a sobering week

I confess that the shootings in Virginia have hit me close to home. You can't teach for more than a month without encountering at least one student who worries you. In my time I've had quite a few, and there's one about whom I still have nightmares. (If I turn up dead, his name is one that should be investigated. I'm serious.)

Education becomes so personal, so intimate and yet because of its cyclical nature, it's easy for faculty and staff (and administration) to hope that "if I just get through this semester, the problem will be over." The problem forgotten by faculty will almost certanly live on for the student - heck, I'm still annoyed at the unprofessionalism of a prof I endured my freshman year.

I teach in a building with stout doors, ones that lock when closed. Since Monday I have faithfully closed (and thus locked) them at the start of class. So what did I do today? When someone knocked at the door, I opened it.

after seeing the records for Sam's latest visit

Oh, you're here! Thank goodness. I am pleased. Mind you, it's about time you showed up.
Hi Sam! Good dog.
ooo, yes, scratch my ears.

Do you know what she did to me?
Huh?
That vet lady. Do you know what she did to me?
The shots? Yeah, I'm sorry, but it's a law, and really, it's better for you in the long run, particularly since you chase wild game.
That's not what I mean and you know it. I've had shots before.

Do you mean the bath? I know you hate water and all, but truly, you really were in need of one.
The bath is all right. The ladies scratch my ears and gve me biscuits. I'd rather just have the biscuits and the fur-dryer session, but I can handle it.

(long pause)

I'm sorry - you're an older dog and, well, sometimes a dog's gotta, um, be examined in certain ways.

I may sulk.
How about I let you finish my taco?
Oh, OK, I forgive you. Now, about those ducks...

fowl, take II

This time it was geese from our fair neighbor to the north and, fortunately for them, they chose the neighbor's yard. Sam did his best woofing, but they understood the concept of "fence."

My neighbors are out of town, but will not be happy when they return. I wonder if the geese understand the concept of "man who owns guns" nearly as well... or do they already have personal injury lawyers on their speed dials?

birds! raven and the crow - and the goose and the duck -

One of the aspects to living in the "big city" and its surroundng environs which does not cease to amaze me: the waterfowl. That is to say, there are a lot of them. Flocks. Flocks of flocks.

Last week I was stalked by two Canada Geese as I walked from my office to the car - obviously I was too close to something and had beeter leave right away. That, or produce food.

This morning a pair of mallards was very obviously scoping out my backyard for a nesting location. The male was obviously on guard duty and the female was methodically waddling through the bushes and undergrowth.

"All right, Sam! outside! Look, Sam - ducks!"
Oh! Ducks!

The backyard is now poultry free.

elevators

Ok, now I know that we're a much more informal society than we were in the past. The Internet makes us all more connected and intimate than we were in the past. The past, the past and the past.

I fear that we've lost our sense of circumspection in the process. This morning I had the world's longest elevator ride, during which I listened to a group of students discuss the various reasons (and there were several) why they didn't take the chair's class seriously, why he is an easy grader, and the various lies they told to get out of handing in today's homework.

Hello?! Faculty here! Wearing nylons and high heels and very much too old to be one of you! Circumspection?

Yours in hoping that there's some way in which I can take this as a compliment,
lemming

my kind of rock stars

SINGING twins THE PROCLAIMERS celebrated their first UK No 1 yesterday -
by washing shirts and undies.

Unlike other pop stars who throw wild parties after topping the charts,
the Scots stars cleaned their smalls.

CRAIG REID, 45, who performs with brother CHARLIE on Comic Relief single
(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles, confessed they had run out of clean clothes
after a hectic few weeks promoting the song.

After learning they had hit the top spot by a mile after 20 years of
trying, Craig loaded the washer.

He said: "I spent the afternoon washing and ironing.

"I've hardly been at home because we've been so busy. I had no clean
shirts or underwear left so I had to get a load on. We're off working
for another six days so there was no other time to do it."

But Craig, of Edinburgh, did plan to toast the No 1 with his family -
after the ironing.

He said: "I'll have a wee drink and that'll be it."

one for Bartlett's

"Rin-Tin-Tin was a movie star. I just have a slide show."
-Al Gore

OK, we could all go on and on about the science behind global warming, is he a hypocrite, is Gore truly living what he says... but you have to admit, this is a great line.

a mature dog learns a new trick

Yesterday Sam begged and pleaded to accompany me to campus. "All right, dog, why not? It won't be too terribly hot or cold."

