Put four students in a team project, add a deadline... and hit BLEND

Here I am, skulking back to my blog after being outed as a closet optimist. I've had some interesting feedback on the whole sordid expose. My sister laughed (kindly). She didn't sound all that surprised, once again proving I don't really know myself, have never known myself. She copied my self-portrait and drew a smile and a dimple on my malcontented face. How's that for sisterly love! Pretty cool.

It's humbling, but maybe it's also a little bit liberating, to discover this not-so-new, not-so-secret side to my personality. Liberating because if you don't know who you are, you could be anybody. All this time I thought I was a frustrated creative, a plodding malcontent, an irritating pot-stirrer, a rabble rouser. But turns out I could be totally wrong! Maybe I'm really a successful, well adjusted, creative, productive member of society. Maybe I'm a secret millionaire, so secret I haven't discovered it myself yet. Maybe I've written ten books and I'm working on my eleventh! Whoa. Maybe my thighs really are thin, maybe my hair isn't gray, maybe I'm not growing a mustache! I mean, there's just no telling who I am these days, if the once and former chronic malcontent is really a hidden optimist.

We started a new term at the career college this week. I have six preps, 26 contact hours, and not very many students. One class has one student, one class has two. The others have a handful each. The two classes that will be most interesting (for me) will be the two sections of Human Resources Management, where I require the students to work together as a team to choose and produce some sort of group project. This is the same process I used last term in the Organizational Management classes I may have blogged about previously. This term, I think one class is going to pose some problems. There are four students in the class: three women, one man. Two of them know each other, the other two are retreads from another time, another campus. And one is a chronic malcontent.

How do I know? Because I dislike her intensely. Her (not real) name is Teresa. She's my shadow. She represents all the things I dislike in myself, that I'm afraid to look at, afraid to express. She's obese and messy (like I fear I will become). She wears glasses (like I do) and her hair hangs down in strings around her face (like mine used to). She wears sloppy clothes (like I do when I can), and her fat-girl pants are usually halfway down her butt, so we would all be able to see her butt crack if she weren't wearing a grimy-looking thong (have I ever worn a thong? Maybe in my drug-hazed youth). She drags herself to class with a scowl, avoiding eye contact. Mostly she's silent, but every now and then, someone will say something (usually me) that rouses her ire.

The task today was for the group to begin the brainstorming process. I served as scribe, standing ready at the whiteboard, stinky marker in hand. “Who needs help?” I prompted. “What needs changing?”

Steve, the token male in the group (family man, toy collector, future accounting major and entrepreneur) cleared his throat and said slowly, “Gas prices need changing.”

“Oh, should they be higher?” I chirped.

“No, lower!” he said with some heat. His emotion roused Teresa, the sleeping giant.

“Gas prices are so high because the Middle East countries aren't producing as much oil,” she said proclaimed hotly.

The older gal, Dina, who is back at the career college after several years in the workforce, looked at Teresa and said with just the slightest hint of contempt, “We don't buy much oil from the Middle East anymore.”

They bickered about U.S. oil production for a few moments, until I leaped into the fray, verbally speaking.

“If this topic is interesting to you, you'll probably want to do some research, so your project is based on facts rather than just opinions. Okay, any more ideas? Who else needs help? What else needs changing? What can you find out?” I raised the marker, ready to write.

Everyone slumped back into their stupor. They stared blankly at the whiteboard. Lisa (20-years-old, size zero, bottle blonde) checked her smartphone. Steve gazed out the window. Dina drummed her fingers on the table. Teresa hid behind a wall of hair, her back to the board. Clearly the team has not started the first step of the group process (forming, storming, norming, and performing.)

I blame myself. If I were a really good teacher (which I'm not), I would devise a team-building activity for them, so they can get to know one another. Part of me wants to help them, ease them into the group experience. The other part of me just wants to sit back and watch the train wreck. I'm like the scientist poking the frog with an electrode. If I put four uninterested students in a pot of hot water (a forced team project) and turn on the heat (a 10-week deadline), what will they do? Will they climb over each other to claw their way out? Or will they help each other? Stay tuned. This is bound to be fun (for me).

The Chronic Malcontent is a... what!? No way!

Yesterday I drove to the campus in Wilsonville for our quarterly in-service. Some time back one of the program directors thought it would be a good idea if we had in-service on the day after the end of the term. Sadly, faculty weren't consulted, and now we have three fewer hours to finish our grades and prepare for the new start on Monday. More like four hours if you count the time lost driving to Wilsonville. Luckily, I have the weekend to grade and prep, right? More like, luckily, I still have a job.

This post isn't about how frustrating it is to be required to sit in workshops for three hours when I could be grading Access exams, although it's always satisfying to vent. No, this post is about something that happened in one of the workshops.

We are usually given a choice of workshop topics. The options for session 1 were LinkedIn or Positive Psychology Part 1. The options for session 2 were Multiple Intelligence or Positive Psychology Part 2. You've heard me talk about my tendency to look on the dark side. You know I call myself a chronic malcontent. It's not that I'm not satisfied with my role as... resident cynic. But lately I've been pondering the idea that if you keep doing what you've always done, you will get what you have always gotten. Bad grammar, I know, but you get my drift. The so-called Law of Attraction and all that stuff.

So I chose to attend the Positive Psychology sessions. I went in with an open-mind, to learn, like an anthropologist peering through tall grass at a newly discovered indigenous tribe. What will I hear, who will I see? Is everyone here part of the happy tribe? Or will there be any other malcontents lurking in the bush?

About twelve people attended, mostly folks from the medical department. If you know anything about medical faculty at a career college, you know they are the most outgoing (loudest), most people-oriented (drama, drama, drama), most compassionate (nosy parkers) of all the departments. I sat next to Molly (not her real name) who has oddly enough become a friend of sorts. She is the type of person the moniker Little Mary Sunshine was coined for. Seriously, she's over the top maniacally ebullient, all the freaking time. She likes me because she saw me drawing goofy characters in my notebook at a previous in-service. Her 21-year-old son is an artist, which is to say he lives at home and does nothing. I guess she recognizes something in me that reminds her of her son.

Our facilitator Trish (older gal, wheezing with the dregs of the flu) showed us a TED video of a self-styled positivity guru Shawn Achor, and then challenged us to take a pledge to do five things for 21 days. “It will change your life,” she wheezed. I list them here in case you want to try it yourself: (1) make a gratitude list, (2) journal about a positive experience every day, (3) exercise, (4) meditate, and (5) perform a random act of kindness.

“Get with a partner now and practice this together,” Trish directed in a cracked version of her school teacher voice. I turned to Molly and asked how her son was doing. “He joined the Furry Convention,” she said in frustration. “He made his own costume!” We were in a computer lab. While the other medical faculty were flailing about doing sloppy jumping jacks and knocking into things, I looked up Furry Convention. Wow, cool. People make costumes and hang out. Why didn't I know about this when I was 21? I didn't say that to Molly. “Best thing you can do is kick him out of the house,” I said bluntly.

“Ok, class!” Trish wheezed. “Now I want you to take the Optimism test.”

The pessimistic cynic in me mentally rubbed her hands in glee. At last, a test to prove I am a malcontent. All this positivity stuff is great, but I really just wanted validation for my self-inflicted moroseness. I registered on the website and dove into the 32-question questionnaire. The medical faculty were cackling loudly. Trish was talking over them, trying to sell us on the idea of being more optimistic. I said to Trish, “If you want me to fill out this survey, I'm going to need you to stop talking.”

“What?” Trish said.

“Stop talking!”

