Why college is becoming so expensive (IMHO)

I don't know if I've addressed this before on here...I kind of think I wrote a post about it some months ago. But anyway, there's a new book out on what I think might be part of the problem.

I see several issues affecting college costs:

1. Simple inflation
2. Administrative expansion; similarly, expansion in "non-teaching" faculty on some campuses.
3. Parents and students demanding all the "bells and whistles."
4. Increased insurance/liability costs. Increased cost of dealing with mandates.

So, looking at each one of these:

Simple inflation. The price of everything is going up. Granted, college costs are going up faster than inflation (because of the other issues I mentioned above), but it's also important to remember that the cost of electricity is going up (even without the "...will necessarily skyrocket" that may be coming if certain legislation gets passed). The cost of supplies goes up: cost of paper, cost of petri dishes, cost of computer toner. There's really no such thing as a "paperless campus," and if there were, I'm not sure I'd trust it - I would never give an exam online, for example, not even in a room with proctors watching over the students. So we still have to buy STUFF to teach with. And in the sciences, certain chemicals, certain equipment, things like crickets (and now I hear there's a national cricket shortage: great. Which probably means the one crappy pet store in my town won't have them now, and I'll either have to punt on the labs requiring them, or drive the hour's round-trip - on my own dime - to a store that does).

Administrative bloat. This is the issue the book I referred to takes on. Some administration is necessary. Administration that lifts burdens of things like budget-making off faculty shoulders is important. People like Deans who can provide recourse for students who have a problem within departments that the department can't satisfactorily fix are very important. (And likewise: having things like an Academic Affairs Committee where cases of grade challenges, student complaints, and plagiarism that's worthy of expulsion can be heard and dealt with). But, it seems that on a lot of campuses, they've gone into the dean-creating business. It used to be there was a Dean of each school, a Dean of students (or, on some schools in the old days, a Dean of Men and a Dean of Women), and maybe someone in charge of things like budgets and someone in charge of academic affairs.

But now, we have lots and lots of Deans. And lots and lots of vice-presidents. It's rumored here that a certain individual (who is no longer here) was given a vice-presidentship of something to get him out of the classroom, due to student complaints. (Really, even with tenure, there should be ways of dealing with that kind of thing that are better than that). We lost one of our tenured people when he was made a vice-president. (And we haven't gotten that position back: we're down two tenure lines.)

The problem with a bureaucracy is that it may start out with the goal of serving the population it was designed to serve, it often becomes an engine for self-perpetuation. People like their jobs. They like their nice offices. They like the feeling of power. And they want to keep that. And, in many cases, administrators these days don't start out as faculty - so they may not be crystal-clear on what faculty to or where their time goes.

One thing I've seen in the past several years is an increase in tasks that devolve onto the faculty. We're expected to write reports on our volunteer work done in the community, and submit them to the person in charge of civic involvement. We were expected to write a report on how we incorporate "diversity" into our classes (it was not clear if that was a one-time thing, or if we'll have to do it annually). And more and more we're asked to write more reports, to attend more workshops and meetings... and it makes some of us crazy. Some of us are in the classroom up to 18 hours a week, plus 10 hours of mandatory office hours, plus the hours and hours of grading, supervising grad students, advising undergrads, doing that volunteer work...and in a lot of cases the requests-for-information-or-reports come with a very short turnaround time - in some cases, 24 hours. Some of us can't do that!

And of course the administrators all need salaries. And they all need nice offices. And on some campuses - not here, I don't think - a new administrator gets to pick out new office furniture. And that all costs money. And meanwhile, many departments are being told, "Okay, you say your faculty are overloaded. Go hire an adjunct." The problem with adjuncts is...well, you get what you pay for. On a lot of campuses an adjunct makes from $8,000 - $15,000 a year. We're having to hire an adjunct for the fall - we're down two tenure positions from our past high, and we lost an instructor this spring. We tried to get an adjunct - had a good person in mind - but they couldn't do it, not for what we could offer. So we're re-hiring someone we had in the past who was not that great a teacher, who had some problems dealing with the students - but it's a desperation move. The only other option is having a faculty member teach 20 hours of credit hours or something, which is frankly untenable, considering that we're now not allowed to hire student workers to grade (because of FERPA concerns).

3. Bells and whistles. Back in the Dark Ages when I was in college, the dorm I lived in (which was a nice old dorm), the walls were painted cinder block, the bathroom was a large shared room down the hall, we weren't allowed to have hot plates in our rooms, the laundry facilities were three ancient washers and a couple of asthmatic dryers in a room off of the entry to the hall.

The new dorms colleges build? Nicer than any apartment I've lived in. Four-person "suites" where everyone gets a private room. Usually they have private bathrooms (I would have appreciated that: when I lived in the dorm one of my hallmates "discovered" sex that fall. It was disconcerting to have to shower knowing that she and her boyfriend were whooping it up in the shower a couple stalls over). Often there are private kitchens and laundry facilities en-suite.

The problem is, these things cost money.

As do fancy new workout facilities, new student unions, fancy new dining areas, computing centers with the latest-and-most-up-to-date stuff, and fancy landscaping. All the stuff that is proudly shown off in campus tours costs money...which raises tuition...which makes people complain.

I understand Rick Perry is promoting the idea of some Texas community/small colleges offering a "$10,000 Bachelor's degree." The thing with that is - the fancy perks, the nice facilities, probably couldn't be an option with that. (And if a school did a two-tiered degree: like "generic" beans and "name-brand" beans in the store - where the "generic" degree students couldn't use the fancy workout facilities or the new computer centers...I can see that leading to problems, resentment, "can't you bend the rules just for meeeeee" and so on, and so forth.)

The problem is, a school that DIDN'T indulge in the bells and whistles might lose students...or would have parents not wanting their kids to go there. It's a hard sell to say things like, "Yeah, we have old cinder-block dorms and the dining hall is kind of a dump...but our tuition is a lot lower." Or at least, from what I've seen of college-seekers, it seems like it would be.

4. Insurance and mandates. The more we are told to do, the more we have to do in these areas, that can potentially drive costs up. Already campuses have to insure against stuff they did not have to worry about in the past. I know we've been pressured to reduce the amount of field-time because of concerns about "what if someone got hurt?" We were also, at one point, told we needed to list ALL possible hazards a student could encounter in field or lab. (Not just the "reasonable" ones that you'd expect someone with half a grain of common sense to recognize as a hazard). When this came up at a faculty meeting - the chair being all "Dont' shoot the messenger, I'm just telling you what was said at the meeting" we came up with things like "asteroid strikes" and "bigfoot abductions" as POSSIBLE hazards in the field...really, if we had to warn against everything, and then (supposedly, this was the idea) if the student decided they could not safely go in the field, we would have to offer an alternate lab. (Yeah, great. I can see half my class opting for the non-field lab, and then where am I?)

And I know the cost of health insurance has gone up. So far, knock on wood, those of us who are single and don't need a lot of coverage, we get covered by the university for no extra cost to us, but I see that changing. I wouldn't be surprised this fall if we were asked to pony up part of our insurance premiums. (I wouldn't be happy about that, but I'd understand).

And there are other compliance costs. Making old buildings ADA compatible. (And I know on some campuses, some older buildings are just being torn down and replaced - because the cost of bringing them up to code is so great). This kind of compatibility is important, don't get me wrong, but a lot of times it seems to be presented as such an URGENT thing - something must be done NOW and so it gets done in a less cost-effective way than it might if different solutions were contemplated. Providing things like specialized listening devices for students with certain disabilities. (I had a situation of this: student was doing poorly in my class, then he came to me and said he had a disability and I HAD to go get training THAT WEEK to be able to deal with it. So I hauled my butt over to Disability Concerns, got the training. The guy never came back to class. So in some cases they may be buying devices that go unused, and doing things like mandating faculty training that goes unused). Mandates for diversity training, for both faculty and students. Things like mandated anti-harassment education for faculty. (This came up in my department- everyone was made to go through it - and to a person, my colleagues had the same response: puzzlement. "I've never felt disrespected or harassed, and I'd hope if I said something that sounded bad, the other person would call me on it so we could straighten it out right away.") But a lot of these things are required by law, and again, it seems they have a terrible urgency - which sometimes means more is spent on them.

Couple the four things I discussed with decreasing state appropriations (if it's a public university), and tuition and fees must needs go up. It's bad, and it hurts the students, and it may keep some people who would benefit from earning a degree away - but I don't see any easy solutions.

Lessons inadvertently taught

So, a couple little girls in Georgia decided they wanted to go to a water park. Rather than going to their parents and whining until the parents caved in, they decided (either on their own, or from mom's suggestion...I don't know which), to run a lemonade stand to raise the money.

Except, apparently, unlicensed lemonade stands are dangerous.

So the cops shut them down - unless they coughed up $50 a day or $180 a year for a permit. (I wonder what the water-park tickets cost...)

So they shut down the stand. As one girl said: "We have to listen to the police."

So they turned to yardwork to earn the money.

Okay, the intended lesson from their parents was: Work hard, and you can earn the things you want.

The lesson they got from the cops: The government runs the show; under zero-tolerance we will harass kids with an innocent lemonade stand just as much as the burger joint that doesn't keep clean. They don't care that you're little girls.

Another lesson, I think: Don't bother becoming an entrepreneur; it's easier and you'll get less harassment and rules heaped on your head to just be a laborer. (Don't try to be a landowner; just be a serf?)

And then, at least according to what I heard on the radio, the water park came through and gave them free tickets. Which is partly a win: the private sector being generous when the public sector has overreached. But I think it's also partly a fail, as the girls didn't really get a chance to earn those tickets. (And I think too many unearned rewards is bad for a person).

And yes, I know: without permitting and health inspections and what-not of EVERYONE we'd all be eating roach-burgers down at the local diner. Or at least that's what proponents of this kind of zero-tolerance thing say. But there's a difference between three girls selling lemonade for a couple of days, and someone running a business where they are selling all kinds of food.

