Up early...and off

I am up very early this morning to finish grading, as today is the last day of D2U classes before Spring Break. This evening, I'm off to visit my sister in Denver for all of next week. And, of course, I'll blog from out West.

Hip-hip-HOORAY! for Spring Break. It couldn't have come at a better time.

A watched pot never boils

I'm talking to you, Ernest.

And you guys, too, Clark and Fred.

What is it with kitties having to watch me make my morning oatmeal? They never lick the bowl when I'm done—cold wet noses turn up. [sigh]

Please ignore the messy kitchen; it's two days before Spring Break begins, and cleaning is the last thing on my mind.

Like molasses in February

Sorry for the erratic posting schedule lately. I'm dealing with some major personal issues and have been so deeply depressed that it's been hard to get out of bed most mornings. Most days, I feel like I'm in slow motion, and everyone else is at normal speed. When most people would be out having fun, I sit around and cry for hours.

I'm not yet ready to talk about these issues on E&P—they do have something to do with previously-mentioned posts, topics, and characters, and not at all the ones you'd expect—but I'm dealing with them little by little and will eventually blog on them. When I've made more sense of it all, I'll fill you in.

I'm in counseling and have recently started on meds, which should help me at least get my job done while I deal with all the crap. The bright side to all this is that I've been clinically depressed before, so I know a little more of what to expect...and that it is possible to get better.

Thanks for your readership and support, E&P-ers. I'm still going to try to post regularly, but if you see a gap of a few days, don't worry—I'll be back soon.

Myrtle Mae Monday: 02/25/08

"Myrtle Mae Monday"—I like the sound of that. Perhaps we should make this a regular, weekly feature. Anything to relieve Monday boredom, right?

Since her escape artistry a few months ago, I've been keeping Myrtle Mae in her coop when I'm not home to watch her. And since I've been getting home rather late in the evenings lately, she hasn't had a lot of time to run around and peck at random bugs. But I spent the entire weekend at home this past weekend, and my sassy red-feathered girl rewarded me with more crazy antics. With a chicken around, who needs TV?

Myrtle Mae scares off Kamakura and Erngeakura from their cat food. Heh.

Showdown with Erngeakura: I'll give you one guess who won.

Sadly, this new cheap-ass cell phone of mine doesn't take pix quickly enough for me to have caught the peck-peck-peck-peck-PECK!!! that followed smack dab in the middle of Erngeakura's head.

Myrtle Mae enjoys her steamed brown rice while basking in a sunbeam. Ahhhhhhh.

Student Essay Insanity #28-B!

Again, I bring you an unexpected gem in the huge stack of papers I'm currently grading. Not all the essays I get are bad ones.

This Tiny Technical College student wrote an essay on the crazy things that happened to her and her husband on their wedding day. Due to circumstances beyond their control, they couldn't have a church wedding, so they chose the nearest location available:

The floor of the [Bumpkin County 4-H Center] reception hall was plain gray concrete, like a garage floor, and the walls were cinder blocks painted in white and pea-green with poster-sized murals of agricultural settings. Yes, I mean pictures of tractors and cows.

I almost did a spit-take at that last part. But as a wannabe farm girl, I think murals of tractors and cows at a wedding are a nice touch. Add some chickens, and you're set.

A lasting gift

The year I moved into the Happy Kitten Cottage, my sister was in a quandary about my birthday gift. She'd given me a housewarming gift already, and I had plenty of clothes, makeup, and shoes. But she'd noticed during her last visit that I had half a dozen gardening catalogs lying around. "How about I get you something to plant in your yard?" she asked.

"Brilliant!" I replied. "And that way, I can enjoy your present year after year!"

So Pixie sent me a mix of 25 daffodil bulbs from Wayside Gardens. I planted them on a windy, cold late-November afternoon, when it was almost dark, hours before Mom and I left to drive north on another trip to see her family in Michigan. Planting them in small clusters willy-nilly around the yard, I sprinkled a little fertilizer in the holes with the bulbs, covered them up, watered them well, and promptly forgot about them.

