It's the middle of the fall semester at CUA, which means that my days are (or at least, should be) filled with student conferences. Faculty are required to post mid-term grades for freshmen, so that our newest students can get a sense of how they are doing before it's too late to change their study methods or to withdraw from a course. Academic advisors are expected to review their freshmen advisees' grades and meet with any student who has one or more grades below C-. That's about half of my roster, so I've had to prioritize my advisees according to urgency.
This week, I met with most of the students who are currently failing one or more courses. I heard a lot of excuses, from "my computer crashed" to "I've been really sick" to "the professor has a foreign accent that's difficult to understand." But this year I also got some surprisingly thoughtful answers. So I'd like to take my next few posts to explore why freshmen get into trouble academically and what educators can do to help.
I'll start with one of the most common problems: poor reading skills. I'm not talking about basic literacy here but about the ability to read a primary source critically, with attention to argument, context and genre, and to form independent thoughts about the author's ideas and the way he or she has presented them. Reading primary texts in this manner requires a different set of skills than reading a textbook, and most of my students have had little to no exposure to primary texts (eventually, I'll get around to ranting about the problem of standardized tests in this blog...).
Those of us who teach college freshmen have had to devote more class time than we'd like to teaching students how to read a primary text, and some approaches are more successful than others. The typical (traditional) approach is to assign a text or a part of a text for the next class session and ask students to "come prepared to discuss." If you take this approach and you're lucky, a few students will read the text, and maybe one or two of them will have grasped the main points. If you're really lucky, one student will have something intelligent to say about it. There are at least two problems with this approach. First, the non-readers in the class rely on the readers to carry the discussion, and/or they try to steer the instructor toward general topics that can be discussed entirely without reference to the text. There are ways to get around this issue, but a second problem remains: most students will leave your course still lacking the skills to read the texts.
A better--and popular--approach is to assign a text or a part of a text for the next class session but give students one or two questions to think about as they read. I've tried this approach (in connection with the third approach that I will describe below), and the results are better: more students read the text and participate in an on-topic discussion, and most would pass a reading quiz. The problem, though,is that this approach still doesn't teach students how to become independent and critical readers. Essentially you are telling them ahead of time how to interpret the text before they've had a chance to wrestle with the ideas themselves. Students still have no idea how to ask their own good questions, and if you, the teacher, try to take the discussion in a different direction than the prepared questions, you'll encounter the same result described in the "typical approach." Prepared questions can and do become a crutch that some students will never be able to throw away.
The best approach (I think) might be one that I and a few other teaching fellows tried last year: take class time (as much as it pains us to do so) to introduce a variety of reading skills and techniques. In my course sections, we began the semester by talking about the various genres of literature that we'd be reading, and how you can't read all genres the same way. I tried to introduce a new reading skill whenever we switched genres, so for example, when we looked at the Biblical texts (with which most of my students are at least somewhat familiar), we took class time to practice noting repeated and contrasting elements, and to think about what that might mean. When we switched to Athanasius, we did an opening exercise that got us thinking about the various types of appeals one can make in an argument (e.g., appeals to authority, appeals to experience, appeals to aesthetics) before discussing how the author used them to support his teachings. And when we switched to Ambrose's "mystagogical catechesis" on the sacraments, I brought in, to a fair amount of snickering, a big bag of colored pencils and took the class through a mark-up technique that produces a graphic representation of the ways in which Ambrose interweaves some themes and separates others to make his main point.
I found this approach to be effective, although there's still a lot of room for improvement. It was a struggle at first, but I saw a gradual improvement in the reading journals over the course of the semester. In the beginning, most journal entries were either restatements of the main ideas of the text. This is a good start--at least I got a good idea of which students really understood what they were reading--but I had to push them to give me more. What did they agree or disagree with, and why? What ideas were new to them? By the end of the semester, I'm happy to say, most of the class had made the transition.
Of course, no one approach reaches all students. Some students will choose not to read for or participate in class no matter what the teacher does. Part of becoming an adult is learning to prioritize, and some students will decide that my class is low on their priority list. Naturally, I hope that these students have made that choice because they have deemed that getting good grades in their major courses is more important (and some courses, like English 101 and foreign language courses, have higher "passing grade" thresholds than Theology), or because they are doing their best to juggle a full course load with a part-time job, but if some choose to place a higher priority on "recreation," that's their call. They will get the grade that they have chosen.
