They like me! They really like me!

Well, OK, maybe they don't, but I do like the fact that even the more apparently truculent students from the SF class have decidedly softened in demeanor and seem very willing to hear and absorb my suggestions. With the Budding Literary Critic's group, I got into a little bit of a riff on a bird motif in Oryx and Crake, as one student was noticing that Alex the Parrot seems to show up at various specific points in the narrative. (They also were stunned to find out that Alex the Parrot is--or was--real. I told the story of Alex saying "I'm going away now" before he died, but now I'm not sure that's true. Whenever I say something like that, I wonder how important it is for me to correct myself...) Today I also sort of micro-managed the groups, trying to get interesting and potentially new mixes: some worked, others less so, but all the groups had at least one person in them who could carry the conversation, and sometimes that person was able to bring others along.

One particularly gratifying moment came at the start of class. When Scott subbed for me last week, he used a thematic grid on the board and had students fill in the grid. Knowing that at least one student found that grid structure very helpful in creating his notes, I asked today whether they preferred that approach--and before I could even finish the sentence, they were all vigorously shaking their heads "No." As they explained, the grid didn't allow them enough freedom to bring in whatever they were finding; they had a lot of responses that didn't fit neatly into the boxes. I was thrilled. I know sometimes they need more structure than I provide, and I'm trying to hit a compromise between providing structure and encouraging freedom to explore ideas. At least with most of the students in this particular class, I seem to have struck a good balance.

After class, I had a brief talk with a student who had plagiarized one of his sets of notes. I was very forgiving; I told him I knew he'd been motivated by panic and told him that I honestly would prefer his questions than regurgitated answers. He was so relieved he was almost in tears--but truly, I'd rather he learn something about how to think than that he be punished for being insecure and relying on a cheat to get him through. There are times when the "nope, it's a zero" boom must fall (and I may be getting there with the Media Mogul in the 101s, who said that the zero was "unacceptable" but who hasn't made the effort to see me to talk about it). But often, I find giving the students a chance to fix the mistake pays off better than the punishment.

There is certainly more I could say about today, but I'm getting out of here: Paul and I are going to see Blade Runner 2049 together, so I have to dash. And I have a training session tomorrow (I was actually supposed to go today but spaced it) on the new scheduling software we're supposed to use from now on (and I'll rant some other time about how those of us with advanced degrees are being used as clerks), so I need to make sure I have everything ready in my pack before I leave. And I need to leave in about 3 minutes, so....

Making slight headway

Both classes went well enough today--though both classes were pretty sparsely attended. The students were paying attention as I went over the writing process (again), talked about what happens in each stage, and still were paying attention and taking notes as I talked through APA format. I'm pretty sure I covered essentially the same stuff in both classes, which is often a concern: I realize I didn't tell one class or the other something crucial, or feel I covered something much better in one class than in the other. But today, everything felt calm enough.

The only thing I could be concerned about is that I have a lot to do tomorrow, very possibly more than I can actually get done. I have a big stack of stuff to mark for the SF class--which technically I don't have to get back tomorrow, but it would be nice to feel like I have my feet clear going into Wednesday and the deluge of first versions of essays from the comp classes. More important is to review the remaining sabbatical applications before P&B.

So the big question is, how early am I going to be able to get up? I've had all these wonderful intention about setting a 6 a.m. alarm on Tuesdays and Thursdays--and more often than not, I've either turned the alarm off and gone right back to sleep or haven't bothered to set it at all. Consequently, I'm not making myself any promises about tomorrow. I hope I have the discipline to get up early--if not at 6 then at least at 6:30, which is my usual Monday/Wednesday alarm time. But if sleep wins the battle, so be it.

I'd also like to report that both Paul and Scott said they enjoyed subbing my classes. I know that's sort of the nice thing to say, like gesundheit in answer to a sneeze, but I don't think they're just being polite: I think they actually did like the classes. I certainly do.

