Late post from home

Right after class, I dashed back to the office, dropped my stuff, and joined up with Kristin for a dinner out: she had to do a presentation at evening club hour (a relatively new event for students who can't do things during regular day events), so since she was going to be out here late, she asked if I'd be available. You damn betcha. Lovely dinner in the best of company--and we only spent about the first half of it bitching about work.

I put in some time on the promotion folder today: what a snorting pain in the patoot, but I'm in the phase where I just need to match up the pieces and cross check them. I spent quite a bit of time sending off e-mails asking for missing documents (always a little embarrassing, but I'm certainly not the only one in that particular situation), but it it gradually, slowly starting to take shape.

Classes were a mixed bag. The earlier class was back to being the more lively, mostly because the potential favorite student who has been AWOL was back: I got an e-mail from him this morning explaining why he hadn't responded or shown up yesterday, and he was back in good form in class today. His life situation is still a mess, so I hope he can stay on track now. He's got so much potential, I'd hate for him to get derailed. Of course, he didn't have a paper ready, but at least he has good reason; a few other students didn't have papers ready and didn't have any particular reason why not. And a few were absent. One is simply gone: this was his fourth absence in a row. I'll give him until the 6th before I draw a line through his card and stick in the file labeled "gone," but I'm damned sure I won't see him again. One is the student who sent me the "it's not fair" e-mail over the weekend: no surprise there. And one is a student who, again, seems to have tons of potential but hasn't been showing up and turning in work regularly: I already issued her with an "early warning," so I'm concerned that she vanished yet again today.

Still, with Mr. Formerly AWOL back in class, the discussion was pretty great (though two students were falling asleep in the back--and I had no qualms saying, "and so-and-so is asleep back there"; the student would wake up long enough to make eye contact and attempt to be alert and then a few minutes later, back to sleep. Ah well.). I realized that I'm having them read an article that we probably won't have a chance to discuss on Thursday, as the day will be devoted to working on their papers--but it just means they'll have all the more to talk about when Bruce observes the class next Tuesday.

The second class was a lot more quiet. Everyone was alert (and the world needs more lerts), but they didn't have quite as much to say. It wasn't a bad class, just not as much going on as the session before. I showed both classes a newer "Story of Stuff" video--this one about solutions. I hadn't seen it before myself, but they responded to it with great interest. So, off we go. They're prepared to switch between working on their papers about education and gathering information for their next papers about environmental issues: I always am impressed by how sanguine they are when I tell them they're going to have to flip back and forth. Doesn't phase them in the least--I suppose because they all are used to that kind of rapid switch. (I have more difficulty with it than they do.)

Now, in addition to the paper grading for tomorrow, I also have to remember to get some materials ready for the Fiction Writing class. I had considered canceling it--am still considering calling in "sick" to Advisement--but since I have a meeting I can't miss in the afternoon, and thus have to be on campus anyway, I'll at least teach my class. I have to decide whether to risk it with Advisement, but at the moment, I feel as if seeing even one or two students would throw my concentration and slow me down significantly, so I'm inclined to bail. But I'll decide in the morning. The alarm is already set for 6 as is.

And with that thought, I need to stop thinking about work (OK, try to think less about work) and begin the glide toward bed. I know I won't get enough sleep (is there such a thing?) but every little increment toward enough is worth fighting for. And tomorrow is ... well, we all know what tomorrow is.

Stress dreams

Over the weekend, I dreamed that I had lost my temper with my students and most of them had immediately gotten up and left the room, abandoning the class in assorted fits of pique. It's one of my classic stress dreams (that and not being able to find a class that I'm supposed to be teaching, or not being able to get the students' attention, or realizing that it's three weeks into the semester and I've forgotten all about teaching X...), but the sad truth is, this is about when it will in some small measure start to come true.

Case in point: I got a petulant e-mail from a student asking for an extension on the deadline for his paper. His reason is that it isn't fair for him to have to do the paper, because I'm still holding on to one of his homework submissions: two pieces of one of his assignments had gotten separated, part of it attached to another student's homework, and so I'd asked him to resubmit the thing all together so I could correct his mark. I had to breathe carefully through my visceral reaction to the rather snotty "it isn't fair" bit, and I wrote him what I thought was a very compassionate e-mail in which I said no, I'm sorry, I can't extend the deadline, not because I'm being mean but because I have to get the paper back to you so you can do phase two. However, I told him, I can leave the assignment for you to pick up today, and blah, blah, every way I could think of to tell him A) that he could take a little responsibility (although I have his notes--which, I must say, are pretty valueless anyway--he can still access the article, as he found it doing an online database search) but B) he shouldn't worry because there are plenty of ways he can do the assignment without the missing notes.