Next time: (re)teaching students how to think
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Writing by committee
I finally finished my dissertation proposal today. It's been about a year in the making, and most of that time was spent trying to put a committee together. The proposal process is daunting, to say the least. At least 10 different faculty members and administrators have to sign off on my project before I can actually begin writing. The first level is my actual dissertation committee--my director and two readers. They have read my drafts and have made suggestions for improvements and corrections, which I incorporated into the final draft. Once they all approve of the final, it goes to the church history program director, and then to the School of Theology and Religious Studies Ph.D. committee. The committee has three options: approve as written, approve with minor changes, or reject. If they reject the proposal, I go back to the drawing board, try to come up with a new project, and begin the process all over again. If they approve, I make any changes they require and resubmit to the chair of the committee (unless they accepted it as written), who passes it along to the Dean of the School. He has the same three options, and if he approves, I make any requested changes, and he passes the proposal to the Vice Provost's office. The Vice Provost, who is also the Dean of Graduate Studies, recruits an outside reader (a CUA faculty member from outside TRS), who reviews the document and who can recommend that the Vice Provost accept or reject the proposal.
In the best case scenario, all of these reviewers would approve the proposal as written, and the entire process would be finished in about 10-15 weeks. But this is a university, and two of the five levels of approval are committees, and we all know how committees work. So I am, at this stage in my career, a writer with about 10 editors who may not all want the same final product.
Most proposals are accepted with minor changes, but I find myself wondering: if each of the five levels of approval results in "minor changes" to the proposal, how close to the original will the final product be? Will I even recognize the project once it is handed back to me? What if I don't like or can't understand the direction it ends up going in? What if my director and readers disagree want changes that are incompatible with each other? What will this process do to me emotionally? What will it do to my long-suffering husband who has to watch my ups and downs?
If I could press a button and have my finished dissertation just drop into my lap, I would. But it's a rite of passage--everyone with a Ph.D. has had to endure the process, and they want to make sure that everyone coming up behind them endures the same thing they did. Somehow it will all work out...
In the best case scenario, all of these reviewers would approve the proposal as written, and the entire process would be finished in about 10-15 weeks. But this is a university, and two of the five levels of approval are committees, and we all know how committees work. So I am, at this stage in my career, a writer with about 10 editors who may not all want the same final product.
Most proposals are accepted with minor changes, but I find myself wondering: if each of the five levels of approval results in "minor changes" to the proposal, how close to the original will the final product be? Will I even recognize the project once it is handed back to me? What if I don't like or can't understand the direction it ends up going in? What if my director and readers disagree want changes that are incompatible with each other? What will this process do to me emotionally? What will it do to my long-suffering husband who has to watch my ups and downs?
If I could press a button and have my finished dissertation just drop into my lap, I would. But it's a rite of passage--everyone with a Ph.D. has had to endure the process, and they want to make sure that everyone coming up behind them endures the same thing they did. Somehow it will all work out...
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Three Main Christian Traditions Simplified
I've billed this blog as "random thoughts on theology, etc." but haven't really written any theology reflections until now. Last night, however, I was reading about the sacrament of baptism in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and I had a brainstorm. So, without further ado, I offer my first theology post.
I used to describe the differences between the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches in terms of number of sacraments observed, the role of tradition, whether or not clergy can marry, and so on. I now think the differences can be summarized far more simply. I now suspect that most of the specific differences between the churches stem from the fact that each tradition emphasizes a different part of the salvation process.
The doctrine of salvation, at least according to the (Protestant) theology textbooks I've read, may be subdivided into three distinct but overlapping processes: justification, sanctification and glorification. Justification is the act of being made (or being declared, according to some denominations) righteous before God. It means that God considers our sins removed or covered with the blood of Jesus' sacrifice. The price has been paid. Sanctification is the process of being made holy (some denominations believe that sanctification is more of a one-time act that happens at a definite moment in time after justification). We learn to be more and more like Christ, and we put sinful ways behind us. Glorification is the consummation of salvation, when all traces of our old self are finally stripped away, and we are perfected in body and spirit, able at last to enter into God's presence.
Since I've been at CUA, I've noticed that when Catholics and Protestants use words like "salvation" or "saved," they have different processes in mind. Protestants almost always are referring exclusively to justification. Forgiveness of sins, for Protestants, at least, is a once-for-all-time deal. When you become a Christian, all the sins you've ever committed or ever will commit are forgiven. So the Protestant can speak of having been "saved" and no longer subject to God's wrath. That's what salvation is, after all: salvation from God's punishment of sin, which is death. Catholics, however, are almost always referring to sanctification. The baptism that initiates one into the Catholic Church removes the original sin that one was born with, but sins committed after baptism also need to be forgiven, and that requires one to "cooperate" with God's grace by showing earnest repentance. This is why the Catholic Church recognizes penance (confession of sin followed by acts of contrition and satisfaction such as prayer or works of charity) as a sacrament and holds to the existence of purgatory. Only after all of one's sins have been atoned for may one enter the presence of the holy God in heaven, and baptism doesn't cover sins committed afterward. This is why Catholics speak of being saved, and it's also why the Catholic Church seems, to most Protestants, to preach a works-based salvation. The focus is on the process rather than on a single moment in time.
