I actually need to start with a P.S.: the person whose schedule I almost screwed up is turning into a minor-league problem. Apparently, she is so certain that Scheduling does something nefarious in assigning online courses that she misreads every e-mail I send, trying to explain. I finally said that we need to talk, face to face, so I can make sure she understands. What's weird is, I'm actually on her side--or I think I am--but perhaps not in a way that she recognizes as an alliance. I'm about to give up on the attempt to get her to understand (as well as my attempts to understand her, although she's a fascinating specimen). And I have zero clue what ultimately happened with her schedule, but at this point, I don't give a rat's petite patoot.
But moving forward into this new and wonderful semester (hey, no dubious snorts over there), I've met with both groups of students in electives. I have already put in a request for a room change for the SF class: five people didn't show up today, and it's a damned good thing, as there'd have been nowhere to put them. I know the attrition will probably start soon, so I may be able to say "never mind" about the request for a change--although if we were changed into a room where the AC works (and the heat, once that becomes the issue), that would be nice. My overall read of the students is that they're ready, willing and able to be engaged. A few may be bubble-heads, and there is already one obvious guinea pig who will need to be suppressed regularly (note to self: lay in a supply of burlap bags). One student is obviously one who has trouble with text: he is proactive about his education and made sure to sit down with me after class to be sure he understood everything, but it as also clear that the handouts were confusing/daunting--and I got the sense that the confusion was simply a visual overload: too many words on the page and his brain fritzes out. But, hey. As long as he is willing to come to me with his questions, we're golden. He also said that he knew that sometimes you work your ass off and get a C; other times, you don't work hard at all and get an A. I asked him to come to all my classes to explain that fact. What a relief to have a student with that attitude. Perfect.
Mystery and detective seemed more subdued today--and weirdly, I was just a shade more fierce in response (looking for reaction? I'll have to ponder that). I don't think I came across as scary, and in both classes, students were willing to admit that they were a little daunted by the amount of reading and worried about whether they could keep up. I reassured them that I'm willing to ditch readings if we need more time, and that I'd check in with them about it as we go along. In the Mystery class, there was one student who was very worried about whether there would be clear handouts explaining what needs to happen. Yes, I said, always--and if you're not getting it from me fast enough, you can go to Blackboard and download it; if it's not on Blackboard, you can e-mail me to ask for it. I see her concern as a good sign: she wants to be sure she knows what's expected of her.
Both classes are a little freaked out by their initial writing assignment--which is 300 words, for heaven's sake--and how that assignment relates to their reading responses. But I want them to read the handout that I wrote about the reading process and their reading responses first; then we can spend all of Thursday talking about that.
And I already was talking about how they could turn in the 300-word thing next Tuesday--but next Tuesday follows a Monday schedule. Oops. I have to go over the schedule with them to point out the two places where it gets wonky; I think there are only two....
Little stupid bits and orts of things in my mind:
I ordered or made copies of articles I already have about a zillion copies of in a drawer. Shit. Oh well.
Our new very jazzy printer is wonderful--but it can't print the index cards that I use for student information. Shit. Really, shit. No oh well there. I have to either figure out how to print the cards some other way (I'd use my printer at home, but it's an ink-jet, so if the cards get wet, the ink will run) or I have to devise another system entirely. As I said, Shit.
Apparently, in the mass order of books for the Mystery class, I left one out. Thank god one of the administrators of the campus bookstore has been placing all kinds of last-minute orders for me--cheerfully. Blessings abound.
I have completely lost track of what I have/what I need in terms of handouts for classes. I did make copies of the first essay assignment for Mystery--and then ended up finding an error and deciding to make a rather significant change, so I have to do that all over again.
Former student from last year's 101 is suddenly in SF: apparently someone dropped and he jumped in. Happy about that. So that's three students who followed me, despite my being away for a semester.
Advisement tomorrow. I wonder how wild and woolly that will be.
I'm tired. Brain is shuttering shop for the night. Hasta manana.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Well, that was scary
I was all set to tap-dance out of here on the happy wings of the fact that Bruce has released me from duty for tomorrow (he didn't come in today, so we were trying to handle things over the phone)--and when I checked my e-mail I saw that I made a huge, horrible, utter fuck-up with a very unhappy FT faculty member, creating major confusion over whether we could turn one of her courses into an adjunct course. There is a solution, so my colleague is not going ballistic, as I feared she might, but I really did screw up big time, and I feel like shit about it. I simply didn't read her e-mail carefully enough and don't know how things work in terms of people teaching outside the department as part of their course loads. I should have realized that she didn't need a separate contract for a non-English-department course that was on her FT schedule (I didn't when I was going to teach MDC), but, well, I was juggling a few too many things and wanted to get her squared away in too much of a hurry. Mea maxima culpa.
