Drop 'Em Like They're Hot, Part 1

All this semester, D2U has sponsored a Faculty Book Study group to read and discuss Ken Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do. Our group seems to be made up of most of the more dedicated professors and instructors on campus; I'm one of the few part-timers in the bunch. The discussions have been very enlightening, as all of us want to make our teaching as effective and creative as possible. But one science professor spoke up in yesterday's meeting with a well-placed criticism of Bain's book, and spelled out part of my teaching philosophy.

"I simply can't be all things to all students," Dr. B* said. "Bain makes it sound as if it's our job to motivate students, but we all know that they have to meet us halfway. Chances are that I can't make someone excited about learning biology at D2U if they don't want to be here. And for those students who don't want to learn...well, I'll cut them loose and focus on reaching the ones who do."

Amen, sister!

Students have to put in as much effort as I do. Otherwise, they're wasting both my time and theirs, and they're taking up a seat in my class that could've gone to someone who really needed the class this particular semester. One such student was in my 11:00 Comp II class...but is no longer. Heh-heh.

Rihanna* was in my Comp I class this past Fall Semester. She's an average student; if she put forth a little more effort, she could write fairly well. Her first paper in my class earned a B-, but she slacked off after that and ended up with a solid C in Comp I. I was surprised to see her sign up for my Comp II.

Rihanna had really slacked off in Comp II, though, and was on track to make a D, if she got lucky. Most days, she couldn't be bothered to pay attention, do the reading, or ask questions in class. She seemed to me to have severe Spring Fever, or maybe a case of the I-don't-give-a-shits. I was very disappointed.

On all my syllabi, in all my classes and at all my schools, I spell out my absence policies very clearly. I will count students absent if they sleep in class, send text messages on cell phones, read other materials than our book, talk with classmates, or otherwise not participate in the class discussion. I make notes in the roll book whenever I notice a student doing these things, and these "in-class absences" count against the four allotted absences they get in my class.

Rihanna* had already been out of class on two separate occasions when I noticed her text-messaging furiously a couple weeks ago. So I noted her in-class absence. The next class period, she was reading her history book all class long—for 75 minutes, she looked in the other book and did not raise her eyes to even look at the other class members. (I walk through the aisles as the discussion goes on, and check to see what students are doing as we talk about the readings.) Then, for the third class day in a row, Rihanna chose not to participate; she doodled on a piece of notebook paper all class long. I noted her third in-class absence and the reason for it, and tallied up her absences.

Five. An automatic WF ("withdrawn/failing").

I dropped Rihanna from the class Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday morning, I got this e-mail, just as it appears here:
I recieved a email today saying that I have been dropped from your class for excessive absences. I know for a fact that I have only missed your class two times. Last thursday and another time in early february. Ive never been late or anything. I do not understand why I have been dropped from your class. I would really appreciate it if you could explain to me why. Thank you

How could she not know why I'd dropped her? Oh, wait—she must have forgotten what I stated in the syllabus. So I replied, and included the appropriate portion of the class syllabus:

Hi, Rihanna...
If you will recall from page 2 of our syllabus:

• This class will begin on time every class day, and I will take roll at the beginning of every class.
• You must arrive on time in order to be counted as present.
• You will be counted as absent if you leave class early.
• You will be given ½ an absence if you arrive late.
• You will be counted absent if you sleep in class.
• You will be counted absent if you’re talking with your classmates about topics unrelated to class discussion…
• Or sending IMs…
• Or writing notes back and forth to your classmates…
• Or checking your cell phone to see if anyone has called.
• If you’re not here, awake, with your book, and paying attention, you’re absent.
• Four absences = drop from class with WF.
  
  Please note the next-to-last line in particular: "If you're not here, awake, with your book, and paying attention, you're absent."
  
  As I have stated in the syllabus, you MUST be paying attention with your book open to be counted as present, and you were doing *neither* of those things in three separate class meetings. In these three class meetings, I have observed you either sending text messages on your phone (March 20), reading a book other than our Comp II text (March 22--I seem to remember seeing a history book in front of you as I walked by--your English book not in front of you), and doodling *all class long* on a piece of paper (March 27--with your book nowhere in sight). I counted you as absent those days, with a special notation of the "in-class absence." With your additional two absences when you were not physically in class, they added up to five absences. Therefore, I dropped you from Comp II.
  
  I encourage you to take Comp II at another time, when you feel more prepared to give your full time, attention, and participation to the course.

Busted.

Thankfully, I've gotten no angry e-mails from her Mama, nor has my department head gotten any angry phone calls. But I wouldn't be surprised if that happens.

Two or three more in that 11:00 class will probably be dropped next week for similar reasons—chronic latecomers are about to "taste the sweaty, bewhiskered 'Taint of Truth," as CrankyProf would say. That group has been a real disappointment, and they're just going to have to learn the hard way that every action has a consequence.

Spring Beauty 2: This is the South right now

The Deep South (USDA Zone 8, specifically) is a gorgeous riot of color right now. Yes, and a miserable riot of pollen, too, don't remind me. I'm trying to focus on the positive right now.