What I didn't realize until last night is that Eastern Orthodox Christians focus on the third part of salvation, glorification. Eastern Christians have historically spoken about "divinization," which sounds heretical to Western ears but really means being made more and more like God. Divinization begins with justification and sanctification, but also includes the idea that two of God's fundamental attributes are incorruptibility and immortality. Man was created in God's image and likeness, but these have been tarnished or twisted by sin. Hence he can no longer dwell in God's presence and receive from God the gift of immortality (Eastern theology states the human beings were not created immortal but would have enjoyed eternal life as long as they remained in God's presence). The sacramental life, which begins with baptism and includes reception of the Eucharist (infants in the Eastern Orthodox church receive communion from the day of their baptism on) and frequent confession and penance, is more than the Western "account keeping" model (Eastern Orthodox Christianity believes in penance for post-baptismal sins, but does not believe in purgatory) and consumption of the body and blood of Christ, the sacrificial victim (or hostia, from which we get the word "host" to refer to the blessed communion bread). Participation in the sacraments is participation in the divine life itself, as the sacraments reflect and create heavenly realities in the lives of believers on earth. Perhaps the best example is the Eastern Orthodox marriage ceremony, which includes rituals that recreate the crowning of Adam and Eve as king and queen of their household. As one travels through life and participates in the liturgies, one becomes closer and closer to God and can once dwell in His presence and enjoy His incorruptibility and immortality. Roman Catholicism has these ideas too--and speaking of sanctification as "account keeping" is an oversimplification, to be sure--but in much more of a supporting role.
Now don't get me wrong: the three traditions do have real differences, and different views of where the emphasis is placed in the salvation act or process have led to highly divergent worldviews and practices which may be ultimately insurmountable. But we can't have an informed discussion if we misunderstand the ways we use basic terms like "salvation." So the next time you find yourself having a theological discussion with a Christian from another tradition, don't assume that he or she means the same thing you do by using certain words. We've looked at the key term "salvation" in this post. To summarize: Protestants, even though they don't deny the importance of obedience to God and living an upright life, emphasize God's absolute grace and focus on the doctrine of justification. Roman Catholics believe in grace, too, but believe that Christians must "show willing" in order to be saved. They must cooperate with God's grace by continually repenting of their sins and by actively participating in the sanctification process. Eastern Orthodox Christians, too, speak of grace and acts of repentance, but tend to take a panoramic view of salvation and stress the end goal of participating in the divine life in the presence of God.
I used to describe the differences between the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches in terms of number of sacraments observed, the role of tradition, whether or not clergy can marry, and so on. I now think the differences can be summarized far more simply. I now suspect that most of the specific differences between the churches stem from the fact that each tradition emphasizes a different part of the salvation process.
The doctrine of salvation, at least according to the (Protestant) theology textbooks I've read, may be subdivided into three distinct but overlapping processes: justification, sanctification and glorification. Justification is the act of being made (or being declared, according to some denominations) righteous before God. It means that God considers our sins removed or covered with the blood of Jesus' sacrifice. The price has been paid. Sanctification is the process of being made holy (some denominations believe that sanctification is more of a one-time act that happens at a definite moment in time after justification). We learn to be more and more like Christ, and we put sinful ways behind us. Glorification is the consummation of salvation, when all traces of our old self are finally stripped away, and we are perfected in body and spirit, able at last to enter into God's presence.
Since I've been at CUA, I've noticed that when Catholics and Protestants use words like "salvation" or "saved," they have different processes in mind. Protestants almost always are referring exclusively to justification. Forgiveness of sins, for Protestants, at least, is a once-for-all-time deal. When you become a Christian, all the sins you've ever committed or ever will commit are forgiven. So the Protestant can speak of having been "saved" and no longer subject to God's wrath. That's what salvation is, after all: salvation from God's punishment of sin, which is death. Catholics, however, are almost always referring to sanctification. The baptism that initiates one into the Catholic Church removes the original sin that one was born with, but sins committed after baptism also need to be forgiven, and that requires one to "cooperate" with God's grace by showing earnest repentance. This is why the Catholic Church recognizes penance (confession of sin followed by acts of contrition and satisfaction such as prayer or works of charity) as a sacrament and holds to the existence of purgatory. Only after all of one's sins have been atoned for may one enter the presence of the holy God in heaven, and baptism doesn't cover sins committed afterward. This is why Catholics speak of being saved, and it's also why the Catholic Church seems, to most Protestants, to preach a works-based salvation. The focus is on the process rather than on a single moment in time.