There was an awkward silence. We all got down to it. The questions came in pairs. Many of them were about relationships. Nothing seemed to apply to me. I floundered in confusion at first, but rallied and forged ahead, finishing first. Clicked the button: Calculate. A moment later, a series of graphs appeared. I stared in shock. Out of 8 possible points, I had scored a 7 on optimism, and a 2 on pessimism! No, this can't be! I'm the chronic malcontent!

I furtively hid my graphs and leaned over to see Molly's results. She scored a 2 on optimism and a 7 on pessimism, the exact opposite of me. No way!

I had to read the fine print and think past my defenses. Eventually, I understood. The questions were worded so that one of the pair represented a permanent situation, while the other one reflected a temporary situation. The idea is that optimists will consider positive situations enduring and permanent and judge negative situations temporary and fleeting. Apparently I have been looking on the bright side all along. I just hid that fact from myself. This is not unlike the day I looked in the mirror and realized I had grown a mustache.

What can I say. The jury is in. The former malcontent is outed. I've been a closet optimist all along. Please don't tell anyone.

Ants

One of the consequences of embarking upon the journey toward an advanced degree is that some parts of life must inevitably receive less attention. The chore of writing coherent sentences is all consuming. There is little time left for things like personal hygiene, housekeeping, or car maintenance. You already know I live in squalor. I've written about the dust balls and cat hair before. But I don't think I've mentioned the ants. Have I mentioned the ants?

I'm beginning to suspect my sole purpose in life is to transport ants from one location to another. I'm really good at it, mostly (although I will say that not all of them survive the trip, most notably the ones that inadvertently trod upon my neck). They load up the gangway to my shirt while I'm washing dishes at the kitchen sink. Then they sample the various activities of my scarf, hat, and pants. At their own risk, of course. Then I walk into another room, where they disembark on my computer keyboard or my television remote control. They are thrill-seeking tourists, looking for that next adventure. And I'm just the human who can give it to them.

I've spread a concoction made of mineral oil and cayenne pepper along my kitchen counter, but I always miss some spots. These become ports of entry for intrepid scouts, who navigate between reeking hot puddles of pepper, like humans traverse Yellowstone. It's comical to watch them stop, back up, turn, start up again, stop, like little matchbox toys. Sometimes they are boxed in. Then they just have to sit there. I don't usually save them. But when I return to the kitchen the next day, they are gone. Who rescued them? Maybe there is a superhero for ants trapped on kitchen counters. Save us from the evil human!

Sometimes they organize a coup. They try to take over the kitchen. The little buggers have almost succeeded a couple times, especially when their spies locate the cat food. The supply lines are long and thick as your finger, little workers trundling back and forth. Must bring home the bacon! Feed the children! I would invite them in as guests, but my cat is less hospitable. He won't fight them, or eat them (I assume they aren't that tasty, although I'm sure I've accidentally cooked them into my scrambled eggs a few times). The cat gives me the evil eye when his food dishes are overrun. I can't live long with the evil eye.

I don't like killing anything, even ants. I also hate eating meat, but that is another story. In the flora and fauna of the Love Shack, I let spiders live, as long as they aren't in my bed. I save bees, hornets, wasps, and yellow jackets. I even save flies, if I can catch them. Any one critter, I will attempt to rescue and put outside. But when critters attack in hordes, I can't save them all. Moths and ants overwhelm me with sheer numbers. I'll tolerate a few, but eventually the tolerant giant is moved to retaliate.

Out come the big guns. No, I'm not talking about pesticide sprays or ant motels. I'm talking about the oldest remedy for what ails you: alcohol! Rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle sends them to ant heaven. I mop up their sopping carcasses with a paper towel and toss them to their final resting place in the trash. Then I spray bleach on the battlefield. And finally I salt the earth (all entry points I can locate) with the hot pepper oil concoction. That buys me a few weeks of peace and ant-free scrambled eggs. Such is the life of a (slightly crazy) doctoral student.

Is it spring yet?

I've been sneezing off and on all day. It could be a reaction to the piles of dust and cat hair that continuously roil about the Love Shack. It could be a reaction to something I ate. I suppose I could be coming down with the creeping crud that has been plaguing the career college for the past few weeks. But I think it's none of the above. The air in here is always filled with dust and cat hair, and sometimes sawdust, paint fumes, and burned fish, depending on what I've been doing. I haven't eaten anything out of the ordinary lately, and I don't feel sick. So what could it be? I have a theory.

Today the temperature topped 60° in parts of the metro area. Just for a little while, but the balmy temperature, combined with sunshine and blue sky, I am positive, enticed a billion little spores and mites and bugs and pollen bits to launch themselves in a celebratory frenzy: Oh joy, it's spring! And my sinuses responded.

This happens every February. February is the wicked witch of winter. February waves her wand and beguiles all the gullible little bulbs and ferns into believing it's safe to raise their little trusting faces to the sun. (Awww, isn't that cute, my bulbs are sending up green shoots. What was it I planted in that pot, again? I have no recollection. Last November seems an awfully long time ago.)

I bet you can guess what happens next. Yep. Sometime in early to mid-March, a nasty Arctic cold front will sweep down from the Gulf of Alaska and blanket all the trusting little crocuses and daffodils who were stupid enough to believe February's lies with inches of snow and/or ice. Bam. Fooled you. Then the Love Shack becomes an igloo, a dark, frigid igloo, and I wish I could hibernate until summer.

I grew up here, and I know this place, even though I spent 20 years in Los Angeles. I know February promises the impossible. Everyone who has been here for a while knows that summer begins July 5. I never remove my flannel sheets before June. I keep my heating pad handy year round. I wear fleece every day, even when the sun is shining, and a hat and fingerless gloves. I know this place. Although I guess I don't know everything. It's possible some of my misery is of my own making. Next time when I look for an apartment, I won't choose a place on the north side of a mountain.

Flogging a dubious metaphor

For the past few hours I've been working on the introductory chapter of my dissertation proposal. This is the chapter that contains obtuse subheadings, like... Theoretical Framework. When I see the word framework, I think of furniture, like folding screens and wooden headboards. Scaffolding. Shelves. Say, have I mentioned my DIY shelving? I have shelves on virtually every wall in my dinky apartment, in line with the theory that the floor looks bigger if everything is stored overhead.

I digress. Or do I?

I'm building the literary equivalent of shelving. I'm scaffolding my argument. I'm assembling pipes and planks to support my topic and justify my method and design. Ho hum. I suddenly felt my brain slipping away. Flogging a dubious metaphor makes me tired. I'm sure you have already gone to the refrigerator.

Anyway, I am making progress, slow and steady. There's no race to win, you know. We are all winners in the human race. Whatever, it's a nice idea, even if it doesn't feel much like I'm winning most of the time. What is winning, anyhow? One of those mysteries of life, right up there with why men spit. I would define winning as success on my terms, I guess, although I don't always know what my terms are. In other words, I don't always know what I want. I say I want one thing, but my actions say I apparently want something else.

Right now, I want to stop typing and make tracks to the refrigerator. Not that there is anything comforting in there: zucchini, collard greens, eggs.... tomorrow's breakfast. Hey, I know what I want. I want all the things that used to comfort me to comfort me again: I'm talking about food, money, and love. It irks me that these things, once so comforting, in excess and mishandled now just make me feel worse. What gives? Is it no longer true that if one is good, two is better? Does it no longer hold that bigger is better, nower is wower, whiter is righter? Wha—? Well, whatever. Do you get my drift? Probably not. I'm having trouble focusing. It's late. Tomorrow morning comes too soon. Sleep is my last refuge, and that is where I am headed.

