Is it strange that finding both a buffalo nickel and a kansas quarter (also featuring the noble buffalo) would just plain make my day? I have been saving the buffalo quarter in the change pocket of my wallet for a few weeks now just because it makes me happy. Now, as I'm scrounging for vending machine change, I find the buffalo nickel! It's like kismet!

Sometimes it doesn't take that much to make my day.
I think that's a good thing.

Be afraid, be very afraid

(if you are enrolled in my class anyway)

So my students are just plain old trouble this quarter. Not only are there way to many of them, but they've also had more than enough "issues" to make up a magazine subscription!

First there was A, who apparently didn't realize that enrolling in a class actually meant that he was responsible for doing the assignments for said class, so neglected to turn anything in until I got the department police to track him down and threaten to fail him or withdraw him from the course immediately if he didn't answer one of my many inquiring emails. He's now fine, but he brings with him to our meetings a million arcane questions about writing. I don't necessarily mind answering them, except that he is scheduled for 30 minutes, (which is supposed to 20 to meet and then a few to make notes in his file. He routinely gobbles up 40 or 45 minutes, which throws me off course for the rest of my day. And these questions are so minor and obscure, and in the greater scheme of the pass no pass course, make very very little difference for him. Of course, I can't tell him that, but it's a total damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. First he wasn't doing enough work, now he's overcompensating in a big way. It wouldn't matter so much if there were 31 other people to deal with.

Then there was B, whose internship may or may not have been cancelled during the second week of classes. The show that he was working for was definitely cancelled. The question that we have thus far been unable to answer is what did he know when? He didn't notify us, we found out almost by accident. He went on as if there was no problem. This has caused numerous issues in the past few weeks because if he knew and didn't tell us (which is my suspicion at this point), he's in big trouble with the university. Even if he didn't know, he didn't do enough work to pass the course before the position came to a grinding halt. Initially, we were going to let him write another paper (about the ethics of the situation and academic honesty) so that he could finish out the term without withdrawing from the class. Now it looks like, in addition to being possibly subject to disciplinary action, the dean thinks he should have to drop. I don't know yet what the outcome of this will be but to say that it has been a MAJOR pain in the ass, is about the understatement of the quarter.

Turn your attention now to student , whom I haven't seen in so long that I forgot she was actually enrolled in the course and didn't recognize her when she finally came in this afternoon. (This is a real problem when it is an independent study course that requires meeting with me every other week). I had to explain to her why her lapse in attendance was an issue, and why she needs to make a serious adjustment if she expects to pass the course at this stage of the game (oh, and by the way, she wants to enroll again the my summer version--color me thrilled!--not.)

And finally student D, who came in this afternoon (and who has been one of the more enthusiastic and eager students of the term), and proceeded to tell me that his internship had been terminated because he was caught illegally downloading unreleased copyrighted material at his internship (he was working in the music industry). He was fired on the spot. He knows that what he did was stupid, and he's crushed, and yet he seems to hold out hope that if he can just apologize enough times to the right person, that they'll hire him back. I didn't have the heart to tell him that there was no way in hell that he'd ever work there again, but it's the truth. He may well have to drop the course too, but at least he told me about it and won't have to worry about disciplinary action from the university.

I guess the good news is that after today, I may be down to 30 students, maybe even 29 . . . But I'm wondering what other debacles are awaiting my students in the last few weeks of the term. it seems like there has been something for a different person every week for the last month, so I wonder who is next? and what awful fate they're about the encounter. . .

Work Work Work

So my appointment schedule today is booked solid, and yet my 10:00 person isn't here yet.
My students have a topic proposal due next week, and this stresses me out because even though the class is P/NP and doesn't count for anything academically (because it is not for letter-grade), I take the assignments and my students very seriously. The last assignment is a 10 page research paper, which most of them haven't had to write before, and which most of them need a lot of help to get right . . .

so in theory, they shouldn't show up 20 minutes late!

Alas.