Until spring, that is, when I was rewarded with a glorious show of yellow, orange, and cream ruffles sprouting out of my otherwise dead-looking lawn. And these tough little plants continue to amaze me, almost ten years later.


The ones on the north side of the house are just beginning to make buds...

...while those on the south side are already showing their deviled-egg colors.

Every year when I see my daffodils, I think of my sister, and how lucky I am to have her love and friendship. How many people can call their sister their best friend? I am fortunate indeed, and the little daffodils remind me of it every spring.

I love you, Pixie. Thank you yet again.

Ernie's Pest Control

Whenever I find a bug in the Happy Kitten Cottage, I don't scream or jump onto a chair in fear. Instead, I call for Ernest. He's one of my few kitties who will come running when called (Clark and Graya are the other two), and 'Nesto is always in the mood for Roach Hockey.

He took care of the one above pretty quickly this morning. I can't find any roach legs or wings around, which must mean...oh, eeeuuuww.

Kitteh sprouts!

I returned from my walk this evening to find that this window box had sprouted a Mooakura. Will wonders never cease?!?

And that's Elvis in the background.

Calling in well

Ernest enjoys the slow, steady heat of the portable radiator.

For every month I work, I earn eight hours of sick leave. Today, I took advantage of one of those sick days. While I have a touch of upset stomach from something I ate last night, it's nothing that would normally keep me from teaching.

But today was just going to be a "mental health" day. I could not see going in to face students again without catching up on a few other areas of my life. Today, I slept in, and have been sipping hot tea while making some progress on the big stack of papers on my desk; I'll be going to bed very early tonight, after supper.

As my sister says, "Sometimes, you just gotta call in well."

It's Myrtle Mae Monday!

My sassy feathered friend caught snoozing on the porch steps Saturday afternoon. Priceless!

Small Town graffiti

On a walk this morning, I caught sight of this brand-new graffiti on the underside of a railroad bridge here in Small Town. Funny—I wasn't aware Kali was making appearances around these parts.

Seriously, though, random things like this always catch my eye. They seem to be part joke, part serious thought in a too-busy-to-notice world.

Sorry for the lack of posts—much has been going on this week. But I'll have SBCC updates and some chicken pictures soon.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY 2008!

Hope all of you have a wonderful V-Day today! My students were mighty disappointed that they'd still have to come to class today...heh-heh. I told them that time management skills apply to holidays, too—they'd have to schedule class around dinner, a movie, and gettin' some action.

Today also marks six years since my very first day shift at the Jaguar Lounge.* Ahh, how time flies when we're busy living life!

Usually, we (especially women) look forward to getting gifts from our significant other on Valentine's Day. But I decided to give myself a gift this February 14: I called my division chair at Tiny Technical College and let her know I'd like to switch from teaching online to getting back in the classroom. I'm not cut out for online teaching, and have finally admitted it to myself—no shame there. It was once good for me and fit my lifestyle, but being full-time at D2U has left me without any real time or energy to devote to online students. If I don't actually see the students, I don't actually think about them until it's too late. And the students deserve the best quality instruction they can get; I'm not providing that to them.

So I don't know if the division chair, whom I don't think has really ever liked me that much, will invite me to stay on as a part-time evening instructor for just a couple classes. But as I did when I made the decision to quit SBCC, I know that this is the right one for me. I may be a little more broke in the meantime, but the extra money will come back in from somewhere.

Oh, my bumper neeeeeds this.

Saw this in the parking lot of the local fancy steakhouse Saturday night, when Mom and Steve took me out for a celebratory one-more-year-of-full-time-employment-with benefits dinner. And yes, those are my sexy feet in high heels and pantyhose that you see reflected in the chrome bumper.

[sigh] Perverts.

You can get a sticker like the one above right here. Johnny Cash certainly is a friend of mine, God rest his soul.

