It's Wednesday, and I hate grading papers.

Today is a long-ass day, made even longer by my procrastination over getting students' essays back to them before the midterm drop deadline on Thursday. (Students who drop on or before Thursday get a W in the class; after Thursday, they get a WF.) I awoke at 6am and will not be in bed until 11pm; I hate those late, late classes during the week that don't get out until 10pm. It makes commuting a bitch when you have an 8am class the next day and have to drive 45 minutes to get there. Ugh.

I wish I could say I'm doing better this semester with my procrastination. Alas, I'm not. I thought at first that I might have Adult ADD, but I'm now beginning to think it's simply burnout. Maybe this slim, not-so-very-busy summer is what I've been needing for quite some time, although I sure could use some more money.

I'll return tomorrow with more interesting things to post.

Student Essay Insanity #6...umm, I think.

Sadly, I have only a few examples of Student Essay Insanity to share with you today. These are from my remedial Regents' Essay Exam classes...which, thankfully, will be over right after Spring Break. Which also means I get to stay the hell home on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. Hallelujah!

Anyway...on with the madness. There will be more examples next week, I think, as I'm grading a ton of regular Comp I & II essays this week.

• (Topic: "Should children be physically punished? Discuss.") Getting a spaken never destroyed anyone.
• Going to college and volunteering our two of the best ways to grow as a person.
• (Topic: "What are the chief causes of shoplifting? Discuss.") Crimes are crimes, and there are people who commit them.

Whew.

The Orange Project: Week 5

The orange has now been sitting on my desk for five weeks, and it certainly looks like it. It's even more brown and shriveled than it was last week; its sides are beginning to flatten in places and develop a little bit of mold (I think). It's almost as hard as a baseball, and about that size, too. Wrinkles are beginning to form around the stem end of the fruit.

The custodians who come in to clean at night must wonder, "Why is that orange still on the desk?" Then again, maybe they don't—they've probably seen much, much worse than a funky orange sitting on a desk for weeks on end.

Next week: perhaps I should buy a fresh orange and photograph it with this one, for comparison's sake?

And now for something completely different...

This summer’s schedule does not look good so far. My D2U paycheck will be cut by two-thirds, since D2U is looking at low pre-enrollment numbers—I will be teaching only one comp class there this summer, if things don't change before June 1. AM4C won’t be needing my services during the usually-skimpy Summer Term. Tiny Tech may or may not lay off faculty and staff this summer—Georgia’s tech colleges have faced declining enrollment over the last two years, and a report this afternoon on Georgia Public Broadcasting stated that tech schools across the state will probably be slashing programs and laying off faculty and staff. Even though I’m a teacher in the General Studies program (the core that all Tiny Tech students need to graduate), my adjunct status isn’t doing me any favors.

All I can figure about these plummeting enrollment numbers is that the post-9/11 recession might be starting to lift. Whenever there's a recession, people tend to go back to school in droves. (And while summer enrollment is never as high as fall and spring enrollment, this summer's numbers are so far looking small.) Perhaps there are now enough jobs out there that students think they can stay away from school in the summer, instead of getting ahead on their coursework. It's hard to really tell.

Any ideas to generate extra income? I’m sending out curriculum vitae and letters of interest to all the local colleges who are making out their summer schedules right now. As much as I hate the idea, I may send an application to the local temp agenices, such as Kelly Services and Manpower. I worked for them during the summer of 2001, and while that wasn't for very much money, it helped me make ends meet.

Then again, maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Perhaps THIS is the much-needed not-so-damn-busy-all-the-time summer I’ve been praying for. Is this my cue to revamp all my syllabi? Or do some real work on the two book projects I’ve got going? It could well be.

I spoke with a nurse at the hospital the other day who told me that as a travel nurse (traveling more than 50 miles one way to work), she makes about $2500 per week after taxes. She now owns a dozen properties around the area and manages them in her spare time. I did the math; $2500 per week is around $120,000 per year, and that's just her income from nursing. Now that sounds like something I could handle.

