if not better, squads. Villa still seems short to me, but it’s not hard at all to envision Liverpool, Spurs, and Citeh going down to the wire. It’s also worth noting that it has far more to do with Liverpool’s decline than the improvement of the other two.


MLS Cup came and went. I would have enjoyed a Chicago vs. Los Angeles final far more, but as far as a cup final goes, it wasn’t half bad and penalties, for all the criticism they get, are pretty damn dramatic. I didn’t have strong feelings for either team but the spectacle of penalties brought me to the edge of my seat. And who would have thought Landycakes would blow over the bar? Phenomenal.

I’m also a little fed up with the constant harping on the league’s quality of play. Is it great? No. But exactly why do we expect it to be? Isn’t it just a tad unfair to say that MLS isn’t even close to La Liga or the Premier League, when they have deep traditions and a rabid soccer culture to boot? Yes, the league needs to loosen the purse strings a little and the talent pool needs to get deeper, but all things in good time. Good God, in two years the league will have 18 teams and the recent expansions in Toronto and Seattle have become two of the most exciting venues to watch soccer. Perspective, people? Can we get a little perspective?


Now on to homework. I’ll be looking forward to having this semester behind me.

Current Mood: Pretty Tired |

By Trent | Posted in * Footie, - England/EPL, - Spain/La Liga, - US/MLS, School, Writing | Comments (1)

Have Baby Will Travel Abroad, and Last Men Standing

11/10/2009 – 10:35 am

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Call us nutty but we booked it—a trip to Europe with the wee one. Grey will be just over one year old when we head off to Switzerland to visit his Uncle Todd and Aunt Pee Wee with a stopover in London on the way home to see my high school bud Aaron. The trip to Savannah went almost without a hitch so we duly raised the stakes. Fingers firmly crossed for the next six months…


Speaking of Brother Todd he (foolishly) invited me to take part in a “Last Man Standing” competition, where players all kick in some currency and get to pick one team who is certain to win over the weekend in the Barclay’s Premier League. The catch is that you can only take each team once, and they have to win—a draw is as good as a loss.

Out of a field of 23 players from various countries, two players remain—me and Larry, one of Todd’s friends from high school who now lives in Wales. Unlikely draws and losses for Ars*nal, Man Citeh, and Spurs in the last few weeks thinned the field considerably, topped off by Liverpool’s draw yesterday with Birmingham to put me and Larry head-to-head. I stand to win (or lose) about $115 US, but we’re idle this weekend for the international break. Can’t you just feel the tension?!?!


Over the next two classes in my creative writing class my students will be reading short shorts by Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Ben Marcus. I am more than interested to hear what they have to say. A good number of them appear to appreciate complicated, confusing, and somewhat perplexing stories, but there is also a contingent that seem to feel if a story doesn’t have a pronounced linear plot that features rising action, climax, and denouement, then the story is deficient.

I teach intro to creative writing again in the spring semester and will be changing things around, but not a ton. Conversations about modernism versus postmodernism seemed to help adjust reader expectations somewhat, so that if a piece of creative nonfiction or a short story appears to be devoid of a fixed “meaning” that it doesn’t automatically mean the author sucks. I plan on building this more deliberately into the syllabus next semester since a surprising number of essays and stories in the course textbook definitely bear some hallmarks of postmodernism.

Have to stop here and start working, unfortunately. A lot of stuff on my mind that seems blog worthy, but it’ll have to wait.

Current Mood: Pretty Good |

By Trent | Posted in * Footie, - England/EPL, Parenthood, School, Teaching, Travel | Comments (0)

General Busyness

11/6/2009 – 1:41 pm


School goes fine, but busy. The classes I teach are going fairly well as we steam into the last third of the semester, but at this stage most students seems to be running out of gas and then it gets tricky. It’s always a bit of a mystery to figure out what motivates students to begin with, so mixing things up in hopes of increasing motivation takes more work and isn’t always successful. Not to mention I have plenty of my own work to do just to keep up…

I’ve gotten 50% of the required paperwork filed for my preliminary exams, a number that should jump to 75% by Monday. The last form (four of four) is once I have everything completely nailed down, including my final reading list and the date of the actual exam. It’ll be April sometime, and after having several of my good friends going through the process this semester, I’m cautiously optimistic. By most accounts, it’s not too bad as long as you’re pretty thoroughly prepared, which I should be. In the next couple months I expect to be hammering the “academic” blog pretty hard as I take notes on the critical sources I need to read. No classes next semester, just independent reading to get prepped for the exam.


