Just Another Day

I thought I would post some pictures of what I do every day while I'm here. When I uploaded them they ended up out of order but I can't manage to change anything, so I guess I'll just keep it the way it is.

Things are going pretty well here. I've been able to do quite a bit of work on my dissertation and teaching has been a lot of fun. I haven't seen much of New Haven, other than the campus and the payphone near the New Haven Green, but I'm not interested in adventure, I guess.



Among Yale's many student amenities are these really nice study rooms in the libraries. They keep them around 65 degrees to keep students alert (after 2 or 3 hours it gets really, really cold) and they run "phantom fans" that have no other function other than drowning out noise from the outside. So, they are probably the best place in the world to study and get one's work done. Unfortunately, the library closes fairly early, but it's still a great space.

This is what my room looks like. It's kind of a half-prison/half motel-6 design but the view of the parking lot and "au bon pain" pastry shop is pretty sweet. Fun fact: our current President Bush lived either in this dorm, the dorm next to me, or the dorm above me when a "student" at Yale. Those of you who know how I feel about Bush will know whether this fact makes me either a) honored to be in the same room or b) shocked that he actually went to college.

On my way to class I always walk by the Church of Christ Chapel, one of the oldest buildings on Yale's campus. It's a really wonderful building, so I finally took a picture of it. Allegedly it's breathtaking inside but I haven't ever ventured inside so I wouldn't know.

The large building you see here is Sterling Memorial Library, the main library on Yale's campus. The portion in the background is where you will find the stacks, 16 stories packed full of books. Between 4-5 million books. And the inside looks like a classic Catholic church. It's really beautiful. This is really the one thing Yale has that makes me wish I'd gone here as an undergrad. I would love to have access to that library. Which leads me to...

Getting a library card! Apparently Yale has some rare books on Thoreau as well as a few copies of rare letters, so I was able to convince the staff at the library that I needed temporary access to everything as a "guest researcher." And they gave it to me. Unfortunately, it costs a lot of money to get temporary privileges but the program I work for paid for it. And I can go into the rare book library anytime I want!

Which is where I got a few books that I needed for citations and background information, none of which they had/were willing to get at the Purdue Libraries. Having a world-class library is really one of the best ways of making...

Progress! I'm happy to have finally made it past 100 pages. It has taken a while but it feels good! If I work at my current level (roughly 7 "keeper" pages per day) I will have another 100 by the time I leave, which should be just about enough to finish the dissertation. By the way, "keeper" pages are the ones that will actually appear in your dissertation. If one were not concerned about quality, one could probably write 12-15 pages per day.

This has nothing to do with work, but I think it's hilarious. I've never seen an R2-D2 post office drop box before but it's pretty sweet. And you wouldn't believe how many people freak out over it. In fact, before I took this picture I had to wait for somebody else to take their picture next to the R2. Welcome to Nerdville.

Pool day

Today the kids and I went to the little pool at the park with Brad & Lorrain and kids. Everyone had a blast. Annika loved to splash in the water and Ezra got in and out all by himself. That's pretty significant if you know Ezra. He really loved to run up and down the sidewalk along the pool. I kept hearing someone shouting "Walk!" and figured out it was the lifeguard yelling at Ezra. Duh! I guess that is dangerous!





After we left the pool we let the kids play at the playground next to it. Lovell has really spruced up its parks since my day. When I was a kid, all that stood where this nice playground set now stands was a really tall metal slide. It burned your behind everytime you slid down it, but we still lined up to go! Kids these days...they have it made!!!

Picture update

Jonathan was requesting some pictures of the kids...so here they are!

Annika at Grandpa and Grandma McKenzie's house

Ezra with his cousin Abby
Ezra at Devil's Canyon Overlook
Annika needing a nap
Ezra and Kennedi
Annika in front of Grandma and Grandpa Childs house
Ezra and Annika
Annika standing all by herself
Getting ready for a bath
"See Daddy I can stand all on my own!"

Top ten reasons I miss Jonathan

10. Our walks. I miss our daily walks. At home we go on a walk almost everyday. It's nice to be able to talk and stroll the kids around Purdue Village. They love to go too.



