The tipping point in the parent-child relationship

Sort of like the waves of tsunami debris piling up on Oregon beaches, the unpleasant realities of my life are piling up outside my mental door. I'm afraid to go outside, metaphorically speaking. I don't want the world to change, but it is. Argh. I want off this Z-ticket ride. I don't want to play anymore.

Everything feels out of control. My mother has been in an nursing home for almost two weeks, recuperating from a broken pelvis just one floor away from the folks who will leave in a body bag. While she languishes in a hospital bed, knitting a pelvis and a baby blanket and hobnobbing with her roommate who is wrestling with Stage 4 lung cancer, for the first time in my life, I did my mother's laundry, folded her underwear, washed her grimy coffee cups, and vacuumed her dusty carpets. A tipping point has been reached. For a few years, a brief moment in time, we were poised at the top of the roller coaster, equals, friends, and now we are falling down the other side. Now I'm the reluctant parental unit. She's the demanding child.

The institution is mere blocks from my apartment, so I walked down the hill in the setting sun. She and her roommate were just finishing dinner: turkey sandwich, condiments in little plastic packets, fruit cocktail in a tiny white unbreakable dish. I picked up more dirty laundry and sat on the bed, visiting and watching the northern sky darkening with flat gray clouds. I did my best to be present.

A half hour later I hiked home in sprinkling rain and whipping wind, feeling grateful that I could leave, at will, on my own two feet. I found a letter in my mailbox from my landsharks. Uh oh. Sure enough, in poorly typed, terse words, they informed me that my rent was going up $50 and that I'd better weed the front or else.

I went out front and dug up a few of the more obvious weeds with a knife, trying to avoid the nearly invisible strawberry plants, but I didn't even glance at the area my mother was weeding when she took the misstep that tossed her down a flight of concrete steps thirteen days ago. When I couldn't see through my wet glasses, I went back inside, just as the skies opened up under a massive rip of thunder.

I always wondered what it would feel like to finally hit my limit. I'm not quite there yet, but I can tell by the feeling in my chest that it may be close. I'd like to say I'm ready to drag up on the whole thing. Pull a geographical. Take my marbles and go home. But this is home. For now, anyway, and reality is outside, knocking on my door. I'm going to bury myself in a book and pretend I hear nothing.

What should I say when a student says, “I can't do it”?

I've been covering a keyboarding class for a colleague who was out for the first two weeks of the term. On Monday she returned in high dudgeon because her schedule had been revised and no one had bothered to notify her. (Not my job.) Her day probably went downhill from there, but I only saw the hour we spent together in the keyboarding lab. I found myself wishing my cell phone had a video camera. What I saw was a lesson in the power of our brains to create complete and utter shite.

We keep some of our keyboarding materials in a big dented metal cabinet, imprisoned by a combination lock. When I told her the combination, my colleague (I'll call her Betsy) solemnly proclaimed, “I can't do it. Not gonna happen.”

“What?” I said, taken aback.

“I can't open those things. I can't do it. Not gonna happen.”

We walked out of the classroom and stood in front of the metal cabinet. She stared bleakly at the lock. “I can't do it. Not gonna happen.”

“Try it.”

She gingerly touched the lock. She turned the knob as if it were a handle on a jack-in-the-box, like any moment a leering evil head on a spring was going to jump out at her and make her look like an idiot. She cautiously turned the knob again, and then gave it a weak yank. It didn't open. “See? I told you. I can't do it.”

I refused to take her word for it. I muscled her out of the way and grabbed the lock. I twisted it expertly.

“Like this. To the right, then back to the left, then right again, and stop.” I stood aside and made a motion that she should pull the lock open. It opened, of course. She looked resigned. “I told you.”

I stared at her for a moment, wondering how she had managed to survive life thus far. Then I briskly implemented Plan B.

“No problem!” I said brightly. “See this file cabinet? We keep a few in the top drawer. Just make sure you have at least five books in here and you'll be fine.”

That was how our “training session ” began. I'll tell you how it ended in another post, if I remember. What did I learn? I'm not sure. When a student says, “I can't do it. Not gonna happen,” should I take her at her word? Or should I hold the possibility of success for her, until she can achieve it for herself? 

Surrendering to the inevitable

Seeing my mother mending her bones in the rehab down the street is triggering my awareness that I spend a lot of my time believing in the silly misconception that I'm in control of my life. Wow. How's that for a sentence.

What would it be like to surrender to life? To stop fighting time and space, other people, my body... to just accept things as they are? Would my experience of my life feel any different?

Would I be able to feel some gratitude that my mother didn't break her neck falling down those concrete steps (which happen to be in front of my apartment)?

Would I be able to serenely accept that my new dissertation Chairperson is just a higher-paid version of the previous flaky Chairperson?

Would I be able to calmly accept that our 15-day dry spell was bound to end sooner or later, because even though there may be climate change, this is still the Pacific Northwest, and rusty is our natural skin condition?

Will I be able to calmly respond to the alarm clock when it goes off tomorrow morning at 5:30 a.m., instead of smacking it five times before I crawl resentfully out of bed?

I'd write more, but 5:30 rolls around awful quick, and I am not a morning person.

Careening out of control into the wreckage of the future

My normal state is to feel precariously perched on a thin edge, like a malcontented gargoyle glaring at the world. As I listen to the gardener's blowing machine rattling outside my windows, I grit my pearlies and reflect on how it is possible to keep functioning despite being stretched like chewing gum stuck to a shoe. The air around me feels slightly more rarefied, or maybe my lungs aren't processing oxygen efficiently due to my freaking out every five minutes.

My father used to admonish me: “Relax!” I always sat in the same old dusty wing chair during my weekly visits, and he sat in his matching dusty wing chair. My foot would be bobbing, my knee would be jerking, my fingers would be picking at anything rough, for example, my other fingers, the chair piping, the creases on my jeans, my nose—I couldn't sit still.

“Relax! Like this.” He let his hands flop over the edge of the chair arms, hanging his head hang loose, an old bald white guy imitating his idea of a guru's meditative posture. I didn't try to explain to him that my erstwhile attempts to meditate, undertaken in Los Angeles when I was questioning the meaning of my existence, had been tainted by the groupies of the Church of Religious Science. Relaxation leaves one vulnerable to attack by nutbars and wackjobs. Nope, I'll keep on fidgeting, thanks, Dad.