Perhaps I should find a way to go back to school and become a nurse. I have almost all of the B.A. requirements out of the way for a nursing degree; I'd have to update all my science courses, since I took them more than seven years ago, and I'd have to take a bunch of nursing courses.

While I love what I do immensely, I'm quickly tiring of worrying whether I can pay all my bills from one semester to the next. I've started looking at all my options.

The Orange Project: Week 4

Smaller and harder yet...and now it's taken on an even more brownish hue. The rind seems to have darkened in uneven patches of orange-brown and tan, and there seems to be the beginnings of mold on the outside. I didn't think citrus fruits molded due to the high d-limonene content they possess.

Here's a close-up of the rind. Maybe you can see the small whitish spots forming in the small pores...

Gross, yes, but also fascinating. No one has yet made any comments, but they're sure to do so soon. I'll be having conferences with students every afternoon through Thursday. Someone is bound to ask, "Miss Kitty? I don't mean to pry, but...isn't it time to throw away that orange?"

Today: Interesting links about education

Lately, I've heard a few very interesting news stories related to teaching and learning, so I thought I'd share them with E&P readers. The list is NPR-heavy, I know, but that network covers many more quality educational stories than do others.

NPR.org: Students' view of intelligence can help grades
This feature fascinated me—in a study conducted on seventh-grade particpants, Stanford's Carol Dweck concluded that re-teaching children about their own intelligence made a significant difference in their math grades. One group of children got math tutoring, while the other group was involved in lectures that explained how people's intelligence develops over time. The students in the second group did remarkably better than the first on the succeeding math tests. Hmmm...wonder how I could bring this information into my classroom next week?


NPR.org: Rafe Esquith Offers His Fiery Teaching Methods
This is a man after my own heart. If you don't really love what you're teaching, step back and try a new way. And then, if you still don't love it, you'll know it's time to leave.


NPR.org: 'Unhooked' Author Warns Against 'Hooking Up'
At first, I didn't think I'd enjoy this feature at all, but Laura Sessions Stepp seems to have written a carefully-thought-out book to clue adults in to what young women's personal lives are like in the early 21st century. The full title of the book is Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both. It's neither preachy nor patronizing, and I think it will be an eye-opener for many parents and professors.

The Orange Project: Week 3

Yes, it's still here on my desk, and it's really starting to look pitiful. The orange has darkened a shade or two in color and has just a smidge more brown on the rind. It's also hardening into a citrusy lump; it has very little give when I squeeze it. The orange has shrunken about 20% from its original size.

Can't wait to see what next week brings!

Lazy Saturday

Hobo Kitty really enjoys her bed, which is in the guest room.

It's indeed a lazy Saturday, all about the Washingtons around here. More to post tomorrow!

Never have truer words been written

Found in a student's essay this morning:

The ultimate goal in college is to excel, but failing to study may limit one's future.

It's not the most balanced sentence, nor does it flow like it should, but the feeling behind it is genuine.

If only more of my students realized this!

Hell, yeah!

Awesome shirt: courtesy of Eden Kennedy.
Christmas lights in background of Redneck Office: courtesy of Home Depot.
Double chin: courtesy of the local BBQ joint.
Huge gazongas: courtesy of Mother Nature.

An idea whose time has come

Neatorama.com: Authors Who Write in the Buff

I wonder if grading papers in the buff helps get them done faster.

Wednesday randomness

This is a disturbing trend: for the second time in a week, I have nothing important or funny to post. So, once again, here we go with the randomness.

• Little Guy is at a loss, now that he doesn't have Lewis around to beat him up every day.
• With reports of night-time temps below zero in many northeastern and midwestern locations, I am more glad than ever that I live so far below the Mason-Dixon Line.
• Sleeping is much more important than grading papers.
• From all the "whale tails" peeking out from the tops of my female students' low-rider jeans, I'm led to believe that young women don't know that wearing thongs all the time can cause external hemorrhoids.
• Benadryl is my friend.

