My Friday F-off

I belong to a particular women's group (well, I belong to a couple, but I'm talking about one group in particular). They are service oriented organizations.

I like most of the women in this group. And what we do (raising money for local scholarships - we do service projects) is important to me.

But, oh heavens, one or two of the people in that group.

There are different forms of privilege, you know? I openly recognize and own that I came from a background that was privileged in many ways: my family had enough money that the necessities and some of the desires were covered (but not so much that my brother and I got everything we wanted; I think that's also bad for a kid). And more importantly, we came from loving parents that taught us responsibility and common sense and who valued hard work and education.

And I recognize that, and I'm grateful for it.

But. There are a couple people in the group I'm talking about who have had lives where they've never had to work outside the home (and they had cleaning ladies, and in one case, a nanny, for the children, so I'm not convinced they worked nearly as hard as the average stay at home mom did). They have always had someone else to be the breadwinner.

And they SO DO NOT GET what it means to be a single woman supporting herself. They SO DO NOT GET what it means to work full time (and then some) at a career. They don't understand the fact that I bring work home with me at night, that I work weekends, that I sometimes work on the few "days off" we get (No, we don't get every freaking Federal Holiday like the post office does - in the fall we get Labor Day, in the spring semester we get MLK day, and in the summer, we get Independence Day - but other than that, Thanksgiving and Christmas are pretty much it. And even now, now when they do assessment activities on the student, we are made to do "professional development" - sit in a room and be talked at by some "expert.")

So these women don't SEE the 18 different things I'm juggling. They don't see that I am juggling the metaphorical equivalent of three flaming chain saws, a couple axes, and a bunch of tennis balls.

They only see the metaphorical tennis ball I happen to drop.

I forgot one piece of (relatively minor) information I was planning on bringing to the latest meeting. I finally blew up at one of the women when I got tired of sitting there and listening to her sotto voce snarking about it. And I told her: Look, I have been juggling a lot of things. I am teaching four grading-intensive classes this fall. I have work at church and other places. Yes, I was "stupid" to forget that paper and if it bugs you so much, give me fifteen minutes and I will drive back to my office and get it.

She demurred: no, no, we don't want you to have to do that.

Then wench? SHUT THE HECK UP. (No, I did not say that).

I get so tired of the undercurrent of criticism that some people just have going on towards other people. We're doing our damned best, most of us, and it doesn't help.

And yes, I know: some people are just like that and you have to just "deal" with it.

But you know? I'm EFFING TIRED of dealing with it. This Atlas is getting ready to shrug. If I quit all my volunteer responsibilities tomorrow, there'd be a huge hole in a couple of local groups. And it pisses me off that people don't seem to notice that - all they can notice is the stuff that goes less than perfectly.

Oh, and the critics? How much duty do they do? A little, but it's not the same as some other women in the group. And incidentally, the people carrying the heaviest loads? Have never aimed criticism at me for doing 999 out of 1000 things, but not getting that thousandth thing finished.

I mean, I get it: To each person, the particular thing that impinges on them is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I DO. Even if it really isn't, compared to, oh, I don't know, teaching my students stuff they need to know to get into med school. Or getting my grading done so my students have feedback on their work in a reasonable time frame. Or being one of the very few Youth Group leaders at church.

And here's the thing: if they think I'm doing it so badly, they can take the task away from me. It's not like it's something (like teaching statistics is) that takes a specialized skill-set.

But of course, no one ever suggests that, because it's much more fun to watch the overwhelmed person flounder a bit and then criticize them for not being 100% perfect.

Oh, spare me.

Okay, I know he was "joking," but I didn't find it all that amusing.

Apparently, when asked about debate prep, Obama remarked "They're keeping me indoors all the time. It's a drag."

Um, Mr. Obama? There are some days, especially towards the end of Daylight Saving Time, when I don't even SEE the sun all day, because I'm working from 7 am until 7 pm. There are people who work even longer hours and under less pleasant conditions than I do. And I'm ostensibly a field biologist but it's jolly hard some months to get out and do the field research I'm SUPPOSED to do, because of my other responsibilities.

