Wanted: Mystery shoppers for mammograms and colonoscopies

Last night I posted Chapter 3 of my concept paper for the chairperson to chew on over the next week. She's taking an extra day over the long holiday weekend, which surprises me because she lives in Florida. I wonder where she's going? Maybe somewhere where it's not raining. She didn't say. Anyway, I'm happy because the monster Chapter 3 is on her plate now. Chapter 3 is the Research Design chapter, in which I describe and justify all the research methodology choices I have made. After being royally shot down with my previous attempt, I now have a slightly clearer idea of what she's looking for. I aimed for clarity and maximum CYA. In other words, I cited the hell out of the darn thing.

To celebrate, I went and got a mammogram. I know, not the sort of thing you'd normally think of doing when you are celebrating the sunshine, the long weekend, and the posting of Chapter 3. But mammo was on my calendar, and I was celebrating, so I showed up with a smile at the breast center. I arrived 20 minutes early for my appointment, so I sat in the main waiting area, ready to settle in for a spell, but within three minutes, I heard someone call my name. What a great place!

Everyone I saw was female. (What, no male x-ray techs? I'm shocked.) The technician (“Hi, I'm Lisa!”) escorted me through a maze of hallways to a lovely waiting area lined with little dressing rooms. “You can have dressing room D!” she exclaimed, like it was her favorite. “Here's a gown.” She gently set a perfectly folded cotton robe on the padded bench. “Everything off from the waist up, open in front. Here's a locker.” Lisa opened a full-length wooden cabinet and posed, displaying the interior with a graceful Carol Merrill arm gesture.

“Wow,” I said.

“Take the key with you,” she reminded me cheerily as she exited.

I unfolded the gown. Nothing flimsy about that gown. Heavy cotton, full-length, a lovely solid dark green teal. You could call it a kimono; it was like something I would wear around the Love Shack on a warm day. It looked somewhat like the robes I used to make for an old producer guy when I made custom clothes in Los Angeles. Nothing remotely hospital gowny about it. I quickly divested myself of my shirt and tanktop and wrapped the robe around me. Mmmmm, nice. I stowed my gear and slipped the key ring coil over my wrist like a bracelet. Too cool! Feeling quite stylish, I went out into the waiting area.

Chairs were arranged in a rectangle around a coffee table laden with every women's magazine you could imagine. Oprah, Martha Stewart, Vogue, Good Housekeeping. One woman waited, paging through a magazine. She was an older gal, wearing a black head of hair that I suspected was a wig. I didn't look closely, but I got the impression she was a solidly built gal, well-endowed. I wondered if I would hear screams from her exam room.

I pawed a few magazines, found a copy of Oprah. “This is from December 2011,” I mused under my breath. I tried to do quick math in my head, and failed. How old? I don't know, old.

I picked up another one. “This one is from August of last year. That's not so bad.”

“People probably donate them,” the woman said politely, intent on her own magazine.

I looked at a few ads. “It's great when people donate magazines,” I said.

Suddenly she looked up, and I looked up, and we connected, two women, one light-skinned, one dark-skinned, both wearing teal cotton kimonos in an x-ray waiting room.

“I keep hoping Martha Stewart will have a cake dish,” she confided. “My cousin had one, a real tall one, like this tall—” She held her hands about a yard apart. I was about to tell her about my aunt's collection of antique cake dishes, but we were interrupted by the technician calling her name. Her name was Chatauqua. So off she went, this teal-clad woman with the unlikely name of Chatauqua to get her boobs smashed, and that is the last I saw of her. She and the technician were chatting about cake dishes when my own name was called.

Lisa led me through more hallways to a dimly lit exam room, smiling beatifically. I was smiling too. I knew what was coming. No worries. Now that I'm post-you-know-what, I don't mind mammograms. My flacid fleshy protuberances, formerly known as funbags, aren't protruding much anymore. (Nor are they much fun, for me or anyone else.) So I didn't mind when Lisa grabbed my breast and manipulated it into place, cranking the machine to smash my flesh between two glass panes, saying, “Hold it right there, just like that, and don't breathe!” Piece of cake. I cared more about the breathing than I did about the mashing. Left, right, front, side, four times in the press, and I was done.

“There's some coffee or tea over there for you, if you'd like,” Lisa said graciously. “And deodorant.” (Oh, do I stink? You told me no powder or pitstop!) I quickly retrieved my clothes, tossed the teal green kimono gown in the hamper, and cruised out the door. Start to finish, it was over in 15 minutes. It took longer to park my car than it did to get mashed, pressed, and x-rayed. I was singing the lab's praises to myself as I hustled through the corridors of the cancer center. (Huh? Art on the walls, amateurish oil paintings of flowers for what!? $600? Yipes!)

As I was wondering if I should start painting again, it occurred to me that I would have made a good mystery shopper for that x-ray lab. Maybe the HMO needs a little undercover secret shopping to find out how they are doing? Hmmmm. Something to consider. I'm all about service quality. I'm naturally judgmental; it's the perfect job fit for me.

The next item on my healthcare bucket list is the colonoscopy. Ugh. I don't think I'm up for that just yet. Maybe in a few years. Growing old sucks. When growing old is finally considered de rigeur, then I'll get a colonoscopy. Then I'll join AARP. Then I'll give up rock n roll and start listening to pale jazz or whatever they call it. Until then, forget it. I'll stick with mammograms, thanks. Retirement is for babies, anyway, right? What do they say about riding it hard all the way to the end of the line?

I probably won't be riding anything hard any time soon, but I don't expect to be retiring anytime ever. My retirement plan is die. I guess if the White House changes hands, that will happen sooner rather than later, but whatever. Everyone dies. And the beat goes on.

