Moaning about math

If there is a god, it has a sense of humor. Why else would I be teaching a math class? I've been hopelessly incompetent with numbers since I used to cheat in Mrs. Corbin's second grade class. Now, 50 years later, I'm teaching a business math class—although we don't call it math, we call it 10-key Calculator. The students learn to do basic business arithmetic on a basic Sharp calculator. And I'm their teacher.

If the career college I work for cared about assigning teachers to courses based on the teachers' strengths and interests, I would be teaching marketing, management, and PowerPoint. But that is not how it works in the career college world. Are you warm? Are you breathing? Do you have the proper credential, according to the accrediting agency and the State of Oregon? Then you can teach the class. (Here are the textbooks! Good luck!) It's a good thing the person who hired me didn't know about my sad history with numbers. She might not have hired me. And I would still be driving the short bus in Gresham. (Another story.)

At age seven, I was confounded by subtraction. At age eight, I was demoted to the hallway until I could tell the story of the big hand and the little hand. In high school I survived algebra and geometry because I had great teachers. I swore I would never again tax my brain with numbers. Not long after, I overdrew my first checking account.

After I moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s, I sidled up to numbers again when I started my own business. This was before computers, so I taught myself how to keep my records, track my inventory, and manage my checkbook. I was so proud. But apparently there was more to it than I realized. I was soon way over my head in credit card debt. After awhile I stopped balancing my checkbook. I figured, it wasn't my money, anyway, so why  bother. When I got close to the credit limit, I would just shove the balance onto a fresh new credit card and keep racking up more debt. All in the name of keeping my business running, of course.

When the whole thing tanked, I went back to college (on my credit cards), starting with introductory algebra, and worked my way up to calculus. I know, crazy, huh, me doing calculus. I have no idea what calculus is or what it is used for. I'm pretty sure I didn't know then, either, but I guess I learned enough to pass the class. I believe that was the pinnacle of my mathematical achievement.

I had a few more traumatic episodes (statistics, finance, economics, and operational management), but somehow I managed to fool everyone long enough to pass the courses. Eventually I came out the great meat grinder of higher education, AKA Cal State LA, with an undergraduate degree in Business Administration. Yay me. After graduation, I was like the runner who rests after cresting the hill. My brain relaxed and got fat.

In the years since, I would pretend to understand math, but it was all a sham, a masquerade to avoid shame. Every now and then I would get caught out in a math faux pas, usually something to do with calculating a restaurant tip. So embarrassing. Then my brain would shut down completely while my body frantically tried to remember how to breathe. Yep, there's nothing like a good public shaming to make you feel alive.

And now I'm teaching math. If it weren't so tragic, it would be hilariously ironic. It's tragic that my handful of students aren't being taught by someone who really knows and cares about numbers. But then, it is hilarious, because it is a self-paced class, where the students teach themselves from a cute little textbook. When they get stuck, I just read the words out loud over their shoulder. They don't take time to read the instructions, so when I read it aloud, they are, like, oh yeah, I get it now. I look like I know what I'm doing! Fooled them again!

Actually, compared to my students, I know more than I think I do. I can round numbers with ease, whereas they are perplexed by the whole idea. Round $9.39 to the nearest dollar? Wha—? Well, would you rather spend $9.00 or $10.00? As soon as I put it in terms of their money, they get it. Estimating, though, forget about it. They don't see the point, so they refuse to try. Why should we estimate, we have the calculator!

Last week one of my students, a tiny long-haired barely-post-teen girl whose parents I suspect are fairly well off, looked right up at me and said, “I can't do any math in my head. I don't even know how to multiply!” She sounded proud of it. I was thinking to myself, I can't either, but that's because my brain is old and fat. You can't do it because you are young and stupid. I didn't say it. At least I can say I used to know how to do math in my head. I even once could do calculus, whatever that is. I guess that qualifies me to teach business arithmetic at a career college.

Hell, it beats driving the school bus.

My slip is showing again

It's been too long since my last confession, uh, I mean, post. I'm not Catholic, I don't know why I said that. I'm not anything religious, but that is another topic. What is on my mind today is—dare I say it, yes! I'll dare to say it. It's the wretched, beastly concept paper! This maggot-infested zombie of a travesty that simply will not lay down in its fetid grave and die, already. Argh! Now I know why people don't finish their fricking doctorates! The glacial pace of feedback, the millimeter per year of forward movement... I feel like the San Andreas. We all know what lack of movement leads to, and I'm not talking about constipation. Earthquake!

I have felt on the edge of something for a few weeks now. In strange moments of delirious tedium I find myself lurking at the back of the computer lab, doing deep knee bends while I watch my students pound on the keyboards. Maybe it's just a cold, but I suspect it is another bout of chronic malcontentedness, urping up from my depths like the cold roasted beets I had for lunch. I now associate inching through the term with inching through my concept paper. Interminable, endless monotony. I generally walk around wanting to scream. It's beyond malcontentedness now and into the spontaneously combustible zone. Don't get too close, you wouldn't want this to get on you when it blows.

Har har. Just kidding. I think. TGIF. I've spent the day blearily replacing my too-ancient (2006-2008) sources with shiny new ones, making sure all my sources are squeaky-clean (peer-reviewed), updating my annotated bibliography, and generally polishing this half-assed excuse for an academic paper to the bone, hoping it will finally pass muster. I've got two weeks.

Now I'm taking a break from the monotony to step back and engage in a well known teaching ritual, namely reflection. Look at me go, look at me reflect. It's not my normal state, self-introspection. Usually I don't like being that close to myself. I guess I fear I'll catch my own cooties if I peek around inside my brain too much. And I might rile up the evil dwarves that lurk in my mental caverns, who will then poke me with pick-axes, thereby reminding me of the excruciating painfulness of being alive. Poor me, I'm alive.

I am old friends with this feeling of frustration. This is nothing new. Every job I've ever had imploded because of this feeling. After nine years at the career college, I thought I'd escaped the meltdown, but it seems to have caught up with me at last. The only difference between then and now is that I was a lot younger then. My job prospects weren't nil ten years ago. Now I'm moving into the crone stage—you know, where my skin gets all thin and papery, and I can see the veins in my hands under the brown spots. Even more than the physical decrepitude is the mental yawning, the utter disinterest in pursuing anyone's dream but my own. The sure sense of entitlement that says, I'm old, I've earned it, so back the F off. Yep. Crone. And so what, you ask? Let me translate: One word: Unemployable.

I'm balancing on a sharp edge. If I slip, I die. Slipping looks like not finishing this degree. Slipping looks like being fired from my job. Slipping looks like living in my parents' basement—except dad is gone and mom doesn't have a basement anymore, so slipping looks like living in my car, which will be really hard because it is an old Ford Focus hatchback. Slipping is unacceptable. I can't slip. But if I do, what then? Freefall? Or freedom? Hmm.

Axe me no questions

I'm flogging the concept paper again. It just won't stay dead. The wretched tome was returned to me with a few relatively minor revisions from my esteemed chairperson. I thought, no sweat, I'm home free. And the next day, bam! She sent me a document with my reference list, which someone (an anonymous committee member) had taken the time to shred with Word's nasty yellow highlighting tool. Too old! Not peer-reviewed! Idiot! Fool!

Well, I confess, I should have caught it myself. I've been wrestling with this topic since 2006. Some of my sources are getting a little ripe. According to the rules laid down by the institution, sources that are older than five years should constitute no more than 15% of all my sources. Did I really have so many old sources? To find out, I copied all the sources into an Excel document and whipped up a few countif functions to calculate the number of sources for each year, and found that sure enough, almost half of my sources were older than 2008. Sigh. And by next year, a whole bunch more will be too old to use. Argh.

I also have a few non-peer-reviewed sources. These include government sources, current articles on the political situation, and studies that are out for distribution to the scholarly community before being published. According to the highlighting troll, they all must go. Yep. The highlighting troll even highlighted my government sources. Since my study focuses on the U.S. government's proposed Gainful Employment rule, it will be pretty hard to write this paper without mentioning the U.S. government! I sent my chairperson a question to that effect, and received a prompt response: government and seminal sources are ok! Whew. I'm fairly certain she is not the troll. I suspect my former chairperson, the adjunct faculty member who was demoted from chair to rank and file committee member.

It's Friday. I haven't opened a door or a window except to get my mail (my ballot arrived in my mailbox, yay, I love Oregon's vote by mail.) I spent the day researching new sources to update my old ones, stewing in my own cold sweat. I'm a wreck. The only breaks I've taken are to pee and to eat dinner. And talk to my mother on the phone. I'm feeling the strain. I don't have a lot of hope that I will finish by the end of the course next week.

Replacing so many old sources is a lot of work. On Wednesday I culled through my 1,000+ sources and eliminated the ones that were 2008 and older. I also eliminated the ones that weren't peer-reviewed. This brought my total to less than 400 sources. Then I opened up my concept paper, saved a new version, and performed a search-and-replace on all the sources that were 2008 or older. I formatted the results in red. Then I searched for all the sources that weren't peer-reviewed (based on the troll's highlighting) and formatted them in red as well. So now my paper is splotched with red. It looks like I took an axe to my throat and aimed the spray toward the computer monitor.