Scratching the teacher burnout again

I just finished the weekly task of grading the work of my keyboarding students. They are required to type and print a variety of asinine documents. Scintillating and informative topics like The Integrity and Ethics of Job Applicants. Ending Procrastination. As if students actually pay attention to the content of what they are typing. Ha. If they did, they wouldn't make so many damn mistakes.

The software program scores their work and catches their typos, but not their formatting errors. That is where I come in. Out comes the red pen. I rip their documents bloody. Add line spaces here! Delete this extra space! Insert a page number, no don't just type a 2, what the hell are you thinking, do you want every page to be numbered page 2? I spend way too much time (and derive a disgusting amount of satisfaction) editing the crap out of their work, and then feel righteously angry when they don't feel inclined to revise. What! Are you going to settle for 9 points when you could have all 10? When will I learn they don't care? They just want to pass the class.

I've been proofreading the same documents for almost ten years. Reports in business style and academic style, memos, chart notes, letters, tables... over and over and over. Every few terms, I catch a break from the scheduling gods, and I'm excused from the keyboarding drudgery. Next term, I hear, I might get lucky. The trade-off is that I may end up with a new class, an introductory computer class for medical students who are notoriously computer illiterate (and sadly unconcerned about it). I hear there are three sections. With a lot of students in each. So I hear.

The term is winding down, two weeks to go. Teachers are going through reviews. Today I sat in a computer lab listening to a keyboarding instructor walk his students through the review for the keyboarding final.

“What fingers do you use to type the number four?” he asked in a slow voice, like they were third graders.

“R4 L1!” they shouted.

“Very good, class. And what fingers do you use to type the number six?”

“R4 L1!” they shouted again. No, I thought, that is not what the software teaches us. I almost interrupted. I put my hand over my mouth. Before I stick my foot in it, I must have evidence! I signed myself into his computer class (let him puzzle over who this new student is, two weeks before the end of the term). I poked around the lessons until I found what I sought. Lesson 14. Yes! I knew it. It's L4 R1!

By then he'd moved on. All the answers were written on the whiteboard, all copied dutifully into students' notes. Would I really consider undermining his authority by pointing out to him that he is teaching them wrong information?

Well, what does wrong mean when it comes to typing, I ask you. It's not like this is a medical terminology class and he taught them salpingo-oophaboomboom instead of salpingo-oophorectomy. My father typed with his two index fingers on a manual Underwood with sticky keys. He wasn't graded down by his superior officer, as far as I know. He retired early, a happy man, and spent more than 20 years never worrying about typing again. I've seen students type 70 words a minute with two fingers—I wouldn't have believed it possible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I've seen a person with one hand type faster than most people type with two. When it comes to typing, I guess the lesson to be learned is.... who the hell cares what fingers you use? Let's just be grateful we have fingers, if we do, and let it go with that.

Every time I grade keyboarding I am reminded of how much I hate grading keyboarding. I know I could just let it go, do less, give them less feedback, demand less, expect less (if that is possible), but my sense of integrity rears its weary head. No, can't give less than... oh, about 96%, I'd say. I used to give 110% but after ten years, I just don't have it left to give. Not for keyboarding, not for anything, anymore. I've got a classic case of teacher burnout. It's like athlete's foot. Or a yeast infection. It burns, it itches, and it doesn't go away.

Ear to the floor

There's a new noise to complain about at the Love Shack. It's a more or less continuous high-pitched whine, like a blow dryer or a dustbuster. At first I thought I was just hearing things. Getting old. Crazy person, overly sensitive to sound, self-diagnosed with misophonia, any little noise can grate on my nerves. Maybe it's just some kind of ringing in my ears, the kind of ringing that happened when I laid my head on my purring cat for too long. (Fun at first but not recommended.)

I put my ear to the wall between my apartment and my noisy neighbor. When she's home I can hear all kinds of things. I don't even have to try. I hear her blowing her nose. I hear her toilet flush. I hear her getting lucky on Saturday nights. (When the bed starts shaking, I'm tempted to pound on the wall, just for the hell of it.) This time I heard nothing. Hard to believe, but I don't think the noise is coming from her place. Unless her little dog is using the blow dryer to dry his short and curlies.

I made like an Indian, oh sorry, Native American, and put my ear to the floor. Amazing what you can hear when you do that. (If you don't mind getting cooties.) The floor was gently humming.

Was the noise in the basement? I got my laundry room key and went downstairs to have a look. The basement in this old triplex is mostly a dank, dark, unfinished cave. The laundry room is lit by two bare bulbs, festooned with spider webs, dust, and lint from years of tenants' laundry. It's cold in summer, colder in winter, not pleasant. The front side, though, is a different story. In the front of the triplex, a very steep driveway used to lead to a pair of very narrow garages, built for very narrow cars. Think Model T and you might have it. Some years ago someone bricked up the wall with glass bricks. The sun coming in through the bricks refracts the light, illuminating piles of furniture and boxes. (My landlords use the brightly lit front space for storage.) One of the old wooden garage doors is still in place, giving the place some authenticity.

I skulked through the basement, listening carefully while dodging spider webs and a smelly wetsuit (my noisy neighbor is a surfer, did I mention that?). All I heard was the usual cracking and sighing of an old crumbling shack. Nothing in the basement was making the whining noise, although I could still hear it. It was in the walls, in the floors, not loud, just an insidious whine that set my teeth on edge.

I heard it best in my bedroom and bathroom, which means it is probably something in my silent neighbor's apartment. Her name is Mary. I rarely see her. She's a ghost, compared to Joy, my neighbor on the other side (the one with the pooping dog). What is Mary doing over there?

Maybe it's a dentist's drill, maybe she's practicing to be a dental tech. No, maybe it's a hair dryer, maybe she had a stroke while sitting under a hair dryer and now she's a mummy, toasting in the heat while the dryer whines on and on. I know, maybe she's got a roombot! That would be cool. Except wouldn't the whining sound change as it bashed into walls and ran over shoes and stuff? I don't know. If I had a roombot, my cat would shred my favorite books, destroy my clothes, and then hide under the bed till next Christmas.

I have no idea if the whining is actually constant. I do leave the Love Shack once in a while. I don't know what happens when I'm gone. My cat could be watching porn for all I know. My cat could be in cahoots with my neighbor. With both my neighbors! To drive me crazy. Does that sound crazy? Well, whatever. After three days of the mysterious whine, one day I came home, and it was gone.

Then a few days later I got home, and it was back. Looks like I'd better learn to live with it. I'm trying. I've managed to set aside my curiosity about its source long enough to take my afternoon naps between morning and evening classes. I've written a note, in my mind, several notes, actually, something along the lines of: Dear neighbor, what is that odd sound, do you hear it? Is it perhaps coming from your apartment? If so, would you please SHUT IT OFF!

This weekend the noise is off. Not on. Whatever. I don't even know what makes the noise. Maybe it's my ears after all. Maybe it is a function of how much salt I eat, or how much sleep I get, or how addicted I am to Scandal. I don't know. I'm beginning to think the universe is testing me to find out how spiritually evolved I am. The doctoral saga. The career college meltdown. The dog poop. The whining noise.

On the bright side, my sister's boyfriend has surfaced in SE Asia and reports he is intact. She's ecstatic, despite winter storm Nemo burying Boston in two feet of wet snow. I'm happy for her. Love is a wonderful thing. So I hear. Hmmm. I'm not sure I can trust my ears on that, either. Oh well.

