Situation normal

Three students today. Was four, briefly, but one canceled. In between times, I read through and commented on the next essay for the student I'm tutoring, my friend's daughter. (I should come up with a moniker for her, as I suspect she'll crop up periodically in this blog.)

One of the students I saw was in very early developmental stages as an ESL student--not even officially enrolled in the college yet but still in our language immersion program. One was a student who needed to write a literary analysis essay--and although she "loves" English, she had really zero clue what she was actually being asked to do. I had to read the assignment to her very carefully (no, you don't just talk about the specific passage you chose, you have to talk about how it exemplifies something about the novel as a whole--and Jesus, how many times did I have to say that to my own 102 students? About the work as a whole, about the work as a whole, about the work as a whole). And I had to work with her to show her what "analysis" actually means--and in fact, she had not read with the kind of attention that analysis requires, which is also typical. She didn't even really understand one of the sentences she wanted to quote; she kinda had the gist, but ... again, how many times did I have to say that in my own classes? The gist is not enough; a general sense is not enough. But I think I got her closer to what's required--and unusually, she's actually given herself some time to work on the essay, so it isn't due oh, say, tomorrow.

Student #3 was the one who made me want to bang my head on the table. First, he showed up with his laptop, not a printed copy of the essay. (Nope: go print it.) Then, he didn't understand that one of the handouts he had wasn't "the same thing"; it was information about the same assignment that was given (in overview) in the course syllabus, but it was important information elaborating on what the student needed to do. I was happy to see that it was talking about environmental concerns--yes, please, let's do some consciousness-raising there--but what he had to do was pretty simplistic: 1. summarize an article he'd read and 2. critique the article--answering three basic prompts the instructor had provided (does it make a persuasive argument, that sort of thing). Having made sure he understood that much (and specifically understood the difference between "summary" and "critique," which took a bit), I was ready to read what he'd written--but saw that the first paragraph didn't say anything about the article, so I asked him to tell me what the article was about. "Oh, I haven't had a chance to read it yet."

Wait. The assignment is for you to summarize and critique an article, and you've written two pages--and you haven't read the article??

Correct.

OK, so, what exactly are you looking for from our talk here?

I want to know if I'm doing what the assignment says.

Well, you're not. [Cue finale music, lower curtain.]

Again, this is a syndrome I am all too familiar with from my years in the classroom. Students assume that the assignment is always, "Talk out your ass about whatever" instead of understanding that they have reached a point at which it is important for them to understand and think about and in some way respond to/synthesize what other people think. Yes, all you little ducklings, you actually are not the center of the universe and what other people have to say is not only important, it's usually "better" than what you already have in your head, because it arises from knowledge you do not yet possess.

Oh, fucking argh.

But as for my tutee, she wants my help on this enormous assignment because she feels her approach so far is relatively puerile (though she didn't use that word). And it is an enormous assignment: if I assigned it to any of my students, especially in 101, there would have been open rebellion and my head on a pike. " it is a year long project that all sophomores begin in the fall and there is a rolling deadline sometime in the spring. It is meant to be scholarly and cite at least 10 peer-reviewed academic journals." And if the submission in the sophomore year doesn't pass, the student has to write an entirely new one in her or his junior year. That won't happen with this young writer--it will definitely pass--but she is correct in her assessment that it's not as deep or intellectually advanced as the essay she just finished. She's addressing Body Dysmorphic Disorder--but despite the research she's done (lots of sources, though only six meet the "peer reviewed academic journal" requirement), she's basically just retreading the old familiar territory: we have a thing against "fat" in our society; media images cause problems, the disorder is a serious problem, we need to allow people to be all sizes and shapes, blah blah blah. I suggested two alternative approaches that should lead her into more interesting territory. We'll see what she thinks about my comments.

