A Crazy Cat's Life

Cranky Kitty

2010-08-31T17:38:00.003-04:00

I was about to sit down and write this great post about how horrible New Jersey drivers are. I still want to do it but it is difficult with the gut-wrenching pain going through my right knee. You see, I have grade four chondromalacia patella. What does that mean? I have no cartilage left in my knee, which is not a good thing. Usually more common in older people, I have some lovely knees for someone my age. The kind when walking sound like Rice Krispies after you pour milk in them: snap, crackle, pop. The doc is not sure the cause but thinks it may just be simple genetics. Either way, the one bastard has been causing some big issues with me. I had x-rays and an MRI done which confirmed the diagnosis. A smidge over a month ago, I had a cortisone shot in it hoping that it would do the trick. Well, last week I could barely walk more than 100 feet without being in excruciating pain. Even sitting still for extended periods of time hurt like a bitch. So, I went to see the knee doc again today. He gave me a different type of cortisone shot. If this doesn't work, he said my next option is the evil two words....knee replacement. You know the doc is serious when he even hands you a business card and said "If I was getting my knee replaced, this would be where I go." The group is one of the top joint replacement groups in the state and they are in my HMO (usually those two things don't go together).

The concept of a knee replacement isn't very scary to me. I'm not fond of surgeries but I've been through about four of them already, all orthopedic. With today's medical technology, I'm told I can be up and running in about six weeks. I'll have to wait until the winter break to have it done and I'll still have to finagle things around a bit as it'll either cut into the end of this semester or the beginning of spring or both. The doc said waiting a year to have it done isn't worth it and from what I've heard from most knee replacement recipients they all wished they had done it sooner. The thing I dread the most is not the surgery itself but the physical therapy afterwards. I've been the ~~victim~~ recipient of PT many, many times. Never fun stuff.

As for the knee right now, I'm going through the it's going to get worse before it gets better part. I think a lot of it had to do with the poking inside the knee with a needle and wiggling it around part. However, if it's anything like the last shot, I'll be down for the count for a couple of days. Just in time for school to start.

Can you see why I'm cranky?

Fitting for the time

2010-08-29T09:38:00.004-04:00

A friend of mine sent me this quote in regards to the Tea Party's fanaticism and conspiracy theories.

"At times these fanatics have achieved a temporary success among those who lack the will or the vision to face unpleasant tasks or unsolved problems" - JFK Conspiracy Theories Speech November 18, 1961

I recommend reading the whole speech if you have the opportunity. It's quite fitting even today.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

2010-08-20T18:05:00.002-04:00

Just working on my preps for the fall and I was going through the Spanish Inquisition. There are only two things going through my mind while doing that: Monty Python's infamous sketch and Mel Brooks singing "The Inquisition, what a show..."

Here's a great illustration of the Python boys doing their thing:

What To Do?

2010-08-12T17:05:00.003-04:00

Even though I'm technically on vacation, I'm still getting myself ready for the next semester. For the fall, I was originally going to scrap my whole heavy assignment workload for my students and just give them four exams to base their grades on. There were two reasons for this. One, I was tired of all the whining from the students about the "insane amount of work" I gave them. Mind you this was just five small writing assignments on top of weekly quizzes. They are history classes. Only English classes give more papers. Two, and this was the main reason, I don't want to grade all of them. This has nothing to do with laziness on my part. If I could, I would give ten papers a semester. However, the quality of my students' writing has seriously declined over the years and sometimes these papers are very painful to read (see some of my earlier posts). On top of that, I have a heavy grad school load in the fall. As it has been made clear to me that I'm not going to get the cherished tenure line, my priorities have shifted. I'd rather spent 20 hours a week working on my grad classes, getting A's, so I can get into a choice PhD program.

Here's the problem: I'm still a teacher at heart. When I was positive I was going to throw out the writing assignments, I read the unofficial evaluations I gave my students this week. A good majority of my students liked the writing assignments and they believed they actually learned something from them. There were only a handful of students that whined, including one who reminded me that this was a community college and not Harvard. I got a good laugh out of that one. The teacher in me is saying "damn, I'm doing something right." To me, it's not so much whether or not they enjoyed the class but if they had learned something. And they did.

To put this in perspective, I'm teaching seven courses in the fall with over 200 students. If I kept the writing assignments in that means I'll be spending a great deal of time grading them. This will cut into my grad school time and leave me no chance for a life outside of work but the students will get the benefit. If I cut out the writing assignments this would allow me some free time to do important things like sleep and extra time for my grad classes which means I will actually benefit. I have thought of a middle ground of giving less assignments but that means I would just have enough time to sleep but no real "free time."

What do you suggest I do?

P.S. And no, the pay is rather pathetic so the money is not a factor.

End of the Semester Fun

2010-08-11T18:08:00.002-04:00

Today was the last day of the summer session which means I am finally on vacation. A long, well deserved vacation. People seem to think that educators have it easy in that we get all this time off to casually lay around in the sun and do fun things. I guess if you're lucky enough to have that cushy well-paid tenure line then it's possible, but I even see those guys working their asses off with multiple courses over the summer. Me? I haven't had a "real" vacation since January. Yes, I had spring break off but that was spent digging myself from out of the huge mound of papers to be graded so it wasn't technically a vacation. I guess the week off in-between semesters could be a vacation but that was spent recuperating from the spring and prepping for the summer. Now though, I have three weeks off. I still have work to do in getting ready for the fall but I promised myself some fun.

What I plan on doing my summer vacation:

Catch up on some serious sleep. Getting up at 5am took a lot of getting used to and now my body is craving some serious z's.
Play lots and lots of EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft. I don't get to play my MMO's nearly often enough and dammit, I miss them.
Spend quality time with the Bear. It was getting to the point that I was beginning to forget what he looks like. Just kidding. Well, sort of.
Actually use the pool. I thought teaching morning classes would allow me this luxury but I would work until 5pm anyways so that never happened.
Sleep. 'Nuff said.
Read. Lots. I have a stack o' books both literally on my end table next to my bed and in my E-Reader that I've been dying to read since the beginning of the year. As my goal is to read 50 books a year, I have a lot of catching up to do.
Spend time with friends. This includes cranking up the BBQ and inviting lots of people over for some good food, good wine, and good company.
Did I mention sleep? Ah yes.

Random Thoughts From Grading Hell

2010-08-09T19:50:00.003-04:00

As I sit here grading final exams, here are a few random thoughts going through my head:

How is it that, even though I've given the same exact final for years on end, students still amaze me by doing worse on it as each year goes by? And these are take home exams now. Geeze.

No, I'm not surprise that you are having problems uploading the assignment to Blackboard from your phone. Why are you writing your paper on your phone? No, I don't want to know.

Spell check. Is that such a difficult thing to grasp?

Please don't call Alexander the Great your "homey."

Christianity did not exist in Classical Greece. Heck, it didn't even start before the Roman Empire. Sorry to cause that disillusion.

While I agree that "nothing important happened in the Middle Ages" please don't write that in your essay. Same thing goes for calling Henry VIII a "man-whore."

The Enlightenment comes after the Scientific Revolution and not before.

And no, Kepler was not a medieval thinker.

There is no such thing as a "good" concentration camp.

And this is only halfway through the stack. I think I'll go grab that bottle of wine now.

Frustrating

2010-08-08T20:52:00.002-04:00

I consider myself a technophile but there are days when I get frustrated beyond all words. For my students, I have taken the guilty pleasure of creating a website full of XTML and CSS coding to humor the nerdier side of myself. However, there are times when I make a mistake in coding and can't figure out what the fuck I have done except render the webpage as useless as an old 386 PC. I spent the better part of the afternoon figuring out what I did and to the life of me I cannot. Logic would have it that I am in possession of a backup. Oh nay nay. Silly me just thought I would be making some minor changes and adding pretty pictures.

What does this mean? I've got a temporary page with all the basics there but once my summer vacation begins it means doing some original coding from scratch again. sigh I cannot win.

Crafting and Kitties

2010-08-07T08:04:00.002-04:00

Recently I have decided to take up some new crafts as a way of keeping my hands busy. I had one of my office mates teach me how to knit and crochet over this past week. Just simple stitches as my coordination leaves something to be desired but just enough to keep my hands busy while watching TV or waiting at the doctor's office. There is one thing, though, that I forgot to take into consideration: kitten. The Stig--our illustrious new member of the household--has decided to attack the yarn while mommy is trying to crochet. Now most of you are probably going "duh." To be honest, I never had kitty problems before when doing any form of needlework. One of my favorite hobbies of all time is counted cross-stitch. Never had kitty issues with that one even though I've had many of housemates of the feline variety over the years. But Stiggie? He's a little terror. He attacks not only the yarn but my hands, and the crochet hook, and then he goes after the piece I'm working on. sigh What am I going to do? Bear suggested to lock him out of the room which is a good idea but then I would hear pathetic little kitten cries for hours on the other side of the door. So instead, I resorted to a game of fetch with his favorite toy: a plastic fork.

Ever get the feeling that my life is getting weirder and weirder each day?

California is finally doing SOMETHING right

2010-08-06T13:37:00.003-04:00

I know this may be "old" news, but kudos to the California supreme court for stating that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. It's about frickin' time. I had been so happy when San Francisco first started performing gay marriages and then was furious when religious organizations like the Mormon Church forced the state to take away natural rights to gay couples with their Proposition 8. Many people in the GLBT community were hoping that it would be overturned but even I know the end is not near. This will ultimately head up to the Ninth Circuit Court and then eventually the Supreme Court. In that regard with a legal precedence being set, there is a good chance that gay marriage will finally become legal on a federal level. It cannot come soon enough if you ask me. I have quite a few gay friends who have been in relationships with their partners for many more years than even I have been married. While I know New Jersey is more progressive by allowing civil unions, it will be nice to see them be able to have the full marriage package if that is what they want.

Now if only California can finally balance its budget... ;)

So Confused

2010-08-04T17:29:00.002-04:00

I've been doing a lot of research on PhD programs so I can apply at the end of the year. I thought I had it all figured out: find a program strong in terrorism which is what I would like to study and apply there. Honestly, where the program was did not matter as long as I was able to secure full funding. Bear has the sort of job where he could live practically anywhere in the country and we could always rent our house out if we could not sell it. Sounds easy, right?

Ha.

After a few weeks of research I noticed that criminal justice does not seem to embrace anything other than homeland security at the moment. That would be fine if that's what I wanted, but it isn't. I'm more interested in international terrorism, especially religious terrorism. So I send a few inquires out to some scholars in the field asking "what should I do?" The universal response: don't do criminal justice but instead international relations with a focus on international security studies. Heck, I didn't even know such an option existed.

OK, change of course.

So I started looking into PhD programs in that field and sent a few inquires to scholars at some of the top schools in the country. Their response: an MA in international relations or security studies might be a better option. A PhD is a huge time commitment, taking- 6 years depending on how you go about it. Plus the only reason to get a PhD is to go into teaching or research. There are a lot of jobs out there that only require an MA. So now I'm looking into that option. While the idea of a THIRD master's degree is not an appealing choice, especially since I'm more than likely to get nada in funding, it might be the path I'm going to go into. However, this is going to change the options slightly as I'll try to find a school in the northeast. There are a number of top schools in NYC as well as down in DC. If I did the latter though, that would require me to live down there for most of the week and come home on weekends but it is doable. Not my ideal sort of situation but if necessary I would do it.

The rest of my summer is winding down before vacation. My grad class ended last week so I'm just patiently awaiting my final grade. My summer teaching classes have gotten a bit better. The more whiny ones have either dropped or shut up so I'm enjoying myself more. Just hanging in until the end of next week so I can enjoy my three weeks off.

I Hate Mondays, Part 387

2010-07-26T18:03:00.002-04:00

I have a creepy student this summer session. He sits in the class, barely says two words a week, and broods for most of the day. Then this weekend, I get this bizarre e-mail from him claiming that I'm basically a racist bitch. Well, in not so many words but that is the summary. It seems that he is under this strange misconception that I have a prejudice against his particular ethnicity and that I am grading him unfairly due to this. This was a serious OMF WTF?!!! type of moment. Where did this come from? He claimed that he was doing--in his own demented mind--top notch work that deserved an A. So, just making sure I wasn't being too tough, I went over his papers a second time and said "nope, these deserve the C+ that he got."

Today I had a few words with Creepy Student. I did not say anything other than "would you like to talk?" and let him ramble away. This is where it got really weird. He said that my profile picture on Facebook intimated that I was racist. Once again, I'm thinking WTF? You know what it was? An angry kitten. How the fuck is that racist? I explained to him that I had a rough month so I had an angry kitten as my picture. How that is racist is beyond me. He then gave me this song and dance about how his work is top notch and how I am taking out my hatred for his ethnic group out on his grades. Talk about a nutcase. I wanted to either smack the kid silly for being an idiot or just laugh in his face. Thankfully I sat there calmly and explained to him that either he could keep doing the same quality work he had been and get that C+ or he could work just a bit harder to boost his grade. I also told him not to bring up the prejudice card again as I am one of the few people out there who really doesn't give a shit what race or ethnicity a person is. Whatever I said took the winds out of his sails as he just looked confused and dejected. I am hoping this will be the end of this but you never know.

Stupid Students, Part 148,509

2010-07-10T21:27:00.003-04:00

During my first summer session, I had one class full of exceptionally bright and motivated students. I got a chance to see what it was like to teach students who were there because they wanted to be, not because their mommy and daddy told them it was either this or a job. Not surprising, the class average at the end of the session was one of the highest I've seen in years. It was an incredible pleasure to teach this fine young students.

This summer session I am making up for it.

Their first assignment was very simple. Take a quiz on Blackboard (the online learning environment) on plagiarism. It is a very common sense sort of quiz and I even provided them with a whole slew of information on the subject so there was no way they could fail it. The whole purpose of the quiz was to get them comfortable with taking an online assessment. An easy A, right? Well, over the past three days I have received a slew of e-mails from students that include the following:

I was not made aware that before leaving a question going to the next question that I have to save everyone of them first. Because of that mistake, I missed 100 good points. I'm wondering if you could give me another chance to redo the assesment [sic].

Oooh. I got a good laugh out of this one. First off, they had unlimited attempts to take this quiz until Thursday in order to get a perfect grade so you could have just taken it again. Secondly, Blackboard is set up so that it warns you if you have not answered all of the questions and puts up a are you sure you want to submit pop-up before you finish it. I even showed this to you in class! If you didn't get either of those two parts, it's going to be a long summer.