This is what I get for hitting the snooze alarm instead of listening to the weather forecast. Sam was in the car when the thunder and lightening and driving rain hit, hit, hit, pounded, pelted and otherwise asaulted teh area. By the time I could get back to him, Sam lay curled into the smallest possible ball of fur, nose in his tail. As soon as we got home, he immidiately sprawled out on his sofa, fast asleep, not to be heard from for several hours.

Despite my lack of caffeine, I notice that when he heard the sound of car keys this morning, Sam promptly disappeared.

Editor's Note: actually posted on Tuesday...

Friday musings

I've been trying to remember what it was about the Attny. General that I didn't like during the confirmation hearings. I don't mean his politics or policies or anything like that (though I disagree with him there as well) but there was something about his as a person that really turned my stomach. Then I managed to forget all about him - out of sight, out of mind, figured he was doing his job. With all of the latest news coverage, my stomach turns again. At least he was doing a job. (said she with a groan)

Even if the Republicans had managed a majority in Congress, I still think we'd have something of a lame duck situation in place. Everyone is hanging on for the 2008 elections.

NPR did a great piece the other morning about the president's Latin America tour, noting that he mentioned food in nearly all of his speeches. Perhaps he is tired, too.

vocabulary words

Now please bear in mind that I did not choose the textbook which I am about to lampoon. It's a standard "all of our classes use this book and we've always used this book and so the department sticks with it for this class" so I use it. Such is life and who am I to dictate otherwise? It allows me to complain to the students about it as much as they do. (All textbooks are to a certain extent awful.)

I'm prepping for this morning's class, which includes looking over what the kids have to read for homework. (insert theme music) "yes, yes, yes - OK, OK, got it, got it, that will be fun to explain, oh yeah, I should remember to tell them that - effluents?

I don't pretend to be a wordsmith, but given that each of us has a vocabulary of several thousand words... this one is clear in context but new to me. Who the ^&(*%$& do the textbook authors think are their readers?

At any rate, this will give me an extra 30 seconds of class material.

note to self

When arriving at work, do not park next to the car which is the same make, model number and color as mine.

This morning I happened to grouse about Daylight Saving Time (Maine!!! we share a time zone with Maine!!) in the hearing of a little boy, maybe eight years old. "Yeah," he replied, "that's Governor Darkness for you."

typical Monday

I put on a new pair of stockings at 6:30 AM.

By 10 AM, they had runs in both legs.

The British call stocking runs "ladders" which I've always thought a more accurate (and amusing) description.

book meme

I swiped this from Harriet - in case you wondered what to get me for my birthday... "People will insist upon giving me books." Harriet noted that it's a funny list, but I always enjoy looking at these - gives me ideas. (Most Harry Potters but only one Narnia)

Bold = books you've read?
italics = books you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole or wish you hadn't


1. The Davinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3.To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13.Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) gift from a student
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) Never again!!!
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51.The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54.Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) blew my mind
60. The Time Traveller�s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)

Two Ayn Rand novels?

63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65.Fifth Business (Robertson Davis) incredible book
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69 Les Miserables (Hugo)
70.The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) (French and English)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) (I need to as I love the film)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77.A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78.The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79.The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80.Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)Even Austen screws up sometimes
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)

Would like to read this one - I sense a library run in my future

98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100.Ulysses (James Joyce)

Not even if it was the last book on earth...

life in the fast lane

What with all of the nasty weather we've had of late, I am the last (and I do mean the last) to disparage someone driving slowly when it's dark, the roads are slick, etc.

However when the roads are clear, the sun is shining and I'm running late, I have little patience for people who drive 40 m.p.h. in a 55 zone. It's called a "speed limit sign" - have you looked at it lately?

Perhaps my Lenten resolution should have been to have patience with such people (OK, that will be next year.) The problem is that these drivers force the line of cars beind them (ten by my count today) to make a decision not perhaps best made early on a Monday morning; to pass or not to pass? Do we chance the head-on collision associated with passing? (Depends upon how late we're running, I suspect.) At the same time, at what point does the slow driver have a responsibility to pull over and allow the line of cars to pass by before resuming their speed? Assuming that this (twenty-something) woman had a reason for going fifteen miles under the speed limit (transmisson? low on gas?) shouldn't she notice all of the cars passing and pull over?

This subject was not, to the best of my memory, covered in Driver's Ed.

On another note: I have not seen any of the Oscar-nminated films. I have no doubt that Last King of Scotland is terrific. I still wish that Peter O'Toole had won Best Actor, after SEVEN previous nominations.

two firsts

Everything is starting to melt, which of course means that the streets are safe, but the sidewalks are a mess of black ice. This is the time of year when I wonder why I like Indiana so much.