I was thinking about that today, in fact. I'm blessed this semester: all three of my classes are just fine, not a bad one in the bunch, and that's rare. I realized today that if I could just have classes like these every semester and not deal with any of the other headaches that come with this job, I'd not be in such a big hurry to retire. Of course, there are no guarantees that I'll have such good luck in future semesters--and I am not yet free of the other headaches. If I want to continue getting the evening supervisor stipend, I need to continue to be a member of P&B, and there are enough headaches attached to that as it is. I don't do much on the seminar hours committee beyond providing the occasional idea; I haven't done any actual work in some time--and I feel oddly guilt-free about that. I've paid my fucking dues, thank you very much: that's why I have the full professorship. Of course, a number of members of that committee are also full professors--true of P&B, too, now that I think of it. Some of us just are cursed with giving a shit, so we end up doing the work even when we don't have to. William is smart enough to have found places to do work that he actually enjoys, in addition to its being highly valuable to the department and the campus. I haven't got that figured out yet (partly because there isn't much work I enjoy when it comes to committees), but I'm at least able to limit myself to just those two committees. I do that work; I go to the contractually mandated number of professional development events each year; I teach. Done.

And I'm good at the teaching part. Really good at it. My comp students really do learn something about writing. My lit students really do learn something about the literature, whatever it is. I'm not as gifted as the adjunct I observed a while back, but I'm still damned good. And I think I can make it through at least two more semesters after this one. Beyond that, I don't know--but I don't have to know yet.

In fact, I don't have to think about any of those upcoming semesters at all. The only thing I have to think about right now is getting myself home, shedding the professorial persona on the way, and do the stuff I do just as a human being in the world. That's pretty damned good.

It's all good...

I got through all the accumulated homework for the 101s before end of day yesterday--despite time spent doing things like going to riding lessons, fiddle lessons, yoga class. The secret? Barely pay attention.

I'm a bit concerned that I haven't been paying enough attention in the past, however, as in their notes, several students quoted directly from the readings without using quotation marks--so I've had to nail them for plagiarism. I hope they haven't been doing that all along, but I suppose better I catch them now than not at all.

Today, I got through all the discussion boards. I took a lot longer at that than was strictly necessary, as I kept looking things up, both through highly unacademic Google searches and through more academically sound database searches. But I had fun pointing students to further information. It may have been completely wasted effort--I don't know how many (if any) of the students will bother to return to those discussion boards to see my comments, even though I told them in an email they could and should. But we know that they don't tend to read their email. Ah well.

And I know, but keep willfully forgetting, that their diligence in keeping up with the discussion boards will wane if they don't see evidence that I'm checking. Between that and the fact that the boards are really only working for one of the classes, I'm considering not doing them at all next semester. Whether I do or not will depend a lot on how much work I get done on the online Nature in Lit course before the start of the spring semester, which will dictate how much time I have to reconfigure the 101s. If I don't have time to reconfigure the 101s, I'll just adjust dates to fit the spring schedule.

I started working on the accumulated notes for the SF class, too--and realized that I hadn't returned some old homework as well as graded essays to a few students who were absent or late when I was returning work. I feel terrible that I have such a huge accumulation of stuff for certain students, as my comments might maybe have been beneficial. But again, ah well. What I'm liking is that most of the students seem to be doing a better job of their notes of late. I'll take that with gratitude.

Of course, typically for me, I had ambitions to get a lot more done this weekend than I actually accomplished. I have decided, however, that between now and Wednesday, when I collect the first version of the second essay from my 101 students, I should be able to find time to noodle around with some of the stuff I'd hoped to do this weekend--including cranking through the rest of the accumulated notes from the SF students so I can return everything  to them on Tuesday. I'll have the homework for the 101s that Paul collected to crank through as well--and we're getting to the point in the semester when I can't count on having time in Advisement to get my own stuff done, so that may mean an early alarm for tomorrow. At the moment, that doesn't seem dreadful.

Now, however, it's a chilly, rainy day, and I intend to simply enjoy being cozy with what remains of it.

Mentally already out the door...

This was another day when I struggled to get myself up, out of the house, and to work. As usual, once I was here, the routine took over, old mule in her traces, and I was able to be at least a little bit of a "good girl" and got a few of the sabbatical applications read prior to today's meeting. It turned out I did plenty, as the press of other business prevented us from looking at all of the applications (not to mention the fact that a new member of the committee didn't understand the process of everyone looking at all the applications; he'd taken the two he's mentoring into his office, so none of the rest of us got to look at those--but that's partly our "bad," as we assumed he'd understand a process to which he is new). In any event, I've left myself a triage list that reminds me to look at the rest of the applications before next week's meeting.