Today I started at the top. I have to go line by line. I can't just do a search and replace—search for Joe Blow, 2007, and replace it with Jane Blow, 2010. I'd like to think it would be that easy, but I fear a search and destroy blitz approach will backfire big time. I'll end up with something that makes no sense. Well, less sense than it does now. Like it was written by a robot. And so I've been dredging through the electronic stacks of EBSCOhost, searching on terms like for-profit, student as customer, stakeholders, academic quality, TQM, accreditation... I feel like I went swimming in a very deep, very murky muddy pit. I gamely caught a few pdfs and saved them to my folder. And in case you were wondering, no, I don't use EndNote, or Mendeley, or any other fancy software to organize my files. I have a simple coding system that works with Windows 7 Explorer search feature. Year, peer-reviewed, empirical study, method, higher ed or no, country, topic, and last name of the first author. As long as I have my list of topics at hand, I can search pretty fast for anything that meets my criteria. Crude, but it works.

I won't have much time to continue this editing nightmare tomorrow. Tomorrow morning is our career college's graduation. Again. Seems like we were just there, seems like only last month I was writing about the massive church, the crowded foyer, the huge auditorium filled with shrieking adults and whining children. I must dig into the back of the musty closet for my cap and gown, the polyester costume that will be around long after I am gone, stiffly waiting out eternity in some steaming landfill. And tomorrow it will be pouring rain, of course. It's fall in Oregon, after all.

Argh, where's that axe?

The committee is AWOL: I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I sure can't cure it

Despite the gloomy fact that it is pouring rain outside, and despite the equally gloomy fact that the pouring rain feels completely normal to me even after over three months of glorious sunshine, I have some good news to report. Some. Not a whole lot, but then, what would it take to make the chronic malcontent truly happy? I really can't say. Anyway, my chairperson gave me some good feedback on my concept paper. That was the good news. The bad news—you knew that had to be coming, didn't you—is that apparently my dissertation committee is AWOL. My chairperson said the “issue” is being addressed. I have no idea who the committee members are, so I cannot help to track them down and wrangle them back into the fold, as it were. So, as gratifying as it is to get some good feedback from my chairperson, the comments from the anonymous AWOL committee are still hanging out there. I fear any one of them has the power to quash my concept and send me back to the drawing board.

My sister admonished me to find out who the committee members are. She said at the doctoral level, there should be no veil of secrecy, no cloak of anonymity. We are colleagues, practically. It's unprofessional to claim the role of anonymous reviewer, when one's job is to support and mentor the doctoral candidate. Based on my sister's admonishment, I think I will ask my chairperson if she will reveal the names of the committee members.

In the meantime, I will make the changes the chairperson has suggested. Progress of sorts. This dissertation course ends in a couple weeks. If the past procedure holds, I will be granted a two week hiatus, call it a vacation, before the next course begins. I am now officially into extension territory. In December of 2005 when I started this ridiculous endeavor, I anticipated that I would be finished—phinished!—by the end of October 2012. Now, almost seven years later, I'm so tired of the process I don't have the energy to muster an increased sense of disappointment. I'm already at max disappointment. But who cares. When you get on the Ph.D. ride, you are on it for the duration, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many times your concept is rejected by nameless, faceless mentors who after rejecting your concept drag up and disappear.

It's ok, really. I'm disappointed, but I'm not angry. If I could do it over, I'd probably choose something else, but it hasn't been wasted time and money. I've learned a lot about a lot of things, including myself. Priceless.

Why I hate Linked In

I check my email pretty much every day. Today there was an invitation to link up on LinkedIn from a colleague at work. Without thinking, I clicked the happy blue Accept button and was instantly transported to a page that overwhelmed me with networking possibilities. There was a list of smiling people LinkedIn thought I might know and should link to. There was my new “friend's” smiling face: isn't it great, now we're linked or connected or whatever you call it. And then I saw how many friends, buddies, colleagues he had, and I started to sweat. Two-hundred and forty. I have, like, 35. Now I'm connected through my new friend to all his friends.

I feel like I just stood in my open window and took my clothes off. Two-hundred and forty people! A crowd of people who will now receive updates on who their colleague is newly linked to. They will see my insipid picture. Some of them in a moment of boredom may actually click on my link to find out who I am and then laugh derisively at my pathetically puny profile. I've lost my anonymity, which is way more precious to me than any other -ity I may have lost along the way.

I like the guy. And in principle, I see the value in networking. But I'm such a rabid introvert, I cringe at the thought of connecting to any group of strangers. Stranger danger! I feel like my quiet burrow has been invaded by unseen voyeurs.

That is why I treasure this blog. Sure, no one reads it except my sister and my friend Bravadita, but there is an upside to anonymity, and that is I can feel free to be me, to say what I want, to draw what I want. Just me, sitting in the dark in the Love Shack, another faceless bozo blogging on the bus.

Hmmmm. Why don't I feel free to be me in public view? Good question, thanks for asking. Someday, if I want to grow my writing and artistic endeavors, I may have to come out of the cave. Is that what LinkedIn is for me, a foray out of the pseudo-safety of my cave? Apparently I don't associate a professional networking tool with art and writing. Huh. Well, it doesn't matter. Even if there were a LinkedIn for artists and writers (which there probably is), I would still be reluctant to join. I'm an introvert and a chronic malcontent. Just leave me alone in my cave. I'll figure it out someday.

I'll keep using LinkedIn, I guess, mostly because I don't know how to stop. Once your life is on the Internet, it's not yours anymore. I guess that is the answer. I have to proactively embrace networking, because it will happen with or without my consent and participation. I want to have some influence on the shape and direction of my personal networking hell. Maybe I'll change my LinkedIn photo to something obscene or disgusting. A cockroach. A clown. A slut with a cigarette. I wonder if anyone would notice.

Are you a victim or a creator? Sometimes it's hard to tell

Last night in the College & Career Success class, I gave a little demonstration to my four students on how to structure a five-paragraph essay. I'm certainly not a writing instructor, as evidenced by my use of my infamous Oreo cookie essay design—you know, a cookie on top (the introduction), creamy white filling (three paragraphs for the body), and a cookie on the bottom (the closing). Five paragraphs. A big fat cookie. Yum. What could be easier? I guess I was getting into it, because one student suddenly held up her hands in a back-off sort of way. She's young, maybe late-20s, thin, with long hair that I suspect would not be so blonde if she let it grow out, and judging by her reaction, she has a low tolerance for drama and enthusiasm.

“What's wrong?” I said in surprise. “Is this not pure genius? It's so simple! If you use this method, I swear to you, your readers will be eternally grateful, your audiences will swoon at your feet!”

“Calm down!” she shouted.

I put the cap end of the whiteboard marker in my mouth so I would stop talking. I held still, thinking, oh no, here it comes, the statement that will reveal that I'm a crappy teacher to the other three students in the class. Darn it. I knew I should have had a lesson plan! It's all I can do to read the book! Argh!

“I'm confused,” she said accusingly. “I've started my paper already. Now you are telling me I've done this all wrong?”

“It's just a suggestion,” I said weakly.

Tears welled up in her eyes. She was mentally flagellating herself. Loser. Loser. I could almost see the stick. And then her eyes got all fiery—F--k this sh-t!—and she turned her fury on me. I flinched, but gamely tried to resuscitate the now-comatose learning experience as the other three students studiously busied themselves in a discussion of pencils and paper clips.

“Would it help to think of it as a process, rather than an outcome?” I tried carefully. No smile. “Uh, would it help to know you will get an A on the paper even if it is utter crap?” I said. In retrospect, probably not the best thing to say. “What you've written is awesome! All we need is a bit of structure, maybe an outline.”

“I used to know how to outline, but I don't remember now,” she wailed, dabbing at her heavily made-up eyes.

“No worries! No writer writes a perfect first draft, take it from me, the author of many crappy first drafts... and second and third drafts... perfection is unattainable! Not worth chasing!”

I could see she wasn't buying it, and we were out of time. She hastened off to another class, and I was all too ready to pack up and go home. As I exited the building and headed across the dark parking lot to my car, I berated myself. You're a crappy teacher. This episode proves it. And I don't really care. She's got more problems than my half-hearted pep talk can solve, and I don't care. It's not my job to fix what is wrong with her, even if I could. She's got this idea that she has to know everything already, and we are only two weeks into the term. With that misconception, she won't last three more weeks. And I don't care. She'll either figure it out, or she won't.

Some teachers will hold her hand, empathize, and offer reassurances, while other teachers will give her the tough-love treatment: This isn't high-school, this is college. You aren't a child, you are an adult. So man up and start taking responsibility for your own learning. No whining! What kind of teacher am I? I'm soft on the outside, I guess, and hard on the inside. I don't say what I really think anymore, because it only gets me into trouble. It makes everyone feel bad, including me. So, I aim for empathy. A sort of teeth-grit empathy laced with sweaty fear that my evaluations will be so bad that I'll lose my job and have to quit school and live under a bridge. (Luckily we have a lot of nice bridges in this city.)