And you know, you're kind of the leader of the free world? Maybe you should be working hard? Maybe it IS supposed to be a drag? (Maybe you should go on the chat shows a little less?)

I don't know. Every time he came on the news this afternoon (I was grading my hugacious class' multiple-choice exams and needed background noise) I found myself thinking: "This is the smallest violin in the world, and I'm playing it just for you, Mr. President."

I mean, maybe he'd rather be golfing, but there are a lot of things I'd like to do, but my responsibilities prevent me from being able to do them.

TSAgent top ten

So apparently it's all over the news that there is a fair amount of theft on the part of TSA agents.

I don't fly, so I'm going to make a little light here:

Top Ten Reasons Reported why TSA Agents Steal Stuff:

10. We don't get paid enough, so we're using our version of the "five finger discount."
9. The gnome that lives in my head told me to.
8. Why should the people who do the body-cavity searches have all the fun?
7. I feel disrespected, therefore I deserve a free iPad.
6. Somebody is trying to frame me! They PLANTED that stuff in my house.
5. **I** didn't steal it. My wife/kids/parents did and it just turned up in my house.
4. I'm just redistributing wealth! Those rich travelers don't DESERVE that kind of nice stuff.
3. I was just holding it for them, so they wouldn't lose it.
2. "Finders keepers, losers weepers."

And the top reason?

1. "What else do you expect from a governmental agency?"

Staples

This is one of those, "Maybe it's just me" things. Or maybe it's one of those "Death of a thousand papercuts" things.

I get really annoyed when students don't bother to staple their homework, their essays, whatever. When they just come in and drop a pile of papers with that crummy foldover corner thing on my desk. Or, worse, they ask: "Do you have a stapler?"

My "desk" in the classroom is an open-topped table. If there is not a stapler on it, I do not have a stapler. And I usually wear dresses to class that have no pockets, so it's not like I'm going to be able to reach into a pocket and pull out a stapler. And I do not carry a briefcase, purse, or backpack to class: it's me, the textbook, my notes, and chalk!

So, no, no, I DON'T have a stapler.

(On the last teaching day of my teaching life? I may well wind up responding, "Hang on, let me pull one out of my ASS" to the student. Because really? There is nowhere on my person I could have a stapler and that's pretty clear).

I know people who refuse to accept papers that are unstapled. And I can see the CYA aspect of it: "Wait, you didn't get the last page of my paper where I made all my brilliant conclusions? WHY, YOU MUST HAVE LOST IT! I deserve a better grade for your sloppiness as a teacher!"

But I can't quite bring myself to take up that fight. Because it would be a fight. And I'd have to deal with the students who whined about it. Or who said, "But just this one time? I couldn't find a stapler" or "My stapler broke" or who knows what.

(I tried bringing staplers and leaving them in the rooms. They were gone within three days. I refuse to be the supplier of staplers to whoever is taking them.)

But the thing is, this is just one of those modern-world problems: Is it really so unreasonable of me to ask that students staple their papers? Some of them act like it is. But then I have to make sure I keep them all together, get them back to my office, staple them myself....it's one of those things, like cleaning glassware: if each student in my lab cleans their own glassware at the end of lab, it takes each person MAYBE three or five minutes to do it. But if they leave it all (and worse, if they leave it all on the bench...or they wash it but do a cruddy job and I have to redo it), I may be stuck there for 30 minutes or more washing glassware. (We do not have a TA budget for TAs to be paid to do such things).

It's a question of, are you willing to put yourself out a little bit so you don't put out the other person in a bigger way? And what's even more: by not washing glassware, you are putting out your teacher - someone with more experience and authority than you are. You are saying, effectively, "I consider you to be equivalent to my servant, because I am expecting you to do the menial tasks I could just as well do myself."

I think that's what really gets me, especially with the dirty-glassware-left-behind bit. It's an attitude of entitlement - the students know I don't have a TA, they know that Custodial doesn't handle working with glassware....so they know that if they leave it, it's on me to do.