What I didn't realize until last night is that Eastern Orthodox Christians focus on the third part of salvation, glorification. Eastern Christians have historically spoken about "divinization," which sounds heretical to Western ears but really means being made more and more like God. Divinization begins with justification and sanctification, but also includes the idea that two of God's fundamental attributes are incorruptibility and immortality. Man was created in God's image and likeness, but these have been tarnished or twisted by sin. Hence he can no longer dwell in God's presence and receive from God the gift of immortality (Eastern theology states the human beings were not created immortal but would have enjoyed eternal life as long as they remained in God's presence). The sacramental life, which begins with baptism and includes reception of the Eucharist (infants in the Eastern Orthodox church receive communion from the day of their baptism on) and frequent confession and penance, is more than the Western "account keeping" model (Eastern Orthodox Christianity believes in penance for post-baptismal sins, but does not believe in purgatory) and consumption of the body and blood of Christ, the sacrificial victim (or hostia, from which we get the word "host" to refer to the blessed communion bread). Participation in the sacraments is participation in the divine life itself, as the sacraments reflect and create heavenly realities in the lives of believers on earth. Perhaps the best example is the Eastern Orthodox marriage ceremony, which includes rituals that recreate the crowning of Adam and Eve as king and queen of their household. As one travels through life and participates in the liturgies, one becomes closer and closer to God and can once dwell in His presence and enjoy His incorruptibility and immortality. Roman Catholicism has these ideas too--and speaking of sanctification as "account keeping" is an oversimplification, to be sure--but in much more of a supporting role.
Now don't get me wrong: the three traditions do have real differences, and different views of where the emphasis is placed in the salvation act or process have led to highly divergent worldviews and practices which may be ultimately insurmountable. But we can't have an informed discussion if we misunderstand the ways we use basic terms like "salvation." So the next time you find yourself having a theological discussion with a Christian from another tradition, don't assume that he or she means the same thing you do by using certain words. We've looked at the key term "salvation" in this post. To summarize: Protestants, even though they don't deny the importance of obedience to God and living an upright life, emphasize God's absolute grace and focus on the doctrine of justification. Roman Catholics believe in grace, too, but believe that Christians must "show willing" in order to be saved. They must cooperate with God's grace by continually repenting of their sins and by actively participating in the sanctification process. Eastern Orthodox Christians, too, speak of grace and acts of repentance, but tend to take a panoramic view of salvation and stress the end goal of participating in the divine life in the presence of God.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Philosophy of (No) Religion
I had the opportunity this afternoon to meet the students that I will be teaching in the spring. It was an awkward meeting; I, along with a grad student in English, will be team-teaching two separate sections of students this year. One section has been set aside for students in the University Honors Program, and the other section is just "regular", although I always have one or two students in the "regular" classes who could easily do honors-level work.
The third member of the teaching team comes from the School of Philosophy, and since the Honors Program philosophy track follows a different sequence, I'll be working with two different philosophy instructors. The "regular" section will be taught by a grad student in philosophy, but the honors section will be taught by a member of the philosophy faculty, Fr. James Brent.
Fr. Brent had the students fill out information cards, and one of the bits of information he requested was "religious affiliation." This datum, he said, was optional; students could leave it blank if they so chose. Then he made an interesting statement: the belief that religious affiliation is optional is itself a philosophical position that demands examination and proof.
I don't know why I'd never thought of this before. I've had courses in Philosophy of Religion, and I've always regarded atheism as a religion in its own right, or at least as a philosophical commitment to a denial of the existence of God. But Fr. Brent is correct: to regard religious affiliation as "optional" says a lot about the value (or lack thereof) and significance of religion in the first place.
To give credit where credit is due, Fr. Brent cited "A Secular Age" by the modern philosopher Charles Taylor as the source of his statement. It's been a long time since I read a philosophy book, but this one looks good, so I'll be adding it to my reading list. I'm just not sure when I'll get to it...
The third member of the teaching team comes from the School of Philosophy, and since the Honors Program philosophy track follows a different sequence, I'll be working with two different philosophy instructors. The "regular" section will be taught by a grad student in philosophy, but the honors section will be taught by a member of the philosophy faculty, Fr. James Brent.
Fr. Brent had the students fill out information cards, and one of the bits of information he requested was "religious affiliation." This datum, he said, was optional; students could leave it blank if they so chose. Then he made an interesting statement: the belief that religious affiliation is optional is itself a philosophical position that demands examination and proof.
I don't know why I'd never thought of this before. I've had courses in Philosophy of Religion, and I've always regarded atheism as a religion in its own right, or at least as a philosophical commitment to a denial of the existence of God. But Fr. Brent is correct: to regard religious affiliation as "optional" says a lot about the value (or lack thereof) and significance of religion in the first place.
To give credit where credit is due, Fr. Brent cited "A Secular Age" by the modern philosopher Charles Taylor as the source of his statement. It's been a long time since I read a philosophy book, but this one looks good, so I'll be adding it to my reading list. I'm just not sure when I'll get to it...
Friday, August 27, 2010
Off and limping!
