Education? Bah! It's time for a chicken post!

Here's Myrtle's coop. But where is she?



There's my girl! And she's just laid an egg!



Brk-brk-brk-brk-b'GOCK!



Clucking's done. Time to eat bugs.

Umm...okay.

I have never heard anyone say "hooray" about a PTO meeting.

Sorry for the wonky angle. It was my camera work--no quicksand beneath the sign. Evidently, the PTO meeting is all about learning, as is the school year. (See post from August 7.) I still think it's about flicking boogers on the blackboard. That's what it's about.

I'm calling bullshit on this one: against the offense, 20 yards, loss of down.

BlackBoard gets its drawers in a wad

MSNBC.com: Patent fight rattles academic computing

I don't know what the fallout from this will be, but from what I've read, I imagine it won't be too helpful for institutions of higher learning. Many colleges mix and match their online learning platforms, but if BlackBoard has its way, it will be the only one out there.

Don't get me wrong: BlackBoard is really intuitive and easy to use (although I still can't figure out why the hell it won't let me deploy my brand-new quizzes--grrrrrrr!), and I'm glad I get to use it at Tiny Tech. And I'm glad they bought out WebCT, whose system sucks. Maybe we'll see WebCT become more user-friendly. Hey, it can't hurt to dream, right?

I'm all for freedom in online academia. We'll see where this leads. Hopefully it won't be down the road of small colleges such as AM4C and D2U getting sued because they combined two or three online-learning platforms and BlackBoard got pissed off about it.

Under cover of darkness...

...Operation Liberate Miss Kitty has begun.

Right now, I don't have time to write about all the details, as I'm taking a break from making out online quizzes in BlackBoard. But I'll fill you in later with a better post.

In the meantime, I wanted to announce on E&P that over the last four days, it's become very clear to me that I need to leave behind all online teaching and concentrate solely on in-person instruction--where I do my best work. Provided that everything works out, I'll be free of online responsibilities by December 20. This means that I will be leaving both Tiny Technical College and Small 'Bama Community College and going elsewhere. I'd rather work my butt off at in-person teaching than have the dark cloud of "I'm not doing my online work!" guilt hanging over me every weekend and holiday.

I'm simply not cut out for online instruction. It feels good to get that off my chest and admit it to the e-public.

Love football. Hate football.

NPR.org: Auburn Prepares for Post-Scandal Football Season

Alas, the occasional difficulty of teaching at a Southern university.

My alma mater, the University of Georgia, gets itself wrapped up in an athletic department scandal every other decade, on average. I'm reminded of the scandal in the early 1980s, when English professor Jan Kemp was fired for refusing to pass football players who didn't do the work in her classes. Just a few years ago, the UGA men's basketball program and coach Jim Harrick were at the center of an NCAA investigation.

While I cheer for the Bulldogs every season and enjoy watching and attending the games--and appreciate all the revenue the football program brings in so the UGA English Department can have all kinds of programs and a big building all its own--I also sometimes hate football.

Football is God in the South, and those who play it are by extension the Sons of God. At my high school, team members rarely got into trouble, no matter how obnoxious their behavior, and always passed their classes, no matter how little effort they put forth. Many were the times in homeroom and in the halls between classes when football players called those of us in the marching band "band faggots" and "speed bumps." And got away with it.

I feel vindicated, though, when I see articles such as the above one on Auburn's program, and when I run into old football players from my old high school. Fifteen or twenty years later, their youthful good looks gone (not to mention their knees), Miss Kitty sure doesn't look to them like a nerd anymore. She looks good enough to ask on a date.

To which I always say, "No, but thanks so much," and run to my car so I can laugh maniacally in private.

Well, well, well! Look what we have here!

Hey, everybody! Look who posted! It's the ubiquitous Anonymous:

Why find a sugar daddy to go back to school full-time for your Ph.D when you so succinctly said you are just as qualified with your lowly MA? Goodness...how pompous. You have an MA and you are whining b/c you have 3 jobs that encompass 5 classes? Boo-hoo! You have nothing to whine about. You obviously do this because this is what makes you happy, otherwise you would find a job that makes quite a bit more. Quite whining.