9. Stories about the kids. I miss getting to tell him what new things the kids do every hour of the day. Jonathan doesn't have a phone where he is so I have to wait until he can get a chance to call me. So all of the little things that the kids do build up and pretty soon I forget to tell him about them. It's sad.



8. Glass of water. At home Jonathan always gets me a glass of water before bed. Now I have to get my own and sometimes I forget. It's terrible!



7. Advice. I ask Jonathan's advice on everything from "should we give Annika some Tylenol?" to "should I wear these shoes?" and everything in between. Since he's been gone I have to decide all of these things myself!



6. Stories. I love to listen to stories about his day. I can't wait for him to come home and tell me all about what he did, what everyone said, etc... He is very good at story telling and he always makes me laugh.



5. Humor. Everyone probably already knows this but Jonathan is hilarious. The first thing I ever noticed about him was his unique sense of humor. It is really strange going through so many days without it.



4. Talking. I miss being able to talk to him whenever I want. It's frustrating not being able to call him at any time I feel like it.



3. 4 a.m. crying. I really, really miss him when Annika starts crying at 4 o'clock in the morning!



2. Playing with the kids. I miss seeing him playing with the kids. They love him so much and its hard to see them miss him so much. They have a great relationship.



And the number one reason I miss Jonathan so badly....

1. Diaper changes! I really really miss help with changing diapers! With two kids in diapers you have to change about 150 diapers per day. When Jonathan is around then I only have to change about 75 per day.

Swimming at Thermopolis

Today we took Kennedi to Thermopolis to meet her parents. They were going to go swimming in the hotsprings there. When we got there it looked like so much fun that my mom and I decided to rent swimming suits and go. It was a lot of fun, but now I smell like sulfur. I guess that's the price you pay...well that and ten dollars!


Outside we found this dinosaur and Ezra had to go meet it. Don't worry, it was an herbivore.

Teaching...

I've taught a lot of classes in my day, but I still marvel at the quality of students here. As an experiment, I decided that I would raise one question and then count the number of questions that would follow. My question was, "What determines limitations on the free expression of religion?" After receiving 5 or 6 good answers, I received 14 additional questions, taking up roughly 1.25 hours. Among the follow-up questions:

"Does the free expression of religion transcend legality?"

"What court cases demonstrate the priveleging of historically-dominated groups?"

"Do tax breaks for large churches constitute a de facto violation of the establishment clause?"

And so forth. These are direct quotes, by the way. Some of these kids are 15 and graduating high school. Almost all of them have already been admitted to at least one top-tier institution. They study for fun. Teaching these kids is such a great challenge--I really didn't think I would enjoy teaching them this much. They really push you and they never stop until 1130.

As a result of all this, I've developed something I like to call "bewildered face." This is my general look when I'm in this class. One of the kids was kind enough to photograph me mid-bewilderment. This was my look after a girl in the front row asked the 2nd question above:

Boat ride pictures

Here are some pictures of our boat ride that I mentioned in an earlier post.

More from Yale

Hello again, everyone!

I just taught my first class here at the Summer school and it was pretty fun. I teach a 3 hour block from 830 am until 1130. Today was an introduction to American politics. I took about 4 pages of notes with me so I would have plenty to talk about. These students asked so many questions, however, that I only made it through about 1/2 page of notes. These kids are really sharp and driven--it's just like teaching a college class. Every question I asked they knew, and they would ask 4 or 5 additional questions on top of that. Just some really, really great kids.

I thought I would give you some additional pictures and explain some of the sights around here.


This is the "SSS" building on campus. I teach in this building sometimes, and sometimes I move next door. This is such a great, great building--just gorgeous on the inside and out. The Law School building looks like this as well, only it's about twice as big. And the library looks like this too-but it's even bigger than the law school.