The fall semester officially kicks off Monday, but freshman orientation began today, so I'm now on the clock. This morning I met my 35 (!) "exploratory" (= undeclared) advisees, and I expect a handful of them to trickle in to the office an in hour or so to make some last minute schedule changes.
I haven't had the most auspicious first week. On Sunday morning, I was stretching my legs in bed. I flexed my foot, and something in my ankle popped. By the time church was over, I couldn't put any weight on it and was in a lot of pain.
There's never a "good" time to be injured, but the timing of this injury is especially difficult, because I've had a faculty meeting/workshop every day this week, and all of them are mandatory. Taking Metro to school while on crutches is almost impossible--the campus is built on a hill, the train station is at the bottom of the hill, and most of the buildings I haunt are a good 5-10 minute walk when I'm unimpaired. My husband had to arrange to work from home this week and play chaffeur, for which I am thankful.
As bad as the timing was, the experience has actually been uplifting. I've been reminded of how much I love my school family. We have such a great spirit of community here--I haven't had to beg for help when I've needed it, as I might at another school. In fact, I haven't even had to ask for help, because every time I've turned around, someone has been there to say, "stay put and I'll take care of [x]." And the beauty of it is that it goes beyond just my circle of friends and colleagues; the meetings on Monday and Tuesday (the worst two days) involved many unfamiliar faces.
I find it embarrassing to be the center of attention, and I hate to be a burden to others, but I think I needed the reminder not to automatically assume that everyone I meet is a self-absorbed, impatient and uncaring (can I say it?) bastard. Many people in DC act in those ways, but CUA is an oasis, and I'm so glad I'm here.
I haven't had the most auspicious first week. On Sunday morning, I was stretching my legs in bed. I flexed my foot, and something in my ankle popped. By the time church was over, I couldn't put any weight on it and was in a lot of pain.
There's never a "good" time to be injured, but the timing of this injury is especially difficult, because I've had a faculty meeting/workshop every day this week, and all of them are mandatory. Taking Metro to school while on crutches is almost impossible--the campus is built on a hill, the train station is at the bottom of the hill, and most of the buildings I haunt are a good 5-10 minute walk when I'm unimpaired. My husband had to arrange to work from home this week and play chaffeur, for which I am thankful.
As bad as the timing was, the experience has actually been uplifting. I've been reminded of how much I love my school family. We have such a great spirit of community here--I haven't had to beg for help when I've needed it, as I might at another school. In fact, I haven't even had to ask for help, because every time I've turned around, someone has been there to say, "stay put and I'll take care of [x]." And the beauty of it is that it goes beyond just my circle of friends and colleagues; the meetings on Monday and Tuesday (the worst two days) involved many unfamiliar faces.
I find it embarrassing to be the center of attention, and I hate to be a burden to others, but I think I needed the reminder not to automatically assume that everyone I meet is a self-absorbed, impatient and uncaring (can I say it?) bastard. Many people in DC act in those ways, but CUA is an oasis, and I'm so glad I'm here.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The house-hunting rollercoaster
I've engaged in more emotional eating during the past few days than I care to admit.
The reason: a contract on a townhouse that fell through.
In order to fully appreciate the range of emotions that we've experienced lately, you need to understand our current living situation. My husband and I moved to northern Virgina in July 2004 so that I could begin graduate studies. I was unable to accompany him on the apartment-finding trip, but we had compiled a list of promising complexes together before he left. Every one of those complexes turned out to have major drawbacks, and I'm sure he chose the best of the lot, but on moving day, I arrived first with the cats, and when I saw the tiny kitchen and tiny (single) bathroom, I almost cried. I have since realized that we have a fairly typical floorplan for this area, but that hasn't made my stay here much easier. Imagine an accomplished cook who likes to do "involved" recipes having to do so with enough counter space to make a peanut butter sandwich. But the kitchen, now, is a mere headache comparaed to the items on our list of grievances, which has mushroomed in the six years we've lived here: mildew coming up from the pipes in the bathroom (I have a mold allergy), unknown bugs (neither bedbugs nor fleas) that have (I think) caused one of our cats to lose the fur on the backs of his front legs, a washing machine that leaves dark, concentrated rust streaks on good clothes (and that has a violent "gentle" cycle that has destroyed other items), floorboards and walls so thin that we can hear every sneeze our neighbors make, towing companies that have mistakenly towed our car from our reserved spot, etc, etc, etc....We've been trying to get out of this place for about 3 years now, but there just aren't any other apartments in locations that won't make one or both commutes worse, won't break the bank, or, from a prolonged reading of renters' reviews, subject us to the same problems we already face.
We really thought we'd done it this year, though. A good friend of mine moved out of the area in April and her townhouse was still on the market a month later. It seemed ideal: the location was better than our current apartment, the neighbors were nice, and it had most of the features we wanted in a home. We put in an offer, and my friend was as excited as we were.