I finally broke down this year and told them, "If I see a group leaving glassware behind, five points off for EVERYONE in the group. (And I saved back the "nuclear option" - that if there was LOTS of messy glassware, I'd penalize everyone). That seemed to do it, but golly, I shouldn't have to either threaten or bribe my students to keep a shared lab clean!

Also, and I think I've noted this before: the students who have small staplers they carry with them to use to staple their papers tend to earn very high grades. The students who go and seek out a stapler on their own (for example, going to the computer lab, where one is chained to the front desk) generally are people who earn good grades. But often, the people who don't staple their papers and act like it's my job to do so, their grades are not so good. Not because of the staples: I don't grade people down for not stapling. But not bothering to staple your papers is indicative sometimes of a lack of attention, a lack of caring, in other areas: it's related to the idea that the students with the best attendance usually earn the best grades.

Passion

The news-radio station I listen to occasionally has a feature where a pastor of one of the large churches in that city comes in to talk about stuff. (One thing about living in the south: people will go on even not-religiously-oriented radio stations and talk about God, and not be concerned about people complaining).

Anyway, I liked his message for today. Because it made me feel better about my life.

He was talking about passion. And he pointed out that the same root word for passion in Greek (? I think it was Greek, maybe it was Latin) is also a word for suffering. And that people who are passionate about what they are doing sometimes "suffer" - maybe not suffer in this country in the sense that, oh, the Coptic Christians or Iranian Christians suffer for their faith - but that there is some element of sacrifice.

And he noted: if you're passionate about your work, you will make those sacrifices. You will come in early and leave late, you will do more than other people do, you will not just go the extra mile, but the extra second, third, and fourth mile.

And I kind of saw myself in that: granted, I probably don't work as hard as SOME on this campus, but I do know I sacrifice more of my time for teaching and student service than some people do. (I've had students tell me that: that I'm more willing to work with them, I'm more willing to provide help outside of class, than some faculty in other departments). That if you care, you're willing to make those sacrifices.

And, despite my regular bitching about the entitled Snowflakes of the world, I do care. (In fact, I think part of the reason I bitch so much is that I care: I see how they could be better, how they're really smart enough to do the work, if they could just get over being lazy)

And I think that's the root of something that distresses me about some of the students: I see what I perceive as a lack of passion in them. They don't give a dang! To them, coming to class is like, I don't know, going to stock the shelves at the Wal-Mart - it's not something they care about, they know there is some sort of potential future reward (a paycheck at Wal-Mart, a good job with a good degree), but rather than doing their best to be their best while waiting for that reward, they just kind of drift through. And while I can see that that might be okay - and perhaps even in some cases, sanity-saving, if you're working a routine job with little chance of advancement - it doesn't work when you're a college student. Because a lot of what you get out of college is based on what you put in to it. And if you're unwilling to put forth some effort and make some sacrifices - well, you might as well go submit that application to Wal-Mart. But if you want something better, you learn to defer gratification and do what NEEDS to be done, so at some future time you can do what you WANT to do.

And I see students who have problems with this. Who ask for test make-ups because they planned a vacation for the week of an exam. Or who ask for an "excused absence" so they can go wait on line for the new iPhone. Or to miss an early morning class so they can go to the midnight premier of a movie.

And I guess I see all of those things as stuff you really should defer if you're a student (or be willing to put up with the consequences: I have also known people who were up well past midnight who came to my morning classes the next day).

And I'm not saying to ALWAYS defer everything fun that makes you happy - heck, I schedule some weekends that I can be "off" working on teaching, grading, or research, so I can go antiquing, or read a good book, or go meet up with a friend who lives some distance away and hang out with them. But I'm not asking for time off work to do that, and I'm scheduling the work I must do so that I have the free time to do that.