There is good news however: I checked e-mail again, and although there is still a possible problem, she's being very gracious about it and I think will be fine with the solution. Even better news, since Bruce did spring me from duty for tomorrow, if there's any further fall-out from the mess I created, he'll be the one in the hazmat suit, cleaning it up. I feel rotten leaving him with my mess--but then, I sorted out some of his messes, so I guess we're even.
Other good news: all of my course materials have been copied for the first week or two of classes. Also, I have everything set up on Blackboard (the online platform) for 101 and Mystery, and enough set up for the SF class to get the semester started. I'd love to get the paper assignments for SF hammered out before Monday. It may be overly optimistic to think I might work on class stuff tomorrow--I may be lying on the sofa fighting a decompression headache--but if I could, that would be sweet. Even if not, I don't have anything on my calendar for Friday during the day, or Sunday, or Monday. (I have activities in mind for Saturday, but they're for fun, not work.)
Mostly, I hope I can let go of quite a bit of residual anxiety: once I get flurried, it takes a long time for the mental and emotional silt to settle. Breathing is helpful, I find. So is doing mindless silly stuff. In fact, a jigsaw puzzle may be called for.
Isn't that an enviable place to be? Trying to figure out what will be the most relaxing form of mind-candy? And here I am, in exactly that place.
Life in the trenches isn't so bad sometimes.
There is good news however: I checked e-mail again, and although there is still a possible problem, she's being very gracious about it and I think will be fine with the solution. Even better news, since Bruce did spring me from duty for tomorrow, if there's any further fall-out from the mess I created, he'll be the one in the hazmat suit, cleaning it up. I feel rotten leaving him with my mess--but then, I sorted out some of his messes, so I guess we're even.
Other good news: all of my course materials have been copied for the first week or two of classes. Also, I have everything set up on Blackboard (the online platform) for 101 and Mystery, and enough set up for the SF class to get the semester started. I'd love to get the paper assignments for SF hammered out before Monday. It may be overly optimistic to think I might work on class stuff tomorrow--I may be lying on the sofa fighting a decompression headache--but if I could, that would be sweet. Even if not, I don't have anything on my calendar for Friday during the day, or Sunday, or Monday. (I have activities in mind for Saturday, but they're for fun, not work.)
Mostly, I hope I can let go of quite a bit of residual anxiety: once I get flurried, it takes a long time for the mental and emotional silt to settle. Breathing is helpful, I find. So is doing mindless silly stuff. In fact, a jigsaw puzzle may be called for.
Isn't that an enviable place to be? Trying to figure out what will be the most relaxing form of mind-candy? And here I am, in exactly that place.
Life in the trenches isn't so bad sometimes.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Oh, my giddy aunt
What a maelstrom of a day! The continuing swirl of chaos and craziness regarding adjunct scheduling--and we're still not done, as there are still a number of classes hanging fire in terms of whether they'll get enough students enrolled to run. Some affect FT faculty, and those are the biggest concern, but then we have to repeatedly comb through the adjunct seniority lists to be sure that people with the most seniority have classes--even if they end up tossing them back to us. We have a lot of adjunct courses on hold, too, as we're not sure but what we may have to cancel them. It's a rolling cluster-fuck (which sounds like a lot more fun than it is).
I was once again called upon to exercise my diplomacy skills today: an adjunct was breathing fire about being jerked around, threatening to file a grievance, trying to throw his weight around how he'd been here for 20 years (um, no) and was a "full professor" (um, no--not here anyway), shrieking about how he's had to declare bankruptcy and don't we understand that he has to keep his house and feed his family.... It was one of those times when I remembered my mother's sage advice to be "relentlessly" polite, and because I stayed calm--the most I said, several times, was "May I finish my sentence, please?" always said as a gentle request--eventually I think he started to realize that he didn't have to act like an asshole. I explained the contract to him; first he argued with me about it, but I said he was half right (which he was), and when he said, "Is what you're saying going to stand up to a grievance?" I said, "Yes, it will." Then he asked if the adjunct union rep would say what I was saying, and again, I assured him that would be the case. By the end of the conversation, he had completely backed down and simply asked us to do what we can.