What kind of life has she had to cause such dread of making a mistake? Her anger is just a mask for her fear. I've seen this fear before in students, but rarely so close and in my face. Sure, students weep when they are under pressure. But usually it happens at the end of the term, not two weeks in. If she is already unraveling, I don't give her much odds of making it. I think if I practiced tough-love on her, she would crumble. I've seen my boss do it to students, ream them a new one—Show up on time or you're outta here!—and a few of them don't come back. Usually young thin blondes. Not sure why that is. Maybe their precarious self-esteem comes from a bottle of hair bleach.

But you never know about people. Some of the weepers, if they stick around, find out they know more than they thought, and they graduate with a confident swagger that is something to see. Maybe this girl will be one of those.

Next week we get to talk about being victims and creators. That ought to be interesting.

Fallout from flunking students

After I flunked the two Wilsonville students, Gina and Jimmy (not their real names), I retired back to the Clackamas campus in relief, hoping that would be the end of it. I wasn't surprised, however, when I received emails from their respective program directors, minutes apart, asking me to provide evidence for my decision to flunk them. For a moment I doubted myself: did I do the right thing, flunking these two desperate students? Gina, with tears tracking her cheeks, begged me to let her pass. Jimmy told me straight out he needed a C. (Jimmy is the student who threatened to bring a shotgun to Excel class.)

I totted up the evidence and sent it off to the program directors, who thanked me and said they needed the information to give to the students' Voc Rehab and SAIF counselors. The funding parties, in other words. I get it. I hope the students will be given another chance. And I hope it isn't me that teaches them. Jimmy's program director said Jimmy would have to come to Clackamas next term to take Excel again. I can pray he gets Sheryl (my colleague, not her real name) instead of me, but I know how wacky the Universe can be. I will accept what comes.

I don't fail students easily. I agonize over it, before I submit the final grades. But once it is done, I move on. I move on so completely, I have already forgotten the names of the students I had last term. I see them in the hall—it's only been a week since they were in my class!—and I can't remember their names until 30 seconds after they pass me by. Could be old age. Then again, could be I just don't care.

Most of our students struggle to survive. Very few come from money. Many live from loan check to loan check—some of them are in school only for the money. They are single mothers with one or three kids, living at home with a parent or other relative. Childcare is always an issue. Last term I met a four-year-old named Aiden, a charming child who did his best to quietly watch his Tin Tin videos while his mother endeavored to learn Excel. Children are not allowed on campus, but what can you do, when it's late at night, the student has maxed out her absences, and the usual childcare provider is not available? You welcome the child and hope no one in authority hears about it.

Yesterday the campus was invaded by photographers, taking photos for an online View Book. Apparently to be competitive we must have a View Book that prospective students can look at to see if they want to attend our college. (There's a joke there somewhere, but I just can't conjure it up right now.) A small swarm of strangers roamed the halls, grabbing and posing students and teachers in the typical places: a doorway, a classroom, a lab. I think I might have been unwittingly captured in a background shot. I'll sure they will crop me out. I look far too weird to be in any college's View Book. I dress in black every day and wear a hat and fingerless gloves (formerly known as socks), not your typical little old lady teacher.

Besides, I don't want my picture in their View Book. My intention, slowly taking shape and becoming clearer with each excruciatingly tedious hour I spend lurking over the shoulders of sweating keyboarders, is to leave this place behind. My brain is halfway out the door. It is just a matter of time before my body follows. Where we are going, I do not know. But away from teaching, if I have my way. I'm tired of evaluating students, judging their performance, flunking a few, praising a few, forgetting most of them in a matter of days. Being on stage is grueling. Teaching the same classes over and over is mind-numbing. It's time for a new adventure.

The end of the world is nigh. That means.... run!

It's so weird how you can be having a conversation with someone you think is completely “normal,” and then they say something like, “I'm think I need to spend my rent money on a bug-out bag, so I'll be ready for the impending bank crash.” Wha–? It's like the fabric of reality suddenly shifts and you see a whole new world: beef jerky, locals only, BYO guns and ammo. Really? Here I've been so focused on the possibility of rain, and I should have been worried about a financial crisis? Wow. Where have I been?

After I got off the phone, I googled impending bank crash and found lots of propaganda from wackjobs who are making a ton of money pandering to the fears of anxious middle-aged women. Articles written by faceless ne'er-do-wells with no last names (My name is Michael, and I am a strong Christian) exhorting us to head for the hills. Books about how to survive the coming apocalypse. Really? It's so Y2K. This poor woman on the other end of the phone was seriously considering spending her modest retirement fund on a used car, a tent, and a camping stove. She wondered if I thought she should put her money into CDs.  All I could think to say was, you expect a bank crash and you want to buy CDs from a bank? What am I missing here?

I like the term bug-out bag. She assumed I had one. “I have an earthquake kit,” I said. You could call it a stay-put bag. Well, it's really just a plastic tote bin stocked with bottled water and toilet paper, but I didn't tell her that. As she kept talking, I thought, maybe I need an escape plan. Hey, what do I know, maybe she's right, maybe there is a financial crash coming. If the U.S. banking system fails, if everything falls apart, I have no contingency plan. Not on my radar, what with the awesome weather, my crappy job, and my marathon dissertation saga. Maybe I've been too self-obsessed. Have I missed the warning signs?

What would follow a widespread bank crash? Martial law? Rationed gas? Grasshoppers and squirrels for dinner? I can't picture it. I'm such a city kid, the idea of roughing it is beyond my imagination. I can't even camp. I would be useless in any kind of crash, bank or otherwise.

It seems clear that the woman is troubled by her beliefs about the end of the world. Mine look different from hers, but are no less troubling to me. I don't belittle her beliefs: She could be right. I'm no financial expert. I'm not sure there is such a thing. While we were talking, I didn't question her beliefs or try to talk her out of them. She just wanted what we all want, to feel heard and understood. I get it. Nobody wants to feel alone when the world is coming to an end.

Let the season of complaining begin

As a chronic malcontent, my natural inclination is to focus on the dark side. You could say it's a habit. Some would say it is a failing. I claim it is an art. It takes talent to play devil's advocate 24/7. I'm not to that level yet: I still have moments where I smile, or break out in a whistle, or feel like skipping. Brief moments, to be sure, but I'm painstakingly working on eradicating them, so I can be the best chronic malcontent that I can be. Or the worst. Whatever.

The most obvious thing to complain about is the change of season. It's fall. I can tell because I feel like going back to bed, even after I've just got up. But what's with all this weird sunshine? Things are definitely not normal here in the rainy city. Rain... I remember what rain is, that wet stuff that falls from the sky? Haven't seen any to speak of for three months. My mother is trying to move a rose bush: She says the ground is rock-solid. I say wait till it rains. “That could be weeks!” she replied. What could I do but agree? When you are 84, it's better not to postpone things. You may not have the weeks that younger people take for granted.

And while I wouldn't say it is warm, exactly, it's not precisely cold either. But it is definitely fall. The east wind has been scouring our backside for a few days now, bringing smoke from Washington and cold air from Canada. Leaves are starting to pile up in odd corners. I find the wind unsettling. The air is on the move, and it's noisy. In the park, the tall forest roars. Oak branches whip above my head. I regress to my pre-primate ancestry, scurrying the trails, seeking a warm quiet burrow to hide in until spring. And this is just the beginning.

Complaining about the weather is a regional pastime in the Pacific Northwest. Everybody does it. Some people actually like the fall, though. I overheard a student saying how she looked forward to feeling the crisp, cold air. I shuddered. Even when it is 70° outside, it's 60° inside. Whether at home or at work, I can't get warm. My hands are stiff with cold. My feet ache. Every year I swear I will buy electric socks. Hmmmm. Maybe not this year. I just googled electric socks. The options don't look promising. Although I found an interesting website whose authors claimed that I can force my hands and feet to warm up in about three minutes by reducing the amount of oxygen I breathe in. Yeah, that oughta do it.

The temperature gadget on my computer desktop says it is 63° in the Rose City. (And 85° in Palm Springs, sigh.) Hell, I remember last spring when I rejoiced that the temperature finally cracked 60°. As I write this, I'm wearing fingerless gloves (formerly known as socks), a stocking cap, two t-shirts and a fleece vest, fleece pants, heavy socks, and fleece-lined slippers. I have the afghan my mother knitted draped over my knees and wrapped around my feet. This is just the beginning. It's fall. It all goes down from here—the mercury, the leaves, the rain, the mood.

Oh, man. To top it all off, my neighbor Joy is stomping around on her wooden floors wearing what must be wooden clogs. Really? Why doesn't she just come over here and bludgeon me to death with them. It would be a mercy killing. What, is she dancing? Does the woman own no slippers? Is this hell on earth? Bright side, bright side: She is probably getting ready to go out. It's Friday night. Yes! I think I just heard her front door slam. There is a god. Oh, whoops, just had a slip there. Dark side, dark side. Well, she'll be back, along about last call, staggering across her wooden floor in her clogs. Whew, almost fell into optimism there. But no, the chronic malcontent wins again.