So, now, when I really need to chill out, I can't seem to stop fretting. I have reasons to fret, as do all fretters. Life is hard, and worrying is one way to cope. Probably there are more efficient and effective methods—like crack cocaine. Gin and tonic. Right now even some Ben & Jerry's would soothe the pain... But I've sworn off everything except hot baths, naps, and smutty vampire novels. With so few havens (vices) left in which to hide, it's no wonder my cuticles are raw bloody meat. My friend calls it “dwelling on the wreckage of the future.”

My siblings and I have banded together via email and text message to deal with the latest crisis: The center of our existence, the maternal parental unit, took a tumble down some concrete steps on Monday, fracturing her pelvis and requiring some days of recuperation in the hospital, followed by a stint of as yet unknown duration in rehab. Now I realize her 2011 hip replacement was a dress rehearsal for this event. This time we were prepared. We swung into action. Collect clothes, books, cell phone, crossword puzzles. Move car, water plants, renew library books, notify friends and relatives. Fetch and carry, commiserate via text with the in-town sibling, and draw support from the emails of the out-of-town siblings. And teeter on the thin edge of my life.

When one is in disaster mode, it's always good to keep in mind the possibility of more trouble. What else could go wrong? There's another one of those useless questions again. Well, Carol, let's make a list of what else could go wrong. Let's see: your car could break down; you could get fired from your job; you could run over someone's cat; your committee Chairperson could tell you your concept sucks, start over; you could choke on a fishbone, really, the list is endless! So many possibilities. Drat! I've careened once again into the wreckage of the future!

More to be revealed

Finally, at the age of 55, I think I get it. This is it, this is my life; whether I like it or not, this is my life. It doesn't matter how much I complain or whine. Having hope that things might be other than what they are is a waste of the time I have left. Today I am pondering the idea that what I focus on reveals what I think is important.

I have spent so many hours, days, years thinking if-only thoughts. You know what I mean. If only I were thinner, if only I were pretty, if only I had a new car, if only it were 90 degrees everyday, if only people loved me for who I am.... then I could finally be happy. But if-only thoughts are a pointless dead end, leading me nowhere but down, back into the hole in sidewalk I've tried so hard to crawl out of. Today I am taking a new approach to the if-onlys.

If I am not thin by now, then it was never that important to me. If it were that important, I would have spent more time watching my diet and working out. Bah, who cares about thin! I'm giving it up. From now on, no more obsessing over my hips. I wear huge baggy clothes anyway. People already think I weigh 200 lbs. Who cares about a couple camel hip bumps! At least I'm balanced. And if there is a brief famine after the earthquake, I'll be able to live off those hip bumps for a couple weeks at least. Na na na.

About the whole pretty thing. I'm old now, so pretty, like baby-making, is no longer on the bucket list. But grooming is always possible, if one cares about how one looks. For example, if I don't have manicured nails by now, then clearly I must not rate manicured nails high on my priority list. Nails, shmails. That is an easy one to give up—I have never cared much about grooming. (Just as a for instance, this morning I looked in the mirror and found a white hair growing among the coarse dark hairs in my right eyebrow. It must have been there for quite awhile, to be so long. I confess, I rarely look in the mirror. Grooming is highly over rated, in my opinion. Before long my eyebrows will be non-existent, if my mother's eyebrows are any indication of the future of my facial hair.) Anyway, so when it comes to manicures, I don't care what my nails look like, or my hands either, for that matter. I'm just glad I have hands and that they work, more or less. At least I can point to things and carry a cup of tea.

How about cars and self-image? Americans are obsessed over cars. Not me. If I'm not driving a Lexus by now, then I never cared about how my vehicle communicated my status, not enough anyway to earn the money or marry the rich husband so I had the resources to buy one. I've never participated in the must-have-new-car-every-three-years mentality. (Or the earning thing or the rich-husband strategy either.) I know some people would rather die than drive an old beater. Just like there are those who wouldn't be caught dead shopping at a thrift store. Not me. I happily shop Goodwill, and I'm content with my 11-year-old Ford Focus, with all its dents and scratches. It reminds me of me.

The weather thing is a non-starter, but I'll say something about it anyway, because this morning I had a conversation with someone about the issues of powerlessness and control. She admitted she didn't understand the concept of powerlessness, because people control the weather all the time. I was like, what? People control the weather? How did I get left out of that seminar? She proceeded to tell me that there is a cabal of powerful folks controlling the world's weather, so apparently there's no longer any point in complaining about it. Wow, think of the implications! Humans have been complaining about weather since at least the dawn of history. There will be a huge void in the water-cooler conversation if we all get to choose our own micro-climate. Maybe we can get some work done. Anywho, sign me up! Ninety degrees sounds about optimal to me.

The last one, being loved for who I am, is a tricky if-only. I'm demanding unconditional love, and I know enough now to know humans aren't capable of delivering. Somewhere along the line I guess I must have figured out if I wanted acceptance, I would have to be something or someone other than myself. Naturally I resented that realization, and fought it hard in ways both covert and obvious. Which may explain in part why I chose the difficult path of creativity. (And why my relationships have always been such a mess.) But what I think I'm really asking for is acceptance of my creative self. And it hurts to imagine that, applying the same logic I so glibly applied to my hips, if I haven't focused on my art or my writing by now, then maybe I never really believed in them to begin with.

I can't leave it there. I think my mind is trying to kill me again. This happens when I get close to achieving a meaningful and terrifying objective—and my educational journey might qualify as such an objective. After six years, I am beginning to think I might actually one day finish this Ph.D., that the objective might really be achieved. The thought is terrifying. My instinct is to turn my back on the possibility, revert to my childish self, and declare I never really wanted it anyway, this stupid Ph.D., all I really want is to create, and isn't is sad and unfair that no one loves me? Well, that might have worked when I was 25, but not at 55. Nobody cares about my angst. I have a squad of cheerleaders prodding me to make more art, sell it on Etsy, turn the blog into an ebook, sell it on iTunes. Who am I to say it can't be done? Who am I to put some if-only condition on the dreams I have claimed as mine since childhood? Why can't I make art and earn this Ph.D? Maybe it's not an either-or but a both-and. Memo to Self: This is life. So get over yourself and live it, already.

Pondering the questions

Here's an academic quality question for you. Just in case you care. What happens if faculty define academic quality as critical thinking skills, reasoning skills, and communication skills, while administrators define academic quality as student retention rates, job placement rates, and student loan default rates?