I can't believe we are into the seventh week of the quarter, and I've yet to start writing my chapter. 32 students, a paper to revise and a panel proposal, plus the need to be supportive of my friends and colleagues who are trying to get jobs (if for no other reason than the karmic obligation to support others so that there will hopefully be someone to support me next year should I have more luck on the job market . . .) but all of that leaves little time or energy for the new material, and I need time and energy in order to break myself out of the dissertation stasis that has set in.

But the good (?) news is that the deadline is becoming more scary and more real, and there's nothing like a deadline to motivate! It scares the pants off me to think that I need to finish and graduate this summer (and perhaps that fear is also contributing to my stasis!), but worse is the fear than I won't.

Anyway, the next few weeks will be good because I'll get a lot of things out of the way--will get the paper and the proposal out the door, will finish the final test-prep class and not have to worry about it any more (maybe ever again), and will not be dumb enough to take 7 extra students next quarter. All of those things will free up brain space and help me to focus on finishing.

And that will be good.
:)

Hypocrisy?

So it's okay for the paparazzi to push Britney's car off of PCH when it broke down . . .

But then it's also their fault when she "makes a mistake"
and drives away with him on her lap?!

If you don't have something nice to say. . .

So I managed to somehow choke my golden goose this week.
No, I didn't get kicked out of my graduate program, but I did managed to lose my moonlighting gig as a test-prep instructor.

Here's the scoop.
I am, as many know, finishing my ph.d. and holding a 50% teaching appointment in my dept. on campus. On the side, I also teach test prep for approximately 40 hours a quarter. In the beginning, these classes took a lot more than the in-class time to prepare, but now, all that preparation had finally started to pay off. Or so I thought.

The next version of my class is scheduled to be a "blended" course. My colleagues have decided that for test prep, online courses are the way of the future, so the class was going to be half online and half face-to-face. I was less than thrilled about this, not only because no one had so much as asked me for my opinion about the decision to go online, but also because it meant that I would have to type out all my lecture notes into textbook quality material for half of my lesson plans. The notes I inherited from my predecessor were nowhere near what I would need to make this work, so I was looking at a LOT of extra time over the next few weeks, again unpaid, to get these classes ready. i mentioned my dissertation and dept. teaching right?

In addition, I found out earlier this week that I was also expected to enroll in an online training course for the software that we'd be using. I also found out that this was unpaid (apparently, my getting the training and imprving my teaching was supposed to be payment enough), I like teaching. i really do, but give me a break. This is a job not a leisure time activity. Not only that, but the class had already started two weeks earlier, and my program manager had forgotten that I would need to enroll, so I was already behind and expected to "play catch up" with no extra time allocated for someone else's screw-up.

I mentioned the dissertation, teaching and 40 hours I'm already working for the current class, right?

So to make a long story short, when they told me about this course, I went ballistic.
Ironically, the first email I composed was far worse than the one I sent, which was "mean-spirited." Looking at it now, the one I sent probably did come across as nasty, but I really did think that I had been showing a lot of restraint given the circumstances. In any event, I have a very sarcastic streak, and it just bit me in the ass.

Still, I triple-dog-dare anyone to find a person with a pulse to not be angry at such an oversight. Especially when this is not the first time something like this has happened. It is by far the worst oversight I've been dealt, but stuff like this has happened regularly to me in the time that I've had the job, and it has happened to a coworker too. What makes it especially inexcusable to me is that there were three people who needed the training--one for fall, one for winter, and one for spring (me)
. Why no one told me about this back when the decision was made in the first place absolutely boggles my mind. I could have done it in the fall or in december or even this term if they would have just let me know in advance so that I could plan my schedule accordingly. But apparently three people is too many for my program manager to handle. (sadly, I think she almost dropped the ball on fall person too, but someone else noticed so that instructor got a whole week warning before her training course began!)

One of my tragic flaws is that I have very little patience for incompetence, whether my own or someone else's. Combine that with the fact that I'm already pretty horribly stressed out right now about other matters, it's not surprising that I finally cracked.

Still, it pisses me off that I got fired for my remarks when I had a legitimate (if poorly articulated) response to a pretty major screw-up.