I tried to get into my Blackboard this evening and in so doing have managed to, a few hours later, knock out the internet for my entire house. (Which is why I'm emailing you from my phone.) It said my browser wasn't compatible, I called and was told to downloaded firefox 3.6.6 onto my antiquated macbook and disaster struck.

Another good laugh. How the hell does using Blackboard knock your entire internet out? And while I would normally be sympathetic to this sort of scenario, e-mailing me the day after it was due is not going to help your cause.

I was trying to access the quiz you put up on Blackboard but it's giving me some thing like this "The assessment is currently not available." Now I'm kind of lost so if you can help me I'll appericiate [sic] it. Thankyou!

Hmmm. Let me see. Could it be that the assignment was due on Thursday and today is Saturday?

Why do I have a feeling that it's going to be a long session?

To Bear Chick: Don't worry. I haven't given up. Well, I've given up about my current place but I am figuring out the future. There are a lot of options open to me and I'm just trying to decide which one to take. Either way, it looks like a PhD program is in my future, just a matter of which one and where.

I'm In My Angry Phase

2010-07-04T18:44:00.003-04:00

Back in the day when I was first studying psychology, I was reading about Elizabeth Kübler-Ross' five-stages of grief. It was a classic work that has undergone much scrutiny from the academic community over the years. At first the work was applied to those suffering from grief due to death but over the years it has come to represent reactions from any type of devastating news or personal loss. Each person reacts different to loss and not everyone goes through all of the stages nor in the same order. She listed them as such:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

I personally find Kübler-Ross' stages to be accurate in my case though I only go through three of them in the following order:

Depression
Anger
Acceptance

Why am I mentioning all of this? Besides the educational lesson, I am definitely going through my stages of grief over not getting the job. I know you're saying "but that isn't a personal loss! You still have your current job." Aye, that is true to some extent.

As I child I was sold a bill of goods: work hard and reap the reward. I was also told that if people don't appreciate you for who you are, then screw 'em. I worked hard for four years. My boss (who I now think is a ball-less twat) kept on dangling a carrot in front of me: do me all these little favors and when a tenure-line opens up, you'll be a shoe in. Whenever he got stuck in bad situation, it was always "let's go to Cat. She'll do it for us." Oh we need someone to teach this crappy class that no one else wants to teach because it doesn't get out until 11pm. Oh let's ask Cat, she'll do it! Oh wait, the faculty contract says that we're not supposed to give anybody more than three preps a semester and that will give her six? Ah, no problem. She'll do it! You need someone to run a club, turn to Cat! Need someone to help with the online training? Go to Cat! For the past four years, I've taught six to seven classes a semester, almost all of them with a minimum of four preps (one day I went from Cold War America to Ancient Sumeria to Medieval Europe in a span of six hours), all while acting as faculty liason to a club, learning how to teach online courses, showing up to faculty meetings, and advising students. The first two violated the faculty contracts while the last four weren't even part of the job description. I worked my ass off. I would go into the office at 7am and not come home until 9pm at night. I didn't see my husband for much other than "hi honey I'm home. Good night." And that didn't even include the time on my days off that I devoted to my classes. I don't remember the last time I was able to spend the entire day reading a book, watching TV, or doing something around the house. It has always been "I've got work to do." Heck, even my grad classes fell to the wayside. I had to drop one this summer because I got too far behind.

And you know what? I'm pissed. I should have listened to my colleagues who told me "don't go the extra mile. The bosses don't care about us lowly contingent faculty." Of course I had to learn the hard way. Three times I applied for tenure jobs. One time I made it to the final three but a 70 year old who kissed the boss' ass got that job. The other time was for a position I knew I wasn't qualified for but send it a resume anyways. This time it was because I wasn't "qualified enough." Fine. I worked my ass off for four years, get raving reviews from my students even though they work harder in my class more than any other classes, actually get along with other faculty members, and have gone above and beyond in my duties to prove my worth. And yet you have this strange perception that this is all just a hobby for me. Sixty to seventy hours a week for four years is one hell of a hobby.

And because nothing I can do can change your perception of me, I shall live up to that perception. You want me to teach extra classes? Uh no sorry. You want me to teach other professors how to design online classes? Nope sorry. You want me to organize efforts for the club and participate in that stupid idiotic studies group that honestly nobody gives a shit about except for the fact it looks good when going for a promotion? Why bother?

And you know what? I'm going to wear shorts for the rest of the fucking summer. There isn't any dress code and I'm sick of sweating my boobs off in the rooms with no a/c because I wanted to look professional to help my chances of getting this fucking job. Hell, I'm even going to order a pair of rather silly looking Converse sneakers so I can get some semblance of my individuality back, you fuckers.

I Hate Mondays, Part 357

2010-06-28T19:33:00.004-04:00

I know the year is not even halfway over, but I have come to the firm conclusion that this will go down as one of the worst years of my life. Why? If I had been keeping up with my blog since the beginning of the year you would understand. A lot of it did not have to do with me directly, but more along the lines of my family members. What do I mean? One almost ended up in jail for being $45,000 behind in child support. Another is potentially getting a divorce because he found out his wife was cheating on him with her boss. As I am extremely empathetic, I felt all of their pain. What was worse was that I could do nothing to help them. That alone was bad enough.

On a more personal note, I promised myself that in 2010 I would take better care of myself. I have lost 25 pounds so far this year and my doctor gave me a fantastic bill of health with my physical (outside of the "you still need to lose a lot of weight" bit). It is the stress part that I can't seem to get a grip on.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that I still believe the "Protestant Work Ethic" actually means something in the world today. What ever happened to the old belief that if you work hard you shall reap the rewards? Over the past four years, I have worked my ass off with my teaching gig. I've taken on an insane amount of overload classes, became a faculty advisor for a club, taught professors how to teach online, and even joined up on a stupid committee that I had no interest in whatsoever. The point of all this? Show the higher ups that I am a qualified candidate for any future tenure-track positions that open up. Did it work? Oh nay, nay. It seems that all of this was worthless. Why hire the lowly little contingent faculty--someone who will only ask for a small raise, already has a repertoire with the students, and is looking for a lifelong career at the college--when you can get a shiny PhD--someone who will not only require a rather ridiculous salary, but have no patience for the struggling community college student and will bolt the minute a position opens up at a four-year college?

I realize that in this economy, there are going to be hundreds of people applying for one job. However, if you are going to tell someone that they didn't get it, don't fuck with their heads. Just come out and say "sorry the competition was too strong and you didn't have the qualifications (e.g., the shiny PhD)." Is that difficult to say? Of course not. Don't fuck with my head and give me all of this crap like "we can't say anything because the HR department says we can't" but at the same time follow that up with "well we wanted someone serious, you know someone with a PhD who shows that history isn't a hobby to them." What the fuck?! From this intimation, you are telling me that even though I work 60+ hours a week for this college that this is a "hobby" of mine? Or better yet, follow that up with the even more poignant "we won't be doing any more 'courtesy interviews.'" Are you saying that you only interviewed me to be nice? Come on. I'm a big girl. I can take rejection. You don't have to rub it in and be a dick about it.

This whole thing has really just pissed me off. Originally, I planned on going for a PhD starting in Fall 2011 if this tenure line thing fell through. However, I'm starting to really rethink that. So far half of my experiences with academia have been a living hell. Do I really want to spend the rest of my life doing this? Then again, what is a 40 year old supposed to do when all her experience is in teaching? Oh and no, I would never teach high school. At least with college I don't have to deal with parents.

Remind me why...

2010-06-27T10:12:00.002-04:00

...I agreed to teach both summer sessions? I was already fried from the seven class + all the rest of the crap Semester from Hell. But no, I decided to teach a full load over the summer which means 15+ hours a week of just teaching for 12 weeks. Considering the whole reason why I've been sick so much and thought I had a heart attack last semester was due to insane amount of stress in my life. I need to learn to say no.

At least this summer is divided into two sessions. This session I will admit that my not-so-fun class isn't terribly bad while the class I love to teach is doing horribly. This will be over in a week and then after a short break, we start up with the next session. In that one, I am fully prepped a gazillion times over and I can teach it all in my sleep. The only things left for me to do are grading and showing up to teach. Hopefully that session will give me a little downtime.

On a bright note, I got the letter from the Board of Trustees stating that my contingency faculty position has been renewed for another semester. I'm surprised they did not wait until August to send me that as they usually do. I'm pretty sure the BoT has a few sadists on it who want to see people like me suffer as much as possible.

Well, at least I have a job, which in this economy is a Good Thing. Now if I can get a tenure line one of these days I'll be set.

Oh and no. I'm not watching the World Cup. Those stupid vuvuzelas give me panic attacks. I feel like I'm being chased by a swarm of bees. Go Wimbledon! No annoying horns there.

BSOD

2010-06-21T16:11:00.001-04:00

I have come to the conclusion that Microsoft is a modern day version of the anti-Christ. Why do I say that? It's because Windows 7 sucks. I thought Vista was bad but I've only had Windows 7 running on my computer for about four weeks now and I've had more Blue Screen of Deaths than I've had in years. Heck, I don't think I ever had one in the many years I had XP. What the fuck is Microsoft doing? Are they purposely designing crappy products to drive us all insane?

Bah.

Overcommitted

2010-06-14T21:19:00.003-04:00

Summer is supposed to be a relaxing time, is it not? I finished off the Semester from Hell with just a scant remnant of my sanity left. It was a trying time, full of both personal and professional aggravations that would cause most people to run screaming to their mommies. However, I endured. Even at the very end, I got through Grading Hell with a smile on my face. Why? It was summer. A time when I can lay back, relax, read a gazillion good books, etc.

But alas, that was not meant to be.

Do you ever get the feeling that you are just over-committed? Suffer from the problem that you can't say no? Or worse yet, challenge yourself to do more and more even though you're already on the verge of a breakdown? If not, welcome to my life.

Unfortunately for us financially challenged, teaching summer school is not an option. Rather, it is a mandatory obligation so that I can pay my bills in August. As my college is over an hour away, teaching only one class a session is rather asinine. Therefore, I'm teaching two classes each session. This means four hours a day of teaching, four days a week for 12 weeks. I do this every summer so this is nothing new. Normally, I would teach only evening classes in the summer. Part of this had to do with the fact that evening students for the most part are more harder-working and caring students. The other part is that I'm just not a morning person. The biggest problem with this was that I would not get home until well after 11pm and thus would not be able to spend much quality time with the Bear.

This summer I went for the early morning classes, thinking that I would be done by lunchtime and would have lots of quality time. Hehe. Ya right. My first class, what I shall call the Crack of Dawn class, is on an area of history I normally despise teaching. I honestly thought this would be my Hell Class this summer. However, they are some of my best students. My other class, the Mid-Morning Coma class, which is one my favorite topics teach is the most painful now because the students are as apathetic as they come. Getting up at 5am is the hardest part but what is worse is that I still work straight through until the evening either doing lesson preps or grading. Still no real quality time with the Bear and on top of that I'm not getting much sleep.

On top of all of this, I'm still going to grad school. Last semester I had to take an incomplete in one of my classes and it looks like I'll be dropping one of the ones I'm taking this summer. After last semester, I've been trying to make more time for myself. As my therapist says to "enjoy the little things in life" like actually having a social life. I quit my job at the library but even that didn't seem like enough. It constantly feels like I'm trying to play catch up. I'm already behind in both of my classes and it's only the fourth week which is a horrendous sign. I'm just waiting to make sure dropping the class won't negatively impact my academic record but it looks like I'll be doing it anyways.

I'm Alive

2010-06-13T13:56:00.001-04:00

Yes, I'm still alive. Give me a day or two and I'm hoping to be back up and blogging.

You know it's going to be a bad semester when...

2010-01-31T22:43:00.002-05:00

...you get all of the following e-mails in one day:

Is the require book on the syllabus really required?

Ah yes snowflake. If it says "required" there's a damn good chance that you'll have to buy it, especially since you are in an online class. How else are you supposed to learn the material? Through osmosis?

(E-mail subject: Wrighting Assignment) i was wondering if there was a legnth for the asignments. how short and how long should they be.

Before we get to that, have you heard of something called a "spell check"? It's an integral part of getting a good grade in my class. Also, capitalization and proper punctuation are Good Things. As for the length of the assignment, why don't you read the bottom of the assignment. You see? Right there where it says "minimum of 3-4 pages"? Duh. Oh wait. That would assume you actually read the assignment. My bad.

I was just wondering what is the exact time limit we have on discussions. I can't figure out when they close.

If you read the lesson in big flashing red lights that says "Read Me First" you will see that the discussions end at the end of the unit. Oh wait. That would assume that you read the "Read Me First" (with the flashing red lights) before doing all the other work that hasn't even started yet. Once again, my bad.

Hello professor for sum reason it is not letting me upload the file it keeps saying error.

Um. Is there a question in there? WTF are you talking about? The worst part, when I responded to this kid asking what are you asking, he gave me an even more incoherent answer: "The file wit the questions we are suppose to answer and send it to you." I still have no clue what he is talking about.

I have a feeling it's going to be a long semester.

I'm Surprised...

2010-01-26T22:13:00.002-05:00

...that a student hasn't tried this one.

Oh how I miss The Far Side.

My New Car....

2010-01-23T21:09:00.002-05:00

Bear and I got a new car. Ironically, we weren't planning on buying one, at least not today. The plan was to look at various models to rule out some. This is what we ended up getting...

The 2011 Lexus LFA supercar
Engine: V10
Acceleration: 0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds
Price: $375,000

Oh wait. I'm awake. Ha! I wish that was my car but unfortunately I can't afford something like that on a state-paid professor's salary. Here is the actual model of car I bought:

The 2010 Toyota Prius
Engine: 16-valve VVT-i 4-cylinder
Acceleration: 0-60 mph in 9.8 seconds
Fuel Efficiency: 50 mpg combined city/highway

I pretty much wanted the Prius from the start because I drive so much (average over 16,000 miles a year). While it was a little pricey (around $25,000 not including all the extra stuff like taxes), in the next five years it will more than make up the difference in gas costs. However, one of the things that concerned Bear, as he is a big guy, was whether or not he would fit in the car. Ironically, he fits better in the Prius than in our SUV. Heck, even the back seat has some decent room as long as you're not over 5'7". Though, that wasn't a concern for me as we rarely have passengers and if we do we usually take the SUV.

Now I just have to remember to press the break pedal when hitting the power button to start the car...

Hope for the (Near) Future

2010-01-21T19:53:00.002-05:00

Don't worry. No political rant this time. :)

I went into the office today to start getting ready for the new semester. It was my only free day this week so I wanted to get as much done as possible. After a few snags (e.g., lost syllabi), I had a very productive day. There were a couple of things that did surprise me, albeit it pleasantly.