We met with the loan officer and filled out the application for financing. No problems there. We had the appraisal done--no problems there, either. I went over to the property several times and measured all the rooms and checked "home decorating" books out of the library. We had preliminary ideas for all but two rooms, and we were counting the days. Then we had the home inspection.
The exterior of the property needed some minor repairs, but nothing expensive or invasive. All was looking good. We went down to the basement to start the interior inspection in the utility room. The inspector removed the cover from the electrical panel and asked us how much we loved the house. The house, he said, had aluminum wiring. At first, we were just confused--what could be bad about aluminum wiring? Isn't aluminum a conductor? The inspector explained that aluminum wiring was more likely to cause a fire than copper wire. Furthermore, these risks increase when aluminum wire, which is no longer in use for that very reason, is joined to the copper wire in modern fixtures, and the lights and outlets looked too new to be original. Rewiring the house would probably cost $15-20,000. There were special connectors to mitigate the fire risk; they would probably cost a couple of thousand dollars to install, if they hadn't been already. The only way to know for sure was to hire an electrician to inspect the system. The home inspector advised us to go home and do some research on aluminum wiring and call him if we decided to go through with the deal, at which point he would resume the inspection. He wouldn't charge us for the little he'd done so far.
We went home and started reading up on the topic. I won't take up any more space with boring technical details, but there's a good summary at http://www.alwirerepair.com/whats_the_problem.htm (I looked through a lot of material. This website seems to be balanced and accurate.). We talked to one of my uncles, who has an electrical engineering degree and who now works part-time as his local Home Depot's wiring specialist. He said that he distrusted any mix of copper and aluminum, and agreed with us that any repairs made to our unit would be meaningless if the neighbors with whom we would share walls had done nothing or undertaken an unsafe repair. We talked to a representative at our insurance company, who assured us that they would issue a policy at no additional premium, but nevertheless would advise against buying the property. We also learned that overloading an aluminum-wired circuit could cause a fire before the circuit breaker tripped. We are not electricity sippers: we have a big TV and a chest freezer. By Monday morning, we had decided that the only way we would feel safe was if we could be assured that the homeowners' association could prove that all the units in our row had been repaired according to one of the only two methods we could accept (rewiring or the COPALUM crimp).
I went in to the HOA office for a casual chat with the representative on duty. As expected, the HOA had never required any owner to do anything about the interior of their property. She knew aluminum wiring was an issue, but she understood that there were connectors that could join copper to aluminum. I explained what I'd learned--that those connectors have since proven to be a greater fire hazard than doing nothing. She seemed genuiunely surprised--she knew only that joining in new copper fixtures was not easy, but she had no idea that it was dangerous. She also said that she'd lived in her unit for 25 years and had never had a problem. Again, I told her what I'd learned: aluminum wiring has about a 30-year lifespan, which means that as time goes on, the risk increases. She then said that there had been two fires in the complex in recent years, but that one of them was due to an overloaded basement circuit--exactly the kind of situation I feared our high-usage appliances might lead to (overloaded copper circuits generally trip the breakers before they burn out, unlike aluminum). My heart sank when she told me about the fires. I left the office and called my husband, and we agreed that if the unit had been completely detached, we might have gone through with the contract and brought in an electrician qualified to rewire or do the COPALUM crimp, although there aren't many around. But the unit was part of a row, and that changed everything. Reluctantly, we called off the deal. We were completely crushed.
The home inspector said he guessed that the seller wasn't aware of the wiring, and I believe him. When she bought the property herself, the market was hot, and home inspections were one of the casualties (sellers were rejecting contracts with inspection contingencies, and many inspectors feared that too many "lost sales" would lead to realtors no longer giving them referrals, so that buyers weren't given all the details). Additionally, at that time, the "pigtailing" repair was considered by many electricians to be safe. Now it's not. So I don't blame her in any way, and I don't think she'll have trouble finding another buyer. But I can't bring myself to trust the neighbors, and I fear that our heavy usage would put us at greater risk.
So here we stay. With nothing else promising on the horizon, we have signed another lease. We did finally get through to the management about the washing machine, though, and we are supposed to be getting a new one tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, we keep looking, although buying a house before next July will mean paying about $4000 to break lease.
Bring on the ice cream...
The reason: a contract on a townhouse that fell through.