I'd like to say I pondered this question this morning, while I lay in a comfy dentist's chair having a filling replaced, but truthfully, this morning was one of those rare occasions when I can say I was truly in the moment. There's nothing like a trip to the dentist to bring you back to your body.

After I recovered with a nap and a pill, I walked into the park and tried to clear the mental fog away with sunshine and exercise. I do my best thinking while walking in the park. (Too bad I forget all my great ideas immediately. I suspect there is a limit on how many brilliant thoughts I'm allowed. Maybe the limit doesn't count if I don't write them down?) Today, I tried to apply my critical thinking and reasoning skills to the problem of defining academic quality, but I kept getting distracted by cute shaggy dogs, happy dog-walkers, hikers, birds, rocks and pebbles... What can I say? It's spring. Who cares about academic quality when the sun is shining in Portland?

At some point, endorphins kicked in. “The End of the Line” by the Traveling Wilburys came on my mp3 player (no, I'm not cool enough to own an iPod), and I started reflecting on the finite nature of life and art. Then I got frustrated with reflecting. I thought about my aunt who died last Friday at the age of 100. I thought about my sister and our matching quests for meaningful lives. I thought about my friend Karen who died way too soon. I thought about how short life is and how unimportant other people's opinions really are. For about 45 seconds, I was ready to claim my place in the world. I was ready to quit the tedious teaching job. I was ready to jump in my car and head for a new adventure. I was ready to tell the world, loudly and repeatedly, “Make room for me, I have something to say!”

Then I had to climb a hill, I got tired, I sneezed, people were in the way, and the path smelled like dog poop. I went back to pondering the question of academic quality as I left the park and meandered toward home. The sun went down, the pain pill wore off, and everything went back to normal.

I do my best work when I'm doing nothing

That is the conclusion I reached today as I trundled my way to Freddy's to replenish my empty fridge. Driving to the store is one of those mundane activities that allows my brain to roam free. My almost-ancient Ford Focus (Found On Road Dead, Fix And Repair Daily) knows the way. On autopilot, I can think about other things besides uninsured motorists, belligerent bicyclists, and kamikaze squirrels. For example, I think about my life and how it sucks. Today, instead of monitoring traffic, I monitored the current level of my malcontentedness. After pausing politely at a four-way stop, I heaved a series of angst-ridden sighs. I realized only one conclusion was possible: I should do nothing, because doing nothing is what I do best. I should just stop trying so hard to make things happen. As soon as I try to do stuff, everything goes to hell in a hand-basket.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend back in 1998. He was a Lyle Lovett look-alike, tall, tan, over-the-top charismatic, and an avid proponent of Science of Mind. I was tagging along after him, metaphysically speaking, searching for my own belief system. My quest wasn't working all that well. One day, after I had shared my typical morose viewpoint, he said, “Carol, you need to re-frame your questions.”

“What? What do you mean?” I asked, not really interested in the answer.

“Well, what question are you asking right now?”

“Uh—why am I such a loser?”

“See, that's what I mean,” he said with satisfaction, as if I were the data point that had just proved the validity of his scientific theory on success.

“Huh?”

“Well, if you ask the question like that, what answers do you think your brain will come up with?”

I stared at him with some resentment. I could see where he was going, but mostly I was annoyed with his obvious smug satisfaction. I hadn't felt that level of certainty about anything in a very long time. To have that level of conviction! I still don't know what that feels like.

Now, in 2012, I can hear his voice smirking in my ear: “Carol, what question are you asking?” And doggone it, it's the same damn question!

Some people say our brains are like computers. If that is true, that would explain why I keep getting responses from my brain like, “File not found.” Maybe my brain is just responding to the questions I ask. The answer to the question “Why am I such a loser?” can only start with “Well, Carol, the reasons why you are such a loser...” Which makes me think I should just stop trying to think my way out of my malcontentdness. I should stop thinking. I should do what I do best. I should do nothing.

The post should stop here for dramatic effect, but since no one will read this except my sister, Bravadita, and a handful of visitors from Russia, I will add a little more. I am too old not to know that I can't expect to sit around and do nothing. I know where that kind of thinking leads. It's sort of like waiting for the bus to come to my front door instead of going out to the bus stop. The only bus that will come to my front door is the short bus, if you know what I mean. And the only place it will take me is the looney bin, where, yes, I will get my three squares, a bed, and lots of time to think. Is that really what I want? Even my malcontented brain knows the answer to that question.

My resentment slip is showing again

I had a 20-minute chat with my new dissertation chair this week, before all the end-of-term madness began. She actually called me. If there was any doubt before, right there you can tell she's not an adjunct. Adjuncts expect you to call them. Of course, makes perfect sense. They don't get paid extra for talking to students on the phone. Or via email for that matter, which is probably why I received communication from the previous chair that I would describe as both terse and sparse.

This new chair, let's call her Dr. C, sounds like a real firecracker. A regular pistola. Judging by her photo, she's half my age, and five times as peppy. I didn't have to say much; she did all the talking. I took notes like the good student that I am, and watched the next year and a half of my life get sucked down the drain.

Yep. Looks like this is going to take a lot longer than I thought.

She was properly sympathetic that my concept paper, submitted to the University with zero feedback from my former chair (I picture Dr. G. dusting off her hands with satisfaction at having passed the problem on to higher committee) has been kicked back to me with a “re-submit.” No big surprise, I guess. I have been blundering around out in the back forty for quite awhile now. Yuck. That's a disturbing metaphor. You know what happens to critters who blunder around out in the back forty. Yep. Hamburger.

Still, Dr. C. seems like a good egghead. She said she's a methodologist. I don't care what she calls herself. I can get along with all kinds of people. Wait. What? Oh, a methodologist! Considering my current approach is grounded theory, I'm sure she will have a lot to say. Oh boy. I feel another bout of inadequacy coming on. Deep breath. I told myself when I started the dissertation sequence that I was going to treat my chairperson as my client, do whatever it takes to please the client, you know—the old the-customer-is-queen ploy that marketers use to make you feel so special you want to reciprocate (i.e., buy things). I'm going to make this process so easy for her, she will feel like her pay-per-hour just doubled.

Ugh. Thinking of pay-per-hour just got me really depressed. My original vision of teaching online for a not-for-profit university has been pretty well shattered by now, what with the reports of poor treatment of adjuncts and the deep-seated mistrust of for-profit education. So much for retiring to an internet-connected adobe hut in the California desert. The hut probably is attainable, although I fear it will be made of cardboard rather than adobe. The California desert, though, is starting to feel like an impossible dream from my earlier, stupider days. Well, at least I learned something from this six-year-long, $45,000 journey into higher education.