Wisteria climbs over anything and everything in its path; I like to think of it as kudzu's prettier, slightly less aggressive cousin. Right now, especially from Atlanta southward, trees are covered in these long racemes of purple blooms that smell like Grape Fanta soda. But for heaven's sake don't pick one and bring it in the house! Wisteria flowers smell like tomcat urine once you cut them off the vine.

I'll take some more pix this weekend of huge groups of 50-foot-tall pine trees covered in wisteria blossoms. It's a stunning sight to see while driving down little two-lane back roads. And there are some large banks of wisteria-covered trees along the interstate, too.

Pink azaleas on the D2U campus. This bush has had plenty of time to reach its full potential; it's about six feet tall, wide, and deep. Almost all of that area is covered in these three-inch blooms.

Lucky for D2U, some thoughtful landscaper planted large masses of azaleas when the campus was young, 50 or so years ago. These foundation plantings make the campus look fantastic every spring.

I thought this was a 'Lady Banks' yellow rose, but it's not. It's a huge climbing vine on the D2U campus, growing over a garden wall about 12 feet high and wide. It doesn't have any thorns or rose-like leaves. I don't know what the hell it is, but it sure is beautiful.

A cherry tree bursts into bloom at D2U. We have these all over campus, and they smell much better than the vomitous Bradford pears. It's neat to walk under one of these cherry trees on my way to class and get showered with delicate, paper-thin cherry-blossom petals.

Why I was glad not to get any work done today

Now that my remedial Regents' class is over, I no longer have to come to D2U five days a week. Now, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I stay home and work...except that I can't get any work done at home. There are too many kitties and chickens to play with, too many enticing projects to work on, to really get any schoolwork done. So I decided to report to D2U and get some work done in my office most of the day before teaching at Awesome Methodist College this evening.

And am I ever glad I was here.

About 10:45, one of my favorite students, Beatrice*, came by the office. Beatrice* is not one of my favorites because she's a fantastic student; she struggles to do college-level work and attend class regularly. She's on my Favorites List because of how hard she struggles every day to live her life independently and honestly.

Beatrice was given up for adoption when she was six years old, and spent most her life in foster care. As a child, she was raped by her stepfather, and has struggled with drug abuse, mental disorders, and trying to get her own children back out of foster care. She is now struggling to make ends meet while raising two behaviorally-challenged kids AND attending college to get an education—something that her foster parents and all her counselors said she shouldn't even bother trying to do.

In late 2005, Beatrice was reunited with her long-lost birth mother, thanks to an improbable coincidence on an episode of Oprah. She drove 13 hours to South Florida to visit her mother, lost to her for nearly 30 years...only to find that her Mama was recovering from drug addiction and battling inoperable lung cancer.

Beatrice's mother passed away Tuesday night. On Bea's 36th birthday.

When she walked into my office, Bea was trying desperately not to cry; she was shaking so violently that she reminded me of a tuning fork. This was the straw that broke the camel's back—Bea's kids both suffer from bipolar disorder and the disorder where they cannot handle any authority figures (can't remember what that's called), and as a single mom getting no child support from their deadbeat father, living in a run-down trailer park with drug dealers and thieves all around, and being taken advantage of yet again by her seriously-dysfunctional-yet-makes-you-feel-sorry-for-her-because-she's-about-to-die-of-cancer mama...it was too much for her to take.

I listened as best I could, and hugged her. I've been in a place sort of like that before, but no "regular" person could help me. It was counselors who helped me when I didn't know what else to do.

I called the D2U Counseling Center and asked to talk to the therapist who was my own therapist a long time ago; she came to work at D2U a while back. Dr. Eliza* told me to come right over. I turned to Beatrice and said, "My old counselor works here at D2U. She helped me out when my father died, when I was most desperate, and I know she can help you a lot more than I can. Let me give her a call, and I'll walk you over there."

"Thank you, Miss Kitty." She wiped her eyes with the tissue I'd given her. "I'd best dry it up. Don't wanna look like I've been crying in front of all the 'children' out there. Those little 18-year-olds look up to me."

"Fuck the children," I muttered. "They don't know shit from Shinola, anyway." Bea cracked up.

I walked with her over to the Counseling Center and sat with her while we waited for the therapist to walk out and get her. "Bea, if there's anyone who's beat the odds, it's you. You've proven everyone wrong, and you've been strong. But this is an awful time for you, and it's okay to cry. It's okay."

She began to cry again in earnest. I was transported in my mind back to the days after my father's death, and I knew what she was going through. The therapist soon called Beatrice into her office, and I went back to mine.

Bea stopped by about an hour later, eyes red and puffy. "I think I'm going to take a medical withdrawal from my classes, Miss Kitty," she told me. "Dr. Eliza* said she can write up the papers for me. With my kids and my mom and trying to get by without child support, school is just more than I can handle now." I agreed, and Bea and I parted ways. I told her to keep me up to date on how she was doing.

Sometimes teaching is about more than just covering the material.

Nobody asks the old ladies

While thinking over and working on my book proposal, I stumbled upon this article on Slate.com by cartoonist Allison Bechdel. In it, Bechdel states that no matter how she tried avoiding hurting her mother while telling the story of her father's depression and apparent suicide, the telling of the story was bound to hurt.