In order to fully appreciate the range of emotions that we've experienced lately, you need to understand our current living situation. My husband and I moved to northern Virgina in July 2004 so that I could begin graduate studies. I was unable to accompany him on the apartment-finding trip, but we had compiled a list of promising complexes together before he left. Every one of those complexes turned out to have major drawbacks, and I'm sure he chose the best of the lot, but on moving day, I arrived first with the cats, and when I saw the tiny kitchen and tiny (single) bathroom, I almost cried. I have since realized that we have a fairly typical floorplan for this area, but that hasn't made my stay here much easier. Imagine an accomplished cook who likes to do "involved" recipes having to do so with enough counter space to make a peanut butter sandwich. But the kitchen, now, is a mere headache comparaed to the items on our list of grievances, which has mushroomed in the six years we've lived here: mildew coming up from the pipes in the bathroom (I have a mold allergy), unknown bugs (neither bedbugs nor fleas) that have (I think) caused one of our cats to lose the fur on the backs of his front legs, a washing machine that leaves dark, concentrated rust streaks on good clothes (and that has a violent "gentle" cycle that has destroyed other items), floorboards and walls so thin that we can hear every sneeze our neighbors make, towing companies that have mistakenly towed our car from our reserved spot, etc, etc, etc....We've been trying to get out of this place for about 3 years now, but there just aren't any other apartments in locations that won't make one or both commutes worse, won't break the bank, or, from a prolonged reading of renters' reviews, subject us to the same problems we already face.
We really thought we'd done it this year, though. A good friend of mine moved out of the area in April and her townhouse was still on the market a month later. It seemed ideal: the location was better than our current apartment, the neighbors were nice, and it had most of the features we wanted in a home. We put in an offer, and my friend was as excited as we were.
We met with the loan officer and filled out the application for financing. No problems there. We had the appraisal done--no problems there, either. I went over to the property several times and measured all the rooms and checked "home decorating" books out of the library. We had preliminary ideas for all but two rooms, and we were counting the days. Then we had the home inspection.
The exterior of the property needed some minor repairs, but nothing expensive or invasive. All was looking good. We went down to the basement to start the interior inspection in the utility room. The inspector removed the cover from the electrical panel and asked us how much we loved the house. The house, he said, had aluminum wiring. At first, we were just confused--what could be bad about aluminum wiring? Isn't aluminum a conductor? The inspector explained that aluminum wiring was more likely to cause a fire than copper wire. Furthermore, these risks increase when aluminum wire, which is no longer in use for that very reason, is joined to the copper wire in modern fixtures, and the lights and outlets looked too new to be original. Rewiring the house would probably cost $15-20,000. There were special connectors to mitigate the fire risk; they would probably cost a couple of thousand dollars to install, if they hadn't been already. The only way to know for sure was to hire an electrician to inspect the system. The home inspector advised us to go home and do some research on aluminum wiring and call him if we decided to go through with the deal, at which point he would resume the inspection. He wouldn't charge us for the little he'd done so far.
We went home and started reading up on the topic. I won't take up any more space with boring technical details, but there's a good summary at http://www.alwirerepair.com/whats_the_problem.htm (I looked through a lot of material. This website seems to be balanced and accurate.). We talked to one of my uncles, who has an electrical engineering degree and who now works part-time as his local Home Depot's wiring specialist. He said that he distrusted any mix of copper and aluminum, and agreed with us that any repairs made to our unit would be meaningless if the neighbors with whom we would share walls had done nothing or undertaken an unsafe repair. We talked to a representative at our insurance company, who assured us that they would issue a policy at no additional premium, but nevertheless would advise against buying the property. We also learned that overloading an aluminum-wired circuit could cause a fire before the circuit breaker tripped. We are not electricity sippers: we have a big TV and a chest freezer. By Monday morning, we had decided that the only way we would feel safe was if we could be assured that the homeowners' association could prove that all the units in our row had been repaired according to one of the only two methods we could accept (rewiring or the COPALUM crimp).
I went in to the HOA office for a casual chat with the representative on duty. As expected, the HOA had never required any owner to do anything about the interior of their property. She knew aluminum wiring was an issue, but she understood that there were connectors that could join copper to aluminum. I explained what I'd learned--that those connectors have since proven to be a greater fire hazard than doing nothing. She seemed genuiunely surprised--she knew only that joining in new copper fixtures was not easy, but she had no idea that it was dangerous. She also said that she'd lived in her unit for 25 years and had never had a problem. Again, I told her what I'd learned: aluminum wiring has about a 30-year lifespan, which means that as time goes on, the risk increases. She then said that there had been two fires in the complex in recent years, but that one of them was due to an overloaded basement circuit--exactly the kind of situation I feared our high-usage appliances might lead to (overloaded copper circuits generally trip the breakers before they burn out, unlike aluminum). My heart sank when she told me about the fires. I left the office and called my husband, and we agreed that if the unit had been completely detached, we might have gone through with the contract and brought in an electrician qualified to rewire or do the COPALUM crimp, although there aren't many around. But the unit was part of a row, and that changed everything. Reluctantly, we called off the deal. We were completely crushed.
