kids against hunger

here are some photos from last week's meeting, in which the writing center sponsored a "kids against hunger" food drive. each consultant donated $5 (and bob matched the consultants with a $250 donation) and participated in packaging food for underprivileged children.





photos by kevin dyrland

Not Penultimate (but something-ultimate) Minutes

We are presented with nine different conferencing scenarios (scenaria?) and split into groups by table. The goal: to present on the conferencing quandry. Here’s a quick breakdown of the events:

1) Do we follow our own advice? How often do you use the WC? How often do you do what you advise others to do? Food for thought.

2) Plagiarism: what to do if the writer doesn’t think it’s wrong? “If you plagiarize, the terrorists win,” offers Jackie. Other ideas: lay out the consequences (failure, expulsion) for them.

3) Some beat-boxing (is that what the cool kids call it) illustrating cliches. Mike grinds. Kevin and Andrew Klingler make hand gestures. Leta does not got back. Um.

4) My group. What if a student’s paper has errors, but he corrects them when reading aloud?

5) Jorduhn Loord wears some tight tights. Grant is hung out. People enjoy this. Ellen does a great accent, and writes about birds. What to do when a writer doesn’t think her (bad) paper is bad? I’m not sure that a consensus was reached.

6) Ezra is a great friend, but a really bad writer (this is a fictional tale): how do you conference a paper about “book” when the student hasn’t read said book?

7) (the numbering is way off – my notes got a little hazy) – You hate poetry. Someone wants poetry conferenced? The solution is...conference it anyway. Be polite and useful, ask questions.

8) A faculty member’s “corrections” for a student’s paper don’t make sense and are grammatically incorrect. No solution reached. Any ideas?

9) We only had eight tables.

A reminder: if you signed up to send a postcard or call an accepted high school student, be sure to get on that, right quick.

Next week will be the Kids Against Hunger pack-athon. Be sure to bring in your $5, and sign up for a 20-minute shift. I believe people are still needed for the 6:40-7:00 time slot.

I’m still running way high on “Coe cash,” for the semester. Does anyone have any suggestions for things to buy in the Pub? So far I’ve been stocking up on toothbrushes and toothpaste, chapstick, hot cocoa, and cinnamon gum. Those are no-brainers. Some experiments:

--“A Taste of Thai” instant pad thai: surprisingly not that expensive or cholesterol-laden, and tastes pretty good, though not, of course, like actual pad thai)
--Kashi “Strawberry Fields” cereal: insanely expensive – almost seven dollars! – and, for me, a little high on the grain flakes and low on the freeze-dried berries. There are also little weird grain pellets that will assault your molars, even if you let the cereal sog-up a little before chewing
--Triscuits: again, overpriced, but you can’t really mess up Triscuits
--“Mary’s Gone Crackers” Organic, wheat-free, gluten-free crispy crackers: grossly expensive (I’m sensing a theme), but what can you do. These are apparently really healthy, and contain no ingredients that will make you break out in hives. I wanted to like these crackers. I really did. And, to be honest, they’re okay. But they’ve got this weird, plastic-y hard texture, like a poker chip, and they’re so very, very brittle and crunchy.
--That popcorn stuff: I haven’t tried the caramel yet, but the “aged real cheddar” and classic kettle corn varieties are entirely satisfactory. And fairly priced.

Can I say something about the Pub “coffee”? No, I don’t want to start. Honestly, as I told Becca in the ninth-floor lobby this afternoon while microwaving noodles, it makes me want to cry. I want so, so badly to like it. This coming from me, a person who enjoys even the dingiest, grittiest of diner coffee. It’s not real coffee. The “espresso” is an abomination upon the lord. I can’t continue with this discussion.

Anyone have any Pub faves?

Gia su,
Jenna

around the world, part i

starting with me. cause...no one else volunteered.


Jenna Shaw (class of '09) hiking óros ólimbos (aka mt. olympus) in northern greece, 2007

around the world

we're starting starting a new blog series called "cwc around the world" (does anyone have a cuter title?) featuring photos of consultants (current and alumni) in exotic places (basically anywhere that isn't cedar rapids). feel free to send in a photo if you want to be featured. any sort of comments, anecdotes, stories, lists, advice, whatever related to your experience that you want to include are also certainly welcome.

Goodness Gracious, How about some Minutes

Here’s what happened at the Monday night meeting:

Bob informed us that acceptance letters have been sent out to students invited to join the WC next year. Behind the desk there will be envelopes, stationery, and postcards on which you can write messages to prospies you interacted with during the competition weekend encouraging them to come to Coe. I guess there’s some sort of spreadsheet listing the students, and you should write your name, indicating who you will be contacting. Phone and email is also okay, though be sure not to be too creepy or insistent.