Students and teachers: a match made for the hellish handbasket

Mid-way through the week, feeling hammered by life, but as tired as I am, I am hopeful that my concept paper is finally emerging from the murky depths of academic... I want to say mediocrity, but that is too much to claim at this point. Yes, this is the same old concept paper, the one that I can't wax nostalgic about because it never goes away. I am struggling with the Research Design chapter, getting bogged down in justifying my choice of a phenomenological design, (I'm finally beginning to be able to type phenomenology without errors), and looking for examples of studies that use a similar design, so I can point to them (academically speaking, I think we call it citing), and say (silently) See? See? They did it, and they got published. You, you, mentorish chairperson, you.

I'm not resentful. I'm working on taking action and detaching from the outcome. After grading a stack of Access and Excel papers after dinner, and editing a stack of resumes from wannabe medical assistants, I finally spent some time writing. Thinking, writing, looking stuff up, thinking, writing some more. It's hard, but it's fun. I wish I had more time to work on this concept paper, but I know, I know, be careful what you wish for, because it might just fall on your head. I don't want to suddenly find I have lots of time and no job. I am grateful I'm employed, and I hope it lasts until I'm ready to move on to something else. In the meantime, I grit my pearlies, grade papers, edit resumes, and steal time from eating, sleeping, novel-reading, and TV-watching time to work on my own scholarly endeavor. It does no good to be resentful. Resentment just makes it harder to think.

Today a student withdrew from my class because his transfer credits came through proving he had already taken Excel. He was there one minute, gone the next, no good-bye. So long, thanks for all the fish, I could see it in his face. I wish all my students were as skilled and diligent as he was. In the same Excel class today, the tanning addict went out to answer her cell phone, came back a half hour later weeping and said she had to leave for an emergency at home. What could I say? No, you have five absences and if you leave now, you are toast? No, you took the first test late, you come to class late, you don't do your work, you haven't turned in a single assignment, and you spend your time surfing the Internet to see who has stolen your identity? It doesn't matter. She's so far behind, it is highly unlikely at this point that she will catch up.

Sometimes I just want to shake them. What are they thinking, letting their education slip away? I want to grab their upper arms where it really hurts and just shake them until their teeth get loose and fall out onto the floor. Not because I want to hurt them, but because I want to shake some sense into them. (Hmmmm. I guess it won't work, but it might help relieve some of my stress.) But then I remember my own sordid past (I try so hard to forget). I remember that I quit three different schools before I finally earned my Bachelor's degree. Oh yeah. Not everyone makes it on the first go-round. And it's not my job to make them make it. I don't have the power. All the tooth-rattling in the world won't make someone be ready when they aren't.

I'm sure my parents and a few of my teachers wanted to shake my teeth loose a few times. I'll try to be grateful for the wonderful students that do their work on time, do their best to learn, take their learning seriously, show up to class everyday... even the ones that slip away because their transfer credits give them a free pass. And I'll try to be more patient and compassionate for the wackjobs and knuckleheads that seem to have such a hard time being in the world. After all, I used to be one of them.

Hi, my name is Carol and I'm a misanthrope

Today the weather was not nearly as fine as yesterday, but I ventured out anyway, thinking of the recent study that found a correlation between computer usage and ass width. I donned my protective gear: oversized black t-shirt over long black nylon pants, and lime green hoodie jacket equipped with lip balm, sunglasses, fingerless gloves (formerly known as socks), snotrag, and house key. On my head I wore a baseball cap that says Shannon heart Aunt Carol. On my feet I wore my beat up Sauconies. Beat up because I took a pair of scissors to them to make room for my droopy ankle bones, and they have been falling apart ever since. (My shoes, I mean, not my ankles.) I wear all this stuff to protect me from the elements. You know, rain, sun, cold air, and the lurking pervert leaping out from behind a tree to yank down my pants.

So, I was ready. Born to run. I exited my back door and headed for the street, only to stop in amazement. The street was lined with parked cars. What was happening? I saw an army of bicycles, riders of all shapes and ages, pedaling in both directions. Wha-? Oh, no, it's Sunday Parkways! Sunday Parkways is Portland's street festival, where the city blocks off streets in certain neighborhoods over the course of the summer, so that people can ride bikes and walk. There's music and theatre, lots of people, dogs, bikes, noise, energy.

I slapped my head. I had totally forgotten it was big event day in the park. My park. Yeah, you heard me. My park.

I guess I've become a bit territorial of Mt Tabor Park, but in my defense let me say that usually the park is sparsely populated, even on sunny weekends. The families hang out in the playground: I hear them, but they aren't in my way. I share the roads with skateboarders and the trails with dogwalkers and the occasional jogger. Mostly I am alone. Not today. Once I made it up the main staircase to the summit, it was bicycle pandemonium.

Not my preferred scene, not in my park. But as I trotted by a guy dressed like a clown and riding a bicycle to which he had strapped two huge speakers and a stereo system, I had to laugh. The noise was impressive. He rode nonchalantly around the summit, grinning beatifically in the pale sunshine. More than one dog looked slightly anxious. A group of chubby females peered out at him from under a New Age tent they had constructed among the trees out of ropes and fluttery translucent fabric. I kept on trotting down the hill and reflected that I was watching my tax dollars hard at work, paying for this event.

Some people would be angry about that, but not me. I like my tax dollars to pay for things that promote community, even though I don't particularly care for community myself. I would gladly pay more taxes so that everyone could have adequate healthcare and education, (as long as everyone else paid their share too, of course), because that builds a strong community. I always put people before profit, despite the fact that most of the time I don't really like people. As a founding member of Misanthropes Anonymous, my first thought when I see you is, hey, hi. My second thought is, how soon can you leave?

I'm not really a misanthrope. Actually, I guess I'm more of a tree-hugging, bleeding heart socialist liberal. I just happen to also be a self-obsessed malcontent and self-proclaimed introvert. I'm happiest when I'm alone, but I am a big fan of keeping the social fabric of our city from unraveling. If that takes street fairs, festivals, and fireworks, my thumbs are up, even while I'm hunkering down to wait it out.

Fall is nothing to sneeze about

I'm staring bleary-eyed at this white box, thinking that if I type something here, that when I return to typing something in that other document, currently known as CP V2-v2-Chapter 3, the letters will magically coalesce into cogent coherent sentences. Is it weird to use too many words that start with co? I'm not even sure I know what cogent means. It sounds like a cross between codependent and sergeant. Huh. I can tell my brain is mush. I can hardly type, and what I am typing makes no sense.