The notes are still sitting on my office door. I haven't heard anything further from him. Somehow I think he'll show up with a withdrawal form, sooner or later.

I know this is part of their learning curve, and that it is important for them to have to encounter limits, be told "no"--but it drives me nuts that they simply get huffy and leave. I overheard a student in Advisement today who was in a huff about one of her teachers: what the student was reporting did sound unduly harsh on the professor's part (though I don't know the professor's side of the story), but even so, getting in a snit about it does not fix the situation--and no, we're not going to make exceptions for you because you don't think you've been treated fairly. News flash: life isn't fair, kiddies. We all take our undeserved knocks. We also get undeserved rewards. But in order to get anything at all, you have to stay in the game.

And speaking of staying in the game, the student who was poised to be one of my favorites this term but who had been AWOL contacted me today, finally answering the e-mail I sent in which I said I was worried about him. He asked to meet this afternoon, and I told him I could meet after 5, but that if he couldn't get here until after 6, he should e-mail me to let me know. He hasn't shown up, and I haven't heard from him. He reports that he's been in a terrible upheaval in his life--and I see no reason to disbelieve him--but the only thing that matters is that he has to get back on track. Continuing the motif of this post, much as I like him, I can't simply make exceptions in his case: there is a certain amount of work that the student has to do, no matter what else happens. If that minimum of work isn't done, the outcome will not be good.

Today's class was a bit of a disaster, too. I'm seriously considering simply ditching the rest of the readings, finding something else we can use for that portion of their grades. They simply can't seem to talk about the stories we read. Well, the Pseudo-Brit can, in his pompous, "I'm more brilliant than anyone" way, and one of my students from last year--a young man who is eternally, chronically late--can talk about the stories, but for the rest? Pulling teeth. I think we'll do more workshop-esque stuff with the exercises I'm having them do at home: let's talk about what we've got, how we might work on it to make it into something more, do some more writing on it in class.... The readings just don't work. I'll be mulling that over between now and Wednesday.

I also feel like things are in an unholy mess in both the office and my mind, but I can't seem to pull myself together enough to get truly organized. I have some copying I have to do, which is nicely brainless, but really, one of the things I feel is most lacking organization is any sense of what I'm going to do with the students in class tomorrow--when I put the schedule together, I thought we'd start reading the next essay in class, but I don't think that's going to work--and yet I can't seem to corral my mental processes well enough to figure out what will be most beneficial to them.

Side note: I did look at the next two paper assignments for the 101 classes and found a whopping error in each one. Nice to catch it now, before making the copies to distribute to the students.

But truly, I don't feel like I can think much more, and I am starting to feel anxious about the fact that I can't seem to think much more--which probably means it's about time to pack it in for the day. I'll noodle around for a while longer, hoping maybe Mr. AWOL shows up, but I'll simply have to home that tomorrow (being another day and all) will arrive with a little more mental acumen than I have at the moment.

Dragging...

I am so grateful we have tomorrow off. Even though I have to take care of some life maintenance, just the fact that I don't have to teach is a blessing: I am looking forward with keen anticipation to four mornings in a row with no alarm clock. Bliss.

I am also fighting off a bit of panic, having to do with how I'll make time to mark all the 101 papers next week. I don't have a Thursday meeting, mercifully, and I will probably bail on Advisement--but I still have a meeting I must go to on Wednesday afternoon, plus the Fiction Writing class, so a fair-sized chunk of Wednesday afternoon must be subtracted from the number of hours I'll have in which to read and evaluate the papers. Fortunately, there aren't that many students--and my strong hunch is that a certain percentage will not have papers for me next week. That worries me, of course: some of them are digging themselves into pretty deep holes. But if I'm entirely selfish, the fewer papers I get, the easier it is for me to get them marked.

(Apropos of nothing: I just saw a little button at the bottom of the page I'm on. It just says, "Complain." I think every web page needs that little button.)