The first had to do with a number of wandering students. That is a typical sight because a number of students tend to wait until the very last minute (literally) to register for classes. However these weren't that lot. Instead, as I discovered, they were "mapping" out where their classes were. They were actually taking the time to see where their classes were so they could find them on the first day without being late! OMFG! What a concept (attach sarcasm here)! One of the things that frustrates me to no end during the first week of classes is the stream of late students going "sorry, couldn't find the classroom." I've even learned to wait 15 minutes before starting during that period to deal with them.

The second thing was that my online students are already participating and the semester hasn't even started yet! It's just the introductory discussions but it's nice to see people showing an interest. And what's even better? They realize that there is more work in online classes than in face-to-face ones. That means they might actually pass my class! While this is only my second year teaching online, I have come to the firm conclusion that most students (at least at the community college level) sign up for online classes for all the wrong reasons. They think that not having to go to school means that the class will be cake. I always have to remind students that the opposite is true as they are having to teach themselves the material. I provide all the stuff they need to learn but they are the ones who actually have to do the learning. However, most of that group never learns that lesson and I have to endure the "she's a bitch," "don't take her if you like your GPA" comments on RateMyProfessor.com.

I also got a non-student related surprise: a co-worker's daughter is selling Girl Scout cookies. Oh, I am in heaven! Every year I buy like ten boxes of the cookies to savor over the next few months (if they last that long). I am heartily addicted to all of the peanut butter ones. And no, it won't throw off my diet. After looking up the nutritional information, I found out that one serving of my fav cookies equals 3-5 points. This means I can enjoy a couple of cookies and not suffer without them. Though I may not buy as many boxes. They are so good!

Need to get this off my chest...

2010-01-20T20:58:00.003-05:00

I am a bleeding heart liberal. I have been for a number of years. While I will admit that during the late 1980s and early 1990s, I considered myself a liberal Republican (liberal social views, conservative financial views) there were some rather difficult personal issues I had to deal with in the late 1990s that completely changed my point of view on things. Now, I'm about as left-wing as you can get without being a member of the Socialist Party.

One thing that has been really annoying me lately is the amount of crap that has been thrown around in the political arena the past couple of weeks. While I am a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party, I am open-minded to people of differing political beliefs. Voltaire once said "While I many not agree with what you say, I will defend to death your right to say it." I'm a firm holder of that belief. However, that belief is starting to fracture over a lot of crap I've been hearing recently.

I don't mind if you have a differing opinion as long as you are making an EDUCATED opinion. I don't care if you are a conservative, liberal, libertarian, or a Marxist. As long as you know why you are that way, it's fine by me. Don't just listen to the political heads on places like Faux News (intentional typo) or even CNN. Research what they are talking about and make your own opinion. Don't just take those things at face value. Hell, I'm a liberal and I can't stand CNN or MSNBC because of the way they idolize the Dems to a point they are almost considered god-like. If I have to watch the news, I turn to BBC America which is much more neutral than the U.S. news channels.

So what is the problem here? If I hear one more person state something as fact that is either taken completely out of context or a complete farce, I am going to scream! Either that or beat the person silly. Case in point (and these are true references I have seen in places like Facebook and comments on various news articles):

Lincoln was a Republican and it was the Democrats who had him killed because he freed the slaves! - Yes, Lincoln was a Republican but if he were alive today, he would most likely be a Democrat. Not only were his ideas incredibly progressive for the time period, he supported a growing involvement of federal power. The Dems of the 1800s were the conservatives while the Republicans were the liberals. That changed in the early 20th century. And also, just because one nutcase was responsible for killing Lincoln doesn't mean the entire party was responsible for the assassination. That's as blatantly stupid as saying the "Jews killed Christ" (when in actuality, it was a Roman who gave the death sentence, not a Jew) and that all Jews then and now are responsible for that.
It was the Democrats who implemented Jim Crow Laws! - Well, duh. Southern Democrats were for the most part racist shits in the late 1800's and early 1900s. However, do NOT use that argument when discussing Democrats today. See above argument.
The Democrats are more racist than the Republicans because they feel that minorities are unable to take care of themselves and need a handout. The Republicans, on the other hand, think that we are all the same so no handout or affirmative action is needed - My God. Do people actually think this? Unless you ever faced discrimination or lived below the poverty line this argument is just moot. Going back to the incidents in the late 1990s, I faced both. If anybody tried this one in my face I would laugh so hard I would probably fall over. The Dems aren't just helping minorities, they are helping those who are struggling. If it wasn't for the initiatives of things like Social Security, Medicare, and improvements to education including increased public funding of grade schools and expansion of financial aid, a lot of people in this country would be screwed, both white, black, Hispanic, etc. Oh, and yes, these were put forth by Democrats.
The stimulus package is going to hurt the economy more than help it! - While I'm not a big fan of bailing out such companies as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, without the stimulus package we would be royally fucked. A friend of mine teaches Asian history and economics and he gave a brilliant lecture on the role of the Asian nations in this financial crisis. The amount of money spent by the U.S. government to bailout companies and promote an economic stimulus is only a small part of the money spent by other nations. Specifically the G20 Nations are responsible for $692 billion in total economic stimulus packages in 2009. On average, the U.S. spent 1.9% of its 2008 GDP which might seem like a lot. However, China spent 2.4% which was significantly larger and they technically didn't have to push for stimulus money because their economy is actually doing quite well. The whole thing is that you need to look at the larger picture. What would have happened if we didn't provide some kind of stimulus package? I have bad news for you boys and girls but we would have headed for a global depression that would have been worse than the Great Depression. This stimulus package was not just a "U.S. thing" but a global one. It was all of the participants who kept the world from going down the economic drain and following in the footsteps of Iceland. In case you didn't know, Iceland declared bankruptcy last year. The country went bankrupt. Imagine if, for example, Brazil went bankrupt or Russia? Imagine how that would screw up the entire global economy! Heck, I remember watching a "documentary" back in the 1980s analyzing how World War III would start. Guess what? They predicted it would start with all of the South American countries declaring bankruptcy. How do you think that would screw up our economy? Ya, it was bad.
Socialized medicine doesn't work/kills people/costs too much money, etc! - I could spend a month going over this argument. Just think of it this way: we are the only civilized western country that does not provide some sort of state backed health care system. While yes it will cost money, you are going to pay no matter what. Think of all of those people who don't have health insurance. They aren't going to go for regular check ups and will wait until they are truly ill before they see a doctor. By then, the cancer may have spread too far, or what started out as a simple curable illness turns into something fatal. The uninsured can't pay for it so everybody else does in the form of higher doctor bills. Also, if you have health insurance, you do you think is paying for it? If you said your company, you are partially right. How many of you would take a lower paying job if it provided health insurance over one that paid better but didn't provide? We know all of you would. You pay for it in many forms. Some may be paying for it out of pocket in terms of monthly deductions out of your paycheck or you are receiving a lower salary so that your company can afford to give you health insurance. Death panels? Who the fuck came up with that one. All of my friends who live in Europe and Canada love their health care system. While they have to wait a smidge for "unnecessary" surgeries, they don't have to worry about paying for important, preventative measures. Heck, if you have the sniffles, you don't have to worry about not affording your doctor visit. And I'm sorry, if you don't think affordable health care should be a right in this country, our founding fathers would disagree. If you don't believe me, look at our own Declaration of Independence (which happens to mention life...I think health and life go together):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

/gets off soap box and goes to bed.

More Team CoCo Love

2010-01-19T19:31:00.002-05:00

Even Hitler is getting involved:

Proud Member of Team CoCo

2010-01-17T14:04:00.002-05:00

I am not a huge TV watcher. To me, the best form of entertainment is found either in a book or in a video game of some sort. However, as a night person, I like to wind down my day by watching the local news and then one of the various late shows. Personally, I can't stand Jay Leno. I don't know if it was his west coast style humor or the fact that he always made rather nasty fat jokes about people. Either way, I never found him funny. To be honest, for a long time I watched Letterman at the 11:35pm slot. That is, until Conan O'Brien got the Tonight Show. I've always loved CoCo on the Late Show but I was rarely up that late to watch it. I sort of enjoyed having bad insomnia so I could catch at least the opening monologue and would even stay up late just to catch an episode of Triumph the Insult Dog. Him on the Tonight Show was the equivalent of a mental orgasm for me, even though the 11:35 version of him was a lot more tame than the Late Show one.

Now with all this crap going on at NBC I'm really pissed off. One of the reasons why I don't enjoy TV any more is because all of my favorite shows got canceled (e.g., the Dresden Files) or played on for so long that they are just either way too predictable or too similar (e.g., the Law & Orders and the CSIs). The Tonight Show with CoCo was one of the few that I made an effort to watch. NBC is shooting themselves in the foot with this one. Leno might have been funny ten years ago. The failure of his 10pm show proves he no longer is. And don't blame CoCo for low ratings for the Tonight Show. With the pitiful Leno Show as a lead in, what do you expect?

If you can believe it, I actually wrote an e-mail to NBC. I usually don't do things like this unless I'm really pissed. I know it won't do any damn good but it was cathartic. Basically I told them if they put Leno back, they just lost yet another viewer to Letterman or wherever CoCo goes.

Why?

2010-01-14T18:23:00.002-05:00

My all-time favorite present was the Sony Reader that I got this past Christmas. I've only had it for a few weeks but I LOVE the thing so much! Ironically, I used to be one of those people who swore they would only read books and never anything on a screen. This new generation of eBooks are great as they are compact, light, and don't hurt my eyes when I read. Also, we have over 1,000 books in this house and honestly we have no more room.

So what's the problem?

Why the fuck can I not buy eBook from let's say Barnes and Noble or Amazon and use them on my Sony Reader? WTF is up with that? If, per chance, this was an Apple product--as they are infamous for creating their own file types--I can sort of understand the issue, but even iPods can play .mp3s. Why can't these companies agree to use one standardized format? It's not like there isn't a standardized format. How difficult can it be? It would make my life so much easier.

In a related bit, I found a new genre of books I am just devouring: alternate history. Yes, I know grammatically it's supposed to be alternative history but I'm not the one who coined the term. As I am a history buff, I always love to ask "what if?" My favorite ones include "what if Hitler got into art school?" and "what would've happened to Napoleon if Corsica hadn't been under French control?" While in Borders a few weeks back I saw this book called 1901 by Robert Conroy. I read the back and it had an interesting premise: what if Germany decided to invade the U.S. after the Spanish-American War in order to pressure us to give them our colonies? Fantastic book! Now I'm reading his 1945 which answers the question what if the Japanese didn't surrender after the dropping of the two atomic bombs? I am hooked on these books. A few people have recommended Harry Turtledove as well but a lot of his alternate histories include aliens and that's a bit much for me.

Fear of Fire

2010-01-12T10:22:00.012-05:00

A long, long time ago, back when I was an undergrad, I was living in an apartment complex about a mile or so from campus. A lot of students lived there but a number of the units had been converted to condos so a lot of faculty lived there as well.

In the middle of winter, I was awoken one night to someone banging on my neighbor's door screaming "Jim! Jim, goddamit, wake up! My building is on fire!" It was the word "fire" that woke me up. Somehow I had slept through a number of fire trucks screaming past my windows. I hastily dressed and went outside to make sure it wasn't my building on fire. Thankfully it wasn't as it was the one on the far side of the complex. Mesmorized by the flames, I stood there in freezing temperatures watching as the fire spread from one apartment to another. Then it spread to the attached townhomes where a number of faculty lived. We had over 10 towns worth of fire trucks in the parking lot as they failed to contain the blaze. In the end, the whole building was destroyed along with four or five townhomes. There were several small fires in that building after the main fire was put out. Mainly people moving mattresses and discovering that they were still smoldering. It was two weeks before there were no longer any fire trucks, inspectors, insurance agents, or police around.

What bugged me the most was the situation that caused the fire. Supposedly, one of the tenants had their electricity turned off for not paying the bills. He/she was burning a candle for light and the candle was on top of a towel which was near a curtain. Can you see where this is going? Candle fell over, set the towel on fire which in turn set the curtain of fire. The idiot ran out of his/her apartment and left the door open. That caused the flames to spread into the hallway, and you know the rest.

From that day forward, I've had a fear of fire. Not the paralyzing kind. More of like what would happen if I came home and found my home had burned down to the ground? My biggest concern was not my stuff. That could always be replaced. It was the kitties that I was mostly worried about. Heck, I view them as my children. For many years, I developed a severe OCD of checking the stove to make sure it was off and I did not even keep candles in my house. I would even have minor panic attacks when fire trucks went passed. One time I did come home to find the fire department surrounding the midrise I was living in a few years back but thankfully that building had cement between the floors and proper fireproofing between apartments. The worse I had to deal with was smoke damage and even that was minor. The OCD is now under control and I do burn candles but in very safe locations. We even have a fireplace and one of my favorite things to do on a winter night is to curl up on the couch with a fire going.

So why am I mentioning this fear? Last night, I heard the town's fire sirens going off. It is something I don't normally notice any more. It has been almost twenty years since that big fire. Heck, even hearing the fire trucks going by didn't worry me at first. We live in a very large condo/townhome community and there are occasions when a fire truck goes by but only one or two so it's no big deal. Last night, however, it was more than two. I started to freak out a bit but the trucks were going to the other side of the community so the fire was not near my home. I still had to take a sedative because I felt a bad panic attack coming on.

This morning my fears were confirmed. There was a major fire in our community. An entire building with eight condos was destroyed. I drove past it this morning after my neighbor told me the news. It was bad. The building was still standing but the upper condos were completely gutted. There were people milling about and I could tell that they were the ones who lost their homes. I immediately left even though my heart wanted to stop and help these people somehow, even if it just meant lending them a shoulder to cry on. Two things stopped me: 1) I was already late for work and 2) I'm too empathetic to be in those sort of situations. I would carry their grief with me for a long time. For the sake of my sanity, I had to leave.

So what started this fire? According to my neighbor, it started in the dryer vent in one of the condos. Ugh. That is something that is so preventable. When I get home later today I'm calling up the management company and having someone come by to clean out my dryer vent. I know we had it done when we moved in but it is better to be safe than sorry. From the destruction of this fire, I know there aren't fire walls between the condos (I wonder if this was a code violation or not). Once again, it's not my stuff I'm worried about. That's what homeowners insurance is for and stuff can be replaced. My husband and the kitties are another story. They cannot be replaced.