(I think in some districts school bake sales are banned for similar reasons. Or they're only allowed to sell pre-made, "commercial" food, like those already-made-Rice-Krispies treat squares. Which are nowhere as good as the homemade kind, and which probably have all kinds of preservatives and artificial flavors in them).

I don't know. With things like lemonade stands or bake sales or hot dog carts or things, I kind of think it can be "buyer beware." I would probably buy a cup of lemonade from a group of little girls wanting to earn water park money; I might not buy a hot-dog from a guy in a dirty-looking trailer.

The government can't legislate that we're all 100% safe, as much as they might like to. Sure, the little girls might be pint-sized Borgias who are trying out their new poison on random people, and the guy in the dirty van might have the best and safest hot dogs in the world. But those are so unlikely that most people are smart enough to trust their experience and intuition.

While I appreciate the Pure Food and Drug act, so I know that bag of flour I'm buying isn't mostly plaster dust, I think police going shutting down a lemonade stand is an over-reach.

I know I tend to see patterns in things that I maybe should not, but I can kind of see a connection between the police coming to the lemonade stand and saying, "Unless you pay for the permit, you are breaking the law and will be in trouble" and a TSA agent looking at a little old woman and deciding she needs a more thorough pat-down.

comfort spending

I suspect most of us do this from time to time. Even when we're trying to be frugal, even when we're all "the economy is going to keep tanking, inflation is going to keep going up, I may regret not having held onto this money when dry beans are $8 a bag"

But there comes a point where you also go: "Yeah, and I could get hit by a bus tomorrow."

My comfort spending is never all THAT ruinous; I don't think I've ever dropped more than $50 on something because I was feeling bad, thought it would make me feel better, and wanted it.

I did a little bit today. I had to drive to the next city over (it's an hour's round trip; I really do feel like I live in BFE sometimes). Someone at one of the agencies had loaned me CD-ROMs of a map coverage I needed for a project, and since they were good enough to give me the originals (saying: "Last time I tried making a CD to CD copy for someone, it came out badly, so I'll just let you take these and upload them directly), I figured they deserved to have them re-delivered by hand, rather than trusted to the U.S. Mail.

So since I had to run down there, I decided to go to the such-as-it-is bookstore. (We have a small paperback-exchange bookstore in town, which is fine, except I rarely find what I want if I'm looking for something specific. And we have the campus bookstore but they are SMALL and have precious few non-text-book books). Even the bookstore in the next city over isn't GREAT; I've been in larger versions of this chain (it's a Books-a-Million) that had way better selection, and for most "older" books (things that were first published >5 years ago), unless they're "classics" and on some reading list somewhere, good luck at finding them. And a lot of the store is given over to gifty type stuff, which is fine, except, when their "mystery" section is as small as it is there, it's not so fine with me...

I looked at Asimov's "Foundation Novels" after someone recommended them to me, but after reading the blurbs, meh, I don't know. I'm not really a fan of sci-fi and even though I know Asimov is good, I don't know that I'd be enticed to sit down and read them.

Then I looked at the mysteries. They had some nice, fancy, new Harper paperback editions of Agatha Christie. While she's not my favey-ever mystery writer (I do not think, actually, she is as good a writer/plotter as some of the other "Golden Age" writers), still, I enjoy a good Poirot story and they had several I had not read. And these are nice paperbacks - larger than a pocket book, with those kind of matte covers, and a simple, almost vintage-feeling graphic on them. (And one that relates to the plot of the book. So many mystery novels, it seems they throw some random titillating thing up there to attract attention).

(The ones I bought: Dumb Witness, The ABC Murders (I have seen the Suchet production of this, but never read the book), and Third Girl (same thing - saw the Mystery! production of it but never have read it and want to - often for the productions they change quite a bit).

(Another nifty feature: they have a list on the back, IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, of the stories. It bugs me that sometimes it's hard to find out - without resorting to an internet search- the order in which a series was published. And while with something like Poirot, it really doesn't matter the order you read them in - the later stories (which I now see Third Girl is) aren't as satisfying to me because they're more modernized. And also, I read somewhere that in the later books, psychologists can see the beginnings of the dementia Christie ultimately suffered from - the language is less complex, for example. I tried reading one of the later Miss Marple books and found I could definitely tell a difference between it and the earlier stories.)

At any rate - while yes, I probably already own more books than I will ever read in what remains of my life (barring some kind of bizarre plague outbreak situation where all unaffected people are told to shelter in their homes for an indefinite period of time), it's still nice to have new ones. And these are books that please me - nice typeface, attractive covers, pleasant size. (I admit it, I'm a bit of a book-snob. I don't always enjoy the pocket-book size paperbacks, though part of it is that sometimes the font is a bit smaller and also sometimes the way they're bound, the inner margins are very small.)

Also, while I'm not averse to e-readers, I think my love of books is such that I'd never be able to REPLACE my books with an e-reader (I know people who have tried to do that), though I can definitely see the value of an e-reader for things like traveling, where you could load six or eight (or more) novels onto something that occupies the space (and has the weight) of one.

(Also: I like to read in the tub - which, actually, is one time I'm not averse to the really cheap paperbacks, though I've never actually dropped one in, I suppose there's a first time for everything - and an e-reader would probably be dangerous for that.)

But anyway. New books (well, new old books, I guess you could say). Something aesthetically pleasing to me. A fun and not too taxing escape with a character I enjoy.

The debt-limit debate can suck it. I'm going to go read.

it's all broken

I'm trying not to really watch/listen to news very much these days. Because I get increasingly convinced of the brokenness of our society and the current brokenness of the government. (Thomas Jefferson, were he resurrected from the dead, would vomit. That is, if resurrected-from-the-dead guys can vomit).

First off: the whole budget/debt limit mess. The thing that frustrated me today was hearing that Obama said, "Oh, by the way, if we don't fix this, those of you dependent on social security, veterans' checks, and disability - you won't see your check on time in August."

I have NO IDEA if this is likely to happen or not, given the lack of a budget deal. I'm almost of the opinion now - given the level of hysteria I've seen on both sides of this - that it's actually not that likely to happen, but it's more a last-ditch, "Let me get people who have the time to call and write their Congressperson to do so, since they're afraid the money won't come."

(And I think here's some evidence for it being hype)

There may not be "money in the coffers" to pay Social Security?

Okay, here's a suggestion: Stop Congress' checks. Stop the President's paycheck. Don't fund things like the NEA and stuff. Again - it's like a family. If Dad loses his job, what a reasonable family does is cancel the cable, stop going out to dinner once a week, suspend the planning for the trip to Disneyland. You cover the essentials. You let the non-essentials slide - or you let the things slide that are already paid up for a while. (I doubt there is a single Representative who would be turned out on the street were he or she to miss getting a paycheck on time).

But, as I said: I smell hyperbole. I smell an attempt to cause desperation and rage in the people, and get them to call their Representative and say "I don't care how badly you think it will hurt the rich, tax the hell out of them and let me keep my goodies!"

Honestly, what I think? We're going to have to cut big on spending. Even WITH new taxes or raised taxes. It's going to suck but we're going to have to do it. Look, it's a "Dad lost his job" situation right now.

But I'm going to be frustrated if every program is "off the table" because it might hurt someone.

I don't want to see us become like Greece but I have a huge fear of that happening in the next 20 years. (My dad and I were talking about this. His response to my concern: "Do you think you could get a job in St. Kitt's or Dominica?" Apparently these are the hot new places for people to "escape" to?

(My response: I don't speak Spanish (or Dutch, or whatever the primary language on St. Kitt's is) and I doubt there are many universities there.)

I dunno. I'm actually thinking if there's a sort-of-a SHTF situation, the smartest thing for me to do would be to buy a big plot of land somewhere where there could be a small lake I could keep stocked with fish, and maybe woods with deer, and a more favorable climate than here for trying to grow food, and try to become as self-sufficient as possible. (And put up razor wire and crap on the perimeter. And have a big notice saying HOMEOWNER HAS GUNS AND KNOWS HOW TO SHOOT)

But beyond all that, there's so much more brokenness in the news:

- a TSA agent was caught stealing stuff out of people's bags. We trust these people because why?

- Lots of reports of "breaches" in airport security, including some potentially scary stuff. And yet, if you show up wearing Depends, you will be asked to remove them. And if I were to show up having forgotten my inch-and-a-half long embroidery scissors in my purse, I'd probably wind up being sent to prison.

- Michelle Obama ordering a high calorie meal somewhere. I'm very conflicted about this. On the one hand, as a chunky woman, I resent people judging me on the basis of what I choose to eat. (That fat woman you ridicule for getting an ice cream cone? It may be the ONLY CONE SHE ALLOWS HERSELF TO EAT IN A YEAR. Or it may be her birthday. Or something). On the other hand...I really, really hate the scolding tone our society has taken on, where it seems like everything enjoyable is bad for you and should be avoided. And apparent hypocrisy frustrates me, where someone says, "This is good for YOU PEOPLE, but I'm allowed to do differently" - like the people who say that everyone in the U.S., even people with serious pollen allergies, should be forced to dry all of their laundry on clotheslines in order to "reduce the carbon footprint," but then they fly around in a jet.

- Someone is starting an online petition to make not reporting your child missing shortly after they go missing a Federal crime. This being a "SOMETHING MUST BE DONE" in the aftermath of the Casey Anthony trial. Okay, here's my question: is there an epidemic of children going missing that are not reported? Or is this an unlikely case that probably will never happen quite this way again? I get leery of promoting more and more laws for situations that are unlikely to re-occur. Sadly, you can't legislate away evil, no matter how you try. And I worry about unintended consequences of more laws being heaped up. (And also: sometimes laws already on the books are very spottily enforced.) Look, I think she killed her kid. And I think she and her family lied until they were fairly sure there'd be reasonable doubt as to what happened. If it happened as I think it happened, they're awful people. But 99.9999999999999999999% of parents in the U.S. are NOT awful people, and making a new law...in this case, it's like closing the barn door after the horse and cows have gone. It's not really going to solve a lot, IMHO.