Student Essay Insanity #28-A!

You know the drill: real students, real essays, real bloopers, real really bad.

I'm currently grading an online Tiny Technical College quiz. The question:
Why are revising and proofreading one's work so important?

One student's answer:
To catch any mistakes you make wrighting the paper.

[headdesk]

SBCC: A Community College Goes Down in Flames, Part 2

If you're just now tuning in to this sad-but-true tale, you can catch up here.

**************************

But I dismissed the weird thoughts. At least Small 'Bama Community College had a new president. Dr. Hickey* gave me serious heebie-jeebies the one time I'd seen his smarmy, greasy ass on campus. Conversely, Dr. Joke* seemed like a nice enough person, and maybe she'd get things done. The meeting ended, and I went on my merry way.

I knew something was deeply wrong at SBCC from the first semester I taught there. Unlike at other colleges, where part-time instructors sign contracts at the very start of the term, SBCC did not offer adjuncts that opportunity. "We just don't do thangs that waaaaay," the division chair told me. She'd been teaching at SBCC since 1964, and probably hadn't changed her lesson plan since then, either. "We wait until the iiiiind of the semester," she told me, pinching the vowel in "end" until it squealed—as do so many people in east Alabama and west Georgia.

"Until the end of the term?"

"That's raaaaght," she replied, and smiled a tight-lipped little smile. I was suspicious—this arrangement sounded to me as if it were a way to can part-timers for no reason mid-semester, or maybe a way to funnel money in a byzantine way through Instructional Services. But I desperately needed the $1200 per semester. Tips at the Jaguar Lounge were getting mighty weak in the post-9/11 economy.

Yes, you read correctly: $1200 per class for a 16-week semester.

But I was relieved that at least a little money was coming my way, and I didn't have to take my clothes off in front of strangers for it. So I forgot for a while about the contract stuff. I needed that few hundred extra dollars each month. My students in those first two SBCC classes were pretty nice, and we learned a lot from each other that semester as I got back into the teaching groove after two years away.

Early December finally arrived, and as I was getting ready to give my classes their final exams, the elderly fellow who was the evening coordinator at SBCC-Podunk motioned for me to come up to the front desk. "Kitty, don't forget to sign your contract before you leave tonight." I told him I could sign right then, so he retrieved my slip of paper from a folder deep in an ancient desk, and slid it across the table to me.

Today was December 6. The contract? Dated August 18. I looked at it, pen poised to sign, and must have wrinkled my brow. "Oh, don't worry about the date," the old man said. "We always do it that way."

"Ummmm, yeah," I muttered, and signed with a very heavy heart. I knew right then not to make too many waves at SBCC.

The next day, I called the Alabama Department of Labor to inquire about such a weird contract arrangment. Wasn't it illegal? Or was it legal if I'd gone ahead and signed what seemed like an illegal document? Could I write in the real date on which I'd signed it, and then initial next to it? What could I do if I weren't offered a contract but had been offered the classes? Wasn't there someone I could talk to who'd straighten out SBCC on this? Wasn't SBCC taking advantage of part-time instructors who really needed the money? It seemed shady on more than a few fronts.

I explained the situation to the moonlight-and-magnolias-sounding woman on the other end of the line, who sounded a little irritated to have been bothered in the middle of her Junior Women's Club luncheon. "Way-ull," she sighed, "I'm not really sure who you could cawll. Maybe a law-yer? Or the guuuv'nuh's office?"

I was amazed (but probably shouldn't have been) that someone working for the Alabama agency that is supposed to be watching out for working people wouldn't know where to send a part-time college professor with her labor questions. And much later, I heard rumors that Dr. Hickey* had Gov. Bob Riley in his back pocket, too. So much for going straight to the top, huh?