Moral of the story: if you have a dryer and you haven't cleaned the vent in a long time, please do so. Get your husband, significant other, handyman, or do it yourself. Take the time to avoid what I saw this morning.

Die with a T

2010-01-06T16:59:00.003-05:00

I only made one New Year's resolution: to take better care of myself. That might seem too general to most people but I hate saying "I must exercise 30 minutes a day" type of junk. Rather, I prefer things that are much more achievable. Even if I only do one thing that is good for me, it is something. One of the big foci for me this year is my health.

I had a scare back in December that reminded me that I'm not a youngin' any more. I saw a ton of doctors and had a hell of a lot of tests done. Guess what? I am surprisingly healthy considering my weight. No diabetes, no high cholesterol, no nothing. The pain in my chest? Pinched nerve. Shortness of breath? Deconditioning. While I wish I hadn't gone through it in the first place, I look at it like a good swift kick in the ass. I think the Fates do this to all of us at one point or another. My last good one was a real life-threatening event I had a bunch of years ago that helped put me in a more proactive role with my mental health. Now I think it's time to take a more proactive role with my physical health.

For the past 10+ years I had been working on my mental health which meant taking series after series of antidepressants. Unfortunately, most of them cause weight gain. A lot of it. For years I was of the belief that it was better to be fat and happy rather than skinny and suicidal. However, as I'm getting closer to my 40th birthday (*cringe*) I realize that mentality will only get me so far. Now I have to focus on getting rid of all the weight I gained. To be honest, it has occurred over the course of 10+ years and for a long time I was of the belief that I could lose it easily. However, it has added up to a large amount. To be precise, I've gained over 130 pounds.

I did get my doctors' approval to start a new "wellness plan." However, the problem is finding the means of doing it that won't tire me out, stress me out, or frustrate me completely. With my crazy life, I can't push myself too much.

My one main focus is changing my eating habits. One of the things that always bothered me is that people always assume I gained weight because I eat a lot of food. You know the whole "maybe if she stopped eating so much she would lose the weight" type of bullshit. Ha! I wish it was that. Unfortunately my problem is two-fold. One, the antidepressants screwed up my metabolism (common side-effect that I'm stuck with). Two, if anything I don't eat enough food! I literally forget to eat sometimes, especially when things get crazy at school. And to be honest, some of the food I do eat isn't especially healthy.

So how do I fix this? This is going to be the hardest part on my end but I know how to attack it: seeing a nutritionist and going to Weight Watchers. I've literally done all of the "major" dieting scams (e.g., Jenny Craig, South Beach). The only one that ever worked for me was Weight Watchers. Why? They teach me how to eat properly instead of starving myself or eating pre-packaged food. As for the nutritionist, I have some bizarre medical conditions and need to make sure I'm eating the appropriate foods to help keep my energy levels going. I've already seen the nutritionist and I just signed up today for WW (online not the meetings...I hate meetings).

The next step, which I am currently researching, is finding a good gym. This isn't easy especially since I live in west bumfuck. There are two things I'm looking for: price and the availability of personal trainers. I know the latter is a huge expense but I need to adjust my "gym mentality." Before I got sick and gained all the weight I used to work out seven days a week (either at the gym or skating). I can't go back to that level of intensity. Hell, I can't walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath. Also, I have way too many bad joints--from both the weight and too many years of playing ice hockey. I need to ease my way back into shape. A 45-minute cardio class would probably give me a real heart attack.

I will let you know how all of it goes.

Getting Back to Work

2010-01-02T16:38:00.003-05:00

So far I have enjoyed two restful weeks of vacation where I did absolutely nothing. That's the way a vacation should really be. However, with my remaining time left in my winter break I finally have to put my nose to the grindstone to get ready for next semester.

One of the biggest issues I have is implementing a grading rubric for my assignments and online discussions. This is mainly to avoid a lot of the crap I got last semester with students claiming I offered no help (yet they did not even bother to talk to me, ask me any questions, nor come by during my office hours), and to prevent another "she's prejudiced against my ethic group" bullshit. This way no one will be able to question why they got a certain grade. I'm even going to provide copies of the rubrics in advance so they'll know what they need to include in their papers. Hopefully it will work.

While there are a number of resources available online, coming up with one to fit my exact assignments is not an easy task. I have to figure out how many points to give what and what should carry the most/least weight. I'll work on it for another hour or two and then I'll take it easy the rest of the night. I am still technically on vacation. :)

P.S. The student who made the accusation was Indian. Honestly, there are only two groups I'm prejudiced against: twits and assholes. No ethnicity, color, or creed involved. This one student is starting to go into the second category if she keeps up the fight. The worst part is that the administration at my college will listen to her. Even my boss suggested that I boost her grade up to a D just to "shut her up." Hopefully nobody will remember once the semester starts because I don't want to deal with this crap.

I'm Baaaaack....

2009-12-26T10:08:00.002-05:00

As promised, I'm back. It was a crazy semester with some good and some bad. Of course, it did not end quietly as I had been hoping. There are always students who whine, bitch and moan about their final grades. Some more than others (one actually told the head of my department that I am "prejudiced" against her ethnic group which is why she got an F...LOL...got to love that one).

On the bright side, I got A's in all of my grad classes, survived yet another semester with seven classes, and still have some semblance of sanity left. Now I get four weeks off before the next semester of two grad classes and seven teaching classes. Yes, I'm nuts. Haven't you noticed that yet?

Anywho, as I was cleaning out my e-mail, I found this lovely tidbit from an old friend. While it may be old, it was still so fitting. Maybe I should do this myself with all this time off.

On Hiatus

2009-10-03T10:17:00.001-04:00

As some of you may have noticed, I have not been posting a lot. I have a very crazy schedule this semester and am taking some time off from writing. I'll be back in time for Christmas. Just hang on until then.

Cat

Vacation Time!

2009-08-07T11:12:00.002-04:00

Both grad school and the community college are done for the summer.

I finished up my forensic psych class with an A-. Yes, part of me is still upset that I didn't get the A but I'm a nerd. I'm all set with my schedule for the fall: Administration of Criminal Justice and Criminal Mind and Behavior. I'm really looking forward to that last class.

The summer session ended up with two students in my office crying about their grades. They both got D's and needed a C to actually graduate. Me the softie allowed them to hand in work really late to get the C. I'm too damn nice.

I get to enjoy the rest of August at a much more relaxed paced. I'll still be working at the library a few days here and there but I'll have a full two weeks off at the end of August, one of which will be spent lying on the beaches of Cape Cod.

Now maybe I can work on cleaning the house... :P

Almost Done

2009-08-04T19:10:00.004-04:00

In two days the summer semester will over and I can finally rest. These next two days are going to be easy. I give the finals tomorrow and on Thursday I just give out final grades if the students want them. I have to be here anyways and I've learned never to give a final on the very last day of the semester. We don't have a finals week here. You just give it on the last class, or as most of us do now, on the second to last class.

I'm also settled in my new office. It took a while to get things organized. I showed up in my old office yesterday to find everything gone. Maintenance finally got around to moving my stuff. Unfortunately, they put all my stuff in the wrong spot. Also, as I was very impatient last night, I did not wait for IT to hook up my computer and did it myself.

I'm trying my best to personalize my new cinderblock fluorescent hell with pictures and stuff. The Devils 2009 calendar is up and so is my favorite quote: Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem ("In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags"). Yes, it's grumpy but it makes me feel good. It's better than all that motivational shit you normally see in offices. To me, insulting my students (in a way they will never get) is so much more motivational especially at the end of a semester when they all come in begging for higher grades. However, now that I share an office with a whole bunch of English professors, I'm afraid one of them may know Latin and ask me to take it down. Then I'll find a nice insult in Russian. :)

I did finish my forensic psych take home final. It ended up a smidge over 10 pages and took about four days to complete. I only managed a 26/30 on it, which is an 87. That's about what I was expecting since some of the questions on the exam were really tough. This, however, brings my average down to a 93. This could mean an A- instead of an A. I'll have to wait to see when the final grades are posted to see what I got. Don't get me wrong. An A- is good. I just really wanted the A.

Some good for now

2009-08-01T14:51:00.003-04:00

Remember how earlier in the week I was complaining about losing my computer. Looks like I get to keep it. When the IT people came over to upgrade my "new" computer, I was told that I am supposed to move my computer with me. The IT guy even promised to yell at my dean for me. Yay! My computer is a PoS but I have it all specialized to the way I like it. It's also familiar to me which is the most important thing.

Bear and I also finalized our vacation for next month. We're going to Cape Cod for a week, specifically south Dennis. Because we waited so long to make a decision, we could not get a house near the beach in our price range. This works out OK though because South Dennis is pretty centralized and in decent driving distance of pretty much everything. I just hope the weather is nice so I can get some serious time in at the beach.

My depression is still giving me issues. My doctor is switching me off Lexapro and putting me back on to Zoloft, mainly because Bear and I want to start trying to get pregnant. I guess Zoloft is the safer of the two. The timing sort of sucks because my depression has been acting up a lot lately and I've had a series of episodes over the past month. The idea of cleaning my system of the old meds and then waiting for the new one to kick in is slightly unnerving. If you've ever switched anti-depressants you would understand. It's never a fun process.

Feeling the Pain

2009-07-30T16:54:00.002-04:00

This month has been rather...well...sucky. Too much has been going on and not all of it good.

To start off with, my job has turned into a really sucky mess (that'll be the "word of the day" today). I'm forced to move into a new office so they could make room for all the new tenure faculty coming in. The way it was explained to me was that I am not worth anything and that my desk in the office with the nice window has to go to "real" faculty. While those were not the exact words used, the tone was.

My new office? In the bottom of the science building (got to love those natural gas fumes :P), no window, and cinderblock walls. What's better? I get to share it with seven other people. How they fit eight desks, eight filing cabinets, and a small conference table in this room is beyond me. On top of that, it's off the noisiest hallway in the entire fucking campus. Joy. I'll be investing in a good set of noise-canceling headphones in the next couple of weeks. I went down last week to snag a decent desk. Of course all the good ones were taken, but I managed to snatch one in the corner with its own filing cabinet. I may just switch around the desk and the filing cabinet to get a little bit of privacy and to negate some of the noise coming from the door.

I've packed up my office and deleted most of the files off of my computer. For some reason, they won't let me take my computer with me. I have to use the one already down there which hasn't been updated in a few years. Heck, it still has Office 2003 on it and I thought the whole campus had already upgraded at the end of last year. Anyways, I've accumulated a lot of stuff over the past two years and it's hard cleaning it all out and packing it up.

The thing that has been hardest for me is that I've worked so hard over the last three years (one as an adjunct and two as a lecturer) and I've got so little to show for it. The higher ups don't seem to care that I'm a good teacher and asset to the college. They now see me as a burden to fill in temporarily while one of the "real" faculty is on sabbatical. Bah. Part of me almost wishes that they just told me I wasn't coming back in the fall. At least I would've gone out with some respect. Now they are just throwing me in the basement to be used as a whipping boy for one more semester and I get nothing really out of it.

So true...

2009-07-27T10:42:00.000-04:00

Some Good News

2009-07-10T12:04:00.002-04:00

I finally got word on what's happening to me in the fall. I'll be coming back as a lecturer, which means full time pay and health insurance. However, it was made very clear to me that it will only be for one semester (to cover a colleague who is on sabbatical). Financially it is good news but at the same time it is frustrating. I'll be teaching six classes and working at the library. I have to keep my library job as well since I'll have to rely on that in the new year. All of this plus grad school. I'll be a fried kitty before December rolls along.

All of this is making me seriously considering going away for a vacation. We'll have the money (at least in the short term) to do that. I really want to go to Cape Cod but I'll have to convince the husband to agree to it. He wants to do a "staycation" but I need to get away in order to relax. Heck, I even found a nice cottage right near the beach for a decent price in August. Now I just have to find a way to convince him to go along with it.

I'm Still Alive

2009-06-25T18:46:00.002-04:00

Things have just been too hectic.

My teaching job has taken an interesting turn. The department finally did find a Latin American specialist which means my job is gone. There's a slight chance they could retain me for one semester while a colleague is on sabbatical but that's it. It looks like I'll be going back to adjuncting sooner rather than later.

The one problem with a one semester gig is that I have to keep my second job as well. Plus, to justify keeping me on for a semester, my boss wants to give me six classes instead of five. All that and grad classes. Well, if this happens I'll just be taking one grad class. I'm already fried. I don't need to get crispy.

Speaking of grad classes, so far so good in my forensic psychology class. I'm getting A's so far though I only got a 5.5 out of 6 on the last paper. Of course I'm not happy I got a 6. I'm a perfectionist in certain regards. I'm starting to think I took one of the hardest classes in the program with this class. There is a lot of "psycho babble" in the articles I have to read along with numerous legal decisions. My head hurts after a while of reading this stuff but it is interesting.

Student Funnies

2009-06-09T14:57:00.004-04:00

I asked my students to read an excerpt from Herodotus' The Histories about the Persian invasion of Greece. When asked what were the special attributes that the Greeks had to help them to resist and eventually defeat the Persians, one student wrote this:

"One attribute of the Greeks is that they comb their hair whenever that are about to risk their lives"

Um OK. It seems that good hair helped them defeat the Persians. Good to know.

ROFLMAO

Some Poetic Justice

2009-06-08T18:57:00.002-04:00

The result of the tenure line job search at my college? The person that they wanted to hire took a job at a four-year school.

Why am I not surprised?

Very True...

2009-05-24T10:29:00.001-04:00

It's Official

2009-05-22T14:08:00.002-04:00

I am now a student of University of Massachusetts Lowell.

I had about 24 hours to decide on summer classes and I thought "what the heck, let's do it." So yesterday I changed my matriculation to start with the summer and registered for my class. While I wanted to get some of the required courses out of the way, the only ones open were the major stats courses. I do not want to take stats in the summer. So instead I registered for Forensic Psychology. That should be a fun one. :)

It really is amazing how much cheaper UMass is over BU. My course at UMass is going to cost a little under $1,500. The same class at BU will cost $3,000! This is not including the ridiculous price of textbooks either. The one for this psych class is $153. For. One. Book. Is that a rip-off or what? I thought it was bad my students would have to pay $80 for their textbooks, which is why I don't make them buy them.

On a sillier note, I think Loki has actually grown again. The poor guy is already big enough (around 20lbs and none of it is fat). He is definitely going to be on the larger end of the scale for Maine Coons. His brother Monkey, though, is on the smaller end but he got all the brains. I swear they are the kitty version of Pinky and The Brain.

