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Emily - if I had been in a really snarky mood and someone pulled that "fake woman" thing on me, I'd probably have said, "Better a fake woman than a real b*tch."

And I have had the implication that I'm not a 'real woman' thrown in my direction, solely because I have not bred. People who throw that implication? I decide then and there I'm done with them. I don't need that kind of crap in my life.

***

I know some of you are getting sick of the body-image-fu on here, but right now it's working its way through my system (kind of like a virus, I just have to sweat these kind of things out). I listened to a few minutes of the Dennis Prager show today while doing some last minute house-cleaning before having a meeting here

Prager was talking about some actress (didn't catch who) that he described as "emaciated." His argument was that, to a hetero man, this is NOT sexy - that to guys who like women, curves are generally necessary for appeal. And he asked: why do women do this to themselves? Why do they get convinced that so skinny is the way to go.

And I admit, I was kinda screaming at the radio - stuff about "the Health Fascists tell you that even an extra pound on your body will kill you early and in a bad way" and "because fashion has dictated it for so many years that we have a skewed picture." (Although, yeah, I do know about the "men who prefer women generally prefer women who aren't skin and bones. And to be honest? I can totally look at women I know and go, "oh, she's way too thin" or "oh, she looks good" or "ooooh, she looked better before she lost that 15 pounds" Likewise - as a hetero woman - I look at guys and the really skinny guys or the really muscled-out guys - the ones who look like steroid abusers - just don't do it for me. Give me just an ordinary guy, with some normal muscles, maybe even a little paunch, and I'm good.)

Then a woman called in - I didn't catch her name, but when she started crying, I really started listening. She said that she'd far rather be emaciated - have people look at her and go "Oh, she's too thin" than be, as she said, "Fat and invisible." And then she started to cry. She said she was over 200 pounds (maybe she said 300? I couldn't hear her all that well at that point. But I've known very womenly women - very attractive women - who weighed in at or close to 200 pounds. It's a matter of fat distribution, muscles, and height. The problem is - in our society - 200 pounds is sort of a milestone; it's the point where if you're a woman and you hit that weight, most people assume you have stopped being a woman and started being an It. And that's not right. That kind of attitude is not going to help a person lose weight if that's what she needs to do.) and that people didn't see her as a woman. And she talked about how she had sort of fantasized about dying of cancer, because cancer makes you thin while you're dying, and then it would only take four people to carry her out of the church instead of 12 (meaning, in her coffin).

Oh man. Oh, that just hit me in the heart. I stopped cleaning and stood there and started crying myself. Because I hear her. I hear what she's saying. I know the "invisibility." I know the feeling that you'd rather be too small than too big. I even - in my younger and more screwed-up days - sort of wished for some kind of non-fatal, not-too-painful disease that would make me lose weight - just so I could go to certain relatives' houses and have them say, "Oh, my gosh! You're so thin! You need to eat something!" instead of, "Dear....why don't you go run around outside for a while?" or "Dear...why don't you leave those cookies for the boys?"

This society is far too good at screwing people up. I'm less screwed up now than I used to be but I still have buttons that can be pushed.

I'd love to say to that woman - God made you. You're beautiful. The people who make you feel sub-human because of your weight are being cruel. And I know how hard it is to try and lose weight and be surrounded by people who say, "But if you JUST TRIED." No. Been there, done that, got the XL t-shirt. Trying harder sometimes just doesn't do it.

Anyway. It broke my heart to think that someone crapped on her so much with their attitudes that she'd rather get cancer and die than go on being who she was.

***

Remember the dude I talked about who signed up for one of my classes three times, and stopped coming each time, and then e-mailed me and wanted me to help him make up the class in two weeks (an entire semester in two weeks) before the end of last semester?

Well, he took my advice, I guess, and is in my summer section of the class.

But. I also teach an arranged-time "readings" class sometimes. I am doing it this summer, as an unpaid overload, because a good former student of mine came to me and said: I need one credit to graduate. I've taken all the majors-classes I need for what I want to do with my life. Is there any way you could let me do the readings class this summer so I could get finished?

And I said, sure, no problem. And there was another person who wanted to do that - to get finished up. So I told her that that was fine (and both of them chose topics that I am very familiar with, so it's minimal extra work on my part).

Well, the other day my department chair e-mailed me. She wanted to know if "all" the students in the readings class were mine. I wondered about the 'all' because I only had spoken with the two (Remember - our summer semester is almost half over).

So I checked with the registrar (We do not get rosters for the arranged-type classes; the idea is the students are supposed to have okayed it with the prof in charge first, so the prof knows who's in his or her class.)

Well, I had two surprise students. The disappearing guy and a woman. (Both were people that I knew how to find fairly easily; they're in other classes this summer). Turns out the woman was working with another faculty member - so it is not a problem for me.

But the guy - let's call him Earl - well, he apparently just got "permission" to take the class (oh, I have to add - this is a Permission Of Instructor class, meaning, technically, we are supposed to okay people before they join the class) from someone who is Not Me.

I am not happy about this.

I am not happy about this for more than just the obvious reason - because when I asked Earl about the class, and said, "You know, you are supposed to come in during the first week of classes and discuss your study plan with the professor," he got all huffy with me.

Wrong move, Earl.

"But I didn't know who was teaching the class!" he said. "I didn't know what I was supposed to do!"

Well, duh, Earl. You are, like, 22. You know where the departmental secretary's office is. Even if my name were not listed on the course schedule you received, you could have - you SHOULD have - gone and asked her. And you signed up for the class without first requesting my permission - you should have known who the prof was BEFORE you signed up. (Oh, what if it was Tolgar the Horrible? or Dr. Purselip-who-fails-everybody? Then what? Never, never sign up for a class like this one without knowing who teaches it!)

