Untimely Students

Our friends make fun of my husband because he is ultra timely. On-time for him means five minutes before the actual arrival time, which, honestly, can be a bit annoying. It got to the point if we were one minute late, people would begin to wonder where we are.

As annoying as I find this socially (really, do you want to be the only person at a party yet to get started?), I carry it in my academic career. As an undergrad, I was about 20-30 mins early to every class. As a grad student, I am still that early but don't go into the actual class until maybe ten minutes to starting time (and I'm still the only person in there!).

The one time I was late to a graduate class was horrendous. It was my very first semester of grad school and this class was insanely over my head and taught by Dr. Bigwig. What made it truly awful was that I drove all the way to campus and once there realized I did not have my wallet on me. So not only did I not have my parking card, but I also didn't have any cash for the parking garages or meters that make up parking at the school. I don't do well in these situations, so I panicked. I feel it is also important to note that this was late summer and my car's air conditioning wasn't the best. So, since I am freakish about getting to class on time, I had maybe 45 mins before class started. I drove like a maniac back home, grabbed my wallet, and sped back to class, hyperventilating the entire time. I parked, ran in the thick humid heat to class, and burst into a room of students with their desks all in a circle. You know the circle. There was the briefest pause as I felt all eyes on me, and then the conversation continued. No empty spots were in the circle, so for the first half of the class, my red, flustered, sweaty self was sitting right behind the circle.

I don't remember how late I was, but it was probably about 15-20 mins late. And wow, talk about overreacting.

But maybe it is this sense of urgency that made me so angry when the class I was teaching ended and as I was packing up my things, two of my students who had been absent, sauntered into the class, looked around, and said oh-so-casually:

"I guess we missed class."

Uh, you think? Not to mention, they had an in-class essay to write that day! Where was the urgency, the stress, the fear?

Or what about another student, who walked into the class with two minutes left to go and asked to sign the attendance sheet.

Where does that self-assurance come from? What makes these students believe that class is like a drop-in party, a Open House? And why, oh why, does nobody seem to stress themselves out to high levels of anxiety like I do?

Entertainment on a Sunday Night

Reading this post, I realize here is where I expose myself as an a-hole and a dirty mind. Please forgive me.

I have noticed in the past that my students like to use flowery, creative language so this year I am stressing poetic language through exercises that practice similes and metaphors. With that background, (and remember that I am keeping in all typos):

If I am a plant I will be a flower...The differents between me and the flower is that it's a plant and I am a human being. Flower people give to each other as gift and I am not.

Wait, so I can't give you as a gift? And are you sure that there isn't a flower sitting in on my class?

A square has a simple method 4x. This method means four times X; this method gives you the area. My method is simple, but different method I never trust any one and I don't like person who lie.

Or, as a friend and I were reading it last night, "and I don't like PERSON WHO LIE!" Oh man, we're assholes.

That paper has a nice, red "See Me" on the bottom so we'll see how that goes.

I had a really good time reading these papers last night with a friend and I think we have added nicely to our bag of inside jokes. It is so nice to laugh at this sometimes because, man, it can be really depressing. I worry, and I stress, and I work with these students, and I bring in other exercises, and I give them recommendations, and I stay after class with them, and I do all of this just to see the slightest change. So to crack up about it later...I feel a little better.

One more paper. This is from a descriptive essay in which they had to use the five senses to describe an item. Can you guess what is being described?

...the inside should be a dark pink color. It's kind of hard yet soft at the same time because if you pierce with with your nails, it tears. The inside feels wet and kind of spongy. It's a very distinct and sour flavor that is kind of overwhelming to the tongue.

Maybe it was because I was reading this surrounded by a bunch of guy friends watching the U.S.-Canada hockey game last night, but my mind was racing, trying to figure out what the hell this person is describing. Give up?

A grapefruit.

Was my mind the only one in the gutter?

Problems with the Peacock

NBC is on my shit list. First, they screwed over Conan O'Brien, the funniest person on late night, and now they are royally screwing over the Olympics and Olympic (wannabe) viewers like me.

Tuesdays are my days off, meaning the day I try to squeeze in vast amounts of grading, writing, and reading. Usually these days also consist of various distractions and I was hoping the Olympics could be one of those. I love the Olympics. I will watch any competition with a sappy human interest story behind it. I even made my husband spend hours with me this past weekend watching cross-country skiing. Well, it was the one when they also shoot the gun. Okay, I love the games, but I don't memorize the names of all the events. Point is, I want to watch the games!