Feeling anything but safe

Today after my two morning classes, I dutifully joined an assembly of 40 or so faculty and staff in a two-hour safety session. I yawned my way through tales of perps and victims, disasters and catastrophes, told by two decrepit retired law enforcement officers, now criminal justice teachers. All their fear-mongering accelerated my heart rate, which I'm sure is the only thing that kept me awake. (I worked till 10:30 the night before, hence my walking-zombie condition.) I'd like to scoff and say compared to the Chronic Malcontent, these guys were rank amateurs, but actually they did a pretty good job of disseminating doom, with the main difference between them and me being that they actually believe they have some control over the disaster situation, and I am quite sure we don't. Hence my propensity to wring my hands and bemoan the hand-basket thing.

These two guys were almost old enough to be my fathers (ick), but they acted like kids, no, let me be clear, they acted like boys, telling their tales of blood, guts, and death, laughing about the time they blew up four sticks of dynamite in a hole, just to see what would happen. Giggling over the time they pepper-sprayed the engine of their colleagues' cop car. Describing with gusto the many times they had to slam a perp to the ground. My father was in law enforcement. I never heard him describe stories like these, but I know he was one of them, the brotherhood. Just like these two old has-beens, he never grew up. His jokes were juvenile, usually involving sex. His interests were narrow: family and football. His loyalty was clear: white and might make right.

I left the safety seminar feeling anything but safe. A three-hour nap restored me to my usual fugue state. I turned on my computer and took a desultory look at my dissertation proposal—the next course started on Monday. The chair responded to my literature review submission very positively. I don't think she read much of it, but most of it wasn't new. Next up, the introduction. I thought she'd be chewing on the lit review for a few days, but nope, it's back on my plate. Time to dig in to my topic again, time to grab it between my yellowing teeth and slam it to the ground. Maybe poke out its eyes and rip off its penis, and then spray it down with cayenne pepper, just to be on the safe side.

There's so much to do. We are coming up on finals week at the career college. I need a haircut. My laundry is piled to the rafters. I should call my mom. My sister's boyfriend is still missing in SE Asia. Bravadita is still down for the count with the flu bug from hell. The earthquake is coming. At least three of my students probably brought a gun to school in their cars. And we're all going to hell in a hand-basket.

I may have to emote at some point

I've been buried in my literature review almost every moment I haven't been working, sleeping, or attending a meeting. I forgot the Superbowl was today. Not that I would have watched it, probably, but since I am a student of marketing, I have a half-hearted professional interest in the commercials. I don't feel bad. I can watch them tomorrow from the student lab at work. That will help me stay awake.

One good thing in being alone a lot is that I don't have much contact with other people, especially sick people. So far I have managed to avoid the flu bug. Knock on high-density particle board. I don't know how I have been so lucky. Zinc, maybe? Irascibility, maybe? My friend Bravadita is suffering mightily and dosing heavily. Hope you feel better soon.

Another benefit to being single is that you don't have to keep track of other people much. When I was in  a relationship, everything I did, every thought I thought, was in relation to my partner. He existed, I orbited. My sister's boyfriend has gone AWOL in a foreign country. She's distraught with worry. I would be, too, if I had allowed myself to commit to (rather than collide with) another person's fortunes. I've never been much of a joiner. For her sake, I hope he turns up soon.

I feel reluctant to whine when others are suffering. But what the heck. People are suffering all the time, everywhere. I can't keep my whining on hold indefinitely. I am the Chronic Malcontent, after all. It's my job to whine. Right now I'm too tired to whine. I have too many big words floating in my head. Ontology. Epistemology. The icons on my desktop are starting to come loose when I blink. I guess that means my eyes are crossing or something. I just wanted to write something, to let you know I'm still emoting.

Is it odd or is it god?

Does detoxification invite the unexpected? There's a question for you. I'm supposedly in detox mode, thanks to the shenanigans of my person shaman (my naturopath, Dr. Tony). And all these weird things are coming in the mail. Well, maybe the recurring invitation to AARP is not so weird. But a letter from the University of Northern Iowa announcing a job opening for a Marketing Department Head, now that was unexpected. How on earth did they get my name? And how desperate are they, that they would undertake a nationwide search? I have to assume it's nationwide—there is no rational reason they would be singling me out.

And then there's the pamphlet from the Historic Message Church, notifying me of an event called the Bible Prophecy Conference, at which we can find out what the last night on earth will look like. Tempting, but no thanks. If it doesn't involve chocolate and a bottle of chardonnay, as I suspect it doesn't, I don't want to hear about it. I guess they probably knocked on my door, but I wasn't home. Whew. If that is not proof of the existence of god, I don't know what is.

And then, today the mail carrier delivered a box from Amazon, an occurrence that happens with some frequency at my place, I'm embarrassed to admit. Yes, I am a book junkie. But when I opened the box, I thought, hey, these aren't the smutty vampire novels I ordered, oh, no, not another Amazon mix up. What is this massive tome? A book on the history of costume illustration? What? Maybe another me, from a former life, but... oh. There is a card. Oh, hey, it's a present from a former significant other. Like, way former, from the 1980s. Wow. Totally unexpected and just the slightest bit creepy.

We like to think oddities come in threes, so there you have it, three odd things in my mailbox. But there was plenty of other crap in the mailbox, the inbox, and the cat box. And plenty of other oddities around that I probably failed to notice because I'm too self-absorbed to pay attention to anything but myself.

Now I'm wondering what Cedar Falls, Iowa, looks like. Ha, dream on. Not that I would consider moving to the Midwest, but it's nice to think they might want me. Unfortunately, I don't meet the qualifications. I haven't finished my doctorate, and I haven't published anything. (Yet.) Oh well. The last line of the letter is a request that if I don't, would I please pass the letter along to someone who does. Sigh.

The long-awaited back adjustment

It's always an adventure when I visit the naturopath. What will he do to me this time, I wonder. Will he stick me full of needles? Will he give me a magic potion? Will I drink it or rub it on my stomach while reciting a Walt Whitman poem? (I just made that up, he's never asked me to recite poetry.) I never know what I will get when I visit the naturopath, and I'm always slightly bemused when I leave. Today was no exception.

He rubbed his hands gleefully when I came in. Uh-oh, I thought.

“Hi, come on in! I have some new things to try on you.”

“Okay,” I said gamely. Great. How much is this going to cost, I thought, but didn't ask out loud.

“I've wanted to learn these techniques for a long time, but I had to finish my other degree first,” he said, pointing at a wall of framed certificates that could have been made with PowerPoint and a laser printer.

Feeling some trepidation, I laid down on the table, the one with the hole where your butt goes (never thought about the unsettling implications of that hole before now), and he proceeded to do a round of unfamiliar muscle testing techniques. He was brisk, energetic, and efficient. Then he told me to sit up. He counted my vertebrae and then shot me in the spine with a little gun.

Not shot me, but poked me, pushed me, I don't know what the gizmo did. It was just a thump. Nothing exploded, don't worry. I have no idea what the purpose of the procedure was, but he tested more stuff, shot me a few more times in various places along my spine. Then he torqued my rib cage back into alignment (who knew it was misaligned?). Then he told me to wrap my arms around myself and give myself a great big hug, because he was going to give me the come to jesus back adjustment he couldn't do until now, because I wasn't strong enough to handle it. Really? For three years you've been saving this moment?

I sat up and wrapped my arms around myself, thinking oh no, here it comes, the moment when my neck snaps, my brain strokes out, my bowels void into the hole in the table. Before I had a chance to draw a breath, he said, “Breathe out.” Then he put his arms around me, and all I could see was his blue shirt. It was strangely intimate. He smelled mildly like b.o. I bet he uses no deodorant. He's a natural guy, after all. And then, while I was inhaling his unique scent and wondering if this looked as ridiculous as it felt, he lifted me straight up off the table, leaving my back somewhere behind. Craaaaack. My spine unraveled like the San Andreas. He did it one more time and let me go.