Perhaps this is the truth behind my wanting to write this book about the sex scandal in Small Town. Even though 25 years have passed, the wounded are still among us. And despite the good that may come from telling the story, some will be hurt.

And if there were ever a small town that needed to heal from the hurt, it's Small Town.

We'll see how this progresses.

"Amazing Grace," poultry-style

I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see

I awakened at 8:00 this morning and walked out into the back yard...to find both gates WIDE-OPEN.

Myrtle Mae? Nowhere to be found.

I called my neighbors, who are usually up at all hours of the night, to ask if they'd seen or heard anything unusual. I was both pissed as hell and frantic— did someone steal Myrtle? Or did someone play a cruel trick on us? Had some of the little kids in the neighborhood, Myrtle's biggest fans, come in to play with her but left the gate open when they left?

Sally* told me she hadn't noticed anything unusual when she'd gone to bed Sunday night. "The gate was closed, and everything looked okay. That was about 11:00, and I went to bed not long after that," she told me. I, too, hadn't noticed anything awry when I went to bed around midnight.

So I raced around the back yard, looking under shrubs and sheds, calling for Myrtle Mae. "Chiiiick? Chick-chick-chick-chiiiiik? C'mere, chicken! Chick-chick-chick!"

I seemed to hear a cluck from far off, but couldn't place where it was coming from. This neighborhood is weird in that sounds sometimes bounce around and make it hard to pinpoint their sources. A hammering noise that I once thought was coming from my neighbors across the street was actually coming from a house behind me and half a block away.

"Chiiiick? Where's Mama's girl? Huh? Chick-chick-chick! C'mon, chicken!"

Sally walked out into the yard, her three-year-old son following close behind. "Where's Myrtle?" he asked, eyes wide. "Did she run away from home?"

"I don't know, sweetie," I answered. "I'm not sure what's going on."

Sally* had just called her husband, Andy*, on the phone to tell him about the MyrtleGate fiasco. "Andy left the house at 7:00 this morning, and he just said that he noticed the gate was open. He said he thought it was kind of weird."

"Hmmm, I bet some asshole went in there in the middle of the night and opened the gates." (Whoops, shouldn't have said that with Sally's little boy standing right there.) Sally said she'd keep a close eye out if anything looked suspicious.

I got Mom on her cell phone. "I don't know who's responsible, but I'm pissed as hell. If I catch who did it, I'm going to beat the shit out of them myself, even if it IS someone else's kids. If they beat the little hellions in the first place, we wouldn't be having this problem."

I heard clucking again. "Brk-brk-brk-brk-BRRRK! Brk-brk-brk-brk-b'GOCK!" It was coming from the other side of Sally and Andy's house. There was my red-feathered girl, in Mike* & Kelly's* back yard! And she was all right!


Myrtle looked a little disoriented—okay, more disoriented than usual. Chickens just naturally have that look about them. I caught her after a few minutes, as she was scared and wary of everyone, including me. I stuffed her under my arm and headed for the house.

I now have padlocks on both backyard gates. Until I can afford a high privacy fence, this will have to do.

And when I find out who did this? I'll remove his testicles with a dull spoon.

Long-overdue sweetness

DeeDee gives Clark a bath while he sunbathes and purrs in the kitchen window. It's currently 73 degrees and sunny here in Small Town, GA.

It's been a while since I last posted any cuteness from the critters around here, so I figured we were overdue.

I'm still working like hell on various and sundry projects—namely, wrapping up the end of the quarter at Tiny Tech, as all my Work Ethics Reports, final exams, and other forms are due by Monday—so I'll probably keep posts pretty short until at least the middle of next week.

The Orange Project: Week 8

I'll be damned: two months, and it's still here. And it doesn't look too pitiful, either. Still mushy in places, and beginning to get sort of lopsided.

Spring beauty

A magnolia blossom on the Awesome Methodist College campus. I forget exactly what this variety is called, though it's still in the Magnolia family.

It was 78 degrees and sunny here in Small Town yesterday; more of the same is forecast for today.

Any advice from classicists?

My new World Lit I (Literature to 1600) class at Small Military College covers a lot of the great classics of literature, such as The Odyssey, The Bhagavad-Gita, and The Canterbury Tales. While I'm very familiar with Chaucer, I'm new to teaching the more ancient literatures.

Do any of you out there—especially medievalists and ancient-lit people—have any advice on reading guides (or particularly good critical introductions) for professors? I welcome any tips or resources you might have to offer.

Breathe in...breathe out...envision yourself in a happy place

It's amazing how much crap can happen before one's day even gets started.

I was startled awake at 7:40am by the neighbors' barking dog. Good thing Telemachus (no, really, that's his name) decided to raise hell—I was supposed to be at Tiny Tech in 20 minutes, and my alarm hadn't gone off! I jumped out of bed and dashed through the house, pulling on clothes, feeding cats, and giving my face a perfunctory washing. Thankfully, my bed-head was manageable with a good combing.