Launch the lifeboats, the ship is sinking!

The term ended today at the career college. Last week was spent preparing finals, administering finals, and grading finals to the few students who actually showed up. (I know, like, who wouldn't show up to the final?) I took time out from all the grading to wonder how some students could, despite ten weeks of reminders, pleas, and threats, turn in no work during the entire term and have an expectation of passing the course. And as I reflected on how few Access tests I had to grade (bonus!), an increasing amount of my time was spent wondering how long this career college is going to survive.

I love that terms are only ten weeks long. I hate that, after the term is over, we have no time to process or reflect on our 10-week journey. No time to think about what we would like to improve. No time to create new assignments we hope will be more engaging than the lame things we did last term. I submitted my last grade packet this morning, but some instructors will be spending their weekend grading. Grades are due Monday morning, and first thing Monday morning we launch into a new term. With so little time to reflect, grade, and prepare, how can we possibly do a good job?

I wish I had something good to say, some cheery and uplifting observation, sort of like the pithy and pointed remarks my father used to say, along the lines of, “Hey, you have a job, what are you bellyaching about?” I should be grateful. I'm not. What I am is burned out.

The amount of effort, angst, grief, and frustration that goes into the ending of a term and the prospect of beginning a new one has led me to one unsettling conclusion: I need a new job. But where can I find a job that pays me full-time wages for part-time work? Until I finish this stupid doctorate, I am stuck.

So what, who cares. In about eight weeks, I will have forgotten how crappy I feel right now.

A little more venting, and then I'm done. Today, in addition to the grading and prepping, as we do at the end of every term, we attended three hours of in-service workshops designed to make us better teachers. I could tell them what would make me a better teacher: Let me get enough sleep. Give me some time to process what I've experienced. A door prize of a school t-shirt or a Wells Fargo grocery bag is not going to cut it. My boss's boss, who is the business program director at another campus, sat by me in one session. He wrote something on a piece of paper and turned it so I could see it. He wrote, “I had zero starts.”

Zero starts! He told me we need 64 students at our site to break even. If every new student actually shows up on Monday, new starts at all three campuses will total 64. Clearly the ship has crashed on the rocks and is taking on water fast. Launch the lifeboats. Mucky-mucks, no cuts. We are watching you.

Speaking of mucky-mucks, they were around at the end of the day, lurking like the mostly invisible creatures they are, coming out after dark to flit around the building. At 5:00, we got the news: Time to leave. Evening orientation was canceled due to lack of enrollments. Everyone out of the building. As I lugged my bags full of last term's binders toward the door, I passed the president of the college and another man in a suit. Both looked quite relaxed, standing in the lobby, smiling. I wanted to ask them what they had to smile about, but I didn't. Oh wait, let me guess. I bet you have some pretty nice golden parachutes to save you if the company goes under. Not me. But I'm not going down with this ship. Last one out is fishfood. Beat you to the lifeboat.

Mumbo jumbo, hocus pocus, and naturopaths—Oh my!

Do I have the word sucker written on my forehead? I guess there's one born every minute, and I'm it. I fear my naturopath thinks I'm an easy mark. I love Dr. Tony, but I suspect he sees dollar signs instead of my face when I walk in the door. Another payment on the student loans, that's me. Is he taking advantage of my gullible, trusting nature? Am I just stupid? Maybe I'm just open to unusual experiences?

I went in yesterday for my tune-up. I'm used to the muscle testing now. He reads me like an open book he's read every two months for the past three years. He uses me now as a demonstration model for new students. I never know who will be watching me get worked over by the Doctor. Yesterday it was a geeky guy wearing poindexter glasses and a bright fuschia shirt: I was like, dude, tone it down, I'm trying to chill out here. I didn't say it, I just shook his hand politely and launched into a graphic description of my major complaint: constipation!

I lie on my back on the table, with my butt in a hole and my head canted awkwardly on an uncomfortable leather pillow. I hold my arm straight up in the air while Dr. Tony pushes on it and mumbles to himself. I can tell when he's found something. He gets excited and makes a-ha! noises. Then he laughs maniacally.

He consults his book of Chinese medicine. I can just imagine what it says: “For female round-eye with constipation: give snake spit!” He sends the student out to the other room for some lachesis. Sure enough, it's snake venom! A few granules on the tongue, and I'm good as new. Right. Well, a few more tests, just to be sure. Wait, what's this? My emotions are causing my digestion problems? Abandonment? Crying? (I couldn't figure out who I felt abandoned by and I said so, but I didn't have the guts to tell him I wept over Davy Jones.) I fall back on my usual MO: I don't need no stinking emotions! Just give me an extra dose of snake spit, Doc!

After some acupuncture and an admonition to drink more water, I stagger out of the place a half hour later, a hundred bucks poorer with an appointment to do it again in two months. When I get to my car, I check my hat to make sure no one has surreptitiously slapped a sucker sticker on it when I was having my out-of body-experience. I wouldn't put it past a guy who wears a bright pink shirt. Then I go home and go to bed.

Actually, in all honestly, I believe I'm alive today because of Dr. Tony and his hocus pocus muscle testing. Three years ago he told me with a kind smile, “Eat meat or die.” I didn't want to eat meat, but I didn't feel ready to die quite yet. So I finally started eating chicken. Then some salmon. And occasionally some juicy red free-range grass fed beef! (Yech.) I can't eat soy or rice or beans, and it would have taken a truckload of broccoli to get enough protein to rebuild my saggy atrophied muscles. If I want to live, I have to eat real food. That means protein. Three years later, my muscles have returned, I've lost a lot of extra weight around my middle, and I have the luxury of worrying about repairing my digestion through emotion management. How cool is that!

I owe Dr. Tony my life. Maybe that is why I lie passively while he experiments on me. Maybe that is why I don't care about being oggled by geeky naturopaths-in-training. I don't care if he somehow managed to magically have the word sucker tattooed on my butt. It may be mumbo jumbo, but it worked for me.

I'm so screwed

I edited six paragraphs of my literature review tonight and got stuck looking for a citation for one messy, murky statement I made in a moment of arrogance. Whoa, who do I think I am? I'd better cite a source, quick, before the thought police bust me for making an unsubstantiated claim. That's what I was thinking as I logged into the university portal and clicked on EBSCO Host, which recently was expanded with a huge database of business articles. Cool! I plugged in my search terms and found... nothing? What?

