A Crazy Cat's Life

...I truly hate these things. State moves to ban fake testicles on vehicles

My mom finally saw the specialist yesterday to see what will happen with her eye. The news is both good and bad. The good news is that the cancer is not affecting the eye itself so that is OK. The bad news is that it is melanoma and its on her eyelid which means part of it will have to be removed. The good news is that she is seeing one of the best eye reconstructive surgeons in the country and he has already explained how he is going to use a piece from her inner lip to replace part of the eyelid. That surgery will not be until May 13th. After that, she will be checking with an oncologist to make sure the cancer did not spread. Of course my mom is freaking out about all of this. My mother is very self-conscious of appearances, and I think she is more afraid of looking disfigured than the actual concept of cancer. I know that sounds harsh but if you knew my mom you would understand. She is a good lady. Her priorities are a little different than mine. For me, I'm more fr...

I am so sick and tired of students bitching about their workloads this time of the semester. "OMG I have, like, three five-page papers I've got to write! I don't know why they give us so much work to do." Ah fuck you. Sorry. I know it sounds harsh but unless you've sat at the other side of the desk, you have no clue how hard it is for the teachers. Trust me, the less work we give you, the easier it is for us. Therefore, if we give work, it's not because we're are sadistically evil (masochistic, maybe, but not sadistic). We actually care about you learning something. Anywho...can you tell what kind of day I've had? This time of the semester is crazy for everybody. So to give you all an idea of what live is like for teachers at this time of year, here is another day in the life. This is actually a continuation of yesterday since it was such an oh so classic day. 6:00am - Get up and get ready. More like dragging than actually getting up. 6:50am -...

I hope my week doesn't continue the trend. 6:50am - Leave for school, hoping to get in early enough to get today's lesson preps done on time. 7:15am - Pull into the Pathmark shopping center. Realized I forgot to put on makeup when I left the house this morning and since it was charred into my head as a child "you don't go out without makeup" I was forced to purchase some at the supermarket. Bad makeup that is rather expensive. Joy. 8:15am - Arrive at school, sit down and start working on today's lesson preps. 8:30am - The fire alarm goes off. Since my office is on the third floor, I am forced to hobble down three flights of stairs with my air cast and cane. 8:45am - Watch firetrucks show up at the college and then leave. 9:00am - Let back into the building. Try to take the elevator back up to the third floor. It breaks down in between floors. I'm stuck in a tiny, cramped elevator for ten minutes. Did I mention I'm claustrophobic? 9:10am - Eleva...

Warning: political rant coming through. /rant on So I'm driving down Route 23 today in desperate need of filling my car's tank. First place I see has regular gas at $3.24 a gallon. Next place I see has it at $3.21. After passing five gas stations the lowest I saw was $3.19 a gallon with the highest at $3.29 a gallon. Why is gas so damn expensive? (And yes, I realize New Jersey has incredibly cheap gas compared to the rest of the country. Our state doesn't have a heavy gas tax. Instead, they screw us with our property taxes.) My dear Bear tells me it is because people are investing in gas futures driving the price up. Well fine. That is the way capitalism works. But if they are supposedly "paying" so much for gas, why is it that companies like Exxon are making record-breaking profits ? Something is fishy here. Back in 1960, when Kennedy was elected, the country was getting out of the third recession of the 1950s. One of the big concerns Kennedy had was no...

My excursions into the land of the brainless idiots gets more amazing as each day passes.... Case #1 - Paper on the End of World War II It was Nixon who dropped the bomb on Japan? OMG. You mean they lied to me all those years in grad school?!!! Hell, they told me it was Truman. Lying bastards. First on Nagasaki and then on Hiroshima? Damn. I guess the textbooks can't even get the order straight. Oh wow. the bombs used were "highly explosive and ready to cause damage"? And here I thought nuclear weapons only fizzled. Did I mention this was her research paper? Case #2 - Either Incredibly Stupid or Incredibly Insulting. Take Your Pick Mr. Numbnuts hands in a paper that was over 50% plagiarized. I tell him if he wants to pass my class he must rewrite the paper from scratch using his own words and I'll give him credit for the assignment. The rewrite gets 50% of what it would have originally gotten if that had been submitted in the first place. I call it the ...

Case in point: In my Western Civilization I class, I have my students create fictional characters who will tell me what life was like during the time period they chose. Not one, but two students created Catholic characters. I have no problem with that. What I have issue with is the fact that one student's character lived during the age of Plato (428 – 348 BC) and the other during the age of Julius Caesar (100-44 BC). See what's wrong with this? Hmmm. Could it have to do something with the BC part? Like as in BC stands for BEFORE CHRIST ? Unless these characters could see far into the future, it ain't gonna fly. Bah.

You can tell that dreaded time of the year has started: last month of the semester. I hate this time of year. You don't even want to know how many papers I have to grade. I've given up on counting. If they actually handed me in physical papers (instead of electronically) I would have a stack about three feet high. Hell, I was even at work over the spring break grading. One of these years I will actually listen to myself and give them less writing assignments. Ya right. LOL. On top of this, I have somehow managed to re-injure my foot and ankle. No, I don't know how. It is highly possible that I twisted it somehow in my sleep. Figures, eh? So, I'm back in the boot/walking cast for two weeks. If it is not better by then, I'm getting another MRI. The doc mentioned I may have re-torn my tendon. Joy. :( Even worse...yes, it does get worse...my mom was recently diagnosed with cancer. It is a melanoma on her eyelid so hopefully it isn't too bad. She'l...