Something happens, and Bob blushes, giggles, and says that he loves Victoria’s Secret essays.

We divide into committees. Discuss committee things. I am on the blogging committee. My fellow bloggers are Leta, Ezra, Johanna, and Taylor.

On April 20th, we will be working with Kids Against Hunger to package 2,000 meals for underprivileged children. The boxing up will happen during the Monday night meeting, and people will be asked to work in one of three 20-minute shifts. Each person is asked to fork over $5. Anyone with fundraising ideas should contact Andrew Boone.

See y’alls next week.

--Jenna

Minute (my-noot!) Minutes

The meeting is off to a...ahem...rousing start as Bob takes one of Marie's "Love is in the Air" sex toy catalogues and says "love...tools" in a horrifying way. Make it stop. Fortunately there is "business to take care of before your erogenous zones can be activated." Eeeeuw.

Posters for studiers-abroad are sent around to be decorated and signed.

---Prospie discussion---

(contact Bob if you have something further to say about any candidates)

By this point there are only eight minutes to go until House begins, so a few last minute items on the agenda:

Andrew Boone and the Service Learning Committee have a few activities. If you'd like to volunteer at Johnson Elementary, please contact Hanna Werner.

The other item of discussion is our potential participation in a Kids Against Hunger food drive. Raising $500 will allow us to package 1,200 meals for underprivileged people: we can choose how to divert these meals. Bob generously offers to go halvsies, which means that we would have 70 people to cover $250. Someone calculates that this is about $5 per person, though I can't verify this calculation. The Kids Against Hunger people will bring the food and shipping supplies to Coe, and we will work to package things on a sort of assembly line following a Monday meeting, most likely within the next three weeks.

And, break.

Jenna

eyes peeled

Since its inception, many moons ago, the Writing Center has had only five directors. Tonight we were lucky to witness the coming together of two in one room: Bob Marrs and Steve Singleton. Steve is here to speak about conferencing lab reports. Bob says that chemistry professors are the most thoughtful, interested in writing-type people at the College, and Steve reinforces this concept by starting the meeting with, "I'm kind of winging this...I had to pull it out of my aaa...head." To be fair, he kindly agreed to be here at the very last minute.

Steve recounts that directing the WC inspired him to incorporate the things he learned into his chemistry classes, and caused him to think a lot about the way people learn.

Lab reports: handouts were circulated (talk to Steve if you want one). In science, there are strictly-adhered-to conventions which are designed, "over eons of honing," to ease communication through standardization. This structural rigidity is supposed to make things easier. Steve makes a horribly crude joke about "spots left over from reproduction" that has something to do with punctuation marks on xerox machines. ?

For citations, find a style guide or journal. Basically, science reports are insanely finicky. Focus on implementation of ideas in addition to the ideas themselves - how to present info graphically.

Some sample dialogue:
Steve, to Bob: "That's a good question, Bobby."
Kevin: "Can we call you that?!"

Now, on to this weekend, which, as you all know, is Prospie Weekend. Yes it is. There are 33 competitors (with 9 potential additions). Because there are only nine male consultants living on campus and nine male WC prospies, all WC menfolk are strongly pleaded with to host. Apparently the weekend will include a scavenger hunt and snacks. If you haven't already done so, please fill out the hosting/shift sheet (see Malyssa Oblander or Katie Blanchard). A revised copy of the schedule will be posted on the front desk on Wednesday.

Does anyone have a cot? Talk to Andrew Klingler.

If you want to be a Writing Fellow next semester, you should register for Topics just in case, as the Fellows program hasn't been finalized yet.

Tentative plans have been made for a January Topics in Composition course on Tybee Island, Georgia! Bob used to do this trip frequently in years past, but it has never been offered during my tenure at Coe. I'm terribly jealous. Keep your eyes peeled for more information.


Tybee Island, 1990s

Ta-ta,

Jenna

bidness

The Original Writing Center Staff, 1987

Okay. What happened at this week's meeting? Several things.

The idea of napkin-collecting as a hobby was brought up by the peeps at my table. Could be interesting.

Prospie weekend is a week from this Friday (March 27). We're encouraged to sign up to host one. Or, "bring a prospie into your den," as Bob likes to say. Shudder. It is best if the prospective students have good experiences here at Coe and decide attend next year, if only to bring in more tuition dollars to fund Bob's salary.