Miscellaneous musings from the chronic malcontent

I'm closing in fast on a birthday, who cares which one, and I was reminded of it today while standing in line at Good Will to purchase some paperbacks to immerse my brain in while my body is immersed in hot bath water. (Science fiction and vampire romances are my current favorites for reading-while-bathing.) A dark-skinned short guy who may or may not have been about my age was in line ahead of me. As he stepped up to the counter, the chubby young female cashier hesitated a slight moment, and then asked him, “Are you over 55?” He hesitated an even slighter second and nodded vigorously. Presumably he received an over-55 discount. Just then, another cashier opened up her register and beckoned me over. She rang me up quickly and politely, but didn't ask me the same question.

So what does that mean? Should I assume I look younger than my age? Or maybe that other cashier just likes older men? Or maybe nobody gives a you-know-what about middle-aged white women shopping at Good Will? Whatever, it doesn't matter. I didn't have to admit my age, I bought my books, they got my money, it's a win-win for humanity.

Today is a day to reflect before toddling off to work my five hour evening shift at the career college. The sun is shining yet again, although it's cooler today, and breezy. Leaves levitate in swirls and eddies. Maple seed helicopters whirl earthward, glowing in the sun, to lie scattered all over the ground. I'll see little maple tree sprouts in odd nooks and crannies next spring. If I had time I would head up for a trot in the park. We are having an amazing stretch of dry weather. In fact, we've had only a quarter inch of rain in the past three months, which apparently is a record since data has been kept at the Portland Airport. It's not summer anymore, for sure. It's now uber-summer, the strange season we sometimes get in early October. Days are warm, nights are frosty. The grass is brown, the ground is rock-hard. My black car is coated with a fine veneer of dust. The air is dry as a bone, a bane to firefighters struggling to contain wildfires raging in Washington and eastern Oregon. So far no one is using the d-word: drought.

To complement the new season, we have a new term at the career college. It's been a busy couple weeks, trying to end a term and prepare for a new one. New term, new schedule, new faces, new rooms... and same old problems. The parking lot is emptier than it should be, for both morning and evening classes. (Come on all you new marketing and admissions people, we are counting on you to save us!) Management is demonstrating its usual disregard for employee morale and empowerment. The tech department, intent on launching the latest gadgetry, is ignoring feedback from both faculty and students. I haven't seen the college president in weeks: he usually makes himself scarce around term ends and beginnings, as if he fears one of us might accost him for some help.

The latest debacle to rave about is the bungled implementation of Microsoft Outlook.Live. Outlook.Live, for some unknown reason, is now management's communication tool of choice. (Oh, could it be because it is .... free?) Faculty and students are required to sign-up and sign-in daily to check for messages—from whom we are not sure. The word “bullshit” has been bandied about by numerous frustrated parties, as log on IDs and passwords fail to work, and when they finally do, and we are finally granted access to the miracle known as Outlook.Live, there's nothing there to reward our suffering. No important messages from management, anyway, except to tell us to force students to sign up. It's a classic management blunder. If I were to write a book on customer service quality, this would have to be in it, as an example of what not to do.

Hey, I almost forgot, if anyone is reading this and keeping up on my endless dissertation saga: Good news, my chairperson reported via email that she sent my concept paper to the committee (whoever they are). I don't think that means she has approved the paper, I think she is just tired of reading it and would like to... share the love, as it were. I hope this is good news, but I'm afraid to get my hopes up. She said she is trying to streamline the process for me, which I appreciate.

What to do about that pesky Reply All button

So much to rant about, where to begin, where to begin...

First, I suppose I should grudgingly mention that the weather has been.... fantastic! You know when I said fall was here, and I was all doom and gloom over it? Well, huh, go figure, I was wrong. The Pacific Northwest is having glorious halcyon days like you wouldn't believe. The tomatoes are red! Shocking! (The last two years, they stayed green right into winter.) If it weren't so cold at night, and if there weren't drifts of dead leaves on the steps in the park, I would think it was still August, not almost October. We haven't had any rain to speak of in over two months. Did you hear me, two months! In Oregon! Yes! I know! Too many exclamation points!

So against the backdrop of this delicious weather, we wrapped up the term in its stinking shroud and buried it good and proper. The long commute to Wilsonville is over, at least for ten weeks. How did Excel go? Thanks for asking. I flunked the Voc Rehab woman who wept and begged me not to. I flunked the guy who threatened to bring his shotgun to school. In Access, the whining blonde paralegal who threw up her hands and left without finishing her final, fuming, “This is so stupid!” got a B, believe it or not. (She had someone at home doing her homework for her.) A few sorry ass souls received the Ds they earned fair and square. But, yay!— a few students got As, and they earned those As (in spite of me, I could add, although I'd like to take some credit. I think my test reviews are pretty good).

There's no time to take a breath and relax. Yesterday I spent a few hours grading finals, trying to submit my grades before 12:30 pm. Didn't quite make it before it was time to troop downstairs to Room 101 for in-service. All the usual nutcases and wackjobs were there, assembled in one frigid room, noshing on baloney sandwiches. (Rather than get pizza or wraps, the food coordinator thought it would be a nice change of pace to present a poor-white-trash menu: white bread, velveeta cheese, potato salad... Luckily for me, I brought my own protein powder.) The nutcases and wackjobs I refer to are my colleagues. Four times a year we are required (by the State of Oregon who authorizes our college to grant degrees) to have teacher training, also known as in-service. I get to see some teachers I haven't seen for a while, and a few I probably wouldn't miss.

We were required to attend three back-to-back sessions of scintillating material designed to magically transform us into better instructors. The first session, held in a dark room lit only by a PowerPoint slide, was memorable for the statement spoken by the presenter (who happens to also be my boss): “Everyone who is here is valued.” I wrote it down, because it was worded so awkwardly. The subtext: The ones who aren't valued have been let go. I guess it's clear that all the people that got laid off over the past few months, including those whose last day was yesterday, weren't valued. And oh, by the way, yes, the school is moving next year, but as yet the location is undisclosed. (Why do I suspect that one day I will show up to work and there will be a lock on the door and a scrawled sign: We've moved! So long, suckers!?)

I had two choices for the second session: ethics or teaching tips. Neither session really appealed to me, but I went with the teaching tips workshop. (A discussion of ethics at a career college opens up a very deep can of squirmy Red Wigglers. Not a good scenario for the Chronic Malcontent.) The teaching tips session was presented by the school librarian. (Yes, we have a library, but it is in Wilsonville, not at podunck Clackamas, where we have what looks like a library—a room lined with obsolete law books—but apparently isn't really a library. In fact, we aren't allowed to call it a library, we have to call it the resource center.)

She looked the part. The librarian, let's call her Jane, is a fireplug of a woman, with a closely curled cap of auburn hair that reminds me of the hair on my Tiny Tears doll, before I cut it all off. Jane wore a dark blue pantsuit whose jacket didn't quite match the pants, plus a snappy flowered blouse. Of course, she had the ubiquitous gold-rimmed spectacles. (Is there a librarian in the world that doesn't wear glasses? Reading really messes with your eyesight, take it from me.) Not counting the crazy earth shoe strappy flats on her feet, all in all, Jane looked sharp, really put together.

I was a little perplexed when she read her introduction to us, although the reason for that became clear later on. What got my attention was her warning: “By choosing to stay, you are giving permission for something to happen!” Wha–? She looked up at us, laughed nervously, and made a joke about not seeing anyone getting up to leave. I thought, wait, did I just miss a chance to opt out of this session? I like Jane, so I stayed put, but I wondered what would happen if I tried that on my students on the first day of the new term. How many of them would take the hint and opt out with their feet to go hang on the verandah with the smokers?

I won't bore you with all the details of her session, but here's a brief synopsis: Do! Learn! Who is Emily? NLP and covert hypnosis, rapid learning methods, email me if you want the files, no, I don't have a website, pause, drop your tone, make your voice gravely, WIIFM, SIP. Ok. There you have it, the gist of Jane's session. I hope it makes you a better teacher, too.

The final session was well-attended. Unfortunately, it was assigned to the icebox room, which happens to have a large square pillar in it. I'm sure the temperature is not related to the pillar, but to see the PowerPoint show, I had to sit behind the pillar, in the corner, directly under the AC fan. The topic was Netiquette, presented by one of our hard-working adjuncts (one of the few that are left after layoffs decimated our ranks). I don't know where she found the time to put the show together, considering she taught 32 hours last term, but it was nicely done. I learned a few things, but all I really cared about was that she impress upon the Medical Department ignoramuses the proper use for the REPLY ALL button.

In case you searched on Reply All and somehow got this blog, the Reply All button lets you respond to a useless mass email (Please help me welcome Shannon, our new janitor!) with an equally large, equally useless mass email (Welcome, Shannon!), thereby sucking up valuable network bandwidth and filling everyone's in-boxes with mind-deadening clutter. In case you can't figure out how I feel from my snarky tone, let me just declare my abiding belief that people who misuse the Reply All button should be ejected forthwith from the establishment, do not pass GO.