And, of course, being me, I took advantage of my desire to lead her to more profitable avenues of research to engage in a little research of my own on the topic--and of course, I could have followed all those rabbit trails a good long way, except I called off my mental hounds. Research can be wildly frustrating, when one cannot locate the information one requires, but when one is just poking around to see what runs out of the underbrush, it is a blast. Or so thinks this particular hound. (And yes, I did a little more of my own historical research, with a less satisfactory result, but still.)

Now, however, I am just about finished with my stint in the WC. I have to go to the office at least to water the plants, but after this week, I've made the executive decision to switch "plant watering day" from Thursday to Monday, as I usually go to the office on Mondays. I won't next week: I'll be getting ready for the medical procedure I have to have on Tuesday, so I will head home the instant I'm finished here on Monday--and then I will take a day of sick leave on Tuesday. And how thrilled am I that I actually get sick leave for this position. I didn't think I would, so finding out that was part of this contract was lovely. Snow days and sick days. Manna.

In any event, that means I will almost certainly be off the radar again until a week from today, at which point I hope to post again.

Enough file folders for several life-times

I just cleaned out one file drawer, saved about 10 pieces of paper and about 150 file folders. That's on top of the collection I already had on my desk. I can't quite bring myself to toss them ... yet. I hope I get more ferocious about purging the unwanted/unneeded as I start to seriously contemplate having to load stuff into my car to schlep home to put on a moving van.

I also was set to shred all the old P&B files I've accumulated over the, what, decades that I was on the committee? but then I thought there might be something in there of archival value. But I sure as shit wasn't going to go through it myself to figure out what might be worth saving and what might not. However, I got to that point while P&B was, in fact, meeting, so I trotted downstairs, poked my head in, and asked if anyone wanted to take a quick look for any possible pearls before it all gets shredded. Paul volunteered, but I just told him (and Paul, if you're reading this, remember I said it) that if he looks at the box full of paper for a while and thinks, "Fuck this; I don't have time," he can simply shove it back in my direction and I'll have a grand old time downstairs in the main office, filling up the shredder.

And speaking of P&B, apparently, no one has a 4:00 class any more, so those meetings can get a bit interminable. Another reason to be glad I'm off.

I did a bit of that today with some files from home, too. I'm sure I've mentioned, but I have a little shredder in the apartment, but I have so many files that I no longer need (paper? Who needs that?), that little machine would just take 40 years to chew it all up. The one downstairs? More like 40 minutes, probably--depending on how many files I bring in at once.

So, that's been my fun and frolic in the office since my stint in the WC finished. While I was in the WC, I met with one student who was working on a scholarship application essay. Her writing was pretty terrible in a lot of ways (though I've certainly seen a lot worse), but she has a learning disability--and her academic and life ambitions are wonderful. She actually wants to develop her intellect. That's a wonderful, and sadly somewhat rare, attitude to encounter here.

Apart from that, I was working on my own writing--and yes, advance warning: when this semester is over, this blog will become defunct; instead, I will (with help) develop a website for myself as a writer--even if I never publish a damned thing again. That will certainly include a blog component, but other items as well--I think. In any event, since this blog is functioning as a sort of hybrid right now, partly me wearing my professorial hat, partly me nattering about my writing process, I will report that one of the delicious frustrations I encounter is suddenly having a question that requires some research. Sometimes the research is pretty easy (though even when it is, I get rather fascinated and follow more rabbit trails of information than are strictly necessary to answer the question); other times it is remarkably frustrating. For example, yes: a woman in the 1880s would very likely have had a "reticule"--which I'm hoping I can get away with calling a "hand bag." But the answer to the question, "Where were the middle-class neighborhoods in Manhattan in the 1880s?" remains unanswered. I finally located a site that may help--but if it doesn't, I'm going to need to go deeper into the searching process than I've been able to so far. (And our campus library has absolutely no books that might help. I haven't tried the databases yet, largely because it didn't occur to me until just this second that that might be a place to look, but also because I completely suck at coming up with the right search terms to find the information I want.)

But the writing still proceeds, even with the discursions into research thickets. I'm rather surprised, actually. I originally thought, "Oh, I won't feel like I have the brain space and time to concentrate that I'll need," but it turns out, at this stage anyway, I don't need all that much. When I get to the really hard part--turning the shit first draft into something that really works--I'm sure I'll need a lot more mental oxygen and stamina, but now, I can just let stuff blob out of my mind into the computer files and roll along.

Tomorrow is my "off" day, of course, but it will be a productive day nonetheless. I will meet with the assistant exhibitions manager of the NYPL to see whether I can help them with their editorial needs. After that meeting, I will return to fiddle lessons after a very long hiatus. My poor instructor will have to teach me how to use the bow properly all over again; I never really got it very well, so there was no good muscle memory to call back to mind. And then, depending on how perky I feel, I may stay long enough to go to a dance class. That last is pretty unlikely, as the class doesn't start until 8, and I will be feeling the gravitational pull of home and quiet long before then, I'm sure. If I leave the City before 8, however, I have to pay a "step up" to peak fare on my off-peak ticket--which is hardly the end of the world, but still.

That's all tomorrow, though. Sufficient unto today is the whatever that has occurred. I'm going to noodle a bit longer, then wend my way homeward. I would like to note before I go, however, that I am truly appreciating the fact that the sun has not yet set. Longer days are good for my spirits.

Back from the break

It's interesting to have a "break" when the work one does is not at all onerous. I was just talking to Paul and explaining that coming here to work in the WC feels no more challenging or taxing than keeping any kind of appointment: seeing the doctor, whatever. I just have to be at a certain place at a certain time, and to bring some sort of brain with me. Easy.

I had four appointments back to back today, which was busier than I've been so far, but not at difficult. (There is potential for me to have six in a row. That will be taxing.) Two, of course, had ESL problems--and one got relatively testy when I told her that there were more profound problems with her essay than just grammar and idiom issues. She didn't want to have to rethink or rework anything--and she even said that she doesn't care about learning how to write; she just wants to take her classes in fashion design and get a job. (Fair enough, but ... don't you think you might have to write something from time to time both in your classes and once you have that job? And yes, that how clearly and well you do that writing will make a difference? But when we say that, we're talking to Ginger--as in the Gary Larson cartoon: "Blah blah blah, Ginger.")

The other student with ESL troubles actually is doing pretty well--and was able to hear and catch some of his errors as soon as I'd pause my pencil over them. Lovely to hear him say that he actually finds grammar fascinating. I think he'll do well--in large measure because he wants to.

Then there was a student I'd worked with before and by whom I was extremely impressed: he's writing a transfer essay, and he has wonderful things in his background to recommend him highly. He didn't give himself much time to rework, however. The essay was much improved over the first version I saw, but it still needs work. I did something I probably should not have done: I gave him my email so, if we can't meet before the essay is due, he can share it with me and I can give feedback.

Which is proof positive, as if it were needed, that I really love doing this.

Student number four had started an essay and it was fun to talk him through making sure he truly answered the questions posed by the professor. He had good ideas, but they needed to be drawn out of him. Writes OK, too.

Meanwhile, over the break, I did work more with the friend's children I've been tutoring--or one of them anyway. (The other is waiting to find out the next step for his big research paper, at which point he will contact me.) Working with this girl's essay has been a true delight. She is smart and highly articulate, and she had very interesting ideas. I did find myself reminding her that she needs to be proud of her accomplishment even if she doesn't win the contest for which the essay was written--and she should be. She worked hard on it, and the result was stellar. Any of my colleagues would be thrilled to bits to have a student of her caliber even in an upper-level course.

And I am reminded of the benefits of white, affluent privilege. This girl has gotten top-notch education her whole life, and it shows. She's gotten it because of the luck of who her parents are and where she lives. But I don't want to get into the discussion of how socio-economic status affects educational opportunity. It does, but ... what a morass of social ailments that whole discussion stirs up.

In any event, I'm now in the office. I don't think I'll get any clearing out of files done today. That requires a certain amount of energy and devotion of time that I feel I lack at the moment. Perhaps tomorrow. However, I have some time to fritter away between now and my Monday appointment. Unfortunately, I can't eat fritters of the glutenous variety, so I'll have to fritter in some other way (though the idea of hush puppies is very appealing).

Until tomorrow, y'all.

Mostly my own time

Yesterday, I suddenly thought, "Oh, shit! I have to work tomorrow!" The snow day on Tuesday, followed by my regular mid-week hiatus had lulled me into the false sense that I was finished with my campus duties for a while. Au contraire.

And it's been an interesting, soft of in-flux day here. I arrived a teeny bit late--and although one of my appointments had canceled, there was a drop-in for me to take the minute I got in. Then another drop in. I was supposed to have two appointments after a brief break, but both canceled. Then I got a drop-in for the final appointment of the day. I was going to start my appointment with him a little early, but he needed to print out the essay we were going to work on together. I think we need to tell the student aides up front who log in the appointments that they need to make sure the students have printouts of their work. I've worked on electronic documents when a student brings in a laptop, but I think I'm going to insist on hard copy from now on--and the last student of the day had his phone but really wanted to use "my" computer. I grant you, he's taking an online class, so it would make sense that the document would be online, but ... well, I don't know how to get students (or even some colleagues) to understand that working on hard copy is a very different animal, and crucial to really being able to see what is there.

In any event, I think I was helpful, which is the whole point, and I was fortunate that all the students had the right kind of attitude. I overheard one of my colleagues working with a student who clearly is somewhere on the autism spectrum and who therefore had a very hard time taking in the comments, latching on to less important ideas, missing the bigger picture--and, bless his heart, taking it all very personally. I heard my colleague say, at one point, "It's OK: don't cry. That's why we're working on this, so we can fix it."

What we deal with goes so far beyond simply the academics. We're called on to do so much emotional support, so much assisting psychological development, it's sort of amazing that we have time to actually address the academic stuff.

We need tutors who focus just on ESL. We need more psych support services. But I am so very glad I don't have to try to deal with this in students whose success or failure will be part of my classroom experience. As I hoped, knew, would be the case, I can help them and send them on their way. That even goes for the students I see more than once--and my first drop-in today was one of those. It was simply luck of the draw that we ended up working together again, but I suspect he'll try to make appointments in advance in the future, specifically so he can work with me.

Meanwhile, since I ended up with a fair amount of time with which to do whatever I wanted, I spent some more time on my creative endeavors and the attendant research. I found an amazingly delicious source through the Library of Congress website: historical maps that include fascinating details (and cover pretty much exactly the time span I'm working with). And I am finding out surprising little details about towns in North Dakota that sprang up with the arrival of the railroad. (If the thing ever gets published, I'll probably need to be sure to issue a disclaimer about one of the towns, as the current residents may feel their history is being maligned when I place a brothel in their downtown. I have no idea if there ever was one, but ... well, it was first an army settlement, then a railroad settlement, so I'd be surprised if the Sisters of Mercy didn't have a presence as well.)

(Cue Leonard Cohen and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Maybe I need to watch that movie again.)

My stint here is just about finished--I'm actually able to post this while still at the WC--so I'll wrap this up. I'll swing past the office long enough to water the plants, but then I will say so long to campus until Feb. 25. We have all of  next week off for Presidents' Week, which I probably have mentioned before. Disappointing not to get paid for a week; lovely to have the time in which to have all sorts of appointments and other activities going on. But it's pretty certain I won't be posting next week, so please tune back in on the 25th for more exciting developments.

ESL ... again, but also grammar

I cannot express how much I look forward to working with students who do not have ESL issues. I only had two students today, and I will say, the second of the two didn't have much in the way of ESL stuff going on--some dropped -d endings, a few minor deals like that--so working with her was pretty good, pretty easy. She primarily wanted help understanding the difference between complex/compound sentences and run-ons; apparently in a previous class she tended to write run-ons, and now she's gone to the other extreme and is writing fragments. I can show students the difference between them with examples, but she asked me to just give an overview of basic sentence structure, and I'm damned if I can explain. The best I can do with explaining a predicate is to say it's "who is doing what," but then we get into the situation of subordinating conjunctions and other words that create dependent clauses (another term I know but find very difficult to explain/define), and ... oh argh. This is not, not, not my best thing. And this is why I resolutely refused to reach developmental/remedial classes. I can't do it in any way that makes sense.

However, in the case of student #2, I didn't have to spend a lot of time on that, because she also wanted help understanding how to revise--which also led to what to keep in mind when writing in the first place. And that I can do.

Student #1, however, was a whole different ball of wax. She was in earlier, working with one of my colleagues, and the main thing I heard him saying over and over was, "I can't hear you; you have to speak louder." Man, he wasn't kidding. The poor young woman is brave enough to come to the WC for help, so she's got some fire in the belly, but she is terrified to be heard. I don't want to think what her family life is like; I can't imagine what it must be to self-efface to that extreme. She seems a sweet, gentle soul, but, well, how do we encourage someone to use her actual, physical voice, not just the metaphoric one in her writing? I don't know that we can; we're bucking something much deeper and more entrenched than just "you need to speak up."

Meanwhile, on the personal tutoring front, it's interesting working with this girl--and she is a girl, not a woman yet. She is very mature for her age, but I have to keep reminding myself that she is only 16; I may be challenging her to think on a level she just hasn't developed enough to reach yet. Her writing is so grown-up in some ways, and then I come across something that is hackneyed or overly pat, and I wince. How do we combat "microaggression"? Easy! We just need to become "upstanders"! Well, fair enough, but if it were that easy, why aren't there more "upstanders"? And what makes a microaggression a microaggression anyway? And and and. Poor thing, she's going to lose her mind over my question-question-question methodology.

But she's also dealing with a more deep-rooted resistance to writing that has to do with addressing herself as a person, I think. Although she used to love to journal, she just can't bring herself to do it any more. I suggested she journal about how she doesn't want to write in her journal, but she reports that she can't even open the journal book, maybe because she's just being "mellow dramatic" (which I love as a mis-hearing of the term). I gave her an assignment tonight: open the journal, write one sentence, close the journal, put it away and put it out of her mind entirely. Report to me tomorrow. I'll be interested to hear what she says--and whether she can even do that much--but as I'm writing this, I think I'm going to completely alter my approach. I'll say, "OK, maybe this just isn't a time in your life when you want or need to journal." After all, I've gone long, long stretches--I'd have to check to see what the longest was, but I suspect it was a matter of years--without writing in mine, and yet I have a record going back, however sporadically, to when I was 18. So, the journal will be there when she wants it again. Let it go.

Unless she finds that writing the one sentence unlocks something in her. If it was painful to do, or if she couldn't do it, then I will definitely say, "OK, not the time for a journal. Write other stuff, wherever/whenever you like, but don't force it." If it unlocks something, if all she needed was that initial ice-breaking, that's great. I'll be very interested to hear which way it went.

Switching back to the WC tutoring, I actually am half tempted to take some kind of teaching course specifically designed to help ESL students with their grammar concerns. Well, maybe a quarter tempted. A little tempted. Not tempted enough that I'll do it, but tempted enough that I just did a quickie Google search to see what's possible. I reckon I'll simply muddle along and do the best I can--and if I get myself into a real knot, I'll ask one of the other tutors--especially the interim second-in-command, who is a grammar maven--to help be untangle the knot. I did think--very briefly--that it might be beneficial to have a certificate or some dumb thing if there's a chance I could use it to get a position at the writing lab at the community college in Montana, but ... well, if that's the case, I'll do it when I'm there. Assuming they are hiring. And pay anything worth getting out of my bunny slippers to earn.

So, that's the latest. There is a chance that tomorrow will be a "snow day"; if the snow/sleet combination is as dicey as it might be, it's likely--but the good news is, I get four "leave" days, so I'll get paid for it anyway. (Mercenary me.) And honestly, I don't mind at all getting paid to stay home, assuming there is power and heat. And I'll leave it at that for the noo. Onward and awkward. Excelsior.

Very brief...

What on earth is it with my getting students who need help with things about which I sorely lack expertise? I had a student whose English skills are not even sufficient for her to be in our non-credit, developmental class (she's in a special program trying to get students to that point), and then a student who needed help with APA documentation--which I have a nodding acquaintance with, no more--and then a student who wanted help getting ready for an in-class essay in her philosophy class...

Oh, and the student who needed help with APA clearly is a non-native speaker of English, but I didn't have to deal with that. She's in our Nursing program, so she's had to prove her chops as a writer--and in any event, she wanted help with nothing more than the documentation. OK, fair enough, but note to self: I'm bringing the handbook I've used with my own classes to the WC with me in the future. There is a handbook here in my preferred cubicle, but it's unwieldy, so I'd rather have the one I know.

And the student who needed help for her philosophy essay didn't need help with the subject matter, so I really can't complain about not having the expertise to help her. I absolutely can help a student understand how to structure a timed essay, and can offer useful test-taking strategies. So that was good.

The final student of the day needed help understanding why her professor kept responding to her writing with "your idea is not clear here." The idea wasn't clear because of mixed grammatical structures, not because of anything wrong with the actual idea (and that makes me want to give some instruction to the professor about the difference). Hard to untangle some of those structures, but the student is a native speaker of English--or at least has spoken it long enough that she has no accent and doesn't demonstrate ESL-type errors--so I could suggest that she speak the sentences as she writes them, or at least as she corrects them. She can hear when something has gone wonky; the reason she doesn't write clearly is, as she is writing, she "zones out" and the words just fall out of her head without actually registering as anything that makes sense. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to ask her if she could hear her own voice in her head as she writes, because when she can, she's fine--but in fact she can't always, and that's the problem. I have to say that I'm not really aware of hearing my own voice in my head as I write (though I'm hyper-aware of it right now, of course, since I'm thinking about it), but I think I must...

Anyway, that's it for this week. I just gave a big chunk of feedback to my individual student, but I notice that she has not responded to my long email of yesterday in which I talked to her about the importance of reading. I think she may be starting to resist the process, as I'm not as purely laudatory as she may desire but am making some demands of her thinking. But we'll see what happens. And I'm about to head back to the office so I can print out another submission for Mean Streets that I've been asked to read to make a recommendation for acceptance or not. That will be fun.

And that's a wrap. Maybe next week I'll write a little about how odd it is to have Wednesdays off; I spent yesterday thinking my week was over, but no.... Now it is, though. And on we roll.

Say what??

Just saw this from Google. I have no idea what any of it means or whether it affects my blog, but I think not. I may need to migrate to a different platform at some point....

Following the announcement of Google+ API deprecation scheduled for March 2019, a number of changes will be made to Blogger’s Google+ integration on 4 February 2019. 

Google+ widgets: Support for the “+1 Button”, “Google+ Followers” and “Google+ Badge” widgets in Layout will no longer be available. All instances of these widgets will be removed from your blog. 

+1 buttons: The +1/G+ buttons and Google+ share links below blog posts and in the navigation bar will be removed. 

Please note that if you have a custom template that includes Google+ features, you may need to update your template. Please contact your template supplier for advice. 

Google+ Comments: Support for Google+ comments will be turned down, and all blogs using Google+ comments will be reverted back to using Blogger comments. Unfortunately, comments posted as Google+ comments cannot be migrated to Blogger and will no longer appear on your blog. 

But there's another post for today, my dear readers. Don't stop at this one but scroll down.

Fun stuff on all levels

I only had one student scheduled for today, interestingly enough a former student who has officially been among my "followers" for this blog (though I don't know if he reads it any more). I can't for the life of me remember when he was my student--and it isn't on his transcript (the only semesters that are recorded for him to have taken ENG101 are terms when I don't teach). But I do remember him as a very interesting--and interested--young man. It will be fun to see what's going on with him at this point, and what specific help he wants with his writing.

At the end of my stint, I got a drop-in appointment with a young woman--again with ESL problems (what is it about that??)--but I didn't focus on that with her; fortunately, she was in early stages, so we could work more on ideas, what to say of substance. She's in an ENG102, and--as is usual--only knows how to "respond" by summarizing, but when I started asking some questions, she actually had a lot of very good ideas about the reading, and it was fun to help her think about those, including stretching her thinking in a few places. More of that please--especially in contrast to Mr. "I'm Over It" from yesterday.

Meanwhile, an old friend has resurfaced and wants me to tutor her children, sixteen-year-old twins. They have diametrically opposite needs: the daughter writes beautifully (and she really does: a remarkably mature and well developed voice, though I could pick some grammatical nits) but she's lost the fire of enthusiasm for something she used to love doing. The son--with whom I am not yet in contact--needs help with the real basics: thesis, idea development, argument structure. I remember my friend telling me years ago that her son had struggled to learn to read: his brain is just not wired well for written language. But I've already had an email exchange with the daughter, which impressed me. Sixteen-year-olds are famous for resisting Mom's suggestions, so I wouldn't have been surprised if the daughter had either not responded to my overture or had done so very slowly and somewhat reluctantly. Instead, she seems very excited about the prospect of working with me, so that's pretty cool. And my friend will pay me. I realize I probably could have asked for more (and another friend told me that foreign language tutors in the town where I live charge five times what I'm charging), but, well, she's a friend. Still, interesting to contemplate how this might develop.

I don't have anything else of substance to relate today. I suspect that--until things heat up and I start getting a lot more appointments--these entries will tend to be somewhat short. But how nice it is to post to the blog not because I am in desperate need of a way to reframe a shitty day into something less burdensome but to do so because I'm simply interested to record how things are developing. I won't be here tomorrow, so no post again until Thursday--unless I end up posting more about my freelance tutoring, not the WC gig. What's that mantra? Oh, right: we'll see. That one.

A second, more interesting post (or I hope more interesting)

So, I'm in the office, and I've been cleaning out files and am starting on the bookcases. Along the way, I've been throwing out all the stuff I was keeping because I had needed it in the past for some reason (a year-end evaluation, a promotion application, whatever)--including stuff that I would have needed this year, if I'd stayed long enough to do another year-end evaluation. And I keep feeling little waves of freak-out that I'm throwing the stuff away. "Wait! I might need that!"

I also ran across the form granting me reassigned time for the fall (well, actually for the whole year, but we didn't know I'd be leaving when I applied for it). We're supposed to write a report at the end of each semester about what we did with the time and why it was useful. I didn't. Little "I'm being a bad girl" freak out--but then I thought, "What are they going to do, fire me?"

I also came across one of my very first academic publications, in the conference proceedings for a conference I went to in September 2001, something like ten days after the World Trade Towers were bombed. (And I vividly remember the vague sense of dread getting on a plane--and the faint horror of flying over the site: brightly lit, smoldering, covered with workers and heavy equipment, digging through the rubble.) It's not much of a piece, a little pedagogy thingy, but even so, I had a little of that, "You know, I write pretty well" feeling. I've had that more powerfully in the past, re-encountering something I've published and thinking, "Wow, I wrote that??" Hardly that, in this case, but it was still gratifying to think, "Hey, you know, I used to be able to think."

I realize, too, as I embark on this process, that cleaning out the file cabinets is going to be pretty daunting--unless I bite the bullet and simply throw everything away: don't salvage folders; don't worry about whether I might want it again; just put everything--everything--directly in the recycling bin. I'm not sure I can quite bring myself to do that, but ... well, it might be an interesting exercise in shedding weight I don't need to carry around with me, literally or metaphorically. (And as I write that, I'm looking at some things on my bookshelf--gardening books, a book for a German class, old editions of MLA--and thinking, "Those can just go straight to the radiator or to recycle." I tend to hold on to books pretty fiercely, but really: most of them I haven't so much as glanced at in millennia. So why am I hanging on to them? I won't notice they're gone.

And there are all the office supplies I've accumulated: do I want them for any reason? Paper clips and staples and staplers, maybe, but chalk? sheet protectors? And how many ring binders does a person really need to have on hand, just in case?

I probably have known for most of my life that I am something of a pack rat, but dear God in heaven, this is a revelation. "Something" of a pack rat indeed. I'm not quite at hoarding levels, I'm relieved to say, but I do hang on to a lot more than I ought.

And that doesn't just refer to physical objects, either. Metaphorically very, very true, across the board. So this whole retirement/relocating process is really a process of seeing how much I can let go. More than I suspect, is my hunch, but it will be interesting to see. And I am going to push myself right up to the very edge of what I can stand, too: If I'm at all on the fence about something, if I don't feel an instant and powerful "No! I want that!" then out it goes.

It's a strangely insecure feeling, as if, without all that weight, I could just disappear in a puff of breeze. But no: the substance is not, in fact, substantial: it's the intangible stuff that provides all the roots I will ever need. Still, strange to experience. Very strange.

Annoying at first...

My first student today--a drop in--was supremely annoying. He started off OK, wanted help with an introduction to a narrative in response to a reading, but when I gave him some guidance for what to do to create a workable introduction, he suddenly decided the whole thing was just too stupid to deal with: the assignment, the class, everything. I think he said, "I'm not feeling it" or "I'm just over it" or something to that effect. Well, OK, but you will have to do well at the assignment to pass. "Oh, I'll pass, no matter what." Fine. I guess you don't need me then, do you. Buh-byeee.

But isn't it absolutely lovely that I never have to deal with him again? He is someone else's problem; I don't have to persuade him of the value of the class or the assignment or anything. The actual crux  of the matter, I think, is the perpetual "just out of high school" plaint that the assignment has "no structure." Read, "I have to actually think for myself instead of simply following a set template." Sorry about that whole having to think part, Toots. Good luck getting out of it, though. (In some classes, maybe--but I happen to know who his professor is, and she will not accept pat pabulum.)

I met with two other students, both ESL (why do I keep getting them when I don't know how to explain stuff to ESL students??)--and both pretty good writers. One is in an 001, which probably should be an ESL dedicated section, but apparently we just don't have enough of those. The other is actually in a 200-level class, taught by a colleague I like a lot, and she didn't need much help, just some fine tuning.

So most of the day, I spent doing rather ineffectual research for my own writing--which ultimately led to a realization that I probably have to completely reboot one character's background and consequently certain elements of the overall story, simply because I don't know enough to fake it and can't find out enough to ground what I'm doing in anything solid. Rather fun to do the research--chasing down those various rabbit trails, then circling back to the beginning--since there is no pressure about any of it.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, I spoke to an old friend who has just resurfaced, and she wants to pay me to tutor her 16-year-old twins. They have wildly divergent needs, but, sure: I'll do it. Again, that's the fun part of what I know how to do, working one-on-one with young people on writing--of any kind. It's beginning to look like my main post-retirement revenue stream may be from tutoring, which would be fine. It's a good freelance gig, if I can build up enough of a clientele (and can charge what I think I'm worth).

Now, however, I'm going to transition out of the WC and over to my office, where I will noodle for a while before my Monday evening appointment. Not much else to say at present. I wonder if these blog posts will get more scintillating or if they will eventually peter out--or shift over entirely into Prof. TLP Frustrated Fiction Writer type entries. I hope some of you, my faithful readers, hang on while I figure out what this blog is going to look like now that I don't have daily classroom stuff about which to blow off steam.