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Twenty years ago this week I was coming to the realization that I had survived my first and last war. In retrospect, that war was a forgone conclusion. Military historians have ascertained that the reasons for the defeat of the Iraqi Armed Forces at the hands of the Coalition Forces of Operation Desert Storm can be traced to poor leadership, poor planning, lack of motivation among the opposing forces, and perhaps an overinflated assessment of the capabilities of Soviet technology.
It was a war that lasted, in terms of ground combat, four days.
It changed everything.
How did I come to stand on the razor’s edge of history? Granted, I didn’t have any effect on it through my personal actions. I was a mere cog, a little tiny bit of the war machine, one that could have been deleted without a second thought. In fact, if I were writing a novel on the Persian Gulf War, which would probably need at least one fire fight to satisfy the readers, I would pick someone other than myself as an example. I saw a lot of things, but in terms of actual battlefield changing actions, I did very little.
I bore witness, and that is about it. As wars go, I got off pretty easy in the initial assessment. So easy that many of my peers, including one particular prick in South Korea, frequently stated that it wasn’t a real war at all.
Tell that to the Iraqis we killed.
I am not a repentant veteran. I never have been. I offer no apologies for my service nor make any excuses. I do not experience any great discomfort at what happened. Perhaps I experience a very real regret that people I bore no personal grudge against were killed and I often wonder about the living that survived the dead.
I wasn’t particularly eager to go to war either. I was not the kind of soldier who sat around masturbating to the latest issue of Guns and Ammo while whispering sweet nothings to my weapon, named after some woman whose pants I failed to get into. I did not volunteer for Airborne training, in fact I actively turned down an opportunity to go. I did not have any particular affinity for elite infantry units such as the Rangers, who seem still to this day to be not much different than Marines. Technology interested me more than living in the mud and if the Air Force had offered as much for enlistment as the Army had, I probably would have been an airman.
Instead, I joined the Army. Money was part of the motivation, family lineage in the Army was another, and finally the lack of any real prospects was a third. Perhaps patriotism figured in at some point though I can be just as cynical as the next American about my home nation. Lastly, if nothing else, I knew I was a fighter. I had spent my teen years fighting. I would spend my Army years fighting and I’d fight some more after that.
It is perhaps a strange thing then that I was influenced by what is essentially an antiwar documentary which was aired in 1983 on PBS. Each night I would sit down in front of my small black and white television set in my bedroom, which was a big thing in my book, having a television, to watch Gwynne Dyer hold for on the futility of war.
The documentary, entitled War, was designed to educate the public on the futile nature of warfare as a means of resolving differences. Like many products of the Reagan Era, it was designed to scare the living shit out of anyone with an ounce of sanity about the probability of a nuclear war.
Here is the installment entitled The Deadly Game of Nations.
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The music with the intro, along with the images, embedded themselves into my teenage brain. Unlike my peers, I never saw anything you might call glory in warfare. I knew it was a bloody, horrifying, dirty business. I knew it came with horrendous costs, all I had to do was look at my Vietnam Era father to see that. From reading the history books along with science fiction novels, I knew that the next World War, the one we still haven't fought and hopefully never will, was going to be the last.
Dyer's job was to talk me out of enlisting. He wasn't a dick about it. He was a veteran of military service himself steeped in a solid background of military education. He was antiwar without disrespecting, demeaning or insulting the soldiers.
In my case, he failed.
To be fair, my father failed too. So did my mother, at least the first two times I signed an enlistment contract. Each time I managed to come up with sufficient justification for enlistment. Threats to crack my kneecaps not withstanding, I signed the dotted line. I should point out that I nearly did so again in 2004 in order to go to Iraq, not because I felt a need to prove myself, but because I felt a need to back up my support for Operation Iraqi Freedom by virtue of direct participation.
Perhaps some perspective is in order.
In March 1989, when I signed the Delayed Entry Program contract, these facts were known.
1. The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of Russia actively targeted civilian population centers with enough ordnance to destroy the planet many times over.
2. The danger of dying in such a war was no less or great at Fulda Gap in Germany than it would be if I stayed in Kansas City, Missouri. What difference does it make if a T-72 gets me, nerve gas or a ten megaton nuke chucked at Downtown KCMO? Dead is dead, no matter where the dying transpires.
3. The two Super Powers had managed to keep the genie in the bottle. I had a belief, perhaps a naive one, that no one would go so far as to chuck nukes around like so many hand grenades.
