Exhausted

I had to leave part way through today's P&B meeting. I was falling asleep--and since apparently I can't sleep at night, I thought I'd take the opportunity to get some sleep when my body was demanding it. I came to the office and curled up in our arm-chair with my feet on another chair: I'm short enough that I can get pretty horizontal that way, and I utterly konked out. Fortunately I knew I'd wake up when William returned to the office after P&B; otherwise I'd likely have slept through my class.

And I'm glad I went to the class. They seem like a surprisingly lively and intelligent bunch. There was some serious confusion over idea logs (as always), but we had a great conversation, lots of good input. One student came to me after class to ask if I thought it would be too much for him to take my class and Early American Lit from one of my more demanding colleagues. I asked about the rest of his schedule--and honestly, I think he'd drown. I told him so, but he told me that he was so interested in the class after this first meeting that he didn't want to drop it. I think he's going to see me during my office hour on Thursday; I'll be interested to see what he decides. Another student--not originally from the U.S.--was worried that she didn't know the historical background at all and wondered if she'd be able to really participate in the class, given her lack of knowledge. I encouraged her to do a little research into the history of Native Americans, just so she has a sense of the big picture, but I did tell her that she'd surely learn a fair bit just by being in class.

I realized that I've set up the first two weeks pretty much exclusively on historical background: traditional narratives (mostly creation stories), stuff about the Ghost Dance, the overview of Native cultures and literatures in Paula Gunn Allen's "The Sacred Hoop" (an essay extracted from the book), chapters from Vine Deloria's God Is Red about the difference between Native and Euro-American views of space, place, spirituality and religion.... We won't really get into the literature per se until the third week of classes. But I do think the contextualizing is important. We'll see if it helps the students.

Two other interesting student encounters. On my way to Native American Lit, I saw a young man dashing to class--and he cheerfully smiled and yelled "Hello, Professor!" It was last-semester's Would Be Wonder Student. I was surprised that he was so cheerful and friendly: he didn't follow through on the withdrawal form that I signed for him, so I had to give him a UW, which is the same as an F in terms of GPA. He wrote me an anguished e-mail about that, wondering why he got the UW, and I was pretty blunt in my reply, telling him that he had just learned an important lesson in follow-through. I was sure, based on that exchange, that he'd loathe me forevermore, but apparently not. Or he's good at social fakery. But I choose to believe he's learned a lesson and does not blame me for it: that speaks more highly of him.

The other encounter was via e-mail. I got a very well-written and gracious e-mail from a student who was AWOL from one of the 102 sections yesterday. Turns out that the hurricane wiped out his family's finances, and he was worried about not being able to buy his textbooks, not wanting to come to class unprepared (apparently Paul was very clear that I am a hard-ass but will work with students who reach out). I wrote back to tell him that the reader is free, and that the other books can be had cheap--that I'd even be willing to loan him one of my copies of the handbook. He was thrilled--and apparently surprised. Hey, if he can write that well, I want him in the class, and I'll do what it takes to keep him there.

Now, however, I am beyond exhausted. I meant to get groceries yesterday (the larder is bare, after my being away for 10 days), but I opted to do other, sadder chores instead. But today, I really do need to get some food--especially healthy food. Eating anything that makes sense is almost as difficult as sleeping, but it's even more difficult when there's nothing appealing in the house. I've decided to bail on tomorrow morning's assessment meeting and on my stint in Advisement (again). If I can sleep late, I will. If I can't, I'll come in and continue to try to get organized. I still feel like my own private hurricane flew through my work area and left everything scrambled, and I can't go on like that for long without losing what's left of my mind. There's Thursday morning, too, but I think I'm going to need both days to begin to feel like I'm getting a handle on this part of my life. It does feel good to lose myself in work as much as I can--and that will be all the easier when I feel I'm making forward progress of some kind.

But now, food. Then--please God--sleep. And tomorrow is that other day we keep hearing about.

...and then the building caught on fire.

Truly. The building where I had my first class today had a fire. Not the whole building, and it was out and everything back to normal by the time class started, but I really did wonder if I'm being told I should get the hell out of here while I can.

This is going to be a rough semester, starting out as it does with an enormous load of grief in my personal life. It's very hard to breathe, never mind think. And in fact, the day started with me realizing that all the work I did on schedules and so on was on my computer at home, not here in the office where I could print it. Shit. But I decided I'd feel better to duplicate the work and have the schedule ready to hand out to students today, so I did at least the schedule for today's classes. One day at a time. Tonight I'll either e-mail the stuff to myself or put it on my thumb drive.