Very slowly, as I stayed at SBCC and tried to make a difference, I came to the conclusion that the school was, and would always be, stuck in the Alabama of 50-plus years ago. The students were apathetic because many of the instructors and admin were apathetic, and there was a very deep, pessimistic vibe running throughout SBCC personnel. "Why try to change things? Nobody higher-up gives a damn," the vibe seemed to say. I would see my hunch confirmed in the 40-page report on SBCC, and was glad to know that I wasn't the only person there who felt deeply discouraged.

One thing that really turned the tide for me about SBCC was possible plagiarism in my online English 101. One fall semester, I had some evidence that my distance-learning students were plagiarizing their essays, and I wanted an easier way to discourage such abuse of the internet. So I called D2U's rep for TurnItIn.com, the anti-plagiarism website, and explained to him that SBCC was a small college, not much of a budget, and was offering only my one little online comp class. Could TurnItIn offer us a special deal? Nothing fancy, but just the basic anti-plagiarism tools? The rep said he'd ask his supervisor and get back to me.

That same afternoon, the TurnItIn salesman called me back with an offer: unlimited uploads for plagiarism detection, one section of Comp I, three semesters, would cost SBCC...are you ready? A total of $300. For one year. I almost fell over, I was so excited. D2U pays almost $10,000 per year for that sort of service. (And yes, D2U has thousands more students than SBCC, but that's a different story.)

So I went to Dr. Murphy*, the very weird, very tightly-wound head of SBCC's Academic Division. Just like Dr. Hickey*, Dr. Murphy* gives me serious heebie-jeebies: he bears an incredible resemblance to Rev. Jim Jones. Other SBCC adjuncts have remarked how tense and about-to-explode Dr. Murphy* often seems; I wonder, as this scandal widens, whether SBCC will be his Peoples' Temple.

"Dr. Murphy," I began as I sat down in his office, "I have an idea for my online English 101 that I think will bring the class quality up to the highest standards." Remember, too, that SBCC's English classes do not emphasize the writing process; rather, they're still mandating all in-class essays for all English classes, no matter the level.

I explained the deal that the TurnItIn rep had offered SBCC, and Dr. Murphy* seemed interested. While SBCC wasn't a big school with a big budget, I explained, TurnItIn had offered us an incredible price, and it was an absolute steal.

Dr. Murphy's* expression darkened suddenly. "Nope. Can't do it, Kitty."

"Why not, sir?"

"Too expensive. Just too expensive. Sorry." Of course, SBCC had just spent $10,000 on an electronic billboard for the Podunk campus. Wanna know where that billboard is right now? Sitting in a warehouse either on the Podunk campus, or in town nearby—nobody knows for sure.

Somehow, I knew not to press my luck with the TurnItIn issue.

"Oh, all right. Thanks for your time, Dr. Murphy." I excused myself and headed to my car so I could get to SBCC-Podunk for class. I wondered all the way to Podunk why $300 was such an extravagant sum of money when admin offices were so richly appointed, when SBCC-owned vehicles were always brand-new and completely loaded, and when the men's baseball team had just been built a $4 million facility in Dingleberry*, Alabama, on the main campus.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Cat in chair = no grading today

Fred looks mighty comfortable in my computer chair. So much for getting a jump on the coming week's work!

SBCC: A Community College Goes Down in Flames, Part 1

If you're new to Educated & Poor, or haven't seen the previous posts about Small 'Bama Community College, you can get up to speed here, here, and here.

************

So I was lying in bed one morning a few weeks ago, sleepily thinking over ways to start this series on Small ‘Bama Community College's finally getting nailed by the state board. I sleep with the radio on in the bedroom, softly playing NPR in the background, and Morning Edition was on. And it featured this awesome article on pulp fiction novels of the 1930s and ‘40s...

Turning up the bottle of Thunderbird at her lips, Miss Kitty peered out the window at the SBCC parking lot. She'd seen this kind of community college before. Apathetic. Bible-thumping. Narrow-minded. Never subtle. Under SBCC's provocative ignorance lay potential as bright as a two-watt lightbulb.

OKay. So the crime noir approach wouldn't work.