Impoverished? Who, me?

Yesterday in my post I said I thought it wasn't fall yet, that it was just that pesky ocean air cooling everything down, making it seem like summer is over. Well, I think I was wrong. I mean, I think I'm right. I think summer is over. This morning it was so cold in the Love Shack, I had to resort to drastic measures: sweatshirt, winter slippers, and of course, the ubiquitous stocking cap and fingerless gloves (formerly known as socks). With an orange, red, and yellow striped afghan (knitted by my indefatigable and possibly color blind mother) across my knees, I spent the day intermittently typing and sneezing. That is how I know it's fall and not just onshore flow. I'm sneezing.

Some people sneeze when a cat comes near. (I used to. Luckily that is not a problem anymore, as I eat, breathe, and poop cat hair.) Some people sneeze when they eat certain food, like paprika, wheat, milk, or chocolate. My mother sneezes three times after she coughs. Some people have dinky sneezes; other people roar like freight trains. My dad's sneeze sounded like a lion claiming his bit of beach at the savanna watering hole. Rrrrowrrrr! My cat has a polite sneeze, sort of like Boof! He always looks askance at me when I sneeze, because my sneezes are anything but polite. During the change of seasons from winter to spring and again from summer to fall I sneeze a lot, in all directions and on all frequencies. There's nothing dainty about my change-of-season sneezes. I'm a why-just-say-it-when-you-can-spray-it kind of gal.

So, I'm here to tell you, just because it's 80° during the day doesn't mean it's not fall here in the Pacific Northwest. Don't be fooled. Dust off your heater. Pull out your flannel sheets. Shake those lousy bedbugs out of your comforter (juuusst kidding). The nights are cold. The tomatoes are going to have to hurry if they want to be red by the time the cold rain comes. And it's coming, I can feel it. We may have a few more 90° days, but the nights will have the damp chill that sends out-of-towners home with pneumonia. I have that urge to burrow in, to hunker down, to pull the mittens on my frigid hands and the wool over my bleary eyes, and hibernate until next July. Wake me up when winter is over.

Excuse me, I feel a sneeze coming on.

When it is time to burst out of the bubble

This evening as the sun went down in between thick puffy clouds, I walked for an hour on the trails winding around the extinct volcano, half hoping for cataclysmic obliteration, but the caldera was silent, as usual, except for the shouts of the guys playing basketball. The air was cold for August, straight off the ocean 80 miles away. Not fall air, but ocean air. I was never alone for long: the trails were well populated with walkers and their dogs. I listened to music on my mp3 player—David Bowie, SuperTramp, Fleetwood Mac, U2—and planned how I would handle the moment when someone accosts me from behind. No one did, but it's good to be ready.

Walking in the park is a good time to review the week and ponder the glacial pace of my progress. When I say progress, I guess I'm referring to forward movement along the myriad frontlines of my life: academic, social, spiritual, physical, philosophical... as usual, it seems like I'm stuck, wallowing in the messy bog again, crying to heaven. Yesterday I surfed homes for sale in Palm Desert, Palm Springs, and Desert Hot Springs, thinking I could buy some cardboard house out in a meth-infested desert town for a mortgage payment half of what I currently pay in rent. Today, when I close my eyes, I see palm trees, blue sky, and lawns of gravel.

This week one of my professional development students voiced something that got a collective sigh from the entire class. This student, I'll call her Tiralina, is a tall, slender, blonde stick of energy with braces and a habit of speaking whatever is on her mind. She's not belligerent; she just seems to have few boundaries when it comes to expressing herself. She's honest and direct, and I love her for it.

“I'm excited to finish school,” she said. “But I'm also scared!”

“Yeah, what's that all about, do you think?” I asked.

The professional development class is the one where students prepare their resumes and cover letters and practice their interviewing skills in preparation for graduation. Most of these students are in the Medical Assisting diploma program, a nine-month learning blitz, and in another month they will be scouring the city for an externship position to complete their education. 

“We have to leave the school bubble,” said Tiralina, “and I don't want to, but I do. But I don't.”

“Does anyone else feel that way?” I asked.

Everyone nodded and sighed. She had struck a collective nerve. As they shared their fear and excitement, I couldn't help wondering if I was also in the same boat: stuck in the school bubble, afraid to launch myself to the next level.

Today at work in Wilsonville, I sat in the restroom, psyching myself up for my four-hour Access and Excel teaching gig by stretching my face into a fake grin and saying over and over silently, “Everything is grrrreeaaattt!” I was aiming for a Tony the Tiger impression, failing, but not totally miserably, because they say even if you fake a smile, it produces endorphins. It worked, I think, for most of the four hours, until the point when the insane student who is addicted to tanning asked me to help her figure out how people on the Internet were tracking her in order to steal her identity.

What I wanted to say was, you knucklehead, you are such a loser, anyone who wants your identity would be doing you a huge favor. Imagine, you could start over and get it right this time! Of course, I didn't say that. I politely steered her toward the IT department. At that point it was time to go, and the more minutes tick by, the thicker the traffic going home, so I was itching to exit. I bailed with a “Good luck!” tossed over my shoulder. I always leave on Thursday afternoon with a feeling of profound relief, like I've just been released from prison. I also despair, because I know in a few days, I'll have to go back and do it all again.

So I walked the park trails and pondered my progress, and oddly enough, after I walked, I didn't feel quite so morose. Even though the sun sets sooner now, even though the night air is cold and it's time to pull out the flannel sheets, even though the stores are full of back-to-school and the dreaded holiday season is rushing at me, it's still better than lying dead in some alley in Aleppo. Is this all I have to complain about, my little existential angst tantrum? Really? Hey, you want my identity? It's a fixer-upper in a bad neighborhood, but it could be worse.