Evidently, you missed something, so let me spell it out for you: I am well-qualified with an MA, but I do not get paid as much as someone with a Ph.D. Because I do not have the terminal degree, I get paid less.

I like your use of "quite" instead of "quit" there, Anonymous. Wow! That is so literate! And if you don't like what I have to say, MOVE THE FUCK ON AND DON'T COMMENT. Haven't you learned that in the blogosphere by now? I guess not.

Anonymous, had you read this blog more carefully, you would have seen that I teach ten sections of English Comp at four different colleges...not a part-time job with five classes at three schools. Christ, even my densest students could have gotten that out of this site. You should work on your reading comprehension skills. They suck.

And try teaching sometime. My guess is you'll last a day at the most. The "asshole" students (like you) will reduce you to tears within a couple of class periods. Thank God that your kind are few and far between in the college classroom.

And why did you skip over everything else encompassing the last eight months of this blog, and post a comment on my very first one from January 16? Had you taken the time to read some of the other posts, you would have seen many other posts on many other topics. Evidently, you have skimmed this blog and misunderstood its content as few others can. You seem to read blogs just like many students read their assignments: in a random, hit-and-miss fashion. It's people like you who make The O'Reilly Factor a hit show--people who hardly have two brain cells to rub together, yet who take the first thing they read/hear/see and run with it.

The sugar-daddy bit is a joke. I bet you didn't get that irony in the post. Oh, well.

Yes, I love what I do. I just wish I were paid more and only had to work 9-to-5 five days a week, instead of, oh, 8-to-8 six days a week. Forty hours a week vs. 72 hours a week? You do the math.

And way to go with your anonymity! You've got some real courage there. It's SO much more effective than putting forth a well-thought-out comment from a blog or e-mail address where my readers and I can offer our own well-thought-out comments.

Oh, wait...I bet you didn't get the irony in that last statement, either. Please re-read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." There will be a quiz tomorrow.

Edited to add: I have now enabled comment moderation. Dipshit comments will be deleted, so don't even waste your fucking time composing them.

After these messages, we'll be right back

Pardon my lack of posts. This is proving to be one hellacious week. I'll be back to posting as soon as I find my head; it came loose from my shoulders, and I can't remember what I did with it.

"Let zem eat...corn."

Here is a blue-mottled Mille Fleur (aka Belgian d'Uccle) hen from Barry and his excellent Feathersite.com.

The latest issue of Georgia Farmers & Consumers Bulletin has yet more tantalizing chicken breeds for sale. I found an ad for hens like the above, sold by a farmer in northeast Georgia, and I had to find out more.

Mille Fleur chickens (as they are known in the United States) are true bantams, meaning that they only come in "travel size"--there is no known standard (full) size of this breed. They were developed hundreds of years ago in Belgium and France and, according to Barry, one of the tamest breeds known. Evidently, one shouldn't have Mille Fleurs if one doesn't want to "wear a chicken" every trip out to the coop. They're that tame.

If I get one of these, I will name her Marie Hentoinette. Vive la poule!

Autumn surprise

The gardenias are re-blooming at D2U...a fragrant "welcome back" for Fall Semester.

Yesterday wore. Me. Out. Teaching from 8am to 7pm is not for wimps.

I'll post again when I have more energy.

Day-dreaming between classes...

I'm slightly more than halfway through my long first day of classes at D2U--I have two more to go, one at 4:30pm and the other at 6:00pm. While I have time, I'm hiding out in my office and looking at NPR.org, where there's an awesome feature on small-scale farming practices that are both sustainable and profitable. One hundred sixty kinds of flowers and 80 kinds of veggies on just three-and-a-half acres? WOW!

If the people in the NPR feature can do what they do with that teeny-tiny amount of land, then I guess that my West Georgia Organic Free-Range Egg Empire isn't out of the question after all.

Now, back to perusing the Farmers' and Consumers' Bulletin for more new hens...

"Tough titty," said Miss Kitty.