And I admit, a lot of the time, when I do that kind of thing - when I put my work first, or put the responsibilities I have at church first - I start to feel a little sad. And I get to wondering, "Am I just an old fart who puts too much emphasis on being responsible?" Because our society, all too often these days, seems to either sweep up after the people who are irresponsible (often at the expense of the responsible ones) or actually encourages dropping responsibilities in favor of "fun."

And I am not made that way. I cannot slack off on what I know needs to get done and go off and have fun.

And hearing the pastor say that it was because of passion for what we do that we make these sacrifices - of time, of money, of sometimes doing what WE want to do - and that that is a good thing. And he made a comment about how it means you're going out and tackling what God has put before you this day. And I have to admit, a lot of the time I find it hard in my working life to think of myself as doing what God wants me to do....but maybe I am. Maybe by teaching students to calculate standard deviations, or teaching them about disease transmission, or helping them to learn how to do research - that's what I'm supposed to do, and maybe something I will do will help someone in the up and coming generation to become a great doctor, or a great medical researcher, or someone who will make some kind of discovery that will help us to have an energy source that is inexpensive and allows us to decouple our unhealthy relationship with countries that hate us....

it's just a hard thing to remember when you're mired in the situation of dealing with students who want to do the bare minimum to get by.

Student percentages (and a ramble)

I know I gripe a lot about the "special snowflake" students, but really, they're few in number. (But like any vocal minority, they sure make themselves heard). The really horrible people - the demanding, entitled ones - are maybe 5 to 10  percent of the population. And then there's maybe 20%-30% who are really only in college for that piece of paper that's "supposed" to get them a job  (Good luck with that, in this economy).

But then there's 10-30% (if you're lucky, 30%) who really do care. Who want to learn, who are willing to work hard, who listen when you critique their work because they have learned that constructive criticism - all that red ink - is how they get better over time. (I try to be kind. I don't, unlike another prof I know, write "WTF????" on a paper if it doesn't make sense to me. But I do tell them if the writing is awkward, if they've used the wrong word, if they are not supporting their argument well, if they have taken the lazy way out of doing the research....and I would hope that they would realize Not To Do That next time.

And a certain percentage of them do.

And there is a percentage of students who, even if they're not going to go into high-powered careers where they do lots of groundbreaking research, they're decent people. They're nice. I have a few students who always wish me a good day at the end of class, and you know, it makes a difference.

It so much makes a difference. I make an effort myself to be polite to the students (even as I may be critiquing their work strongly) and I make an effort to "see the person." Sometimes I fail at that; I find it harder with the people who are demanding not to just write off their behavior as "They've been given everything all through their lives and now they expect it." Of course it's possible some people are insecure, some didn't get enough love and care as a child, some are having a hard time adjusting to adult life...but sometimes it's hard to see that. (And some people really do try to take whatever they can get without working for it in this life).

A lot of my "nice" students are the Fish and Wildlife guys. Many of them come from more humble backgrounds than our pre-meds do - at least, that is the sense I get. However, though they may come from financially humble backgrounds, by and large, they are wealthy in one big way: They seem to have good relationships with their families. A lot of them talk about going fishing with their grand-dads, or getting together with extended family for meals, or going to their niece's or nephew's birthday parties. And I think that connection really DOES matter. I think college-aged students who interact a lot with people of different generations (especially older generations) often have a sense of perspective and community that the students who are only surrounded by other 18 year olds do.

I know I was a better person than I might have been when I was in college, because I attended church. And I felt like I NEEDED to attend church. It was good sometimes to talk with people older than myself who were NOT just my professors, who had a different perspective on life. I know these days I need to get out of the hothouse atmosphere of the campus on a regular basis - when someone like me spends too much time immersed in what goes on on campus, things get stretched out of proportion. Things that are really small in the grand scheme of things seem HUGE, because you are looking at them from such a close and tight perspective.

So it's often a relief to go to church, or go out to lunch with a couple of friends from church, or go do something with someone not affiliated with the university. To get my head out of my work for a while.