The few, the proud, the over-educated

Good news from my chairperson. She liked my Chapter 1. A few minor changes, and I'm good to move on to Chapter 2, the Literature Review. I'd like to say I'm hopeful and heartened by her response, but honestly, I'm so tired of this, all I can do is put my head down and pray for the stamina to keep slogging forward. It seems like every other minute I'm mimicking the kid on the sock commercial—you know, the one where the dad says, “We can't get socks that fit, and we're sick of it!” and the little kid echoes, “Sick of it!” while his dad is dunking his feet in a bucket of latex. I walk around muttering, “Sick of it!” at odd moments when I hope no one is listening.

It's embarrassing to admit I'm sick of something like the privilege of working toward a Ph.D. It's what my friend would call a luxury problem. Something like 3% of the population has earned a doctorate, and if I just keep plugging away at it, I will probably earn one of my own. The few, the proud, the over-educated and possibly soon-to-be unemployed—and quite possibly unemployable. How's that for special? A Bachelors degree is a leg up over a high school diploma, I think there is widespread agreement for that position. One could argue the payoff drops from there, depending on what your Masters degree is in, and unless your doctorate is in Computer or Biological Sciences, I have doubts that the benefits of a doctoral degree outweigh the costs.

The best I can say is that I will have no student loan debt if and when I finish. Yay. At least I won't have any bills when I'm living under the Burnside Bridge. Just kidding....I'll probably still have a few bills, just not from the student loan companies.

We are half way through the 10-week term at the career college. For the past couple weeks, many students have been absent. Some are on vacation. A few have family obligations. A couple are sick, so I've been told. The rest are AWOL, apparently. This sometimes happens in the computer classes after the first test. Some students get demoralized from the amount of work. Or they get their student loan stipend and go on a bender. Or they get charged with murder and end up in jail. You know, just the challenges of life. Not everyone makes it through college, even our college. Hard to believe, I know, but even we have standards, even this low on the higher education food chain.

I don't mind that students disappear. I consider it a strange kind of success. It's a weaning of sorts. Only the serious students survive, the rest fall away, scatter like cottonwood fluff on the breeze. The ones that are left are bright, hungry, and determined. No matter what idiotic thing I say, they will succeed. They don't need me at all, except perhaps as a cheerleader or an occasional coach. They have learned how to learn, and nothing, not even a lousy podunck career college like ours can hold them back.

The online university I pay all my discretionary income to is coming up for reaccreditation in a couple months. I've been reading the discussion folders with some alarm. Students are fuming over recent changes the school has implemented to improve standards. Some of the changes haven't gone as smoothly as one would hope, but it's highly unlikely anyone at the school is maliciously trying to sabotage students' success. From some of the posts, one would think some of my fellow students are being singled out for harassment and persecution. One irate soul is urging us all to send our complaints to the Higher Learning Commission, the agency that accredits the university. Others are cautioning against precipitous action, worried that our accreditation is at risk. It's true that if the HLC decides not to re-accredit the university, the degree I am struggling to earn becomes worthless. But that is unlikely to happen. I hope.

I'm trying to stay out of the wreckage of the future.

Where burned out teachers go

As the mercury leaps toward the century mark outside, I hunker in the Love Shack with all my west-facing windows barricaded against the approaching sun, hoping that by the time the temperature reaches 90° indoors, it will have dropped to 85° outside, and I can throw open the windows and doors, turn on all the fans, and tough it out with wet washcloths on my head. We can hope.

I ran my errands early. Bank, gas station, car wash, grocery store. Yes, I actually washed the Dustmobile, the first time in well over a year. Hey, I park on a gravel road. In the summer, it's dusty, in the winter, it's muddy. Why waste water washing it, when it looks so cool, sort of like an Army test for a stealth urban warfare vehicle, cloaked in its thick patina of grime? Believe me, there's nothing more invisible than a dirty, dusty old black Ford Focus.

So, yay me, I ran my errands. I've caught up on my Access and Excel grading, posted the updates in engrade, so the students who check their grades every five minutes don't have to wait another moment to know they are failing my class. Now what?

Yesterday I posted my second update on my final dissertation course. I should say, what would have been my final dissertation course, had I been able to keep to the schedule. With the update I submitted Chapter 1, which consists of the Introduction, the Problem Statement, and the Purpose Statement. I threw in the key terms and an outline of the Literature Review, just to give my chairperson the impression that I'm not a slacker. She's not a slacker either, apparently. I just checked my online university course room, and she's already given me credit for the update, along with a cheery note: I'll review your Chapter 1 and give you my comments soon! She lives somewhere in Florida. It's probably a lovely Friday afternoon in the Sunshine State (formerly the Land of Good Living, if Wikipedia can be believed). I can't blame her if she wants to get a jump on the weekend.

So, here I am. I could read Chapter 6 in the mind-numbingly boring Business Ethics book for Monday morning. My three students, all female accounting majors, were assigned to team-teach Chapter 5, which they presented on Wednesday. The topic was Ethics and the Environment. What could be more interesting, right? What I got was anything but team, and very little teach. (I wasn't expecting all that much; after all, I'm a professional, don't try this at home). As I feared, one by one they stood shakily at the lectern and sped through the notes they had gleaned from the book. They provided no examples or original commentary, no visual aids, not even a few expressive hand gestures, not even when Al Gore's personal carbon footprint was briefly mentioned. Oh, the wasted opportunities.

I couldn't help myself. After a few seconds to let their heart rates settle, I leaped up.

“Say, did you hear that Bill Gates is sponsoring a challenge to design a better toilet?”

They eyed me skeptically.

“It's true! A toilet show! In Seattle, right now!” Clearly I was ready to organize a car pool.

Their faces told me how monumentally uninterested they were. Tammi at least giggled, bless her heart, but then she giggles at everything. Renata and Kayley just rolled their eyes.