I ran out and jumped in the truck; I was very glad I'd left my briefcase and books in there the night before. I started down the street and was just saying to myself, "Whew, I'll get there with three minutes to spare!"

The CHECK ENGINE light flickered on the dashboard. Thankfully, I was 50 feet from the driveway. I put the truck in reverse to get back into the driveway...and it flickered off again. "Oh, just a fluke," I said. I put the truck back into first gear; CHECK ENGINE, it told me again. So I backed up like a madwoman, parked the truck in the front yard (the level area where I always check the oil), and jumped into the Blue Mule instead.

This morning, I was very, very glad to have two vehicles. I am very fortunate, and I say that in complete earnestness. I would have been out of luck had the truck been my only transportation. I imagine that the truck's only problem is it needs some oil, but the funny thing is that I just topped off the oil last weekend. (It needed almost a full quart.) I hope it's not something new, as I just spent $300 getting the transmission fixed, and it'll cost at least $75 to get the truck towed to my favorite mechanic in D2U City.

No time to worry about that right now.

I'm stuck in the Tiny Technical College library all day today, giving exams. (This is not such a bad thing, as I'll be made to sit at the computer all day long and write up new syllabi, grade exams, and generally get stuff done.) After that, it's over to AMC for the evening comp class, and then home to collapse. Thursday is D2U all day long, then over to Small Military College in the evening for the first day of the new quarter. I'll be home at long last by 9:30pm Thursday night. The weekend promises lots of grading, grading, grading, plus getting together my special topics class proposal for AMC.

I can feel the familiar "nervous lump" in my throat—the one that at first makes me think I'm coming down with a cold, but that no amount of harrumphing or cough drops can fix. It makes me think I must be nauseous, since I can't swallow very well and don't want anything to eat. But, no; it's just the "nervous lump" again.

When I'm under a lot of stress, the lump always reappears. And it disappears just as quickly once the stress has passed. In the meantime, I breathe deeply, and take things one minute at a time.

Tiny Tech final exams: Houston, we already have a problem

Today was the final day of the quarter at Tiny Technical College, and also my deadline to drop from my classes the students who stopped participating. Getting these last-minute drops done isn't a big deal. I simply look in BlackBoard to see when the person last posted anything for the class, and then I send his/her name, student ID number, and last date of particpation to the registrar.

There was one name that stood out. Jimmy Troutmouth* had been on the roll all quarter long, but hadn't turned in any work. This would be easy. So I checked BlackBoard's "Statistics" section to see the last time he accessed the site. I thought the date would be something from a couple months ago.

Wait...he last accessed the site...Sunday morning? As in March 18, 2007? "This can't be right," I muttered to myself.

I clicked around and checked out the rest of the class site. Sure enough, Jimmy* has been posting pretty regularly on the Class Discussion Board, and posting some pretty good things, at that. But I've gotten NO written work from him, and have heard NOTHING from him about scheduling his final exam.

And when I give him his F on Friday morning, I know he's going to raise holy tee-total hell. Yes, he's an adult—but, still... [sigh]

I called William*, my supervisor, to give him a heads-up. He's probably going to need it when Jimmy* calls him next week, ranting and raving.

Doesn't this sound like a fairly-assigned F to you readers? It reminds me of the student we've ALL had in our face-to-face classes—the one who's fantastic in discussions and classroom exercises, but fails to turn in any papers or show up for tests.

I hope this is not a harbinger of things to come this week at Tiny Tech.

UPDATE, Tuesday 3/20, 6:42am: Jimmy Troutmouth has finally contacted me about a final exam. I can't be there Thursday morning at 11am, so he'll have to take it with a proctor. Maybe he won't fail after all. Maybe.

Sparse blogging for the week ahead

The coming week will be a very busy one. Tiny Technical College is conducting final exams through Thursday evening, and I will be over there in most of my free time on Tuesday and Wednesday. This will be the last quarter that I appear on campus without being paid for it, though. Starting in April, my students will need to make final exam arrangements through the Tiny Tech Online Learning Office. Those people get paid to be on campus, and they all only work one job. My contract does not state that coming to campus to give finals is part of my duties; this is the last quarter I will be doing TTC any favors.

Can you tell that I'm almost ready to tell Crazy Betty, my Tiny Tech supervisor, to shove it?

The life of an adjunct means going with the flow. When you're in demand, you're in demand, and when you're not...well, you're starving, and nobody wants you around. Spring Semester has been slim around here, and Summer was looking that way. But I was offered a last-minute World Lit I class at a new local community college, and this may turn into extra money for the summer. Small Military College (SMC) opened up a few years ago and serves as a junior college for non-traditional students looking to up their GPAs before they transfer to larger colleges. Many of the students are labeled "at risk," meaning that they're on the verge of dropping out of school due to social, work, and financial pressures. (For example, many SMC students are too poor to buy even the most pitiful used/abused textbooks; they instead get their books from the school via a Book Loan Program, in which they pay a small fee to borrow a textbook from the SMC Book Room, and then return it at the end of the term.) However, many of SMC's students are truly dedicated to getting an education; most are the first in their families to attend any kind of post-secondary institution. I have no idea how the gig at SMC will turn out, but I need the money badly. At least the classes are small—at most, my class will have 12 students.