But I can't find them anywhere. I've been clicking through NBC and all their affiliates all day and all I found was curling. Nothing against curling, but...can you show me anything else? I go to NBC's website where they tell me all day that certain events are airing "live," but they are not on my TV. Then they smash the entire day into prime time with one main focus. Also, awkwardly inserted among commentary are those lame promos for some new Dreamworks movie. I'm just very, very disappointed.

Many others feel the same way. I googled "nbc olympics sucks" or something as eloquent, and tons of hits came back. People are upset about what is being covered, the commentators, the timing, and the list goes on. Ugh.

On a more positive note, I get a kick out of Dick Button. I would never peg him as a former figure skater and he is just so passionate about the sport.

But back to the negative note, stop gameblocking me NBC. First you took away Conan, and now the Olympics. If you ever dare touch my Office, I will never speak to you again.

A Functional Illiterate Student?

I am...disturbed.

I am teaching remedial English this semester. Now, that can mean many things and every class brings new challenges as every batch of students have different issues. The first class I ever taught was basically an ESL class. I've also taught classes that most of the students only had a few problems but could still string together a semi-decent essay. I never know what I'm going to get until I open that classroom door.

This semester is no different. Students who sometimes slip into run-on sentences are sharing the classroom with students who continually omit the word "the," spell "warm" as "worm" and "feel" as "fell." It's hard to teach to the crowd when there are so many differing needs, but I do what I can.

I have a middle age student who I will call Pat. Pat has many, many problems--in writing, that is. But I didn't know how big the problem was until the other day when Pat asked, "Does a capital letter have to come after every period?"

Did you get that?

Pat didn't know that every sentence starts with a capital letter! And Pat has got to be in hir 40s or 50s. Doesn't that seem awful? Isn't that the most basic concept of writing?

Anyways, I answered yes, every sentence starts with a capital letter. Then Pat asked if a capital letter would also follow commas or semicolons. The class groaned, which I hate. I answered Pat's questions with disbelief raging inside of me.

But Pat had more questions.

While we were practicing using coordinating conjunctions, Pat did not know the meaning of "for," "nor," "yet," or "so." Okay, I'll explain as best as I can. Somewhere in my explanation I used the word "and."

"What about that other word for 'and'?" Pat asked.
"What other word for 'and'?"
"You know, a-n,"
"A...n?"

An. Pat thought "an" was another word for "and." Am I wrong in being absolutely astonished? I've seen a lot of surprising mistakes, but this worries me. This is an adult native speaker who is tripping over the basics. Is this functional illiteracy? I feel awful because I don't know if I can help this person. I know this is remedial English, but I am still expecting a familiarity with basic grammar. The class is 20+ students and no one is as far behind as Pat. I don't think this is the place to help Pat. I'm going to recommend zir to go to our Writing Lab where full-time professors can sit down one-on-one to assist and maybe they will give me some guidance.

Until then, I'll do what I can. I am just flabbergasted that someone can live for so long without basic writing skills.

Wise as a Parrot

Going over metaphors and similies in class the other day, I asked, "What animal do we usually associate with wisedom?" The answer?
"Parrots." From more than one student.
"Parrots?" I laughed, "No, owls!"
"Owls?!" One student exclaimed, sounding scanlized, "Parrots can talk, what can owls do?"
"No, but..." I then realized I had no idea why owls and wisdom go together. "You know, wise as an owl!"
After class, this same student came up to me with his cell phone. "I'm going to show you some videos of parrots and you tell me if you've ever seen an owl do this."
He shows me a video of a parrot giving someone a "kiss." "Have you ever seen an owl do that?"
Then there is a video of a parrot "dancing." "Have you ever seen an owl do that?"

Touché.

But really, who has videos of parrots on their phone?

Busy-Look at Pictures!

Because of my awful time management skills, I am incredibly busy. Like, shit-can-I-possibly-read-these-300+-pages-and-write-a-synopsis-by-Thursday busy. And, needless to say, I am behind on grading. So what did I just do? Spent an hour or so talking to a friend on gchat. Hey, she's in Germany and we haven't talked in a very, very long time. On a side note, she is putting together a class on representations of teenagers in literature and is looking for some book suggestions. Got any?

Anyways, since I am too busy to write a real post, here are some pics to look at and to distract myself just enough from real work.







I think what I'm trying to say is that I'm ready for a vacation. Please. Now. And looking at those pics again, they aren't even that good but I don't have time to go through and find better ones. Woe is me.

We also need a new camera. Any recommendations?