Today I went to another non-work workshop that was supposed to be spiritually focused but sounded remarkably like the rah-rah pep talk sessions I sat through yesterday, so I left halfway through, searching for some peace before the new term starts on Monday night. I'm not ready. I have 28 hours and seven preps. Small class sizes, luckily, but Tuesday will be a busy day: six hours in the morning, five at night, with a quick drive home in between for a salad and a nap. The tedium continues. I can't generate any enthusiasm for the task of teaching: When I get a creative idea for a new teaching approach, I think, I don't have time to design a new interactive PowerPoint, or write a skit, or prepare a game. Besides, what's the use, I only have one student.

When I was running in the park this afternoon, savoring the warm air on my face, I remembered how happy I was to get this job. It was my miracle job. A job that lets me use my communication skills and creativity, with little supervision... how cool is that? Nine years later, I am grateful to have it, but not for the same reasons. I find there is little interest in my skills. My skills expand, but my attitude contracts. I fear I am growing more unemployable by the minute.

Over the next week or so, while my chairperson is ruminating over my concept paper, I hope I will be able to find some time to make some art or write something. And vacuum my car, take out the compost, and clean up the cat toys, dust bunnies, and dessicated hairballs. And at work, I'm going to show up, do my job, and try not to whine. Stay tuned.

Super size me! Yeeee-haaaawww!

I'm prying apart my gritty eyes to blearily type this post. I uploaded the second draft of my dissertation concept paper a few minutes ago. It took me five hours just to spell check, and make sure all the citations are in the reference list, and all the items in the reference list are in the paper. I'm so tired. I didn't even read the darn thing over again. I just want it off my plate.

How many times have I heard my students say the same thing or something like it? They just want the pain to be over. They no longer care about doing a good job: They just want to be done. Just today I saw one of my failing Excel students trying to calculate (not using Excel) how many assignments he needed in order to pass the class. I didn't say anything. I get it, I do. At some point, your brain just throws up its tiny hands and snarls, “Enough!”

So now my paper is on my chairperson's plate, so to speak. I hope she's hungry, because it is the scholarly equivalent of a double quarter pounder with cheese. One hundred and eighty-five sources on my reference list. A bit much, ya think? I don't know if she'll swallow it. She's seen all of it but the literature review section, and she didn't say anything about it being too long. But I know teachers. I am one. Sometimes they wait until they've got the entire paper, and then they shred it like a shark in a feeding frenzy. I expect to see the electronic equivalent of blood. Buckets of it.

This is finals week at work. The students are beyond weeping. They wander around in a state of shocked horror. Some of them will lose their funding if they fail Excel. I feel bad, but what can I do? I can tell, I can show, but I can't do it for them. They have to care enough to do the work themselves. I wonder what percentage of the class has wrangled a family member or friend to do their assignments for them? One paralegal student in my Access class actually admitted it. She blamed him because she couldn't open her homework files on her school computer. I knew something was up when I was able to open them just fine.

“But where are my assignments?” she cried.

“Inside the database,” I replied. “Which ones do you want to print?”

“That's not what it looked like when my friend did them.”

“Well, maybe you should have done them yourself. Then you would know how to find them and print them.” You can imagine how well that went over.

So if one blatantly admitted she didn't do the homework herself, how many others cheated that I don't know about? Will never know about? Do I even care? I used to feel anger, like, how dare they! But I can't conjure up anything. I get it. When we are under the gun, we choose the path of least resistance. If we can get away with it, we cheat. Hell, I break the speed limit all the time, because I know it is unlikely I will get caught. But I don't cheat on my dissertation studies. I could: Who would know? But I don't, and I won't. I guess I've gained a little integrity over the years.

I can't write anymore now. My neighbor just got home and turned on her stereo. The bass is echoing through the place, making my tiny little speakers seem like toys. Thank the writing gods she didn't get home an hour ago, because I would have had to have killed her. Again. (See previous post).

My chairperson has two weeks to ruminate on my submission, so I can focus on the end of the term, the finals, the grading, and the prepping for the new start next week. The work at the career college never ends.  Round 'em up and mooooove 'em out. Git along little dogge. Yeee-haaaaa.

The chronic malcontent suffers a bout of misophonia

Lots of noise in the apartment next door. At first I thought the Love Shack had been invaded by an elephant. I couldn't believe my landlords would rent to an elephant. But they've rented to nutcases and wackjobs, so why not elephants? Ok, whatever. When I finally laid eyes on the new tenant, I was surprised to see a young, not overly large female. She just sounds like an elephant. Which is so weird, because she has a tiny little poodle who is completely silent.

So far, the new neighbor, ironically named Joy, is bringing no joy into my life. She stomps around on her hardwood floors with what sounds like careless, reckless abandon, early in the morning, late at night. She has no rugs. And she plays her stereo. Oh my gosh, her stereo. The thumping bass vibrates the air in my apartment. I don't hear the song, just the bass. It's like the subwoofer on a teenager's car stereo...you can feel it from half a mile away, even if you can't hear the music. I can't get away from it, the pounding of my neighbor's bass. In the tub, on the john, in my bed, at my computer, the thumping is everywhere. Argh.

I met her briefly by chance in the parking lot.

“By the way,” I said, after we had introduced ourselves and after I had greeted Bismark, the silent black poodle, “the walls in our place are paper thin. I can hear the bass on your stereo sometimes. Do you think you could turn the bass down?”

She made some noises that indicated to me either she didn't know how, or she didn't care, or perhaps both. I didn't have a good feeling about it.

Sure enough, since then she's continued to be noisy. Plus, she lets her dog poop in the backyard in the dark. And she left her laundry in the dryer (well, to be honest, I do that too, and so has every other tenant in the nine years I've lived here. I guess I'll forgive her that transgression. But she didn't clean the lint trap!) To top it all off, she sneezes incessantly (does she know the Willamette Valley is the grass seed and hayfever capital of the world?), and then she blows her nose like a trumpet. Sneeze, blow, repeat. Did I mention she stomps? And she plays her damn stereo. In other words, she's alive.

Tonight I was trying to write my zombie concept paper, you know, that stupid paper that won't lay down and die. Stomp, stomp, bang, crash. Ok, she's got a zest for life, I thought to myself. One can hardly fault a girl named Joy for living enthusiastically. Then the stereo came on. I felt rage well up within me. It was too early to pound on the wall—I figure after 10:00 pm I'm within my rights to pound on the wall, three warnings and then I call the cops. But it was only 7:30 pm. The air vibrated with the bass. And I vibrated with fury.

So I did what any passive aggressive worth her salt would do. I turned on my stereo, set the bass to MAX, and let it rip. New Order crashed through the place like a tidal wave, surprising even me. (I hardly ever turn up the volume.) The cat left the room. I sat there for a minute, savoring the assault. Take that, you... you, loud neighbor, you! I couldn't write with that racket going on, so I got up and jogged in place for a couple minutes until I felt my frustration ebb away. Wow, I have a pretty good stereo system. That thing was loud.

Eventually I couldn't take it, and I turned it down. Naturally, the bass of her stereo was still throbbing under the bass of my stereo. Dueling stereos. Defeated, I turned the thing off and plugged in the headphones of my mp3 player. I knew she would win. I have misophonia. I'm at a disadvantage. I could turn it up full blast, and she probably wouldn't care. She probably can sleep through anything. She probably doesn't mind if someone chews gum near her, or eats an apple, or crunches crunchy snacks in her classroom, or unwraps a crackly candy wrapper.... no, I bet none of those things drive her insane. Me, I'm a basket case, a cranky, snippy, snarky chronic malcontent. No wonder people think I'm a misanthrope. I don't hate you, really. I just can't stand the noise you make.

Where can I go where it's quiet? Sometimes I want to puncture my ear drums. But I'd still feel it, the relentless pounding of her stereo. Someday I'll find my cave, my desert shack, my battered RV, my little piece of peace and quiet. And if sweet Joy suddenly turns up dead, stuffed in the dryer, well, all I can say is, I wasn't in my right mind, and anyway, she deserved it.

The diagnosis from the shaman: Resentment and paralyzed will: Duh, dude

My life feels sort of like Groundhog Day, the movie. I feel stuck in a loop, endlessly recycling my frustration at the slow pace of my doctoral studies, my resentment at the relentless sameness of my tedious job, and my anxiety about my future. I've been ignoring my emotions for some time, hoping against hope that they would miraculously evaporate. No such luck. Apparently other people can sense them too. Go figure.

Today I visited Doc Tony, the inimitable amazing naturopath who over the past three years has rescued me from the brink of collapse with a few homeopathics and an admonishment to eat good food and drink water. (Who knew?) He worked me over with his usual voodoo muscle testing routine, and diagnosed a faulty liver function, for which he prescribed a remedy to take now, and another spendy remedy to take three times a day for the next month. (I feel happy that I can help him pay off his student loans.) Then, because he knows I'm game for any new wacky treatment technique, he asked me if I wanted to explore some of the emotions that were coming up alongside thyroid and liver.