Next order of business: we've been corralled into participating in a letter-writing campaign asking the Iowa Legislature to prevent budget cuts to private IA colleges. The cuts would result in $600 less per year in scholarships for students. If you didn't write a letter at the meeting, talk to Bob or Grant for more information.

Lots of official business, but we still found time for cake.

Tally ho,

Jenna

news from the haunted book shop

As many of you know, Iowa City's Haunted Bookshop is owned by CWC alumna Nialle Sylvan and her husband, Kurt (rumor has it they met at the bookshop). It's a fun place to go for used books, readings, and lots of cats, and the big news is that the shop has expanded. Here it is, straight from the horse's mouth:

I recently bought and merged with a second bookshop. (If Bob doesn't know about this, please tell him so that he isn't confused next time he comes to visit!) Instead of calling it the Northside Haunted Fun Zone, though, we are sticking to the good old Haunted Bookshop name. The Fun Zone was the toyshop we adopted last summer. That's why, besides 40,000 books, we have puppets, glow-in-the-dark flesh-eating zombie figures, Marie Antoinette action figures with Ejector Head Action, and Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot for sale.

Awesome. The new location is at 203 North Linn Street, Iowa City, IA 52245 (Where Northside Books used to be).


Anyone for a fieldtrip?

t-rexs, rabbits and coca-cola bottles

Can you believe it's already March? I think I'm in denial. A happy thing to start off the meeting: Holly tried baklava for the first time and was delighted. People enjoying food delights me.

Cara Cavanagh came in to talk about the Fellowship Competition. Admissions is coordinating it this year rather than the Writing Center. It will be held March 27, and we are instructed to clear our schedules for that evening, what for entertaining the young 'uns. It would also be very nice if you could host a prospie overnight.

Next, we split into groups and discussed proposal ideas for next year's fall MWCA conference, which will be held in Rapid City, SD. I don't want to think about this - I'm too jealous.

Facts about the Badlands:
-They are awesome
-Prairie dogs live there
-There are lots of large, roadside attractions, like giant T-Rexs, rabbits and coca-cola bottles
-You can drive there in one day. Bob has done it.

It is advertised as an "un-conference," and the MWCA is apparently looking for "unusual ways of getting people organized." If you have any additional proposal ideas, email or talk to Bob.

What else...? There was a puppy at the meeting. She is a dachsund-spaniel mix named Penny. She belongs to either Danielle or Clarissa. She was stinky, but very sweet. We should have puppies at meetings more often.

--edit: Danielle has this to say:
The puppy was mine however Clarissa was nice enough to volunteer to accompany me on the trip to pick her up. If anyone wants to come over and play with my dogs you are more than welcome to any day of the week. Penny is cute and fluffy and Olive may seem big and scary however she's probably only capable of licking you to death. So let me know if you ever need a dog break and I will make arrangements!

Doggie Goodness: Olive & Penny

If you haven't yet filled out the self-assessment exercise or the networks of relationships form, grab one from Bob.

That's that.

- Jenna

*Note: I did not take any of these photos

come one, come all

Hello!



The Coe Review will celebrating the publication of our annual Poetry Issue with a reading and reception tomorrow, Thursday, February 26th, from 4:30-6:00 pm, in the Perrine Gallery (located on the second floor of the library).

Here your fellow students and professors read their published poetry, including Nick Bertelson, John Thornburg, Joelle Ryu, Leta Keane, and Ezra Stewart-Silver. We will have delicious hors d'oeuvres, as well, so come schmooze with us.

What: Coe Review Release Party (poetry and free food)
When Thursday, 2/26 from 4:30-6:00 pm (tomorrow)
Where: The Perrine Gallery

See you there!

(above image: cover art from the 2008 fall issue, Take II, a viscosity print by Gary Webb)

mis-estimated

Well, it seems that I mis-estimated the amount of time it would take to have dinner with the visiting poet, Philip Schultz, so I missed the meeting. Luckily, I found a replacement to take down the minutes. Unluckily, it turns out that the person I asked was also attending the dinner. So, Clarissa helpfully summarized the meeting for me:

-We are informed, once again, not to make two pots of caffeinated coffee at the same time. Use the WC Roast first, then move on to "the klatch." This sounds like a disease.
-Sign up for conferences and interviews with Sam, the UI guy writing his thesis on the CWC
-A form was filled out. Maybe ask Bob about this.
-Orgies were mentioned. Again. Something about the gangly people ratio?
-Next fall the retreat is in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Some people may be visiting Clarissa's family.

Okay.