It was an exciting weekend, and I experienced two unexpected firsts: a pedicure (my feet feel so clean!) and I finallyheard "Thriller." Yes, somehow I managed to be alive during the 1980s and miss this song. Oh, I knew "Billie Jean" and various other hits off that album, but I'd missed the title track.

My reaction to "Thriller" bears a striking resemblence to my reaction the first time I heard "Hit Me Baby One More Time" - this is it?

Speaking of which, Ms Spears is selling her hair on eBay, or so I am told by persons hipper than I. I do hope someone is around to catch her when she finally crashes.

swift as a coursing river

I woke up this morning with a horrible pit-of-the-stomach feeling that my class outline for today sucked. No amount of good humor or "yes, I hate the textbook too" would help. Crap. Crap crap crap and several other swear words

on the drive to work, reconfigured the whole thing in my mind, and then kicked some serious teacher butt.

Bear in mind that I am not "qualified" to teach college classes full time.

On a happier note, the roads are clear. I have been so impressed by the Indianapolis road crews over the last three days - I helped by staying off the roads (my first snow day in how many years?!) while they strapped snow-plows to garbage trucks and kept the roads clear.

A spcial thanks to the woman who helped push me out of teh frozen slush today. What can I say, I had an urge to recycle...

yet another post about Indiana weather

The snow started sometime last night and kept right on going. I credit the road crews; at about 6 AM my street was plowed, presumably salted, and if I had suffered from a serious need (hospital, prescription refill, etc.) I probably could have made it to the main road and thus to the Walgreens. It would have been a slow trip, and I'd have prayed the entire way that I didn't see any other cars, but possible.

Then the freezing rain started in, the wind started blowing - the streets are covered again, and a step outside means thousands of needles slapping into your bare skin. Sam (who at least has fur) dashed outside and back inside in somehing less then twenty seconds.

Much of Indianapolis seems to have wisely chosen (or been ordered) to stay at home ans off the streets. At least we knew this was coming and could plan accordingly. Alas, this is terrifc weather to stay inside and grade papers, something I can do just as well either here or at the office.

from the trenches

As is typical for this time of the semester, I have students who are ghosts - they show up on my roster, but have yet to attend a class, turn in an assignment or otherwise make themselves known.

It is a relief to tell the bureaucrats to cut them - a few less exams to grade, reports to file, homeworks to pile up.

Yet I wonder why, what happened, could it have been stopped, and my worries now carry extra weight in light of my own life. I got lost in the shuffle, in the larger world of four PhDs who forgot about me, ignored me, didn't remember that I told them I needed something. Did these folks get lost? Did they feel ignored? Or were they just so caught up in being young and foolish that they didn't belong in college in the first place? Far too may of these folks are locals - did they go home too often, watch the Colts and forget about class? IS it s local problem? An Indiana problem? Does my teaching style induce amnesia?

No Child Left Behind has left behind the best 25% and the worst 25% and focused upon the middle half who can get through, pass a test and not rock the boat. How do we teach the need to go the extra mile?

the coffee pots

I'm still trying to work out the coffee pot ettiquette. The very benevolent woman who runs the department (i.e. the administrative assistant) is very assiduous about firing up the pots the moment she arrives in the building, sometimes even befroe she takes off her coat. She knows that some of us will need it... the question is, at what point do I make another pot? I assume that most of the coffee drinking takes place before noon, even on the coldest and snowiest of days. I also know that my need for a hit at 6 AM is other people's 2 PM addiction.

This is also an issue, as I've noticed that many folks take the last cup from the pot, but do not make another. Is this a rule? Is the administrator the only one allowed to make the coffee? Do we have a specific monthly (weekly?) ration and she doles it out?

If it is rationed, I say we take the extra out of the salary of the man with the office next to mine. He keeps spilling.

Rex & Peyton

Is the weekend over? Thanks goodness. Yay Colts, poor Bears (Rex Grossman can be so good and yet not so good, all at once) but I do love a local happy ending. I passed myself off as truly informed at the coffee pots this morning. I devoutly hope that the Pacers do not make the play-offs, as I don't think I could take the further strain.

Meanwhile, may I just say that I kicked some serious teaching butt today, even among the hungover masses. In fact, yes, I can say it and I just did. I love my job and to **** with my ex-committee members.

Meanwhile, I have finally heard a Brittney Spears song on the radio. Eh? This is what all of the fuss is about?