Awesome Methodist College may or may not need me after all this summer. Dr. McCool mentioned that she's currently rearranging the summer schedule, and she can't get many full-time people to teach during the summer. So she told me that she'd let me know about a class there this summer. My AMC students have been lobbying Dr. McCool and the college's Vice-President for Academic Affairs to let me teach American Lit II this summer...and for that, I'm grateful to them.

If you don't see much activity on E&P this week, don't worry. I'm simply insanely busy. But I'll be back to regular, everyday posting next week.

And yes, Virginia, the Orange Project will continue as planned.

A tree grows in Brooklyn D2U City

And it smells like vomit.

Bradford pears are beautiful, but they smell horrible. I'd sit outside the English Building and enjoy the beauty, if the stench didn't overwhelm me so quickly.

Quick! Cover the children's eyes!

If you have them on your truck, does it mean you don't have any of your own?

I've seen these fake testicles (usually in shades of black or pewter but never red, which looks really painful to me) before—I call them Truck Nuts—usually on oversized, rednecked-up pickups flying down the road at 90 miles an hour. Sadly, I'd never seen a camion con cojones parked anywhere...until a couple weeks ago, in front of the D2U City Mall. (And I could not believe my good fortune. I made sure nobody was approaching, then whipped out my cell phone camera and snapped these pix. Ha! )

Then, several weeks ago, I happened upon this article from MSNBC.com. It seems that some Maryland lawmakers want to ban anatomically-explicit car ornaments in their fair state. Now, I don't exactly know where I stand on that issue, being simultaneously a big fan of freedom of expression AND a proponent of not exposing children to inappropriately sexual material...but still, I'm amused whenever I see Truck Nuts fly by me down the interstate.

When Truck Nuts make themselves known on your town's highways and by-ways, they will most likely be dangling from the underside of a large pickup truck or SUV. To date, I've seen them hanging from a Ford F-350 full-size pickup, a Ford Explorer (in the pictures above), and from a green Dodge Super-Ram V10 Power Stroke pickup. ("Super Ram?" "Power Stroke?" Anyone who'd put Truck Nuts on the underside of one of these is doing some serious wishful thinking. And I'm reminded of something the Colonel once said as we drove through Nashville traffic: "The only people who drive Dodge pickups are those who can't think for themselves.")

I think the idea is to mimic the testicles of large farm animals, such as bulls, pigs, horses, or even billy goats. If you've been to a farm, you are well aware of how ginormous these animals' testes are. A prize boar-hog of my grandfather's, who was eight feet long and weighed nearly 1,800 pounds, had a pair that looked like two soccer balls stuffed into piggy-colored hide. (I saw that boar when I was about four years old, and almost thirty years later cannot shake the image from the Etch-A-Sketch of my mind.)

Here, though, the idea falls flat. Or maybe I should say "limp." Heh.

Big testicles supposedly equal masculine vigor, sexual prowess, and courage. At least we humans think they do. For animals, it just means they mate all the time. "Full-male" animals tend to be incredibly stupid, and difficult to control. Ask anyone who's ever had to catch a boar who's escaped the pen, or the bull who's broken out of the pasture and gone down to the neighbor's cow pen.

A human being who mates all the time? Oh, my.

Propotionately speaking, Truck Nuts are still pretty small. A Ford Explorer weighs, oh, about 4,000 pounds. If it were a bull, its testicles would need to be at least the size of basketballs, and probably more along the lines of good-sized, height-of-summer watermelons. The ones in the photos above were about seven inches long and four inches wide.

Dude: your truck's still got tiny little nuts.

What do Truck Nuts on a vehicle really mean for humans? I'm reminded of another saying of the Colonel's: "If it's true, you don't have to brag."

The Orange Project: Week 7 UPDATE

I got a fresh, shiny orange in my lunch at today's faculty workshop. What a difference!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the world's best Mom! Hip-hip-HOORAY!

And HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY to Steve, the world's best stepdad! Hip-hip-HOORAY!

No, I didn't get Mom another cat for her birthday (she already has 11)—this is the stray that I fed in the parking lot of the local steakhouse last night, while waiting for Mom and Steve to arrive. The poor little thing was starving. I keep a can of cat food under the car seat for times like these, when I'm on the road and see a hungry, half-wild animal. (Mom and Steve also do this; Steve is especially funny getting a can of cat food from the sleeper in his 18-wheeler and pouring it out for truck-stop kitties.) I may not be able to get them to come to me, but I'm able to feed one of God's little creatures a full meal.

Apologies for the funky, small picture; this kitty wanted to talk to me and meowed very cordially, but got scared when I got closer than six or seven feet. So I settled for the 4x zoom shot on the cell phone camera.

The Orange Project: Week 7

Is this Week 7? Seems that way.

The orange is even more pitiful this week than last. It continues to shrink into a rough, citrusy ball, and becoems more lopsided with each passing day. So far, no students have commented on the orange, which isn't too surprising; they may not have even noticed it. Several colleagues, however, have asked, "When are you going to throw that nasty thing away?"