By the way, that triage list hasn't changed appreciably in the last month. The items on it still remain, unaddressed, shoved to the side by the marking of student assignments.

I did, however, interrupt my blog posting at that point to write up the observation I conducted on Thursday. That was great to relive: just remembering how delightful the experience was made me feel better about things generally.

Several student interactions:

The Media Mogul was guilty of plagiarism in the final version of his first essay. That's zero credit, but I asked him to stay after class to talk to me about it. He had something else to dash off to, so I just handed the essay back to him. I got an email, saying he wanted to see me during my office hour today (I don't have an office hour on Tuesdays), and saying that the zero was "unacceptable" because of what it would do to his grade. I emailed back and said that I could see him during my seminar hours today--and that perhaps he might consider that what was "unacceptable" was the plagiarism itself. However, I explained, I'd be happy to talk with him about it, as I'd rather use it as a learning opportunity than as a moment of punishment. He never responded to my email, which I didn't find tremendously surprising.

If he decides to actually talk with me, I'll offer him the same deal I offered to another student in the class who was also guilty of the same kind of "accidental" plagiarism: rewrite the offending paragraph, resubmit the essay, and I'll grade that. I don't for a minute believe that either of them intentionally plagiarized--both included the source from which the unattributed material was taken as part of their essay submission--but they need to learn how to avoid the "accident." Nevertheless, the Media Mogul jumps up and down on my very last nerve, and if he comes at me with attitude, any offer of mercy will be withdrawn. (Don't tell me what you will and won't accept when it comes to grades I give or my policies about plagiarism. You find the grade unacceptable? So's gravity. Deal with it.)

And while we're on the subject, the Probable Plagiarist in the SF class did a completely different format for his notes (or his girlfriend did, not sure). But I don't mind at all; the main thing for me is that he was really excited about how much better this method works for him. He said he was putting maybe even more time into doing his notes, but he was really enjoying the reading, finding it like a puzzle, getting more out of the process--and felt like he had more to use for his forthcoming essays. He may be lying through his teeth, but I don't think so. I'll be very interested to see the new notes--and the main thing, for me, that he's happy about the class now. Excellent. And if he explains his process to me, I'll use it as an option in the future. Whatever works.

The young man from the earlier 101 I've talked about before--I've not given him a moniker yet, but I'll call him Street Smart--has been emailing me about how to do MLA citations for an essay he's writing for another class. (Glad what I'm teaching is proving of broader use than just for my class.) He also wanted to talk with me today--about what, I don't know, but I hope to get a chance to talk with him next week.

Back to the SF class, one of the better students in the class asked if he could meet with me next week about his revision. Yes, I said; happy to do it. I just sent him an email saying that we can also meet when I'm conferencing with 101 students the week before the revision is due; I'll make that offer to anyone in the SF class, once all my 101 students have had a chance to sign up for their conference times. But I'm glad that A. he wants to revise and B. he is being proactive about meeting with me before he does.

And further to the SF class: in addition to all the student work I'm schlepping home, stuff I need to mark before first classes next week, I'm schlepping home a bunch of articles I selected for possible use by the students in SF for their second essay. Working on that assignment is actually a lot more fun than marking student stuff, so I will probably focus on that tomorrow--if I do anything that looks like work at all, which I may not.

And at that, I've hit the wall. My brain had pretty well checked out hours ago; I've just been noodling here so I don't get home while my house cleaner is still at work. Now I'll be able to toddle off home and metaphorically let my hair down and put on bunny slippers. I know I won't be posting tomorrow (I'll be on the train to the City for that meditation workshop at about the time I'd usually be posting); Thursday through Sunday? Who knows. But I'll be back on Monday if not before. Meanwhile, zei gezunt.

"You sound so educated..."

In Advisement today, I was working with a young woman while a friend of hers sat behind me, listening. After I finished giving the student all my advice and so on, I turned to her friend and apologized for having had my back to her the whole time. She said, "That's OK; I really like listening to you talk. You sound so educated." Thanks. That's because I am. (Well, actually it also has something to do with my mother being educated, because her parents were educated, so I'd talk that way whether I had the degrees or not. But I do have the degrees.)