- Also a thought: I know people who got more concerned over one of their outdoor, barn cats going missing than this mother apparently was over her child. Again: you can't legislate people's feelings, you can't legislate away evil.


I don't know. I almost feel as if we're at a tipping point as a nation, where we're balanced on the edge between falling over into an increasingly restrictive, government-centered life, where it gets closer and closer to Socialism every year, and freedoms slowly erode away, or, on the other hand, we as a country go, "Hell no" and start trying to fix things, start trying to get back to more freedom, less reliance on the government for EVERYTHING, and more going out and chasing real dreams, instead of counting on someone else to supply them.

I really hope we tip the right way, but I'm kind of pessimistic right now.

Take that, cancer!

Some months back I wrote about two family friends, both of them doctors (one a retired surgeon) who had developed fairly advanced cancer.

Well, I saw D. (the retired surgeon) over my last visit with my parents. He LOOKED a lot better than he had, and he told my dad that he felt a great deal better, that he could eat normally again, and that he was gaining back the weight he lost during the first stages of treatment. (D. was not a large man to begin with, so weight loss in him was alarming). He said he felt like himself again.

This was the guy who was undergoing a somewhat-experimental blood-cell-based treatment that he had to go through several rounds with his insurance company to get them to help pay for. (My dad was not sanguine about the likelihood of the treatment working, but at this point, it seems to be.)

I heard about the second person last night - this was a woman who was facing a bone-marrow transplant to treat leukemia. She's had the transplant, is doing much better, and is actually back in the office (but not seeing patients, and I think that's wise - I don't know how long it takes for one's immune system to come back full strength after such a thing). This was also someone for whom the future looked kind of grim...but she's back home again, and back working at least part time.

Stories like that make me happy. I feel like every time a treatment works, it's like kicking cancer in the groin.

And I really needed some good news right now - I already knew the news about D. but had not heard anything about A. (the woman).

Happy Independence Day

To the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

To never again being so under the thumb of a monarchy (or a would-be monarchy) that we lose our voices.

To always being able to speak our minds, worship as we see fit (or not worship at all, if that is what we see fit), to be free to assemble. To be free to bear arms. To be free from unreasonable searches, from having to quarter soldiers in our own homes without our consent, to be free to have a speedy trial by a jury of our peers - all of those things that were promises secured some thirteen years after the events we celebrate today, in the Bill of Rights.

To knowing that we have the responsibility to exercise our rights, but also not to abuse them or take them for granted.

And to be grateful for the men who discussed all of the wrongs of an overbearing monarchy, some 235 years ago, and ultimately "signed their lives away" by taking the step of signing a Declaration of Independence.

So that we today have the freedom to grill hamburgers, go to the lake, play ball with our kids, shoot off fireworks, and generally enjoy the good things in life.

Just tired out.

You know, I think eventually there's going to be a mass "shrug" in the American public. Maybe not the kind Ayn Rand wrote of, so much, but a "shrug" on the part of the people who are responsible, who do what they say they will, who are "always there" and wind up picking up the slack for everyone else.

I'm tired. I spent most of the weekend involved with various volunteer projects. I baked cookies (three batches!) for a reception. I stood and ladled out punch at the same reception.

(An aside: people are nuts, you know that? This was a free patriotic concert with free reception afterward. Donations were not asked for nor collected. And people got all shirty and rude when we ran low on punch. I was standing there waiting for the kitchen ladies to get back out with the fresh batch and I had people complaining at me about them being out of punch. And I had one lady - when I was trying very hard to get caught up on providing punch, ESPECIALLY for the choir members who were parched after singing for an hour - this lady, who was not in the choir, came 'round the other side of the table and kind of snapped at me, "Well, can we GET punch from THIS side or is THIS side for people drinking WATER only?" (We also had ice water out for people who didn't want punch.) And I just looked at her like, lady, don't start with me. Don't goad me into saying something I should not say in a church. I gave her her punch and she didn't thank me. People are crazy and it's hard for me to love them the way Jesus said I should.)

Anyway, this morning, I was looking forward (after teaching Sunday school) to just sitting in church and being a worshipper. And not having other responsibilities.

Nope.

As some of you know, I'm an elder. I've been one since, I don't know, 2006 or something. I was off the official board for a while, but I still did elder stuff.

So the usher comes up to me and says, "Joe Mama was supposed to elder today but I don't see him here. Can you fill in?"

Okay, I know where Joe Mama was. Because he was going out there yesterday and his wife said he was going again today. He was out fishing.

I said yes. I didn't have much choice; the only other elder I saw in the congregation at that moment was the other person on duty that day. So I said yes.

It's not that I mind filling in, so much...I've had people call me up on a Friday or a Saturday and say, "I know I was supposed to serve at the table this week, but I came down with a stomach virus and probably shouldn't be up there." or "My mom is sick again, I'd really like to go and help her."

In cases like that, I'm happy to fill in. Once in a while, if I'm scheduled while I'm traveling, I can get payback from those people. (In fact, one of the guys caught me last night at the reception and asked me if I could do it for him in a couple weeks. I said yes, and then said, "Will you be in town on the 31st?" and he said yes, that he'd take my time then.)

But I'm getting a little fed up with people just NOT showing, and me getting tapped. It seems like I do this at least once, and sometimes twice, a month, at times when I'm not otherwise on duty. I've only said "no" once, and that was when I was having throat problems and had a badly pulled shoulder (the trays of the communion cups are HEAVY).

I'd raise the issue at the next elder's meeting about "Hey, if you can't be on duty on a day when you're scheduled, could you please CALL someone and find a replacement beforehand?" but (a) the head of the elders is someone who might take that as a personal attack, even though I've known him to call when he couldn't be there...there's some sensitive stuff going on and (b) the people who really need to hear it probably won't be at the meeting.

But it frustrates me. Oh, I'm okay at coming up spontaneously with a prayer (it's a lot easier on days like today, when we have some kind of a "theme" to hang on to). But you know? I get TIRED of it. Really, really tired. And I feel taken advantage of, especially today, especially by this person. (I suspect he actually didn't check the schedule to see that he was on, but still: is it too much to ask that people check the schedule?)

And I know. I know, that's the wrong attitude and it's unChristian and selfish and all. But I think it's also kind of selfish for people to just skip their turn and expect that someone else will cover for them. We're a community, and people are supposed to pull their weight in a community, not sit back and let a few people take care of stuff.

I don't know. I like helping out, I like feeling like I can contribute, but there comes a point where I'd like to see other people step up and do something. It seems unfair to me to always be the "fill in person" simply because I make it a habit of being in church every single Sunday.

I think the woman who was in charge of the reception - incidentally, the woman who expressed earlier frustration at "volunteers not coming through" - is aware of my frustration at always being tapped, because she came up and thanked me personally for helping out at the reception. And I was happy to do that, because I know it was hard for her to find people who were free at that time - several of the other women who could have done it have crazy ugly work schedules (one is, I think, a dispatcher for the fire department, and another works retail, and another works at a local Indian casino, and they get called in at bad times, like Saturday evenings). But I also admit I get tired of being the "George" who is always expected to do whatever.

I don't mind being asked to help at the reception - in fact, I actually volunteered, because I knew I had the time to do it and I know that other people couldn't. What I do mind is the expectation that people seem to have that I will jump up and do other people's duty when they slack off. And sometimes I wonder if my willingness to volunteer to do certain things plants the idea in people's minds that I'm just there, waiting to be told what to do.

I mean, I guess I should be happy that I can contribute to having things be a success...but I wish I didn't feel like I had to so much. I don't know whether to bring it up to the minister (though I suspect his reaction might be leavened with a healthy dose of "suck it up") or whether to simply say I don't want to elder any more the next time my term ends.

Perhaps I need to say "no" more to things so people don't automatically expect I will say "yes." That makes me sad, because I really DON'T want to turn down doing things I could do that I want to do...but sometimes I think people maybe take a little advantage of my good nature.

This also makes me furious.

Remember Dominique Strauss-Kahn? The guy who was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid?

It now seems entirely possible the maid lied.

This kind of thing makes me furious. For one thing, a person (granted, a person I may not like very much, but a person all the same) has had his reputation tarnished.

I live in a small town. There are some people here, I do not know why, who seem to live to spread rumors about others. It's disgusting and it can be very damaging to people. I had friends - they have since moved away since the husband got a better position at a larger university, but also they may wanted to have left the idiot rumormongers - well, anyway, the first rumor was that the husband was having an affair with another woman on campus. His wife knew this was utterly ludicrous because (a) she knew she could trust her husband to be faithful and (b) some of the times he was reported to have been seen with "her," he was actually at his kid's soccer game. With his wife. Or he was out jogging. With his wife.

So that rumor could largely be laughed off, but it still annoyed my friend, because some people actually swallowed the rumor and would treat her with pity when they met her in the grocery store.

The second rumor that got started was worse. It was that the man was abusing his son. This one, because it was uglier, and because the alleged abuse allegedly happened when they were allegedly at home, it was harder for the family to clearly disprove, even though EVERYONE who knew the family knew it was false, and there was no actual evidence (like bruises or injuries on the boy). But it was ugly, I can't remember now if DFCS called them up for a visit or not - but at any rate, it was ugly.

So I think doing something that wounds a person's reputation, whether you're doing it for your own gain, because you dislike that person, or to get attention...is a horrible thing to do. And I don't care if DSK was a "dog" who treated women badly in the past...he still does not deserve to be lied about.

Second, if this maid did indeed make up that she was raped by this man...well, it makes it all the much harder for other women, women who actually suffered assault, to prove their case sometimes. It makes the defenses in those cases dig deeper and maybe get uglier, trying to trip the victim up or make her look bad. I've heard of cases where a woman's "past behavior" was called up in a rape trial...sort of like the bad old, "She was dressed like she wanted it" argument. (And how dangerously close that attitude is to some of the conservative Muslim attitudes, that a woman out in public must be covered head to toe, and preferably chaperoned by a husband, father, or brother, lest she lead some man on the street astray).