And it turns out, he was flipping out about not getting a course that he may get anyway. The office staff were just telling him he might not get it, because it might have to go to a full-time faculty member (and I had to explain that no, we can't just give full-time faculty "administrative work" to fill in for a course: we have to teach our full course load). But I get it: he's petrified that he won't get the money he's counting on, and he was displacing that fear into a whole lot of misdirected anger. He sure didn't have any business screaming at the office staff about it--nor at me, for that matter, though my position does at least make me someone who should have to field complaints. The office staff can't do a damned thing except what we tell them: he was blowing the messengers up with a bazooka. I'm very glad I could get him off their backs--and off my own, actually. And I'm superlatively proud of myself that I didn't feel stressed out or anxious about it at all.
But, in terms of dealing with people, Bruce did his thing of charging in with guns blazing instead of talking someone off the ledge (as it were)--on two separate occasions. On the first occasion, I probably would have handled things differently, but I think ultimately his way of handling the situation was appropriate (a full-time faculty member was unhappy about a change that probably will have to happen to her schedule and wanted something that we can't do). On the second occasion, however, I understand why he acted as he did, but I think a more diplomatic response would have worked as well if not better (though I admit, it would have taken longer). In that case, a couple of students were pissed off that we wouldn't put then into courses that were already closed because they were filled to capacity, and first they unloaded on the office staff--who also aren't great at calming people down--and then when the office staff called Bruce in, he didn't even listen to the students: he just said "I don't overload courses, period, end of discussion."
Now, I grant you, the students were being snotty brats with a severely over-developed sense of entitlement, but there are ways to deal with even that attitude, as completely maddening as it is. Yesterday, I was on the phone dealing with something else, and just happened to field a student who came charging in to the office, saying he "absolutely refused" to take a remedial course because he only missed the cut-off for credit-bearing courses by one point. I directed him to Cathy, but before he went to talk to her, I said, "A word of advice? Going in with 'I absolutely refuse' probably isn't the way to start things off, but if you explain your frustration and ask if there's anything to be done, I bet she can help you." He understood, calmed down, talked to Cathy--and I saw him today, registering for 100.
Let me hasten to say: I have not had a personality transplant. I still have a ferocious temper, and it can explode in a nanosecond. But I'm getting better at going with a more beneficial reaction as my first response and saving the volcanic eruption for more worthy situations.
I did spend some time on my own classes today--and as an ironic side note, the thumb drive actually was in my purse yesterday: I just didn't dig deep enough into the little pocket where I'd stashed it. But of course today, I found a few more mistakes--and ended up adding a reading to the SF class, as well as dividing one of the novellas up into three portions instead of two. It's all about the "built in extra credit" thing: I wanted the Mystery course and SF to have the same number of total points at the end, and as I'd constructed SF, I was two readings short. The one day at the end that I'd reserved for general discussion with no assignment due is now a day when a reading response is due. And unless I show a film on the day when the final paper is due (and finish it the last day of class), we're only going to watch one movie. I may have another hanging about, just in case we have time for it (the classroom is just down the hall from my office, so I can make an impromptu decision), but my guess is that I may end up ditching readings anyway so we have more time to discuss.
Tomorrow, Bruce says he'll only be in for about an hour; I'll try to arrive around 10 again (it was closer to 11 today, but hey)--but Thursday is when he and I will have to really get down and dirty with nailing down the last wobbly bits. Fun and frolic, man: it just is a carnival around here.
I was once again called upon to exercise my diplomacy skills today: an adjunct was breathing fire about being jerked around, threatening to file a grievance, trying to throw his weight around how he'd been here for 20 years (um, no) and was a "full professor" (um, no--not here anyway), shrieking about how he's had to declare bankruptcy and don't we understand that he has to keep his house and feed his family.... It was one of those times when I remembered my mother's sage advice to be "relentlessly" polite, and because I stayed calm--the most I said, several times, was "May I finish my sentence, please?" always said as a gentle request--eventually I think he started to realize that he didn't have to act like an asshole. I explained the contract to him; first he argued with me about it, but I said he was half right (which he was), and when he said, "Is what you're saying going to stand up to a grievance?" I said, "Yes, it will." Then he asked if the adjunct union rep would say what I was saying, and again, I assured him that would be the case. By the end of the conversation, he had completely backed down and simply asked us to do what we can.