I've spent a good deal of time just trying to make sure I have the handouts I need for the next few days: on my "To Do" list is to make a schedule of what I need to photocopy by when. I also spent a fair amount of time trying to clarify and codify the steps for revision for the first papers in the 102 classes. I hope it makes some kind of sense. Who the hell knows.

My first impression of my 102s matches Paul's. He covered for me last week, and he noted that the later section evidenced some whining and grumbling about the late paper policy--a clear indication that they're not ready for the rigors of a Prof. TLP class. Today, in the earlier section, although some students had not done the idea logs on the day's reading, they were mostly alert and responsive and ready to go. Granted a few hadn't read the story either--though most of the ones in that camp were brand new to the class. so I don't feel too concerned about them (yet).

But in the later section, only one student had done the log. One. And only about five had read the story. I went over a few things with them, trying to help them understand what I'm looking for in the logs, but without something concrete to work with, there wasn't anything we could do, so I sent them home and told them to have both stories for the week and both logs for class Wednesday. But at least four of them seem to be effectively switched off: no lights on behind the eyes. Ah well.

It will be interesting to meet with the Native American Lit class tomorrow. And it will be interesting to see if I can actually do this: prep, teach, handle my job at all. I did warn the students I may have to take off again--and if I need to go back to Montana, either for my own sanity or for my sister's, I will. I was thinking I'd wait for the February break, but maybe not.

Right now, it's about all I can do to breathe and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I'm actually somewhat amazed that I got anything at all organized today, not only because grieving short-circuits thinking but also because I'm running so short on sleep it's amazing I'm not collapsed in a heap somewhere.

And now I have to deal with some sad responsibilities. I'm the kind of person who, when faced with something difficult, generally would prefer to just do it and get it over than to postpone it. I charge and dive into cold water, rather than wading in slowly: the metaphor holds for the things I have to do now in my personal life.

I don't know how often I'll be posting this semester. Or how coherent I'll be. But here I am, trying to use work as a narcotic to dull the pain. Sort of works. Sort of.

All over but the shouting

And I suspect there will be shouting from a few students who failed. I didn't fail as many as probably deserved it, but a few simply did not turn in enough work and, in one case, were absent all too many times (even with the forgiveness factor in the wake of the hurricane). And the Would-Be Wonder Student was stupid and didn't follow through on the withdrawal, so he got a UW (unofficial withdrawal)--which averages in his GPA like an F. He is not, repeat not, going to be happy, but he's fucking himself up and needs to recognize that fact. I think he's one of those who would benefit from a year or two (or more) out there in the real world, away from school, to get knocked around, learn a few lessons, and come back when he's ready to really put in the effort, not just make a lot of noise about it.

Poor Dear Thing found out she was going to get a D+--and this is her second time taking the course, with the same result. I gave her the option to withdraw, and she took it. Honestly, she's one that I truly believe deserved the F, so just as well she'll have to take the class again, whatever her grade. But I'd lay even money that she'll get a puffball of a professor next go-round and will sail through--maybe even with an A, who knows. It's happened to students of mine in the past.

I didn't spend a lot of time working with Bruce this morning--scattered focus, too much going on--but I did help him solve one problem, recommending one of our former full-time faculty for one of our electives that was begging for an instructor. Happy all around. I'll be back working with him in January, when that round of shouting begins, but for now, we're OK. I'm happy to report that in all the byzantine recording that has to happen, I didn't make any mistakes. That sound you hear is me patting myself on the back.

Shifting gears back to the "all over" part: I had hoped to escape it, but I will have to come in tomorrow--but briefly, just to copy the paper rosters and submit them to the department. Not a huge deal: I will be in the area anyway, for a physical therapy appointment, so it will be easy enough to drop by and cross the final T's, dot the last I. If I'm feeling wildly ambitious--or simply in need of a little futzing around to round things off--I may clean up the hazmat area that is my desk. (Christ only knows what's lurking there in all the detritus.)

But there will be no blogging. I won't blog; I don't care how nicely you plead. Not until January. (Unless, of course, a P.S. sneaks up on me. One never knows.)

And until then, a very Merry Happy to you all.

Oh, yeah, and...

...looking at what's left, I've decided not to take work home. I think I can still do some scheduling (if Bruce hasn't finished it off) and still have time to get everything graded and the numbers crunched before too late. I might even have time to go home, feed the cats, and get back to the neighborhood for a dance get-together tomorrow night.