The Orange Project: Week 2

It's still here, though a little worse for wear. It's shrunken by about 10% and is a little brown on the outside. The dent in the bottom, where it's been sitting on the desk, is actually very handy, as it keeps the orange from rolling off my desk when it gets bumped by papers or books or coffee cups or my clumsy elbow.

Thank you for your condolences

A thousand thanks to all who posted their condolences in the last post's Comments section. You've helped make Lewis's death a little more bearable.

This week's schedule is awkward, and I'm still grading rough drafts of essays. Boy, are these things ever rough. If Lewis were here, she'd poop on them. I'll post the best/goofiest sentences out of them when I finish my list.

Sad tidings

I am sorry to tell everyone that I found Lewis this afternoon. She was hit and killed by a car just half a block from the Happy Kitten Cottage. It didn't appear that she suffered; I think she was killed instantly.

I'm grateful and happy to have had Lewis in my life for two-and-a-half years. She was given to me by an elderly lady down the street whose spoiled, mealy-mouthed grandchildren refused to take care of the kitten they'd been given for Christmas. Miss Rethie* asked me to take in the tiny, striped furball she'd brought to my front porch. "Everyone in the neighborhood knows you're really good to your kitty-cats," she told me as she handed over a little gray-tabby kitten who was barely big enough to fit in one of my outstretched hands. "You'll keep her? You won't give her away?"

"No, ma'am," I replied. "She's not big as anything. This one will stay here with me." And so she did for almost three years.

I walked down to where I'd found her. I wrapped her up in an old Harley-Davidson beach towel and brought her home. I thought Lewis would have appreciated the H-D towel carrying her home one last time; she was a tough kitty. She reminded me of the old joke about John Wayne Toilet Paper: she was rough, tough, and didn't take any shit off anybody.

I dug a grave for her near the back part of the yard. Lewis is buried near the storage house, where the other kitties and I can stop and pay our respects every time we pass by.


Lewis loved to snuggle up in my computer chair and warm up the seat for me. Sometimes she'd sit in my lap while I typed.

But first and foremost, Lewis was a badass. I think "Ornery" must have been her middle name (if kitties even have middle names).

Being a badass is tiring work, though, and Lewis both worked hard and played hard. Here, she's panting in the kitchen floor after her first full summer afternoon outdoors. She chose to go out—there was no keeping her indoors if she wanted to be out—on a 95-degree day in June, with 75% humidity.

Somehow, going outdoors and risking danger made her love people more. She was a pain in the ass every day until I let her outside. Faced with other cats, dogs, cars, and a sassy red chicken, though, she became a sweetie.

She and Clark were the best of buddies. Even though there were two years and 13 pounds between them, they were either sitting, lying, or snuggled together whenever Lewis decided to come indoors.

I'll miss seeing this sweet, crooked-eared visage on the porch, and hearing her small, muted "mrrow?" ask to come in the house.

I'll miss her rubbing frantically against my ankles, as if this is the last chance she'll have to get kitty-smell on me before it goes out of style, every time I walk outside.

I'll miss my fierce, bent-eared girl. Rest in peace, my sweet Lewis.

Random Thursday tidbits

I'm having a terrible time coming up with anything coherent for today's post. This is the point in the semester when the real work begins: I'm looking at grading 75 rough drafts this weekend. Egads.

So, in the meantime...

• Leaving Small 'Bama Community College was the nicest thing I could've done for my career...and my sanity. I'm infinitely glad not to be dealing with those wankers anymore.
• We almost had an ice storm here in Small Town. I awoke to the sound of sleet hitting my window at 5:00 this morning, only to hear it change to rain a short while later. So much for a nice work day at home.
• It's currently 39 degrees and rainy, humidity 100%. Feels like 35 outside.
• Nothing else from the Colonel so far, thankfully.
• Lewis, everyone's favorite tiger kitty, has not been home since early Monday morning. I'm very worried. No one has seen her around, and I haven't seen her either (and I've checked all the local side streets). Please say a prayer for my shrimpy, crooked-eared girl.