It's also bad in cases of alleged date rape when a woman consents at first, and then later on says she did not. It's a complete he-said she-said situation (very rarely are there witnesses). Date rape DOES occur, don't get me wrong - but it's dishonorable for a woman to claim rape (for whatever reason) after an act she consented to.

(You know, situations like these make celibacy look not-so-bad after all.)

Yes, yes, I know: as a woman you have to be careful. I wouldn't walk alone after dark in a city, especially not provacatively dressed. But...yes, you have to be careful, but no, being not-careful does not give people license to assault. Stealing a guy's wallet because he's drunk doesn't make it any less of a theft.

I suppose it's still possible that the maid's case is true, but it doesn't look good.

Makes me furious

This kind of think makes me positively crazy: Man boards plane without boarding pass (and now they're saying, without identification.

Especially in light of the fact that a woman dying of leukemia was asked to remove her adult diaper so she could be screened better.

(I wonder: what about a woman who is having a very heavy menstrual period and is wearing a large pad - would they be pulled aside and subjected to that kind of humiliation?)

Something is incredibly, incredibly broken here. To me, it smacks of something I sense going on in general in our country: that the rule-abiding people, the ones who would not break the law, get extra scrutiny, extra harassment, and sometimes, truly inhumane treatment...and the lawbreakers just go on their way. And of course, the response to someone being caught breaking the law is often to impose MORE laws on the law-abiding people.

I have already decided that as long as the TSA is in force in this country, I will not fly again. Sure, that means I will never see the ancestral homelands of my relatives, it means I may have to skip certain faraway conferences I'd like to present at, and I may not have the chance to say goodbye in person to a relative (though depending, I might subject myself to the TSA groping inspection for that one).

But, it just disgusts me, knowing that kids are being touched in ways that would trigger all their "stranger danger" fears, makes adults of both sexes feel violated, and people with disabilities are being taken aside because their wheelchair or canes or whatever makes the screening "more inconvenient" for the agents...and yet, people still manage to sneak through.

We've given up some liberty, and a lot of dignity, and for WHAT?

News stories I am tired of.

1. The Casey Anthony trial. Look, it's horrible, it's unfortunate, it's sad. If she killed her daughter she should go away for a long, long time. BUT I DO NOT NEED TO HEAR UPDATES EVERY FIFTEEN FRICKING MINUTES. This is like the dang OJ trial all over again. I don't know why the news takes something like this and pleasures themselves over it for so much time, when there are real actual problems that many if not all Americans will have to deal with. The Anthony trial affects me not at all. The fact that our economy might blow up will affect me enormously.

2. Stories about how the price of everything is going up. I KNOW they are. I go grocery shopping. I've watched with alarm as the bill for the things I usually buy has crept up by about 25% or a third over what it was last year. Hearing about how pasta and coffee and chocolate and God knows what else is going to become more expensive just begins to take on a tone of "take all our comforts away from us, why don't you." I could survive on dry beans and cornmeal like the Ingalls family did, but I really don't want to have to try.

One thing I've noticed that's not much talked about: cotton. Quilt fabrics now sometimes top $10 a yard. I remember when $6 a yard was considered a high price. That would make me more sad if I didn't have tons of fabric ahead that I had bought over the years and now am slowly trying to use up.

3. Angry chanting people who are upset because their entitlements are going away. Because it will be a lot worse if the country goes broke. It will be a lot worse if everyone's taxes have to go way up. I guess there really are people who don't understand that "government money" is actually money that came through the hard work of the populace.

And I really, really don't want to see us be like Greece. Or heck, like Vancouver after the hockey team lost. I don't want to see cars burning on American streets but I'm afraid it's coming.

I suspect this is going to be a summer of me WATCHING very little news but trying to find reliable sources I can READ news from. Somehow I find printed words on a page (or a screen) easier to take than a talking head and video.

Antisocial Me.

People often ask me why I don't go out more, why I don't do all kinds of stuff with close friends - or why I don't seek out more friends than I do.

Well, people mostly make me nuts. I have a few good friends but many of them live far away from me now (one of the closest ones is about 4 hours away and she and I do try to meet up in person a couple times a year to catch up and hang out).

But I've also seen the kind of "familiarity breeds contempt" drama that sometimes happens among friends. And I don't like that, although most of my friends are pretty low-drama people and wouldn't go all ape on something I said that was innocently intended.

I was at a meeting at church this week. It was a meeting of the group of people interested in youth groups and childhood education at the church. (There was a grand total of 7 of us there; I was the only one without kids). I attended because even though the high school youth group did not meet all of last year (several people moved away, several graduated, and the one real stalwart remaining member was in his senior year, and was very involved with extracurriculars and college applications, so we decided to disband). I figured it was important to be there, and that "people might think it was strange if they called a meeting about the youth groups and one of the recent leaders wasn't there."

Also, a couple of the girls are approaching high school age, so eventually we will be starting the group up again. As always, if someone else wants to take it - especially someone more qualified than I am - I will happily step aside, but I don't think there are any takers.

Anyway, the meeting started out well enough, I have a new co-leader for the youth group and we've decided to do a combined middle-school/junior high youth group together until some of the kids age up to high school, or until more people join. We talked about curricula, it was all very positive.

But then things took a turn. The topic moved to Sunday school teachers. I'm out of that loop, being a teacher in the adult class, but apparently they've had some trouble covering the various groups of children. (One of the problems, I am sure, is that it's unpredictable week-to-week how many, if any, children in a particular age group will be there. We are a very small church and sadly a lot of the members work careers where they are sometimes expected to work Sundays).

The person who coordinated the Sunday school teachers for the kids expressed some frustration, and commented about how "one of the teachers hadn't shown up for six weeks."

One of the other women suddenly got very upset, made some comment, and stormed out. Apparently she thought the remark was directed at her (it actually was not, but still). The volunteer coordinator made another comment at her back that was kind of uncalled for.

And then it was like the dam broke. Another person talked about how the nursery was unacceptable because the children were shown videos instead of being taught. And lots of other stuff. And, I don't know, but we don't have funds to pay a whole lot to the nursery worker...and again, you never know from week to week hoe many children will be there...and I don't know, I thought the videos were Bible-story videos and Veggietales and stuff...but as a parent, I decided I was unqualified to comment.

And another person commented on how people had "complained at" him about certain little things, and how he was thinking of picking up his family and moving churches.

And what really killed me? I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS ANY OF THIS KIND OF TENSION GOING ON. It reminded me a lot of the church-split I lived through, where I really didn't know there were factions until the one group picked up their marbles and went home went to found a "new" church. And suddenly, I was scared: I don't want to go through another split. We can't SURVIVE another split. And: "Okay, if we split again, that's it. I'm done with being a churchgoer." (Yes, for a moment, I could see the argument of the people who don't go to church any more, even though they love God, because the people become so intolerable).

But here's the thing: complaints about petty stuff are a part of life. If you are doing ANYTHING other than just sitting there inert, there is going to be someone who can find a way to complain or criticize.

I remember when I first started with the youth group, wow, there was all kinds of stuff: they weren't taking the trash out at the end of the night. People were leaving cups of pop in the kitchen. Someone spilled kool-aid on the counter and it stained and oh noes, the custodian had to get out the cleanser-with-bleach the next day. Their tennis shoes scuff the linoleum in the Fellowship Hall, can't you ask them to wear dress shoes (Um, no, for three reasons: 1. that is a degree of micromanaging to which I will not go. 2. Some of these kids may not HAVE a pair of dress shoes and 3. If we're going to go out and shoot hoops after the lesson, they kind of need to have their tennis shoes on.)

And yes, it was annoying. And yes, sometimes it made me feel like a failure. But ultimately, I learned that some complaints you just have to let roll off you. That there are people who will complain and criticize, and they often never lift a finger to help out.

And in other cases, I just learned to be hypervigilant and not allow things to happen that could make us look bad - for example, after I got yelled at for leaving a door unlocked (even though we were NOT the last group to leave that night, and I locked the doors when we left), I just took to either staying until everyone left, or coming back later in the evening and checking the doors. And I made a sufficiently big fat hairy deal about the trash that a couple of the more mature boys took it upon themselves to empty all the garbage cans in the building - even ones we had nothing to do with - and take the trash to the dumpster.

So I get annoyed at people being butthurt over petty complaints. Sometimes you just have to realize it's not about you, and that what you're DOING is more important than what you're FEELING sometimes.

I will say the whole volunteer mess, I can see both sides of the thing. On the one hand, being a volunteer coordinator: been there, done that, never want to do it again. You get people bailing on you, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons, and you either have to pick up the slack or find someone else to take over for you. (In one of the groups I belong to, the year I was President, I instituted the rule that "if you sign up for volunteer time, and you can't do that time, it is on you to find a substitute" because I had people calling me at the last minute going, "You're the president. Find someone to work my time.") Or you have people who agree to do stuff and never, ever show. And when you ask them about it, you get some excuse like, "I was tired." Okay, "tired" works if you have a chronic illness. Or are going through chemo. Or are heavily pregnant. Or are a single parent with several young children. Or are the sole caretaker for a very sick aging relative. But when you are in NONE of those categories: well, we're ALL tired. Dangit, I'm tired a lot of the time. Suck it up and do what you agreed to do.

It got to the point that when someone got all excited and volunteery about a project, I'd just smile, say "Great, I'll see you at [time]" and then just plan on them never showing - because if they did, fantastic, I could delegate some of the work to them. If not, at least I wasn't disappointed.

(And this is what makes me crazy, that I even have to do this. I never agree to something if I don't think I can do it. I may say, "I'll show up if I possibly can but I doubt that I will" and then later make the time and show up. Or I'll outright say "No" if I know I can't. But I won't agree to something if I think my enthusiasm is outpacing reality. I really genuinely think there are people who think other people love to hear them say "yes" to volunteering but who then don't care if they don't show. And that's one of the things that frustrates me THE MOST)

But on the other hand: the person who took issue, who the comment wasn't even directed at, they have issues, too: several small children at home, a husband whose work often takes him out on the road for days at a time, and a parent with a serious chronic illness (they are not that parent's caretaker, but still).

