...um

Can't come up with a title. Not much to say, actually. I saw two students today, both very intelligent young men. One had his first essay from a 101 class, and the professor said he was only interested in the mechanics, so we worked on that, but the writing was so clean, there wasn't much of that to focus on and I could talk to him more about word choice, which is more interesting. The other wanted help with a personal essay for transfer application. His writing on a sentence level is somewhat more problematic in places, but I didn't focus much on that: we talked about how he can write it, what to say--and as I was asking him to tell me a little more about a few of the things he mentioned in his essay, I found that he is more than just intelligent: he has a very interesting combination of love for art and scientific curiosity, plus a very deep social conscience. He wants to be a nurse because it will allow him to draw on both his interest in the human psyche and his love of science. He actually enjoyed taking Anatomy and Physiology, and he knows about and relishes the idea of being part of the medical team involved in patient care, not just the part where nurses provide comfort, though that matters to him, too. But he found out about charting because he volunteers all over the place, and has since he was in early high school; he switched from volunteering doing some kind of clerical work to volunteering in a hospital--and in that capacity, he shadowed a nurse, actually finding out what she did in a day.

In any event, he'll be my first repeat student: we talked about what he needs to do, and I suggested that he open a new file and start all over, rather than trying to adapt what he had already written--but raiding what he can out of what he has. We only talked about 15 minutes, but he said he had plenty then to work on (and had to get to his job in any case), so he'll be back on Monday with whatever he writes up based on our conversation.

In between the two students, I did write up my response to the article I read for Mean Streets. Of course, being me, the commentary is probably way too long, but I sent it off anyway. It will be interesting to see how that process evolves after the first issue comes out--and there's a long way to go before that first issue even goes to press.

On a completely different topic: I overheard Matt mention to a new hire that the WC will be closed for the Presidents' Week break and for spring break. I thought we'd be open, as I'm sure there are students who would like to use time they usually have to be in class to get help with their writing, but nope. So, that's two weeks for which I won't get paid. But Matt did say that we get up to five "snow" days: if campus is closed because of weather, we get paid anyway. Despite the astounding cold today, I have a hunch that we're not going to get any big snowstorms this year--though now that I've said that, a blizzard is sure to arrive--but it's nice to know that if such a thing transpires on a day when I'd normally be working, I won't lose any pay. I have no idea what my first paycheck will look like--nor indeed when it will arrive, actually--but I am definitely in "money grubbing" mode. And so far, this work is what I had hoped it would be: two of the things I loved most as a teacher--helping students understand everything possible about writing and working with them individually--and none of the downsides. We'll see how much I love it when I have students back to back for four and a half hours, but right now? Alles gut.