I sat there, wishing I could shake myself like a dog, work out the kinks, try to regain my grasp on reality. Who am I, again? What just happened?

“I've just done a major detox on your system,” he cackled. “Drink three liters of water daily for the next two days!”

I was out of his office in less than a half hour, and only $105 poorer, which is the least I've ever paid him, I think, in the three years I've been seeing him. Bargain! Was I floating just a little as I walked out to my car? Where's my car, again?

I had enough energy after I left to stop at the grocery store for vittles to replenish my empty larder, but after that I was tuckered out. De-toxing is tiring work, apparently. I hit the mattress when I got home, and slept like a dead person until my bladder woke me up. (Damn, I hate drinking water!) I worked on my Literature Review for awhile, updating sources, trying to make sense of the nonsensical. That got boring fast. There's nothing on TV worth watching. The cat is draped over my wrists as I type this. It's 10:00 pm, time for bed, and I'm wide awake and probably won't get to sleep until 3:00 am. Curses! But at least I'm detoxed!

Hold the presses: I need to slow my chi down

Chi? I suppose I should write it as qi. Would you have a clue what I'm talking about? I don't, but apparently I need more houseplants. In the world of feng shui, the chi around my house shouldn't move too quickly, and a few fluffy fern-like things will do the trick. Except for the fact that I live in a cave. Hmmm. As I was flipping channels, I heard some commentators say ferns will slow down my chi, but they didn't say what to do if you live in a cave.

Well, living under boulders seems to be de rigeur these days. So maybe there's a plant that will restore my chi in the darkness of a cave dwelling. Chia pets, maybe.

I worked on my dissertation proposal this evening and got hopelessly bogged down in my study of systems thinking. I'm pretty good at finding sources, and very skilled at downloading them and saving them with meaningfully coded file names. I can do that all day long. I can even read them and highlight interesting bits of text with the cute little highlighter pen tool (if the pdf files are not too old and funky). But ask me to read critically and synthesize the bits of information into coherent observations that I can place strategically into my paper to support my argument... well, really, you are asking too much from this old parched brain.

Parched. Drink more water. Apparently, it will help your brain function better. I'm off to take a swig. Be right back. I'm back. It took longer than I anticipated, because first I had to re-fill my water bottle. Then I had to put on the teapot, because I decided tea would taste better than water, although I can't seem to find a tea that I really like, because I'm not doing dairy or soy or rice or almond or oat or hemp and without something white in it, black tea is so... robust. Then I had to give the cat a back rub. Then while I was choosing my tea flavor, he stole my chair, and I had to negotiate its return. So you can see what drinking water can lead to.

Several of the articles I reviewed tonight were written by Chinese scholars responding to a western author who is known for a lifetime of study of soft systems methodology. (You're like, soft what? I know, me too.) These Chinese guys are super-smart, even though their English isn't always so great. I can tell they really know how to parse a thought. I mean, they are analytical to the max, rambling for pages on the ontological and epistemological meanings of hard and soft systems methodologies as they discuss why Checkland is a loser. I'm like a pre-schooler next to these guys. But every now and then, they can surprise me. After several long erudite paragraphs about the nature of reality, one guy concluded, “If there is no commitment to realism, it will be a really bad thing.” I burst out laughing when I read that sentence. Yes! I totally agree! Ignoring realism is not a good thing. And I love how you say it so we can all understand it! Thank you, Mr. Wu (2010, p. 196).

I talked to my mother earlier tonight, during one of my many breaks. She described her trip to the store as a prowl. I like picturing my skinny little mother prowling. She's like the opposite of a prowler, of course. That is why it's so funny. Here's another funny story about my mother. My little brother (who lives near her) told me she had a run-in with a neighbor over some dog poop. Apparently my mother saw her neighbor's dog pooping somewhere it shouldn't have, and no one cleaned it up. So my mother bagged up the poop and took it over to the neighbor's condo, where she was preparing to hurl it over the fence onto her patio. Unfortunately for my mother, the neighbor caught her in the act. Busted!

Mom never told me this story, which indicates she either forgot (possible) or she was so embarrassed at getting caught that, in spite of my recent run-ins with a neighbor's dog poop, she chose not to tell me (more likely). I won't ask her about it. I don't want to embarrass her. But I like this feisty old mother of mine. She's pretty fun since my dad died. I think her chi is a lot better now. I guess being liberated from a half-century long semi-crappy marriage can do that to you. Plus she has a lot of houseplants.

The chronic malcontent is feeling nasty, brutish, and short

I've known that I have obsessive compulsive tendencies for a long time. When I was in first grade, I looked down on classmates who ate crayons, but I repeatedly bit the hard little buttons on my cardigan sweaters until they cracked. As I got older, I fell into the habit of ripping my cuticles until they bled and tearing my fingernails down to the quick. In seventh grade I went through a period where I pulled out my eyelashes.

I always knew those behaviors were socially unacceptable and felt a pervasive sense of shame about them, but I was never able to control my obsession. My parents would chastise me—Stop picking!—but weren't inclined to discover what compelled me to engage in such obvious self-destruction.

Now I know I'm in good company. Dermatillomaniacs are legion. Just Google skin picking. You'll see forums full of shattering admissions from self-mutilators who are practically weeping with relief at finding out they are not alone in their insanity. Some of them have disfigured themselves by pulling out their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. Others have torn apart their fingers and endured life-threatening infections. As self-mutilators go, I'm not very high on the charts. On any given day, I may sport only one band-aid on a finger. In times of high stress, I may have two or rarely three.

These are times of high stress. As I get closer to finishing my dissertation, I think about disaster (shootings, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis). I think about death (illness, injury, insanity). I think about old age, if I live that long (dementia, stroke, nursinghome). It's not enough to stop me from going to work or the store or the gas station. I forget about it while I'm not thinking about myself. (Hint, hint.)

How do you cope? Do you overeat? Do you drink? Do you cut yourself, or sleep too much, or bury yourself in video games? Why is it so excruciating to be present sometimes? Am I the only one? Do you ever feel too twitchy to inhabit your own skin?

Then something wacky happens, like my one and only niece goes and has a baby, a charming little fellow with a lively eye. Something changes. There's a flavor of something I hardly ever taste... could it be hope? Then I laugh, wondering what kinds of obsessions he will have, coming from this wacky family, and I can see the comical side of surviving in times of high stress. We do what we can. We do what we must. It might be nasty, brutish, and short but it's all we've got.

The artist's futile lament: I gotta be me

It's almost 11:00 p.m. I've spent much of the day grading student work. I haven't even been outside today. The cold winter sun came and went, and I missed it, hunkered in my cave. It's midterm time. Instructors are required to submit midterm grades, in case they get run over by a truck before the end of the term. Or get fired. Or they quit because they found a  better job with a better company. (Dream on.) It takes time to do a good job grading. I joked with someone today that I probably could just throw darts at a dartboard. Ha ha, I'm sure my students wouldn't think that was funny.

Actually, once I see some writing samples, I can pretty accurately predict the grade each student will earn by the end of the term. We don't grade on the curve. It's all about points. Everyone can get an A if they do all the work satisfactorily. I have no problem giving everyone an A. Considering that my job security depends on how students evaluate me, I guess I'd say giving all As is part of how I keep my job. Kidddddingggg. No, really. I'm kidding. Just because I work at one of those low-life for-profit colleges we all love to bash doesn't mean I don't provide the best learning experience I possibly can. I'm sure I can do better on any given day—who couldn't?—but I really do try to show up and do a good job for these students. Most of whom don't give a rat's ass about learning, I might add. They just want to get out and on with their lives.