Tomorrow, Monday, Feb. 23, at 7:00 pm (immediately after the WC meeting), you should all make your way over to Kesler Hall to hear this year's Paul Engle Poetry Reading, the Pulitzer-winning poet, Philip Schultz. The event is free, no tickets required, and you should all go bask in the literary culture.

maybe she just wants free tea

Bob is absent, but Holly reads his words:

-Don’t make WC brew and the other coffee at the same time – it’s wasteful

-We need 20 people to sign up for conferences on Moodle before the end of the week. The University of Iowa student writing his thesis on the WC needs conferences to observe. edit: Every person on staff is to schedule, on Moodle, one writing conference during the next two weeks and to record that conference in the database. As of 8pm this evening, only two people have done this. That's a response rate of under 4%. Come on, people.

-If you must miss a shift or will be late, you need to call ahead of time (and preferably find a replacement). No exceptions.

We have two guest speakers at the meeting: Japanese exchange student from Waseda, Ikue, and ESL professor, Phyllis Rupert. Ikue is overwhelmed by our sheer numbers, but he tells a story about writing three papers for a marketing class: one was WC-conferenced and the others not. He did well on the WC-conferenced paper, not well on the others. That’s good, right?

Hm. Then she gave a nice presentation about what the ESL department does. They split intl. students into three unofficial categories: beginner, intermediate, advanced. As beginniners, they work on clauses and writing and speaking with specific details. Intermediate students focus on grammar and asking/responding to questions. Advanced work on paraphrasing, learning citation, and organizig arguments.

The goals of intl. students are twofold: to make friends and gain English fluency.

Our American-ish names all sound the same to the Japanese students.

A WC success story: after conferencing with Kevin, a Japanese girl named Aie asks Phyllis if she can come back to the WC every day. Then again, maybe she just wants free tea.

Fin.

Mini Minutes, 2/9

No way could these minutes live up to the greatness that was last week, but here goes:

We started out with a whole bunch of shift shifting. People going to the conference in Chicago create scheduling problems.

Hilary advertizes the charms of her shift by saying, "It's a nice shift - no one ever comes in." Bob responds that no one coming in does not make for a nice shift, "unless, maybe, if we were an AIDS clinic."

Bob also suggests the purchase of a WC Harley to go with Jacquie's leather jacket.

It doesn't seem like there are that many people here.

If you want to meet with Bob this week, you must do so before Wednesday; he'll be in Chicago Wednesday through Friday.

Then...we split into groups of five and do a writing exercise. Everyone gets a sheet of loose-leaf and the pages get passed around in a circle, with everyone contributing 5 paragraphs in a story: setting, character, conflict, crisis, and resolution. My group's stories involved a city in Eastern Chile, Ezra and Andrew Boone dropping microbe slides, residence hall yeti, and a "scrimshaw cooliba."

Stories finished, Bob brings out his whistle. Eek. Some reminders: your two weeks are up; it's time to clean up the Moodle.

una lista

Things I like about Costa Rica, by Malyssa:

1.Mannequins have asses
2. There’s a national holiday for everything and everyone.
3. Spanish guitar instrumentals of Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak my Heart.”
4. The automatic bond formed between white people.
5. Getting my hair braided on the beach to experience something new. Being told flatly and in English, “Nice hair” by a local.
6. Spinning classes to Madonna music. Seeing my spinning instructor dancing on Ladies’ Night at Congo’s Bar.
7. Spotty translations, such as “Remember: Always love never fails.”
8. Trying to explain that Applebottom jeans song in Spanish and realizing that it is, in fact, worse than I’d thought previously.
9. Seeing lots of zeros on my ATM receipts and feeling rich.
10. Home remedies to everything.



Number 10 merits a story. I was having a hard time one night and trying to explain to my host mother what was bothering me. Since she didn’t speak much English and the program required that we spoke only Spanish at home, my efforts were lost in translation. After tiring of trying to understand me, my mom got up and grabbed a suspicious bottle of something from her cupboard, squeezed a few drops into my glass of water and told me to drink it.

I did, and then I passed out and slept through my alarm the next morning. When I asked her what had been in that bottle, she showed me the label, which said “Rescue.” I asked what “Rescue” was made of, and she simply replied, “Don’t worry, be happy.” Those were the only English words she ever spoke to me.

wc old skool

Chock Full O'Minutes

Oh, it was a content-rich meeting.

Bob handed out tickets to see Jared Diamond speak on Tuesday night. For those not in the know (ie: me until a few days ago), he’s a professor of geography and physiology and UCLA and won the Pulitzer for Guns, Germs and Steel, “a short history about everyone for the last 13,000 years.” Should be interesting at the very least.