4. On a personal level, the economy sucked. My job prospects were awful. Four years of active service bearing witness to the failures of my civilian counterparts only serve to reinforce the notion that I had made the right choice.
5. I had to pay for college somehow.
So I signed up, knowing that I was signing a contract. I promised to go fight, and if need be, die. In exchange, the United States of America would feed, clothe and house me. They'd provide a rudimentary if not great medical care program and if I made it to the end of my first four years, they'd give me money for college.
If I could pick up an honorable discharge.
All I had to do was agree to go kill anyone the United States of America declared the Enemy of the Week.
It turned out to be the Iraqis.
If a war was to be fought, I expected it to be at Fulda Gap in Germany. Or maybe, in my wilder moments, perhaps Columbia fighting some Vietnam do over in an attempt to control the drug trade. I didn't expect Iraq and I don't think the Iraqis did either.
Dyer's series is useful for a lot of reasons. Aside from laying out the mindset of a soldier, he captures the attitudes of the early 1980s regarding the military.
1. Soldiers are obsolete.
2. They are preserving an obsolete way of doing things.
3. The equipment they use is expensive, fickle and will probably fail them at the worst possible moment.
4. The Soviets have more of everything, which will lead us to use nukes.
It turns out Dyer was wrong, perhaps sadly enough. He was wrong on every front. We still use wars to solve our problems. We haven't blown the planet up yet (and I probably just jinxed us by typing that). Our weapons are expensive and fickle yet they are also far more effective than anyone could have possibly imagined.
In one respect, I'm glad he was wrong. If he had been right, I wouldn't be typing this right now. I'd be in a grave somewhere, long moldered away to nothing, the victim of a futile effort to dislodge an invader from another country.
In many ways, Dyer convinced me that it didn't matter where I was. Stay at home and catch a nuke or go for a soldier and take your chances. This series did the convincing.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
It has been a busy week for yours truly. So busy that my fitness program, which had been running pretty consistent since the start of the new year, got a bit derailed as I dealt with one issue or another.
Let’s get to it.
The Teaching Front
We’re advancing to our first exam, which is far later than normal due to the snow days we’ve had. I’m behind in all of my classes as well, which is yet another struggle. Further, due to the disruptions, it has been difficult to build up momentum and bond with the students. As a result, things are not working quite as smoothly as I’d like. Fortunately, I have no real disciplinary issues on the table.
On the other hand, I see a lot of my students using their textbook and their study guide during the lecture to hunt down terms. On the surface this might seem like a good thing, right? At least they are paying attention to something.
Well, actually, it is a bad thing. It is a sign of a time crunched student, or worse, a bored student, who is attempting to work through the study guide while I lecture. More often than not students believe that the lecture material is not important for the test. I often get students who ask how much of what I lecture on is in the textbook.
Less than you’d think. The lectures are often specifically designed to go deeper into the topics at hand or they are designed to operate hand in glove with the textbook.
So an example would be the lecture on the Pre-Revolutionary Era of American History. The traditional way of teaching this is to start with the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, the This Act and the That Act and rest assured that is exactly how it sounds to the student. They are merely memorizing bits of info for regurgitation and that is the last thing you want them to do. Memorization is just an early step towards true understanding.
Rather than lecture on those acts, I make the student responsible for reading the textbook’s coverage of those acts. What I do instead is lay out the case for why the Colonials believed that their only recourse was to declare independence from Great Britain. I lay down the grievances and I fill in the background for the Colonial’s historical understanding and perception of events.
How does that work out? Well, I’m two semesters into using that method and if you are a student who does what I told you to do, take notes on the lecture, tie it to your reading and form a synthesis of the two, then they do fine.
Test results aren’t much different between one strategy of coverage or the other, I might add.
In any event, they are doing their homework while I lecture. I think I’m going to put that on the Why Did I Fail The Test? section of my syllabus for next semester.
The Student Front
I’ve not had a chance to update either the Pondering Tree or Playing with Genesis.
We’ve moved into the actual writing of the novel. The group I am in wrote a combined first chapter this last week.
We’re in a computer lab and to be honest, I am growing to believe that this was not the best choice for the class. It is hard to get into an effective group in order to get any work done. The computers serve as a frequent distraction. Given that I was using my laptop on Tuesday, even I am guilty of this, though I had a reason (which is not the same as an excuse) for having that computer out. If nothing else, the clickety-click-click-click of the keys on my laptop are relatively quiet.
