A Crazy Cat's Life

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 ...

...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 ...

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.

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 rath...

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

...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...

...that a student hasn't tried this one. Oh how I miss The Far Side.