“Emotions? Uh...” I said, not one to readily explore my emotions even on a good day, and certainly not after a stressful day of teaching for four hours followed by driving like a maniac from Wilsonville to Northeast Portland to get to my appointment by 3:00 p.m.

He grabbed my arm and murmured, “I'm seeing resentment.” I couldn't help myself, I started laughing. Dude, if you only knew. He doesn't know, all we talk about is sinus congestion, constipation, and diet. He knows I'm working on my doctorate, but he has no clue about my insanity, my recovery, or my job. He doesn't know that on a good day my mind is trying to kill me. He sees the result of my stress, but he's not a shrink. We don't talk about it.

He grabbed my arm again and mumbled something like a countdown. “Present to 20, 20 to 10, 10 to... oh, three comes up!” He was excited. “Did something happen when you were three, maybe something with your father, that made you resentful? Like, he was away a lot...?”

“Doc, I don't remember anything from when I was three, seriously? No clue.”

He told me to sit up on the edge of the table and had me put my left finger on a pulse point on my right wrist, in a contorted wrap around fashion that I am at a loss to duplicate now, and then put my right palm on my forehead. I probably looked like I was trying to contact aliens in the outer nebula. I wondered if I should make beeping noises. He went around behind me and pounded on my back. Ulp. It felt strangely good.

“Just sit there until you feel something shift.”

What, you mean like my arms fall asleep? New age mumbo jumbo healthcare is so hard to interpret sometimes. So much of it depends on the persuasive manner of the practitioner. You feel better now, don't you? You must feel better. Sure, I must feel better, it's costing me a small fortune. I wouldn't be surprised if someday I see myself on a youtube video as an example of another stupid idiot suckered in by hocus pocus medicine.

“Let's try it again, see what else comes up.” He was having fun. Every second on the clock is money in his bank account. No wonder he was smiling. He had me lie down on the table. He grabbed my arm again. “Now I'm getting.... paralyzed will.” All I could think about was my job, my students, my simmering frustration, my fear of change battling with my urge to just up and quit. I'm outa here! He did the countdown thing, frowning with concentration. “Present to 20, 20 to 10, ten to ....zero. Conception! Cool.” (I kid you not.)

He sat me up. “Did your mom ever talk to you about your birth, any problems with your birth?”

“All I know is it was early in the morning. And I'm sure she was pissed.” He grimaced. He had me do the finger to pulse point thing again, palm to forehead. He went around behind me and pounded on my lower back three times. Bam. “Ok, just hold that until it feels like time to let it go.” Oh boy. I waited a few seconds, but my arms were tired, so I put them down, feeling a little like an idiot, but you know, in for a penny and all that.

“Ok, let's see when you should come back.” He held my arm, closed his eyes. Every time he does that I assume he is thinking about all the bills he's got coming due, his cash flow for the next two months. “Ten weeks, again. Looks like that's your maintenance schedule.” Yeah, student loan payment schedule, I get it.

I dutifully trotted out to the waiting room, where he loaded me up with five bottles of some capsules to help my liver function better. I walked out of there, $265 poorer, but feeling remarkably light and perky. Another wonderful session with Dr Tony, magician extraordinaire. I owe the man my life. I'm happy to put his kids through college. It's the least I can do for the gift of returning health.

Remembering the 87th Avenue gang

When I was a kid, I lived on 87th Avenue near Glisan Street. If you know Portland, you know that in the 1960s this was a working-class neighborhood, a mix of tired 1920s farmhouses, rows of 1940s square crackerboxes, and sprawling 1950s ranch-style houses. This was before the Bible College got big, before the fields were filled with condos, before the I-205 freeway cut us off from Gateway, Silver Skate, and the Record Shop. Long before the various ethnic minorities hung curtains in the little crackerbox houses, long before the meth dealers moved into the old apartment buildings on 90th. Long before my mother bought a condo on the other side of the fence from our old pear tree. Long before I moved away and then came back.

Back then, 87th Avenue was what grown-ups would call unimproved. Kids would call it heaven. The street was a hump of ragged asphalt, flanked on either side by potholes and gravel, and lined with intermittent sidewalks dating from 1910. Over it all arched a canopy of horse chestnut trees, birch trees, and towering pines. It was a great place to grow up. In the summer there was shade. In the fall and spring there were drifts of leaves and mud puddles to be splashed in with my white vinyl go-go boots. There were horse chestnuts to be picked up and carried like talismans in my coat pocket. In the winter there was ice to be smashed.

We had a gang. Not the kind of gangs kids have nowadays. We were just a bunch of kids who happened to grow up together. Karen, who was my age, lived two houses down from us in a ranch style house with her older brother, Ron. Her dad owned a hi-fi store, so she had all the latest stereo equipment. Susie, Karen's 8-year-old cousin, lived in another ranch house on the other side of Karen and Ron. Her dad owned the acres of greenhouses in the field behind our house, where he grew carnations and snapdragons for florist shops. Susie had four sisters, although only Laurie was part of the gang.

Our family came late to the street. In 1963, when I was seven, we moved into the old farmhouse that used to belong to Karen and Susie's grandparents. My older brother couldn't be bothered with the gang, but Karen's older brother for some reason was the hub around which the gang revolved. I wouldn't say he was part of the gang. He was the builder of the playhouse and the wooden guitars. He was the instigator of the microphone in their basement bathroom. He was the one that played us Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Frank Zappa while we lay on air mattresses in their frigid backyard Doughboy pool. He was the documentary filmmaker, the one who wrote the script for our lives.

Last week Susie sent me youtube links to digitized versions of the films Ron made. Grainy, at times intensely saturated or washed out to white, scenes of kids running silently hither and thither, according to Ron's script. These films must have been made the summer after we moved into the neighborhood. We were all so young. Karen was the bandit, wearing a mask and a stocking cap pulled down low. She skulked through the rhodies in front of her house, looking for victims to shoot with her peashooter. I marvel at her lithe athleticism, her confident swagger. Was I ever that sure of myself? Not then, not ever. I was a little shadow with a Prince Caspian haircut running dutifully along the edge of the frame with my little sister Diane. Scuttling along furiously after us on four-year-old legs was my little brother, Mikey, the dimpled brat who refused to be left behind.

Most of the gang is still alive, scattered near and far. We lost one. Karen died May 27, 2007, of complications of ovarian cancer. I have photos of a 1980s Karen on my bulletin board, when she was healthy. Her smiling face comes up on my screensaver. I think of her almost every day. I wonder why her and not me. In these old, pale, silent films, the young Karen seems invincible, like she would live forever. It's hard to believe she's gone. I miss her more now than ever, although I suspect what I am really missing is the certainty of childhood, the possibilities of an as yet unwritten future, and the glorious days of endless summer.

What to do when students cry

It's getting down to crunch time at the career college, and students are weeping in the halls, dripping on keyboards, bogarting the tissue boxes. Oh, woe, woe is me, it's too much homework, I don't have time, the computer crashed, my teachers won't help me, I lost my flashdrive, my aunt died, my dog died. Alas, alackaday. Please, can't you make an exception for me? I'm special!

Some students have good reasons to cry. Take Gina, for example. She's an older gal, here on a voc rehab scholarship. Her computer skills are nil. She doesn't read well, and retains little. She's terrified she'll fail Excel, and with a little more than two weeks to go, it is not looking good. Today Rosie, the program director, pulled me out of class and asked me about Gina's progress. Rosie doesn't know Gina, but she's heard about Gina, apparently, from other people that Gina has approached for help.

“There she is right there,” I said, as Gina came back from a break, looking beat. She had just found out she failed my Excel test. “Would you like to talk with her?” Rosie said yes, so I invited Gina out into the hallway and introduced them.

“How can we help you?” asked Rosie in a compassionate voice, and the floodgates opened. Between sobs, Gina explained her dilemma: She has three other computer classes, but Excel is kicking her ass. She can't follow the book, she's afraid of making a mistake, and she can't remember things. I stood with my arms folded across my chest thinking, I'm a lousy teacher, what can I do to fix this? Hell, she could be me!

It's a good thing I don't get squeamish when people cry. (All those years in 12 Step meetings finally pay off.) People cry for good reasons, and I've learned to let them. I am not afraid of tears. I know what it feels like to be faced with an impossible task, where failure is unacceptable. To weep is a natural reaction. When students cry, most of them are just expressing their frustration and fear. I get it. I've come close a few times myself over the long years of my doctoral journey.

Rosie made soothing noises, and Gina quietly wept as people walked around us, as if what she had was catching. Fear. Maybe it is catching. When I went back into class, the noise level was subdued. Heads were down over their books, fingers tapping on keyboards. Everyone knew what was happening. Train wreck in progress.

Most students don't resort to tears for manipulation purposes because they know other tactics are more effective. Making excuses, for example. Some of these students are so creative! If they spent that energy doing their work... well. I admit, I'm gullible, but after nine years of this crap, I've learned to watch carefully. I pay attention to patterns: missed classes, tardiness, late assignments, general flakiness... actions always say more than words. 