In fact, in terms of technology in the classroom, I think it ought to be banned. No videos, no slides, no powerpoints, none of it. Just a board to write on and comfortable chairs for the students to sit in with a large desk to spread out their things. On C-Span this morning (and what a wonderful discovery that is, a place where people discuss without drama or shouting or Jerry Springer like behavior) an education pundit was talking about a high tech public school on the East Coast which cost a pretty penny to equip with the latest and greatest in technology.
The performance at that school? In the toilet. Students surf the net, IM each other or spend their time trying to get the tech to work in the first place.
Banish to the Computer Science Department and leave it there.
I’ll provide a proper update to Playing with Genesis that covers the actual course material and progress later this weekend.
Research Project Number – 05
The Client was on deadline this week, which was something of a surprise to me. I wasn’t aware of the deadline. No matter. I sat down with the backlog I could most effectively contribute to and worked over the material. By deadline time, I had most of the storyline components covered. There are a few lingering errors in the manuscript but I will catch them later.
It is going to be a pretty big novel, folks. I’m looking forward to seeing how the trilogy ends.
The Writing Front
In the Early Morning Rain by Berry Henderson and myself is currently out to market. We haven’t heard anything back yet so we’re hopeful. It is a new market open to e-subs so I’ll be looking over my inventory to see what can be polished up and put into the wind. Many of the valuable things I have learned in World Building will be helpful in that respect.
On the novel front I was able to drag out the manuscript for the first time in a couple of weeks to give it a going over. What I have right now are a bunch of cobbled together, pasted together scenes which are loosely linked together. In looking over the manuscript I think some major work is needed to better define the roles of the various characters.
There is also one glaring problem, the same one I noticed with my previous novel effort, Convergence Point.
When I have the space to spread out and more specifically, work on a military topic, I tend to let the action and strategy dominate the narrative. It is a natural strength of mine as a storyteller and an historian. Unfortunately, without significant character depth and development, no one is going to care about that action. It will be nothing more than a series of cardboard targets getting cut down on the battlefield.
So that part of it needs significant work. It is the sort of thing I can probably hammer out in a week of concentrated effort.
As for the World Building in the novel, I think some refinement of various structures and institutions are necessary. I definitely want to redefine the family structure of this society based upon what I have learned in Melissa Eaton’s Cultural Anthropology side of the course.
If things go according to plan, I’ll use my time during Spring Break in tandem with Trinity’s Spring Break (which is at the end of the month) to get the project ready for submission to market.
Other Fronts
Over the next few days the Great Summer Job Hunt will commence. Now that I am lifeguard qualified I should be able to, hopefully, get a decent job at around 25 to 30 hours a week maximum. Even more ideally, it will be a posting to an outdoor pool.
Trinity is making plans to travel to California to see her eldest son and wife for a week during her Spring Break. I should be able to polish up the novel while she is out there. I’ve got to say that I am glad to see that fences have been mended with that particular component of her family.
Lastly, March 10th is my father’s birthday. He’ll be sixty-nine years old if my math is correct. No one thought he’d get this far given that he has prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, stage three lung cancer and a heart muscle that more closely resembles a chunk of hamburger than a heart.
I chalk it up to sheer cussed stubborness myself.
Trinity and I are going to see about getting some barbecue for tomorrow night so we can celebrate a bit early. Both of us will be tied up during the week with our respective college obligations.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Review Front: Mass Effect 2
I’m relatively new to console video games. When I finally got old enough to purchase such devices back in the early 1990s it seemed to me that the better bang for my buck was to buy games for my Dell 386 computer. So I invested in the Wing Commander Series and the very first edition of Civilization by Sid Meier.
For the most part, I am a PC gamer.
That changed this summer when the Woman I Love purchased an XBox 360 for my birthday.
Now I’m hooked.
So that is how I got here. Let’s talk about the game.
Mass Effect 2 is the second installment in what was originally planned as a trilogy. The protagonist, Commander Shepard, rises from the dead courtesy of a pro-Human organization known as Cerberus. The leader of the organization, known only as The Illusive Man, has a job for Shepard.
Find out why entire human colonies are disappearing.
The main character can be customized by the player. Not only can you customize general physical characteristics, you can also decide the gender of the character. The gender you select does provide opportunities for different types of interactions with various crew members.