And it turns out, he was flipping out about not getting a course that he may get anyway. The office staff were just telling him he might not get it, because it might have to go to a full-time faculty member (and I had to explain that no, we can't just give full-time faculty "administrative work" to fill in for a course: we have to teach our full course load). But I get it: he's petrified that he won't get the money he's counting on, and he was displacing that fear into a whole lot of misdirected anger. He sure didn't have any business screaming at the office staff about it--nor at me, for that matter, though my position does at least make me someone who should have to field complaints. The office staff can't do a damned thing except what we tell them: he was blowing the messengers up with a bazooka. I'm very glad I could get him off their backs--and off my own, actually. And I'm superlatively proud of myself that I didn't feel stressed out or anxious about it at all.
But, in terms of dealing with people, Bruce did his thing of charging in with guns blazing instead of talking someone off the ledge (as it were)--on two separate occasions. On the first occasion, I probably would have handled things differently, but I think ultimately his way of handling the situation was appropriate (a full-time faculty member was unhappy about a change that probably will have to happen to her schedule and wanted something that we can't do). On the second occasion, however, I understand why he acted as he did, but I think a more diplomatic response would have worked as well if not better (though I admit, it would have taken longer). In that case, a couple of students were pissed off that we wouldn't put then into courses that were already closed because they were filled to capacity, and first they unloaded on the office staff--who also aren't great at calming people down--and then when the office staff called Bruce in, he didn't even listen to the students: he just said "I don't overload courses, period, end of discussion."
Now, I grant you, the students were being snotty brats with a severely over-developed sense of entitlement, but there are ways to deal with even that attitude, as completely maddening as it is. Yesterday, I was on the phone dealing with something else, and just happened to field a student who came charging in to the office, saying he "absolutely refused" to take a remedial course because he only missed the cut-off for credit-bearing courses by one point. I directed him to Cathy, but before he went to talk to her, I said, "A word of advice? Going in with 'I absolutely refuse' probably isn't the way to start things off, but if you explain your frustration and ask if there's anything to be done, I bet she can help you." He understood, calmed down, talked to Cathy--and I saw him today, registering for 100.
Let me hasten to say: I have not had a personality transplant. I still have a ferocious temper, and it can explode in a nanosecond. But I'm getting better at going with a more beneficial reaction as my first response and saving the volcanic eruption for more worthy situations.
I did spend some time on my own classes today--and as an ironic side note, the thumb drive actually was in my purse yesterday: I just didn't dig deep enough into the little pocket where I'd stashed it. But of course today, I found a few more mistakes--and ended up adding a reading to the SF class, as well as dividing one of the novellas up into three portions instead of two. It's all about the "built in extra credit" thing: I wanted the Mystery course and SF to have the same number of total points at the end, and as I'd constructed SF, I was two readings short. The one day at the end that I'd reserved for general discussion with no assignment due is now a day when a reading response is due. And unless I show a film on the day when the final paper is due (and finish it the last day of class), we're only going to watch one movie. I may have another hanging about, just in case we have time for it (the classroom is just down the hall from my office, so I can make an impromptu decision), but my guess is that I may end up ditching readings anyway so we have more time to discuss.
Tomorrow, Bruce says he'll only be in for about an hour; I'll try to arrive around 10 again (it was closer to 11 today, but hey)--but Thursday is when he and I will have to really get down and dirty with nailing down the last wobbly bits. Fun and frolic, man: it just is a carnival around here.
Monday, August 24, 2015
A good plan gan agly
After driving myself bananas trying to fix the various messes that Bruce and I had left in our wake last week (and making yet another error along the way), I actually got to sit down and start chipping through my own prep at about 2 p.m. My brilliant plan was to bring my laptop with me--because I can translate Word files into PDF files on the laptop but not on the office computer--and simply swap things back and forth between the two computers using my thumb drive.
Which is sitting on my desk at home, it seems.
All day yesterday, as I looked at the damned thumb drive, I thought, "I'd better remember to put that in my purse." If I did, I don't know where in my purse I put it: I sure as hell can't find it now.
This seems to be the motif of the last few weeks: "Where the fuck did I put the..." sleeve for my water bottle, thumb drive, pencil case, class folder, latest printout of X, travel cup for iced coffee ... and I could go on.