This term I have fewer computer classes and more business classes. That means more stuff to read. Two sections of Organizational Management (four students total), two sections of Professional Selling (three students total), one section of an introductory level Marketing and Finance (two students). One section of Access (five students, one of whom refuses to do any work, so he won't be around much longer). And two sections of Keyboarding, with about 25 students total). Do you wonder how this career college stays afloat, with such a low student/teacher ratio? I do.

I often complain about Keyboarding as a reason I want to poke my eyes out with a stick. I use the word “teaching” very loosely when speaking of Keyboarding. Teaching isn't exactly what I do as I stroll around behind the students, peering over their shoulders, poking at their monitors with an accusing finger. This is how you set a tab stop! Center the table! Vertically! Which way is vertically? Google it! I'm the Keyboarding drill sergeant from hell. Most of the students find me very annoying. But how else can I stay awake in class, I ask you?

After nine years, I can say with some certainty that I have pretty much perfected the job of grading keyboarding. I have developed a very colorful Excel spreadsheet that does all of the calculations for me. All I have to do is plug in the numbers. It's a thing of beauty, but unfortunately, I still have to review many documents for accuracy and formatting, a very repetitive and boring process. Letters, memos, reports, just kill me now. I've seen these documents so many times in nine years I bet I could recite them out loud. Especially the medical transcription documents. These are the documents the medical students must type from dictation files. They hate typing big words like... salpingo-oophorectomy, acute suppurative streptococcal infection, drippy gooey pus-filled tonsillar exudate (I embellished that one a little bit), as much as I hate reading them. This is why I am earning a doctorate? To teach medical keyboarders how to transcribe dictation? Where's that stick?

After nine years, am I done? Am I ready to finally admit I've done all I can do at the career college, and it's time to move on? I think I'm almost ready. Soon, very soon. Within a year, I think. On to what, though, is the question.

The cat just settled into the chair behind me and now has somehow managed to take over the entire chair. There isn't room for both our fat asses. I guess that means it's time to stop and take a nap or something. When in doubt, do what the cat does.

I'd be running in circles if I could only remember why

I'm circling my dissertation proposal like a fly buzzing a pile of... no, wait, I'm not going there again. Tired metaphor, too close to home. Been on that pile, still scraping the poop off my clutch pedal. I posted my irate diatribe (re: tiny fecund dogs and their fetid output) in the laundry room (neatly sandwiched in a plastic sleeve and hung with a pushpin), but I'm not sure it's been read yet. Nothing has changed. Except I bought more flashlights.

I have a memory like a gnat's lifespan. That is to say, very short. A few days ago I was irate over something unrelated to stepping in dog poop, and I was anxious to blog about it. But now, the passage of time has eroded the memory. Now all I remember is that I used to be irate about something I thought was worth blogging about. Maybe I've found the secret path to serenity: dementia. If you can't remember what upset you, why get upset at all?

It's a trick. My brain is trying to kill me again. It knows I am feeling the pressure to finish the dissertation proposal, and it is eroding my cognitive functions in a frantic attempt to keep me calm. I guess it's working. I feel pretty good. This despite the fact that I've had Chapter 2 (the Literature Review) open on my computer for the past three hours, and I haven't typed a single word. La la la. What have I been doing? Anything but. I cleaned the cat box (and the human box). I refilled the minutes on my stupid smartphone. I roasted some beets. I made some tea. I nuked my rice-filled foot warmer. I'm like a cat, turning round and round before settling down to the important work of napping. Except I've been turning and turning for three hours. And napping is not an option.

On the radio today I heard part of a program about Oregon's new education standards. I usually don't pay attention to K-12 stuff; it's too complicated for my peanut-brain. But someone said something that caught my attention today: The new standards are developed from an assessment of “college and career readiness,” and form the basis for a decision to focus core reading curricula on fewer classic literature texts and more informational texts. I want to know who decided what constitutes “college and career readiness”? Did a cabal of employers hold a book burning, in the name of enhancing the development of job skills? No more 1984, no more The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Nope, now it's all about How to Read an Annual Report.

And now I remember what I was so upset about a few days ago. Oh, darn. Now I've forgotten again. But that reminds me of something else. University of Phoenix is having accreditation troubles. I don't think they'll actually lose their accreditation, but they have such a monstrous online presence, I worry that there will be negative fallout for all for-profit online institutions, including the one to which I pay my hard-earned cash. As if there wasn't already a huge stigma against both for-profit institutions and online learning. I'm not a fan of University of Phoenix. I'm also not a fan of for-profit higher education. I am feeling very unemployable after hearing this news.

The years of budget cuts have forced the public universities, state colleges, and community colleges to raise tuition and cut back on under-performing programs. They have also become more selective about who they admit, leaving the dregs (non-traditional students) nothing but the for-profit sector. For-profit higher education institutions wouldn't have swooped in if there weren't such good pickings left by the failure of public institutions to meet demand. With the ready availability of student loan money, for-profits make a killing, students get a second-rate education (at best), and taxpayers are on the hook for the loans that end up in default.

Now I remember what it was. I was driving home late Wednesday night after work, listening to NPR. A guest on Tell Me More said he was against the idea that public funds (i.e., taxpayer-funded student loan money) should be used to support degree programs such as art, music, and anthropology, because, he claimed, the graduates of these programs incur student loans they will be hard-pressed to pay back. This argument came as no surprise to me, but I was still saddened to hear it.

The for-profits don't waste their time offering art, music, or anthropology. They offer programs that are in high-demand fields such as healthcare, business, legal arts, and criminal justice. Makes sense. It's all about the money. But what happens if public institutions do the same thing? Are we destined to become a nation of healthcare workers? What happens to society if we don't also grow artists, poets, writers, musicians, and philosophers? Who will dig up old bones and excavate buried tombs? Who will record our experience in art, music, and word? Who will help us make sense of it all?

Society is richer for the artists and anthropologists. So, in my opinion, society should pay to educate them, even if those student loans are never paid back. But I'm a frustrated artist and a crazy recovering debtor and clearly not in my right mind.

The for-profit college motto: Move 'em in and move 'em out!

My cat is sitting on my computer table, helping me write my dissertation proposal. Sometimes he sits with his back to me, wide butt flaring regally behind him; sometimes he flops bonelessly over on my lap. But he's always lurking somewhere nearby, staring at me with a critical eye. (I call him Eddie but I suspect his real name is Squint Eastwood. Or Krawl the Warrior King.) I'm beginning to think he has authored all my work, from December of 2005 until now. I sure don't remember writing any of it. Unless I was having a seven-year out-of-body experience, I have to conclude my cat is responsible for my entire academic career.

He expresses his displeasure with my word choice by grabbing at my fingerless gloves (also known as socks), which keep my hands warm while I type. Once he snags me, nothing short of human sacrifice will get him to let go. I can distract him by scratching his neck with my free hand. That usually puts him in the zone. Then I can sneak my glove out of his claws. Sometimes. He's relentlessly on guard. I don't know when he finds the time to write.

He exits, stage right, leaving wads of hair wafting all over the keyboard. Little mementos to encourage me to draw on his wisdom while I struggle to remember my dissertation topic. Funny, once the concept paper was off my plate, I apparently jettisoned the mountains of information I had piled up in my brain, sort of like flipping the switch on the garbage disposal. Whooosh. All gone. Now I need that knowledge back, but it's been hauled off to the city dump. Figuratively speaking.