The visual effects are stunning, going for that sense of wonder which drew so many to cinematic science fiction films. From time to time the cut scenes showing the storyline and the action are a bit jerky, but not to the point of distraction. It does remind me a little too much of arcade laserdisc games like Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair. However, if you look past the jerky moments, you are rewarded with a stunning vistas of interstellar space as your starship, the Normandy carries your team through the storyline.
One task is to assemble a team of specialists, soldiers and technicians to assist you on your mission. Your choices throughout the course of the game are made in the form of dialog selections which prompt other characters to respond. Sometimes, if you put some thought into it, the characters respond favorably. Other times it can lead to conflict among the various team members, not all of whom see eye to eye.
The dialog choices can be difficult to discern on a standard television set as the text is so small. When I played the game for the first time this lead to my character taking the wrong side in an argument between team members. It was an irritating quirk which had ramifications on the resolution of the plot.
An additional option is the opportunity to make good or bad decisions which are indicated by flashing paragon and renegade symbols on the screen. These choices might include whether or not to use an intoxicated alien as cannon fodder or save a specialist from babbling on too long about the scientific details of the mission. They have an effect on the overall plot of the story, dictating who will survive the final sequences of the story.
This paragon-renegade system is a variation of a similar system which was featured in Wing Commander 4 The Price of Freedom. If you made an “evil choice” then it would shape the ending of the narrative. The same is the case with a good choice. Perhaps my only objection about this is that good and evil are slippery, difficult concepts to define which keep philosophy students busy throughout the course of their careers. However, the value choice are pretty clear unless you happen to be a sociopath.
The combat system places the player behind the main character. It is possible to swivel around the character but I found this to be distracting. Perhaps this is designed as a way of compensating for the lack of true peripheral vision, a flaw of all shooter games. I usually found it easier to swivel the character as opposed to swiveling the camera view. This has the benefit of focusing the muzzle of your weapon on any targets you happen to find.
From time to time, especially under heavy fire, the character was less than responsive. I know to take cover when I am under fire but the commands often confused the character, prompting him to stand up in the middle of a firefight. In reality this sort of thing probably happens as well, the difference is that in the game it is merely irritating.
As for actually shooting a target, in this, I was most frustrated at first. I was spoiled by the combat system in Battlefield Bad Company and Bad Company 2. In those games, it is possible to bring the sights of the weapon up to the character’s eyeball, which is the most realistic application of the shooting process. While there is a similar option in Mass Effect 2, it still feels entirely too much like shooting from the hip. Even using the sniper weapons proved to be frustrating.
Thus Mass Effect 2 is very much a volume of fire game and I would advise players to take advantage of the adrenaline function of their character to slow down time and insure that your fire is used to maximum effect.
The adrenaline function, along with a number of other options, can be selected using the right upper button on your controller. This brings up a visual display that allows you to select ammunition options, medical options, and special abilities.
It can also be used to employ the options of your team members. On any given mission you will be allowed to chose two members for your own team.
The left button allows you to select weapons for yourself and your team members while in combat. Since I went with the soldier class (no surprise there) I had the greatest option for weapons. There are a number of different classes, each of which provides your character with special abilities and skills. I went with what I knew.
Overall, the game play grows on you. At first I wasn’t certain if I was going to like the game or not. However, the story and the graphics eventually won me over. There is a strong sense of character development which takes place among your team members, especially if you take the opportunity to help them with their various personal problems which form the core of their backstories.
In conclusion, as a science fiction writer and a veteran of the United States Army, I found myself wondering why I do not see more of what I saw in Mass Effect 2 in current books and short stories. Everything that drew me to science fiction is here. We have an impossible quest, a starship, robots, mechs, strange aliens, artificial intelligence, stunning visuals and the realization that space will probably kill you if it can.
I have my nits with the mechanics of the game, but I came for the story.
Thus Mass Effect 2 has my recommendation. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on Mass Effect 3.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Tearing Down Tuesday is now available as an ebook at Amazon.com for three dollars American. The story should be accessible on any e-reader out there.
Right now I’m just experimenting to see how things work. I figure Tearing Down Tuesday was the perfect test subject given that it has been published twice and that I do not have any remaining obligations to the previous publishers. Bangar from Down Under was asking if there should be a dedicated day to generate a sales spike and I advised holding off.
In other words, here is what I’m thinking.
If you missed a chance to read Tearing Down Tuesday at Interzone or Apex and you want to read it badly enough, here is your shot.