It's awfully damned early for that strand of pearls to have broken. And I am seriously losing track of what I have and have not accomplished. I did finally nail down a reading list for SF, and made the error of posting it on Facebook, where a friend immediately started in with "What, no Bradbury? No Octavia Butler? What about Carl Sagan? Have you considered Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land? Oh, you're thinking about films, too: what about ET? What about..." I finally said, "I think you should teach the class"--and she stopped. So far. I know it was all motivated out of her own excitement about the material and enthusiasm to share her ideas, but I my first reaction was defensive panic.
Calm. Calm. I have reasons. They're good enough. I'm not thinking through it again.
The students may not like the list as well as I do: I did decide to go with the first two of Atwood's Maddaddam trilogy and with two Le Guin short stories ("Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" and "Newton's Sleep") and two of her novellas (The Word for World Is Forest and Paradises Lost). The objection may be that there's an awful lot by those two authors, at the expense of a lot of other authors we could read instead--but thematically, I'm happy with the progression.
Of course, now I have to work on essay topics, and at the moment, that's a kind of thinking I just cannot do. Things downstairs in the main office will have to calm down significantly first, and I'll need a little time to finish basic maintenance on class handouts first.
Speaking of which, I found yet one more thing on the 101 syllabus that needed to be changed/fixed--and five pages of the syllabus for Mystery and Detective that needed the same. It really is endless: somewhere along the line, I'm sure to find something I meant to change/should have changed and didn't--or an idiotic typo, or something.
But speaking of syllabi, one of my colleagues sent us a link to blogger Sonya Huber's "Shadow Syllabus"--and it's brilliant. I've got links to it on all three of my course pages in Blackboard: http://sonyahuber.com/2014/08/20/shadow-syllabus/. Beautifully put: I couldn't have said it even close to as well, but she captures how many of us feel. Utterly great.
In any event, I'm about to fold my work tents (tense) for now. I have a collection of the documents I need to get copied this week, another collection of documents I can send off to the printing department; I've made sure to have AV equipment reserved when I need it for all three classes (or I hope I do: there's always the chance that I may wish I had access to the laptop and overhead projector for 101 on a day when I didn't reserve it, but my experience last semester was that usually all the equipment was unlocked and I could just fire it up when I needed it). Tomorrow or the next day, I can pick up copies of the books for SF from the bookstore (so I have the same editions my students are likely to have) and I may be able to drop in to one of the Blackboard help sessions, just so I know why the "Welcome" page isn't the first thing students see when they click on the class. I may even get to an orientation session on Wednesday (unlikely tomorrow), which would be fun. (And every time I think about that, I wonder where things are with seminar hours--and then I think, "Not my problem. Scott will let us know when anything is sorted out. If anything is sorted out, at all, ever.")
So, I'm going to noodle around a bit on the computer, then gently steal away into the night.
Possibly more tomorrow....
Which is sitting on my desk at home, it seems.
All day yesterday, as I looked at the damned thumb drive, I thought, "I'd better remember to put that in my purse." If I did, I don't know where in my purse I put it: I sure as hell can't find it now.
This seems to be the motif of the last few weeks: "Where the fuck did I put the..." sleeve for my water bottle, thumb drive, pencil case, class folder, latest printout of X, travel cup for iced coffee ... and I could go on.
It's awfully damned early for that strand of pearls to have broken. And I am seriously losing track of what I have and have not accomplished. I did finally nail down a reading list for SF, and made the error of posting it on Facebook, where a friend immediately started in with "What, no Bradbury? No Octavia Butler? What about Carl Sagan? Have you considered Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land? Oh, you're thinking about films, too: what about ET? What about..." I finally said, "I think you should teach the class"--and she stopped. So far. I know it was all motivated out of her own excitement about the material and enthusiasm to share her ideas, but I my first reaction was defensive panic.
Calm. Calm. I have reasons. They're good enough. I'm not thinking through it again.
The students may not like the list as well as I do: I did decide to go with the first two of Atwood's Maddaddam trilogy and with two Le Guin short stories ("Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" and "Newton's Sleep") and two of her novellas (The Word for World Is Forest and Paradises Lost). The objection may be that there's an awful lot by those two authors, at the expense of a lot of other authors we could read instead--but thematically, I'm happy with the progression.
Of course, now I have to work on essay topics, and at the moment, that's a kind of thinking I just cannot do. Things downstairs in the main office will have to calm down significantly first, and I'll need a little time to finish basic maintenance on class handouts first.