Sometimes I think that the way school and especially college is set up may stunt young people a little bit, by making most of their interaction with their own-aged peers. Maybe I'm prejudiced in that; I didn't like my peers much when I was a kid (I was one of those little kids with the invisible-to-anyone-but-the-bullies tattoo that said "Tease me. I cry easily. It's fun.") I have to admit, even today, I often have more in common with people 15 or 20 years my senior than I do with my own-aged peers....the women from church I prefer to hang out with are mostly in their 60s; most of the ones in my own age group (with one big exception,  and she is a friend of mine) are SO wrapped up in their kids' lives that they don't seem to have time for much else. And I suppose that's fine, it's just...there's a point I think where you become too wrapped up in living through your kid.

So I don't know. I think people do interact better when they have a range of ages around. I am not sure why but I have that sense. I don't know if it's the perspective of the older people, or if there is still some vestige of respect-for-elders that cuts down on the "Lord of the Flies" aspect, or what it is....but it seems to me that people act better and are kinder when they don't just interact with their own peer group.

And so, as I said, I get maybe 20% or so of the students who won't set the world on fire, who have decent but not outstanding grades - but they're good people. And I'd rather work with people who are basically kind and decent, if not hotshots, than with people who can earn top grades but do so while being jerks to the other kids in the class, and also sometimes the prof.

The older I get, the more I find that basic human kindness can trump skill or talent.  (The Scripture for this morning's sermon was the famous chapter 13 of First Corinthians. Again, the older I get, the more I see the truth to that. And the speaker made the point that the word used for "love" there translates poorly into English, that the word really used is "Agape," which is a sense of love we don't always seem to have much of in our society....)

Friday can't come soon enough.

SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES.

 Dammit, freaking special snowflakes. The people who have been coddled all their damn lives, who have never been told to "man up" and do something, who have always had someone swooping in to rescue them.

They can go pound sand. They can go soak their heads. They can go fall off a log. They can take a long walk off a short pier. They can go pee up a rope.

I'm so farging sick of them. I have two GIANT snowflakes in two different classes this year and they are driving me BATTY.

What really gets me? When I need a little help, when I need a little slack cut for me, do I get it? NO.

One of the snowflakes actually called me up to berate me for not putting the material up on BlackBoard sooner. Please. I had a fricking STOMACH VIRUS. I was NOT WELL. The material was delayed two hours relative to when it was normally up.

And yet, if that person forgets to bring their assignment to class? It's all "Oooh, can I bring it next class meeting?"

Guess what, honey: NO. No you can't. And I'm making that rule special for you.

Ricki's first rule, again: Don't piss off the person who is grading you.

I don't care either

A lot is being made of Romney's comment that he allegedly doesn't care about the people that are more interested in what they can take from the government than in what they can do for themselves.

You know what? To be honest, I don't care about the "takers," either. I deal with "takers" - not the kind Romney referenced, but still "takers" - on a daily basis. Some of them are people who sit on their butts and complain about the volunteer efforts you are doing, how you are not doing enough for them, without ever becoming involved themselves. We recently lost a family from church who complained that the youth program wasn't "good enough" and that there were no youth Sunday school teachers.

And yet, when they were asked to assist....they always said "No." And a lot of the time, they didn't even show up for youth group.

And I see takers all the time among my students. I have one now: e-mailed me two late papers expecting I'd cheerfully grade them. Or people who think they can skip lab and then I'll set it back up, just for them, so they don't lose those points.

And I see takers among some of the faculty - who refuse to do committeework, who insist on schedules where they have certain days free, even if that means their colleagues get hit with crappy schedules or extra committee work. 

Okay, I have to admit: I DO care about the elderly poor, the people who need a hand up in their lives (but I think a hand up, getting them able to work for themselves, is preferable to having them dependent all their lives). I care about kids whose parents don't seem to give a crap about them. Though I would argue we should as much take care of these people through NGOs and faith groups as we do with tax dollars: it seems to me that smaller, more localized groups are more efficient at getting help where it's needed than a giant bureaucracy is.