Seriously, I’ve had a hard time being snarky about the whole SBCC scandal. I knew there were some funny dealings over there, especially the bit about back-dating the adjunct faculty’s contracts, but I didn’t expect there was THIS MUCH wrong.

So I’ll try to explain a little—as best I can—about what went down, who got caught, and what happens from here on out. As hard as I try, I still can’t seem to wrap my brain fully around the whole fiasco. Everything I write here is paraphrased/retold from newspaper reports and the Two-Year College Board’s 40-page report on Small ‘Bama Community College; it’s too outrageous for even me to make up. Ambitious readers can probably Google a few things and find out exactly which small college SBCC really is.

One of the fellows who was indicted in the Alabama State Fire College scandal—the original black eye on the state’s two-year college system—also used to be president of Small ‘Bama Community College. Dr. Hickey* was very quietly dismissed a few years ago as SBCC president, a couple years after I started there (this was Fall 2005). Seems he’d embezzled tens of thousands of dollars from the college, and used his position to get a $7 million home built for almost nothing in the countryside near the school. The McMansion has a $55,000 stereo system running throughout. The damn thing belongs on MTV’s Cribs. But—wait. It’s in tiny little Podunk, Alabama, a backwater town to beat all backwater towns, and is owned by a guy who’s…ummm, a retired professional athlete? No. CEO of a Fortune 500 company? No. An eccentric millionaire from overseas? No. A community college president? Bingo!

Dr. Hickey*—who bears a striking resemblance to former Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, and THAT ought to tell you something—was also accused of many other things, including discriminatory hiring practices, intimidating SBCC staff members, using state funds and facilities for his own personal gain, and so on. The most egregious example of this was when the state board had decided to force him to resign from SBCC, and the college was faced with choosing a new president in very short order. He had treated SBCC as his own “personal feeding trough,” as commenter Suz put it so well, and was enraged that he’d be asked to step down for any reason. (Looking back, he's acted just like a stereotypical criminal: he reacts so strongly to the allegations that we know he's got to be guilty. "The gentleman doth protest too much," as the old phrase goes.)

So a meeting was called at SBCC’s main campus to elect Presidential Search Committee members, and all faculty and staff were ordered to show up. When one professor called SBCC from the emergency room of the local hospital, where she was suffering chest pains, and asked that the message be given to Dr. Hickey* that she couldn’t make the meeting, the prof was told she’d either be there, or would lose her job.

This is the kind of behavior for which Dr. Hickey* is famous. And it was tolerated and even encouraged at SBCC, the same place that is supposed to be helping local people be better citizens and people.

Dr. Hickey* arrived at the meeting twenty minutes late, and boiling-mad. In tow were two of his cronies: Mr. Joke* (in charge of financial aid, which at SBCC is a joke in and of itself) and Mr. Flakey* (all-around maintenance man and Dr. Hickey’s* personal driver, who was making upwards of $60,000/year in a position that the state had only advertised as paying $29,000/year). Dr. Hickey* tore into the assembled faculty and staff right away, with his good ol’ boy buddies staring menacingly at the attendees.

“We gonna run this meetin’ my way, or the highway,” Dr. Hickey began. “I put all y’all where you are, and I can take you out, too. Ain’t that right, Bobby?” he nodded to Mr. Joke*. Dr. Hickey* and the other two men laughed. "Y'all are gonna get with my vision for SBCC." He proceeded to tell SBCC staff who would be put on the Presidential Search Committe (so much for a fair vote!) and who his hand-picked Search Committee would hire as the school’s next president. "And our new President is gonna clean house," he continued. All those faculty and staff who had ever crossed Dr. Hickey*—meaning, the ones who had gone to the state board after his indictment for the Fire College scandal and told of his highly unethical doings at SBCC—were going to be gone.