Cheatin' Student--the one from D2U who got an F in my Spring Semester comp class for blatant, shameless plagiarism--is now back from her summer in the Mediterranean. Yesterday afternoon, she went to Dr. Pepper and complained. She wanted an answer on my review of her case, and she wanted it now.

So she got one, short and sweet, via e-mail this afternoon.

Dear [Cheatin' Student]:
Thank you for your e-mail. After considering your case and reviewing it with several other English faculty members, I have decided to let the F stand.

Sincerely,
Kitty B. Goode

I am sure this will not be the last we hear of Cheatin' Student. After all, I am the reason she lost the HOPE Scholarship, and I am the reason she got dropped from Biology II. She forgets that she was the one who got caught cheating.

Despite this one whiny-ass student and the serious pressure of getting my syllabi ready by 8:00 tomorrow morning, I am happy and fortunate to work at D2U. Dr. Pepper and Dr. Who are ready to come to bat for me should I have any more problems with Cheatin' Student...or anything else.

Hen Party!

This is what a Golden Comet hen looks like--photo from Gary Lawrence and FeatherSite.com.



And here's what a Silver-Laced Wyandotte hen looks like--photo from Frank Lambert and FeatherSite.com.

Getting one of each of these should make it easier to identify who's who in the yard. I have no problem telling apart similar-looking kitties. Chickens, however, are another story. Current front runners for new chicken names are Clementine, Lucille, Loretta, and Edna Lou.

That's right. I'm posting anything and everything besides educational stuff so I won't have to think about how much shit I have to do between now and 8:00am Thursday.

Note to fellow English comp folks: I'm still putting together a post on the portfolio system; it'll be up by Sunday.

In between getting websites and syllabi ready for D2U and SBCC, and grading Tiny Tech papers, I'm very excited at the thought of getting a couple new additions to my hen family. This is what's keeping me happy to wake up in the morning.

One step at a time, Mom, Mr. Greenjeans and I are getting the red shed turned into a chicken coop. We're cleaning it out a little at a time, building roosts and nesting boxes, and preparing to install fold-out panels for summer ventilation. And we'll probably paint it gray to match the house, too. The coop-to-be's about eight feet on each side; according to the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, a shed this size can hold 15-20 hens. So Myrtle Mae and her sisters should have more than enough room to stretch their feathered legs while staying safe from pesky possums.

Any suggestions for a somewhat-corny-yet-risque slogan to paint over the hen-house door? I thought about stenciling an egg on the front, with the caption, "I got laid here!"

Nice to know I'm wanted.

SBCC usually sends out a "Come to the Faculty Meeting" letter to all its part-time instructors about a week before said meeting takes place. But I didn't get a letter, phone call, or e-mail this time, so I wondered whether there'd even be a meeting.

Good thing I called over to SBCC and asked the receptionist. "The meeting's tonight at 6:00," she told me. Thanks for letting me know, people. 'Preciate the hell outta that.

Maybe they forgot to contact me because I'll be only online this semester. Or maybe it's an indicator they just don't care. Well, neither do I. What a coincidence.

I was having a good day until I found out about the meeting. I know that I probably should have left SBCC months ago, but I stayed on so I wouldn't leave them in the lurch with two weeks to go before Fall Semester. My only consolation is that I'll be telling my supervisor this evening that she should find someone else to teach the online class for Spring, and that I'll be checking "I am not available to teach for Spring 2007" on my Faculty Survey in a couple months.

EDITED TO ADD: The meeting went fairly well, and I survived. I was able to sit with a fellow part-timer who also teaches at D2U, which was nice. I also noticed that my former boss is no longer in charge of the English Department--a change that I didn't know about until last night, but that's how SBCC makes changes: "Hey, let's just make the switch amd spring it on folks at the meetin'! Why the heck not? Yee-haw! Pass the Levi Garrett!"

A new fellow who got his Ph.D. just a couple years ago is now the chair of the English Department. This makes me feel better about leaving, as I don't feel as much allegiance now that my former supervisor is back to teaching-only duties.

A Myrtle Mae Update; or, Possums Is Creepy.