I was really looking forward to the opportunity to look at the Beinecke Rare books library, aka Heaven on Earth. This is one of the best rare books libraries in the world--Gutenberg Bible, the holdings of Dickens, Jonathan Edwards, Franklin, Joyce, Schiller, Tocqueville--it's such an unbelievable collection. You can't really get in to look at anything, however, unless you're a researcher. I was just told by another faculty member here that this is because they are renovating it because they usually open some of the collection to the public. I've got to find a research topic I can make up that will give me better access. This is my quest.

This is the inside of the building I teach in. The picture doesn't do it justice--it's really breathtaking. These Yalies have a LOT of money to throw around--there's nothing here that isn't first class.

This is Yale's dining hall from the outside. The inside is even more amazing--if you saw the new Indiana Jones movie, this dining hall served as the library during filming. Actually, most of that movie was shot in New Haven around Yale, so most buildings were at least used for something.

Salutations from Yale

First of all, here are some pictures with explanations. The rest of the story comes after the photos!

Here's my doortag. It's the first time I've ever seen "Professor McKenzie" in print. I was excited. The weird animal is supposed to be a bulldog, Yale's mascot.

These are my luxurious accomodations. I get a living room and a bedroom that was built in the 1700s and creaks at night. I think it might be ghosts trying to haunt me for getting my PhD at a second-tier institution.

This is the view outside my front door. This area is completely enclosed so that students can study quietly without having to realize that there is a world outside.

This is my building, Davenport College. It looks nice, eh?

And here is the entrance to my building. The iron gate is really hard to open without a key. I tried. For a long time. When I got there, nobody was waiting for me so I had to try to pry it open until finally somebody saw me and told me to stop. Then he let me in.

Oh, hello there.

I've been at Yale now for a few days and it has been really great thus far. The atmosphere is really inspiring--you can walk down the street and actually hear people talk about philosophy! It's like a nerd's paradise! Libraries everywhere! Old buildings with old books! Hooray!

Anyway, so I've spent most of the time working on my dissertation. I plan to have a working draft finished by the time I leave. So that's taken up most of my time, but I did manage to squeeze in a few fun things.

First of all, I went to a little dive off campus called "Mamoun's Falafel Restaurant" and paid 4 bucks for some baba ghanouj and a soda. It was the greatest meal of my entire life. I almost licked the paper plate clean but the waitress took it away before I had the chance. Anyway, if you're ever in New Haven or New York City, Mamoun's is the place. Don't let the legions of homeless crowding the door scare you away!

Last night the faculty were treated to dinner at an expensive Italian Restaurant. We didn't have to pay, but I still felt silly eating 35 dollar rigatoni with corn and tomatoes. I just wished I was back at Mamoun's. I fortunately was able to leave before the faculty drank enough wine to lose their faculties and I headed down to campus. I went to a place called "Toad's" to watch the Alkaline Trio and The Fashion play a show. Apparently, "Toad" is an old guy who looks just like my dissertation advisor except that he sports a ghutra. Seemed like a nice guy. Anyway, I learned two things: 1) The Alkaline Trio still rock live (I last saw them in 1999) and 2) I'm waaaayyyy too old to go to concerts like that. I think the kids were worried I was going to die of old age right there on the floor.

So today I went to church and now I'm getting ready to scare the wits out of these kid geniuses. They're only in class until the 17th of July and they have 3 exams and a 15 page paper. These assignments are mandatory--if it were my choice, I'd let them off a lot easier. Just so you know, there are kids out there who will beg their parents to shell out 5000 dollars so they can take insanely difficult classes for an entire summer. I couldn't believe it either. When I was their age, I worked at the La Quinta fixing toilets long enough to buy a new skateboard and then hung around Taco John's all day...No wonder it's taking me so long to finish this dissertation.

That's all for now!

Howdy from Wyoming!

Hello from Wyoming! I took the kids and decided to brave a flight with them to come and stay with my parents while Jonathan is away for a month.
I don't get to come to Wyoming very much. I think we've come about once a year in the past five years. Everytime I come home I marvel at how beautiful it is. There are mountains every way you look. Below is a view from my parents back yard of the Bighorn mountains.