But part of me thinks that they were probably looking for a reason not to offer the class next quarter anyway since no one has signed up for it yet . . . numbers have been decreasing (one of the reasons we were going online in the first place) steadily over the last few years, and apparently the entire program is in jeopardy (not that I'm surprised when it is so poorly managed!).

I wonder what's going to happen now to the spring class. Surely, there's no one else willing to write five lectures worth of material from scratch for free. It was going to be a pain in the ass for me, and I've been doing this for a while now. The other instructors would be starting from nothing (because they teach different exams, and they're all different enough to require substantial work and fuck me if they're getting my materials now!).

They'll find someone to take over eventually, because no matter how horrible the job is, there will be a grad student somewhere desperae enough for extra money to do it. The hourly wage is good--the problem is that they expect you to work a lot of additional hours off the clock (they don't tell you that up front).

I guess the best part of all of this is that it is no longer my problem, and it does get me off the hook for a whole lot of stuff that I would have had to deal with and stress over for the next several weeks. And if I'm going to get fired, at least it was from a job that won't affect my actual career prospects. In fact, most of my advisors didn't think I should be teaching the test-prep anyway, but at the time that I took the job, I really needed the money. Things financially are slightly less claustrophobic for the time being, and I've managed to save a little bit for the first time ever in my life (though it's back to living paycheck to paycheck come march).

Now at least there is one less thing in my life for me to worry about, and you know what, they can keep their money if I can keep my sanity. I just wish that I had kept my cool too, but I guess I've learned something from the whole thing. If only they didn't get to be so sanctimonious about it . . .

note to self: next time, take the high road.

From CNN.com

"Weight gains among Europeans have been linked to consumption of more American-style fast foods like hamburgers, pizza and sweetened soft drinks, according to a study released on Tuesday.




Why this is news to anyone, I have no idea.
Fast Food is bad for you? They needed a study to figure this out?
Give me a break.

On an unrelated note

I did my taxes today.
This usually isn't too, firgive the bad pun, taxing, even for my math-addled brain, but for some reason, the CA state return was just impenetrable for me. The problem, I think, was that I did a consulting gig at year's end. I had done the job before a few years ago, bt this time around, the company contracted us out to an independent agency who instead of issuing us W2's like we were their actual employees, gave us 1099's instead.

I had no idea that this would be so complicated. There must be hundreds of thousands of people in this country who earn money as independent contractors of some kind. Maybe they all pay someone else to do their returns. Otherwise, why wouldnt there just be a paragraph in the instructions telling poor schmucks like me how to deal with this. I mean, ther have to be more independent contractors (ICs) in the US than there are lottery winners, right? And there's a paragraph for them (the lottery winners, I mean). There have to be more IC's than innocent spouses of people who committed tax fraud, and yep, there's a paragraph for them . . .

Now lest you think I'm a complete moron, I was able to figure out my federal return after about an hour of surfing and only one call to my dad. The state return, however, was a completely different matter. I'm still not completely confident that I did that one right, but out the seven years I've lived here, I've gotten corrections from the state twice (I overpaid both times), and both of those times, I was sure that I had done everything correctly. So I don't have a lot of faith in my own sense of correctness when it comes to state tax returns. . . I paid what I think I owe, and the math part makes sense. I'm just not sure if I filled out the form right--not the tax form, but the schedule CA where you have to tell them where the extra money (the 1099 paycheck) came from.

The good news is that I should be getting a sweet check from the government (well, I say that fully aware that what I consider "sweet" with my graduate student poverty-line surfing wages is probably way less than what normal people with real jobs consider "sweet") Regardless, I can put a good chunk in the bank for the rainy day which will be next year's job market, and still splurge a little bit on myself!

I now get to imagine the myriad ways I can do such a thing. Of course, anyone who knows me will probably realize that this is basically the equivalent of giving me a gift card (I hoard them!), but there are worse things . . .

Say it isn't so . . .

First Charlie and Denise . . .
Then Brad and Jen . . .
Then Hilary and Chad . . .
and now
Heather and Richie?!

Is nothing sacred anymore?