I can hardly bear to read the wretched tome now, after exorcising it so thoroughly from my brain. All I see are typos and grammar errors, cliches and redundancies. Reading it is torture. Argh, it's the Abu Ghraib of literature reviews! Who wrote this crap? It sounds like it was written by a fat lazy cat with nothing better to do than wax maudlin about the lack of academic quality in for-profit career colleges. Oh, wait. Huh?

Well, never mind. Tonight, after a day of mixed rain and snow, the temperature is dropping, and I can look forward to sliding to work in the morning. That should be entertaining, if it doesn't end in tears, which driving on ice usually does. Maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe there will be a two-hour late start. We'll have to cram six hours of class time into four, else we'll have to make up time on yet another Friday. But hey, we'll get it done. Move 'em in and move 'em out, that's our motto. The show must go on. Never let it be said we didn't teach! Of course, the relationship between teaching and learning at our institution is tenuous at best. But what do you expect from for-profit higher education? I figure it's a good day when management leaves us alone and no one is trying to kill us.

I remember the days when I was uninformed about the pecking order of higher education. I thought teaching at a college was a prestigious honor. I was loyal and committed to my college, willing to put my money where my mouth was, ready to embark upon this doctoral journey. I naively thought that earning this degree would earn me the college's commitment and loyalty in return. Ah ha ha. I also used to think we cared about quality... the quality of our teaching, the quality of our course materials, the quality of our customer service efforts. I cared, some other teachers cared, but guess who didn't care? Yep. Management.

Tonight I'm at home, but a few stalwart teachers are teaching a few stubbornly committed students while the roads turn black with ice. Apparently no one in authority is there to make the decision to cancel class for the remainder of the evening so folks can try to get home before the ice gets really bad. Absentee management. I wouldn't be surprised if I went up to the third floor corporate offices and found nothing but cobwebs. Who is steering this sinking ship? Could be we are rudderless, adrift. Could be management sneaked off in the lifeboats with all the loot while we were busy bailing the hold.

I really stepped in it this time

There's nothing like stepping in dog poop to make you appreciate those easily overlooked moments when things are actually going pretty well. I was having a few of those moments. You know what I mean. Those mornings when you get up on time, and there's no cat barf to slow you down. When students show up and do their work without complaining. When computers work properly. When it snows prettily and doesn't stick to the roads. Those moments.

You're going along and going along, and everything seems tolerable. And then, blam, dog poop. You step in it. It happened to me on Thursday morning. Somewhere between my back door and my car, a landmine lurked, but I couldn't see it in the pre-dawn darkness. It wasn't until my heater kicked in while I was on the way to work that I smelled it. Then I knew I had stepped in it.

Luckily it's only a fifteen minute drive to work. When I parked my car, it was almost daylight. I opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement. A gloppy mess of poop covered the entire front of my left shoe, and not surprisingly, it was all over my clutch pedal. Agh. (I have an expression of eeewww on my face as I type this.)

I tried to wipe the mess off my shoe in the wet ivy that edged the parking lot, with mixed results. Better than nothing. I got out my spray bottle of white vinegar and sprayed my shoe and then my clutch pedal, trying to catch the stinky drips with paper towels. Once inside the building, I made a beeline for the restroom, where I washed my shoe under tepid water, trying not to breathe through my nose.

All morning I walked around school thinking, I'm tracking little invisible pellets of dog poop all over the carpet. When I found myself crossing my leg, I quickly put it down, for fear someone would see the muck in the tread of my shoe. I imagined the smell of dog poop wafting behind me like Pigpen's dust cloud. As I drove home for my mid-day nap, I breathed through my nose all the way, hyper-aware of my shoe on the filthy clutch pedal, permanently grinding the poop into the grooves.

When I got home I looked for the evidence of my mishap. It had rained hard and snowed, and I found nothing definitive, no skid mark, no telltale smashed pile. The path was clear, and believe me, I scrutinized it carefully. Nothing on the path itself, but the churned up grassy area right in front of my driver's door looked suspiciously mushy. The poop could have washed away into the dirt and grass, what was left of it, anyway: I inadvertently took most of it with me to work. Or I suppose someone could have cleaned it up.

Did the poop belong to my neighbor's dog? At the time, I wasn't positive. But now, today in the cold light of day, I found more poop in the same place. Little dinky poop, lots of it, almost like she encouraged her wretched little mutt to poop right there, right in front of my car door, right where I would be most likely to step in it. Could this be payback for the times I scooped the poop on the path and left it on her back steps? Could she be retaliating because late one night last week I pounded the floor with a hammer in a frustrated frenzy, hoping to get her to turn her music down? Does this mean... war? At the Love Shack?

Time for action. I spent some time composing a polite note. I posted it in the basement laundry room. I described my poopy experience and asked for help to find a solution. I didn't get mad. I didn't blame anyone. I tried to be both diplomatic and humorous. I'm not sure if I succeeded, though. You know how when you are really, really ticked, but you are trying to pretend like you aren't, and everything comes out sideways? This could be one of those times. Still, I intend to give my landsharks a copy of the letter. Might as well put it all on red.

I'm over it now. What can you do? The world is full of invisible poop. I mean, think about it. There's no way to know how much poop you stepped in during your day today. It could be everywhere: on your shoes, on the bottom of the wheely backpack you dragged along a sidewalk, on library books, on the vinyl seat at Denny's, on doorknobs, faucets, and coffee cup handles. Everywhere. Why bother to care? As you already know, we are screwed. See previous post about volcanoes, and then google Krakatoa.

On the bright side, my cat has been thoroughly entertained by all the new smells in my apartment.

Whining: Anger coming out a really small hole

At last I can move on to writing the dissertation proposal. Yay, I guess. Now that I have my marching orders from my dissertation chairperson (expand the Literature Review first, then work on the Introduction, and then do the Methodology chapter), I find myself strangely reluctant to dive back into this project. Maybe it's not so strange. The path to earning a Ph.D. is littered with the hopes of the ones who gave up in the home stretch. That could be me, if it weren't for my pride and my nagging desire not to disappoint my mother. It could still be me. I make no promises. Daily I consider heading for the hills.

I called my chairperson last week to find out next steps. I recognized her speaking style after nine years of teaching adults. She spoke slowly and carefully, as if to a two-year-old, with frequent insertions of phrases like, “Does that make sense?” I reined in my inclination to be myself and tried to meet her where she was. I tried not to interrupt. I kept my sentences short. I let her finish the checklist I am sure was on her desk in front of her: Describe process. Check. Ask for understanding. Check. Encourage continued progress. Check. Probe for warning signs. Check. I let her go through her process, but I really just wanted her to talk with me without the affectation, without condescension. She sounds much younger than me. I have no doubt I am much older.

We are having a short-lived heat wave here in the Portland area. It's 51°, according to the gadget on my desktop. In January! Wow! Lest you suggest I get out the sandals, know that it won't last. I heard cold air is moving in on Wednesday, bringing the possibility of snow. That makes me want to go back to bed. My heart sags in the winter. My blood slows down. I could hibernate with no problem. Sleep seems the only way through it. Oh, now it's 49°. We are sinking back into the cold black hole. Oh, great. I just heard my neighbor's wretched dog barking out back, which means I will have little stinky offerings to dodge in the dark when I leave for work in the morning. We were doing so well. For a few weeks, I thought she was at last doing her part to be a good neighbor. But sadly, last week I narrowly missed stepping in some dog poop left on the path. True to my chronically malcontented passive aggressive nature, I scooped it up and deposited it on her back steps. I'm not sure she could have known it was me and not her infernal dog that put it there. Maybe she knew. Later she turned her music up so loud I couldn't hear my own music over the pounding of her bass. I fear the Love Shack is now a war zone.