But that's tomorrow. No plans. Just today.

Surprise, surprise

I'm hearing Gomer Pyle: "Soo-prize, Soo-prize." I didn't think there would be any opportunity for me to blog today, but here I am in Advisement, having read and graded the stack of papers I brought with me (I didn't bring them all--and perhaps I should have). There are few students, long pauses, and I still have a little over an hour before I can get the flock out of here. So, what to do? Write a blog post, of course.

Things I wanted to record (in no particular order):

I can't remember if I mentioned yesterday that I realized, if I were to average the homework grades for the students in my later 102 class, I'd be handing out failures left, right, and center, as most of the students had racked up an impressive number of zeroes in their idea logs and (especially) glossaries. I'm getting soft in my old age: I don't want to fail them, mostly simply because they gutted it through to the end. I don't mind handing out an entire classfull of D's, but failing six of the eight who remain? I can't do it.

I told them about the problem--and what I was thinking about as a solution. I may consider anything that they turned in after the storm as extra credit. If I do that, those who turned in all the logs and glossaries would get a whopping benefit--perhaps too much, which is why I'm unsure whether that solution will fly. I don't want to end up having to move someone who deserves a D or a C up to a higher grade; I just want a legitimate, numerical justification to pass them.

I'm not sure about the fairness of making that kind of adjustment for one section and not the other--but in the other section, more students beat themselves to bits to get the work done, even if they did a crap job of it. It's all going to come down to the number crunching tomorrow; I'll juggle solutions until I come up with something that works to my satisfaction.

In terms of the reading of papers, there is one student--I think I've mentioned him before--who is certainly plagiarizing but whom I have not been able to catch at it. I read his final paper, and I'm even more sure that it is not his work. If he's using someone else to write his papers, I won't be able to nail him (which frosts my ass, as I wish I could burn his)--but my sincere hope is that he's getting over-confident, time-pressured, and therefore sloppy, and that consequently I'll find evidence to use to blast him. I spent a good while in the office typing his paper into a Word file so I can grind it through the plagiarism detector software I have at home. I really want to catch the little rat.

And I've done the same for a student in the earlier 102. I don't think she'll pass anyway; her paper has other significant problems, and she's been conspicuously absent (and not turning in work) most of the semester, especially since the storm. But if she plagiarized--and I think she did--I want to let her know she can't get away with it.

Well, sometimes they do get away with it--witness the rat in the Short Story class--but it seems useful to be able to scare the crap out of a student, hoping that the lesson actually has an effect.

I have to say, across the board the final papers are sub-standard, despite the incremental versions thing. Some student conveniently forgot the critical essay requirement. Many turned in a paper that is significantly under the required length. Lots of bozo errors. Generallycrappy writing. I'm giving grades that I know in my heart are way the fuck too high--but I painted myself into a corner with earlier grades. Still, many are getting a lower grade on the final version than they got on the in-progress steps, which drives me bonkers. How can I get them to come through on the promise of their in-progress work--even if it isn't much promise? I thought the proposal process was the problem, but it seems not. I will stick with the incremental submissions thing regardless: it does make more sense, even if the results are not what I'd like. But this is another area in which I'm going to look for that mythical perfect delivery method that gets every student to produce praise-worthy work.

That reminds me that in the discussion with the earlier class yesterday, one student said that she thinks there is nothing I can do to help students understand what idea logs should look like, why observation and summary (not to mention personal response) are not actually ideas. Her point--and she may be right--is that it students simply need to learn by doing, and not succeeding very well, and responding (at least theoretically) to my comments. But they did all love the procedure I instituted part-way into the semester, of distributing green and purple pens so I could distinguish their class notes from the work they'd done at home. That encouraged them to take class notes--because they knew they could get better grades if they did a good job of learning from the class discusion. My concern is that they won't be willing to risk doing the work (and making mistakes) at home, which is always a problem. I will have to remind them, over and over, that I'd rather see them  take a good stab at it and miss--or ask a zillion questions--than provide answers that are not useful to analysis.

Well, but that's next semester--and the ones to follow. Right now, I have four papers to comment on, another seven to read, a little Assessment dealy to do, and then the number crunching. Hoo-fucking-ray.