Some Good News

2009-05-20T22:26:00.002-04:00

I found out today that I was accepted to the Master's program at UMass Lowell. I'll probably go there over Boston University mainly because it costs about 30% less. In this economy cost is everything, especially since I'll have to take out loans to cover everything. Also, it has a lot more classes in forensic psychology which I'm interested in. The only problem is that their summer session starts on Tuesday. I have to decide very quickly if I want to enroll during the summer or wait until the fall.

A Sign?

2009-05-20T12:11:00.002-04:00

My colleague who shares an office with me also had her name removed from the door. On Monday, she put up a little sign with both our names on the door. Guess what? It was gone when I came in this morning. WTF?

And people wonder why I'm stressing out.

I Don't Like Mondays...

2009-05-18T17:12:00.002-04:00

There's this great song by the Boomtown Rats called "I Don't Like Mondays." It's on days like today that this song goes through my head.

I left my wallet at home by accident this morning. I realized this as I went to pay for my coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.

When I got to work, I noticed that my name has already been removed from the door as well as the other lecturer I share the office with. As my husband put it, can they give me a bigger hint?

There's an e-mail from the VP of student services demanding that I give an incomplete to a student who disappeared about a month ago. I know what happened: he got arrested for violating parole. I'm not giving an incomplete to a kid who ended up in jail. That's not a qualifying excuse in my book.

Then I find out that the grandchild of the head of our union is in my class. When the union head asked about me the chair said I was a good teacher. He responded "well she better be!" This is the man who can make my life a living hell if I stay at the college. I wish my department head never told me this.

And people wonder why I don't like Mondays...

Adjusting

2009-05-15T15:27:00.002-04:00

I will have to admit that changing over to wheat-free diet is a bit of a challenge. We went out to dinner last night and all my favorite foods contained some sort of bread product. I was stuck with tuna salad, which is OK but not the greatest.

At the library, I picked up a couple of gluten-free cookbooks to help me make the switchover and I found a store near the college that sells gluten-free products. I still have to be careful with the foods I eat on a gluten-free diet because gluten is only the protein found in wheat. There are other parts of wheat that I still have to avoid.

I also went in for more food allergy tests. I'm fine with most of the major food allergens. However, I am in the process of doing a patch test for oat and rice on my back. Something is causing my back to itch but that may just be the adhesive from the tape holding the test strips in place. I'm allergic to something back there. LOL. I can live with an oat allergy but if I'm allergic to rice I'm screwed. How would I have my sushi rolls? Bah. I'll know more tomorrow when I go in to see the allergist tomorrow.

Wheat Allergy

2009-05-13T12:52:00.003-04:00

I just found out I have an allergy to both wheat and rye. The latter isn't that big a deal but you'd be amazed how many goods have wheat in them. Hell, even some ice creams have some wheat in them. This is going to require a massive change in my diet. I'm half Italian. I've got to cut out most pasta now. Ugh. Not good.

Bizarre...

2009-05-10T18:38:00.002-04:00

We're driving along and I see something rather bizarre. It's a crow flying past with something in its mouth. As we get closer, I realize that it has an entire plain doughnut in its beak.

A crow flying along with a doughnut in its beak.

That's not something you see every day.

Channeling Ayla

2009-05-09T21:37:00.002-04:00

Some of you may remember the world's most famous grump, Ayla. Ya, I miss the old girl too. Well, I don't know what is going on but Phoebe has been channeling her an awful lot lately. She has been very grumpy ever since Kukai passed away. But it's more than that:

First I noticed that she started hanging out in "jail" (the footrest under my desk), which was Ayla's favorite spot.
Then she seriously started turning into a skutch (e.g., attempting to steal burger from me).
Today, I saw her back into a defensive position near Loki and I swear I heard the thwap upside his head as she was thinking it.

Is this Phoebe channeling Ayla or am I just getting a new grump in the house? Things will be interesting either way. I just can't wait to see Loki's reaction when she does act out on the thwap instead of just thinking about it.

P.S. Why can't students ever thank me for As? All they ever do is bitch and moan when you give them Fs. I'm glad the semester is almost over.

The Red-Tailed Hawk

2009-05-07T07:48:00.002-04:00

To all my friends and family, I'm doing better. I was really upset the other day more because of the lack of stability in my own job than not getting the tenure-line job. Honestly, I knew I wasn't going to get it since my qualifications were not "impressive" enough for the committee. It was what happened afterwards that really threw me for a loop.

When I asked the chair of my department if I'll be coming back as a lecturer, he was unsure. Now, for some strange reason, the president of my college is getting rid of all lecturers. We are the full-time non-tenure track faculty. Basically we're "temps," but we can stay up to four years. 99% of the time, the lecturer stays for the full four. We are a cheaper alternative than hiring a whole bunch of tenure-lines (permanent positions). In a lot of cases, after the four years, a lecturer gets hired into a tenure-line. It's a lengthy round about way of doing things but it works. Our college president doesn't think so. He wants to replace over 300 lecturers with 37 tenure lines. How is he going to make up for the course loads the lecturers taught? Hire more adjuncts (part-time professors) and increase class sizes dramatically.

Technically for every three lecturers, two lines were to open. This didn't happen in my department. We only got one, the Latin American specialist. What does this mean for me? I'm out of a full-time job for the fall. I have three classes in the fall but as an adjunct my pay scale drops dramatically. I'll literally be making 1/4 of what I've been getting for the past two years. This means I'll be working at the library more often if I can get more hours. I'll also be trying to get another teaching gig at a different college. As no one is hiring full time because of the economy, I'll be doing the adjunct work there as well. If I can get one.

So, you are probably asking "why is the title of this post 'The Red-Tailed Hawk'"? We've recently had a red-tailed hawk perch itself on the building opposite our office window for a couple of days now. This is not a very common sight in New Jersey suburbia.

It just so happens that one of my office mates is part Native American. Yesterday morning she showed me a book called "Animal Speak" which is about animal spirits. It seems that the red-tailed hawk we've been seeing is a powerful totem:

This powerful bird can awaken visionary power and lead you to your life purpose. It is the messenger bird, and wherever it shows up, pay attention. The message is coming.

Talk about interesting timing. Just so happens I got some interesting news later in the day. I got accepted into Boston University's Masters in Criminal Justice program. I applied as part of my "backup plan" in case I didn't have a full-time job for the fall. It's an online program with no residency requirements so I can attend classes when I'm able and can do so in my jammies. I needed a program with the flexibility in case I have to work two jobs and go to school part time.

If this isn't a message, I don't know what is.

I Hate Mondays

2009-05-04T16:45:00.002-04:00

It was bad enough that I left my handicap placard in my husband's car.

It was bad enough that I forgot my jacket and umbrella on a rainy day.

What made it worse was finding out I won't get a second interview for the tenure-line job I applied for.

The Miracles of Modern Pharmacology

2009-04-24T22:30:00.002-04:00

As most of you know, I've been having a terrible time with my depression over the past few months. Of course, with all the stress that I've been under, it wouldn't be surprising. My doctor did put me on a new medication (Abilify) to go along with my other med (Lexapro) to see if it would help with my depression.

OMFG. This stuff is Good Shit! I've got my old energy levels back. I didn't realize how bad my depression was until I got back to close to the way I used to be. The only sucky part is that I'm feeling a little restless on it but I was warned of that side-effect. Honestly, if that's the only one, I can live with it. My concentration levels are better, I'm getting more done. Hell, my grading is almost caught up for the entire semester! When the heck does that ever happen?!!!

It's nice to have the energy back. This weekend, with the lovely 80+ degrees expected, will be spent in my little patch of dirt in the back yard where I plan on growing some rose bushes. Last summer all I had the energy for was staring at the weeds and going "I really need to do something about those." This summer I'm like "I've got the tools and those weeds are dead! Bring me my roses!"

Now you know why I'm calling this stuff my kitty crack. :)

Frustrating

2009-04-21T18:30:00.002-04:00

My life is very frustrating right now. Too much shit and not enough time. This is on top of the overall craziness of the end of the semester.

I had an endoscopy a couple of weeks ago to find out why I was having problems swallowing. After a few biopsies I found out (or at least the doctor suspects) that I have esophageal encephalitis. Say that one three times fast. It's an inflammation of the lining of my esophagus, which can cause pain while swallowing. The problem is that the research is still out on this problem. My doctor isn't sure how to treat it. One thing that does aggravate it is a food allergy. So next week I'm going to see an allergist. Fun. The other thing I can do is a topic steroid but the doc is holding off on that to see if I'm still having problems. *rolls eyes*

Then today I found out I have a courtesy interview for the tenure-line that is opening up. It's basically the "you're not qualified but the chair of the committee likes you so we're playing nice and giving you an interview" type of thing. Part of me wants to say "why bother?" but I did really want the interview. You never know. I might wow them but I doubt it. There are five people on the committee. The chair forced me on them which means four of them didn't think I was qualified for the job. My chances are about as likely as the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup any time soon (a snowball has a greater chance in hell).

On top of all this, I'm still job hunting and now applying to grad school. My brain feels like it's going to explode.

Are they really "Smart" cars?

2009-04-17T08:36:00.002-04:00

While driving on I-287 yesterday morning I saw the most bizarre thing in my rearview mirror. A Smart car zooming up behind me. Now, I would say I was going around 70ish but this thing must have been doing at least 75.

First off, I never realized those things could go that fast. Secondly, I began asking myself should they go that fast, especially in New Jersey (land of large cars and SUVs)? This was after watching a report on the local news that showed in a head on collision with a mid-size car those things are death traps. Here's the video:

While the car may be "smart" one thing was for sure: the driver doing 75 wasn't.

It is worth it

2009-04-14T11:10:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I wonder about whether or not all the work that I do for my classes is worth it, especially after the incident that led to the last post.

I just had a student come in to see me. She had me three years ago in a current events class. While I couldn't remember her name, I remembered the face (names are not my thing). We started talking and she told me that she watches the news more now and has a better understanding of world events. She also told me that my class was one of her favorites here at this college. "Go Professor Cat!"

Is it all worth it? Hell ya.

What to do?

2009-04-11T22:13:00.002-04:00

As the last month of the semester is just around the corner, I'm looking at the evil quagmire of grading on my desk. This is the usual stuff. I give a lot of writing assignments to help my students learn not just history but how to write as it is something that (for some reason) they don't know how to do.

Then I look at my grade book. This semester I lost 30 students in total by the drop deadline. That was about 15% of what I had at the beginning of the semester. I think "what did I do wrong?"

After last semester, I got tougher. I was sick and tired of people handing in work late so I put in a firm "no late papers" policy. I figured that would make things easier on my part but instead I get students not handing in assignments at all. It's not like they even tried or argued "it's only 15 minutes late." None of that. Heck, not even partial assignments. Technically it does make less work for me but I'm really worried about the level of apathy from my students.

I'm also giving them more tests but they are smaller with less material. I figured this way they could do better on the tests. Does this happen? No. I even give them their essays to do as take homes but does that help. No. On one test, the exact same one I give year after year with an almost perfect 85 student average, three classes pulled a 67 average. WTF? Did I change my teaching style? No. Did I change my notes? Not really. Hell, even the review sheet was almost identical to previous years.

The sad part? At the end of the semester, all my students are going to come up to me and ask me "why did I get this grade?" I always tell them "you earned it." However, that doesn't stick in their heads. I tell them on the first day that if they show up to every class and do all the work they are guaranteeing themselves a C. They nod and say "yes professor." However, when they get a D it's all bitching and moaning and "why didn't I get a B?" Um, because you missed six classes and missed four assignments? Oh and no more mercy D's. I used to lower my passing grade unofficially to a 60 at the end of the semester to help some of these kids graduate. However, after a line of "well why didn't you give me a C" made me stop doing that.

Someone told me that 80% of college students feel that if they show up to class each time they automatically get a B. LOL. WTF are schools teaching their kids if they think they can get a B with just sitting in the chair, most likely not even paying attention? I even had one student who had the gall to send me an e-mail with this:

I completely disagree with that grade. I plan on getting an A+ and that F is not going to help at all. I strongly believe I deserve a better grade. Please reconsider because I am apalled, disgusted, and ashamed.

My answer: "did you read my comments?" Of course he didn't 'cause if he had, he would've seen why he got a 50 on that assignment. Yes, a 50. He earned that one too. What nerve! OK, I'll admit I'm a tough grader but it's because I push my students. I want them to learn. Is that such an unrealistic thing?

So the question is, do I keep on doing what I did this semester or go back to the "easy" way out like I did last semester?

Rough Week

2009-04-08T09:51:00.003-04:00

The reason why I haven't posted lately is that things have been a bit rough around here.

I still don't know what my status is for the fall still. While I "unofficially" got five classes, the official schedule has it with only three. Out of 300 lecturers, I know that 25 of them got fired. My department head is a great guy and said he's fighting for me but I don't know if that will do any good. I hope it does.

Last Friday I had an endoscopy to investigate the stomach pains I've been having. I've had a problem swallowing for a while now but the stomach pains are new. Nothing obvious was found but the doctor took a few biopsies just in case. He thinks it's all stress that is aggravating acid reflux.

It seems that stress is the cause for everything that is wrong with me. My depression acting up? Stress. My stomach hurts? Stress. Next thing they'll tell me is the reason why my bad foot is hurting more is stress. LOL

I'm trying to be optimistic with everything but it has been hard. I just can't wait until this semester is over and summer starts. I need a bit of a break.

That's My Boy

2009-03-17T21:37:00.003-04:00

Tonight Martin Brodeur, the beloved goalie of the New Jersey Devils, broke the all time wins record for a goalie with 552. He just surpassed his childhood hero, Patrick Roy.

I always knew Marty was a special player. Going back to the days when he was a rookie, I remember some of the incredible saves he made. And I was there for one of his own goals (yes, he scored a goal) during the '97 playoffs against Montreal.

Off the ice, I had the privilege of meeting him quite a number of times. He was always a sweet kid who was open to the fans. I have so many things autographed by him I lost count. It was only after some crazed fans started going after his kids that he became less approachable. Too bad too because a lot of people probably missed an opportunity to know the man behind the mask.

Good job Marty! Now let's go break Terry Sawchuck's career shutout record.

Double Poopies

2009-03-11T19:07:00.002-04:00

What a week (and it's only Wednesday).

I found out today that my best friend is getting fired from her job. Many of us saw this coming. We all work at the same college together and the president has this wondrous idea of firing all of the lecturers (temporary full-time, non-tenure track folks like me). Originally we were told that we would be "grandfathered" in, allowed to run our course of the four years our contracts allow. However, this is not the case. It looks like we will all be gone at the end of the semester.