But the whole thing was just sad and ugly. Part of it was that I think a lot of people were stressed to the limit and things just snapped. Part of it may be that a couple people involved had thinner skins than they might have had. I don't know. Part of what was said may not have been said in seriousness, it may either have been said out of frustration or as a way of getting sympathy. I don't know. But it's drama, and I hate drama, it wears me out.

Part of the issue I have is that in my family growing up, if we said stuff, we MEANT it. If my dad said he was angry with one of us because of something we did, he really was angry and we had better apologize or try to make the situation right. If my mom cried, we knew that it was that something really bad had happened and she was very upset.

So I tend to interpret expressions of anger or tears as, "oh no, there's something really big going down" and not a "oh, that's just how the person is."

I will say I was expecting a call from the minister the next day, that X had resigned their position in the church after the meeting last night and would I pick up the slack they were leaving? Because that sort of thing happened before, during the split: the "leavers" just picked up and left and en masse delivered a letter of resignation on a Wednesday night....leaving everyone hanging for Sunday. (And the minister at the time was included in that group.)

Part of the reason I was appointed elder, I think, was that I was one of the relatively few people who was articulate, comfortable with speaking in public, and had the...I guess you'd say, moral?...qualifications for the job. Don't get me wrong, it's been an incredibly valuable learning experience and I've found doing it very fulfilling...it's just, I wish I had been asked for a different reason.

So I don't know. The stress of dealing with other people and their problems just gets me down. I think that's why I prefer working with plants or soil or doing embroidery or cooking or things like that - because if you boil an egg the same way every time, it will turn out the same way. It won't suddenly decide to explode or not-cook or turn a funny color.

At the store

I have tried, of late, to avoid peevey posts on here.

But you know, there are some things I just hate about grocery shopping.

In my town, there are essentially two grocery stores: a small, family-run one, which is nice, but lacks some of the items I regularly buy, and then there is the wal-mart.

I try to patronize the family-run place, both because I want to see them succeed, and also because I don't feel all stabby when I walk out of there (as I sometimes do with the wal-mart), but sometimes, I just have to buy certain things, and that means a trip to the wal-mart. (Also: the family-run place is a matter of blocks from my home, and the wal-mart is across town. Which isn't that far, really, except that it sometimes feels like it is.)

I try to go, when I go, early in the morning on a weekend, because that's when there are likely to be the fewest annoyances.

I've also learned not to go on the first of the month, or right after a payday. While I have a budget, I also don't live paycheck to paycheck, and so the avoiding-the-first-of-the-month was not obvious to me, until I forgot, and went a couple of times on or around the first of the month. Ugh. The place is full of people, certain products are totally gone off the shelves, there are people there who, to put it politely, don't seem to have as much practice behaving themselves in public, sometimes people bring their entire families and walk slowly down the aisles in flying wedge formation, blocking the progress of anyone else.

I know, I know, they're my neighbors and I should love them. But some of the things they do annoy me.

I also avoid the store any day they are giving out free food samples. In fact, if I walk in, see the sample stands set up, I may well walk back out. Because somehow, "free food!" passes through the community and it attracts so many people. And I don't like crowds, and I especially don't like crowds who are blocking me from, for example, getting to the case that has the eggs when I need to buy eggs.

I also try to avoid going at the end of the day if I at all can. Because at the end of the day, you have people tired and annoyed from work, you have people on cell phones with their spouses/children (often yelling at them about something), you have the tired, stressed-out afterdaycare or afterschool kids (the worst kid meltdowns I've seen at the wal-mart have been around 4 pm on a weekday). And you get stuff like people getting into the "20 items or less" lane with large quantities of stuff, and then justifying it as "But I'm in a hurry." Oh, and I suppose that I, with my carton of milk and head of lettuce, am not?

Even going early in the morning you get some annoyances. They restock in the mornings (I couldn't get the scallions I wanted today because that bin was empty, and the woman restocking produce was moving so slowly that I didn't feel like waiting around to see if they even had scallions). They use huge, propane-driven (I'm not kidding; I've seen the canisters on them) floor-cleaners that are noisy as heck and hard to work around.

And once in a while you get the early-morning cell phone talker. Either the person who can't be troubled to make a list, so they call their spouse/housemate/parent/kid/whoever shares meals with them and ask them about every product as they go down the aisles. Or you get the person who's having a convo with their BFF and can't be bothered to stop just to buy groceries. (I admit it: I don't really "get" cell phones. Oh, I carry one, and it's nice to have if your car breaks down or if construction on the road is going to make you late for a meeting or something. But I do not have that much to say in a given day that I can imagine walking around with it stuck to my head.)

But one of my biggest grocery store peeves happened this morning: the leaner-over. This is when you're checking out: you put your stuff on the conveyor belt, the cashier rings it up, and as you're paying, the next customer starts edging in, leaning over you, wanting to be rung up. This morning, it was some guy buying a tin of Gatorade powder. Dude, if you're in that big of a hurry? Ask me if you can go ahead of me. But don't breathe down my neck when I'm running my credit card through the machine - that makes me suspicious. And that's why I leaned over to body-block you from seeing my signature on the little machine - I don't always know who's just an impatient guy and who might be trying to steal a credit card number.

And it's not like I was being SLOW. I am the kind of person who has their credit card out in their hand as soon as the last grocery item is out of the cart and on the belt. And I don't use coupons. (I know, I know: it's a good way to save money. But dammit, I feel like my time is worth more than the effort of cutting them out, toting them around, buying products I might not buy otherwise...all of that to save a quarter or so. Also, I don't take a newspaper any more, so it would take actively searching out coupons and stuff). And I also never write checks for groceries; I admit to groaning inwardly more than once at the person who, after their 52 items in a 20 item lane, and their wad of coupons, says, "Oh. I want to write a check" and winds up digging in their purse (Her purse. I've never seen a man do the "oh, by the way, I want to write a check..." thing).

I just get bugged in general by people with a smaller concept of what's normal "personal space" than most people. But I really hate it when they do it in the grocery line.

A couple of other minor peeves: it seems that wal-mart is going more and more to featuring their "house brand" (which is ok for some items I've tried, and not so ok for others) and, I guess, dropping national brands. This is the kind of thing that makes me twitch. I ALREADY feel like the economy is never going to get better - I've seen a few small businesses I used to patronize go out of business, there are more empty storefronts of late in Boutiqueville (which I would have thought would have been insulated somewhat from bad times), and now this. I still remember as a kid seeing the people waiting in line for many hours for bread or onions in the Soviet Union, and I admit my mind sometimes flashes to that, especially on the first of the month when some of the shelves at the store get a bit empty. (I wonder: how did unmarried people without families manage? Did they pay someone to get their food allotment for them? Did they spend their entire day off from work each week in line to buy food?)

I don't know. I don't generally like grocery shopping and all the little annoyances add to it more.

Now I feel kind of dumb.

The meeting I was so freaked out about, where I speculated that I had done something "wrong" in the eyes of the dean without my fully realizing it?

It was actually a meeting to find out who I'd nominate as the next department chair. The dean is meeting with everyone in my department. However, my last name is near the front of the alphabet so I was the first person called in.

Yeah. Duh. But I'm relieved it was nothing bad. I just wish I hadn't wasted several days worrying about it.

Living in the South

It's interesting how a place works on you when you live there a while.

When I moved here, some ten years ago, it was during a drought, mid-summer. It was hot, the cicadas sang endlessly, there were no clouds in the metallic-looking sky.

I was miserable. And it wasn't just the weather. I was far, far away from family. Far from friends. I knew almost no one, outside of the colleagues in my department (and I had met them only briefly during my interview) and the people I had met when I visited the church that I ultimately joined.

I would sit in my ugly little apartment (seriously: every apartment in this town has the same nasty tan-and-brown "Berber" carpet in it. Mine had nail polish stains on it in the middle of the living room floor - which I duly documented before move-in, so I would not be charged with having caused them later) and look out and what seemed like an inhospitable landscape (I had never lived ANYWHERE where it got over 95 for more than a couple days at a time) and cried.

It wasn't just loneliness; it was the strangeness and the upheaval of everything. People talked differently from me. I was obviously "not from around here." (Gah, how I grew to hate that phrase; it always seemed vaguely to hint of suspicion to me, to remind me I was an Outsider.)

I was also miserable because the town was so small. I had moved from a large, "twin-town" situation, where, both towns together numbered some 100,000 people. There were two malls. There were probably eight or ten grocery stores. There was everything a person needed right in that town.

Now, where I lived, there was a Winn-Dixie, a dodgy sort of warehouse-type grocery store (I was warned about it - that they didn't always check the expiration dates on foods) and a wal-mart (not a SUPER wal-mart, a plain wal-mart, with a sad little case of milk near the front door - a convenience for anyone running short on time - and things like cereal and crackers, but no produce, no meat, no frozen goods). The downtown was mostly shuttered businesses. People drove the half-hour to the next nearest city to go to the mall...and it wasn't that great a mall at that, in my opinion.

I started filling out applications. I wanted to move away. I wanted to move back to the upper midwest where there weren't giant grasshoppers flying around in the air (I had one land on my leg one day as I was walking out to class; its legs tore the hose I was wearing). I missed my family. I missed cooler weather. I missed being able to find everything I wanted right in my little town.

I remember I ordered something from a website that used FedEx Home as the delivery service. They added a $5 surcharge because I lived in an "inaccessible rural area." That made me feel even more miserable...like I was living at the ends of the earth, in some outpost of civilization in the wilds.

But gradually, I adjusted. (None of those applications I mailed off came through for me; I didn't even get an interview with any of the places I applied.) I made it through the first year (I think the first year of a new prof's life is the worst one...you are trying to stay at least a few weeks ahead of the students, you don't have the whole semester prepped yet, it's a terrible insecure feeling, like you're one bad bout of stomach flu from being NOT caught up).

The second year was a bit easier as I had stuff prepped and things started to shake down a little.