Well, not exactly nothing, but nothing that seemed to have the potential to corroborate my messy, murky statement. But I found lots of other interesting things: current studies and articles on my topic from all around the world. Norway! South Africa! Hong Kong! Connecticut! Plus lots of other neat places I will likely never see. I downloaded feverishly, hoarding the files into my folder, gloating gleefully—until I realized I am going to have to read all this stuff. And I'm still stuck on the messy, murky statement.

So I did what all intrepid scholars do when they find themselves spinning their wheels. I closed the stupid file, and opened this stupid blog. All I can say is, I'm so screwed. Oh, not about the messy, murky statement: I'll just delete the darn thing, who cares, not me. Nobody will ever miss it. And if it is any consolation to you, it won't be the only messy, murky statement I write in this dissertation. I'm sure there will be others.

Life is feeling particularly overwhelming. Next week is finals at the career college, followed by an insane Friday of grading, in-service, and prepping for the new start on Monday. (We like to pile up all our stress on one day at the career college, it's more efficient that way.) To make things more interesting, the past week or so, there have been some mucky-mucks in suits roaming the halls. Apparently one of the owners is selling his shares to an investment corporation. Look out, little backwater college. I predict things will be changing. New owners like to clean house. That usually means out with the old, in with the new. And judging by the way enrollment numbers have been headed over the past couple years (down), I predict faculty numbers will shortly be headed the same direction. Great. I just hope the job holds out until I can finish this degree.

Speaking of which, I have a phone call set up for next week with my new chairperson. I'm shocked at how promptly she has responded to my messages. It's unnerving. Now I guess I'm going to have to show up with the same level of commitment. No more hiding behind my flaky adjunct former chair. I guess that is what happens when the university assigns a full-time faculty member to be the committee chairperson: she is actually take the job seriously. (I'm not saying adjuncts are flaky; some of my best friends are adjuncts. I just know adjuncts don't get paid extra to respond promptly.)

Change happens, but sometimes it's slow. Sometimes it doesn't look the way I want it to look. Maybe I'll go to work tomorrow and find a padlock on the front door. Maybe... no, my brain only thinks of negative possibilities. Little Mary Sunshine I am not. I, the chronic malcontent, scoff at optimists. One thing I can say for sure: Someday this will all be over, one way or another. Right now the job feels endlessly boring, tedious, and pointless. This Ph.D. pursuit feels endlessly, excruciatingly messy and murky. I guess that is how we find out what we are made of. Me, I'm made of spit, snot, and malcontented stubbornness. And I don't need no stinking citation to substantiate that claim.

Words can hurt

Today I took time to take a trot in the park. A lovely spring day is not something to ignore around here, because we won't have one again for a while. Probably around July 5, if past performance is any indication of future events.

While I was standing by one of the open reservoirs, peering into the viridian water, wondering how well the filtering system screens out duck shit and tennis balls, I heard a voice berating someone for singing along to a Lionel Richie song. While I'm not a big Lionel Richie fan, I still am in favor of allowing a person to sing along to whatever music he or she enjoys. In this case, the singer was a boy, maybe ten or twelve, not yet pubescent, a bit on the pudgy side, with headphones and glasses. He and about six other boys were sitting on the warm pavement, resting beside their skateboards.

The berater of the singer was much older, a weathered, blonde man wearing a weird skateboarder wetsuit type outfit. He stood over the group, and made fun of the singing kid. And he just wouldn't quit. He called the kid a girl. (Horrors, god forbid anyone should be called a girl.) He said, “That song was shit the first time around!” The other kids laughed. The singer was obviously mortified, humiliated by the group leader in front of his peers.

I stood nearby, stretching my legs and glaring at the blonde man, wishing I could say something to him that would make him shut up, make him apologize to the group for being such a thoughtless jerk, but realizing that the boy whose creative self-expression I was wanting to support would not thank me, a pasty-legged middle-aged female, for intervening on his behalf in front of his crew. So I just walked away in disgust.

The incident got me thinking about turning points in the lives of young people, and how a few misplaced words can derail dreams. I can remember moments in my life when something someone said changed my trajectory—and not for the better. For example, I remember when my father told me, “Learn how to type so you'll have something to fall back on.” I was in my late teens, I think, still believing I could be an artist, still thinking the world was a friendly place for creative people. I didn't believe I would need a skill like typing. I rebelled. I didn't take typing in high school, but his words planted a message in my mind: Your art will not support you. Be safe, learn another skill. Why couldn't he have suggested welding, or horse-breeding, or something else outside the proscribed world of women? Sadly, I did eventually learn how to type, a skill which led to my impressment into the bitter estrogen-clogged army of administrative assistants, also known as secretaries.

Another crossroads moment came in college. It was 1975. One of my fellow painters told me painting was dead. It was all about conceptual art now, didn't I know, hadn't I heard? The tired world of physical canvases covered with paint was so pedestrian, so the opposite of avante garde. I was a very young 19. What did I know? Not myself, that's for sure. When I heard painting was a dead art form, did I think, hey, artists have been painting since the beginning of time, no way are they going to stop now? No. I had the same reaction I had when I was ten and my friends told me Mike Nesmith was the ugly Monkee. I tore all his pictures off my wall and cried my eyes out. When I heard painting was dead, I switched my major from painting to graphic design, and the rest, as they say, is the sad sordid history of my miserable art career.

I'm not blaming my dad. I'm not blaming my fellow classmate. I'm just pointing out that there are crossroads moments in the lives of young people, moments that offer them a choice, and if they are at all unsure about who they are, the words people toss out so carelessly can have a lasting impact. These people and their thoughtless words can change lives, and not always for the better.

So the next time you have a chance to tell a kid something, even if you think she isn't listening, please be careful what you say.

Embracing our quirks and eccentricities

At the career college, the term is winding down. Two weeks to go. In my Professional Development class, we are immersed in the tense and exciting process of mock interviews, three a day until everyone has a chance to be interviewed. For ten minutes, each student is in the hot seat, center stage, as he or she is interviewed by a panel of peers in front of the rest of the class. Everyone, including me, fills out an evaluation form on the “candidate,” the results of which I compile and give to the student a week or so after the interview.

These are the many, the loud, the medical assistants. In general, a certain type of personality is drawn to this helping profession. They tend to be extraverts, excruciatingly social, always talking, texting, moving, laughing. They mostly swarm together, like a flock of magpies, or maybe a coven of shiny crows is a better metaphor, yakking back and forth, perched across chairs and tables. And then suddenly, about ten minutes before the end of class, whoosh! They rise up en masse: class is over, we're outta here! I have to wave them back down to the ground, back to their seats.