A gamble

I'm going to believe that I can get to the office early tomorrow and knock off the papers for the Short Story class in record time. Only two asked for comments, and one of those has already been commented upon; the other is half done. If I can hit the ground running (as it were), I think I'll be ready in time for tomorrow's class period--and I'll hope to hell that no one shows up looking for a final paper grade before I've had a chance to read the damned paper. It's a gamble, but I'm willing to take it--so I can get home, feed cats, and still make it to dance class. (A life? Am I allowed to have one of those?)

Tomorrow's going to be a mad dash of a day, not only because of the flurry of paper reading in the morning but also because I have to leave straight from Advisement to get the cat to the vet. I intend to do my Advisement time a little early, although that will mean leaving the office before the official end of the class period for the Short Story class. If I am done in Advisement early, I face a little less concern about getting to the vet appointment on time--and anything I can do to reduce stress is good.

Tomorrow I should take work home with me, so I can get a jump on the commenting (on four papers) and reading (of the remaining fourteen) for Thursday. I want/need to spend time Thursday morning working on adjunct scheduling--and one of my promotion mentees wants to meet with me in the morning, and she of the freelance job wants to meet with me in the afternoon, truncating the time I'll have for papers. Plus I want to be crunching numbers and figuring final grades by the afternoon, if at all possible. I fully intend to have everything done and my grades posted before I leave on Thursday, even if I have to stay until midnight.

But that's planning, and lately, my plans have a way of going south in a huge hurry. Tonight is enough to deal with.

It was interesting to get the feedback from students in both 102s today. Across the board, students said that they learned how useful the idea logs could be, and that they valued the revision process. Across the board, they said they feel they can read and write better. In the earlier class, we had a long discussion about whether group work is valuable. They think not; I know better, but they have a point that, especially at the start of the semester, students need more structured tasks in their groups in order to work productively. (I also realize--again--that I have to be very clear to give them permission to be confused and feel stupid.) One student also wanted me to do more spoon-feeding of the start of the novel--but again, I know better. If I hand them a lot of information before they start reading, what I say will be meaningless, as they won't have a context for it. I do wish I could make students read the entire book, cover to cover, once through, as quickly as possible, without taking a single note or doing anything other than reading, then have them re-read according to the assignment schedule--but I know damned well they won't do it. I am, however, feeling that the whole approach to the novel needs some rethinking--or that I need to rethink teaching the novel at all, at least for a while. Hmmmm.

I'm looking over at my desk, and I see things stacked up that are not papers to read: what am I forgetting? I'll head over there when I've finished this post and do another triage list, then pack up and split. No blog tomorrow, I'm sure, but I'll probably post when I've tied off the last bit of the semester on Thursday. God, I can't believe I've only got two more days. Shit!

I take it back.

Over the weekend I told several people that this week shouldn't be too bad. I take it back. I just realized I have a lot to get done for Wednesday at 11--and virtually no time to do it in, not and do my job in terms of adjunct scheduling. I passed by the office today and saw Bruce hard at work on the scheduling; I'm hoping like mad there isn't much left for me to do--or that maybe I can do it on Thursday instead of tomorrow (which would free up a ton of time). I canceled my physical therapy appointment for tomorrow morning; the receptionist asked me if everything is OK. I said, "My life is blowing up, but my body is fine." Continuing cat crisis and, and, and... I don't even know what all. No time, no brain, too much to do.

I did finish the freelance editing job for my colleague--but now she wants to sit down and go over it. I told her Thursday--by which time things really should be better; I should be down to crunching the numbers, not reading/marking any more papers (or only a few) (or I hope). And I finally took a look at the promotion applications I'm mentoring and responded about those. I have some bits of leftover homework for the 102s that I will, by God, get done tonight--but I'm going to take it home (need to be home to care for the cat). I had hoped to go do dance tomorrow, but that's looking unlikely, unless a miracle occurs.

The students in the Short Story class really did not want to do the wrap-up, talk about what they got out of the semester, what worked. They confirmed my hunch that in the future, I need to give more specific topics for the paper assignments: even though they will need to learn how to develop their own topics eventually, it seems they're not ready for it yet. Fair enough. They generally said that the idea logs were helpful. Most of them had at least one story they'd liked. A few legitimately felt they got something good out of the experience. A few gave a nice goodbye at the end (including two who thanked me for making them stick it out, not quit). Only two want comments on their papers (sweet). I'm glad as many crossed the finish line as did--and I see a number of "mercy D" grades coming.

No clue what the 102s will be like tomorrow. It will be interesting.

But now I have to figure out what to take home--finding that balance between what I'd like to get done and what's realistic to expect I'll actually do. And I have to go home.

More tomorrow.