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.

Wanted: Mystery shoppers for mammograms and colonoscopies

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

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

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

“Wow,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Students and teachers: a match made for the hellish handbasket

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fall is nothing to sneeze about

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

Impoverished? Who, me?

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

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

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

Excuse me, I feel a sneeze coming on.

When it is time to burst out of the bubble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The few, the proud, the over-educated

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where burned out teachers go

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They eyed me skeptically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The dog days of discontent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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