The mock interviews proceed with many groans, sweaty palms, and fidgety knees. A few students, when placed in the limelight, behave the way I expect them to, ignoring the requirement to dress professionally, belligerently responding to questions with terse and sarcastic answers, obviously despising the process (and me). But sometimes I am delighted at the hidden personalities that emerge when the student is on the spot. Then I realize they don't all fly together. There are a few introverts in this swarm of crows. My people.

But just because they are introverts doesn't mean they are shy! Students who have said virtually nothing all term suddenly blossom when asked “Tell me about yourself,” exuding confidence and depths hitherto unseen and unimagined. It makes me love them and their secret lives, which they keep well-hidden and protected in a social setting that can be brutal and ruthless. Did you know crows eat smaller birds? It's true.

One of the students, an extreme extravert, had clearly had experience being interviewed, a lot more experience than her panel of interviewers had interviewing. She played them like the pro she was, tossing their questions back at them with a carefree, breezy style. The panel rallied bravely and dug deeper.

“If you could be a superhero, who would you be?”

“Wonderwoman, of course,” the candidate proclaimed triumphantly.

“What word would you use to describe yourself?”

“Fun-loving!”

“If your life were a book, what would be the title?”

“The quirky and eccentric world of [insert student name here]!”

I could feel myself cringing a little, imagining an employer's response to that declaration of individuality, even as I silently applauded her. She displayed her authentic personality like a banner, clearly proud to be a nut. (And she is a nut, I think—later she told me she has to take some pill before she can go on an interview, else she will be so hyperactive she'll be communicating from another time zone. Sort of a nut, maybe more like a wackjob, technically speaking.)

Every day, after the third interview, we take ten minutes to debrief. The extraverts are so excited, they all talk at once. I have to beg time for the introverts to share their insights. We discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of telling an interviewer that one is eccentric, quirky, and fun-loving. The consensus is usually this: Why on earth would we want to work for an organization that doesn't appreciate who we are?

Why indeed?

If I sit on the sidelines, I don't get to play the game

I told myself I wouldn't interrupt my writing to update this blog, but I couldn't help myself. I was just swamped with an overwhelming feeling of despair, as it occurred to me that this process may never end. I may be working on this degree.... forever! I may be trapped in a literary version of GroundHog's Day, where I wake every morning no further than I was the day before! Oh no!

Everyday, I read with horror my half-baked literature review, full of anthropomorphisms, cliches, and subject-verb disagreements. Incorrect citation formats, non-peer-reviewed sources, one space after terminal punctuation instead of two! Argh. I had to take a break and tell someone. That would be you. Listen: I'm going crazy!

Today I got an email from a University employee I've never heard of, informing me that I now have a new chairperson for my dissertation committee. My former chair has been demoted to "Committee member #1." Oh boy. Now it begins. The highly anticipated "improvements" promoted by the University have now reached my little backwater.

My first thought was, oh no, Dr. G. will be pissed. I'm not sure why I thought that. Maybe I got the sense that she was somewhat territorial about her learners. Maybe because she called me "Sweetie," I don't know. So, if she is a disgruntled committee member, will she play well with the new chair, Dr. C.? We can only hope. I looked Dr. C. up on the list of mentors. She has a photo next to her name. She might be half my age. Sigh. These young people, they are so.... young.

It's funny that now I am ABD, and maybe in about a year I'll be a Ph.D., if everything continues to stumble forward according to plan, I realize that these people with a litany of letters after their name aren't necessarily any smarter than the average bear. (I'm an average bear.) Some of them are no doubt brilliant. But if you stop and think about it, by the law of statistics, in terms of intelligence, half of these docs will be above the median and half will be below. Somehow that is comforting. I can be below average for a doctoral learner, and still be considered a success.

Of course, we are all winners in the human race, right? Sperm, egg, you know what I mean. Anyway, here I am, ready to tackle the lit rev again, feeling a little better for having vented. Put me back in, coach. I'll try not to think about tomorrow, when it starts all over again.

Writing is like herding cats

Writing is like herding cats. Pulling teeth. Drinking vinegar. I'm trying to write my literature review. Forty to eighty pages is the goal. I'm at about twelve. My eyes are crossed. It's not even 8:00 p.m., and I'm totally bushed. Knackered. Wrecked. Why is this so hard? It's material I've written about for years. Academic quality in for-profit higher education. What could be more interesting? Zzzzzzzzz.

Yes, I'm bored with it. I confess. After five years of circling ever closer to this scintillating topic, like a buzzard honing in on fetid roadkill, I've got the smell of it, the taste of it, I know my topic. Easy to say, difficult to prove. How can I demonstrate to you that I know my topic, and further, that not only do I know it, but I also know a good reason for studying it some more? I need to sound convincing. But with my eyes crossed like this, I doubt anyone would take me seriously.

So, in the face of a literary headwind, I do what all writers do (when they have no ice cream in the freezer): I started a new project. Yep. When faced with extreme overwhelm, the downtrodden throw themselves under the bus. So, now, in addition to the five screenplays, two treatments, one novel, and sundry non-fiction books I have currently in progress, I now have another blog. Wait. Before I talk about the blog, let me just say that most of those projects I've got started are (a) ancient, (b) lame, and (c) unlikely to ever be completed. Just in case you were feeling a tad inadequate or something.

About the new project. Like most people, my life can be divided into phases or stages. Childhood, teenage, young adult, you know what I mean. When I was 20, I moved to Los Angeles to be a fashion designer. (Ha! Bet you couldn't tell that by looking at me now!) Well, it won't come as a surprise to find out I wasn't a huge success, but I did spend about 12 years designing and sewing custom-made clothes, one of the worst jobs of my life, which is really sad considering I was the owner of the company. My blog is about that experience and how to avoid a similar debacle if you possibly can.

You probably aren't interested in starting your own custom clothing design business, so I won't give you a link to the new blog here. I mention it just by way of explaining the difficulty I am having writing my literature review. It's not the act of writing that is distasteful. I'm writing right now, wheeee, look at me go. It's fun and easy. My brain just chugs along, spewing out lame cliches and trite phrases, my fingers chew up the keyboard, and voila: text! Who cares if it makes sense. Not me!