The president's idea? Replace all of us with tenure-lines. For every three lecturers, there are to be two tenure lines. However, this does not guarantee us lecturers will get the jobs. In my case, the one tenure line opening up is for a Latin American specialist (don't get me started on that one). My friend was fired as of the end of the semester and another colleague was told if you don't get the tenure line, you're gone. My boss wasn't in today so I don't know what is going on. What is worse is that my department has three lecturers but we're only getting one line. How fucked up is that?

It's a shame too. Both of those ladies are damn good teachers. One will not have the opportunity to vie for a tenure line because of politics. The other has already been offered a better opportunity at another college. And personally I really don't want to go back to adjuncting. Oh I'll apply for the tenure-line but I'm a European historian. Unless somebody upstairs really likes me, I'm screwed.

And people wonder why I'm depressed.

P.S. To Adrienne: I tried Wellbutrin but it caused bad buzzing in my head. Lexapro is the only one that seems to work for me.

Poopies

2009-03-10T12:17:00.004-04:00

No. Don't worry. I'm not writing a post about that topic. It's just the way I feel at the moment, a more PG-13 version of it.

As you may (or may not) have surmised, I haven't been posting a lot. Most of it is due to my depression rearing its ugly head again. For about two years I've been mostly functional thanks to that miracle of modern pharmacology, Lexapro. Now that miracle is fading and my brain is being stubborn. I've always developed tolerances to medications, some faster than others. This time I was hoping the Lexapro would be different since it lasted a heck of a lot longer, but alas that is not the case.

I went to my regular doctor first. I knew it was my depression causing the fatigue, the aches, and the pains, but I wanted to make sure that it wasn't something physical. He did a plethora of tests (sorry, I love that word) to discover I am completely normal. Well, at least physically. Hell, even my cholesterol was at normal levels, something it hasn't been in ages.

Next was an appointment with my shrink. I love this guy. Besides the fact that he's really nice (and very cute), he understands my need to be proactive in my treatment. I will not tolerate certain things with medications. Yes, I can live with weight gain but I will not tolerate feeling like a zombie. That sort of thing. The biggest problem is that I have literally been on every single anti-depressant out on the market with the exception of MAOI's. I won't do those not because of the side effects or the fact that it reacts with almost every single med out there. It's because I wouldn't be allowed to eat cheese. Without cheese, I have no pleasure in life. Need the cheese.

So this time around, we're going with add-ons to the Lexapro. Right now he has me on Deplin. It is supposed to help my brain process certain chemicals. It is a "medical food" rather than a drug so it has no side effects, which is nice. However, my insurance company won't pay for it. Bah.

We're giving this a couple of weeks to work. If it doesn't, I'm going on that grossly over-advertised medication Abilify. That has had some amazing response in some people but (as you may have heard) it has a lot of side effects. The most common one my doc has come across is restlessness. Ya, like I need that. If ADHD existed when I was a kid I would've been the poster child for it. This would not be a good side effect. However, if it can get me out of my funk and is my only viable option, then I have to suck it up.

I do need to do something though. Today I'm recovering from a bad episode that started Sunday night but peaked last night. Emotionally, I'm ok as long as I avoid any stress but we all know how easy that is. :P

Next week I'm going down to Florida to visit my parents. It's technically a vacation but if you knew my mom, you would understand why it isn't a vacation. My dad turned 80 yesterday and I really want to spend some quality time with him since I haven't seen him in over a year. Maybe while I'm down there my mom will ease up on her nagging and allow me to rest. One can always hope.

One Professor to Another

2009-02-15T22:48:00.002-05:00

Something on the Chronicle of Higher Education boards I came across. The topic was "Students Believe the Darndest Things."

Professor 1: I once had a student who was absolutely amazed to learn that everything was made of atoms.....even snot (she asked).

Professor 2 replied: You should have told her no, everything except snot. In fact, many astrophysicists suspect that Dark Matter may indeed be composed mostly of human snot. It's the viscosity of the stuff that causes it to lag behind a bit in galaxy clusters.

I literally blew the water I was drinking out of my nose with that one from laughing so hard. Yes, academia is weird.

Happy Valentine's Day and Stuff

2009-02-14T15:47:00.003-05:00

While I truly hate holidays that were made up just to make money for the greeting card companies, happy Valentine's day.

Bear and I are not doing anything fancy for today. We did our usual Saturday stuff: errands and the book store. He knows better than to give me flowers. We have lots o' cats and real flowers are a Bad Thing. That was a lesson learned early on in our dating days. The cats would eat the flowers, knock over the vase and break it, and then proceed to puke up said flowers. Cards? At $5 a pop forget it. As long as I know he loves me and he knows I love him we don't need Hallmark to share that. If anything, I'll make a handmade card and that means more since Bear knows how much time and effort I put into those. Chocolate? Well, I love chocolate but I don't want him standing on line at Godiva to spend a boatload of money on chocolates, especially when I can go down to BJ's and buy the superhuge bag of Hershey's. And jewelry is just silly. I wear two pieces of jewelry (the same bracelet and my wedding ring) with little variation. What's the point of buying me something if I'm not going to wear it?

As I said, this is a silly holiday for us. Not very practical to say the least. We still went out to our favorite diner and then to the bookstore. To me, that's a better way of spending our time and money.

If Only We Saw This In 2001...

2009-02-01T13:49:00.002-05:00

A student sent me an article from The Onion dated just after George W. Bush's first inaugurationn back in January 2001. It really is scary how accurate it was.

Braaaains.....

2009-01-30T16:58:00.002-05:00

As most of my friends know, I have a thing with zombies. Comes from the old love of those classic 80's B-movies of zombies running around craving brains. So when a friend forwarded me this, I had to share.

Ha!

2009-01-21T08:16:00.002-05:00

I'm not the only one who feels this way...

Global Warming?

2009-01-17T20:37:00.004-05:00

Heh. Global warming my ass. Al Gore can come up here to NJ and freeze his ass off in the 2F temperatures up here. Bah.

I spoke with my parents yesterday. They live in south Florida and were complaining that it got down to 50F. I loved telling them that it was a whopping 8F here. My mom didn't want me to talk about it because it was making her cold.

Honestly, the cold doesn't bother me. The only thing that did was my windshield washer fluid stayed frozen all day. Not good considering all the salt and the other crap that is now all over the windshield. Makes driving interesting.

At least this is good for the ski resort next door. It is rather creepy watching the snow makers going under the sodium lights. With the orange glow it looks like the mountain is on fire and the blowing snow looks like smoke. Personally, I love hearing the snow makers going. It's a great white noise in the background and it helps me sleep. I get a little sad at the end of the season because it gets so quiet.

The continuing saga...

2009-01-14T16:21:00.002-05:00

...of poor little Adolf. You probably heard the story about a family naming their kid Adolf Hitler, right? Not to put it bluntly but those dumb fucks really need to have their parent license permanently revoked. Who the fuck names their kid after Hitler? I'm a big believer in free speech and all but what kind of life are you giving this child?

Now it seems that mommy and daddy Hitler must have done something really bad. Why? New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services came and took little Adolf and his siblings away. Supposedly, DYFS didn't do it because of the name issue but for a more serious matter. DYFS has a reputation of screwing up constantly. Namely, they don't take kids out of bad situations. There are too many stories in the news about kids being killed in abusive households that DYFS knew about but did nothing. I don't know if the publicity brought this case up to the top of their list but if they actually removed the kids there must have been some really Bad Stuff going on.

I don't know if foster care will be a better option for these children but in either case, they are going to need years of psychotherapy to fix their poor little brains. Why is it that idiots like these have children when there are plenty of good people out there who want kids but can't have them? The universe is fucked up.

Silly things you hear

2009-01-12T22:24:00.002-05:00

One day I stumbled across Overheard in New York, a silly collection of things actually heard in New York City. This one just seemed very fitting:

Math professor to sleeping student: Hey, are you okay?
Student: Nuh?
Math professor to class: Well, I've rarely killed someone during a lecture, but I must be breaking new ground today.

--Hunter College

Spamalot!

2009-01-09T11:41:00.003-05:00

Last week Bear and I went into New York City to go see Spamalot. Since we got into the city a bit early, we headed over to see the tree at Rockefeller Plaza. Considering it was after the holidays and the freezing cold temps, there was still a huge crowd there. I just hated getting lost in the underground concourse. :)

We also stopped by Times Square. It really is amazing how bright it is.

Then we finally went over to the Schubert Theater to see the show.

OMFG! It was fantastic! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. If you've ever seen Monty Python's "Holy Grail" and you enjoyed it, you will love this. Too bad it's closing this weekend or else I would see it again. Michael Siberry did a wonderful job as King Arthur, Rick Holmes was hysterical as Sir Lancelot and the taunting French knight (oh were there some classic scenes with that one), and hell...even Clay Aiken did a good job as Sir Robin. If you can see this on their North American tour, I would highly recommend it.

I hadn't been to a show on Broadway since the late 80's/early 90's. I think the last show I saw was "Cats." I forgot how much fun it was to see a show on Broadway. We're hoping to go see the comedy "Avenue Q" sometime this spring as long as we both have jobs. Even sitting up in the nosebleeds was expensive but it was worth it.

Just a few rants...

2009-01-08T09:19:00.002-05:00

Reading the news today, I found out that Congress will be meeting tomorrow to count electoral votes.

Once again, I feel the need to scream "why the fuck are we still doing things this way?" The electoral college was set up because the drafters of our lovely constitution felt that the "joe six-packs" of the world couldn't figure out their heads from their assholes when it came to politics...well, not much has changed in that respect actually but that's not the point. In this day and age, with technology and the fact that most people in this country do have at least a high school education, we should change over to a truly popular elected president.

While electors tend to vote with the popular vote, there have been a number of cases where they haven't. These "faithless electors" don't have much of an impact on the overall vote these days but it would piss me off to no end if my state's elector didn't vote the way the state voted.

And what the hell is going on in the Middle East? I swear, we should just nuke the Middle East and turn it into a parking lot. What is with these people? I blame both sides for this mess. HAMAS should not have fired rockets into Israel in the first place, but they aren't known for their warm and fuzzy tendencies. Israel is acting like they just needed an excuse to bomb the crap out of Gaza and now they have it. Are they going a bit overboard? Just a wee bit.

Germany and France put together a cease-fire agreement but neither Israel nor Palestine is listening. Come on. Germany and France got together to work this thing out. That says something. The least the Israelis and Palestinians can do is listen. Where is Jimmy Carter when you need him? I say we send Jimmy in. He managed to get the Israelis and Egyptians to sign a treaty back in the 70s. That man is a miracle worker.

Last but not least, you know the economy is screwed when Wal-Mart has bad sales. I hope the stimulus plan Obama is working on does some good. It looks like he's taking JFK's path of deficit spending to help boost up the economy. That belief is that you cut taxes but increase federal spending to help the economy restart. Yes, it's bad in the short term since it creates a huge debt. However, if it works, the economy will get the boost and eventually jobs will be created and the tax money will flow in. Once everything is stable then taxes can be raised to pay off the debt.

Can I go back to bed now? :P

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-02T10:16:00.002-05:00

First off, Happy New Year to everybody! I spent the entire day in my pj's playing World of Warcraft. I was very, very happy.

Someone was asking me about my New Year's Resolutions. I try to keep mine as general as possible. Like last year was "live happier and healthier." Hmm. I think I failed on both those counts. This year I only have one: more time dedicated to crafting. One of the reasons why we bought a house was so I could have my own office/craft room. Ever since we moved, however, I haven't had time for any crafting and I miss it. The last scrapbook I completed was for 2005 and i don't remember the last time I sent anyone a hand-made card for their birthday. So my resolution is to give myself some more time for it. It should be easy since I didn't give myself any time last year so any time this year would be a boon.

Maybe I Ought to Get a PhD

2008-12-31T22:48:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite websites is Rate Your Students. It's for us academics who need a place to vent about the hells of our jobs. Until I found this site, I was losing my mind trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. As I discovered, it wasn't me but the students. That alone saved my sanity.

This week, a lot of the entries have been about the end of the year conferences and the hell of job interviews. It really is amazing hearing some of these interviewees complaining about 4/4 teaching loads (four classes in the fall, four in the spring). They are looking for the ideal, lofty positions with 3/3 or even 3/2 schedules so they can focus on their research. To them, teaching is just an annoyance to pay the bills. I wonder what they would think of my 7/6/4 schedule (seven in the fall, six in the spring, and four in the summer)? They would probably shit in their pants as they ran away screaming in the process. The difference between them and me? Besides a higher level of pain toleration on my part, I'm a teacher. I think some of these newly graduated PhDs forget that teaching is a big part of their jobs. They are educating the future of America. Hmm...maybe that's why our country is so fucked up right now. Nah. That's No Child Left Behind, but don't get me started on that rant tonight.

This is going to sound strange...

2008-12-30T16:25:00.002-05:00

...but I don't think vacations agree with me. While a good week off is quite enjoyable, I think having four weeks off is not the best thing for me. I'm trying to keep myself busy but I'm falling into the habit of sleeping in and just doing nothing productive. Trust me, I have plenty to do but it's like I'm getting into a rut.

What's worse? My depression has been acting up. It got really bad yesterday after the insurance adjuster was over looking over the damage for the roof leak. I guess the prospect of dishing out $1,000 for a deductible isn't helping my mood. I also don't like people in my home. I'm an incredibly social person but my home is my sanctuary, my safe spot. People invading it is not a good thing.

On the bright side, the insurance company says that not only will they cover fixing the wall but painting the entire room as well. As the room hasn't been painted in ages, they want to make sure that the walls "match." However, because of the open floor plan, this means that the dining room has to be repainted as well. I've been thinking about hiring a painter to do those two rooms. I guess now I'm forced to do it. I'm definitely not going with white. After spending 15 years living in apartments, I despise white walls.

I'm also a little worried about Kukai. I took him to the vet today since he didn't eat this morning. He is a tiny little guy to begin with and I'm fearful of him losing even more weight. The vet shocked me when she said he was down to 3.9 pounds from 5 pounds in September. We're going to up his thyroid medication, put him on antibiotics for his cold, and give him an appetite enhancer to get some weight on him. The vet also did another round of full bloodwork on the guy and gave him 200ml of fluids to help with his dehydration. Hopefully all these things will work. I'll know more tomorrow.

Silly Stuff...

2008-12-28T21:04:00.002-05:00

I'm an avid reader of Fark.com. It's a fantastic website that finds some of the most insane news articles in the world. I tend to end my day reading a few of the articles just to get a good laugh.