As for getting ready for today's class, even with my sleep-deprived mind unable to get fully in gear, I was able to focus just well enough to get all the stories read and commented upon--and still had time for a nice, leisurely lunch. I didn't see many students in Advisement (two, I think?), and although I also was noodling around with e-mails and other distractions, I still got everything read. Of course, if I were being a strict task-master, I'd have spent some of that time marking stuff for 101, or getting some committee work done, or something--but instead, I spent a lovely 20 minutes reading Bill Bryson's latest offering, One Summer. It's not as riotously funny as he can be, but I actually like it better than some of his funnier works: it's still highly entertaining but without the feeling that he's straining for laughs.

 Class was great: I really love the workshop process, and next time I teach Fiction Writing, I think we're going to do even more of it. I have more exercises this semester than I did last time, so slightly less reading, but I think I can do even less reading, and squeeze at least one more story into the semester. Maybe. It would be good to try. But all the students are giving relatively intelligent feedback. The Pseudo-Brit is more than a little pompous and full of himself: he thinks he already knows all there is to know about writing, so he's very free to offer students suggestions for exercises they should try. I haven't shut him down about it--and I'm not sure I will: I think the other students have pretty good BS detectors, and I hope they can filter out the useful bits of what he says from the bloviation. Generally, though, I very much like the way they offer each other suggestions, give feedback: they have picked up the process very quickly and are sailing with it. Good for them.

I'm already thinking about what to do with them next week, too. Wednesday their revised stories are due, so they won't have done any reading--and depending on how I'm doing with the paper grading for the 101s, I hate to say it, but I may just collect their revisions, talk for a little bit about how the revision process felt, and then turn them loose so I can stagger back here and do more grading.

We'll see.

Because I don't have to be back here tomorrow--and because the only student work I have to deal with on Monday isn't needed until Tuesday (nothing I need to return to the Fiction students, only assignments for the 101s)--I think I'm going to leave the office in a rather chaotic mess and get out of here. If I feel a wild desire to, oh, work on my promotion application over the weekend, I can always come here and get Public Safety to open the building for me. Otherwise, everything can simply wait until next week. So, I'm going to take the internal quivering chipmunk home and try to calm it down, use the next four days to try to rest, relax, sleep. (Oh, sleep. Heavenly sleep!)

Writing in a bit of a rush

Not a lot of time before I dash off for dinner with Paul, who is down here briefly to take care of various personal and professional matters, but here's the precis:

Among the ten things college professors hate: this is a corollary to the annoying e-mails that ask if the student missed anything; it's the e-mail in which the students asks what the professor covered so as not to fall behind. Although I recognize that at least the student is motivated enough to want to know what he or she missed and assumes that it's something important, the assumption that I can re-teach the entire class for one student, via e-mail, is pretty idiotic--and since I don't just teach from a text book (read chapters 3-5, here are my lecture notes), most of what happens in class comes from the students anyway. Today, I admit, was one of those days when I did a lot more "chalk and talk" than usual, but no way in hell would I be willing or even really able to get all that into an e-mail. I simply told him we'd go over everything about the forthcoming paper and talk about the articles students found if we had time, so my advice was that he read over the paper assignment very carefully and more than once--and contact me if he has questions.

Of course, this is a student who is floundering anyway. Another student was back in the earlier section of 101 today: I can't remember if I've seen him once or twice since the start of the term, but certainly no more than that. I am not sanguine about his chances, but perhaps he'll be the miraculous exception to my experience with students who miss a lot of classes early on.

More worrisome is that I haven't seen or heard anything from the student who was poised to be my favorite student in that particular class. I'm on the fence about whether to contact him, find out what's going on. I may: I really don't want to lose him.

The other class started out with very few people in the room but eventually all but three of the students were there. Of course, it didn't feel like that because there are so few of them to start with, so even if only three people are absent, that's almost a quarter of the class. One I think I'm going to lose completely; I don't know where the other two were, but I hope they're OK.

Even with the absentees (and the virtually new student), both classes went well. I didn't get a chance to review the handbook pages I'd assigned before class, so I didn't go over them: I collected the homework but we can talk about those pages next week, if I see concerns in the homework I collected. I'm interested to note that a few of the students are finally starting to clue in: "Oh! She's not going to write assignments on the board; they're in the syllabus." "Oh! She gave a handout for how to do this assignment." "Oh! I need to do all the parts of an assignment to get full credit." Better now than never, but it does occur to me to wonder if there's anything I can do to smooth that out, or if some of them are just going to have to slowly get on the ball. The latter, I think, but I'm not entirely persuaded I'm right.

