Frantic and wild-eyed

I'm trying to do all the last everything all at once, which--to no one's vast surprise--isn't exactly working very well. Tomorrow, the most important thing for me to do is to sit down and carefully figure out the triage list. There are some large-ish bits to do (responding to/grading discussion board posts for the Nature in Lit students, in case they need any of my ideas for their final essays), and some that are just noodle-y bits (like making up the tally forms that make final calculations easier).

Poor Paul also had to get a snoot full of my venting about idiot students. The young woman in the SF class to whom I offered a "mercy D" didn't follow through--she submitted the hard copy of her essay but didn't upload it to Turnitin (and she, well, shall we say misrepresented how crucial my class is to her graduation; she indicated it's the only class she needs to graduate, but in fact she needs almost a full semester of other credits--and having to take a literature class just means she'll be able to get full-time status). I just emailed her to say that she's not going to get the D, and, in addition to running it past Paul, I also notified Cathy (as there's a chance the student will howl about it). One of the students in the 101 class submitted a bunch of stuff with his final essay that I didn't need--but did not submit a clean printout of the final version, which I do. Another student in that class submitted the upload to Turnitin but didn't show up with any of the other bits. I've informed them both that, if they don't get those pieces to me by tomorrow morning (when the Department meeting begins), they'll fail the class. Paul had to hear me ranting about all of that.

I am very clearly out of patience with the students in that class. When I got there, two of them had already left their essays on the desk. I asked them if they had all the pieces in order. One--one of the two who will likely pass--said yes, he'd checked. The other shrugged. I said to him, "Do you give a shit?" He almost shrugged again, but then he said he'd done his best. No, he hasn't--because he does not, in fact, give a shit--and he and I both know that, but whatever. I'll let him be an immature little asshole until the world kicks him around enough that he starts to realize not only that he has some responsibility to at least make a pretense of trying but also that he actually has some agency over how things happen in his life.

In a tangential move from that, one of our colleagues recently shared a little piece with us that seemed right on the money to me, about the little secrets to what makes professors tick. One of the items was "If you look enthusiastic and positive about the class, we’ll think well of you, no matter how much or little actual work you put into the class." Very true. Of course, that we think well of you doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a good grade, but it will certainly give you the benefit of the doubt if there's a doubt in there anywhere.

(The whole piece is worth a read: https://www.quora.com/What-do-your-college-professors-not-want-you-to-know/answer/Svetlana-Miller?share=b0a9931b&srid=J1a6)

I'm sure there's more I probably could record about today. Advisement was relatively busy (though I did get a little work done for the Nature in Lit class); Cathy and I finished the scheduling--until people start declining things or things don't run; and no matter what, by this time next week, I'll be doing final crunching of numbers and getting all the paperwork pulled together to submit. And Paul and I have a date for dinner and a much needed alcoholic beverage.

Meanwhile, I will heave a lot of heavy sighs--and stumble onward into the evening.  It's a good life. I keep telling myself that. It's a good life. And the semester is almost over.

Settin' 'em up, knockin' 'em down...

Made more progress on the stuff for Nature in Lit--but now I'm waiting to give students a little more time to post to the discussion boards, as they really fell down on the last week's worth. That's OK; it gives me a little more time, too.

I just collected essays from the students in SF; one wants to know her grade and another wants comments and the grade, but the main "drag" for that class is going to be managing the stuff for the student who's getting an incomplete. His work is going to be trickling in for a while, and some of it truly does require some effort on my part to evaluate and return in a timely manner.

I got all the P&B work done, too, so that's a good thing.

I am not looking forward to the final push of grading, I confess, and I've made life more difficult for myself by allowing revisions from the students in the two lit electives to push into next week--but the upside to all that is that none of it requires comment. Read, grade, calculate, done.

And this evening, after class (and after helping a slightly hysterical student upload her essay to Turnitin), I finally spent some time on the summer adjunct schedules. I didn't finish only because there are some courses to assign for which I can't locate a qualified faculty member. I may spend time with Cathy on it all tomorrow; she may not like some of what I've done, but I've just gone by the book: seniority order, the number of credits allowed within the given availability. I hope that tomorrow, between Advisement and class, I can meet with her to nail down the rest of it.

Then, of course, we get to do the fun part when people start declining the courses we offered, so we have to find someone else who can take whatever has been tossed back. Fortunately, in summer, if courses don't run for lack of enrollment, we don't have to sweat trying to recreate a schedule for someone (though it occurs to me that perhaps I need to check current enrollment in assigning courses so we're not canceling things assigned to people high in seniority).

Well, whatever.

Right now, even though it's been a day of getting things crossed off the "to do before it bursts into flames" list, I have that "broken strand of pearls" feeling: I know I'm going to be having a lot of "Oh shit!" moments in the days to come.

For this particular moment, however, I'm about as done as I can get. I keep cleverly "forgetting" to practice the fiddle when I get home, so I have to make sure to do that tonight, whatever else may call to me. (There is a box of Russell Stover chocolates out there calling my name, but I'm disregarding that siren call ... at least until next week.)

