Sorta like the joke about "The Lord will provide..."

Here's the joke:

A guy is in New Orleans when Katrina strikes. Being a devout Christian, he believes that the Lord will help him in his time of trial.

As the waters rise, a couple of people come along in a row boat and offer to row him to safety. "No thanks," he replies. "The Lord will provide."

The waters continue to rise, and pretty soon the guy has to retreat to the second floor of his house, then to the attic. He looks out the attic window, and a couple of people in a motor boat come by. "Hop in!" they say. "We can get you out and to safety." "No thanks," he replies. "The Lord will provide."

The waters still rise, and pretty soon the guy is on top of his house, on the ridge of his roof, the waters still rising around him. The National Guard come by in a helicopter, and dangle a ladder down to him, urging him to grab on so they can whisk him to safety. "No thanks," he replies, yelling over the sound of the rotors. "The Lord will provide."

The waters rise yet further, sweep him off the roof, and he drowns. He goes to heaven, and there he sees the Lord. He goes over to God and says, "I don't understand: I'm a good Christian, and I had perfect faith. I knew you would provide. Why did you let me drown?"

"Listen, asshole," God replies, "I sent you two boats and a helicopter."


Not being God, I draw the line at even a metaphoric helicopter, but I'm not even sending any more boats. I've sent enough. Now, it's up to the students. Sink or swim, folks; I am not here to rescue you.

So the students who are AWOL from the 101? I figure they're gone. They'll either figure out they need to withdraw or they won't. One student arrived back in class today; he'd been misled about last week's classes by another student, who told him that the whole week would be conferences (and the student who'd been ready to return thought the conferences must be the whole English department--and he's having a glitch with his email so he can't access it to contact me or to see whatever I sent). I'm making some pretty large allowances to help him finish the semester with something passing, just because ... well, honestly, I want one more body in there to make it through to the end. But there are still three who apparently have given up, and I'm not going to reach out to save them.

I did send an email to two students who are AWOL from Nature in Lit, letting them know they still can withdraw. (A lot of students are confused by the "automatic withdrawal" period and think they absolutely cannot withdraw after that deadline, when the reality is that it simply becomes the professor's prerogative about whether to grant the W or not.) The guy who plagiarized several times did not get that email, for obvious reasons.

And the SF class seems to be holding on. A few students are pretty behind in terms of their required notes--but if they can stay on top of the work for the rest of the semester (especially when it comes to their essays, one of which is due tomorrow), they can still squeeze out something reasonable.

Mostly this isn't me holding firm to anything; it's me giving up. I don't have the energy to chase after students, offering help, if they can't help themselves. Get in the fucking boat or don't. Your choice. But don't say I didn't send you one.

Complete shift of gears here, but I got an offer from one of our adjuncts to join him and a colleague of his at Pace in starting up a new scholarly journal devoted to American mysteries. I would love to do it--though I'm not at all sure I have the skill set--but ... time? Energy? Qu'est que c'est? Anyway, I told him I'm interested enough to talk with him about it, but I confessed to monumental burn-out levels. I don't know whether I indicated enough interest for him to want to talk to me, but we'll see.

And now, I'm off to meet Paul so we can ride the train into the City together to meet William and Kristin for that much-postponed steak blowout. I'll almost certainly feel like dog food tomorrow, after the rich meal, but man, will it be worth it.