But the daunting, mammoth mountain of the literature review.... argh. I must cull a thousand sources for the ones that tell the story, the story of academic quality that no one cares about, no one will ever read, just so I can jump through the hoops and maybe someday cross the finish line. What will I do then? Thanks for asking. I will update my blogs, eat some ice cream, and take a really, really, really long nap.

It could be worse

While I'm avoiding writing my literature review, I have the time to obsess about other things. I'm feeling somewhat fragile. The best I can say today is that it is not raining. Whoa. Really? The best I can say? I need to congratulate myself on my approach to self-obsession, because this approach is working disconcertingly well. I'm so focused on self I forget that possibly 90% of the world population would give a lot to have my problems.

My problems are luxury problems. I don't have to worry about food (although I do despair over the state of the food supply). I don't have to fret over gas. (I actually think we should pay more for gas.) I have shelter (albeit nothing fancy, but it's a lot nicer than a grass shack or a tin shed). I have clothes (so what if they mostly were previously worn by others—reduce, recycle, reuse, right?). Really, my life is fine. Fine. I'm fine.

You already know how I feel about gratitude lists, so I won't bore you with that rant again. I'm not by nature a grateful person (although I have been known to smile on occasion). But really, if the best I can say is that it isn't raining, then I need to get out more, because my life is way too small.

I know what is happening. My brain is trying to kill me. I'm stuck in that peculiar paralysis mode where I can't quite get the gumption to open up my literature review and get down to work. I'm in that special state where I am almost, but not quite, ready to do something really crazy-distracting like... mop the kitchen floor or vacuum. This morning I had the urge to purge my closet—you know, pull it all out and start over. But then I imagined the horror of shopping for new clothes and quickly nixed that idea. But someday it has to happen. My closet is stale as a tomb, full of moths, spiders, art supplies, and a shop vac. I mean, really. Could it be worse?

Sure, it could be worse. I could have a job where I have to wear a uniform (been there, done that, no thanks!). Or a job where—god forbid!—I would have to wear pantyhose, a power suit, and pumps. (I'd live under the bridge before I ever do that again.) Seriously, who am I kidding? I can practically hear you say it (and you sound remarkably like my father, weird how you do that with your voice.) Well, all I can say in reply is that I'm entitled to my tantrum. I can feel whatever I want. But you are right. Eventually I must acknowledge reality—Reality, the big R, the one where I'm not the hub—and return to my right size. Eventually the floors will be scrubbed, the hairballs will be vacuumed, and the lit review will be written. Now if I could just keep it from raining...

Never fall in love with an Internet service provider

After weeks of Internet connection trouble, the monolith known as Century Link, arrived on my doorstep today and commandeered my Internet life. I could have opted to keep my Internet service provider, a local company I love, but I would have to settle for half the speed I'm paying Century Link for.

So I did the prudent, logical thing. I said goodbye to my ISP. I had to break up by email, because I was weeping too hard to speak. What the heck? I laughed even while I cried. I'm just a customer! Customers come and go. Why do I feel like I am losing a friend? I didn't weep when I cancelled my 24 Hour Fitness account. Why am I so sentimental over cutting my ISP loose?

After I wiped my tears, I pondered the question. It could be I'm weeping over other things that are lurking in my subconscious. Like the entire past six years of the graduate degree grind. That would be enough to make anyone gnash their pearlies and wail to the moon. It could be I'm grieving the loss of my eyebrows concurrent with the growth of a mustache. Argh, enough said. It could be I'm teary because, I don't know, because it's not 90 degrees, I'm not young enough, thin enough, or smart enough, and my car is over ten years old? Hell, the world is going to hell in a handbasket: It could be anything!

Except, I don't cry much anymore. Mostly my life is remarkably serene. There have been a few bumps—the deaths of my father, my friend Karen, and my cat Meme. I cried at those events, and still feel sadness when I think about them. I remember I cried when my 1987 Honda CRX blew its engine. (That was a sad day, let me tell you.) But I am not sure why I am classifying my ISP among that special group of angels. I've never even met the guy who ran interference for me with Century Link. It seems somewhat ironic and terribly unfair that all his excellent customer service just lost his company a customer.

What I've learned from this startlingly soppy experience is that business is based on relationships, and relationships are built on trust. I trusted my ISP. I felt great comfort when I received terse, polite emails from him, knowing he was handling everything for me. I pictured a geeky guy hunched over a computer, monitoring my Internet connection with one hand while waving a laser sword at Century Link with the other.

Oh mi gorsh. Can you believe it? My Internet connection just went down again. I really hope Century Link is working on the line somewhere, because now I have no one to turn to, no one to call. I have the Web equivalent of a flat tire, and nobody to call to come rescue me. I just broke up with my hero, my knight in shining armor, my beloved ISP. I'm stranded on the information highway! Curse you, Century Link!

You can change the world in just 15 minutes a day

So says my friend and coach (who lives in Phoenix where it was 85 yesterday, so of course she would be full of optimism). Actually, she didn't say I could change the world. What she said was, I could write a book. In just 15 minutes a day. But I think you could probably insert any huge, overwhelming project in that sentence, and make progress toward its completion in just 15 minutes a day.

Except maybe the literature review for my dissertation. (Am I whining again? I have to be careful of slipping into “I'm so special” mode, you know what I mean: I'm so special that the Universe has singled me out as the one exception, the one person on the face of the planet, out of almost 7 billion people, that the 15-minute a day suggestion won't work for.)

Fifteen minutes a day feels impossible when it comes to writing a literature review, because it takes a lot longer than 15 minutes to read what I've written and remember what I was trying to say. (We are talking 40-80 pages, after all, a veritable tome, a massive testament to my intellect, which if I ever do actually finish I predict no one will actually read.) I think my writing strategy needs some work. Tiny bites. Baby steps. That's what they say. Fifteen minutes a day.

So, here I am, I've got time, and what am I doing? I just spent 45 minutes clearing out my email inbox. That was productive. Not. Now I'm working on this blog. Super fun and totally useless as far as moving me toward finishing my literature review. I'm distracted by everything: my cat, the sunshine, my headache... how does one focus in the face of all these obstacles? I want to eat a gallon of ice cream. I want to spend money. I want to take a nap. Oh, wait, I already did that. Darn it!

I joined a LinkedIn dissertation discussion group, so I receive daily emails from ABDs just like me, whining about getting started, pleading for support from the group. (Do I offer any support? No, I'm an introvert and a chronic malcontent, remember? I just lurk and smirk.) Reading their posts allows me to feel superior. And maybe it motivates me a tiny bit to prove I'm not like them. We'll see.