This next photo was taken at Devils Canyon overlook about ten or twenty minutes away. It's completely serene, uninhabited, beautiful land. There are wild mustangs that roam around out here. And if you know where to look you can find rocks from Indian teepee rings. (They used to use rocks to hold down the outside of their teepees.)


Ezra and Annika have been having fun at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They even got to go visit Grandma and Grandpa McKenzie a few times. Here they are hanging out in the new shades Grandma M. got for them.


Annika has really been missing her Daddy. She perks right us when she hears his voice on the phone. She has really become attached to me (even more than she used to be) in the past few days. That's one perk of Daddy being gone that I don't mind!


Ezra came down with a fever on Thursday night. He has been feeling pretty bad for the past two days. I even took him to the doctor on Friday because of high fever (well high for an over protective mom like me, 102). He told me Friday night that his teeth hurt, so perhaps he is getting in his molars. I feel bad for the little guy.


We were fortunate to be here at the same time as my beautiful niece, Kennedi. She has been helping me out by playing with the kids and keeping them happy. Ezra follows her around and thinks she is the coolest thing that has ever happened to him. He wants to do everything she is doing. He has even noticed that she goes into the bathroom to potty, so I'm hoping he will want to copy that behavior pretty soon. Here are some pictures of Kennedi in all her glory. Isn't she cute?




I should mention that Kennedi is perhaps the bravest soul I know. Today we got to take a ride in a speed boat at the Horseshoe Bend. When we got into the canyon the driver stopped and let Ken climb onto raft and hold on while the boat pulled her behind. She was not coerced into this. She wanted to do it and asked if she could. She's seven. And she liked it! I wouldn't dare do something like that. Then when we got back into town she went over to my uncles farm and rode a horse. She is really brave. Below is a picture of one of the boats in the canyon. We weren't on that one, but it is the same canyon that we were in.

I have a lot more pictures and stories and the top ten reasons we miss Jonathan to add to the blog, but I am way to tired right now and need to go to bed. There's something to keep you waiting for! Jonathan told me he will also add lots of pictures from where he is once he gets an internet connection in his room, so we can see what he's been up to soon!

5 Reasons I miss my Wife and Kids!

For those of you who need a preface to this post, Christina was brave enough to take Ezra and Annika on a flight to visit her parents in Lovell. She went to help them prepare to move and to have somewhere fun to stay while I went to brighten young minds in Connecticut. What follows is 5 of the thousands of reasons I find myself missing them terribly. 

1. It's hard to sleep. I miss Christina keeping me up until 1:30 am, Annika waking up around 2:30, Ezra waking up around 4:00 asking to sleep in "mom's bed" and proceeding to block me out by sleeping horizontally across my pillow, which then causes me to sleep at the bottom of the bed like a pet dog until Annika wakes up again for a bottle and I fall asleep sitting up on the couch, only to wake to the wonderful sound of Ezra saying, "I need a milk Daddy" at around 6:45. It sounds strange, but I think I get a better night's sleep when the above occurs than I do now. Now it's just quiet. And lonely. It's nice to know that people need you and want to be around you, even when it's 3:00 in the morning and you are dead tired. It's still a great feeling!

2. There's no laughter in this house. And no crying either. If you are reading this, you've probably remarked to yourself on several occasions, "Christina is the funniest person I've ever met." Which you've no doubt followed with, "And those kids, they are a riot!" I know I think this about 25 times per day. I miss Tina's dry wit and I especially miss the way she makes herself laugh. Hysterically. That's the mark of someone truly funny--nobody can make them laugh harder than themselves. I feel like my day is missing some kind of hilarious running commentary, then I realize that I'm going through it without Christina. And I really miss watching Ezra laugh, which then makes Annika laugh as well. I even miss the crying! Now all I hear is air conditioner and various rumblings in Spanish/Chinese/Polish from our three neighbors. 

3. Kisses. I really miss those. From Christina's good morning kiss to Ezra's "if I kiss you will you take me to the playground?" kiss to Annika's attempt to suck your nose clean off of your face, those kisses can't be beat. 