The friend also asked if I was an English professor--and the student I had been working with then asked what I'd be teaching. I mentioned the online Nature in Lit. I completely forgot to mention that I am also slated to teach SF again. Two electives, count 'em: two! If they both run (which they may not), that means only one section of comp. Of course, the online class will devour more of my time than I'm prepared for, I'm sure (especially if I don't manage to get it at least 99% constructed before the semester starts), but still: only one comp--good lord willin' and all that.

Today, it occurred to me to revamp--again--how I structure the essay writing for the 101s. This semester I ditched the "preliminary" round, in which students simply wrote from their own knowledge and personal experience, not using any sources at all--which is good in that they are forced to be "academic" right away but not so good in that they tend to fall back into simply writing reports instead of arguments. Today I thought, "What if we did an in-class draft, based just on personal experience, and turned that into a full-fledged essay?" I'm not sure how that would work in terms of the flow, but I was hoping I might save myself a step of intensive grading somehow....

Well, it bears thinking about.

I did manage to get all the essays back to students today, but the stacks of other work I've collected are getting ridiculous, and one student in the 5:00 class pointed out that they might want to get started working on their essays before Monday and could use those notes. True. I don't think there are many in that (rather ambitious and self-directed) boat, but I did tell them to let me know if they want to see their notes before Monday and I'd make sure they get them back somehow. I know I won't get everything even close to marked by Wednesday--and I just finally got confirmation that the workshop really will happen that day, so it's a good thing I told Paul that I'd take advantage of his willingness to sub for me anyway. I like to think I'll spend the day getting caught up on work before I head into the City, but, well, see yesterday's post about pressure....

Classes went fine; no big excitement but no disappointments. I have to get in relatively early tomorrow so I can review sabbatical applications prior to class, be ready for P&B. My systemic crankiness continues unabated, accompanied by apparently insoluble exhaustion. My raveled sleave of care remains unknit; my sore labor remains unbathed; apparently I'm still on great nature's first course....

I'm going home now. I'll post again tomorrow, barring disaster or the unforeseen.

It isn't that I work well under pressure...

Over the years, I've had to acknowledge that, essentially, I only work under pressure. If the pressure is off, I will do everything, anything, but work. I still complain about the pressure, mind you: that seems to be a requirement. Procrastinate until the pressure builds to a certain level (which varies); complain about being under so much pressure; get the work done; pressure is relieved; lather, rinse, repeat.

So, despite the fact that I could have kept working today to reduce the number of essays I "need" to mark for tomorrow's classes, I quit a little before 6 (and that was after having taken a nap). I didn't get much marked yesterday either. Now, I grant, I got all the essays marked for the earlier section of 101, but I haven't marked any for the 5:00 class--and I haven't touched the enormous stacks of homework I have to mark, nor have I looked at the discussion boards from this past week.

I still haven't received confirmation of the workshop I plan on attending on Wednesday, either, so I'm on the fence about whether to take the day off anyway or save the day (and the abuse of Paul as a sub for me). If I go to work on Wednesday, I can try to get all the homework returned to the students by then. If I don't, they won't get it back until a week from Monday--just before their essays are due.

But mentally, I've already checked out for the week--and the week hasn't started. This is not a good sign, and this is more than the usual procrastination. I'm getting the "I'm too old for this shit" feeling pretty profoundly, and the "can't I retire now" whine is getting very loud indeed.

I hope that being in the classroom tomorrow gives me a little energy buzz. I will have to get up extra early to get some work done in the morning before Advisement, as I really am determined to get those essays back to the students tomorrow; apparently the self-induced pressure just hasn't built sufficiently for me to keep pushing today.

It just occurred to me that part of what's producing the current level of malaise is the knowledge that I'm getting paid less than I have been for the evening supervisor gig--and I don't feel like I'm getting paid enough. The previous reduction didn't bother me so much, in part because it happened at about the same time I was promoted, so the increase in the "hourly" rate pretty well compensated for the reduction in the number of hours.  But this drop, I feel--and I've been feeling tired and cranky long enough that taking away even a little bit of the goodies makes me feel significantly put upon. The evening supervisor pay doesn't make a difference to any increase in my retirement funds, just how much I can salt away in savings (my "I'll need to buy a car eventually" money, mostly), but psychologically, it feels like being put on a celery and skim-milk diet.