I’m love with a couple new podcasts, one ongoing the other completed:
* Football Weekly by the Guardian is absolutely hilarious, much better than the antiseptic lot over at the Soccern*t podcasts. Updated Mondays and Thursdays.

* Modes of Reading by Warwick University is an excellent lecture series available via iTunes. It’s a series of eight lectures, each about 40-50 minutes, on literature, criticism, and theory. I haven’t taken any literary theory courses per se but I’ve got a decent handle on what distinguishes different theories via exposure in my classes, having read various bits of Foucault, Derrida, Marx, etc. but it’s another thing entirely to put it all together succinctly and not in service to an outside text or extraneous topic. Since this is a recorded lecture, the audio fades in and out as the professor walks the room or turns his back, which can be maddening, but he’s an engaging speaker and it’s exactly the kind of high-level overview of these topics I currently need.


Speaking of which, I’ve also got a billion primary texts I want to read by Barthes, Bakhtin, Foucault, and others but those will have to be on hold until after prelims. I must admit that I found such theory pretty off-putting initially, probably because no one offered any contextual paths into theory, and also because a lot of academics (and burgeoning academics) like to use theory as a club—if you’re not in on the conversation, you are most definitely out of it.

Once these theories start to come together though, it’s pretty clear why English as a discipline has become so theory-based rather than “can’t we just talk about books we like.” The problem for anti-theory, “just literature” folks is that you can’t talk about how you experienced reading a book and what made it good without theory popping up. As soon as you are pressed to answer why you liked a certain book, you’ll have to give some abstract reason—the way it was written, the way it made you feel, the way it teaches you about the world—and by doing so you’re immediately thrust into realm of theory, like it or not.


Lots going on in the world of footie, too much to report at this moment.

Current Mood: Baby Break Just Ended |

By Trent | Posted in Music, Reading, School | Comments (0)

Getting Interesting in England and Spain

11/1/2009 – 12:10 am


Well, I have to say that I find the Premier League a lot more interesting this time of year than I did last year, although I’m pretty sure the outcome will be more of the same. My preseason pick was Chelski and I don’t see much to dissuade me at this point. Man Ure seem to burn hot and cold whereas the Russians seem more consistent, despite their relative inconsistencies. Ars*nal, for me, will fade in the winter months and Liverpool have ruled themselves out already by virtue of their losses and generally shoddy squad. There’s no chance for the chasing pack.

The Big Four is definitely under siege, but really only by Manchester Citeh who seem a bit too immature to get over the hump. It’s a little depressing that the richest folks in the world can’t simply buy their way into the top four, so entrenched they are. From my preseason musings, not all that much has changed, except that I think Liverpool is the team struggling to stay in the top four. Ars*nal look a lot better than I gave them credit for, but I still don’t take them too seriously as title contenders. They’re still a few players short in the squad, but they’re not as far off as I originally thought—-indeed, wished.

And I have to say that Citeh has become my second team, mostly because they are equal parts infuriating and fascinating to watch. I find it laughable when people say the money being pumped into Citeh is somehow ruining the integrity of the game, as if having the same four teams shuffling around in the top spots for the better part of a decade is somehow admirable, fair, and interesting. Citeh square off against Birmingham tomorrow and I hope to be watching.


If I had more time in life, I’d watch more La Liga. I’ve watched very little thus far, but it’s getting pretty interesting over there as well. Barcelona, despite being the best team in the world, isn’t having it go all their way. What impresses me about La Liga is how the minnows still play the game without resorting to hoof-n-hope. It’s as if they’d rather go down than play an inferior brand of footie. Long live La Liga.

Real Madrid is a team you can’t take your eyes off of either. They can be bloody brilliant, but they can also be a case of “How can that team not win every damn game they play?” I hope Pellegrini can figure out how to get Benzema more involved, since he’s been le sulk almost from the get-go, and that’s a shame.


I scored a good goal today. My first in six games and it was almost worth the wait. Just sayin’.

Current Mood: Quite tired |

By Trent | Posted in General | Comments (2)