Author: Sara

On Being Cranky and Snarky

Yesterday I updated the design of this blog. I like the new colors so much that I want to write in it more, just so I can look at it. 

Since leaving the academy, and reducing the amount of time that I write on this blog, I have become increasingly cranky. My entire family is cranky. So much so that we use “crank” as a verb. “Stop cranking!” is my repeated refrain as we drive around Minneapolis, complaining about drivers, bikers, pedestrians.

I often don’t mind this cranking. It feels like a useful way to handle everyday annoyances. But, sometimes I wonder, is cranking a good thing? Am I just getting older and becoming a crank, someone who is cynical and has lost the ability to playfully make and stay in trouble? And, is this crankiness something that I want to model for my kids, who are already, at the ages of 9 and 12, well-versed in the art of crank?

All of these questions make me curious: What is crankiness? Could it be a form of making or staying in trouble OR is it what happens to you when you become an adult and outgrow your troublemaking (or a bit of both)? And, what are the similarities and differences between being cranky and being snarky? Does crank = cynical and snark = sarcastic? In what ways could we consider “cranking” and “snarking” as forms of resistance? And, what are their relationships to anger/rage and critique/problematizing, which are important forms of troublemaking resistance?

What if we thought about crankiness and snarkiness in terms of a system of queer feminist virtues?

Are they excessive (or deficient?) forms of virtuous rage and/or fault-finding? Hmmm….need to ruminate on that one for a bit. While I do, I want to archive this link to put beside my discussion of snarking and cranking as forms of critique/critical thinking:

On Smarm

 

 

Another Summer Ends

Summer is over and I feel a bit lost and overwhelmed. I tried a new experiment this summer. I didn’t work on any projects. I didn’t write. I didn’t create digital stories. I didn’t research. Instead I swam, biked and ran. And I read a lot of library books. I’m ready to get back into writing, storytelling and researching. But, having dropped the kids off for the first day of school yesterday morning, I’m not sure what to do with myself.

Where do I begin?

After sitting and staring at this computer screen for awhile, I’ve decided to revisit a project that has inspired my troublemaking work from the beginning: kids, troublemaking and moral education. I’ve been thinking and writing about kids and troublemaking since this blog was created. As my kids have grown older (they are now 11 and 8), my thoughts about troublemaking, both how kids practice it and how I model/teach it, has been evolving.

I’d like to turn my work into a bigger, more substantial project. What would that project entail? I’m still not sure. For now, I want to slowly get back into the habit of writing and thinking about kids and moral education. I’ll start by archiving some links about kids and moral education that I’d like to put into conversation with each other:

I want to put these above sources beside:

On Not Being Productive

This summer I’m hoping to not be productive. I don’t want to become involved in any big, all-consuming projects. And I don’t want to do Work. What does that exactly mean? Right now I’m resisting the urge to “unpack” my claims. That sounds like work to me. But, I will archive some recent sources that are currently influencing me.

Beside/s: Remembering and Forgetting

Last week I, along with my husband and two kids, took a road trip to Utah. Starting in Minnesota, we drove through Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado to get there. It was a lot of driving. To endure it, especially Nebraska and eastern Colorado, we loaded up an iPod with a lot of Radiolab podcasts. We included a few This American Life’s too.

I’m so glad that we listened to the podcasts. Not only did they make the drives go by faster, but they got me thinking about memory, longing, nostalgia and the tensions between when we need to remember and when we should really forget. I’m hoping to write a much longer essay about these podcasts and how they connected to and enhanced various experiences on the trip, but for now, I just wanted to make sure that I archive the ideas/sources.

In addition to putting these sources beside each other, I also want to put them next to my reflections on and practices of visiting Utah to relive and recreate past vacation experiences. Last year, I attempted to express this through my video, Double Vision: