well, weird

I'm sort of obsessing about when I would have seen that student from yesterday. I absolutely know that I saw her--I remember it vividly, and I even now remember commenting about the student to Kristin (and getting a similar response, about how the student is driving K bats by sending gazillions of emails--literally 18 in one day)--but I can find zero record of it anywhere. Not that it matters, really; it's just strange and mysterious that I am so certain I saw the student in an earlier appointment and have no factual evidence to support that assertion.

Well, whatever.

Today I saw all repeat customers. One was a student who also presents a challenge in terms of focus; even when she starts explaining why she chose to include something in her essay, she can end up talking about ... just about anything. Keeping her on topic in her essay is a similar challenge, for obvious reasons: that's just how her brain works, and she doesn't have enough experience yet to recognize when she is running down a rabbit trail and to haul herself back on track. I'm suddenly reminded of the wonderful hound my nephew owns. Annabelle, the hound, is a sweet and charming creature, but if she gets on a scent, she's off--and she has disappeared often enough that they now have equipped her with a GPS collar. I feel like this student is mentally very like that: she gets on a side trail and disappears over the ridge. I've managed to call her back, but the tutoring sessions are not very efficient, as a lot of the time is spent with me listening to her digress about something or other and then trying to haul her back on piste. But she's sweet and well-intentioned and clearly wants to do well in her classes.

Student number 2 was the young woman, non-native speaker of English, who cannot seem to speak audibly to save her life. She first appeared working with another colleague--I'm sure I reported this before--and he spend almost the entire session telling her he couldn't hear her. Then I met with her and had the same experience. She was a little better today, but I just would love to know what constellation of factors, personality-wise, familial, and cultural, have led her to so effectively silence herself. She wanted help making sure she had made the proper corrections to an essay, and for the most part she had.

Third student of the day was a young man who is in the Honors program but clearly based on his facility in business and accounting, not his writing ability. He tends to the periphrastic (to put it mildly), but he's starting to see where excess verbiage can be truncated with a little prodding from me. He's applying for several scholarships; he sent off one essay that I really wish he'd run past a tutor one more time, as there were a lot of glitches with it (which I hope don't affect his chances at the scholarship). Today we reworked that one so he could use it for a different scholarship, then we discussed how he can approach the required application essay for yet another. I've now helped him with scholarship essays twice and with an essay about Oedipus Rex, and he's a pleasure to work with. I hope he can maintain his current 4.0 GPA, but I think his English classes may present a bit of a stumbling block, depending on his luck with professors.

In a nice little moment, I also ran into one of my students from last semester's good 101 class--one of the more memorable students from that class, and one of the ones who was responsible for the bubbling chemistry. He's doing extremely well--and he's now thinking he may not transfer out as quickly as he originally intended. He realizes that he's getting a lot more support and an equally good education here. I wish every student with that experience would shout it from the rooftops (or, more important, send letters to the Board of Trustees and to Newsday, the local newspaper which in general has an animus against the school).

I'm posting this now in what would be my last appointment of the day, but mercifully, no one was scheduled and another tutor got the latest drop-in, so I have this bit of time in which to pull my head together as it were. I am not going back to the office after my stint here--foregoing another opportunity to engage in office clean-out--because I'll be getting an early train from home to the City to meet Paul, William, and Kristin for drinks (though I may skip the booze part) and dinner. I'm very much looking forward to hanging out with them--and Kristin and I will have a blast talking about that student who drove me so bats yesterday. I truly hope I don't see the student again, but if I do, I certainly will have to come up with a moniker for her: she's memorable, I'll say that.

But at that, I'm going to wrap things up. I still have about 15 minutes to fritter away before I can officially put on my coat and take off, but I will indeed fritter. I have nothing else of substance to do or report.