Speaking of which, I found yet one more thing on the 101 syllabus that needed to be changed/fixed--and five pages of the syllabus for Mystery and Detective that needed the same. It really is endless: somewhere along the line, I'm sure to find something I meant to change/should have changed and didn't--or an idiotic typo, or something.
But speaking of syllabi, one of my colleagues sent us a link to blogger Sonya Huber's "Shadow Syllabus"--and it's brilliant. I've got links to it on all three of my course pages in Blackboard: http://sonyahuber.com/2014/08/20/shadow-syllabus/. Beautifully put: I couldn't have said it even close to as well, but she captures how many of us feel. Utterly great.
In any event, I'm about to fold my work tents (tense) for now. I have a collection of the documents I need to get copied this week, another collection of documents I can send off to the printing department; I've made sure to have AV equipment reserved when I need it for all three classes (or I hope I do: there's always the chance that I may wish I had access to the laptop and overhead projector for 101 on a day when I didn't reserve it, but my experience last semester was that usually all the equipment was unlocked and I could just fire it up when I needed it). Tomorrow or the next day, I can pick up copies of the books for SF from the bookstore (so I have the same editions my students are likely to have) and I may be able to drop in to one of the Blackboard help sessions, just so I know why the "Welcome" page isn't the first thing students see when they click on the class. I may even get to an orientation session on Wednesday (unlikely tomorrow), which would be fun. (And every time I think about that, I wonder where things are with seminar hours--and then I think, "Not my problem. Scott will let us know when anything is sorted out. If anything is sorted out, at all, ever.")
So, I'm going to noodle around a bit on the computer, then gently steal away into the night.
Possibly more tomorrow....
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Gnats
I feel as if my head is surrounded by clouds of gnats: trying to keep track of what's going on is proving just about as challenging as it can get. Bruce and I hacked through the underbrush for most of the day, and I have to say, the problem with him having things in his head is that he doesn't meticulously keep track of what's where, what's been done, that everything is recorded in all the places where it needs to go. We must have assigned five or six courses only to find out he'd canceled them some time ago. In at least three instances, we were told that a faculty member had declined classes--but wherever it had been written down for Bruce, he lost track of it. (I wasn't being paranoid about the possibility that he'd forget he'd said I could have the SF class.) He even said at one point that he "likes mess." (I refrained from comment about the evidence of that in his personal life.) A lot of what I was doing was trying to make sure things were clear--all the records matching and that we could actually, literally see what had been assigned and to whom. At some point, he was working in red pen, which makes it harder to see any subsequent changes, especially when a course has changed hands three or four times....
On top of that, seminar hours stuff is turning into a maelstrom: the administration has done precisely nothing to even let students know that the mentoring/advising option exists, never mind giving students a way to indicate their interest and availability. Within a few hours, another member of the committee and I had come up with jazzy fliers (his jazzier than mine) to replace the turgid text that someone in admissions had ground out, and I created an interest/availability form--but we now need the administration to set up a link that can be accessed by e-mail, through the NCC home page, through the "Portal" (the central log-in site), so we have a way to electronically gather the information. We are under this contractual obligation to fulfill hours as if they'll happen starting with the first day of classes--but nothing has been done so we can start fulfilling them.
I probably should stop there. It's a hairball of epic proportions, and I don't imagine anyone really wants to see each individual hair teased out of the mess. I saw Paul briefly this morning: his reaction to the madness was to kick it right back to the administration. We're here in our offices, dutifully ready to meet with students: we're fulfilling our contractual obligation; it isn't our fault that there are no students for us to see. I've often had the "sometimes you have to drop the football" response to impossible situations of this type, but in this case, I have a feeling somehow it would backfire in truly unpleasant ways. That said, a member of our union leadership intimated that even if we make a brilliant success of the seminar hours, the administration is still going to be gunning for us to have a fifth class.
Please please please please let me have enough money in my retirement fund that I can take an early retirement option with the next contract and get out of here before that happens.
In any event, I will be back in on Monday--albeit without Bruce--cleaning up the last of the mess, which will mean being on the phone with Bruce, making frantic notes. At this point, plans to do any photocopying are on hold, as both the departmental copy machines are down, and we don't know when the repair guy will show up. Plan B--Kinkos--is already in place, but before I get to that, I have to quadruple check to be sure I have printed the latest version of all handouts so I'm sure I'm photocopying the correct thing.
Now, I'm going to noodle around with handouts for a bit--and it looks like I'm not going to make it to tango class, dammit: this is what happens when I get on a roll....