Other natural reactions when faced with an impossible task and an immovable deadline are to lie, cheat, steal, and borrow. The next couple weeks will reveal the depths to which students will sink to extricate themselves from the impossible situation. Even though it is unsettling to discover my students are cheating, I totally understand why they do it. How many times have I used the I'm-special argument to try to persuade someone to cut me some slack, give me a pass, or just give me some sympathy? Oh, poor Carol, her life is so hard, she deserves a second chance. Some of our students do deserve a second chance. Most of them are running on the thin edge of disaster every day, a heartbeat away from homelessness. In fact, one of them was so stressed out yesterday, she was having heart problems. We called the paramedics. I presume she lived.

Most of them have only themselves to blame if they fail a class. Sometimes I want to smack them and say, Get over yourself! You chose this, no one is forcing you to to school. If you don't like it, you can vote with your feet. Then I remember that many of these students are in school so they can get their voc rehab money or federal student loan stipend, so they can pay the rent, put gas in the car, food on the table. Or buy drugs, go out drinking, and bail their boyfriends out of jail. (Hey, I heard it from a reliable source. Gives new meaning to the term higher education.) Every one has a story. Some have happy endings. And some end in tears.

Focus on the learning, not on the grade

Good news. My chairperson liked the Methods section of my concept paper. I am pleased (and embarrassed) to report that she praised my paper effusively, using words like “fantastic work,” and “absolutely wonderful research, detail, and thoughtfulness.” She's “thrilled” with what I'm doing. After barking up so many stunted trees, at last I seem to have found one that will bear fruit. Praise whatever higher power is in charge of scholarly pursuits.

Now the Literature Review section is hanging over my head. Unfortunately, I didn't get anything done on it this week. Friday was the make-up day for the Labor Day holiday, and it's testing time in my computer applications courses. I've ranted on that whole thing previously, so I won't bore you again with the pressures of reviewing for tests that few students are prepared for. I see the results of my labors when I grade the tests. That was my mission tonight. I spent some hours grading the Excel tests, and all I can say is, I'm really hopeful I may have a career as a scholar, because I suck as an Excel teacher.

I blame myself. Then I blame them. Then I blame the workbook format that we are stuck using for the time being. Then I blame Microsoft (why not?). And as long as I'm blaming things, ummm, how about Republicans and global warming? Okay, maybe not. Still, there are many variables at play here, and each student is different. For example, the guy who threatened to bring a shotgun to class got the lowest test score (not surprising), but the one multiple choice answer that everyone else in the class missed—he got right. Go figure. So in my defense, I would say it isn't a matter of blaming the teacher or the students. That's just the easiest thing to do. But it's not helpful, nor is it entirely accurate.

It's not normal for my students to fail tests, but Excel is one of our trouble spots: we throw brand new students into Excel in their first term, and then give them Word, Introduction to the Internet, and Keyboarding. Even for computer-savvy students, this is a lot of computer time. Imagine how it feels for the ones who have little experience with computers. (How do I select a range of cells, again? How do I save to my flashdrive?)

What cracks me up (in a rather fatalistic way) are the students who type in values instead of formulas and assume I won't notice. I download their test files right off their computers onto my flashdrive. I open their test files, and I see exactly what they have done. Their printouts may look accurate, but their file shows the story.   These are usually the students who bring in the homework from home (did someone else do it for them?), who spend their time in class surfing the Web, who rarely ask questions, who leave class early. I can't prevent a disaster if it is the natural order of things. Not everyone is ready to succeed. Some of us have to crash and burn a few times before we are ready to do the work.

Now I'm trying to imagine how I am going to face them on Tuesday morning, how I am going to tell them I have to take more of their precious class time to explain what they missed, where they went wrong, when so many of them are lagging behind on the homework. Which, of course, goes a long way toward explaining why several of them failed the test. I ran a little regression analysis using Excel to compare test scores to amount of homework completed. I'm no statistics wizard, but all signs point to there being a strong and significant correlation between the two. In other words, the students who did the homework had the highest test scores. Duh.

They are going to rip me a new one come Tuesday. I must do what I admonish them to do: keep my focus on the learning and not the grades. I must remember that their grades are not about me. Excel is not something you can tell, or even show... they must do, over and over and over, until they finally understand it. That is how I learned. There are no shortcuts, either in Excel or scholarly research. Not everyone gets it the first time. But if we keep at it, eventually we persist and succeed.

For those of you who think, yay, now Carol has time to meet for coffee or talk on Skype, it might be too soon to celebrate. I still have a lot of work to do to get this concept approved. But there's hope for the malcontent. At least for today. By tomorrow this time, I will have convinced myself the praise never happened, and everything still sucks.

Bring it on down to Critterville

Tuesday during the test review in the Excel class, one student, I'll call him Jimmy, started to turn a rather troubling shade of red. He looked like he was going to spontaneously combust. I figured it was either a stroke or he was super angry.

“I oughta just take a shotgun to it,” he muttered, positioning his hands in the universal sign of I have a shotgun, get out of my way. He was having trouble with some pesky functions. I laughed uneasily.

“I know this is hard, Jimmy,” I tried to empathize. “Don't sweat it, the test is only worth 15 points, it's not the end of the world.”

Clearly, failing a test is a big deal to him. Nothing I said seemed to help. I was stressed out, too, because I may have mentioned in a previous rant that the Academic Coordinator had interrupted the class to do the student evaluations. It was just a bad day all around. You know what they say: Don't let them know you are afraid. They smell your fear and they'll tear you apart.

A day later, while I was at the other campus (where I have a desk, a full-size computer, and friends who like me), I was musing over the entire experience, and it occurred to me that this was not the first time Jimmy has threatened to resort to a shotgun to ease his frustration. Images of Columbine and Virginia Tech started marching through my brain. Nah, I thought to myself, he's just barking out his butt, much like I do when I'm stressed out. But wait, do I really know this man? I don't. I like him. But I don't know him.

So I sent a carefully worded email to the Facilities Director at the other campus, as well as my two bosses. Wow, talk about lighting a fire. Whoosh, my inbox lit up almost instantaneously with missives from all the bosses on up to the VP of academics (or whatever his title is these days, I can never remember, they seem to change titles like underwear). They forwarded my email to everyone, and some copied me on their responses, so I got to see my message scorch a path up the chain. Whoa.

We haven't had many violent students in the nine years I've been working for the college. Usually our illustrious students perform their misdeeds after they graduate. I know we have at least two murderers. (Great publicity for the college. Not.) Only a couple times that I know of have students actually brought their anger to campus in the form of a weapon. One time it turned out to be a paint gun, brought for a speech class and displayed to inspire shock and awe. It sure looked like a rifle, but no worries that time. One time the gun was in the car, but that was enough to get the kid led away in handcuffs. We never saw him again. One time (so I heard), someone chased someone else down a hallway with a knife (total hearsay).

For a tiny podunck career college, with fewer than 2,000 students, does that seem like a lot of violence, or a little?

Jimmy got a talking to today. Shortly after I arrived, his program director led him down the hall past me, saying, “We need to have a little chat.” And then the program director patted me on the back. Awkward. I guess now everyone knows I'm a snitch? I fully expected to find my tires slashed. But later Jimmy came to class and gamely did his best on the Excel test, occasionally asking me for help with no attitude or resentment. So, either he was fine with the talking-to he got, or he didn't know that I was the catalyst for it.

In the Access class today, the three paralegals who missed the test on Tuesday breezed into class at the same time as the Academic Coordinator, who was intent upon proctoring their student evaluations. Argh. They lollygagged on the evaluations (while I sat fuming and twiddling in the hall—again), so they got started late on their tests. All three women had issues: one had a headache and had to go out of the room to take an Excedrin. One told me she was being evicted and went to court for a money-related matter. She started crying. The third one, who usually hates the other two, is a high-maintenance person who reinforces every stereotype you've heard about blondes. During the test, she repeatedly threw up her hands. “I can't do this. This is stupid! I'll never need to know Access.”

I hinted and helped far too much, and she earned a solid D+, fair and square. But she's not getting it, and she blames me. If the school continues to judge faculty performance by the evaluations we get from students, I'm toast. Oh well. It was good while it lasted.

So I get home and my kitchen is swarmed with ants and fruit flies. It's warm. I compost in my kitchen. I should know by now, after watching the paralegals take the test, that you can't interfere in the the natural order of things, whether that is in the kitchen or in the classroom. I shouldn't try to stop an academic disaster, if that is the natural consequence of a student's actions. And I shouldn't mess with mother nature. Heat and rotting food equals critters. As long as I don't have roaches, I don't really care. Ants, fruit flies, moths, spiders, and me, we're all part of the food chain. I feed them, and I eat them, and the wheel turns. Eventually they will eat me. Bring it on down to Critterville!

My job depends on the satisfaction ratings of my students

My last post was my 100th. Yay me. Someone called me prolific, but blogging twice a week isn't exactly a world speed record. Still, I guess it's a sign of something positive that I'm still doing it, me the prodigal quitter.