But the kinds of takers who sit on their butts and complain because the free cookies are oatmeal instead of chocolate chip? I'm done with them.

When they outlaw soda, only outlaws will drink soda....

I bet every nannystater politician in the nation is rubbing their hands together over the NYC decision to ban restaurants from selling big sugared drinks, and planning what they can manipulate next.

Two things:

First and foremost: It's the individual's responsibility to learn about nutrition and health and to apply that knowledge to their life. And also, to decide what risks they're willing to take. I THINK most Americans over the age of reason know that soda isn't good for you in mass quantities. How "bad" it is, depends a bit on who you ask - I've heard some people that claim that even one sip of HFCS sets you immediately on the path to Diabetes and other problems...and other, more logical sorts, who observe that if you drink a big gulp once a month or even once a week, but not more frequently, and you're a person of normal activity levels, you're probably OK.

(Side note: I've seen a number of studies recently suggesting that inactivity has a lot more to do with poor health than diet. And they controlled for false correlations there - that it's not just that unwell people are inactive; it's that the skinny couch potato is probably set up for worse future health than their stockier cousin who works out, or who at least WALKS regularly)

I don't care that much for soda so I don't really drink it. I don't buy it (I think I have part of a 12-pack of 7-up in the house that I bought six or seven years ago when I had some stomach thing and thought lemon-lime soda might make me feel better. I should probably get rid of it; it's probably not good any more). I might, once or twice a month, get a sugared drink if I go out for a meal - though these days, I'm more likely to get a flavored tea, which at the places that make it right, has less sugar in it than most sweet teas or most sodas. If I feel comfortable making a special request, I'll ask for half sweet tea, half plain - because sweet-sweet tea is too sweet for me. Or I'll get plain and add a little sugar at the table.

But it's up to each person. Because everyone is different. I can happily live without soda, but if I were told "No more dark chocolate" (unless it was something that was, like, giving me an allergic reaction), I'd be angry and sad. I'll use the calories I don't expend on soda for my dark chocolate, thanks.

But that's the problem with statism: it's too easy to apply blanket solutions that might fit a few people, but will be bad for many.

I expect the next thing NYC will go after may be greasy meats. You know, bacon double cheeseburgers. Whoa, too much fat! Too much protein! Gotta ration people down! And so, you'll see places pushed to sell "junior" hamburgers instead - with only lettuce, onion, and tomato as toppings.

Second, and subsidiary: This is not going to have an appreciable effect on obesity, or childhood obesity, or whatever it is the politicians are claiming to "protect" the populace from. Because people will find ways around the law - they always do. Order 2 medium drinks instead of one large. Go to a convenience store or somewhere that can still sell the big drinks (Like any government ruling, there are carve-outs and exemptions....just like with the healthcare mandate). And at that, really, how much do sugared drinks affect an ordinary person's diet? If a person is drinking biggie drinks they are likely making other food choices that will negatively affect their health.

I expect, though, it will be some years down the line that we'll hear a "huh, obesity didn't go down after the big-drinks ban" and it will either be on page 32 of the newspaper, in small type, or it will be used as a push to promote banning/rationing/regulating some other foodstuff.

(And big milkshakes aren't banned. Nor are artificially sweetened drinks, and I admit that I am unconvinced that aspartame is safe....there are anecdotal reports of it causing migraines in some and possibly short-term memory issues in people who consume a lot of it).

So, this is just kind of full of fail. But expect to see more of it, because the government loves to find "problems" that they can "solve."

Chicago teachers on strike.

Someone who has more time to read  and analyze, please tell me I heard this wrong:

Chicago teachers earn on average $75K a year, and are demanding a 35% pay increase??

That can't be the only reason (please) that they'd strike.

(Edited to add: apparently they're also upset over some of the evaluation measures used for teachers. Well, I don't know. I get evaluated every semester, I have to write a long report every year summarizing my teaching evaluation results, my scholarly productivity (grants and publications), and my service (committeework, stuff like judging science fairs). I think some kind of evaluation is necessary and again, most everyone I know has some kind of "annual review" in their career where they either get told "keep on keepin' on" (as I tend to hear) or "You need to step it up in these areas....")


