Zemblan Grammar

I am lucky there were only four days this workweek, because if I’d had to deal with any of this crap on Monday, too, I would be a quivering pile of tapioca right about now.  As it is, I will sit back and sip a glorious and much deserved whiskey-soda while you can read all about the accumulation of small stresses and slights that have added up to make the past four days so frakking heinous.

Tuesday: I had to go back to work* a day early after the Labor Day Weekend because the school had scheduled an Honor Committee hearing about one of my plagiarizing students.  There is no more relaxing way to ease back into the swing than the prospect of confronting an angry and somewhat emotionally unstable student at a hearing where you will be speaking against him, in the early morning, on what is usually your day off*.  (I’ll post all the details about how this went soon!)

Wednesday: The two instructional librarians assigned to my Writing classes wanted to meet with me in person to discuss our plans for the library research sessions we’d be having this semester — this was a change from the usual carefree and casual emails we had exchanged to serve the same purpose last year. We met at the end of the afternoon, after I’d spent all day in the classroom and was already exhausted. Due to one librarian’s inability to end a conversation or to read my conversation-ending signals, the meeting dragged on for approximately 3x longer than it should have.  Forty-five minutes into it, at the peak of my frustration, the librarian (whom I’ve been working with for a year already) referred to me as a grad student.

Thursday: On my other day off*, I decided to come to campus for a couple of hours to do some reading so I could meet up with my friends at 5:00 and head to the big faculty reception for our college.  In academic jargon, “reception” equals “cocktail party,” so how could I go wrong?  Indeed, there was much fine food and fine wine, and it was — interestingly? — the second time in as many weeks that I had been served a form of grits disguised as hors d’œuvres at a school function.  On the other hand, the room was packed with hungry Liberal Arts professors elbowing their way around the inexplicable round buffet tables (NOTE: round buffet tables are geometrically unsound; this is science), and the various speeches were interminably long and overwhelmingly loud in the enormous marble hall.  Standing in heels for two hours on a marble floor, by the way, was also not fun.

Friday: I had a lovely teaching day all through my first three classes, but I have unfortunately reached a breaking point regarding student participation with my fourth class. They are stubbornly silent no matter what I try to do, and I am already able to name the make and model of at least eight students’ cell phones.  Things are not great with them.  At one point today, they were supposed to be comparing two different writers’ descriptions of, let’s say, tulips. I was thrilled when one of the perpetually silent thugs in the back of the room raised his hand to make a contribution to the discussion.  “They’re both about, um, TULIPS,” he said.  At this point I had honestly lost my patience, and my response was ridiculously sarcastic.  Standing at the front of the room where I was making two lists on the board, “Writer A’s Tulips” and “Writer B’s Tulips,” I said something like, “Oh, they’re both about tulips, how true.  Should I write that on the list? Oh wait [circling the word "tulips" in the heading to each list], I already did write that. Because I am psychic.” It was not pretty. At least they laughed, though, proving that (despite most appearances) they are not all completely dead inside.

*A note on my “days off” - I don’t have to teach on Tuesdays or Thursdays, which means I normally get to lie around the house in my underwear sipping coffee and picking my nose, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have to work.  I am usually reading, writing, grading, or prepping in between nose picks.  So, they’re not really days off at all — I just resent the indignity of having to actually dress and go into school where I have to be pleasant and collegial with the people in the hallway and am not allowed to take breaks to watch One Life to Live.

I am sitting in my classroom right this very minute, watching my students take their final exam.  The summer session class is finally over — all but for the grading.  It has gone, unpredictably, very very well.  Maybe it is something about summer classes that make the students either more amenable to working harder, or maybe the students who sign up for classes over the summer are just over-achievers.  Either way, I just graded possibly the best batch of essays I have ever had.  Like, new-and-refreshing-takes-on-my-favorite-novel good.  Like there-were-multiple-A-plusses good.  Good good.  Shocking, and quite lovely.

Unfortunately, I caught a plagiarizer, so I’ll have to deal with that, but, you know: ups and downs, strikes and gutters.

Despite all the good good stuff that went on in the classroom over the last several weeks, I am quite happy for it to be over.  It’s been mentally exhausting.  It’s not just the sheer number of hours spent in the classroom (although that is a factor), but it’s the intensity of compressing a 16-week course into five weeks.  It’s the necessity of moving on to the next text, the next movement, the next genre; of moving inexorably forward every single day with no time to reflect or revisit.  That and all the grading, of course.  I am ready for a break.

For a while there, though, it seemed like I wasn’t going to get one.  There was the possibility of my picking up another summer-session class (to start this coming Monday, good glaven!), and teaching for the rest of the summer.  It would have been a great boon for my tired, whimpering bank account, let me tell you.  On the other hand, I have plenty of research planned for the summer: two articles need to be submitted for publication, and I need to start writing (or at least thinking about writing) two conference papers that I’ll be too busy to work on once fall semester starts.  Oh yeah, and I have to update my job dossier so I can get my ass into a position (metaphorical ass, metaphorical position) with the possibility of tenure (not to mention more big fat Hamiltons).  I have a lot of work cut out for me, and the free time I’ll have for it without taking on a second class will be crucial to my success.  Frankly, I couldn’t imagine how I could jump into another intensive summer session like the one I just had and still eke out any time for writing, let alone the kind of time I will realistically need.

I’m trying to look at the positives here:  plenty of writing time!  Although, of course, without the additonal income, I will likely be subsisting on ramen noodles and hot dogs for most of August.  The struggle and general discontentment will fuel my creativity, on the one hand, but, on the other hand, come on, economic stimulus check!

In other news, I have more major excitement coming up.  I have hired myself out as a dog sitter for my friend who’ll be out of the country for two weeks.  I’ll be taking care of her aging black lab and obnoxious chihuahua.  Actually, I love both of her dogs, so I’m looking forward to spending plenty of time lounging around her house, playing with the dogs, and watching her cable.  Uh, after my writing for the day is done, of course.  My own dog is a fan of her little chihuahua, but hates all dogs larger than he is, and is terrified of the labrador.  My goal for the time will be to make them into friends.  Let’s hope my dog doesn’t manage to piss off the normally docile labrador, because she could take off his head with one slobbery bite.  Gripping, isn’t it?

Ugh, my students still have 90 minutes left on the final, and I just know at least one of them will take all that time.  I should have brought a book.

So, anyway, are you doing anything exciting this summer?