Rattled

Somehow, today, all my usual organization completely went to shit. I'm not the neat and tidy kind of organized, but generally speaking, I do have all the pearls on a string. Today it felt like the string simply vanished, and heaven knows what's fallen through the floorboards. As soon as I complete this blog post, I'm going to sit at my desk for a minute simply to try to sweep together the bits I can find--and update my triage list. As I've said before, I haven't quite descended to the level at which I need to make lists of my lists, but I'm getting perilously close.

I still want to get to dance tonight, too; I hope I make it.

The rest of this will be in no particular order--and I'm not going to try to make any kind of transitions. Bounce along with the pearls, dear readers.

Good news/bad news: Because of the presidential debate at Hofstra on October 16, all classes are canceled at NCC after 11:30 a.m.--which means all my classes are canceled. Good news: I have a bonus afternoon off. Bad news: the students have a moderately important assignment due that day, and I absolutely cannot juggle the schedule to put it off, not without buggering everything else for the rest of the semester. I'm weighing options, but the students may just have to do their best without class discussion or feedback from me.

Realizations: I like the basic idea of the new revision process, but my instructions are way the hell too complicated and confusing. I need to break it all down into much smaller bits--and one page, highly simplified handouts, instead of the comprehensive multi-page mess I have now. I'm also ditching the whole "after the fact outline" idea. It's a terrific tool, to be able to outline one's own argument as a way to evaluate organization, but it's just beyond these students: they have absolutely no clue what's going on, no matter how I try to present the idea. I may see if I can dredge up the visuals I once had for my 101 classes, about diagramming an argument, but I have serious doubts about whether it would be organizationally helpful in terms of their writing (it's better as a tool for analyzing someone else's argument, particularly in a nonfiction essay or journalistic piece).

Interesting e-mail exchange with a student from the Short Story class from last night to this morning. I got a very snotty message saying, "If I wanted to do my mini paper on the story "Sweat" how am I suppossed to do that if you collected my idea log with ALL of my ideas....?  Leaves me with only one new story to chose from "Blood-Burning Moon" which I disliked." My response (condensed): "A) consider the tone of your message. You could have asked politely, but you chose to be antagonistic. I wonder why. B) I'm happy to leave your log on my office door; you can pick it up any time." I have to confess I'm very proud of myself that I didn't say, "Why should I help you out, you snotty little shit?" which was, of course, how I was feeling--and this morning he very politely thanked me. The message may have been dripping with sarcasm, but I chose to take it as genuine and thanked him for the polite reply. I rise above pettiness; watch me soar.

Classes today were a blast. The students were experiencing serious brain melt-down, but at the same time, they were willing to joke around with me and with each other: the ice has completely melted in both classes--and most of the dead wood is gone, so those who are left are doing it. Perhaps my favorite bit was in the second class: first, a student called me over to check out an idea for his revision, and he began the conversation by saying, "You were right..." at which point I interrupted: "Thank you! I'm so glad you think I know something about this." I said it in a completely cheerful and sincere manner, and it got a laugh. Then, not long after, another student said, "You were right..." about something else: again, "Thank you!" but this time I said to the whole class, "I'm so glad you guys are validating my experience here." Big laugh. Even the earlier class was filled with laughter and energy today. Man I love when that happens.

But if I'm going to have that minute to sit down and pull my head back on, I need to do it now, so off I go, tally-ho.