I make less than they make, and I am a college teacher of demonstrable quality (nominated for an award, have students coming back from grad school thanking me for the preparation I gave them, high teaching evals). Of course, I also don't have to live in Chicago, but still: demanding a 35% raise, when most people in the working world haven't seen raises for five years or more, seems kind of rich.

(I was over the moon when I was promoted and got a 5% raise due to that promotion)

In my career, I would be less likely to raise objections (we are not unionized so we cannot legally strike) over money; it would be more likely over working conditions. For example, if they made the blanket expectation that everyone would teach night classes. (Or if they did that, but exempted the people with children). Or if they doubled our loads without telling us or giving us time to discuss. Or if they abolished tenure. (I know lots of people hate tenure, but I'd hate having to reapply for my job every three years and wonder if they were looking for a way to get rid of me and bring in someone younger and cheaper. They probably wouldn't, for the reasons I stated in the paragraph above, but still, I get paranoid. Also, there's a history at some schools of going the "flavor of the month" with the sciences, so you get a department stacked full of nanobiology specialists and nary a taxonomist to be found....and then suddenly you need someone who can do taxonomy, but all the taxonomists went off to other careers....)

But still. Striking over wanting that kind of pay raise (especially considering the median income in Chicago is something like $45K - yes, there are lots of rich folk on the Gold Coast, but there are also a lot of middle and working class people, and I bet the rich folk are the ones relying on private schools) just blows my mind.

Then again, if you expect people to be logical, you will be eternally disappointed.

Thoughts on college and employment

One of the statistics recently being tossed around is how few recent college graduates actually have jobs in their field of study.

And while I completely understand that few businesses are hiring...there are other issues at play, perhaps.

I think many of us in academia have heard employers bemoaning how they have to "train" the college graduates - not just "train" them in specific things, like maybe the particular software the business uses, but "train" them in communication and basic math and even sometimes "responsibility" (like: show up to work on time). And yeah, perhaps some of those are cases where we (collectively) have failed our graduates, by allowing them out into the workforce without an adequate weeding process.

But there's another thing happening. I've seen it on my campus. Recently, we had a BGS instituted. Meaning, Bachelor of General Studies. Lots of schools have these; Michigan had one as an option back in the day when I went there. (And oh, how snobbish we biologists were! We laughed at the "pink tassel" people - at graduation, people who earned a B.S. had a gold tassel on their mortarboard, people who earned a B.A. had a white tassel, but B.G.S. had a pink tassel. We called 'em the 7-11 manager wannabees, and I don't mean that in the Joe Biden sense.)

Don't get me wrong: a person can do a "good" B.G.S. If a student wants some kind of unusual interdisciplinary major that is not offered on their campus, they can use the B.G.S. as a way of setting up their own interdisciplinary major. But, the reason the Pink Tassel Kids got their reputation, was that a lot of people doing a BGS used it as....well, another derogatory term we used was the "Choose Your Own Adventure major" (kids who grew up in the late 70s and early 80s will remember that series of books. Usually you wound up making the wrong choice and dying...).  The students who took that major often did it to make a "lite" version of some other major, so they didn't have to take the "hard" classes.

And unfortunately, that seems to be happening here. I heard both a chem prof and someone from math bemoaning that they've lost majors from their department to BGS, when those majors learned about some of the advanced classes they would be expected to take, either as Chem or Math majors. And I've heard of people in other majors doing it to avoid some of the writing-intensive classes.

And here's the thing: if you choose the "soft" way through, if you avoid some forms of preparation, and you're in a bad job market, you're going to lose out to the guy who decided to take the tough classes.

I will say I think BGS does need some reform: don't do away with it completely, because there are those people who have a really unusual plan of what they want to do, and it's a solid plan, it's just a major that doesn't currently exist as a defined major. But don't let people use it as a soft-armchair option for college. Or at least make them sign a paper certifying they won't bitch about their "valueless" degree when they can't get a job.