On the other hand, if you have read Tearing Down Tuesday then I’d advise waiting a bit. I want to offer readers and supporters something more than just the same old story. I want to bundle TDT with my unpublished story Maternal Soldier along with some additional content. I’m still thinking on what that content might be but I don’t think I’ll be able to get to it until after the semester ends.
That bundle, by the way, will be called A Murphy Double Tap and I believe I’ll be selling that for five bucks American.
I have readers. I have fans. I have supporters. Perhaps not many, but enough that they have made their voices heard during the two initial publications.
I figure this is a way to see if we really don’t need editors and publishers anymore. Maybe we still need gatekeepers.
And maybe we don’t.
If we don’t, then I think I just might bypass them.
So it goes.
Other Fronts
Today was testing for the Third Quarter in all classes. Here in a bit I’ll run my 120s through the scantron to see what I get. Tomorrow, Veteran’s Day, will be nothing but grading, grading, grading.
Then it will be time to prep for evals, which are next week. The suit is at the cleaners for the event and I’ve got funds set aside for a fresh haircut.
We’ll see how it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of Tearing Down Tuesday and The Limb Knitter
North Kansas City, Missouri
I’ve got the day off, probably the last true day off I will have for at least a week given that I will soon have nearly 160 exams to grade. The reason I have the day off is due to in service for the full timers. Every account that I have heard of this event gives me cause to believe that for once, I am getting the better end of the deal.
Since I have the time, best make use of it.
The Writing Front
I finished the first draft of A Knitter’s Day this morning. She has a word count of roughly 4,440 or so. It is very rough and in need of polishing. Still, it feels good to have an actual, finished, first draft. The bones of the story are there. Now it just needs revision and polishing.
Here is the irony. I used to hate this part of the process. I still get frustrated with it but over the last decade I have grown to see the value of it. That would give a time traveling Murphy from 2001 absolute fits to hear. Of course, I’d probably point out to him that the reason he left grad school with a B average (notwithstanding the C) is due to the fact that he felt that a first draft was a finished draft.
Yeah, he wouldn’t like that either.
The final word count goal is 5,000 words. I’ve got a target market in mind and my hope is to have this one downrange by the end of May.
In the meantime, I’ve got a volunteer reading over it in return for a crit from yours truly (which I need to get to right now). Terri’s Creative Writing class will get a look at it pretty soon as well. Technical issues continue to plague efforts to post files in that class.
On the other hand, I’m two pages away from my total page count requirement for her class. I plan on going well over the minimum 30 pages of raw copy. Maybe I should go for 60 or 90? Who knows?
And since I’m on that topic, the other part of the class is giving crits out to the other students. So far all we’ve got up is a bit of poetry. I will get to that soon but I was kind of hoping for some meaty prose to crit.
The next project up will probably be Reborn for Glory. I’m still thinking on that one. As for A Bicycle for Kyle, I need to read over it again before I finish it. There are still narrative gaps which need to be filled. In addition to the gaps, I need to do some research. I have a feeling that A Bicycle for Kyle will not be a quick project.
The Teaching Front
Exams start tomorrow. I gave pop quizes which are actually harder than the test (yes, I’m sick like that). However, it did prompt students to say, over and over again, “I’d better go study.”
Why don’t you do that?
Maybe I’ll see some positive results this time around.
Other Fronts
I’ll get my undergrad transcripts sent to UMKC this week. I can’t stand to go to Park’s home campus if I can help it so I’ll do it online. In the meantime I need to apply for a Masters Program. I think a Masters in Political Science would work for my purposes. I’ve been meaning to get a second masters anyway.
The financial aid form is filled out and submitted for the next academic year. Given the summer gap I think I’ll try and get a late form in for the summer (which falls under the 2009-2010 academic year). If I can pull that off, I may simply go to grad school in the summer.
My goals are pretty simple on the academic front.
1. Get my GPA up to 3.5 plus.
2. Get 12 to 18 hours of American History at the Graduate Level in order to seal up a potential hole in my academic flanks.
3. Begin taking Political Science at the Graduate Level in prep for a potential Interdisciplinary PhD program.
4. See about journal publications.
To be honest, I’d prefer to go to KU or MU for a PhD but I just don’t see that in the cards. The only way I might be able to pull something like that off is if I got a novel contract similar to the one Al Reynolds pulled down this last year. That said, if I had a contract like that, then that begs the question.
