Long weekend

After returning from the conference on Friday, I spent most of the weekend making up for being gone with the kids. This is one of those things I did not really understand when I was in graduate school. When you do not have kids, you are able to do whatever you want with few regrets or fallout from being gone 3, 4, or 5 days. When you do have kids, one day away can make the next three a challenge as you seek to make up with little people who do not understand why you ever have to leave. The girl told me I could never leave again, as 4 1/2 year-olds do, and I had to hold her for hours on Friday night. The 1 1/2 year-old boy wouldn’t look at me until Sunday morning and now he will not let me out of his sight without screaming. He then nuzzles and kisses me unrepentant and joyful.

I am fortunate that my department is pretty family friendly and understanding about the fragility and foibles of family life. A couple of graduate students told me that I looked like I need a rest. They are probably right. However, I feel somewhat guilty about not getting a blog reflection on SALT or Waiting for Superman up over the weekend or even earlier today. I’d do both, but I apparently left my notebook in my studio as I raced out of there this afternoon.

These were some of my @sjwarren1 Tweets about WfS:

“How do you blame teachers for education problems with no real evidence or analysis and then never talk to any teachers to let them refute?”

“Pretty graphics throughout. Emotionally biting. Really makes people angry at teachers and unions without real support for truth claims.”

I was really angry by the end of it, partly because the thing (as I will not call it documentary) was neither good research nor good journalism. It did not allow all the important parties a voice and worse, it specifically cut out the groups the director most appeared to blame for the conditions of schools. I will write my full analysis tomorrow if possible.

On another topic, I have been noting some issues with technology separating me (and others) cognitively from the local physical place where I am.

“I just realized that I am not actually here in Florida. There are people nearby but I may as well be a ghost on my phone checking email.”

“Someone spent a lot of time creating a relaxing, dramatic atmosphere and I am back in Denton cognitively and affectively. Food draws me in.”

When I wrote these, I was sitting in a lovely restaurant at a resort that someone had painstakingly done a lot of interior design work to make quite amazing. I barely noticed it until these Tweets. This seems to happen more and more often as we travel back to the real world from the virtual (Facebook, Second Life, movies, TV, etc.) less and less often.

It makes me wonder if we will ever start to become lonely or nostalgic for the physical world. My daughter and I are in the same room nearly every night, but she is watching Qubo or playing on the iPad and I’m working on the laptop. It’s as though we are next to each other, but no longer occupying he same space.

Tomorrow when I’m at work and not with my kid, I’ll tell the story of my first night in Orlando, which was harrowing and has both a record of Tweets and pictures that will go along with it. In the meantime, I’m going to read to my daughter and put her to bed. Maybe tomorrow will be filled with ideas and gorgeous contrasts even more than today.