It seems that the Peterson recycling system is now “sort of going.” It gets picked up Thursday morning and Tuesday afternoon.

There have recently been complaints about the quality of the WC non-home-roasted coffee (the stuff we get from the freezer, which are cheap beans from Sam’s Club). Some of the complaints may have come from me. We are now getting them from Coffee Klatch, a company in California – the blend is “Bourbon Supremo.” Ezra says the new coffee is actually pretty good.

In honor of this, we will, for the first time ever, be introducing three (3) coffee pots. Whoa. Prices have also gone up to 80 cents per cup. Bob reminds us that because these fancy beans are twice as expensive as the old variety, we might try to be reasonably conservative in our use.

An interesting thing: A student at the University of Iowa is doing his doctoral dissertation specifically on conferencing at the Coe Writing Center. His focus will be on what happens after the conference ends. You’ll be getting questionnaires in your mailbox, which you can fill out if you want.

Willie took one of my five remaining Lucky Charms marshmallows, but makes up for the theft with another interesting fact: she says that both Lucky Charms and Cap’n’Crunch cereals are illegal in the E.U. because they contain some sort of sinister substance. Well.

You can now win prizes. Prizes! There are many varieties of prizes being given out, to both consultants and writers, and the trick to winning them is…do a lot of conferences. Prizes are bookstore gift certificates and dinner coupons to the Lighthouse Inn, which is supposedly the oldest restaurant in CR, and the place where Al Capone ate when he was in town. Bob says they make the best ribs he’s ever eaten. It’s my birthday next week: anyone want to take me out for dinner?

Um, there’s a new remote for the non-functioning tv. You can use it to watch DVDs if you can decode the elaborate system of button-pressing involved in operating the remote. Ask Melissa for more details.

Then we came to the main portion of the evening. You read that right. We haven’t even gotten to the main part of the meeting: the Study Abroad Panel. Here’s a brief(ish) rundown of the conversation:

Willie: Sweden. Classes about movies. Her town is called “Dragon City” because it burnt down three times. Mountains. Baltic Sea. Baltic Sea! She has sweet boots on. Went Xtreme camping with Germans in a forest. Ate noodles by a lake. Jumped in a melted glacier. “That was so cool.” Literally. Ha.

Katie: Pune, India. Class in film. Sensing a trend here. Rode an elephant. Had some girl power time.

Malyssa: San Jose, Costa Rica. Read a great list which will be posted here soon. Took $2 out of the ATM on her first day because she’s not used to being a millionaire. Was drugged by her host mom.

Jackie: Bangor, Wales. 30k town/10k university enrollment. Took a class in scriptwriting. What? Involved with BBC-Wales. Drove through World’s End. Got knocked to the ground by some beastly wind on a Welsh mountain.

Nathan: Ghana. His university had 75-90,000 students enrolled. Took classes in theater. What is this? Drummed, danced, traveled. Went to Burkina Faso. “Mali-wood” movies. Rode a camel, slept with goats. Bob says, “That sounds very kinky.”

Kevin: Sweden. Lived in a cottage in the woods. Shovelled many “metres” of snow. Got robbed in Spain. Hung out with nice English-speaking Dutch people who had a car. Sweden sounds exciting.

And that, my friends, is it.

wcers are so exotic

Kevin Dyrland spent fall semester in Östersund, Sweden, Ryanairing it across the continent and studying silly things like economic policy. But...he clearly took a little bit of WC spirit with him on his travels, as evidenced by this excerpt from his travel blog:

I also read some Hemingway while over here, in a craving for good English. My first encounter with the man–and I think Hemingway had dementia by the time he wrote it, because his ‘oldman’ which is probably intrepreted as a personification of himself at that age, repeats himself in a delirious state. Anyways, it was good. I’d also recommend Billy Joel’s ‘Downeaster Alexa’ if you want a shorter version of what the sea is about, without the whole ‘death’ thing.

Welcome back. Read more of Kevin's Scandinavian adventures here.

no waves

nathan nass used to be in the writing center. then he moved to korea. now he lives in honolulu, hawai'i, where he is studying ethnomusicology. today in cedar rapids it was an unseasonably warm january day - almost 40-degrees, but i still wish i was in honolulu. cedar rapids does not have waves.



anyway, nathan nass sent me a poem:

"blue heaven honolulu eyesore"

exploded boxspring
kapiolani & date
diamond head's shoulders

late night plate lunch
gina's bbq don't kill the
cockroach it can't fly