Why get a PhD? And sometimes I wonder about that anyway. Why get a PhD? Sometimes it ranks right up there with “Why get a Hummer?” or “Why get a private jet?”
So it goes.
Time for lunch.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Writing Front: The Tinkerin’ Woman
Word Count: 1200 First Draft
Well, we’ll see how this goes. I have to turn something in for Terri’s class so that may well prompt me to finish something this year. We’ll see. This story, for those that read Tearing Down Tuesday is a prequel. I have one other prequel, Fishin’ Fer Tuesday which is almost finished yet something seems wrong with it. In any case, I think a number of stories are floating around there in that universe.
The writing methodology is a bit different this time. I wrote this stuff out longhand on Monday and Wednesday mornings at a hiding place on campus (no, I won’t say where). This afternoon I got a bit of time to get some work done from Trinity. Since my copy of The Landmark Thucydides is back on campus that meant there’d be no lecture prep. I decided to break open the longhand stuff and do what I swore I’d never do.
Transcribe while the project is in progress. The last time I did this, it took me forever to finish Maternal Soldier. So I’ve always held off repeating that experience. These days time is short and I never seem to have enough of it which is why I figured I may as well transcribe what I have.
I never made a habit of writing with music going but that is what I did today. I opened up YouTube and ran through my instrumental playlist, which is usually reserved for editing functions. Believe it or not, I got a fair amount of work done.
A sign that my writing process is evolving? I don’t know. Ask me when I get the project finished.
As for where I’ll send this story, I suppose Apex and Interzone are the best markets. Interzone mainly because they printed TDT. They might be interested in a prequel. I suspect this story is going to run over the 5K word limit at Apex but they might be interested as well.
Who knows?
Back to work.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Yeah, I move like a pregnant yak, still. And apparently my fencing stance is crosswired with the new karate stances. I have no sense of balance so my kicks are atrocious and worse, we practice in the aerobics room, which is outfitted with mirrors.
Problem? Well, yeah. I’m distracted by my horrible performance. I’m distracted by the foot and hand movements to my rear, which really tickle the lizard brain into trying to respond so I have to override that.
We did some limited sparing today wherein I learned exactly what the Sensei told us about certain blocks. If you are too slow, all you do is focus the attack straight into your face. On the other hand, we learned a couple of self defense tricks that are so simple that I wondered why no one had taught them to me before. Mainly tricks for dealing with someone trying to choke you.
It was good to know because one of my first tactics was to use chokes against my opponents. I’ve evolved away from that (for a lot of reasons) but it is still in the arsenal as a weapon of last resort. It is nice to see how the chokes can go pear shaped in a hurry. I’ll be a great deal more cautious about them in the future.
So, much to learn in karate. It was another good workout in terms of activity but I was not happy with my performance.
The Teaching Front
We’ve completed Week Three or Days Six and Seven in terms of class meetings. We are on track towards our objective in American History, proceeding on schedule toward 1775 and the first exam. I think we might get there a bit early. On the other hand I may have scheduled the Western Civ exam too early. We still have the Persian War, the Peloponnesian War, Pericles and the Philosophers to cover. I could save the Philosphers for the Second Quarter. Still, I think I may have to move their test back.
I’m always late on getting exams deployed during the first cycle of a new course anyway so I guess that won’t kill anyone. I may move it back a week. We’ll see.
Courses are going well enough. I’ve got sharp students in both mixed in with some who are deep in the throes of apathy. In my Western Civ I think what I have instead of apathy is a sense that I am teaching below their capability which is breeding a sense of contempt. The test may blast some of that out of the brainpans. We’ll see.
The Writing Front
I got in six pages of worth this week on a Tearing Down Tuesday prequel that is tentatively called The Tinkerin’ Woman. The protag will be Audrey Young from the original story, a character who, as time as passed, fascinated me more and more.
It seems that I’ve got a number of titles laying around looking for names. The Pondering Tree could be either a TDT or TLK story, though at this time, I see Kyle Hackshaw sitting under that tree. There aren’t many trees on the Southern Front.
No word yet on Entangled which is still out at an anthology market. My personal feeling is that the story isn’t quite ready, yet I sent it out anyway to keep something in the market. That said, I’ve been told writers are the worst judges of their own work so who knows?
Final decisions for that anthology are upcoming and since I have not received a reject yet, that is usually a sign that I made it pretty near to the top of the stack. We’ll have to see.
