Loooong Week

So, by now I’m in the full swing of things. Consultations have been going smoothly and I’m enjoying working in the Center. This week our reading was focused on long-distance consultations--in our case e-mail consults. To me, it sounds like an entirely different way to work. The reading gave a few examples for approaches. It sounds like it can be easy to come across too authoritative. I don’t think this will be my problem. Instead, I think I’ll be on the other side of the spectrum. Talking in an easy going manner has always been my thing and this has worked really well for me in the Center. In fact, now that I think of it, I can’t remember a time in the center in which I have had to speak formally. Maybe this shouldn’t be a concern for me at all. I know I won’t be able to please everyone all the time and I suppose that means stepping on a few toes here and there.

I’m pretty anxious to try an e-mail consult. I’m not sure if it will be my thing or not, but it is new-and I love to try new stuff. E-mail consults look like they will sort of be like a blog because you only have limited information about your audience or a really long facebook comment since you are expanding on one particular thing online. I really hope it’s something I’m good at. I’m not always the best blogger or facebook user, but I do always have something to say and that seems like the most important part to these.

I’m a little curious to see how internet consulting will develop in our center. After reading about some of the different methods centers use, I wonder if ours will eventually adopt them-or maybe even create our own. I wonder if a chat-type session would be more effective than a face-to-face or an email? It’s hard to tell until it’s been tried out. Maybe that’s something I could ask about on Peer Centered. Speaking of Peer Centered, I was totally bummed out about the responses I got back. Over half of them were from our Center and none of them (besides Michael’s) said what I wanted to hear. I still believe a creative option for our students would be a good idea. In fact, I thought much of what we read about this week reflected our idea for a “creative option.” I think maybe my first post wasn’t clear enough. There has got to be other centers that are doing something like this, but for some reason I just didn’t hear from them this time. Possibly, it would be a good idea for me to draft out a plan and then submit it to Peer Centered. I have a feeling there were just too many holes and not enough specific information about the need for something like this. I don’t want our Writing Center to be just about academic writing. Because, let’s face it, when most students gradated they are not going to be doing academic writing. And I know I have never done academic writing unless it was required. However, I and many others like to write for fun (poetry, fiction, etc.) and it’s important to develop our creative writing as well. I think the Writing Center is a perfect venue for this and I’m hoping we can get something that will work out for everyone. I know it’s something that I would use.

Enough about that rant. I want to talk a little bit about my consults for this week. Today was my first time in the center where I had back-to-back consults. It was a little intense. I hadn’t even started on my coffee this morning when my appointments started rolling in. It was pretty nerve wracking, but I made it out ok. At least there was a good variety of papers and I had a good time working with the students. I have a feeling, though, that I’m going to have to get into the habit of getting into the center earlier; that way, I avoid the “shock”.