One of the news articles today was based on a controversy over a new PETA flash game. Basically, on the fourth stage of the game, you get to throw snowballs at Sarah Palin. Supposedly, Palin's office had a fit about the game and threatened PETA with a lawsuit if they didn't take down the game.

Personally I had fun throwing snowballs at the Olsen Twins, Madonna, and (of course) Palin. Check it out if you are so inclined.

Quote of the Day

2008-12-28T09:08:00.001-05:00

I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere.
-- Unknown

Am I a Bad Person...

2008-12-27T08:52:00.002-05:00

...for not getting into the holiday spirit this year? I tried. I really did. I listened to Christmas music, watched some Christmas TV specials. Nothing I did could get me into the mood.

Who knows? Maybe it's karma for giving that dipshit an F? Nah. When I looked back at his work, he truly handed in F quality material. Anyways, I raised enough kids' grades to make up for it. Every class got a curve in their final grade. Ya, I'm tough but I also realize that if the entire class is doing poorly that's more a reflection of me than of them. So pretty much 200+ kids got the grade bump (including said dipshit who got bumped back down anyways).

Maybe it's just too much stress. The semester ended a bit earlier than normal but I've been dealing with a lot of crap since then. The roof leaking is never a fun thing. Also, I'm panicking trying to get my online class ready for the next semester. Oh yes, did I mention the horde of whining e-mails with students complaining about their grades? I finally set the "out of office" reply on my e-mail and I'm going to do my best not to check it.

Now I'll be spending next week with the insurance company appraiser to look at the leak and lining up contractors to get estimates to fix the walls. Did I mention there is a $1,000 deductible? Is there a Santa for drywall replacement?

Bah humbug...

Bah Humbug

2008-12-24T09:33:00.002-05:00

What a lovely way to be spending Christmas Eve: putting buckets down in the living room because the roof is leaking. The worst part is that we told the condo association on numerous occasions that there was a leak but they kept on passing the buck saying it wasn't the roof, that it was something inside the condo (namely, something they would not have to pay for). The leak is not only ruining the walls, it coming through a track lighting fixture which means that will have to be replaced as well.

Oh and did I mention that someone stole our cover for our grill? Ya, just noticed that too when we went out back to check the leak. Lovely.

Let the whining begin!

2008-12-19T21:54:00.002-05:00

I handed in grades and the Semester From Hell is technically over. Unfortunately, it won't really be over until the last of the "Why did I get X grade?!!!!" e-mails stop. *sigh* This is the worst part of teaching.

How can you not expect an F when you did not show up to class nor did you hand in the assignments? I realize that a) all of your living relatives over the age of 50 died/had cancer/required your constant care, b) Blackboard was constantly down/your computer crashed/your dog ate your flash drive, and c) if you don't pass you are going to lose your financial aid/get put on academic probation/lose your scholarship/get kicked out of the country. Not to sound like a complete evil bitch, but I don't care. I'm on vacation. I have an out of office message on my e-mail that says do not contact me until next semester because...get this...I'M ON VACATION. Please do not fill up my mail quota with your whining. I do not want to hear it. I've heard it for fifteen weeks. I need a fucking break!

Just an FYI...

2008-12-17T22:15:00.002-05:00

...never, EVER piss off a professor before she has handed in the final grades.

Case in point:

Idiot student comes looking for me this morning to get his final grade. I wasn't there because I canceled my morning office hours due to the icy roads. This was posted in the announcements at 4am this morning and there was a huge note on the door saying what time I would be in.

Idiot student proceeds to harass my office mate about my absence and makes rude remarks about me. Mind you, this was 15 minutes before my official office hours began anyways.

Then, when he comes back later, I had stepped out for a quick bio break. Idiot student then proceeds to harass my other office mate and tells her how rude it is for me not to be there even though he said I would be back in a couple of minutes.

I find out about this and am really pissed off. Idiot student had been a thorn in my side the entire semester. One of his favorite things to do was ask a question in the middle of my lecture about something that had nothing to do with what we were talking about whatsoever. When I looked at his grade I saw that his numbers came out to a D.

"Can I take away a student's class participation points for being an ass?" I asked my office mates.

"Hell yes," replied my office mates.

So Mr. Idiot Student, congratulations! You just turned your D into an F for being a complete fucking moron who shows no respect to his professors whatsoever.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

2008-12-10T22:03:00.001-05:00

'Nuff said.

So true...

2008-12-08T22:29:00.001-05:00

The crying, begging, and pleading phase is about to begin.

Remember today...

2008-12-07T15:44:00.002-05:00

It was 67 years ago today that the U.S. was pulled into World War II with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I find it rather ironic that today, as I'm putting together the last of my notes for one of my U.S. history courses, one of our next topics will be about that day.

Did you know that the Japanese actually considered the attack a failure? None of the aircraft carriers they wanted to hit were in port, most of the ships could be repaired, the repair facilities at the port were left undamaged, and so were its oil reserves. I always found that interesting because our history classes portray it as such a devastating blow, which it was.

It also wasn't the only attack of the day...well, technically, the attack day was December 8th due to the international date line. The Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Malaysia were also attacked as well to weaken the American, British and French forces in the region.

So today I'm bowing my head in honor to those who lost their lives on this tragic day.

Now I'm going to get back to my hell of grading and writing finals.

Goodbye My Friend

2008-11-27T12:55:00.003-05:00

When we woke up this morning, we discovered that Bomber had crossed over the Rainbow Bridge sometime during the night. At least my baby isn't in pain any more.

Bomber
1998-2008

You know it's that time of year...

2008-11-23T22:05:00.002-05:00

...when you spend your entire weekend writing tests, getting lessons prepped, and avoiding grading but you forget to do one very crucial thing until 10pm on Sunday night: the laundry. I knew I had to do laundry today especially when I dug through my drawer and could only find the "emergency" underwear (come on...we all have at least one of those). *sigh*

Only four more weeks.

I have now officially entered the Last Month of the Semester. My brain is fried and I haven't even started the stack o' grading on my desk from the term papers the little brats handed in a few weeks ago. *sigh*

Only four more weeks.

People have started asking me what I'm doing for the holidays. Holidays? What the fuck are the...oh...you mean the four weeks off I get in four weeks? Thanksgiving hasn't been much of a holiday to me. Too many years of spending that one alone especially since almost my entire family is numerous hours away. I enjoy spending the day with Bear and my in-laws but my brother-in-law always wants to cook (something to be avoided especially since he almost burned the house down a few years back). With the stack o' grading I have, this holiday will most likely be spent with the Red Pen O' Death and a nice pitcher of something incredibly alcoholic.

Only four more weeks.

Some bad, some cute

2008-11-14T20:25:00.006-05:00

It has been a very long couple of weeks. I wish I could say that all my stress is due to school but it isn't. We found out a week ago that Bomber is dying of cancer.

Bomber is my little mush cat with only one eye and one hip (long story). I got him after my kitty Xanadu, who was my first kitty that was mine, passed away back in 1998. I figured since Xanadu was a mutt, I would get another one. The shelter I went to gave me a hard time because I had a cat that was declawed (mind you, I got it from that particular shelter) but it wasn't going to stop me. I walked around meowing, seeing who was going to respond. Two kittens did: a little white female kitten and a little black male one. As I went closer, I noticed that the black one only had one eye. When he was brought in as a tiny baby, all the kittens from the litter had developed ulcers on their eyes. His was so bad that he lost the eye. The volunteer told me that nobody wanted to adopt him because of it. I took him out of the cage and held him. He immediately started making happy feet and I knew he was mine. The volunteer seemed to forget that I had a declawed cat. :)

Over the past month I noticed him losing weight. We call him "Fang" sometimes because one of his fangs sticks out a little (you can see it just a smidge in this picture. All of a sudden we could see both of them. I knew something was wrong so I took him to Dr. Country Bob. After an exam, he found a lump in his belly and then did an x-ray to make sure it wasn't a foreign object (we've already had one kitty eat a door stopper). When Dr. Bob confirmed it was a tumor, my heart just sank. We lost Ayla a little more than a year ago to some nasty cancer. I don't know if I could go through it again.

We don't know how long Bomber will last. I would love him to make it through the holidays but it all depends. It seems to be an aggressive tumor considering how quickly he lost the weight. Dr. Bob is giving him cortisone shots to help with the inflammation and make things more bearable for him. He seems to be responding well to the shots so we'll see how it goes.

It was bad enough with the stress from school but this brought me over the edge. I've been feeling my depression kicking in big time since I got the news. However, yesterday, driving home from work, I had a depressive episode. Basically, I just couldn't stop crying. When this happens, the best thing for me to do is crawl into bed after taking some major Klonopin which is what I did. I hated taking another sick day from work but I was in such bad shape I'm thankful I even made it back home.

Today wasn't much better for me but there was a ray of hope.

When Bomber was diagnosed, I thought that we would not get another cat. We have nine for pete's sake. However, as the week went on, I realized what a hole Bomber is going to leave in my heart. He is my "comfort cat." He curls up with me at night and lets me cuddle him like a teddy bear. Whenever my depression acts up, he is there for me. I thought about getting a shelter cat but the past few shelter cats we've gotten have turned into huge spaz-monsters.

Bear and I have talked about getting a Ragdoll kitten for a few years now. They are described as being huge mush cats. I figured that was what I needed so I started doing some research. However, after about three hours of searching, I couldn't find any places withing three hours driving distance that had kittens or planned future kittens. My heart started to ache but then I finally found a breeder just up the road from us. She had kittens ready to go home immediately. Both Bear and I rode up there on Wednesday but I was doubtful I would find the "right" kitten for me. Boy was I wrong. After picking up a couple of kittens, only one stuck with me. Actually, he fell right asleep in my arms. We put a deposit down on him and picked him up this evening.

Ya, I'm nuts. But welcome Nermle to the family:

Yes We Can!

2008-11-05T00:18:00.003-05:00

Oh man. There are few times when I am moved to tears (good ones that is) when I hear a speech. Maybe it's because we've been so disheartened by having Dubya as our president and the poor public speaker he is, but damn was that a good speech. Now I know how the American people felt when JFK gave his inaugural speech back in 1961: the power, the belief, the hope.

Maybe I just drank a bit too much of the Obama Kool-Aid over the past few months. Whatever it is I feel good. I have hope. Damn. Even the pessimistic and cynical side of me can't fuck this feeling up right now.

Interesting Articles...

2008-11-02T11:44:00.002-05:00

As I'm going through today's New York Times, I found two interesting Op-Ed pieces.

The first is in regards to John McCain and what has happened to him over the past year. Ironically I liked the guy back in 2000 because he did go against the Republican grain. This piece describes what happened to him and how he was transformed into a Bushie.

The second is a piece about the legacy of Bush and who you should vote for (without naming names). The last paragraph is my favorite part:

Vote for the candidate you think has the smarts, temperament and inspirational capacity to unify the country and steer our ship through what could be the rockiest shoals our generation has ever known. Your kids will thank you.

Remember to vote on Tuesday!

Grading Hell (Fall 2008 Version), Part I

2008-10-27T17:31:00.003-04:00

Every semester I think I've had the worst students that have ever existed. The next semester, I always get ones that are worse.

I'm going through drafts for term papers and my head hurts beyond belief. I'm not a drinker but yesterday I contemplated stopping at the liquor store to get some wine to help me through the grading. Ya, it's that painful. It's not the bad writing. That I can live with. It's not the fact that my students don't realize that "cuz" and other text message slang words are not appropriate in a term paper. It's that the idiots can't follow instructions. What is so difficult about listing five sources in your bibliography? And I'm sorry, when I mean no more than two internet sources I mean no more than two internet sources. I'm not willing to negotiate with you. If I want you to use Chicago Style citation in your paper and I even give you a "quick guide" on how to do it, I expect you to do it. Oh you're surprised I took points off? Well look at the instructions. What does it say? Ah yes, "I will take points off if citation is not done properly." What a bunch of fucking idiots.

One of my colleagues told me a story about how one teacher was so frustrated that his students wouldn't follow instructions that on the test, in the middle of a long paragraph of instructions, it said "sign your name and you will automatically get a 100 on this test." Lo and behold, only a handful of students did that while the rest of the class failed. I am so tempted to do that.

I did start the "the final drop date is approaching" lecture this week. Basically it's the you're failing now and unless you pull your act together you will fail my class talk with the "but it's not to late to drop the class" part thrown in. Maybe some of my students will heed the not-so-subtle advice and drop. Hmmm. Maybe I need a nice catchy chant to go along with this. That's it. Instead of "drill baby, drill" I'll start chanting "drop baby, drop!" :)

On a lighter note, in my current events class I just finished grading their test. One student said that she considers the Democrat party to be the party she mostly affiliates herself with. Why? Well they are against capital punishment and "I think torture would be best....rapist should have their penis cut off." Oh boy. I'm keeping an eye on that one.

Palin's Debate Skills

2008-10-14T12:50:00.001-04:00

Found this over at a friend's site. Too funny. :)

Grading Funnies

2008-10-11T09:45:00.003-04:00

It's that time of the year again: time for "How Stupid Are My Students?"

The first comes from a recent test I gave on the roles the rivers played in the development of Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures and why they developed so differently. Student A's response:

It's because the Nile River flows up and the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flow down.

The second comes from a written assignment regarding their term papers. For this one, all they had to do was give me the first paragraph of their term paper and five sources they are planning on using. It is an incredibly easy task that, if one wanted to be truly lazy, could do in their pajamas while browsing the library catalog online. Fifteen minutes tops.

Student B decided that this assignment was just too hard. So she went to a website about her topic, copy and pasted not only the opening paragraph to use as her own but even copy and pasted the bibliography down at the bottom of the website. If you're going to do this, make sure one of the sources is not in Italian and from an obscure magazine from the early 1970s. Because this is blatant plagiarism, little Miss Genius got an F on the assignment.

Oh, and of course it wouldn't be a true post without one of these:

see Sarah Palin pictures

And no...

2008-10-05T20:38:00.002-04:00

Sarah Palin did not win the debate this past Thursday night. It wasn't even close. Yes, she did better than most people expected. However, going from a 50 to a 60 in a class is doing better but it's still failing.

As I was watching the debate, I was amazed at how well McCain's camp "trained" her for this debate. You could tell exactly when a question was asked that she could answer: she would get that smile on her face and lean to her right on the podium. It's the same look some of my students get when they realize they know an answer on a test. However, when she didn't know the answer, she stuttered and then changed the subject. Hmmm...this sounds like something my students would do: if they didn't know the answer they would give me an essay on something they did know even though they are still not answering the question. You know what those students get? An F. You know what Palin got? An F.