Until, well, whenever something comes up that seems blog-worthy. Maybe the weekend, but more likely not until Monday.

Can I just do this?

I met with a couple of students today--and the last of my appointments ended up lasting more than two hours. I was meeting with a student who is by far the best and brightest in the 101 class (though her essay was a bit of a wreck--even on a sentence level, which is unusual for her), and we just got talking ... and the talk ended up getting into far more personal, in-depth levels than I would have anticipated. It was lovely.

I really do enjoy meeting with students in that way; I'd be happy to mentor far more hours than I do, if I had enough willing student participants. I like getting to know them as human beings; I like being able to offer my insights, given my age and level of education and career. I like helping, human being to human being.

I don't know quite what else to say about it. I'm replete at the moment.

Earlier I had a slightly glitchier moment with a student: somehow I didn't email her essay to her, but she also didn't alert me to the problem, so she showed up for conference unprepared, which was annoying--until I realized it was partly my error. In any event, I'm going to meet with her tomorrow--and I need to get home ASAP to email her essay to her now, so she has it in plenty of time.

I didn't get any of that P&B stuff done ... yet. I did get more of the Nature in Lit stuff graded, which felt good.

And tomorrow is ... what's tomorrow? Oh, right: it's yet another day. Seems like there are a lot of those (which is a wonderful thing in itself: more days are better than fewer).

Holy schmoly, that was hard...

I got all the essays for Nature in Lit graded--not until Saturday morning, which was later than I'd hoped, but still, they're done and have been sent to the students.

I just finished grading the essays for the 101 students. Ow, ow, ow. Even the one I thought for sure would be fine (and saved for last) was painful: good ideas--I think--but the sentences were so torturous, I'm amazed I'm capable of anything approaching coherence myself. At least I was smart enough to do the little checklist of editing concerns (not revision stuff, but the technicalities) as I was reading the essays for the "big picture" stuff, so I don't have to read them again. I don't think I could.

I had hoped to get to some of the discussion boards for Nature in Lit too, but ... well, as happens with all the best of mouse plans, that one went agly.

In a fit of wild optimism, I also thought I might be able to embark on some of that P&B work I need to do. Hah! It is to laugh.

The level of slog is just ridiculous--but I'm pleased to note that I'm not as systemically cranky as I've been for a good deal of this semester. I'm going to credit the Breath-Body-Mind work I'm doing for that--or it could just be that I'm too tired to give much of a fuck any more. Or it could be the knowledge that I'm all but finished with all of this for this semester. Whatever the cause, it's an effect I'm happy to experience.

I don't really have a lot else to report. Of course I'm hoping that it will be pretty dead in Advisement tomorrow, as that way I can get more of that work done. And I've canceled my Salon appointment in the evening, after my conferences with students in the 101 class, so I hope to use that time for the P&B stuff. Hope. It does spring eternal.

Now, however, it's time for me to turn into a pumpkin, or something like that.  I'm certainly cooked.

Yet another speedy post...

I have to run of to physical therapy in just a few minutes here, so this will be fast.

My presentation to Future Teachers? Kinda a bomb. I hadn't prepared much--hoping for A. more inspiration (which didn't happen) and 2. more student involvement (which also didn't happen). There were only five students there, one of whom didn't speak. Whatever. I did it. Patting myself on the back, moving on.

Nice talks with students in the seminar/office hours time slots, first with the young woman from the Salon--who will also be my next cat sitter--then with a student who became my mentee as a result of the one and only Meet-and-Greet experience we were able to host for mentoring. He's an engineering student--but also a musician (with his own band, which is going on a little tour in August). Pretty neat kid, and he's going to do well. Smart and multifaceted.

The new cat sitter delighted me by getting enthusiastic about Le Guin's web site. She watched the National Book Award acceptance speech, and reacted in all the right ways at all the right moments. Thank you. Gratifying.

Class met outside, and it was good. Not stellar, but ye gods, we're all running on fumes these days. They did about as well as I'd expect. I talked with two in particular after class, both of whom were worried about how to write about gender in the novel without talking about our society. The new cat sitter explained: say what you want to say, just support it with the book. (Which is, well, kinda right; in any event, it made better sense to the students than I was making, so good: I'll take it.

And one other student and I had a talk about her lack of performance in my class: missed classes, assignments (including the second essay), and so on. She's trying to graduate. I'll invoke the "Mercy D" policy.

The student I offered an incomplete to wasn't there. That worries me.

Anyway, we'll see how that class wraps up. I am taking some stuff home with me--not so much in any expectation of getting it done as in the hope that it will help me prioritize what I need to do. The first thing will be work on the Nature in Lit. I'm woefully behind on that--and I realize more and  more that I am just not cut out for online teaching. Cool idea; doesn't work for me.

And with that, my friends and faithful readers, I'm outta here.