Next week: a fresh orange alongside this one for comparison.

When good students become slackers

Remember that glowing piece I posted last week about how great it is to teach at Awesome Methodist College, and how great the students there are?

I think I spoke a little too soon.

Last week marked the end of AMC's Winter Quarter. I administered my Comp II class's final exam Wednesday night, and after the exam, about half the class turned in their final portfolios. The deadline for the portfolios was Friday at 1:00pm—it was marked in big, bold-face letters on the syllabus—so I figured I'd be going back over to AMC to pick up an armload of folders Friday afternoon.

Friday afternoon came, and I drove over to AMC to pick up the folders. Barbara*, AMC's trusty receptionist, knew why I was visiting as I walked in the door. She handed me a folder.

Wait—one measly folder? "Is this all?" I asked Barbara.

"That's it," she replied. "How come?"

"Well..." I stared at the folder. "There were four other people who were supposed to be dropping in to give you their portfolios. This is ten percent of their final grade."

Barbara looked puzzled. "Funny, but that student whose folder you've got there was the only one to come by since Wednesday night."

So I thanked Barbara and went home to e-mail Dr. McCool*, my supervisor at AMC. (Her pseudonym is Dr. McCool because she IS so cool. If I can be half as cool as she is when I'm her age, I'll be fine.) I had the feeling that some of the students in that Comp II class would raise holy hell if their grades were lowered by an entire letter grade...even though they'd failed to turn in the portfolio as noted on the syllabus.

Dr. McCool's reply was prompt and to the point:
Kitty, I absolutely would not accept late portfolios. I follow a no ‘late assignments policy’ in all my classes, and it makes the students accept responsibility for getting the work done, without excuse. Even if you had not reminded them this week, the due date is on the syllabus. You’re right, there may be some repercussions. But, if they come to me, I’ll support you. And any time anyone talks to the Dean, his response is “What does your course syllabus say?” It is a difficult lesson, but a necessary one, I think. We want to support [evening students] without coddling them. ...So stick to your guns!

There we have it.

I think there will be some bitching and griping once final grades come out at the end of this week; students who had expected A's will be stuck with B's, and those expecting B's will be plunged into the C range. But it's too bad; the requirement was on the syllabus, we talked about it in class almost every meeting for the last two weeks of the quarter...and they should have damn well paid attention.

Spring is...springing

The first azalea blossoms are opening on the D2U campus. And they're beautiful.

I'm in the office today—even though it's a Sunday—because I'm not getting anything done at the house. Too many kitties to play with, too many messy areas to clean up. I figured I'd might as well come in and get a few piddling little things done today before the rush starts again tomorrow morning.

In which the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a train after all

This semester has found me increasingly ill-tempered and frustrated with all of my classes at all of my schools. I tend to barely prepare, then go teach, and then collapse at the end of a long day without giving much thought to the next day's preparation. This is very unlike me. But it is all I can manage to do right now.

Spring Break came just when I needed it. I don't think I could've managed another week or so without a major on-campus temper tantrum. It is in this week of relative peace that I've been able to relax and regroup just a little. Three years of 60- and 70-hour weeks are finally catching up with me.

Last Friday, I sat in Dr. Rhettencomp's* office and talked with him for about an hour. (He's the director of First-Year Composition at D2U, and a fellow University of Georgia alum.) I told him how frustrated I've been with ungrateful students this semester, and how working so hard for these last few years is slowly killing me. And since several of my classes got cancelled, my paychecks have slowly been decreasing. I'm currently bringing home half of what I was during Fall Semester.

"What frustrates me most is," Dr. Rhettencomp sighed, "is that there is nothing I can do except tell people you're leaving." He took another deep drink out of his coffee mug. "D2U is waaaay at the bottom of the scale in what Georgia universities pay their adjuncts, and while admin is giving you part-timers a lot of lip service and saying how much they treasure what you contribute, they're not putting their money where their mouths are." At Georgia, part-timers get $3500 per class...and benefits. At D2U, part-timers get $1500 per class...and the finger.

The only way for me to get hired on permanently is to have a Ph.D. But my old dilemma comes up again: who pays my bills while I'm in school full-time for four years? Newly-minted Ph.D.s are a dime a dozen; some people look for eight years or more before they find a permanent position. Now, if I were completely debt-free, I could see returning to school for a Ph.D. But running up $80,000 in student loans so I can get a job that might pay $40,000 per year seems to be an upside-down proposition.

I really like what I do, but there's not a financially feasible way for me to continue doing it.

Dr. Rhettencomp did his very best to help me feel better. "What pisses me off most," he continued, "is that you're one of our very best part-timers, and neither Dr. Pepper [department head] nor I can do anything to give you anything more than a part-time job here. So what happens is you leave, we lose an awesome teacher, and students complain because you left...and the bigwigs still won't give us enough money to permanently hire people like you."

"What do you think it'll take for the university to increase our budget?" I asked. I wasn't aware that I was one of the better instructors, nor that students would complain if I left.