Well, nothing I can do about that part of things for now--but I am monitoring the balance between my desire to have as cushy a retirement as possible and my desire to get the hell out before I curdle.

Wow. Grumpy day. And the essays weren't even all that bad, for the most part. Maybe an early night tonight will help improve my mood. That's what I'm aiming for, anyway.

A lovely way to end the week...

I know I'm supposed to keep information about observations close to the vest, but I don't think I can get in trouble for saying something good about someone--and the adjunct I just observed was brilliant. I am not using that lightly: I was completely impressed and engrossed. I was supposed to only observe until 7:15, but I stayed the remaining 40 minutes of the extended session simply because I was enjoying it too much to leave. I am actually looking forward to writing up the observation. We absolutely hit pay dirt on this one. Interestingly enough, I'm the person who interviewed this adjunct, though I don't remember it; it was a number of years ago, and it wasn't until recently that we could actually offer this person some courses. I'm thrilled to bits that I made the recommendation to hire, and wish we could offer this person a full-time contract. I've observed wonderful classes in my time, but this one takes the blue ribbon, hands down.

**satisfied sigh**

I did manage to get the essays returned to the students in the SF class (though I finished up the last of them at the start of class). I still have a little homework from them that I need to go through, but that can wait until after I turn my attention back to the 101s for a while. Several of the essays were quite good. Several were disappointing. I mentioned to one student that I very much want him to revise, as I know he can do better, and he said he knew it too: he knew he hadn't given himself enough time to do his best work. Glad he knows it. Interestingly, the Budding Literary Critic's essay was not only riddled with sentence-level errors, it was problematic in terms of the logic and support for his argument. He relied a lot on appeals to the emotions--which he tends to do in class discussion as well; I'm perpetually trying to bring him to a more measured, analytical stance. I thought he might be able to rein it in for his essay, but I think he's used to being able to get away with a lot because he is so clearly intelligent. I hope he revises, too--and I hope he comes to see me for guidance before he does.

And one student I know did not write his essay. I talked to him after class about it--and he said his girlfriend gave him the technique to use but that all the sentences were his. He also was set, primed, to show me notes that would prove that it was genuinely his own work. What that proved to me was that his girlfriend not only wrote his essay for him but knew he'd be questioned about plagiarism so prepped him to beat the rap. I did say that if he's capable of that kind of thinking in his essays, his notes should be infinitely better than the summary, summary, summary he's been submitting--or even the slightly better than summary that he submitted after we talked about the fact that spending ten hours summarizing wouldn't get him a passing grade, but spending two hours actually thinking would.

Well, whatever. His girlfriend will earn a very nice grade in my class, it seems. And I do hope that eventually he will hit the moment in his life when he can't cheat his way out of having to face his inadequacies and doing something about them.

Another student in that class also plagiarized--but he did it the "old-fashioned" way and copied stuff off the internet. Turnitin caught him handily. That same student also plagiarized one of his homework assignments, as did another student in that class. Easier to cheat than to admit the struggle and deal with it--until those zero grades wreck one's chance of passing the class.

Let's see...

I wrote up the observation I did last week. Check.

I got a very nicely diplomatic email from a student who wanted a letter of recommendation--a request I'd rather blissfully forgotten. I quickly wrote a letter for her as well. Check.

I organized the enormous stacks of stuff for the 101s--and was more than a little peeved to see that a number of the students didn't submit what I told them (out loud and in writing) they needed to submit. (Not very satisfied sigh, more resigned disappointment.)

I copied the rubric I'll use to mark those essays.

The essays are in my weekend tote bag, ready to schlep home. And I'm ready to schlep home. I'd hoped to practice the fiddle tonight, but I'll be getting home too late for that. Hardly any practice this week, dammit. Maybe I can practice twice tomorrow. We'll see.

And around and between everything else I have going on over the weekend, grading, grading, grading.

When can I retire?