I began to think about buying a house - some aspects of living in an apartment began to be untenable (noise, cigarette smoke from neighbors....). I found a house that I liked and could afford and bought it. (And had my eyes opened to how some of the old-school lawyers here think...one I started to work with on the process actually acted as if he thought it was somehow wrong for a single woman to be buying her own house.)

I moved to the house, felt more settled. Also, the town began to grow a bit and change...a few new restaurants. Finally we passed legislation saying it was OK to sell wine and spirits by the glass in restaurants here (so we got more nice restaurants). They built a new super wal-mart, just in time, because the Winn-Dixie went out of business (Actually, there were a few weeks one summer I was making weekly treks to the next city over, to go to their Albertson's, because I didn't like the other grocery choices in town once the Winn-Dixie closed).

One of the old, long-time groceries renovated and is much nicer to shop at now.

Our downtown started growing again, once a couple of restaurants moved in to attract people there. We now have a quilt shop, which is a giant wonderful thing for me. We have more businesses in general. Which is nice. Because sometimes I like to be able to shop without having to plan a trek out of town for it.

I've also adapted to some of the cultural differences. Making friends helps with this. I now have people who know me from church commenting that I "sound so cultured and educated" (by virtue, I guess, of my "golden triangle" (I grew up in NE Ohio, the dialect of which used to be the "received pronunciation" for newscasters and such) instead of having people look at me and going "You talk differently." I mean, both comments mean kind of the same thing, but being told I sound "cultured" or am "easy to listen to" is a lot nicer than being told my speech is "different."

I will say I've picked up a few vocal mannerisms from around here. I don't think I'll ever actually develop an accent - I tend to not have that happen, and also, I was 30 when I moved here - but I have picked up some terms, some turns of phrase. My parents laughed at me over break when I commented, "I got the clothes that need washed." Yes, it's nonstandard grammar, I wouldn't do it in formal written communication, but in very casual conversation it seems OK to me. (People around here say "need (verbed)" sometimes).

I also remarked, when my mom was sort of surprised over Paula Deen saying "might could" (instead of "might" or "may") that people around here say that too. I don't think I've ever said it, but it doesn't sound that odd to me now.

Also, another thing people say is "fixing to" or "fixin' to." I've said that a few times, mostly jocularly, but again, it doesn't seem so odd or out of place to me.

(And I know people who call what I would call the "burner" on the electric stove the "eye," just like Paula Deen does)

And the different foods, I've adapted to. (I still don't like fried okra, but that's OK, a lot of people here don't eat it, either because they don't like it or because they've stopped eating fried food). I actually prefer beans the way they're prepared in the south - usually only seasoned with an onion, garlic, cumin, and maybe a ham bone or ham hocks. (I'm guessing the garlic and cumin are southwestern influences. And at any rate, that's how I make beans, I think other people may leave out the garlic and cumin). Up north, beans are much more commonly prepared with a sweetener of some kind and maybe tomato sauce (usually ketchup), and I just don't like the sweet "baked beans" as well as I like the plainer "southern beans."

And I like sweet tea now. I never used to like iced tea, but that's because up North, they don't sweeten it, and it seems very bitter to me. But mix it with a sugar syrup, and it's much more appealing.

I thought of all these things as I was coming home from my last break. While driving home, I stopped for lunch at one of my favorite barbecue places. One of the choices of side dishes (you get two: meat and two veg, as they'd say in Britain) was black-eyed peas. Which I got, because I really like black-eyed peas. I never ate them before I lived here but I like them. And I think - I could be wrong on this but I think - north of the Mason-Dixon line, the only place you'd find black-eyed peas as a side dish would be in a "soul food" restaurant. Here, they're often just seen as a "normal" accompaniment to barbecue or other meats.

As I took a bite of the black-eyed peas, I thought, "I'm home again." Even a short decade ago, I would never have believed I would have felt that about this place.

I still don't like the hot dry summers much, though...

some little news

Depending on some little news I get next week, this blog may or may not be going away. I've been invited to a meeting with a higher-up and while it's almost certainly nothing related to my online activity, still, now, I'm worried. I don't expect a cease-and-desist, but one never knows. I tried to anonymize as much as possible and be positive as much as possible. I really hope my keeping this blog won't come back to bite me; it's hard for me to tell how much I have to censor my personal life and how much freedom I have. And I still fear that Permanent Record. You know, the Permanent Record that everything you do wrong is supposed to go on when you're in school?

So I don't know. I admit I briefly considered deleting the blog altogether but if the problem is the blog, the damage has been done and deleting it will just be a useless move.

I think (I hope) the meeting is one of two things: a post-mortem of the promotion process (successful for me) of the past year, or a discussion of some of the shake-ups that are happening in my department (for one thing, our chair has decided to step down).

I would hope if a student had filed a complaint or something about me, I'd have heard of it before now, that I wouldn't go in and be totally blindsided by the problem, because it seems that would not be fair. And the fact that the message said the person would "like" to meet with me - not that I need to meet with them - and that a range of dates to meet were given (and not a "you must be in here at this time on this day), I hope that means it's something innocuous.

I don't know. I won't rest easy until the meeting though.

Upon further thought: A lot of the really "bad" things, I think I'd receive some kind of warning letter first. If it were a student complaint against me, I'd think I'd get some prior notification so I could plan a defense (and also, I don't think this particular higher-up would be involved). If it were internet usage stuff...well, I'd think a letter would be sufficient. (Though then again - and here's where my brain defeats me so badly - I'm thinking, "maybe they want to avoid too much of a paper trail."). If it were most bad things, I think my immediate supervisor would be talking to me about it first? Maybe it's nothing bad after all and I will be worrying for nothing.

But golly, it would be nice to be told what the meeting would be about. I'm sure not being told was an oversight/timesaver thing, but it still makes me worry.

Oh MAN, I'm tired

The first full week of summer research has concluded. (I told the students we weren't going to work today - I need to take care of some stuff, and also, I'm really, really tired.)

And I'm dealing with yet another difficult person. This is someone who is happy to tell me what is wrong with everyone else around them. At first, I thought, wow, this person is just really lousy at choosing co-workers. But now, I'm coming to realize that this person just has little tolerance for the stuff that may be going on in people's lives....if the person is not as punctual as they are, or as dedicated, or whatever, there's something WRONG with that person.

And you know, meh. I used to be kind of like that in my attitude (but I kept it to myself), but over the years I've seen enough stuff to be able to sigh, remind myself that "everyone is carrying a heavy burden" and let some stuff go.

I mean, yeah: if someone is late for every single meeting we have planned, I will say something to them. I do not like having my time wasted. But if someone is late once, and explains that they couldn't find their car keys (it's happened to me), or their kid had some emergency, or whatever, I'll be fine with it.

But this person I'm dealing with is super-critical. So I've decided that I have to take their assessment of any person with a grain of salt.

This person also can't understand how some students are less-than-devoted to their education. Again, meh, it happens: I can imagine if you have a spouse and a child and maybe an aging parent or grandparent to help care for, your attention would be somewhat divided. Heck, there have been times in recent years - a close family member with a cancer scare, a close family member in the hospital with pneumonia - where I wasn't on the top of my game because I was thinking about that person and concerned about them. Or I get distracted when something else is going wrong in my life. So I try not to judge the people too harshly when life interferes.

I mean, you make your priorities in life. I've had students who have been abundantly nice people, interested in the classwork, but who earned low Bs or Cs because they had other stuff going on, sick kids, emergencies at work, getting foreclosed on. My attitude is, if they're OK with it, I'm OK with it. It's like the old saying: What do you call the guy who graduated at the bottom of his medical-school class? Doctor. Many of the students we graduate aren't necessarily looking toward grad school - in fact, many of them have jobs already that they can continue in with or without the degree.

On the other hand, I don't have a lot of tolerance for people who slack off in class and are lazy and have bad attitudes about it - if you don't want to be in college, don't go. It's hard for me to work up a giant pot of sympathy for the student who drove all night long out and back to go see some band they like, and then want an extension on the homework. Or the person who rolls their eyes and groans melodramatically over a class activity.

It's hard for me to explain, I guess, but I can deal with the student who comes to me and says, "My kid has to have an operation, I'm sorry, but that's why I'm not giving 100% in class" and I can tell him that I'm fine with that, I understand, and that I hope everything goes well. But it's different dealing with the student who wants an active social life and figures that I should rearrange my teaching or exam schedule to accommodate that. (I had one student last fall who would regularly skip my class - several reliable people told me he partied a lot - and then would come to my office hours fifteen minutes before class on Monday and expect me to "recap" the past week for him. Sorry, I can't do that.)

Also, usually, the people with life-issues (like a sick kid) tend to take responsibility in other areas, in my experience: one of the students I had who had a child who had to have an operation, assured me, "I've spoken to my lab partner. I know she takes good class notes. She's going to let me copy her notes for the days I will be absent." They've taken care of it. I guess that's the difference: I can understand and deal with people who have problems in their lives, but who manage and who don't expect me to do "clean-up on aisle five" for them over everything.

But the people who either have or let their lives fall apart, and then come to me (sometimes at the last minute) and want me to FIX EVERYTHING NOW, I have a hard time with that.

I have occasionally thought, in response to a student like that, "If I had wanted children, I would have adopted one." I don't need a 20-year-old "child" who wants me to mop up everything after them (and at any rate: if I had a 20-year-old child of my own? And they had problems? I'd probably do largely what my dad did for me, which was say, "You're smart. You can figure this out" but stand by with some minimal assistance (like a loan or something) if things really go pear-shaped.)

So I don't know. Perhaps I'm more bugged by the person I referred to at the beginning - the one who has criticism for anyone who's not 100% dedicated "to the cause" for whatever reason, because I sometimes feel that way a bit myself. (But I maintain, there's a difference between having logistic issues because you're raising a child alone, or are caring for an ill elderly relative, or have some kind of issue like dealing with identity theft, than with things like "I want to be able to have a Mullet Life: business in the front, party in the back" or following the Dead (do people still follow the Grateful Dead?) or whatever. I realize those are life choices as well...but they're life choices where others are not necessarily depending on you.)