I love the idea of toilets that help people and the planet, (don't you?) but my intention was to engage them in the topic of environmental ethics. There is so much to be righteously angry about, where does one begin? Toilets is as good a place as any. But I fear once again I failed as a teacher. My expectations were unclear; they resorted to the traditional fallback position that all teachers use: when you don't have time to prepare something innovative, lecture. Wouldn't you think after sitting through umpteen boring lectures that these students would search for another teaching method? A skit, maybe? A dance? Oh wait, these are accounting students. Nuts, even a pop quiz would have been more interesting than watching them stumble over their notes, for crimony's sake. Dead letters filled with sawdust.

I was so happy when I got this teaching job, nine long years ago. After so many tedious years of stultifying admin work, finally a vocation I was well suited for, something that let me be self-expressive, creative, and useful. At the time I had no idea that for-profit vocational education wasn't even on the bottom rung of the higher education ladder, or that the institution that hired me was (a) barely better than a diploma mill, and (b) desperate for a warm body because the previous warm body had bailed two days before the term. No, I was utterly ecstatic to have a job in a place where I thought I could fit and be of service. My glasses were rosy, and the world looked bright. And in the beginning, I was a creative teacher.

Now, nine long years later, my glasses are tarnished, bent, and scratched. I know a few things now that I didn't know then, and it has definitely taken the shine off the world of education for me. I try to balance the good and the bad, to keep from going crazy. This for-profit vocational college is not the monster that traditional education fears, but neither is it a substitute for an academic education. The life of a full-timer at a for-profit vocational institution has its benefits (no research requirements), but its drawbacks (low pay, low prestige, no tenure, no support from management) are hard to ignore. The caliber of student at the for-profit college is not generally what one might find at a traditional academic institution, but in our defense, we serve a different target market, and seeking job skills in order to find a good job is arguably just as worthy a goal as working toward a degree in philosophy, or art, or English. Some would say possibly better.

What is the purpose of higher education? Is it to get a well-paying job? Is it to become a good citizen? Can we teach both, I wonder? What makes a great teacher? One who lectures in front of the room? Or one who facilitates, guides, coaches, coaxes, and challenges? Do we even need teachers anymore, in this world of Web 2.0? When MIT and Harvard are offering free online courses to people around the world, what need do we have for brick and mortar schools? When you can learn how to do anything—virtually anything!—from a youtube video?

I don't care anymore about being a teacher. That's a good thing, because teaching at the career college has ruined my teaching career. But I'm stuck there until I finish this Ph.D. I went down the dissertation path like Little Mary Sunshine skipping merrily toward a cliff. I leaped, eyes shut. I pancaked a long time ago, but I prefer to pretend I am still falling.

The dog days of discontent

It was a difficult week at the career college. Difficult for my Access and Excel students, who on Tuesday soldiered through their first test. Difficult for me, struggling to grade their tests Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon, in time to return the tests the next day. A few things had to get cut from my schedule. This blog on Tuesday. My mid-day siesta on Wednesday. Oh, the sacrifices we must make to provide good customer service for our students.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of the Love Shack, not too far away, not far away enough, is a sad and lonely dog. I've never seen this dog. I don't know where it lives. But I can hear this dog weeping and moaning for long hours on end, its howls echoing above the houses on the gravel road, endless, piteous weeping and moaning. On Tuesday, the dog was speaking for me. I wanted to weep and moan, raise my voice to the sky, just let loose with a howl. Life sucks, owwwwwwwwwwooooooooooo.

Sometimes the dog's howling sounds wrenchingly heartfelt, full of genuine angst, like a coyote crying to the moon, and other times the howling resembles the fake screaming of an angry child: woe is me, everyone is so mean to me, boo hoo hoo. Either way, I frequently vow I am going to find that dog, record its howling, and play it back for its owner at top volume in the middle of the night.

It's hot. Maybe the dog is howling because it can't get to its blistering hot metal bowl of water. Maybe it can see its owners through the patio door, kicked back in their Lazy-boys in air-conditioned luxury. I have no idea, I'm just making this all up. But god's truth, I'd like to throttle those owners for creating the conditions that motivate that dog to continuously weep and moan. Sort of like I'd like to throttle the owners of the career college for creating the conditions for students to fail at Access and Excel.

Well, I guess that isn't really fair. There's really not much the two owners do these days except play golf, as far as I have heard. They sneak up to the third floor via the elevator on Board meeting days, to avoid mixing with us riff-raff, I presume. We rarely see our college president, who seems perennially on trips to east coast Ivy League colleges with his 12-year-old son. Is it fair of me to blame them, the invisible Board, for staying stuck in 20th century technology, when the means to help students succeed at learning computer programs exist? I'm talking about using computer simulation software to teach computer applications courses. Nothing radical, nothing new. Other schools do it, even employment agencies use simulation software to teach the basics of Microsoft Office.

My Excel class is not large, only fifteen students, but the capabilities of the students run the gamut from how do I select a range of cells again? Press the what button on the what? to I am a power user and I could teach this class, stupid. Lecturing seems like a Jurassic approach in a computer class where everyone is moving at different speeds. But unfortunately, they are all stuck working through the lessons and exercises in the error-ridden, out-dated textbooks. If they are careful readers, they can successfully complete the lessons, but even the most careful of students can navigate an exercise with 20 complicated steps and reach the end with no conception of what they were supposed to learn. I see it happen time and again. They perform the steps, but fail to learn. How is that helping them prepare for the workplace? And don't get me started on what happens to ESL and learning-disabled students.

We use a software tool called Lanschool, which allows teachers to commandeer computers in the classroom to demonstrate skills students need to know and to review for tests, on the premise that showing them how to perform a task is just slightly more effective than simply telling them how to do it. The best I can manage is to have them work along with me on their computer while watching me demonstrate the skill on the computer monitor next to them. Ideally, though, the best way for them to learn the material would be for them to teach it, but it's a rare student in the computer classes who is willing to bravely demonstrate for his or her peers the steps to, say, create an input mask in an Access table, or insert a function in Excel that returns the current date. Muttering ensues. Teaching, you call this teaching? Why are we doing the teacher's job? Muttering, followed by mutiny, followed by unemployment.