The Cliffs Notes version of the day

I actually had ferocious back pain this morning, and I used that as reason enough to bail on Advisement. I just finished grading everything for the SF class about 20 minutes ago. All is good on that front.

In the 101, four of six students showed up; two of four had completed their essays. Whatever.

My former student who is currently falling apart in the SF class just came to see me. She's on Academic Warning, so her grades in everything have been problems (and apparently she's withdrawn from a lot of classes). I've told her to talk to the academic retention counselors to find out what her best option is for my class: gut it out and know she'll probably get a D (which would be a mercy D) or withdraw. She started to cry; that cheerful "No problem" thing is clearly a coping mechanism covering very real fear and frustration. I hope she gets help. I hope she figures out what she needs to do to get her life situation improved enough that she can go to school and succeed.

I'm kinda ready for my presentation tomorrow to the Future Teachers' Club. I'll be winging it, like usual--but I have an idea for how to start, at least.

My mental triage list now has getting everything nailed down for the Nature in Lit as my first priority, then doing my P&B business. (I've actually done a teeny bit of that today, as one of my colleagues and I were supposed to draft up some language to run past the rest of the committee; she did the heavy lifting, but we batted things around by email--and it's now ready to roll out for the rest of the committee to bat around some more.)

I have things to post on classroom doors: a little ridiculous map for the SF class (though I think only one student might need it), and the "No class: conferences" notice for the 101.

I spent time with Cathy today, ostensibly working on summer adjunct schedules--but the Registrar's office has created a serious SNAFU with specific paired sections of a new initiative we're rolling out in which developmental students have their own class but also are part of a regular credit-bearing 101 section. The section designations and linking are really hard to get clear, so it's not surprising they screwed up, but in trying to rectify the situation, they also deleted regular sections of 101. So Cathy and I realized we really can't do anything else until that's sorted out, as there are too many domino chains attached. Further fun and frolic to come.

And that's my 10 minutes worth of time to talk about today. I'm off. (I'm also leaving.)

I love 'em all ... well, except one or two

We had class outside today, because the weather is (finally) gorgeous. We'll do the same on Thursday, weather permitting (it's supposed to be even warmer)--but the students realized, after today, that sitting on the grass isn't as comfortable as sitting on benches, so we're moving the location, but not by far.

The conversation was, for the most part, good, though a couple of the better students were rather mute today (and behind with their notes, dammit all to hell). But ... well, we're grinding toward the end, and everyone is running out of gas.

One student withdrew--finally. He should have done so about the third week. I've known since then that he simply couldn't hack it--but, god love him, he kept trying. Another has been gone enough hat I thought she'd disappeared, and she should withdraw; I hope she does. She's missing almost all her work, and she's been absent eight times (two over the stated limit; I can be flexible about that for students who are otherwise doing well, but not for someone who is patently out of her depth).

And then there's the student who was in one of my classes some time back. I'm about to throttle her. Her essay made no references to the actual novel itself; she used a cheater site's summary of the novel as "support" for her points. She did put the cheater site information in quotation marks (though she didn't cite it), but using it instead of using her own understanding of the novel? No, sorry: that's not a passing attempt. And today she submitted a bunch of notes--on Atwood's The Year of the Flood, which we finished reading weeks ago. Nothing on what we're actually reading now.

She wants to meet with me--and when I told her she'd have to email me to propose possible meeting times, and I'd have to see what would work with my schedule, she had the running, leaping gall to say, "Check your email a lot, OK? Because I'm maybe going to take off from work, so I need to know right away..." because, of course, it's my job to be available whenever she can fit me into her schedule.

But I'm not testy about it or anything.

I'm also not entirely happy that I didn't quite get their essays graded--and instead of returning all but one of them today, I opted to keep everything, including not only the essays but their revised first essays and any notes I've collected recently, in the perhaps wild hope that I can get it all back to them on Thursday.

And there's also all the work from the Nature in Lit that needs grading. God knows when I'll get to that.

I also have to do an assessment thingy for the essays for both lit classes. (Don't ask.) I'm late with that--and will be even later. Paul reported that things were sort of dead in Advisement today, but I know better than to hope the same will be true tomorrow. And I have to meet Cathy between Advisement and my class; I have an after-work appointment; and I have to do a presentation to the Future Teachers' Club on Thursday, on top of which I'll be seeing students back-to-back in my seminar and office hours on Thursday. When will I grade stuff? Well, I don't know. But I will. One way or another. Not much choice there. I may have to bail on Advisement tomorrow, just to be sure I have the time. I don't want to--not only because it is potentially busy these days but also because I've missed a lot of days--but it looks like that might be the only place where I can carve out the time I need. I'll mull it over tonight and see where I am with it all tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I am officially toast for this evening. It's time to wobble off to my car and drive carefully home. I do want to go on record with my appreciation of the lengthening days: it's rather wonderful to be going home while it's still light. And the end of semester is nigh. Time marches onward, and sometimes, that's a wonderful thing.