"Well, don't hold your breath for it to happen," he sighed, "but it'll take our having to cancel and close sections of Comp I and II because we just don't have the instructors to teach them. It'll take students not being able to get the core courses they need. When mamas and daddies start calling President Franco* with complaints about 'My little Johnny can't get the English classes he needs! You better make it so he can,' we'll see some real progress. But until then...." He shrugged resignedly.

So we talked on about other options—perhaps getting a full-time job in the D2U Registrar's Office, or with the Recruitment Department, and teaching a couple of evening English courses on the side. And then I mentioned to Dr. Rhettencomp the bright side of this upcoming, very slim summer.

"I was thinking that maybe this summer, even though it's going to be one without much money, was what I've been needing all along. I've been needing a rest, and I've also needed some time to work on my book."

His expression brightened. "You're working on a book? Related to your article?"

"Well, no—this is a different project. It's about a sex scandal that happened in my hometown back in the '80s." I went on to tell him all the details—how the scandal involved many well-known "happily married" people in the town (judges and lawyers and preachers and city councilmen), how the town closed ranks when those accused of wrongdoing were hauled into court on public indecency and prostitution charges (no published reports of the cases in the local papers; the only information that townspeople had was through hearsay and rumor), and how, despite the powerful humiliation, many of the accused and convicted stayed here in the Small Town area.

Dr. Rhettencomp smiled. "Your book has legs," he said. "Get yourself an agent as soon as you can. In order to write a book with crossover appeal"— and he would know something about this, since both he and his sister have published books—"you need at least one of three elements: sex, money, or death. And you have at least two of those."

"Actually, I've got all three. At least one of the people involved ended up dying under mysterious circumstances."

"Seriously, Kitty," Dr. Rhettencomp continued, "you. need. to. get. an. agent. If you were to get on with a publishing house, perhaps you could get an advance and then spend a year or 18 months actually writing the book. You'd have money to live on and be doing what you love. You could always teach one evening class for us, if your writing schedule allowed."

So Dr. Rhettencomp and I finished up our conversation, and I came away feeling much better. What I'm doing now is difficult and may not offer me much hope for the future, but I have other options. I'm in the process of finding out how to write up a book proposal and get a literary agent. Maybe this project really does "have legs" after all.

The kindness of students

Awesome Methodist College (AMC, or AM4C) is a great place. I know I've said this before, but I haven't gone into much detail as to why I feel this way. But as I sit here on this Thursday morning, grading AMC students' final exams, something strange has happened—I've found myself saying, "Thank God that I have these great students" instead of "Lord, please help me get through these awful exam papers without vomiting."

AMC is a private college, funded by the United Methodist Church. While it's a religious school, this doesn't hamper the students' learning. A living, breathing spirituality, rather than "religion," is the emphasis at AMC. (We're all settled on the difference between those two, right? Good, I thought so.) Students are encouraged to question the beliefs they were brought up with, whether those beliefs are rooted in Christianity, secular humanism (for lack of a better phrase), or agnosticism. It's in this questioning that AMC believes their students' faith will be strengthened, and I'm inclined to agree. Students coming out of AMC with a diploma have graduated from one of the Top Ten best small colleges in the South, and have a unique approach to their faith.

But what about the Evening Program students—the ones I teach? Oh, they're even better than the day students.

The day students are young (18-23), and while they're brighter and better prepared for college than, say, my D2U students, quite a few are apathetic or spoiled. This is to be expected, at least a little, from this age group. The AMC evening students, on the other hand, range in age from 25 to 60, have at least five years of experience in the work world, have usually earned a certificate or Associates' degree from a small tech/community college, work full-time in addition to going to college, and have families. AMC Evening Program students have set goals for themselves, and they know what it's going to take to reach those goals. Rarely have I seen traditional (read: younger) students work this hard. If their writing's not up to par, AMC Evening students tend to come in for extra help, e-mail or call with questions on non-class days, and practice-practice-PRACTICE until they get it right. And for that, I love them.

And for the most part, my evening students are kinder and more generous than traditional day students. They've been through some of the rough patches along life's road, and they can emphasize with others in those situations. They don't mind sharing what they have, or accepting the kindness of others, to paraphrase Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

AMC evening classes meet from 5:50-7:50 and 8:00-10:00 two evenings a week (either M-W or Tu-Th). For the last three terms, I've taught the later class. This means that many students show up starving half to death and unable to concentrate until they get some food. But a ten-minute break doesn't leave much time to run to the local fast-food joint, or even find a vending machine on campus. So my Comp II students came up with a better solution: we would all take turns bringing a dish on each class night, so everyone could have a home-cooked meal, be able to concentrate on the class, and wouldn't arrive home at 10:30pm ready to chew the upholstery off the sofa.


The first night, one student brought chicken-and-rice casserole...

...along with homemade buttermilk biscuits that would make you slap your grandmama, they were so good.

Another class meeting, another student brought vegetable-beef stew that she'd had simmering all day in her Crock Pot at home.

Creamy, peppery potato soup was the entree the next class period.

