2011 in review

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WordPress.com Stats

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

(And to start 2012, this is my 300th post! I resolve to make the next 300 more various, entertaining, and educational.)

Winding up the Buffy Rewatch

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Buffy rewatch, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Christmas, James South, Joss Whedon, Nikki Stafford, Popular culture, television

Only two more Tuesdays  of Nikki Stafford’s Great Buffy Rewatch to go! What a year of blogging nostalgia and discovery, not to mention all the other pop culture projects Nikki has going on, to say nothing of her life. She’s a real hero (“Into every generation…”).

In addition to the first three episodes of Season 7, I also posted about three mid-Season 7 episodes last week, and I’ll be among those returning for the big finale on December 27, so tune in.

In other Whedon Studies news, the kind and wise Mr. Ensley Guffey has made today’s blog post Whedon Christmas central, opening comments to all who have written or edited Whedon-related books, just in time for holiday shopping. Thanks, Ensley, from my co-editors Lynne Edwards, James South, and me! A lot of other great colleagues’ books there, too.

In the world, exams are done, grades are in. Kind friends–bless them!– helped replace my kitchen lights. Let the baking begin!

P.S. Temporarily switched the blog background from light to dark to better enjoy WordPress’s winter “snow” feature, which always amuses me.

Buffy Rewatch starts Season 7

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Buffy rewatch, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Joss Whedon, pop culture, Slayage Conference, television

Image via Wikipedia

The Nik at Nite Buffy Rewatch starts the final season this week with Nikki Stafford writing about an outstanding scene in the second episode and my general introduction to the whole season.

I’ll be back in a few weeks to talk about three more season seven episodes.

In other news, I’m revising an essay on Firefly for a Whedon anthology in the works (edited by others), and preparing my paper proposal for the 5th Slayage Conference. June 2012 is not that far away!

Music & fame!

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Buffy, Buffy rewatch, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon, Once More with Feeling (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), pop culture, television

Cover via Amazon

The Nikatnite Great Buffy Rewatch devotes week 39 to Buffy‘s season 6 musical episode, “Once More, with Feeling.”

Musician/music scholar Janet K. Halfyard gives the serious analysis, and Buffy fans/scholars from hither and yon perform and parody the songs. It is awesome. But watch the original episode first!

Did I mention that season 6 is my favorite?

In other news, I was a campus celebrity last week. More ‘nowning’!

English majors: a good investment

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education, English major, English majors, students

Image via Wikipedia

Synchronicity! Yesterday we held our second annual English majors orientation, a time to gather them all together, introduce them to each other, and remind them that in addition to reading Hamlet and Pride and Prejudice, they need some practical skills. Not that reading isn’t practical!

Today, the New York Daily News points out that “A liberal arts degree is a good investment.”  As we told our majors, it’s partly a matter of emphasizing the abilities inherent in the liberal arts, and partly a matter of bolstering those skills with practical experience. From the NYDN article:

Connie Thanasoulis, a career coach and co-founder of the New Yorkconsultancy Six Figure Start, agrees that liberal arts graduates bring all sorts of strengths that employers desire: communication, problem solving, attention to detail and teamwork.”Look at the interpretation skills an English lit major has from interpreting literature,” she says. …One example is a research analyst, who studies and writes a complete story about a particular stock. It’s a good job that pays well, says Thanasoulis. The head of research at an investment firm once told her, “Stop sending me only finance majors; I was a Russian lit major. I want someone who thinks outside the box, who can tell me a story and who has good writing skills.

The article goes on to acknowledge that liberal arts majors may indeed start at lower salaries, but that doesn’t mean they won’t move up, or that they won’t find satisfaction in their jobs.

The practical advice for job-seeking English majors (and other liberal arts majors in the NYDN article is much the same as the advice we gave our Campbell U English majors yesterday:

Take courses in business, technology and marketing to bank some diverse experience and valuable contacts. Consider having a double major. And be sure to get some good job or volunteer experience while in school or in the summers between classes. …Even if you volunteer for a nonprofit, at least you can show a future employer that you’ve had exposure to the workings of an organization.