The home inspector said he guessed that the seller wasn't aware of the wiring, and I believe him. When she bought the property herself, the market was hot, and home inspections were one of the casualties (sellers were rejecting contracts with inspection contingencies, and many inspectors feared that too many "lost sales" would lead to realtors no longer giving them referrals, so that buyers weren't given all the details). Additionally, at that time, the "pigtailing" repair was considered by many electricians to be safe. Now it's not. So I don't blame her in any way, and I don't think she'll have trouble finding another buyer. But I can't bring myself to trust the neighbors, and I fear that our heavy usage would put us at greater risk.
So here we stay. With nothing else promising on the horizon, we have signed another lease. We did finally get through to the management about the washing machine, though, and we are supposed to be getting a new one tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, we keep looking, although buying a house before next July will mean paying about $4000 to break lease.
Bring on the ice cream...
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Making a meal out of odds and ends
Every so often, I find myself with a fridge full of odds and ends: a few ounces of fresh green beans that weren't needed for a recipe, some salad greens that I bought and then didn't use because I didn't have time to make a salad with dinner, extra sour cream, etc. My usual approach to leftovers is to try and incorporate them into my lunches somehow, but this past weekend I felt a bit more adventurous.
In the refrigerator, I had about 6 ounces of fresh green beans, some leftover cooked jasmine rice, a tomato, and a mango that I'd bought to accompany some salmon steaks (the sauce recipe made too much, and I didn't need the second mango). I almost always have cilantro on hand, and I had about a pound of imitation crab meat in the freezer. I almost always cook from a predeveloped recipe, but this time I immediately thought of crab burritoes with a homemade mango salsa. I went to the store and purchased a small avocado, a jalepeno, a lime, and a package of flour tortillas, and came home to get dinner on the table.
The first step was getting a salad together. I steamed the green beans for about 90 seconds in the microwave, shocked them with cold water to stop the cooking process, and let them drain. Then I added about a cup of frozen corn that I had thawed quickly under some warm running water, and about a quarter cup of chopped red onion. Dressing was simple: one part red wine vinegar, two parts olive oil, and a little salt, pepper, and sugar. I set the salad aside to allow the flavors to develop while I took care of the burritos.
To make the salsa, I peeled and diced the mango and the tomato, minced the jalepeno and one clove of garlic, and squeezed half of the lime over the mixture. This was also set aside to develop for a bit.
For the crab filling, I chopped up a couple of cups of imitation crab chunks and warmed them in the microwave with a little ground cumin, ground coriander, and cayenne pepper.
The final touch was adding a generous amount (maybe a quarter cup) of chopped cilantro and the juice from the other half of the lime to the rice and warming it up in the microwave (green rice, the kind that Chipotle puts in their burritoes).
Each tortilla got some green rice, some seasoned crab, a little mango salsa, and some chopped avocado. The marinated corn and green bean salad was ready to eat by the time the burritos were done, and for a couple of dollars and about 40 minutes of cooking time (with only the microwave, making this a great supper option for a hot summer day), we ate well and cleaned the refrigerator at the same time.
In the refrigerator, I had about 6 ounces of fresh green beans, some leftover cooked jasmine rice, a tomato, and a mango that I'd bought to accompany some salmon steaks (the sauce recipe made too much, and I didn't need the second mango). I almost always have cilantro on hand, and I had about a pound of imitation crab meat in the freezer. I almost always cook from a predeveloped recipe, but this time I immediately thought of crab burritoes with a homemade mango salsa. I went to the store and purchased a small avocado, a jalepeno, a lime, and a package of flour tortillas, and came home to get dinner on the table.
The first step was getting a salad together. I steamed the green beans for about 90 seconds in the microwave, shocked them with cold water to stop the cooking process, and let them drain. Then I added about a cup of frozen corn that I had thawed quickly under some warm running water, and about a quarter cup of chopped red onion. Dressing was simple: one part red wine vinegar, two parts olive oil, and a little salt, pepper, and sugar. I set the salad aside to allow the flavors to develop while I took care of the burritos.
To make the salsa, I peeled and diced the mango and the tomato, minced the jalepeno and one clove of garlic, and squeezed half of the lime over the mixture. This was also set aside to develop for a bit.
For the crab filling, I chopped up a couple of cups of imitation crab chunks and warmed them in the microwave with a little ground cumin, ground coriander, and cayenne pepper.
The final touch was adding a generous amount (maybe a quarter cup) of chopped cilantro and the juice from the other half of the lime to the rice and warming it up in the microwave (green rice, the kind that Chipotle puts in their burritoes).
Each tortilla got some green rice, some seasoned crab, a little mango salsa, and some chopped avocado. The marinated corn and green bean salad was ready to eat by the time the burritos were done, and for a couple of dollars and about 40 minutes of cooking time (with only the microwave, making this a great supper option for a hot summer day), we ate well and cleaned the refrigerator at the same time.
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