My unvoiced suggestion is for the college to purchase software that lets students learn in a simulated computer environment, where they move through the lessons at their own paces, receiving instant feedback from the software, moving on when the system thinks they are ready. Without having to read the out-dated, step-by-step workbooks. But then, who needs a teacher? Indeed.

I think my problem is I just want to shake things up. I'm dissatisfied with the pace at which my own studies are progressing, and I'm feeling trapped in what I perceive to be an ineffective work environment. The chronic malcontent resorts to pot-stirring, just for the hell of it, just to avoid really having to feel the uncomfortable feelings that arise when one realizes there are no easy solutions. That people learn in all kinds of ways, and I have no control over them or their learning process. That the owners of businesses can do whatever they want, and that includes doing nothing. That dogs will continue to howl, because that is what dogs do.

Procreate without me

Today I chauffeured my mother to her brother's wife's 80th birthday party. Tucked into a hollow on the side of a hill above Cornelius Pass outside of Portland, somewhere near where I suspect lie the moldering bones of missing child Kyron Horman, is a house, built some years back by my mother's brother. That is where we went.

My cousin Dave lives in the house with his wife, Barb, a possible refugee from a Grateful Dead tour. I'd never met Barb before today, but I liked her immediately, and not just because she has big gray hair and jagged front teeth. She was short, and real, and so unlike Dave's first wife (“the Mormon”), I was charmed at first glance. My mother and I were the first to arrive, except for Iona, the birthday girl, so while Barb chopped cauliflower and sliced watermelon, Iona gave us the grand tour: potting shed, hot-tub shed, dusty parking lot of big trucks, SUVs, and four-wheelers, redwood decks, and trees, everywhere huge trees murmuring in the breeze.

Barb and Dave are hunters. And decorators, apparently. A dozen jawbones, large and small, hung festively on the side of the potting shed: I thought, cattle? No, deer, Barb told me later. Inside, not an inch of wall space wasn't covered with pale deer skulls, sporting stately racks, presiding mutely over the couch. I paused near the front door. A cougar skin, complete with slitty-eyed head, hung morosely over the banister. “Dave shot him,” Barb said proudly. I couldn't bring myself to touch the fur. It reminded me too much of my cat. I examined the many photos, some of Dave and Barb in the wild, dressed in hunting garb, carrying rifles, but mostly pictures of the kids and grand-kids.

“A water pipe burst in the basement last night,” Barb said, waving her hand to indicate the two trucks that were parked below the deck. I could hear voices downstairs, followed by the sound of industrial fans and humidifiers, floating up past the cougar. She didn't seem terribly perturbed. Dave started laying hamburger patties and footlong sausage dogs on the grill. Barb pointed to plastic trays of chopped and sliced fruit and veggies. I started in on watermelon, graduated to grapes, and next thing I knew I was eating wheat crackers smothered with cream cheese and dripping with raspberry-chipotle sauce. How the mighty smug have fallen.

People began to arrive. Family I hadn't seen in years, or had never met. Although my cousin Nancy was absent, her ex arrived with cousin Jimmy's ex: a new item, apparently. Spouses may divorce in our family, but they are not expelled. You can check out any time you like but you can never leave? Cousin Dave's balding head grilled in the sun as he flipped burgers and sausage dogs. His younger brother Keith (fondly nicknamed the drug addict by my mother) arrived with his two sons (recently out of rehab! We're so proud!) and his faithful wife Sharon. Of all the marriages you would expect to expire, but no. His three siblings have all divorced, but Keith and Sharon are still going strong. Makes you rethink your stance on legalization. More of my cousins' kids showed up, dragging their own kids behind them. To make up for my mother's childless children (except for my brother's kid, who doesn't count because she lives in Sacramento), there was a small army of little tow-headed boys and girls, running and shouting, while the adults looked on with the stupefied gazes characteristic of too much heat and food. By 4:30, we had achieved the nadir, the penultimate: pandemonium.

Finally someone remembered there were two cakes in the corner, and so we sang and cut the colorful rose-covered Fred Meyers layer cake (I abstained, glassy eyed from a potato chip binge), and then Iona commanded my mother and me to get in her car. She lives in a big house just up the hill and around the bend. We must take the tour. We piled into her SUV and she sped over the hill, spewing gravel behind her. As she pulled up in front of her house, at first, everything seemed unfamiliar, and then the memories began to surface: my sad cousin Nancy, who ran away from home to get away from her family; Iona's shrill and accusing voice, angry at us kids, her husband, dragging her anger with her down through the years; my grandfather sitting in the darkened living room, weeping at the loss of his wife, my grandmother, dead of a heart attack because he had refused to take her to the doctor. The memories came back as I stepped inside: the red rug, the dark paneled kitchen, the shelves of antiques, and then Iona beckoned to me. “Look at this,” she said and descended the steps to the basement. Halfway down, on the landing, she turned and pointed up at the wall above: a painting hung there. It was big and bold, dark reds and oranges, a sunset over a tree-rimmed lake, a little eerie, like an evening on Mars before we knew Mars has no water. I painted that painting in 1974, when I was 18 years old, a senior in high school, back when I thought art was my god and my dreams could come true.

Iona's house is a museum. Every wall, every surface, is filled with antiques, mostly small stuff, neatly arranged, tidily displayed, everything you can imagine, everything you would hate to have to dust: old dolls, tiny oil lamps, beaded boxes, masks, ceramic rolling pins, ancient egg beaters, birdhouses, painted chickens, tiny cows, needle-point pillows, big milk jugs, doll houses, log cabin replicas, blue dishes. Various and assorted sundry crap from yard sales, antique stores, and thrift shops, collected in a shopping binge that apparently escalated after her husband, my mother's brother, my alcoholic uncle, succumbed to the relentless strokes that turned his brain to mush long before his body. She pointed out every detail, like a proud docent, and I paid my fee by praising the detritus of her life, thinking my place isn't any different, except instead of chicken figurines, I display books.

