Semester in Review

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Poor performance in Rothman
Ambivalence in Wood
Good performance in Z, but final essay incomplete

Competing interests -- cognitive; hispanics in comp; lit
Conversation with Z re: future
Conversation and projects with Lindahl
Relationships with colleagues
Relationship with the U

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A Conversation with the Community College Addressing Our Responsibilities to Undocumented Students

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A version of this is published in the current issue of the LSCS Advocate . Part 2 is here. Our Undocumented Students and the Union’s Responsibilities Politics exists because those who have no right to be counted as speaking beings make themselves of some account. (Jacques Rancière) On 5 September 2017, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III announced that DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) will be rescinded in six months. We’re going to address this issue to clarify what DACA is (and what it isn’t), why this should matter to us as members of a labor union, and what we can do. In his announcement , Sessions repeated multiple specious claims and “alternative facts” about DACA, migrants, jobs, and public safety: Sessions repeatedly uses the terminology “illegal aliens,” which, although we may hear it frequently, is not a legal term in the Immigration and Nationality Act, and it conflates the act of crossing the border illegally with an ongoing le...
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It's exhausting, emotionally. It's not necessarily the emotions of why he is in prison and what he experiences in prison -- that's another discussion and I separate those emotions from the visit itself. The gates open for visitors at 7:00 a.m., but that means I need to get there at 6:30 to get in line; I arrived in Beeville the previous evening and just captured a hotel. The town has limited food selections (and poor beer selection), so I have no reason to get outdoors except to appreciate a nice spring day of south Texas. That morning, the moon was near full and brilliantly shined on the flat fields around the prison, a mix of brush oaks, and the grasses for hundreds of acres on the unit property. The chilled air made the morning even more pleasant and while I waited for the gate to open, I thought about camping down here. Ultimately, the gate guards permitted visitors to approach the gate, the first of the all-grey officers: turn off the engine, open the trunk and ho...
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Cosmos Day 2014

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Cosmos Day -- A Day of Exploration In celebration of Cosmos Day, I decided to slow down and explore some near-wilderness area near me, starting from Pundt Park and hiking along the Spring Creek Greenway . I usually bike this route for a round trip of about 20 miles and try to keep my speed up, so I don't stop to look at the flora or take the horse trails or the hiking trails. Today, though, I decided to take it slow. The temperature was about 90 ° , about 70% humidity, and sunny. It should be noted that the Spring Creek eventually meets Cypress Creek and then flows into the San Jacinto River. Cypress Creek was once known as Cypress Bayou, but the good people of Spring and Klein and Champions didn't want to be known as living along a bayou, so they had the name officially change to a creek, which is less cajun or Louisianan or something. Some of the older towns and railway stops still refer to Cypress Bayou, but the creek name is stuck now and FM Road (Farm to Market ...
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