For our last class, one student brought Kentucky Fried Chicken and all the fixins—mashed potatoes and gravy, cole slaw, potato salad, and biscuits. (She knows the manager at our local KFC and was able to finagle a good deal.) Sadly, I forgot to take pictures on the night when a student brought a mouth-watering meatloaf dinner, and the night when I brought chicken-poppyseed casserole and biscuits. But all the meals were wonderful, and we all were happy to be able to eat and discuss the material during the first part of class, and to arrive home late at night without our stomachs thinking our throats had been cut.

In next quarter's AMC class, I'll have four of this quarter's students. Hopefully, the new group will be as willing to share as this group has been. It's always a pleasure to teach such generous, hard-working, kind-hearted people, and for this I am forever grateful to Awesome Methodist College.

The Orange Project: Week 6

I think we're reaching the end of the Orange Project, though you can rest assured that I'll stretch this out as long as I can. I just like seeing what the orange does from week to week.

This week, our fruity friend has hardened into a barely-compressible burnt-sienna lump, all dented on the sides and smelling only vaguely of citrus. It's slightly smaller than a baseball, maybe about three inches in diameter. When I return to D2U next week—after Spring Break—I'll bring a fresh orange and photograph them for comparison.

Yes, although it's Spring Break, I'm here at D2U today. This is the second day this week I've come in, not to do any school work, but to clean this incredibly nasty office. It was probably last vacuumed out when Eisenhower was president. I cleaned out old papers from two summers ago, papers of students who moved on long ago, and almost filled our paper recycling bin to the top. Imagine a 55-gallon drum full of paper—that's how much I got out of the floor and desk drawers and bookshelves. I vacuumed thoroughly, burned an incense cone, wiped down the desktop with Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, and brought in some new potpourri. I even took home the blankets I keep handy (because the building is usually freezing cold, even in summer) and washed them in hot water with lots of soap.

This place smells better already.

An R-rated conversation with Mom

Afternoon at the Happy Kitten Cottage...

ME: [while surfing the web] Hey, listen to this article that's on MSNBC.com today: Growing up healthy: Cirumcision flip-flop in the air? [laughs]

MOM: So they're making flip-flops out of foreskins these days?

ME: Hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!!!! [doubles over]

MOM: Well, at least they'll never be hard up for materials.

The reason I got a chicken in the first place

A few readers have inquired as to Myrtle Mae's whereabouts. Did I give her away? Did an errant cat get the best of her? Did I turn her into dumplings? The answer to all of the above is "No." Myrtle Mae is alive and well, but Mama has been frustrated with a sassy red chicken the last few months.


I got a chicken for eggs (among other reasons, not the least of which are slug control and fertilizer), but when she began eating her own eggs at the end of last summer, I found myself actually having to buy eggs at the store. Of course, I got the free-range, vegetarian-fed, no-antibiotics eggs. While they were much tastier and of higher quality than the usual 79-cents-a-dozen eggs from the store, they still weren't like backyard eggs.


Myrtle's eggshells are very hard—it takes about three times the usual egg-cracking effort to get hers open. And the yolks are bright-orange, as opposed to the light-yellow hue of most eggs. And that's no yolk. (Sorry. Couldn't help myself.)


But yesterday, as I was piddling around the house, I heard a sound I've not heard since the end of last summer. "Brk-brk-brk-brk-b'GOCK! Brk-brk-brk-brk-b'GOCK!"—the Mama-I-just-laid-an-egg cluck. My sweet red-feathered girl was prancing about the henhouse, telling the whole neighborhood of her triumph. Of course, I scooped it up and brought it in the house as quickly as I could, lest Myrtle try to eat this one, too.

"Whatcha got for me, Mama? Brrrrk?"

I gave Myrtle a couple handfuls of cat food, which she gulped down as she shared the back porch with the outdoor cats. I'll probably give her a chopped hard-boiled egg today, just to supplement her protein intake. (It takes a significant amount of daily protein for a chicken to produce an egg. And I'm still researching the worm-raising thing.)

You've all no doubt seen the reports on the news of the fierce tornadoes that broke out Thursday evening across Alabama and Georgia. Several of you have posted or e-mailed asking if everyone here at the Happy Kitten Cottage is all right. We're fine, I'm happy to say; there was only heavy rain and wind here in Small Town. I'll post more on the tornadoes later. This is a topic very familiar to me, as February and March are "tornado season" here in the Deep South.

When I least expect it, a happy tidbit.

I got word today that my article is going to be published in a small journal. Hooray!

Of course, this happens as I start thinking about a career change. Figures, doesn't it?

Here's your paper—call someone who cares

Now I can't get that Travis Tritt song out of my head. Dammit.

I am almost done grading papers; one more class to go. Whoopeeeee! Then a meeting at which all attendees will be fed a gourmet lunch. And then my Spring Break begins a day early. I thought it would never get here!

Today is the last day for students to drop classes and get a W (withdrawn) on their records. I have the feeling that quite a few will be dropping my classes. I was amazed at the number of people who failed to show up for a conference and some help. I've given out a surprisingly high number of D's this time around. So I look for a reduction of at least one-third in my Comp II classes, and perhaps a few of the 20 remaining students in Comp I will also drop.

It's all the same to me. Fewer students = fewer papers to grade. Bring on the Spring Break sleepytime!