One of my favorite moments in both classes was after I went through the whole overview of what their papers should look like, talked about using anecdotal evidence, talked about process, showed them formatting (went through computer hell in one of the rooms: everything had timed out, and getting it all back up again took six years--but it was great to be able to actually show them how to set up a header instead of just talking about it), answered questions, blah blah blah. I finally ran down, and seeing all their faces, I said (in pretend pouty student voice), "I don't like this class any more. This used to be fun but now it's just scary and hard." They all laughed. I don't know why I feel that was beneficial, but I do: gut-level instinct response. I addressed the fear and lightened it up. Somehow I think that works.

And I told them--and reminded myself--that they can start off by using some techniques that worked for them in high school: I want them to feel comfortable about what they're doing, and we can work together on gradually shifting over to a more college-appropriate approach. I'm really the one who needs the most reminding on this: I need to work with where they actually are, not where I think they ought to be. If I don't start with where they are, they'll get too daunted to quickly, and they'll give up in despair. I don't want them to end up in the same place, but I need to take them to the new place, step by step, not demand a huge leap all at once.

So this is my moment (and I'll need many more of them) to remind myself to show them what works and why, what works and why, what works and why--not just point out problem, problem, problem.

It's actually a good approach to use with myself, in fact: remember what works and why, and not focus on the problems. I have ten brazillian things to do, but what works is to just do them in order as they come to the top of the "urgent" stack--or, for the little quick things, clear them out from underfoot right away before they get lost through the floorboards.

On which note, I will send one e-mail, then pack up and head off for a nice meal with a dear friend. Damn, I live a good life.

The long slow crawl up

If I use my roller-coaster analogy, this is the part of the semester when the coaster-cars are moving very slowly and on rails that are slowly, gradually increasing in the steepness of incline. Clank, clank, chug, chug: feels like a whole lot of effort for very little forward progress. I know that we'll get to the "hold onto the safety bar and scream" part soon enough, but I cannot believe that today is officially only the last day of the third week of classes: it feels like I've been in this semester for a decade or two.

I got myself into several major-league anxiety attacks over the weekend, all about work stuff. One was whether I'd have time to read and comment on all the stories that we were due to workshop today. Thinking about it, I decided it would be smart to get up at 6 and get here early, and it's a good thing I did. Things weren't dreadfully busy in Advisement, but shortly after I got there, everyone else disappeared into a closed-door meeting, so I was the only person there to advise--and when their meeting let out, all but one person went to lunch. I had to interrupt the meeting at one point to get a question answered, and just as the meeting let out, I was trying to deal with a situation in which I very quickly realized I was in over my head--but I couldn't get the attention of one of the pros to help. I finally got a few questions answered by one of the pros who came back from a very quick lunch and was immediately going in with a student--I essentially grabbed her in passing and got some information--but after working with the student a little longer, I realized I still didn't know what the hell I should be doing, so I called in another of the pros (who had been on the phone): she wanted to work through the whole complicated situation in my carrel, with me just watching her do the work, but I finally asked if she could just take the student. She said, "Oh, I thought we could make this a learning experience."

For me, she meant. My actual thought was, "Fuck that: you're the professional. When something gets this sticky, it's your job to jump in"--but what I said was that I wasn't up for a learning experience right that moment, which was true enough in its way. If I hadn't asked the pro to take over without me, I'd have been trying to follow what was going on for a full hour: the half hour I'd already spent plus the additional time it took the pro to figure everything out. She did come to me when she'd finished with the student to tell me how the situation had been resolved, so I had my learning experience (thank you very much)--but I also got rid of the student and could do some of my own work around the other students I saw while I was there.

And as it happened, I got the stories read and commented upon with just enough time left over to eat my lunch and mark a few assignments for tomorrow's classes. I'm now relatively confident that I can get all of the stuff done for tomorrow's classes and get the remaining stories read for Wednesday without undue stress or strain. Whew.

But the other source of anxiety, of course, is committee stuff--and my wretched promotion folder. I did a little work on both over the weekend, from home, because I can see how little time I actually have in contrast to how much time the committee crap wants to consume, so I figured I should try to cross at least a few little bits off the "to do" list before coming in today. And at the moment, I'm studiously ignoring all the other committee crap that needs to be done, most of it sooner than later.

