The hour badly spent

collegianism, ivory tower, making passes at girls with glasses, the k-state collegian is just a fancy blog, tanya gonzález, slow newsdayDecember 5, 2008 2:43 am

We know what the Collegian’s fawning "faculty profiles" mean: nothing else is going on today! Nevertheless, we can’t help but feel a warm glow seeing someone we actually know and like in the spotlight. Have you ever met Tanya González? Did you know:

  • Just like all the greatest people you’ve ever met, she’s from Southern California.
  • She describes herself as a "bookworm" (call me!) who is "very passionate about social justice."
  • She’s one of the few professors who wears hipster glasses.
  • The Collegian forgot to put the accent mark over the "á" in her name.

Too bad she’s also a massive mentirosa:

She said she chose to come to K-State from California because she recognized the friendly atmosphere of the campus.

"I loved the K-State interview I had," she said. "This department is full of the nicest people. It was a fun transition and completely new experience."

Down the hall, the department head got a good laugh out of hearing that one.

Then several grad students in González’ class produced freshly polished apples and thank-you notes for their teacher. "Aren’t I an extremely accommodating and helpful teacher?" she said. "Yes! She’s an extremely accommodating and helpful teacher," said Ashley Ortiz, who nodded energetically, motioning for the other students to follow suit. They looked up from their blue books, unsure at first, until González flashed a white-hot scowl at them. "Mm-hmm, helpful and accommodating!" they sang in unison.

[K-State Collegian]

last night's party, pretentious literary douchebag, ivory tower, creative underclass, facebook, blogsome nymphet, donna potts, wendy matlock, donald hedrick, scopophilic patriarchy, karin westman, tanya gonzález, janice radwayNovember 21, 2008 3:13 pm

I went to the reception after Janice Radway’s lecture for six reasons.

  1. Yum
  2. Free booze.
  3. Erica Hateley said I should go socialize, and I always do what Erica Hateley says.
  4. If I couldn’t find someone to socialize with, I’d just skulk along the walls, gaping stupidly at the goings-on, and post my gawkings here for the web-savvy to stumble upon when they google themselves the next day.
  5. I always hope each party will be the party where some professor drinks so much port that she starts quoting James Joyce until all her grad students feel uncomfortable and leave early. And I hope that "someone" is Karin Westman.
  6. Uh, five reasons.

I did end up drinking all of James Machor’s white wine. After that I found myself face-to-face with Janice Radway, who followed a long K-State tradition of being an extremely gracious guest.

"Hi. I’m Jan." She extended a hand.

"I’m the only undergrad here," I said, and sat down.

Jan was intensely interested in the small circle of professors around her (Naomi Wood, a well-dressed Donald Hedrick, and two others whose names I forget). As none of us were Kansas natives, she asked what we thought of the place (the consensus is that it sucks JUST a little bit). Then we talked about movies or something.

True to form, Donna Potts and Tanya Gonzalez left for a better party at around 8pm. Wendy Matlock’s cookies were gone. Only one critical issue remained, and Han Yu was the perfect person to raise it. To paraphrase: why do Michael Donnelly’s eyebrows look like they were grafted from a comically overeducated cartoon supervillain?

As it turns out, he does not style or trim them in any way. Which means that until the X-Men step forward, the world is doomed.

great moments in journalism, the k-state collegian is just a fancy blog, echo chamber of madness, tanya gonzález, music mix the bourgeoisie and the rebelOctober 25, 2008 12:21 pm

Tanya Gonzalez said she liked the line about "taking a cake out of the oven."

"Yeah," I admitted, "it was kind of pompous, but I like that they let me play around with stories about the arts."

[K-State Collegian]