I could see my mother had hit a wall. We exchanged looks and began searching for the kitchen door, which was well camouflaged with antique signs, egg beaters, funnels, and gray kitchen gadgets. Iona drove us back over to the party. We saw Dave, trolling past on a four-wheeler with a toddler clutched to his chest. “Have you seen Griswold?” he called. We said no. Griswold the dog apparently had gone AWOL while we were taking the museum tour. Dave and child trundled slowly off up the gravel road. Mom and I said our good-byes and hiked up the road to our car, carrying cake and the promise to do it again sometime. Do what sometime? Have another birthday party? Somehow I have managed to miss every funeral, every wedding, every birthday until now. It's unlikely I will see any of these people anytime soon. They will have to procreate without me. When my mother turns 100, I guess I'll show up, if someone chops the veggies.

After an afternoon of people, I was looking forward to some quiet time, just me and my cat. But when I pulled up outside the Love Shack, there was a party going full swing at my next door neighbors' house, ten feet from my back door. What can you do. I closed my windows, turned up my music, and opened up the blog.

Self-deception is how I survive a life of cognitive dissonance

John Perry and Ken Taylor, my favorite living radio philosophers, are dissecting the problem of self-deception on Philosophy Talk. Why do we self-deceive? Sorry, I shouldn't lump you in with the self-deluded. You probably are totally self-honest, a paragon of virtue and integrity, off-the-charts emotional intelligence, yada yada. Not me. My normal state is self-delusion, but sadly for me, I'm not lacking in self-awareness. I can tell you why I self-deceive. Because the cognitive dissonance of my life is too painful to face.

For example, I say I care about the environment. I recycle, I buy green products, but I drive a vehicle with an internal combustion engine that spews pollutants and greenhouse gases into the air that other people must breathe.

I don't download pirated movies or steal music, but get out of my way when I'm driving to Wilsonville on the I-205 freeway. The speed limit is 65, but that's for pokey trucks. The best my tired old Focus can do is about 73 mph, but I'd be airborne like all the SUVs if I could be, no matter what the speed limit is.

Here's another example. I stand in front of a roomful of aspiring medical assistants, telling them to always move in the direction of their dreams, that they can have that perfect job if they just don't give up, all they need is the resume du jour, a few key words, a good answer to “Tell me about yourself,” and a life of bliss will be theirs, guaranteed. Just follow these simple steps. Bla bla bla. When I really get going, my voice will actually quiver with passion, as if I truly believe what I am saying. They stare at me raptly, nodding, desperately wanting to believe that what I claim is true, that somehow they will all find the job of their dreams. The odds are that only a couple of those MAs will find a job they tolerate, much less one they like. Six months after graduation, the rest will be working at KMart, Wal-Mart, and Food-Mart, bagging crap for cranky customers and muttering bitterly about how I deceived them.

The antidote to self-deception is self-reflection, suggests John and Ken's guest philosopher, Neil Van Leeuwen. Ken isn't buying it. He is ripping Neil's argument to shreds. Mr. Van Leeuwen stands firm, a charming optimist. Ken says morosely that self-deception won't make us happy. I'm with you, Ken. No argument from me, the chronic malcontent. The best I can say is that self-deception helps me maintain the illusion that life is worth living. It does no good to remind me that I should be counting my blessings: I have a job, I have a car, I have a life. Lucky me. Being alive is difficult when one is a self-obsessed malcontent. Don't misunderstand me, I don't want to be dead quite yet, but so far, I haven't figured out how to really live. Not without a liberal dose of self-deception.

And now a encrypted message from my cat

I should let my cat write my paper. That is the conclusion I reached tonight, as I sweated over grammar and fretted over punctuation. As I was stewing, my cat jumped onto the desk, sat on the keyboard, and typed a series of numbers with his butt. It looked like it could have been a sequence of data from the latest Mars rover, which landed successfully over the weekend. For all I know, he works for NASA. It is possible my cat could be a lot smarter than he looks. Then again, probably not.

Still, I wonder if my butt could do any better. I've never actually tried typing with my butt. I'm not sure I would have much control. In the way of all geniuses and Olympic athletes, my cat made it look so easy. He wasn't even watching what he was typing—talk about touch-typing. More like blind, fingerless touch-typing. Typing by instinct. Writing elevated to the level of I don't care what I am writing, talk to the butt.

I doubt I could do any better, really. My butt is a double-wide trailer compared to his petite derriere. Plus his butt is so... furry. (I guess if I live long enough my butt might grow furry too, sort of like my upper lip is doing.) I'm not sure if furriness has an effect on typing ability. I'll let you know if I ever find out.

Oh, oh, here he comes again. I think he might have something to add to this blog. I will leave it to your superior intelligence to interpret the following syntactical string:

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm0.00000012222222222222112111

Malfunction alert: the temperature has fallen below the unit's optimum range

My next dissertation course starts tomorrow. This was to have been my last course, the final one of 27 courses, after six-plus years and the equivalent of a down payment on a modest fixer-upper in SE Portland. In a perfect world, I would be finishing my dissertation in the next three months and bidding this online educational nightmare adieu. No such luck. I'm still wrestling with my concept paper. Here I am, still on the launching pad. But I have hope. I think the paper is starting to take on a shape that will demonstrate I am ready to make the leap from student to scholar.

I made good progress yesterday, when the air in my apartment was a sizzling 90°. Outside it was almost 100°. (Isn't that neat, the degree symbol? Just press ALT plus 0176 on the number pad!) I was like, Warm at last, thank god almighty, I'm warm at last. Up till about 4:00 pm I was still wearing a cap on my head and socks with my slippers. But along about 6:00 pm, when the sun came over the proverbial yardarm (the corner of the apartment building), the temperature in my living room spiked, my blood began to flow, and my brain started cranking. Yes! I was on fire. Not literally. I mean, my hands loosened up. My feet unfroze. I felt like I could write for hours and not get tired, and I did, I wrote for hours. I researched, I guzzled tepid iced tea, I pondered, I contemplated, I even thought critically! Look at me go, I'm a dynamo.