Mr. Flakey* and Mr. Joke* counted the votes at the meeting. It was a forced unanimous vote for all Dr. Hickey's committee members; everyone present HAD to vote in favor of them, knowing they would be naming Dr. Joke as the new president in short order. In the State Board's report, all of the people present at the meeting reported feeling very threatened by the whole process:

--"The search was rigged from day one."
--"We couldn't report anything, because AEA [Alabama Educators Association] was in Hickey's back pocket."
--"I never felt so threatened in my life."
--"He [Hickey] handpicked the committee. ...that meeting undermined the intergrity of the office of the Chancellor and of Small 'Bama Community College."

And so on.

Later that week, the presidential search interviews went ahead as planned. Candidates from all over the Southeast were brought in, and Dr. Hickey* and his buddies secretly videotaped both the interviews AND the conversations in the break room between search committee members. They laughed uproariously every time a candidate expressed how much he/she would love to lead SBCC. They already knew who was getting the position, and she didn’t even have to interview for it. Dr. Joke*, Mr. Joke’s wife, was one of their ass-kissers, and would be rewarded for her ass-kissing. It was "already a done deal," as one SBCC faculty member told the State Board during the investigation.

(A side note: Dr. Ford*, chief of Academic Affairs at Tiny Technical College and one of my favorite people there, was one of the finalists for the SBCC president’s job. It pains me to think that such a kind, intelligent, and earnest fellow—who is so committed to community colleges, their students, and their mission—was recorded and laughed at by Dr. Hickey* and his shitstain buddies.)

I recall being at the general faculty meeting in August 2005 when Dr. Joke's* appointment as SBCC president was made official. I sat there next to my fellow adjuncts and wondered why I hadn't heard anything about Dr. Hickey's sudden "retirement." Dr. Joke* looked to be a nice enough person, but I also wondered how on earth two people (she and her husband) could work so closely together for almost 30 years, one serving as the other's direct supervisor, and not have anyone question the arragement. (Dr. Joke* and Mr. Joke* both worked at SBCC for decades, and switched out being each other's bosses about half a dozen times.) It just seemed weird to me.

TO BE CONTINUED…

More Random Friday Thoughts

It's been one of those weeks where the semester is finally in full swing, and first-essay due dates are quickly approaching. I've had students in my office all week, asking for help with papers...I'm so lucky this term to have two sections of Comp II—that's 47 students!— who actually give a damn about their papers. Hallelujah and praise the LAWD!

So here are some random thoughts running through my head this Friday afternoon.

• Fiber.
• Ocicat: WANT.
• Man, if this office had a toilet...
• Should've majored in Japanese.
• I need more Alabama tags.
  
  

Student Essay Insanity #27!

Contrary to what many readers may think, not all of the essays I get are bad ones. Sometimes while grading papers, I find something that's truly funny—something a student wrote on purpose to make readers laugh, and which actually works. In a conference with a student this morning, I found the following sentence that made me laugh out loud; with his permission, I share it with you here. The essay in part discusses the student's father's barn full of junk and general reluctance to throw anything away.

Even a 30-year-old home stereo with blown speakers, long past any hope of repair, won't get to see what Garbage Heaven looks like anytime soon.

Sentences like this totally make my professorial day.

Bad weather blows in with Ash Wednesday

Today finds Division II University and most of the rest of the state under a tornado watch. As I type, it is pouring down rain outside, with winds gusting upwards of 30 miles per hour. After arriving at D2U a little soggy and wind-blown, I opened my e-mail to find the following message. Things got snarky pretty quickly—this was even more fun than Student Essay Insanity.

The statewide tornado drill originally scheduled for today has been moved to Friday (2/8).
Because we've got the real thing today! Hot diggity damn!

If the weather sirens go off today, it will not be a drill.
So sit down in the hall, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye!

The National Weather Service has put this area under a tornado watch until 2 p.m. today. A watch means that conditions are favorable for a tornado to form.
See that baby-shit-green sky?

If a tornado is spotted, a tornado warning will be issued and the weather sirens will go off.
But before you figure out what that grooonk-groooonk-grooonk noise is, you’ll probably wet your drawers.