On top of that, seminar hours stuff is turning into a maelstrom: the administration has done precisely nothing to even let students know that the mentoring/advising option exists, never mind giving students a way to indicate their interest and availability. Within a few hours, another member of the committee and I had come up with jazzy fliers (his jazzier than mine) to replace the turgid text that someone in admissions had ground out, and I created an interest/availability form--but we now need the administration to set up a link that can be accessed by e-mail, through the NCC home page, through the "Portal" (the central log-in site), so we have a way to electronically gather the information. We are under this contractual obligation to fulfill hours as if they'll happen starting with the first day of classes--but nothing has been done so we can start fulfilling them.
I probably should stop there. It's a hairball of epic proportions, and I don't imagine anyone really wants to see each individual hair teased out of the mess. I saw Paul briefly this morning: his reaction to the madness was to kick it right back to the administration. We're here in our offices, dutifully ready to meet with students: we're fulfilling our contractual obligation; it isn't our fault that there are no students for us to see. I've often had the "sometimes you have to drop the football" response to impossible situations of this type, but in this case, I have a feeling somehow it would backfire in truly unpleasant ways. That said, a member of our union leadership intimated that even if we make a brilliant success of the seminar hours, the administration is still going to be gunning for us to have a fifth class.
Please please please please let me have enough money in my retirement fund that I can take an early retirement option with the next contract and get out of here before that happens.
In any event, I will be back in on Monday--albeit without Bruce--cleaning up the last of the mess, which will mean being on the phone with Bruce, making frantic notes. At this point, plans to do any photocopying are on hold, as both the departmental copy machines are down, and we don't know when the repair guy will show up. Plan B--Kinkos--is already in place, but before I get to that, I have to quadruple check to be sure I have printed the latest version of all handouts so I'm sure I'm photocopying the correct thing.
Now, I'm going to noodle around with handouts for a bit--and it looks like I'm not going to make it to tango class, dammit: this is what happens when I get on a roll....
Monday, August 17, 2015
Huh.
Well, today didn't turn out at all as I expected. The meeting of the seminar hours was moderately painful--but it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I do not not not envy Scott, who is the chair of the committee. He's wonderful at it, and is being very pragmatic, patient--and potentially fierce if need be. He was going from our meeting to a meeting with the idiot dean who is making our lives hell. (As Cathy explains, the dean needs to win some fights with us in order to gain face with the administration. Kinda thought the dean was supposed to be in our corner, but apparently not on this campus.) We'll know more about just how painful things are going to get once we hear Scott's report on that meeting.
I then dutifully went down to get to work with Bruce--and he was clearly in one of those "I have so much shit I'm trying to keep track of, I can't see" places. Right now, just about everything is in his head, and he's doing some feats of prestidigitation behind the scenes, but it's chaos--hell on a stick, to borrow a phrase from one of my students. He needs to just work on his own a while longer, so--miracle of miracles--I'm sprung for tomorrow. For one brief and unhappy moment I thought I'd have to come in anyway to meet with our tech guru, but whatever the printer problem was, it's solved for now, so, well, hooray!
And the other hooray--a really huge one--is that it's official: I'm teaching SF. I've done a preliminary book order, and now I can start figuring out an assignment schedule and paper topics. Tomorrow. At home.
I have a list of things to do tomorrow, in fact, but ... that's tomorrow. (You know, when I'm stronger.) Now, I am going to a routine/follow-up doctor's appointment and then, well, wherever I decide to go next. Ain't life grand?
I then dutifully went down to get to work with Bruce--and he was clearly in one of those "I have so much shit I'm trying to keep track of, I can't see" places. Right now, just about everything is in his head, and he's doing some feats of prestidigitation behind the scenes, but it's chaos--hell on a stick, to borrow a phrase from one of my students. He needs to just work on his own a while longer, so--miracle of miracles--I'm sprung for tomorrow. For one brief and unhappy moment I thought I'd have to come in anyway to meet with our tech guru, but whatever the printer problem was, it's solved for now, so, well, hooray!
And the other hooray--a really huge one--is that it's official: I'm teaching SF. I've done a preliminary book order, and now I can start figuring out an assignment schedule and paper topics. Tomorrow. At home.
I have a list of things to do tomorrow, in fact, but ... that's tomorrow. (You know, when I'm stronger.) Now, I am going to a routine/follow-up doctor's appointment and then, well, wherever I decide to go next. Ain't life grand?