I didn't finish the paper, though. Eventually my eyes started to cross. It was almost midnight when I finally admitted I could do no more. I blearily backed up my work and turned on the TV. Even dynamos have to zone out sometimes. I tried to hold on to my persona as a brilliant thinker as I futilely tried to avoid watching the Olympics. Neither one happened. (What do they say about try?)

Today is a new day, and just as I feared, I've forgotten all my brilliant insights from yesterday. Sigh. It sounds suspiciously familiar. I think I've heard a student say something along those lines, like, “I knew what I wanted to write, but when I sat down to write it, nothing came out!” (Shock of the ages.) As if the writing process is like a meat grinder. You know, if I just throw these facts in here, and turn the crank, voila! Out onto the paper—plop!: A thesis statement, coherent supporting paragraphs, and a righteous conclusion! (Where can I get one of these things!? Wait, I think they have something similar at CheapEssays.com.)

I spent much of the day studying two chapters in a poorly written business ethics textbook, trying to find some fact or story that would make ethics come to life for my three female accounting students. We are starting week three tomorrow, trudging the career college treadmill, following the syllabus, covering the material, and if I can engage the students in a discussion for more than five minutes, well, that might constitute proof of the existence of god. I'm sure the topic of corporate compliance is interesting to some people, but not to these three. I love scandal as much as the next person, but this book leaves out all the juicy details. So there was a sexual harassment scandal at the U.S. mint? Really? I looked it up. Sure enough, the guys at the mint apparently didn't do a great job of hiding their girlie magazines, and the women got upset. Now there's a story to talk about! What happens when corporations don't comply with their codes of ethics? Lawsuits!

It's warm again today, but not as warm as yesterday, only 89° now, according to the gadget on my computer. The sun has just cleared the yardarm. The entire front window is glowing. Supernova headed this way! Maybe my brain will kick into high gear now. No excuses. I can imagine what my first update memo to my chairperson will look like: I am sorry, I couldn't make progress on my concept paper because the temperature of my living room fell below my optimum range.

From now on, please call me Reticence

While I was waiting for George, my landshark, to fetch plumbing parts to fix my bathroom sink, I felt the urge to blog. Dear old Doctor Blog, always ready to listen, nod sagely, and let me find my own solutions. For free. The perfect therapist. I complained about the plumbing problem in my last session, Doc, remember? My bathroom sink is connected to the neighboring unit's bathroom sink. Earlier today, as I was leaving for work, I saw George pull up in his manly white pickup truck. I blocked traffic to ask him when he planned to come and fix my sink.

“It's still not draining?” he said in surprise. “The other sink drains fine.”

“Yeah, it's draining into my sink.” I said.

“It drains eventually, though, right?”

“Yeah, after about 72 hours. But as soon as you run water next door, it fills back up again.”

“Okay, I'll take a look,” he promised. The tone of his voice said he didn't believe me.

In case you are interested, which I'm sure you are not, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway: I made it through another week at the career college, driving back and forth to the far campus like the proverbial freeway flier adjunct I used to be (and could be again in another eight weeks). Progress has been made. After two weeks, the students are no longer nameless perplexed faces. Now those perplexed faces have names. Luckily for my tired brain, it seems like most of them are named Amanda or Mindy. There's a sprinkling of other banal American names: Tabitha, Nicole, Michelle, Amy. So predictable and hard to tell apart. Especially when they are all obese white females. When it's time to remember names, give me the Ysenias, Astellas, Germans, and Laureens.

Hold that thought. Now George has returned. After some pounding, groaning, sawing, and rattling, with a minimum of spills, the pipes under the sink have been successfully replaced. Luckily he remembered that the sink isn't draining, after he spent some energetic minutes running water to test for leaks. (I wasn't paying attention because I was freaked out by having a man in my bathroom. Aaaah!) The water rose to within an inch of the top edge of my cracked and dirty little sink, a preview of things to come for a lot of rivers and streams if the human race doesn't do something about global warming. Hey, speaking of global warming, you want to see something really thought provoking? Check out this dynamic map of the consequences of rising sea levels. Zoom in on your area, and set the sea level rise to 60 meters. So long, Willamette Valley, hello Lake Willamette!

Now George is in the basement, cutting up pipes, like the Ponce de Leon of plumbers, searching for the mythical clog. It's a never ending quest in a building this old. The Love Shack was built in the late 1930s, I believe. It has a few flaws, which George is gradually remedying: New doors, new windows, and new paint go a long way toward making this place respectable (especially since the cafe opened across the street and raised the bar for the neighborhood). Indoors, my kitchen and bathroom floors are covered in cheesy black and white lino tiles laid by a decorator wanna-be sometime toward the end of the last millennium, but I've still got the original porcelain sinks, tub, and cupboards, in all their etched, grooved, and stained glory. And now he's gradually replacing the plumbing. You go, George, hero of slumlords.

Back to the bland name thing. I'm sure they all think, oh boy, another tired old teacher who can't be bothered to learn our names. The truth is, I try, and for ten weeks, I think I do a pretty good job. After the term is over, their names float out of my head like cottonwood fluff. Bland names are hard to remember. I'm sure all those Amandas don't feel particularly bland. And in their defense, they probably didn't choose to be named Amanda. Or Tiffany. Or Michelle. Really, what's in a name, anyway? My colleague Sheryl and I are interchangeable, and I'm quite happy to answer to hey, you.

In the fifth grade, I would have sold my soul to be an Amanda (ditto re: curly hair). Just like all these 1990s Amandas, I was saddled with one of the blandly popular names of the day: Carol. I have never felt like a Carol. In the 1930s there was Carole Lombard, the blonde beauty, but that was before my time. In the 1950s, my namesakes were Carol Burnett and Carol Channing, two larger-than-life personalities impossible for me to live up to. I should have been named Violet (as in shrinking), or perhaps... I don't know, Shyla. Timidity. Reticence. Yeah, that would be a good name for me: Reticence. Hey, I like it. Maybe I'll change my name. From now on, you can call me... Reticence.