There's been a lot of chicken excitement here lately. The late-night marauding possum returned about ten days ago and ate every last egg Myrtle Mae laid under the gas meter, three nights in a row. All I found was shell fragments...and a very freaked-out chicken.



She spent about a week acting strange and hiding under here (my large gray shed out back). No egg. No nothin'. In the words of Booda Baby, possums is creepy. Myrtle was frightened, and who could blame my usually-sassy Rhode Island Red girl? The mere idea of possums makes my skin crawl.

But last Saturday afternoon, as Mr. Greenjeans and I prepared to do some yardwork, Myrtle began strutting around the yard and clucking her Mama-I-just-laid-an-egg cluck, which I had not heard in almost two weeks. "Where's your egg, Big Chick?" I asked her.

"B'GOCK! Brk-brk-brk-brk-b'GOCK!" she replied.

Under the gray shed? Nope. Under the gas meter again? Nope. In the daylily bed? Nope. Where the hell could the new egg be?



Ah-ha! They're HERE, beneath the broken-down front porch of the small red shed! This was her new nesting place.



And this is where she's sitting right now, trying to lay another egg. Now if I can get the red shed fixed up as a hen house PDQ...

Pointless meowing! All day, every day!

Just because I have a few days off before Fall Semester begins, the cats decide to make my life difficult. Someone has been meowing most of the afternoon, and I can't figure out who's doing it. At first I thought the incessant meowing was Graya's...it sure did sound like her, all cute and small-meow-for-such-a-big-kitty.



Wasn't me, Mama. I'm being sweet and cute here in front of the window fan.

Dead, utter quiet as soon as I walk into the room and ask in my kitty-mama voice, "Who's talkin'? Somebody callin' Mama? Hmmm?"



Maybe it was Joy. She's big on meows, and an attention slut to boot. She jumped onto this stool to demand some lovin'.

(FYI: the trash bag behind her is full of clean bath towels that I haven't yet put up.)



But all Joy really wanted was petting--nothing out of the ordinary, and no aggravating meows from her, either. She only purred like mad, so loudly that she blurred the picture.

So I still have NO idea who the hell was making all that racket. The living room's quiet...for now.



In other news, we're one step closer to Kitty-Chicken Thunderdome, as suggested by CrankyProf. "One kitty and one chicken entah...only Myrtle Mae leaves!"

Lewis needs another butt-whooping like you'll never believe, and in this photo MM was milliseconds away from administering it. Then Her Striped Bad-Assedness wisely backed off and ran away. Nobody messes with Myrtle's morning treat of Special Kitty Seafood Blend. (Chicken update to come--lots of poultry happenings to report.)

I got a voicemail from the Colonel today--oh, wonder of wonders! Why the hell he's calling me, I have no idea. He and I are done. "Hi, Kitty, hope you're doing all right. I just left the doctor's office, my back's been killing me ever since I moved all that furniture back down to D2U City. Doc says it might be gallstones..." Gallstones, eh? The guy certainly has gall, that's for sure.

Tamarra*, one of my former students from AM4C, e-mailed me from her day job as a high-school teacher's aide to report that teachers in Bumpkin County (one county to the east of Small Town) are no longer allowed to write failing students' actual grades on their report cards. She tells me:

On their report cards, we can no longer put actual number grades, such as 20, 12, 52, 30, etc., even though that's what the student made. [The principal] wants us to put a 60 with a circle around it on there when a student earns a failing grade--this is supposed to mean the student didn't actually make the 60, but that is what goes on the card. What do you think about this? I think the grade they received is the actual grade that needs to go on the report cards. I feel like we are giving the students too much by doing this...

This kind of crap is why kids are so damn ignorant and bull-headed when they finally get to my college classroom. I wrote Tamarra back to give her my condolences, and told her to come on over here to Poop County and apply for a job. Schools here haven't stooped that low. Yet.

I believe in flunking students when they've earned it. Behold the Power of the F to enliven, chastise, and prod students into doing their best.

Put your left foot in, take your left foot out...

So that's what it's all about!