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Whoof
I've been pretty much nailed to the computer today, and although I know I'll have a lot of "oh, shit" moments, when I realize that there's a stupid typo in something or I'm missing a handout or I have something set up incorrectly on Blackboard, I at least have all the materials for both 101 and Mystery and Detective up on Blackboard and ready to roll. I think. I still have to print things out (and make sure I've printed the most up-to-date version), but I'm going to do that in the office--once the departmental tech guru figures out why my computer says the printer network is offline and gives us a new ink cartridge. Then I get to stand at the copier--and call the Printing office to find out how much time they'd need to turn things around, so I can farm out as much as possible to them.
Which pretty much frees my days to deal with the domino-chains of scheduling that Bruce and I will be facing over the next two weeks. First, of course, I will need to make sure my own schedule is set, and do what I can to fix the schedule for my colleague who needs to switch from afternoons to mornings--and find out why the rep to the adjunct union is calling me about a complaint. But then, Bruce and I are off to the races.
One tiny scrap of good news is that an adjunct wrote to Cathy asking for an assignment--and A) I don't think we had anything to give her but B) she's qualified to teach 100, so we may be able to open a section for her to teach. The problem of not enough seats for students who need 100 and not enough qualified faculty is a real one, as I mentioned, so if we can provide even 20 new seats, that is a sliver of relief. At the moment, the only sections of 100 with any room for students are the ones designated for ESL students.
We have a similar problem with 001, actually: there are a few evening sections that are going begging, but mostly it's the ESL dedicated sections that are still open--and one only has one student, so I imagine it's on the chopping block. There's more chaos with 101: some sections are filled and others still low, mostly evening sections but no discernible rhyme or reason for why some day sections are filled and others at the same time are not. Bruce has slashed sections all over the map, too. It will be very interesting to sit down with the master lists to see where things are now: I suspect that a lot of the work I did before heading off to ASLE had to be completely changed, and I don't envy Bruce the work he's been doing at home in the intervening weeks.
But that's all fuss and feathers for the days to come. Right now, I'm going to try to pry my ass out of this chair and force myself to get outside and walk around a little. It's starting to cool down enough that the prospect of moving outdoors doesn't seem intolerable, and heaven knows it would be great for my body--and might help normalize sleep patterns that have been wonky as hell for days now. Come what may, that alarm goes off at 7 a.m. tomorrow, and I have to get back into the morning routine of a day at work--heat wave or no.
Probably no post tomorrow, but maybe Tuesday? We'll see....
Which pretty much frees my days to deal with the domino-chains of scheduling that Bruce and I will be facing over the next two weeks. First, of course, I will need to make sure my own schedule is set, and do what I can to fix the schedule for my colleague who needs to switch from afternoons to mornings--and find out why the rep to the adjunct union is calling me about a complaint. But then, Bruce and I are off to the races.
One tiny scrap of good news is that an adjunct wrote to Cathy asking for an assignment--and A) I don't think we had anything to give her but B) she's qualified to teach 100, so we may be able to open a section for her to teach. The problem of not enough seats for students who need 100 and not enough qualified faculty is a real one, as I mentioned, so if we can provide even 20 new seats, that is a sliver of relief. At the moment, the only sections of 100 with any room for students are the ones designated for ESL students.
We have a similar problem with 001, actually: there are a few evening sections that are going begging, but mostly it's the ESL dedicated sections that are still open--and one only has one student, so I imagine it's on the chopping block. There's more chaos with 101: some sections are filled and others still low, mostly evening sections but no discernible rhyme or reason for why some day sections are filled and others at the same time are not. Bruce has slashed sections all over the map, too. It will be very interesting to sit down with the master lists to see where things are now: I suspect that a lot of the work I did before heading off to ASLE had to be completely changed, and I don't envy Bruce the work he's been doing at home in the intervening weeks.
But that's all fuss and feathers for the days to come. Right now, I'm going to try to pry my ass out of this chair and force myself to get outside and walk around a little. It's starting to cool down enough that the prospect of moving outdoors doesn't seem intolerable, and heaven knows it would be great for my body--and might help normalize sleep patterns that have been wonky as hell for days now. Come what may, that alarm goes off at 7 a.m. tomorrow, and I have to get back into the morning routine of a day at work--heat wave or no.
Probably no post tomorrow, but maybe Tuesday? We'll see....
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