Biden was impressive. Ya, so he was dry. So what? The guy knows what he is talking about. You can't bullshit your way around thirty plus years of experience. Palin was annoying the crap out of me with all her "doggone its" and other cutesy crap. What the hell is a "joe six-pack" anyways? Is she saying the average American is a beer guzzling loser? It's all cute and stuff but when my Vice President is talking to the ambassador to Russia I don't want our country to look like a bunch of hick idiots. Heck, it's bad enough we've had to deal with G.W. for the past eight years.

Time to Panic?

2008-09-26T08:30:00.003-04:00

Last night as I was watching TV, the local newscasters did their "tonight at 11" commercial. Normally I ignore those because they usually tell me about murders or hit and runs or something along those depressing lines.

This time they got my attention. Why? I heard "Washington Mutual" and "big news" and I knew I had to get on my computer to look up what was taking place. It is now official: we have our first major bank failure.

My students have been asking all week about the financial crisis taking place. After explaining to them about sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps, I always get the "what do you think is going to happen?" That's when I sigh and dread my answer.

I am a historian. I've studied the recessions of our country throughout its existence as well as those of other countries. The big ones usually have triggers that cause a meltdown of a country's economics. In 1873 (what I'm teaching my U.S. history students right now), there were two main triggers: the horse flu of 1872 and overinvestment in the railroad industry. As our country was still heavily dependent on horse-based transportation at this time, when a good majority of the horses get sick with the flu, the country is basically at a standstill. It lasted a few months so it had a detrimental impact on the country's economy. Then, overinvesting in the railroad industry imploded as well. Many raced to participate in the railroad boom at this time looking for a way to make a lot of cash, but in the end, the returns did not come fast enough. Banks began collapsing when Jay Cooke & Co, a major investor in the railroads, declared bankruptcy. That brought on a depression that lasted for four years.

To me, from what I've learned from history, I believe that we are in big trouble. The sub-prime mortgage fiasco along with the credit default swaps have left this country in deep shit. Banks have already tightened their credit belts, reducing the number of loans available which hurts not only those of us who need car loans or mortgages, but businesses who might need an influx of cash. Even credit card companies like American Express are starting to lower credit limits. This means that people will not spend which means the economy is going to slow down even more.

Now we have the largest bank failure since the Great Depression. Lehman Bros. was one thing as they were an investment bank. WaMu is a "regular" bank, one that has savings accounts and CDs. Thankfully our government has certain safeguards in place to prevent something as catastrophic as the Great Depression from occurring again (e.g., FDIC). However, because a lot of the major banking regulations were stripped during the Reagan administration, there is no way to prevent a minor depression from occurring.

So what's my prediction: at the very least, a very major recession. However, a small part of me is thinking the "D" word. Will the proposed $700 billion bailout prevent anything? No. It will slow down the implosion and maybe prevent the recession from getting as deep but it's more of a temporary stop-gap to give consumers and banks more confidence. And it definitely won't do any good unless there are regulations tied to it, like getting rid of the "golden parachutes" for executives whose companies had to take the bailout. Hmm...they get $14 million as an "exit bonus" even if their company tanks. What is wrong with that? Also, the government needs to help those who are on the verge of losing their homes.

I hope I'm wrong with my prediction. Bear works in telecomm which is the one industry that rises and falls with the economy. I want the economy to do well for the sake of our little household. But since that's not going to happen, I'm hording our money just in case. I know I'm not helping the economy by not spending but I have to make sure we have a roof over our heads. To me, that's a little bit of a higher priority. Also, we don't make enough to have THAT much of an impact on the economy. LOL.

Just Some Ranting

2008-09-21T15:15:00.004-04:00

Sorry I haven't written in a while. My schedule makes my life feel like it's the last few weeks of the semester during the entire semester. Every waking moment is devoted to prepping, teaching or grading. Man I need to learn to say no.

On the bright side, there are only three students that I already hate but an entire class is on the way to that distinction. I don't know what it is about Western Civ I classes. Every semester now it seems I get one class full of idiots. Not all the students are idiots, mind you, but a good majority of them are. They aren't stupid but it's clear that they don't want to be in class and that they are in college just to appease mom and dad. These are the type of students who do the minimal amount of work and expect to get A's. Namely, they are a professor's nightmare. I have to put up with their lame attempts at "work," babysit them for the three hours that I have them, and then explain to them why they did not pass my class at the end of the semester. I literally dread going to that class. I'm just thankful that I have classes before and after that are great.

My online course training has started. Since I already do classes where the students get all their handouts and do assignments online the first part of this training will be easy. However, my department head strongly suggested that I teach the online class as an overload in the spring. Remember, I'm just a lowly lecturer who should spend her time lecturing. Ya, bite me.

Poor Bear is really the one suffering through this Semester From Hell. I promised him I would focus my schoolwork to weekdays so we could spend more quality time together. He has been really understanding since my schedule wasn't really voluntary. At least I get four weeks off for winter break this time around so I can then spend some quality time with him.

And how 'bout the economy? Damn. Even this crap makes my life seem peaceful. Makes me glad I didn't invest money with companies like Lehman Brothers. I've been watching this nightmare since Bear Sterns was bought out last year with historian's eyes. You know that old saying that "history repeats itself"? When you are a historian, this shit can scare the crap out of you. As good ole G.W. was saying "the country's not in a recession" I was thinking "oh fuck." As the mortgage crisis continued to worsen, I knew the outcome wouldn't be good. A couple of weeks ago I really started to wonder what the government was going to do. Banks failing is never a good thing and I started to think about the Great Depression.

Will this $700 billion bailout prevent us from slipping from a recession into a depression? Only time will tell. Part of me wants to smack Bush upside the head since he's bowing down to big money. Think about it: the investors took huge risks in order to gain really big profits. By bailing these fools out we're telling them that the lower- and middle-classes are willing to pay for their fuck ups. At the same time, I'm afraid that if the government does nothing, more banks will fail and that would be even worse. Either way folks, those of us who don't have millions of dollars to spend are fucked 'cause we're going to foot the bill for all those idiots.

And since the liberal in me has been outed, how 'bout that Palin chick, eh? Man, she scares the bejeezus out of me. It's like the Stepford Wife on crack. What don't I like about her? Let me count the ways...

I never trust a politician who is a hypocrite. Yes, all politicians are liars. It comes with the territory. However, I truly hate politicians who do one thing and then deny they are doing it. Case in point: Bridge to Nowhere. She supported both of them (yes there are two) and loved the federal money coming in. It wasn't until the federal money ran dry that she went against it. She is still saying she never supported it.
I never trust anybody who attempts to ban books. OK, so it was a "hypothetical" conversation with the Wasalla librarian. Working as a librarian I would never, ever attempt to ban a book or even "hypothetically" talk about banning books. Every person and society that has attempted to ban books usually has something they are trying to hide, and usually that's a really bad thing.
No war is ever "Ordained by God." Unless we are living in ancient Sumeria where they believed that their gods wanted glory for war, this doesn't work. Most of the country is of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic variety who believe in the same God. Last time I checked, he was a nice god who didn't believe in violence and said "love thy neighbor." Oh, and also, aren't we losing that war? If this war was "ordained by God", wouldn't we have won it a long time ago?
Separation of Church and State. Boy do I love that section of the Constitution and I believe it is part of what makes our country great. It allows everybody to worship whatever the hell they want to. You're a Catholic? Cool. You're a Buddhist? Cool. You're a Wiccan? Cool. Hell, if you're an atheist it's cool. Palin is Pentacostal, which I have no problem with. However, she plans on using her religious ideas to alter domestic policy. She is clearly pro-life, pro prayer in school, believes that creationism should be taught alongside evolution, is against stem cell research on religious grounds, and against gay civil unions and/or marriage. I do not believe that the beliefs of a few should impact society as a whole. While these ideas may swing in some parts of the country, I know they won't here in the northeast. Heck, New Jersey is one of the few states to recognize civil unions and I'm damn proud of our government for taking that action. If they want to be against it in Alaska, they can do it there, but I do not want it to be national policy.
SHE MADE RAPE VICTIMS PAY FOR THEIR OWN RAPE KITS. That is just so fucking wrong on so many levels.
She is in the pockets of big oil. Come on, at the RNC people were chanting "drill baby drill." Drilling for oil is not the answer (and no, Alaska does not provide 20% of the energy to the U.S., another clear lie. It's more like 3.5% according to FactCheck.org). We all know that our oil reserves are running out. Take the initiative and find other sources for fuel. Who would benefit drilling in Alaska? Not me. There isn't enough oil in that state to significantly reduce the cost of gas. All it will do it make more profits for big oil and we all know how I feel about that.
She supports loyalty even if it means putting people in office who have no freaking clue what they are doing. Ya that's nice and all but our country has already suffered from that. Can't remember? Nixon did that and look how that ended up.
She thinks I'll vote for her because I'm a woman. How dumb do you think I am? Ah, never mind.

Honestly, I can go on and on and on. Now, you may disagree with me all you want and I will respect that if you're making an educated decision. As Voltaire once said "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too."

Ah, I've ranted enough. Time to get back to lesson preps.

This is going to be a fun semester...

2008-09-06T10:58:00.002-04:00

...NOT!

I decided to teach six classes this semester. Why? Well, the extra money is always nice but the main reason was to teach a current events class. I used to teach the class when I was an adjunct many moons ago but since it's not a "priority" class, I haven't been able to teach it since I became full-time. With this being an election year I desperately wanted to teach it. It would mean a heftier work load for me but after I talked to Bear about it, I decided to do it.

On Wednesday, I get a frantic call from the dean's secretary. There's a class that needs to be covered. I'm thinking "no fucking way." Seven classes is just nuts. Also, I already have five different class preps with the six classes I had. Adding this class would mean an additional prep. Nope. Nada. No way.

It's Thursday and I'm walking to my office when I hear the dean calling "Cat! Cat!" Uh oh. The dean pleaded with me to take the class. Part of me wanted to laugh in her face and say "oh nay nay." However, another part of me was thinking long term: namely, if I did this favor for the dean she will remember the next time a tenure line opens (at least hopefully). So I agreed. Now I think I'm just fucking nuts. The one thing that makes it less painful is that it's a course I've taught a gazillion times. Even though I need to update my notes and write new assignments and tests, I could teach this one in my sleep.

Oh, and to make things more interesting, I'm taking a training class this semester to teach online courses. This includes developing a course to be taught next semester.

I better enjoy my sanity now while I still have it.

Today's LOL

2008-08-25T18:33:00.000-04:00

McMansions?

2008-08-21T19:28:00.004-04:00

The other day I was having a conversation with my parents about the upcoming election. They are staunch Republicans so they say "you're voting for McCain, right?" Honestly, I don't like either of the candidates. I liked McCain eight years ago. Today? Nope. Too damn old. (ironically, one of my favorite websites is Things Younger than John McCain). Mind you, Obama isn't thrilling me either. However, after watching some things about McCain, I'm getting pretty scared about the guy.

For example, today, John McCain said he doesn't know how many houses he has. How do you not know how many homes you have? They are rather large expenditures to not remember. In his case, they are rather large with the cheapest is worth over $800,000. And he has SEVEN of them!

Showing off these beauties is a video I found off of the The Real John McCain website.

Geeze. The $520 Farragamos and the private jet just make McCain just an "average joe." Bah. You won't see him walking into Wal-Mart, now will you.

But She WAS Cute!

2008-08-13T10:27:00.002-04:00

Today in the New York Times, it was revealed that the cute little girl (the one on the right), did not sing the Chinese national anthem at the opening ceremony. It was actually the one on the left. I had heard about this a couple of days ago and it still pisses me off. Why wasn't the girl on the left standing in the Bird's Nest? She wasn't "cute enough." Her teeth were too imperfect.

“The reason was for the national interest,” explained Chen Qigang, general music designer of the opening ceremonies, who revealed the deception Sunday during a radio interview. “The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression.”

Oh for pete's sake. That girl is adorable! Her imperfect teeth make her look perfect to me. Little kids aren't supposed to have perfect teeth. That's what orthodontists are for. LOL

I realize that China is trying to give the world this perfect image of itself. And to the ignorant, they are probably doing a very good job. However, I know the truth. There are factories that make people work for pittance a day in incredibly unsafe conditions. They also make products that are tainted in numerous ways because in order to make the most profit, business owners are going to cut a lot of corners. China is going through what the U.S. went through in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

And don't get me started on Tibet...

Even still, I'm going to watch the Olympics and root for Team USA. Come on, how can you not root for people like Michael Phelps? That guy is just a freak of nature. And he makes it look so easy. Damn.

Update on the Foot

2008-08-06T22:55:00.003-04:00

Someone posted a comment on my Carlin post about my torn peroneus brevis tendon and I missed it so I apologize for the delay in responding to you.

My advice, get a good doctor (whether ortho or pod) and get it fixed now. My current doc (the best ankle/foot surgeon in the state), told me he would do the conservative approach for the first three months. If a person was still in pain, he would have done surgery to correct it at that point. I wish he was my doc from the beginning. :(

I walked on my bad foot/ankle for almost a year before it was fixed. I would say about 1/2 of that year was spent in a walking cast on and off. I should not have waited so long for treatment because by the time surgery was done I was told that 50-60% of my movement would return if I was lucky.

The surgery itself was successful and I am in considerably less pain now than I was beforehand. However, my mobility is still very limited. My injury was not nice. Not only had I torn the tendon, it had been almost completely dislocated from the bone. This required not only suturing of the tendon but anchoring it back in place.

Right now, eight months after the surgery, I still have a limp. If I stay off my feet, I'm not in any pain but I'm one of those teachers who bounces around the classroom constantly. By the end of the day I can barely walk so I keep a cane with me (a very cool one with flames). Running? I wouldn't even try it. I'll be going into a second round of PT to see if that helps but this may be the best of the 50-60% he said I would get.

If I were you, and it's been past three months, get a second opinion. Talk to other orthos and find the best ankle/foot surgeon around and get it fixed before it's too late.

Oh, and here's my cane (yes, it's the can House uses on the TV show. I love it!):

It's available from FashionableCanes.com.

Too Damn Funny

2008-08-06T22:53:00.001-04:00

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Why am I not surprised?

2008-08-01T10:10:00.001-04:00

Exxon's second quarter earnings came out today. Lo and behold, it reported the largest profit ever for an American corporation at over $11 billion.

As Louis Black would say: we're getting fucked up the ass and we're allowing it to happen.