And, even beyond that - the freaking semester is half freaking over. This is a readings class. This is not something you can freaking cram for on the last couple days of class.

I told him: You must come and speak to me during my office hours this week and plan out the program of your readings. You know my office hours; they are on the syllabus you have in your hand.

Well, he never came in to speak to me. My office hours for the week are now over. He also knows that in another two weeks, I am going to be leaving town for a week to attend meetings, and after I get back, it will be too late.

I am really done with this guy. I am really fed up with his entitled "wipe my bum for me" attitude.

Look: it is an arranged class. The point of arranged classes is that you talk to the professor ahead of time and ARRANGE what you are going to do. Waiting until the midpoint of the semester to arrange things is too late. Being rude to the professor in charge because you "didn't know who taught the class" (and apparently couldn't be arsed to go and find out) is not the way to operate.

If this guy is pathologically shy or something and it's such a problem for him to talk to someone - and I DO NOT think that is the case; the "job opportunity too good to pass up" that he needs his B.S. for is one where he's in contact with people all the time - well, then he needs to rethink how his life is going to go. If he has that much problem working up the gumption to walk in to our (extremely non-threatening looking) secretary and asking her a question, he needs medication. No, seriously. I generally rail against psychotropic meds given out like candy but if someone's so impaired that they can't function, then they need them.

And as I see it, there are three possibilities in this case:

1. The guy is impaired in some way - pathological shyness, or memory is shot, or something, and it's a medicatible condition. In that case, he needs meds.

2. He has been so coddled he can't do anything for himself. Sorry, I don't wipe bums. I don't spoon-feed. I'm not going to deal with a person who can't make an effort to do what he's supposed to. I have my own things to attend to - as well as thirty-some other students who need some appropriate attention (like, a little help on writing up a lab report) periodically.

3. He's a massive procrastinator. That is a problem he needs to get over, himself. I cannot make him get over it. Likewise, I am not going to enable him in his procrastination - if he comes in next week I am going to hand him a pre-prepared stack of readings (the easiest option for me at this point - choose something I already know so I don't have to do any extra prep) and tell him, "take this or leave this; it is too late for you to have any choice in the matter."

If he doesn't come in next week, or the week after? Tough. He's screwed. He cannot wait until the last two weeks of class and expect me to work with him. I have exams to write during that time, and papers to grade, and other students - STUDENTS WHO HAVE BEEN DOING WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO - to help.

I just shudder to think what he'll be like in his "opportunity too good to pass up." I'm hoping all of this screwing around is some kind of massive case of senioritis and that he'll pull himself up by the bootstraps once he gets into what he regards as the "real world." Otherwise, too damn bad. Welcome to welfare, dude.

****

I get really sick of people who think of the jobs they are going into as "the real world" and college as some kind of faerieland fantasy where they can do whatever they want and get their asses saved at the last minute by a caring prof. College is supposed to be PREPARATION for the "real world" (and - for those of us who teach or do research at one, it IS the "real world"), not a way of avoiding it.

****

I am so glad for the four-day summer week here. Thursday is my Friday. Friday is my get-caught-up-on-research-you-don't-have-time-for-otherwise day. Saturday is actually a relaxation day, as is Sunday. And there are almost no meetings in the summer.

****

I don't think I've ever discussed my deep and abiding love for Mythbusters here, but I do have to say: it is one of my favorite shows, ever. Probably my favorite show on television right now.

Well, last night they did cold weather myths.

They tested, and more or less confirmed, the tongue-getting-stuck-to-a-cold-pole. You know, like in "A Christmas Story": "My tongue is not...stuck! Stuck! STUCK!"

They used a pig's tongue that had been modified so they could pipe warm water through it (to bring it up to normal tongue temperature; this was a disembodied tongue from a slaughterhouse). They stuck it - quite spectacularly - to a frozen pole. Then Tory stuck his tongue to a cold pole in Colorado (except it didn't stick quite as spectacularly; either he was more cautious or else the pole warmed up from his body heat).

I love Mythbusters because it's funny, and it features things being "hacked" (I love tinkering, I love to see people modify things to change their function). It's not perhaps AS science-y as it could be (I have some issues with their miniscule sample sizes, and with the lack of doing blind tests in a lot of situations). But it's a fun fun show, and I love it. I even love the re-runs that Discovery seems to show a lot.

Actually, I like a lot of the Discovery shows - I enjoy Dirty Jobs, though probably with more schadenfreude than is really proper. And I recently discovered "How It's Made" - which is sort of an odd show, but it endeared itself to me fast - basically, it's video of factory assembly lines for stuff - crayons and rope and car oil filters and stuff like that - with an at-times-cheesy voice-over. (I get the feeling - but haven't paid enough attention to the credits to confirm - that it was originally made somewhere else, like Japan, and then dubbed into English with a new narrator).

I tend to find video of stuff being made pretty hypnotic. There's the machinery end of it (machinery interests me. Perhaps I should have been an engineer - a career my father suggested to me - after all). There's also the calmness of it - everything works, nothing goes wrong, there's no drama. (I also enjoy the "making stuff" shows on HGTV and Food Network. Those are on a smaller scale, and there's more of the personality of the presenter being injected, but I still find them fun and interesting.

When I was a small child and used to watch Mr. Rogers, one of my favorite segments was how he's occasionally show (on "Picture-picture") video of stuff - stuff of interest to kids, like Etch-a-Sketches - being made. So I've had the fascination for a long time.