The Cancer Front
My Dad is in the hospital still as of today. He has two urinary tract infections, heart trouble, swollen feet, etc. The good news is that his prostate and multiple myeloma cancers are still in remission, which leaves just the lung cancer. The bad news is that if either of those two cancers get rolling, he’s probably had it.
Here is where I shrug and wonder what else to do.
Other Fronts
Not much else to report. I’m slated to participate in a local literary festival at the start of October. More on that as I learn about it.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Aboard the Battlestar Steven Francis Murphy BSG-71
Location: CIC
Mission: Damage Control and Assessment
I’m running on three hours of sleep after learning that my father is back in the hospital last night. He is having heart trouble, trouble breathing, etc, etc. So that was part of my evening last night on the eleven month anniversary of Trinity and I. Mom’s down with illness as well and I’m having a bitch of a time finding the time and energy to get enough lecture material scraped together for Western Civ.
The problem isn’t knowledge or material. That I have plenty of. No, I just need the time to write the lectures into something useable so I don’t stand there in class and babble on like an idiot. I call those lectures Falling Down the Stairs Lectures. I used to give a lot of them during my first two years of teaching and it is a horrible experience that ranks right up there with a dream where one is naked in public yet no one notices.
In other words, I hate not being fully prepared.
Worse, I hate not getting at least four hours of sleep. It is a wonder I didn’t stand there in class and drool all over myself. As it is, my military bearing and two years of experience allowed me to slug my way through both lectures this morning. I wouldn’t say it was a cheerful experience but my 0800 students seem to know that crossing me is unwise.
Apparently tales that I threw someone out at 0830 for tardiness have gotten ’round the campus (though they are somewhat inaccurate, the general gist is true). My 0930 class is a bit more spirited but that isn’t a bad thing. Some of them will get a wake up call here in a couple of weeks.
Of course the other problem is that running on three hours of sleep makes doing physical fitness training problematic. It is a great way to injury yourself and for those that aren’t following John Birmingham’s blog, be advised that he snapped his ulna in martial arts last week (probably not due to fatigue). I’ve already got some problem spots, notably along the upper right arm near the tricep, some elbow and some shoulder trouble. I don’t need to blow something out when I have a 145 pound stack of weights over my chest because I wasn’t focused.
On the other hand, I was able to get the iPods operational using a campus computer to download iTunes. The iPods are both synced and prepped. I didn’t load any music onto Trinity’s iPod as I only had one of my CDs with me. I’ll try to reload iTunes on my laptop and see if that will work. If that doesn’t work, I’ll load a few songs onto Trinity’s iPod on campus while she is at an extra credit lecture.
As for Dad, well, he’s terminal, kids. We’re all terminal but he is closer to it than most of us are. Estimates range from tomorrow to a year from now. That said, Aunt Margaret said over at my facebook that we Murphys tend to be a stubborn lot (all those bad genetics I guess). He may well outlast all of us, beat the lung cancer and come in under the five percent statistic on remission/cures.
Makes you wonder how long he’d live if he hadn’t gotten Agent Orange related crap.
YouTubeage Action: James Bond OSTs to listen to while writing
When I write some action scenes, I tend to draw upon movie sound tracks, notably those by John Barry but he is not the only one. Here are a couple of my favorites.
This is called “Space March” and it is from the You Only Live Twice soundtrack. It matches the opening scene where an American space capsule is captured by a mystery spacecraft. The scene, if you haven’t seen it, is akin to watching a snake unlock its’ jaw to consume its’ prey, slow but inevitable. The Americans, of course, blame the Russians for the incident, which gets the movie going.
In a similar vein is “007 and Counting” which is matched to the video you see now. A rocket is hijacked by our bad guys in Diamonds Are Forever. It happens to be carrying a diamond augmented laser satellite and you can see where this is going.
So it goes, kids. Repair operations continue. I’ve got to pick Trinity up later from her therapy where she is trying to get her ship back to 100% or at least as close to it as she can.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Writing Project: Trying on Steampunk
I threw the book out this morning, found a quiet spot on campus where I would not be bothered and actually managed to get three pages written for a Steampunk short story. I try to keep the ball rolling daily.
Right now I’m writing what I’d want to read which means I threw out all of the crap I had to put into my first two story sales to make them work. It is working a lot better that way.
We’ll see how it goes.
The Fitness Front
I’ve been eating too much crap. I can’t keep eating endless gobs of fried food, fatty crap and mountains of meat. Days pass without a decent salad and I sometimes wonder what it will take to get the venerable salad back into my diet. I’ve got from 195 to 200 and a waistline of 37 inches (probably closer to 38 inches).