I don't keep up with the news these days.

(What I have seen of late, has mostly been the Anthony trial. I don't know. I have no interest in it. It's sad, if the woman killed her kid she should be put away for it, but I don't want to hear the details).

I had heard a little about the Weiner affair. I don't know, I reserved judgment, not knowing the details and having known people whose e-mail accounts got hacked.

But my mom called me - knowing I had been involved with research all day and had avoided the radio or television - to tell me that apparently it was his dongle in the photograph, and apparently he was the one who sent it, and now he's confessing, and, I hope, apologizing to the people that he smeared in the process.

In case you were wondering about my response to what he did, here it is:

"What an idiot."

Seriously, what is it about power that either attracts people who have problems keepin' it in their pants - or causes people who might be OK otherwise to lose control? John Edwards, the IMF guy (I hear that his lawyers are going to try to claim the sex was consensual. Well, I don't know that for sure but based on what I've read about the victim, I have an opinion on it, and it's not in line with what the IMF dude's lawyers are gonna say). The "wide stance" guy in the airport bathroom (The names I forget. The things that I, having been relatively sheltered and innocent in my life, have learned about human sexuality, I don't forget). The governor who claimed he was off on fact-finding trips when he was really diddling his mistress. And of course, President "I did not have sex with that woman" Clinton. All of them. What's up with it? I know humanity is flawed and often does what's wrong, but it still distresses me to see so MUCH of it.

I may dislike Obama's politics, I may hate many of the things he is wanting to impose on our nation, but AT LEAST he is faithful to his wife. You can say that for the guy, no matter how much, as I said, you dislike his politics.

But, I don't know. It's so sordid, and so ugly, and so much like the plot of a Porky's movie, that some congressman sees fit to send a photograph of his erect member to a co-ed, and then lie when someone else calls him on it. (And you can say what you want about "people have private lives" - you don't send sexy pictures as a twit-pic picture on the internet if you're a public figure.)

It's gonna be weird.

Not teaching this summer, I mean. I've taught every year I've been employed up to now. I decided to take the summer off because I have a large research project (well, two, really, but one is already underway) that I want to work on. If things go well I should be able to complete the data collection this summer.

But it's strange not to be worrying about the academic calendar. Not having to have syllabi made up. Not be gearing up for classes to start on Monday.

It's nice, though. I will be able to schedule time to go grocery shopping that is NOT the 4 pm rush, where there are frazzled people coming home from work, screaming kids fresh out of daycare, everyone tired...(I made the mistake of going to the local wal-mart on the 1st of the month. Even though it was 1 pm and I figured the "rush" would be over (and the afternoon rush not yet started). I hate to say it but there were an awful lot of people in the store that day who don't really know how to act in public - a couple in a screaming fight with each other, a small child running up and down the aisles unattended, people parking their carts diagonally in an aisle to talk with a friend (meaning no one can get through the aisle without asking them to move), people pushing, people arguing with the cashiers over "what do you mean that coupon has expired?" all that kind of stuff. Makes me hate humanity.)

I have decided I can't let this summer slip away too much - first, the aforementioned research will be starting up at 8 am Monday. And second, I'm going to revamp some of my class stuff for the fall. It's a lot easier and more appealing to do that when you are not in the thick of classes.

I have, however, also decided I am NOT going to work Saturdays this summer unless it is a rare case (like, the fieldwork gets rained out during the week). I push awfully hard during the regular semester and I think I do burn myself out a little bit, based on how tired and running-out-of-patience I am by the end of the semester.

I have a bunch of long-term craft projects (some embroidery, a quilt) that I really want to get done - so that's also going to be part of my summer. And working in the garden - my garden really got overrun last summer when I was teaching an overload and dealing with two research students who turned out really NOT to like each other. ("You don't have to like each other but please refrain from talking smack about the other person to me.")

But it is going to be strange to be unmoored from a strict schedule.

Amy Bishop to go to trial...

...Finally..

The prosecutors are going to request the death penalty, and apparently in Massachusetts, they're going to try to bring her to trial for the death of her brother. (The defense is going to try for the insanity defense).

I have to admit that that incident was something that really shook me. I think it's because it happened in a setting not unlike the one where I work: a Southern university, a biology department, a faculty meeting. While I can't think of anyone on this campus that I would fear in that way (as someone who might try to kill another person), I have been in fairly difficult and emotional meetings. And I have seen the reactions of those who were turned down for tenure.

I don't know. I know that jail is no picnic, but it bothers me that she's sat there for so long - over a year - a year during which her victims were NOT alive, a year where their families had to try to carry on, a year where the campus had to try to rebuild the sense of security and trust.

I also admit to having some conflict about the use of a death penalty. Though I definitely think this woman should never be allowed out on the streets - there's enough evidence that she's a serious danger to society, probably one of those scary, chilly people who lack a conscience (based on what I've read of some of the other things she's accused of).

I don't know. On the one hand, I feel some concerns about the death penalty - there may be cases where it's misused. But in a case like this - or the case of the Oklahoma City bomber - where it's so clear that the person is the person who committed the crime - and where they're apparently unrepentant - I have far fewer concerns. In a way, it's as much to protect the community in the future as it is to mete out justice. Taking Amy Bishop's life will not bring back the people she killed, nor will it restore a sense of security on the campus. (I don't know what UA Huntsville is like right now; I think if on my campus something like the Bishop case happened, I'd think long and hard about staying - too many bad and fearful memories). But it will prevent her from getting out of prison, or being paroled in a misguided fit of sympathy, or something.

I don't know if she's genuinely mentally ill. I tend to think with cases of "not guilty by reason of insanity" there's some hope of treating the person and maybe restoring him or her to some functionality someday. But with someone like Bishop- from what I've read, it seems almost like there isn't a "conscience" there - and that seems very dangerous to me indeed.

I don't know. The man who shot President Reagan is still living out his life in a mental hospital. I know some people have claimed he's "too comfortable" there, that he should have seen more punishment.

I guess I'll say I'd settle for Amy Bishop being locked up somewhere - prison, mental institution - forever, if she's deemed not capable of being tried, or not competent during the time she committed the act. (Though from other things I've read - there was premeditation, which seems to me to suggest that she knew what she was doing at the time and was not simply insane.)

Memorial day, 2011

I wonder how the observance of Memorial Day has changed over the years. I don't really have a good "handle" on it, because my main early memories of it were as a child growing up in a relatively-small and history-obsessed town. We had parades (One year, I think it must have been the Bicentennial year, my Brownie troop got to march in the parade. I remember it though I would have only been 7 or so. We wore our uniforms, most of us got to carry small flags, and, as part of the traditional flag etiquette (or at least, that's what the troop leader told us), we needed to get white gloves to wear. I still remember going to the little local department store - yes, such things still existed when I was a kid - with my mom and buying a pair. And I remember marching with all the veterans - mostly WWII veterans, who would have been in their 40s or 50s at that point but also a few WWI veterans who were still healthy enough to march.)

Where I live now - and where I lived before this - we are larger and perhaps not as in tune with our history (and where I lived before this, there was a largish contingent who would have been actively embarrassed at something they perceived as "glorifying the military."). But there are still parades in some of the smaller towns.

Perhaps the day changes as we cycle through the generations. The WWI vets have left us (Frank Buckles, the last U.S. Doughboy, passed recently). The WWII vets are rapidly leaving us. And I think my generation and the younger generations, war and soldiery means something different. We don't quite have the same "shared sacrifice" thoughts that people who lived through WWII had (My parents, who were small children during that time, remember some of the things - the rationing, doing things like collecting scrap metal. They don't remember it as being onerous; it was just something you did). And maybe our attitudes are different, I don't know. Mostly what I have read about WWII is that once we got involved, people were in support of it - of course, that could be a history-is-written-by-the-victors thing (and I have read of protests before we entered WWI; the idea that we didn't need to be involved in a European war).

I do think there's still a hearty respect, at least here in the heartland, for the men and women who choose to serve. And there's a memory of those who didn't come back.

I don't know - is our military force smaller than it was in WWII? As a proportion of the population? Someone I know who served as a hospital chaplain a dozen or so years back said that nearly all of the men of that age group he encountered in the hospital had served in some capacity during WWII. Not all of them were eager to talk about it - and in fact, many of them were NOT eager, he said some of them still felt bad about the buddies that they left "over there." (Regardless of whether "over there" was a beach in France, or an island in the Pacific)

I've had a few former-military students, including a few (in my early days of teaching) who served in the first Gulf war. They didn't talk much about it. (I did once have a man say, when he came to apologize to me - and yes, some of my students do apologize when they earn a poor grade - that he was more disappointed than upset about the D he earned on his exam, but he wasn't going to dwell on it, because "once you've had people shooting at you, earning a D doesn't feel like the end of the world any more.")

It seems to me that in the past we downplayed a lot of the difficulties that those who came home - I mean, the emotional difficulties, the challenges of re-adjusting to civilian life - and we're just now beginning to realize and, hopefully, get help for the ones who need it.

This day I don't just think of the men and women who gave their lives overseas; I also think of their families - what used to be called the "Gold Star Mothers" and the others who watched and prayed and hoped and waited and then ultimately received the devastating news.

A thanks to all who served and are serving, and may we never forget that in order to have our liberties, we must be willing to defend them.

Oh, SNAP!

One last thing before I go on break:


see more Memebase and check out our Troll Face lols!

The sad thing is, there are also many current members of Congress that this would equally apply to....

And like that, I'm done

I'm glad the semester was over. This was less tough than many semesters, but still tiring.

(And of course, at the end, there was some craziness - a student who was getting an I from me for some reason thought she had to go and request it personally from the dean, which apparently upset the dean, because the dean is very into chain-of-command and doesn't seem to like random people coming into her office for stuff. So I had that little fire to put out. This is a student, I will say, who has a history of misunderstanding stuff.)