So if you’re an English major, or you know an English major, the next time someone asks, “What are you going to do with that?” remember the answer is, “You’ll be surprised.”

Teaching with grace

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education, students, teaching, university

Any teacher loves to point to his or her students’ successes and achievements of varioius kinds, both in the classroom and after graduation. One of the pleasures of Facebook (alongside its manifest irksome qualities) has been reconnecting with past students and learning the ups and downs of their lives since we last saw one another, whether that was at a commencement or in a classroom.

Today I’ve added former student Renee’s Quiet Anthem to my blogroll. She’s now a writer & English teacher, with a family, so she’s got plenty to keep her busy! I  especially want to highlight her latest post about some particular frustrations and triumphs faced in the classroom. This is her experience, but I think many college teachers can empathize.

What can push a teacher to the breaking point? How to deal with academic dishonesty both justly and with grace? Perils of technology and social networking–all these figure in her recent experience. Admire.

“With great difficulty…”

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btvs, Buffy Goes Dark, Buffy rewatch, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon, pop culture, television, TV

William Faulkner (and more recently, Stephen King) advised writers to “kill your darlings.” Joss Whedon’s approach to this advice is that even beloved, major characters in his shows are “not safe” (with the possible exception of Willow). So at the end of Season Five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he killed his show’s hero, Buffy. Oh. My. Goodness.

Buffy nobly sacrificed herself to save her sister, her friends, and the world. It’s hard to top that for Christ-figure symbolism.

Sacrifice (B5.22 "The Gift"

And then, in the real world, the show is resurrected on another network, and everyone knows Buffy has to come back to life too, but how? Whedon’s response, in May 2001:

How will we bring her back? With great difficulty, of course. And pain and confusion. Will it be cheezy? I don’t think so….The fact is, we’ve had most of next season planned before we shot this [final] ep….

(qtd. in Buffy Goes Dark 5).

Thus begins Season Six of Buffy on the Great Buffy ReWatch, where Nikki Stafford and I discuss the difficulties of reviving a Slayer, and the interactive effects of the show’s return and fans’ hopes and fears in October, 2001, barely a month after the events of Sept. 11 changed the world. (As Nikki points out, since the episodes were written & filmed months beforehand, it’s pure coincidence that episode 6.2 includes a falling tower!) Also, don’t lie to your friends. Keep (re)watching.

Buffy lives!

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Buffy, Buffy Goes Dark, Buffy rewatch, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon, pop culture, television

Next Tuesday, the Great Buffy Rewatch embarks on Season Six. As you recall (or should), Buffy died at the end of Season Five. Nik at Nite posts the fall 2001 promo poster for Season Six, “Buffy Lives.”

As you may also recall, I co-edited a book about Buffy Season Six (and Seven), so I’ll have more to say on Tuesday.

Post-Labor Day job-hunting English Majors?

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education, English majors, students

In a few weeks, we’ll hold our annual English majors orientation, including some suggestions for ways our students can be preparing to parlay their degrees into real-world work experience while they’re in college, and, eventually, a post-college career. We’ll invite some alumni who’ve found their ways into some of those careers–or at least jobs that don’t involve fast food.

On the day after we celebrate all working people, a few more job-hunting tips for recent graduates in any field, from Thoughts on Teaching.

Back to the classroom

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Buffy rewatch, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, cats, education, Firefly, Joss Whedon, London, Murpjy's Law, pop culture, students, teaching, TV

Since returning from London–which seems years away, somehow, not just a little over a month–I’ve had lots to catch up on, including unexpected appliance repairs/replacements, course syllabi, and an essay on Joss Whedon’s Firefly that I hope will see publication sometime next year. Not to mention medical checkups for me and one of the cats, many last minute revisions to the course syllabi, faculty and student orientation activities, all mixed in with the inevitable operations of Murphy’s Law: Whatever can go wrong, will.

Senior Cat is not amused

Today was the first day of classes, and since some of the first-year comp students had been primed to ask me about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’m reminded to check in with the ongoing year-long Great Buffy Re-Watch, now well into Season Five. I’ll be posting some thoughts in a few weeks when we get to Season Six.

For now, there’s a lot of reading to do before Monday.