I just spent three hours grading the tests that my Access class sweated through today. With every new test I graded, my hopes rose: maybe this one will be perfect, maybe this one will demonstrate intelligence and not just a hazy knowledge. Three times out of twelve times I was pleasantly surprised. We don't grade on a curve at the career college; everything is based on a point system. Three points for this skill, two points for that skill, amass enough points and you pass the test. Pile up enough points and you pass the class. Everyone can get an A if they want. It's nice to know at least three people will probably be getting As in my Access class. As long as they turn in all of the homework, of course.

This Access test covers basics: import tables from Excel, revise the design, add some data, create a new table with a lookup field, set some relationships, create some queries with various criteria, print some database documenters. I'm no Access wizard, I can assure you. This is super basic stuff. And mostly, I think they are getting it. No one scored less than 84. I think it is a testament to my thorough test reviews. What the hell. I'm all about teaching to the test. This isn't academia, for god's sake. If you want them to learn job skills, teach 'em and test 'em. Then shove 'em out the door. Yeee-hawwwww, get along little dogie!

I arrived early today after the holiday weekend at the request of one Access student who wanted some extra help. I was fully expecting her not to show, but she did. I'm proud to say I didn't feel one twinge of regret, even though I could have gotten a lot of mileage out of some righteous indignation: She didn't show! Why I oughta—But she did, and I was glad to work through the test review with her, and to see her earn a 97% on the test. Chalk one up for me.

After the Access test, which took the full two hours, I had the Excel class. This is a whole other critter. New students are often signed up for Excel, along with Word and possibly Windows in their first term. This is the sink-or-swim method of college learning. Some of these folks have very little computer experience. Selecting a range of cells is a major accomplishment. Today we were scheduled to go through the review for the next test, which is set for Thursday. Sadly (for them), a good three-fourths of the class haven't come close to finishing the lessons they need to in order to be prepared for the test. We're beyond basic formulas now, getting into mixed and absolute cell references and nested functions. Stress levels were on the rise. One student keeps threatening to bring his shotgun. For the computer he hates so much, I presume.

So, it was a sad day for all, including me, because today was the day the administration wanted to conduct course/teacher evaluations.

When the academic coordinator came to the room, all perky and smiling, my heart rate started to rise. Not because my evaluations from this class are going to totally suck hind tit, but because I knew I would be losing 20 minutes of review time while I twiddled my thumbs in the hallway, waiting for them to finish the evaluations. In the Access class I was able to postpone the evaluation to Thursday due to today's test. (And now the ethical question is do I give them their tests back before or after they take the survey? Don't worry. I always give them their tests back first. Some terms I'm toast as far as my evaluations go. So be it.)

The career college has used a variety of methods to evaluate its instructors and courses. When I first started working for the college in 2003, they used a pencil and paper system. I was dumbfounded when I saw a copy. You've heard of a double-barrelled question, in which a question has two parts that can be answered differently, making it very difficult for the respondent to discern which part of the question to answer? Well, in this survey, questions were triple-barrelled. For example, indicate the extent to which you agree with the following statement on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means disagree strongly and 5 means agree strongly: My instructor was entertaining, fair, and super nice.

“How can you possibly get actionable data from these questions?” I remember asking whatever poor sould was the academic coordinator. She gave me a perplexed look. I had to laugh. What else could I do?

A few years later, someone asked me to write a questionnaire for them, and I did, but like so many of my priceless and essential suggestions, nothing ever came of it. After a few more years, probably right after the next accreditation site visit, we switched to an electronic system. The questions, however, remained the same. I pointed out the ongoing problem. “How can I know what to work on improving, if each question I'm being rated on has three distinct and conflicting behaviors?” No one had an answer, even when I pointed out that a teacher's job performance rating was based on these evaluations. In fact, faculty were losing their jobs over these evaluations. (Yes, I'm a potstirrer, I'll admit it. The chronic malcontent strikes again.)

A few terms ago, someone introduced a Survey Monkey survey, which we are still using. I think the questions are more reasonable now, last time I checked. I can't be positive, because I can't go very far in the survey without entering data. I'm far too respectful of the research process to attempt to alter the results by entering fake data, so I just back out quietly and hope for the best. Apparently in recent terms many students have been choosing to avoid participating in the evaluation process. Because these surveys are required for the college to maintain its accreditation, now the administration is sending the academic coordinators at each site to the labs to proctor the survey. Teachers must exit, stage right.

And that is how I ended up in the hallway, fuming and twiddling, and thinking of the traffic I would encounter should I stay a bit late to demonstrate nested functions for the few diehards who wanted to stay after class. God bless 'em. I stayed and showed the amazing nested function process to a few folks, who were properly grateful. I had the impression they gave me good reviews. I suspect the students that left early without looking at me probably trashed me. I can imagine the comments. Carol is a snarky snippy teacher. Carol ignores me and spends all her time with the slow students. Carol talks too much. Carol doesn't know how to teach. Carol doesn't grade fairly. And more, in lousy grammar, sprinkled liberally with misspelled words.

Ho hum. (Have I mentioned I'm burned out on teaching?) Actually, I've gained a tremendous amount of patience through being a teacher. I am continually reminded that I cannot poke or prod someone into learning faster than he is capable of learning. I cannot convince someone of the value of learning the material unless she is willing to listen with an open mind. Being snarky or snippy certainly doesn't endear me to anyone, nor does it enhance the learning process. I've learned. I'm still working on applying what I've learned, but then, aren't we all?

Am I comatose yet?

Yesterday I started feeling a bit under the weather, even though the weather is as good as it gets in the Pacific Northwest in early September: clear, warm air, cool breeze, just scraping the bottom of 80° before skidding back down to the upper 50s. It wasn't the weather that made me sick. I suspect food.

Ever since I started eating organic I suspect food for all my ills. Yesterday after breakfast I felt overcome with a wave of fatigue. I assumed my regular thinking position, and when I woke up my neck was so stiff I couldn't turn my head to either side. I felt like the Tin Man. Oil can! Oil can! I suddenly felt compelled to head for the bathroom, just in time for a particularly noxious and exciting gastrointestinal event, the details of which shall remain thankfully undisclosed. Wow, I thought to myself. I'm dying!

Quickly I opened up Google and typed in I'm dying. The symptom checker for Web MD popped up. I clicked on it and began stabbing various options, searching for a diagnosis. Female. Check. Over 55. Check. Abdominal? Neck? Wha-? Okay, here we go: meningitis! I knew it, I'm doomed. Are my fingers feeling tingly yet? Maybe a little. Am I feeling the onset of a coma? I dunno, how can I tell, I always feel like I'm on the verge of a coma.

Food has always been my nemesis. From the time I walked around the house with little donuts stacked up on all my fingers, food has had power over me. Mom used to reward me with my very own box of Ho-Hos. (Mmmmmm, Ho-Hos. Do they still make them?) I learned that food could be a good friend, probably by watching my father find his comfort in food. After I moved to Los Angeles I went off the deep end, living to eat, counting the minutes until my next meal. After awhile that got tiresome. Then I met a man who didn't mind my chunky ass, and the food compulsion gave way to other compulsions.

Now I've given up every food that used to bring me pleasure: pizza, lasagna, ice cream, crackers, potato chips, oat meal... sugar, wheat, corn, dairy, bread, rice, pasta, tofu, soy milk, rice milk, lentils... for god's sake. What's left, you might ask? I'll tell you what is left: Vegetables. Chicken. Eggs. Fish. Fruit. Water. I eat to live now. I sure don't live to eat. When I find myself craving ice cream, I picture a parfait glass filled with layers of gravel and dirt with green antifreeze and motor oil poured on top. Pretty. But not very nourishing. I suppose if I learned how to cook I could make things tasty. But who cares. It's only food, just calories to convert to energy so I can function.

A half hour after googling my symptoms, I was still alive. Ho hum. I went to bed early, slept for 10 hours, and today I feel fine, a little watery, a little stiff, but very much alive, so probably it wasn't anything serious. Probably just a touch of food poisoning. It was most likely either the salmon I ate on Saturday or the fancy restaurant food I ate on Friday night. I'd like to blame the fish, since I hate to eat fish—I only eat it because Doc Tony says I must in order to stay healthy—but I'd rather blame the restaurant food. I felt a little dizzy after I ate it—usually a sign of a food additive, like a preservative or flavor enhancer. But the dizziness went away, and I felt fine on Saturday.

I'd like to say that eating at restaurants is worth the risk of food poisoning. The older I get though, the less willing I am to spend three days suffering for an hour of gastronomic pleasure. It's gotta be good company or really delicious food to risk the possibility of a negative outcome. Friday night it was worth the company. Plus I wanted to check out the new cafe in my 'hood. Ok. Now that I know the menu, I have no problem abstaining. What food is worth the risk? I'm not sure. Potato chips, maybe. Mmmmmm, potato chips.

Time for dinner. Lettuce, roasted beets, carrots, avocado, pan-grilled salmon, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Sounds good? Every day, for the rest of your life? Hey, it could be worse. My allergy-plagued brother had to survive on turkey, rice, and water for years before his immune system rebounded. I'm lucky. No sugar, oh, poor me.