Class today was fun. No surprise: we were workshopping stories, and they always have a blast at that. One of my colleagues said that there is only so much workshopping students can do before the begin to burn out, but I think I could easily triple the amount I do and have the students still love it. We didn't quite get to all the stories today; I hope we can get to them all on Wednesday, but if not, the Pseudo-Brit's story will have to take a pass, as his was late. But the students made good, insightful comments--and they're enjoying each other's stories, which is great. No one has completely knocked my socks off yet, but they're all doing a fine job. I'm delighted.
And because I got up at 6, even though I got a decent amount of sleep, I feel like I've been punched and need to lie down.

Soon, soon. Now, I'm going to indulge in just a tiny bit of noodling, then I'm out of here until tomorrow. I may not even set an alarm. I know it's supposed to be bad for the body to have an erratic schedule, but I figure it's worse not to get enough sleep, so, hey.

About to fly out the door

You can read that either way: I'm trying to get out of here in a (relative) hurry, and I'm also flying because today's classes were a blast. It was a grind of a day, with back-to-back meetings followed by back-to-back classes, but the classes were great, especially the later section. I also ended up having some relatively lengthy conversations with students after each class: this education topic has them humming. They may not know yet how they want to approach the topic, but the issues speak to them loud and clear. Of course, that's what I'd hoped would happen; I'm simply delighted that it's actually working out as planned.

I also had a pretty great conversation with one of my fellow panelists in the hallway after Academic Standing: she's the new senate rep to the committee, and our other panel participant is the vice-chair of the committee, so we get to see each other regularly, even if we don't get to engage in lengthy discussion. The only potential problem I see with the panel is that there are so many directions it could go--although that could also be a benefit. The three of us are going to meet in October to kick ideas around, but we're already sharing thoughts via e-mail. Again, it's the blessing/curse of having a number of articulate, intelligent people in the room: the possibilities are nearly infinite, and keeping to one thread can be a challenge.

I know there are other things I wanted to say today, but damned if I can remember a single one. If I remember anything really interesting that I wanted to share, I may post a P.S. I wish I had the energy (and mental acumen) left to get into more detail about why the classes were so great and what was so wonderful about the student interactions after class--but the main thing is that, at this point anyway, it all seems to be working pretty well. I could complain about students who are absent, or not doing work (or both), and I've already issued the first round of "early warnings" (well in advance of NCC's official system), but I don't want to worry about the usual student problems. I just want to work on doing more of what's working.

And to go home. And maybe sleep straight through until Monday.

Well, I'm ready for tomorrow, I think...

I told myself this morning that I'd be sure to read at least a few of the short stories from the Fiction Writing students before I called it a day today, but although I got all the assignments for my 101s marked while I was in Advisement, between starting things rolling for at least a few of the 10,000 assessment projects I'm supposed to be shepherding, the "seminar hours" committee meeting, and getting everything set for tomorrow, I find I've run out of steam. I will have a little time before my committee meeting tomorrow to read; other than that, I'll have to hope I can finish up on Monday, as I simply refuse to take anything home with me this weekend: it's too early in the semester.

It would also help if I could get a decent night's sleep: the perennial problem for me. When I start doing the plate-spinning thing with committee work, trying to keep the crockery from smashing to the floor turns me into a chipmunk on speed, and getting myself calmed down enough to sleep is a herculean task.

Right at the moment, assessment is what has me wired for sound. I'm trying to enlist help left, right and center, but I also know that I'll probably have to give each of the various tasks a good healthy shove to get things moving, so I've been sending out e-mails to various sub-committees, trying to at least get the key in the ignition. In fact, as I've been trying to write this post, I keep interrupting myself to send another e-mail (trying to do things before the "oh shit" moment)--and just now to record some of the specific work I've done in my promo folder (oh, yeah, that little thing).

Um, let me think: did I have a class today? The memory has been drowned out by all the committee stuff, plus some work getting ready for the panel for that conference in November (it's never too early), plus I don't know what the hell all else. Class was fine. A bit like pulling teeth--only one student was really "into" talking about the reading for today--but not terrible. Whatever. We workshop next week: they'll like that part.

Oh, god, I'm just too distracted by all the little niggly bits I have to nail down to say anything much. But here's the first student blooper of the semester, summarizing what the handbook suggests students should ask themselves as they approach a paper:

"Do you get the jest of the assignment?"

Wokka-wokka, very funny, that assignment.

I'm outta here.