Another motivation: The university just shuffled me into the next dissertation course. Even though I don't know if my concept has been approved, I'm now enrolled in DIS 2. Lucky me, apparently my performance in DIS 1 was satisfactory, and now I've been awarded the right to spend another $2,380 for three more months of torture. Oh joy. The next course doesn't actually start until April 30, so I have some time to do some laundry, maybe vacuum the hairballs off the rugs. And work on my literature review. All I need is 15 minutes a day.

How to lose friends and alienate people without even trying

My mother recently told me what to do to have more friends. “To have friends, you have to be a friend!” she said, using a tone of voice I remember well from childhood, the one that indicates she will always have the answers because she is, after, the grown up and I'm the stupid kid. Now she's 82 and half my size. I could take her. I'm not afraid of her or her voice anymore. But I have been thinking about what she said about friendship. I  suspect she is on to something.

Today I checked into my dissertation course room and discovered that my concept had been sent to the URR for approval. What is the URR? you ask. You and me both. It used to be the OAR. The something Academic Review. I forget what the O stood for. Now they have a new acronym, the URR. I think it's something like University Research Review... Google is no help on this one. (Although I was waylaid by the Google Art Project on the Google home page. Have you seen it? Art! For everyone! I am stoked. I couldn't get any images to load, though. Connection problems, as usual. Curse you, Century Link!)

Anyway, back to the URR. This is good news. I think. Apparently the committee deemed my prospectus ready for prime time. Just a few more days and I will know if my concept is approved. In the meantime, the university in its unfathomable wisdom has enrolled me in the next dissertation course. That was unexpected. I thought I had another week. The next course begins April 30. My question: Is my chairperson still on the job in between courses? Or is she parked in her recharging cubicle until it's time to reanimate?

Back to the topic. The grindingly relentless doctoral journey has taken a toll on me in many ways. While I admit I would be 55 even if I weren't stuck on the this Z-ticket ride, I might not be so... wrinkly? pasty? saggy? The truth is, physically I'm weak as a used tissue. Mentally I'm not in great shape either. I could blame menopause or my vegan debacle for my lack of mental acuity but I prefer to blame higher education. (It's so fashionable to do that these days.) But what I'm really talking about here is the toll this academic pursuit has taken on my social life. I have no friends!

So, in case you want to avoid being in this sad situation yourself, here are some things to avoid doing. On the other hand, if you are a chronic malcontent and you want to hone your whining skills, just follow this short checklist and you'll soon see the results you seek.

To lose friends and alienate people, do the following:

1. Only talk about yourself.
2. Interrupt other people.
3. Roll your eyes when other people are speaking.
4. Turn your back and walk away while saying something particularly snarky over your shoulder.
5. Miss appointments and don't apologize.
6. If you are a teacher, say to your students, “You are in college now, and in college we ________ (fill in the blank with the opposite of whatever stupid thing your students are doing).”

It really takes very little effort once you get the hang of it. You'll soon find yourself alone. Except maybe for your mother. You can always count on mom to say, “I told you so.”

Make sure your paragraphs are straightforward and reasonably short

I'm working on an outline of the literature review section of my dissertation proposal. The project is daunting in scope. I have to take frequent naps. What is my topic? Thanks for asking. Faculty perceptions of academic quality in onsite Gainful Employment programs. I think. You are probably going, what? Faculty perceptions of what? Right, I know. I feel the same way.

Every now and then I am assigned a class to teach, in which the students are required to write essays. Right now I'm teaching an ethics course to a group of seven paralegal students. Remember, this is the Associate of Applied Science degree in Legal Arts, so we aren't talking about capstones, theses, or dissertations here. I ask for five paragraphs. Count 'em. Five. That's all, just five paragraphs per essay. I give them a choice of topic and remind them to use the textbook as a source.

Then I proceed to draw my famous OreoÒ cookie diagram on the board to describe how they should set up their five-paragraph essay. The top layer of the cookie is the introduction, with at least five sentences. The first sentence of the introduction is the “hook,” that is, the story or statistic that will get the reader's attention. The next three sentences are the three “preview points,” previewing the topics of the following three paragraphs. The fifth sentence is the thesis statement, the claim they are attempting to prove. I tell them to write the introductory paragraph after they have written the three paragraphs of the body.

The body of the essay (the creamy filling) consists of three paragraphs on three aspects of the main topic. Bla bla bla. I tell them to make sure each paragraph is focused on one aspect and roughly five sentences. And then, using the whiteboard marker, I draw some lines to connect the topic sentences of each paragraph back to the preview points in the introduction. I assume that because I am a visual learner, everyone else is, too. At this point, I usually turn and look at the students. Are they drawing my diagram in their notebooks? Yes! My work is done. Are they texting on their smart phone? Give up now, it's hopeless.

I tell them to cheat on the closing paragraph. “Just copy the introductory paragraph!” I smirk. “Rephrase the three preview points, reaffirm your conclusion about the claim (did you prove it?), and wrap up with the hook you opened with. Voila!” At that point, they look at me like I'm insane. Probably they didn't take French in high school.

“And don't forget,” I warn them, “Your works cited page is always the last page of your essay! Not a separate file, not the next paragraph, no! Insert a manual page break! Hanging indent! Use the OWL!” I'm sure you agree, after seeing the cookie diagram, the five-paragraph essay should be a piece of cake. Cookie. Whatever. The five-paragraph structure should be clear, right? But what do you think happens?

The brutal truth: It's a good thing I'm not an English instructor, because I'd have to kill myself. The results this term have been less then stellar. Typically, I'm getting a four-paragraph essay in which the writer takes off on a personal rant in the introduction. Preview points: non-existent. The body: random thoughts and uncited quotes stolen from Web sources. Closing paragraph: missing completely. Works cited: starts half-way down page 2, consisting of all two of the Web sites visited, perhaps with URLs, and displaying grievously incorrect formatting. In one case, the hanging indent was imitated using spaces, a novel solution requiring many unnecessary keystrokes, but when you are getting paid by the hour, who cares.

Confoundingly, out of six people, two have turned in nothing. Nothing. Apparently the task of writing five paragraphs is so overwhelming they chose paralysis over mediocrity. Can't say I blame them, been there, done that. But this is college, I'm the instructor, and it's my job to motivate/beat/shame/bribe them into doing something. Anything. Who cares if your paragraphs are straightforward and reasonably short. Just write something!