I'm not teaching this summer- I need some time off to work on research and to revamp some of the classes I teach. And also, I just am tired of the hectic pace of summer teaching - the constant go, go, go of teaching every day, and teaching longer hours each day, and having to STILL find time for those 10 hours of office hours a week.

I barely remember the summers of my childhood - I haven't a non-working or non-taking-college-classes summer since, I think, I was 15.

What did I do with my time? I know I read, I know my mom agreed to making twice-weekly trips to the library (during the school year, they were weekly trips). I guess I ran around outside a lot, climbed trees, looked for bugs, picked wild strawberries (we had a lot of wild strawberries - the good, edible kind - growing in the field behind our house. There's another species of wild strawberry that is technically edible but has a wooden texture and tastes horrible - I learned that as an adult). When I was younger, I would play in a sandpile with my plastic zoo animals, or play elaborate imaginary games with my friends. Or with other friends, I'd play Kick the Can and huge, neighborhood-wide games of Hide and Seek, or we'd go "exploring" in an area that had been plotted off to be a housing development, but which was never built. (I remember how eerie it seemed, especially the first time I went there - there were all the streets in place, the lampposts, the concrete driveways already poured - but no houses.) Or with my friend Liz, we'd go to a creek we knew, and try to catch frogs, but usually just wind up getting muddy.

It wasn't quite what some people have described - where they left the house after breakfast and didn't come back until dinner - and it wasn't as safe as it might have been in earlier years (when I was a young teen, in the early 80s, that was when there was a rash of kidnappings of young teen girls. While my parents didn't FORBID me from roaming the neighborhood with my friends, I think they were more mindful of where I was and when I was supposed to be back. And I was enough of a worrier that I started sticking closer to home.

I also did a lot of craft projects in the summers - built dollhouses, sewed doll clothes, did embroidery, did some of the typical kid-crafts like drawing on a plain white pillowcase with crayons and them my mom would iron it - so the design was at least semi-permanent. I went to day camp a couple of years and learned to play tennis and got over my fear of swimming in deep water and got to hang out with my friends from fairly early in the morning (I still remember the mist rising off the playing fields of the campus where we had day camp) to lunchtime.

It probably seems more idyllic than it actually was - most kid memories are. But I can still remember the magical feeling of going home after The Last Day of School on the bus. (Some years, the bus driver did the route "backwards" - stopping first at what would have been the last house on the route). The feeling of having the summer open up in front of you like a blank piece of paper in Art class, or like the start of a movie you've been waiting to see for a long time...

I will be working this summer, just more to my own schedule. I guess I still feel a tiny bit of that expectant feeling, the sense that summer is an blank book waiting to be written in.

*sigh*

Well, the inevitable finally happened.

My friend - I think I asked for prayers for her family over a year ago - finally lost her mom. In a way, it was a blessing - she was so far advanced with Alzheimer's that she no longer recognized anyone - no longer spoke, for that matter. I know my friend was being run ragged going to the nursing home to help feed her and to watch over her.

(Most people are saying my friend's father, who is still mentally sharp but whose body is failing, will probably pass soon - that he was "waiting" because he wanted to be sure there was someone to advocate for his wife 24/7 in the nursing home where they lived).

The funeral is tomorrow. I've got someone lined up to cover the exam that overlaps it - I can start the students off, then leave when I need to. They're also doing a reception, which I will not stay for (I have a second exam that day) but which I need to bake cookies for, tonight.

Also, tonight is the Visitation at the funeral home. I had planned to go - but now I just don't think I am up to it. I'm tired. There was some stuff hitting the fan in my department today. I gave and graded an exam. And now it's 1/2 hour until the Visitation starts and I've not started the cookies. (And I really, really need to wash my hair).

I feel bad about missing the Visitation but our CWF lesson last night was, in part, recognizing when you are hurrying too much. And I decided when I needed to make a second grocery trip (to pick up the ground nuts - an integral part of the cookies I'm making) because I forgot them the first time, that was a sign I was trying to do too much.

Also, it got hot and humid here all of a sudden and I'm hurting. I never feel more like a Fat Girl than I do when it's hot and humid - I ache, it feels like a pain to drag myself around, I perspire.

So I think I'm going to make the cookies, shower, rest, and figure that going to the funeral tomorrow reasonably rested is more important than going to both the Visitation and the funeral and being tired.

This is interesting

"10 Commandments" for successful students (could also be called The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Students). I saw that over at Joanne Jacobs' place.

It makes a lot of sense: Take responsibility for your actions, take notes, learn good time management, don't act bored (because actions can become thoughts/beliefs)....In general, the whole idea of being ACTIVE in your education and taking RESPONSIBILITY for it.

Of the students I've observed over the years, the most successful ones - the people who went on to graduate/professional schools or got interesting careers - were by and large the people who took responsibility for themselves and what they were learning. They didn't expect everything to be spoon-fed them, and if they missed class for some reason they either came to talk to me to find out what they missed, or asked a trusted colleague in the class.

I used to think that "love of learning" was the most important thing you could teach your child; now I'm beginning to wonder if "take charge of your own life" is more important - that you should swim like a shark instead of drifting like a jellyfish. Because I see an awful lot of "drifter" types and they seem to ultimately wind up unsatisfied with their lives, and often seem to want to blame other people for their not getting what they wanted.

I know I had a lot of blessings in my life - a good, supportive family, good teachers, never went to bed hungry, never worried about my safety, all of that - but I also was taught that I was smart and capable and that I had the ability to make things happen, and if I wanted something to happen in my life, I had to think about my goal, plan how to get there, and then follow those plans. Hard work is valuable and important, and I hope the up-and-coming generations are learning that, because I sometimes see people who don't seem to have had.

irritated.

A person here on campus may have done a VERY passive-aggressive thing that will screw over several of our abilities to get grades in in a timely fashion.

Which, of course, hurts the students as well.

I'm really put out with this person. I can't tell if it's phoning it in because they're a short-timer, or if it's specifically engineered to make it difficult for the rest of us - again, because this person is a short-timer and now has a bad attitude.

I'm just mad because it screws over the students. (Well, also because it will ultimately make more work for me).

People frustrate me, I try to be helpful and think of the other guy but it seems that all too often I run into people who either don't, or who are thinking of how to mess up the other guy :(

People frustrate me.

I've had the experience, fairly recently, of listening to the sour grapes ranting of someone whose contract is not being renewed. Apparently this person has decided not just to burn their bridges, but to throw gasoline on them, and then urinate on the burned remains when they're done.

The problem is, my office is near this person's office. Near enough that I can HEAR everything they say. Yes, even with Internet radio turned on and the volume as high as I can make it and still be able to work. (Another person with an office on my floor has actually decamped to another section of the building for his office hours of late).

This person is doing something I consider pretty dishonorable, telling people that they got fired because they were "too tough" and that the rest of us are just
"pandering" to the students.

This makes me ANGRY. Very, very irritated. I regularly get complaints that I am a 'tough' teacher, but then again, I have kids come back from grad school - or from careers in the field - and thank me for the preparation I gave them. There are several people in the department that I would describe as "known hardasses" - one of them gives take home essay exams that can take up to six hours to complete. That's not being easy on the students.

We also have an excellent record, as I've said before, of placing people in agency jobs, in graduate school, in professional school. People who have worked for their degree (oh, we have our share of slackers who then wonder why so many people who were in class with them have jobs and they don't) wind up doing well - getting and keeping jobs, or getting a basic job then quickly moving up to more responsibility.

I don't think that means we're too easy on the students.

The thing is, something I've learned: you need to develop the skill of meeting the students where they are, and then pulling them up to the level where they need to be. We get a lot of people coming in with poor backgrounds in math or in writing. Several of us work HARD with these people - the two "known hardasses" I referred to earlier, in particular - forcing them to do multiple re-writes of papers, or giving them more and more applied math stuff to do in the labs - until they learn.

Sure, some people don't. Some people wind up switching majors. That's not a problem. I'd rather have lower retention but better standards for the people who do stay.

And I admit, early on, I had to work hard at the "meet them where they are" thing. And also the how you "pull them up to a higher level" thing. Some people are eager students and it doesn't take much work; other people have a lot of pride and don't like to admit to themselves or to a faculty member that they are lacking in background, so you have to be tactful. But you learn it, and when it works, it can be really rewarding to see someone who struggled the first semester you had them in one of your classes do well by the time they're taking the last class in the sequence that you teach.

But the thing is: you don't give up on people. Or, if you do, you don't let on. (I admit, there are one or two people I sort of give up on every semester. Though then again - if they come in and say, "I really, really need help. I know if I can pass the final I can just squeak by with a pass in the class and that's all I can hope for now" I will sit down and do what it takes to help them - because once in a while, there is someone who pulls it off, and that's also a great feeling.

This person, from what I heard, openly gave up on people. Belittled people who didn't do well on the exams. Claimed that people weren't smart enough or whatever to have the aspirations that they had. But the worst part? They apparently did it in front of the entire class.

It's one thing to take someone aside and say something like, "You know, unless you can get your chem grades or understanding of chemistry to a higher level, you might want to rethink Pharmacy school" or "You realize PA school is very competitive; earning a C in physiology might present a problem for admission." (Though I rarely even make those kinds of predictions unless someone specifically asks). It's another to call people out in front of a classroom - and it probably violates FERPA on some level.

We tried to mentor this person, I guess it didn't "take." Whatever.

I tell myself a few more weeks and I will have quiet on my floor.

Good for our SEALs!

That's pretty much my main reaction to the news that Osama has been killed. Well done, gentlemen.

Otherwise, I admit, the news leaves me kind of...flat. While it's taking out someone who was (probably) still a threat, and while it was maybe slightly avenging what happened on 9/11...still, I don't see this putting an end to the risk of extremist Islamic terrorism. And I don't see them easing up on any of the "security theater" crap in airports any time soon.

It does make me sick to think of him living in (apparent) luxury in a house in a town in Pakistan. I think they did the best thing, with the burial at sea, so there's less chance of their being shrines and things springing up to him.

Would that we could eliminate every person who would step up and fill Osama's role...