You should immediately go to the lowest part of your building and seek shelter away from windows during a severe weather alarm.
It's comforting to know that the architectural clusterfuck of a building that I'll be in all day today has NO window-free areas in which to hide. Facial lacerations, anyone?

The alarms should sound again when it's safe to leave your shelter.
But if you’re clear on the other side of campus from your office, dead, mud-smeared, and stripped of clothing from the waist down by 200mph winds, it won’t matter a whole helluva lot.

In happier news, the same prof who brought me back the beads (and no, BaxtersMum, I don't think she performed any illicit sexual acts for them—but I'll ask and make sure) also brought back a King Cake, a New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition.


It was the second King Cake I'd ever eaten, and boy, was it good. It's a cross between bread and cake, or a cross between phyllo dough and a cinnamon roll: sort of flaky, and not too sweet. And it's covered in purple, green, and gold icing (those are the traditional Mardi Gras colors).

Another neat tradition around the King Cake is the tiny baby figurine baked inside. The meaning of the baby figurine varies depending on whom you ask, but the most common ones I've heard are that it brings good luck, and the person who gets the baby in their slice of cake buys the cake next year.

And I got the baby!

I e-mailed my fellow prof and her husband to let them know the figurine had ended up in my piece of the cake. "Guess you better pack your bags for Mardi Gras 2009!" they replied.

Hoooo-weeeee! Hell, I feel Cajun already.


Here's the baby all cleaned up, without batter or icing. Hooray!

Laisser les bon temps rouler!

Ah, oui, tout le monde—enfin, c'est Mardi Gras!

A fellow prof went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans last weekend (lucky devil!) and brought me back these beads. So awesomely tacky! And I'm wearing them all day today, during individual conferences with students.

Of course, that's Redneck Office decor in the background—license plates and other assorted junk on the wall. I moved my Christmas lights to around the door, so students would be able to find my office in the lab-rat maze that is the English Building. I have some more old-fashioned C-7 and C-9 lights to go in the office, and am hoping to find some of those awesome "shotgun shell" Christmas lights in the sale bin at Tractor Supply.

This bracelet is from one of the all-female Krewes in New Orleans, I think. Their symbol is the high-heeled shoe. So cool!

Satan's Own Chewy Glazed Iniquity

The students from Sigma Tau Delta (the national English honor society) are having their semi-annual fundraiser this week. Damn them.

Even if Lucifer himself offered it to me, I could not turn it down. [zombie voice] Yeeeeeessss, Evil One. Doooooooo-nuuuuuts!

So I ordered three boxes. [sigh]

One of the cholesterol-raising fundraising students went to Mardi Gras last weekend, and brought back tons of beads and commemorative cups for those of us who pre-ordered. Now I can throw beads at my students when they say something brilliant in class, and they can get beads without having to flash anyone.

Oh, wait. Nix the beads idea.

Some Clarky, to tide you over

This weekend proved to be a whirlwind of paper-grading, and then of football-watching and snack-munching, so that's why I posted nary a new or interesting thing. My bad, readers. I'm working on a couple of different posts—including a recap of all the shit that went down at Small 'Bama Community College!—and will have them up in the next few days.

In the meantime, here's my big, fat Clark lying in the kitchen floor one day last summer. Girth incarnate!

Random Friday thoughts

This week has been a pretty busy one, school-wise, and I find I have a dearth of interesting things to post right now. Mostly, it's been a lot of lesson-planning and busy-work, with getting my Regents' students prepped for the exam (that'll be early March) and my Comp II students ready to begin work on their first essay. So while I think up more interesting and engaging posts, here are a few random thoughts running through my head this Friday morning.

• Mini-Wheats + coffee = butt explosion
• Ernest just farted. Do I still have eyebrows?
• It's February. I should have more boogers in my nose.
• Dog bark?
• Boric acid, yogurt, apple cider vinegar.
• Wrinkles and zits. Isn't this special?