4. Bragging about my pseudo-accomplishments in political science. I still give myself the pep talk about 10 times per day ("You're the best! You can do it! Sure, somebody will read this sometime! No, it's not a waste of 6 years of your life! Hey, what you're doing is as important as helping people! In fact, you are helping people--helping them see a slightly different side of a 19th century American recluse using verbose jargon that only a specialist can understand! Ha, take that, brain surgeon!) but there's nobody around to support me while her eyes slowly glaze over as I go into minute detail about my "project." Seriously, though, it's not just talking about school, but about everything. I really miss talking face to face. There's really so much that goes into conversation that we can't get without physically being near each other. Telephones are nice, but they're a little empty if you're used to talking to your lovely wife whenever you please. 

5. Being a (big) part of their life, and vice versa. Being away from Christina and the kids makes me realize how absolutely great it is to be a big part of their lives and to have them as the biggest part of my life. It really stinks not to see Ezra playing with his cousin or Annika laughing at Grandma's dog or Christina taking photos or reading a book or cooking dinner. That's probably the hardest. 

They've been gone three days, so it comforts me to know that there are only about 30 days left until I see them. Ugh. Missing them has left me looking like this (let me warn you: I took this picture after 3 days of missing my family. I have been unable to shower or shave and have picked up a bad habit or two in the hopes of staving off the ennui):

Summer Reading List

In the spirit of summer, we thought we would take part of our post to give you our summer reading list. These are all the books we want to read this summer and, although we may not get to all of them, we hope to have the free time to get most (or at least some!) of them read. If you want, you can comment to our post and tell us what's on your list (or what should be on ours)!

Jonathan: 

Fiction: The Stand; Short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Non-Fiction: Bound by Recognition: the Politics of Identity after Hegel; Crises of the Republic; Case Studies on Narcissism; Psychopathology and Politics; Public Opinion; The Days of Henry Thoreau.

Christina: The Pillars of the Earth (it will probably take all summer to finish!)

Ezra: The Collected Works of Doctor Seuss; The Collected Works of Bob the Builder; The Collected Works of Clifford; War and Peace.

Annika: Baby Bird's Day; Goodnight Moon; Dr. Seuss' shorter works; any book with the faces of babies on the pages; books that taste good.

Our other goal this summer: We also hope to potty train Ezra by the end of the summer. We checked out one book, "Potting Training in Less than a Day" because many people suggested we read this book and follow it. If you have any suggestions, tips, reading materials, etc. that will help us accomplish our goal, let us know! Thanks!

"Miss Banana and Mister Tomato"

Today Christina, Ezra, and Annika met me at school for lunch. We met at the fountain outside of my office where Ezra took a little dip in the water. While trying just to get his hands wet, he accidentally put his chest in front of one of the water spouts. The spout then forcefully sprayed him with water until he fell back, scared and crying for Daddy to come and save him. He was soaked! A few seconds later he seemed to be okay, as he skipped and jumped his way to the student union and enjoyed his special lunch of french fries and green beans. 

In other news, here are a few pictures of us from the last few days...

Christina calls this picture "Miss Banana and Mister Tomato"

Here's a picture of Christina talking to her mom on the phone. I really like this picture a lot. Also: look how green everything is! That's what a few weeks of constant rain will do to a place!

Ezra was having fun playing with the camera--he kept turning his body around and making funny faces for the camera. For every picture we took of Annika, he immediately said, "Ezra's turn now!" He's a funny little guy.

Christina said I didn't have anything funny in this post, so I've decided to add a joke:

Rene Descartes walks into a resturant and sits down for dinner. The waiter comes over and asks if he'd like an appetizer
"No thank you" says Descartes, "I'd just like to order dinner"
"Would you like to hear our daily specials?" asks the waiter
"No" says Descartes, getting impatient
"Would you like a drink before dinner?" the waiter asks
Descartes is insulted, since he's a tee-totaler
"I think not!" he says indignantly, and POOF! he disappeared.

For those who don't get it, Descartes is the first philosopher of the modern period who famously (sort of) said, "Cogito ergo sum" or "I think therefore I am". And you didn't think philosophy could be funny!