And now I have this new writing project, which is just more of the old writing project, the same old topic I am thoroughly sick of. No wonder people give up. They are bored to tears, picking away at the scabs of a topic that used to be marginally interesting and which now oozes blood, shredded by too many reviewers chasing APA errors, alignment failures, and critical thinking lapses. Give me a break. Nobody cares about this topic, least of all me. I was warned this would happen. Is this this the academic equivalent of waterboarding, designed to break the spirit in the name of building character? Don't I have enough character already, with all my years of failures large and small?

The next couple months look like they might be dreary. The weather, the job, the neighbor, the studies... I am sure I can find other things to whine about. My car. My bowels. Guns and ammo. You name it, I can make it all about me. Once again, faced with my ever present resentment, uncertainty, and fear, I resort to whining, which as my friend says, is just anger coming out a really small hole.

Who cares: We are so screwed

Usually I write a post and then I choose some drawing to go with it. This time I'm doing it backward: I'm choosing the drawing and letting that direct what I write. Look at me pushing the creative envelope in the new year. Whoa.

I notice I had a hard time figuring out how big to make the nose. Look at all those extra lines. It's like the shape kept growing more and more bulbous. I could have tried to photoshop out all those mistakes. (Isn't it odd how photoshop is now a verb? I don't even have Photoshop anymore. It's like xeroxing on a Konica. Or putting Kleenex on your shopping list when you always buy Kroger's generic not-so-soft.)

This drawing reminds me of a show I saw on PBS about a newly discovered Leonardo da Vinci painting. A stylish gal narrated the story of how the painting was authenticated. She spent a lot of time walking around Milan and Paris. I wish they had spent more time filming the art and less time filming her strutting the cobblestone streets in her tight lemon yellow dress. Despite her apparent role as a fashion plate, she was impressively fluent in Italian and French. Anyway, whatever, the point is, they authenticated the painting by infrared light, which showed that the painter had changed his mind about the position of a thumb. First he painted it bending one way. Then he painted it bending another and covered up the older version with layers of paint, something a copy cat artist would never do. That is one compelling reason for believing the painting was an original da Vinci. All this to say, the drawing you see here is untouched. It's authentic. I have integrity: I leave my mistakes for the world to see.

I saw another show on PBS, possibly the same night. I don't remember, because the second show scared the bejesus out of me. I forgot all about the new da Vinci painting until my drawing reminded me just now. Who cares about art when the world's most deadliest volcano is about to erupt! Yep, I'm talking about Katla in Iceland. Holy moly. We are so screwed. That is what I kept saying to my cat as I watched the story unfold, getting more and more terrified. Who cares about art, even a new da Vinci? Who cares about dissertations? When Katla blows, none of that will matter. We should be heading south now. Argh. We are so screwed.

Iceland has many volcanoes. Some are scarier than others. The scientists on the show introduced Laki, followed by Hekla, and then Katla, all of which are worse than the one with the impossible name that erupted a couple years ago. We are talking a mile-high plume of ash blocking out the sun in the northern hemisphere for a year, covering the ground with 15 feet of inert non-fertile material, and coating the land (and your lungs) with sulfuric acid. And like a cranky possibly pregnant teenager, Katla is late.

I thought the earthquake off the Oregon coast was going to be the Big One, but Katla makes our imminent rumble look like a re-run of Dancing with the Stars. Ho hum. Our local disaster will be over in five minutes. Sure, we'll be picking up the pieces for a while, but when Katla erupts, the potential damage will be widespread and long lived. Of course, it all depends on how high the plume goes and how much material is emitted. Maybe it won't be so bad. Yeah, maybe it will be a walk in the park on a slightly rainy day. Annoying but not a catastrophe.

Well, you can imagine, a story like this gets the Chronic Malcontent amped beyond all reason. Yes! Another excuse to claim every worthwhile pursuit is pointlessly doomed. Yay. Now can I retire to that adobe hut in the desert? (I can practically hear you say, What's stopping you?)

Wow, who knew all this verbiage would be inspired from this one drawing?

Resistance to change: The ongoing challenge

The theme for January is always the same: Do it differently than I did last year. Don't eat so much, eat better food, get more exercise, drink more water, read better quality trash, write more, live less fearfully... bla bla bla. After years of New Years' resolutions abandoned by February, it seems sort of pointless. So I am enjoying the fact that I got a few things done over the winter break, without any expectation that my new behaviors will turn into ongoing habits. If I drink more water today, that doesn't mean I won't dehydrate myself tomorrow. I make no promises.

My dissertation chairperson took time out of her holiday celebration to send an email letting me know that my concept paper was approved by the mysterious Graduate School reviewers. I know this is good news, although all I can see is the even taller mountain ahead of me, the mountain known as the dissertation proposal. It's just more of the same: writing to persuade some anonymous reviewers that my study is worth conducting. It's hard to conjure up enthusiasm for a project that has long since lost its allure.

Someday this will all be over. Right. And someday I will be dead. There's no telling which will come first, when you get to my age. I was heartened to read in the university discussion posts that I'm not the oldest graduate student: Several are in their sixties. Well, at the rate I'm going, that could be me in a few more years. Funny, I don't feel that old.

Whenever I want to stoke my internal boiler of bitter self-righteousness, I read books on servant leadership and think about how the management style at the career college that employs me is anything but that. In fact, I would characterize the college management style as slim on leadership and devoid of service. Servant leadership is a concept that appeals to the frustrated idealist in me. I have a deeply held belief that employees have value and should be treated with respect. Further, I believe that management's job is to serve employees, so that employees in turn can serve their customers. To me, it seems self-evident. That is why I get so cranky when the so-called leadership at the career college treats faculty as if they are an expendable resource, like tissues to be used and tossed away.

Rumor has it that it is now a fact: the site in Clackamas is moving. Where and when remains uncertain, but because the lease is up in June, we surmise it will be before then. It is unlikely management would move during the middle of a term. If management intends to move between terms, then moving day would likely be Friday, May 3. If this is the case, the new term would start Monday, May 6, in a shiny new location. Whether they will bring their old grimy teachers to the shiny new location remains to be seen.

One of the precepts of the servant leadership philosophy is that management includes employees in discussions about disruptive change. I think moving or closing a campus is a change worth discussing with employees, don't you? It is eight weeks till our next in-service meeting. How much you want to bet management fails to mention any specific plans for moving or closing the campus? Further, how much are you willing to bet that, if we ask straight out, that direct answers will not be forthcoming?

As I was cruising indeed.com doing what all people do when they cruise indeed.com, I found a new job listing for the college: Instructional Designer for growing career college's online division. Must have a Master's in education. That sounds sort of interesting. I don't qualify, of course, even if they were willing to hire a snarky old teacher from within. I got the feeling as I read the ad that, as their brick and mortar campuses are tanking due to lack of enrollments, the school owners and managers are putting all their hopes on the online dream. Like every other college and university on the planet. Yeah, lots of luck with that, dinky career college.

There is no shortage of change in the world, that's for sure. It seems to me the people that survive and succeed are the ones that are able to adapt to change, whatever form it takes. The ones that wither in the ditch are the ones that say things like, We've always done it that way; This will never catch on; I can't learn anything new; Don't tell me, I don't want to hear it. I can relate. I have my own resistance to change. No new technology, please, my head is exploding. No new laws, I can't keep up with the ones we have. No new jargon, I can barely understand you as it is.

What if I learned to embrace change for its own sake? What if adapting to change was a grand adventure rather than a terrifying obligation? What if I knew I could not fail? Would I do anything differently in this new year? Or would I slink back into my snarky role as the Chronic Malcontent and blame “management” for my resentments?