I’ve got to get this under control.
The good news is that we started our workouts in Body Building today (yes, I signed up for a class). The first thing I learned is that one probably needs twelve exercises for their program. They need to work their legs first, then upper body, then arms. One is probably looking at three sets per exercise but I am thinking five for dropsets is what I am going to do. I didn’t get through the entire workout (I had to go pick Trinity up from UMKC as we still have only one car) but I got through enough of it to see that it will probably work for me.
The plan, starting tomorrow, is to get in an hour on the strength training and body building. Then I’ll follow it up with an hour of cardio. I have to work out an hour for each of my classes (the other is Physical Fitness) until I reach 30 hours (which is an A). If that doesn’t start to strip the fat off of my body, then I don’t know what I’ll do.
The Teaching Front
I’ve got the last of the Quakers for American History tomorrow. I think I may chat with them about primary and secondary sources first. They’ll hate that. In Western Civ I’m moving into the Egyptians. We’ll have the same chat about primary and secondary sources. Some might actually like that discussion.
On Wednesday I am going to have to hack out some time to work on Thursday notes. I’ve not written a single word for my notes since Thursday. And I’m behind on study guides. They should have gone out already.
Trinity’s Big Day
Trinity started pre-law today, working toward her BA in Sociology. She was nervous about it and I tried to reassure her that she’d do fine. She did as much for me back in August 2007 when, terrified out of my mind, I started my first day of teaching.
Problem is, Trinity doesn’t always listen to me. In fact, a lot of people do not listen to me even though I am bound to be right. This seems to be a recurring theme in my life, so much so that I think my nickname should be Cassandra.
In any event, she had a great first day. And she has homework.
Now I’ve got to try and get some work done.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Teaching Front: The First Day
When I first started back in Fall 2007, I was all about the soft, easy going start. I was trying to emulate a Western Civ instructor I knew who could enforce his will and yet still be a very likeable person. I was fortunate in that my first two classes were fairly responsible and it seemed to work. With a few exceptions but I figured that was just part of the mix.
Then I got what I call hard case classes, students out of high school or somewhere else who didn’t want to be there. They were going to disrupt and derail the process at will. After a very rough class during my second semester, I changed my classroom management style.
I execute a hard start now, much akin to basic training (light). I enter the classroom, lay down the law in no uncertain terms in much the same manner I used to deal with clowns on 10th and Main. The rules are strict and for the first few weeks there is very little room for deviation. It is during those first few weeks that many of the students feel that I’m being a bad nasty man who has nothing better to do but torture them.
It goes against a lot of the educational nonsense I’ve been hearing for twenty years now. Coddle their self esteem, be nice to them, try to be their friend, etc. I’ve given up on all of that. I’m there to run a class, to teach history and to make the best use of the time. Their job, whether anyone realizes it or not, is to learn the material. If they can’t do the job, then they need to go find someone else.
Here is the odd thing. I do not pander to my students. I do not make any effort to be popular or easy. In fact, I am trying very hard to earn a reputation as an instructor not to be crossed or triffled with.
What feedback do I get? Well, from those that stick it out, the feedback has mostly been positive. I get excellent evals from my full time peers and from the students I teach. I’m one of the go to instructors, which makes me a little nervous as I do not like the idea that students are picking me over someone else. That can lead to trouble.
In other words, I’m popular.
How the fuck that happened, I’ll never know.
Knowing all of this, yesterday when I entered the classroom I had one thought on my mind. Not how I was going to whip the students into shape or what new trick I was going to try. No, this thought was for me.
Pride goes before a fall.
I’ve got to remember not to get too big for my own britches.
Classes went well over all (except for a few very late students who provided the examples I needed for classroom policy enforcement). We got through the How to Study History lecture aka: Lecture Zero and are well on track towards Lecture One in both courses. The plan is to drop the first exams by mid-September.
It was a good day and it was great to be back in the saddle again. I’ve got to get a tenure position no matter what because I think this stuff is in my blood now.
Other Fronts
Nothing major to report. Student front work started yesterday in Terri’s class. I’ll be popping over to the virtual classroom to check on that here in a bit. Trinity is off at physical therapy, leaving me with time to write this entry, do the homework and perhaps review some material for tomorrow’s lecture.
Otherwise, that is pretty much it.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Those that done said stuff