The marquee of a local elementary school. Classes for both city and county schools begin on Tuesday, August 8. Heh.

When I drove past this sign, I had to stop and snap a picture. It was too cheesy to ignore.

I, for one, am glad that the little brats are starting school tomorrow. I sure do get tired in the summer of shrieking, screaming little voices outside at the butt-crack of dawn. And why, oh, why must children scream when they play? Why must they sound as if Freddy Krueger is murdering the lot of them when all they're doing is playing tag in the yard? I swear, a psycho could kill everyone in my neighbor's house, and I would have no idea what on earth was happening. "Officer, they scream like that all the time--I didn't know anything was the matter." Don't get me wrong: I like my neighbor's little grandkids, and children in general, but I wish they'd learn to differentiate between playful shouts and help-we're-being-butchered screams.

Prayer request

Please keep my TTC student Ed and his family in your prayers/thoughts. His son Jim passed away this morning at age 38 after a short, painful battle with an inoperable brain tumor. Ed e-mailed to give all his instructors the news, and to let them know he'd be away from his studies. The whole family is taking this very, very hard.

Ed is probably one of my best Tiny Tech students ever, and I enjoy having him in my class. So please keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

Thanks so much.

You could put somebody's eye out...

A former student sent me this today. She noticed it while at work. Thanks, Jessi!

It's on a case of Mean Green All-Purpose Cleaner. My question is: How am I supposed to open it if not with a sharp object? And what type of blunt object should I use? Tire iron? Slotted spoon? Vibrator?

The poultry and the feline should be frieeeeends...

After several months of uneasy detente, cat and chicken have each come to terms with the other's presence. "The family that eats together..."

Opinions, please!

All right, faithful readers: I need your input.

You'll recall that I've been in trouble with my SBCC online class this summer (although, I might add, my SBCC in-person class was a terriffic success). I just got a letter from a student that drove home to me that my heart IS NOT in online teaching. This student wasn't rude, but very forthright and accurate in her complaints. I was an atrocious online instructor this summer.

So I would LOVE to see what you folks have to say about the following. Please, comment away.

• Since I've realized that my talents do not lie in online teaching, should I quit now, with just 16 days to go before Fall Semester begins? Or should I stick to my word and finish out Fall before moving on?
• What is a good way to remind my SBCC supervisors that I've done a great job with in-the-classroom teaching, even though I'm awful online? (I don't want to be tacky about it, and I want to know whether the online fiasco has ruined my rep with them.)
• And how do I contact these supervisors--would a phone call, e-mail, or snail-mailed letter be best? [Edit: I'm not sure I can handle an in-person chat; I'm afraid I'll burst into tears, and that would be soooooo unprofessional. And I would be completely mortified at my lack of self-control.]
• Is it bad form to leave SBCC off my resume? Just not even mention having taught there? How have you folks dealt with listing on your resume a job where you really didn't put your best face forward?

I look forward to hearing your advice and horror stories. HELP!

Cat Scratch Fever

I bring home a library copy of Ferrol Sams' Run with the Horsemen, and look what DeeDee does to it.



Who, me, Mama?



How could I have possibly had time to maul that book? I'm too busy tolerating Little Guy.



The nerve. I'm going to sit here and barely turn an ear in your direction while you blog all those lies.



Meanwhile, Lewis has gone BACK outdoors, swollen foot and all. (I stopped fighting her on this about two weeks ago. Resistance was futile against the Small Cat Borg.)

Yes, indeed--it appears that someone (meaning someone feline) in the neighborhood has a nasty, funky mouth, and it met Miss Priss's right back foot over the weekend. As soon as she comes back in this afternoon, she's getting locked in the spare bedroom 'til I can get a vet appointment.

I'm at home grading papers until noon tomorrow, when D2U grades are due. Then it's a race to finish SBCC grades and have them in by Thursday morning. After a break, I'm getting caught up on Tiny Tech grading and should have my online students' first essays snail-mailed out to them by Friday afternoon. This will make the weekend much more enjoyable. More posting later--plenty of chicken and tomato news to report.