Sadly, I don't think that will happen. There's even a push here for a "three-year plan" BGS....where a lot of the classes are 8 week classes and are presumably a bit watered down. And that displeases me. What we DON'T need is an underclass of people who look college-educated but really aren't. What we need in this country is people who are willing to work hard....and options for people who want to do that work but maybe don't want or need college.What I don't want to see is us become some kind of training facility for the Future Telemarketers of America.

So, just as some people have a hard time finding a job....I think there are also employers out there who are having a hard time finding "ready" employees: people who are ready to work, who are ready to do what writing is required of them, who are ready to do the hard things.

I hate this

So, last night, on the local news, they noted that there had been an "assault" (really, an attempted rape, but the woman fought back and at least avoided being raped) at an apartment complex here. And they had the obligatory footage of some people saying, "I don't believe it could happen here" but there was also a couple who said, "This is it. We're moving out. This place has gotten really bad. There's lots of crime, lots of drug-dealing. We don't want to live here any more."

They didn't NAME the complex or give its address. They had a brief camera-flash of the complex's sign and the number (but not the street name). I don't pay attention to the complexes here in town...I used to live in one but moved out over 10 years ago. There have been several new ones built, and there are a number of smaller, run-down complexes (places I was told, "You probably don't want an apartment there" when I first moved here).

So I got to wondering: Isn't that name the name of the newish complex they build on land right next to my classroom building? (There was, in fact, a murder there shortly after it opened. But that was what they call a "domestic" - adult son went bonkers and killed his mom)

So I tried to find the name in the phone books. Couldn't find it. Thought, Well, damn, if it IS the complex next to me, I am not going to come up here at night to work any more. And I'm not going to come in crack of dawn on Saturdays when no one else is around. And I'm going to get the colleague I teach with after my night class to walk me to my car. (Granted....I'm a fairly big and tough woman, and if someone tried to attack me, provided he wasn't armed, I could probably drop him, but still - safety in numbers)

But this is what I hate. How there are people in the world who think it's OK to assault someone, who think it's OK to take a woman by force for whatever sick reason. (And yes, I know: If I were armed the chances of it happening would be a lot less likely. But I couldn't carry on my campus, so that's kind of a moot point.) I suppose it's always been so to a certain extent, but it bugs me that in peacetime, in a small town, I still have to look over my shoulder and do all that long list of things that is often published in College Orientation 101 on "How not to be raped." Even down to considering what kind of shoes I wear, whether I could run in them if necessary.

However, I did look the complex's address up online. They're on the other side of town, in an area that frankly is kind of known for drug dealing and other petty crimes. And this morning, the cop they interviewed on the news seemed to imply that this may have been a case, not of stranger rape, but of someone stalking the woman and planning the crime...I hope they catch the bastard and lock him up.

The other thing that frustrates me: Why NOT give the address of the complex? I suppose there's some kind of legal thing tied up in that, some kind of "The owner of the complex might take it as slander." But I do think people should be allowed to know where crimes are being committed in their town....when there was a "domestic" (between two men) a few months back, they prominently showed the sign for the street intersection near where the incident happened. But just the vague, "Hey, did you know there was an attempted rape in your town" doesn't help me much.

I mean, I still take precautions. I park as close to my building as I can for my night class. If I'm in early in the morning and am the only one here, I don't unlock the outside doors. But I hate that I have to do that.

Wow.

The other day, hunting around, I happened on the "State of the Profession" page on the Chronicle of Higher Ed webpage. I read what I could of it (I don't have a subscription for "premium content." My library on campus probably does, but right at that moment I didn't feel like calling over and asking if they had a password).

But this struck me.

I'm a full professor. At a four-year institution. All I can say is there must be some folks earning close to seven digits for the average "full professor" salary to be $130,803 a year.

IF I teach summers, I make about $5000 under HALF that for a year.

Granted, yes: I teach at a small, regional, state school with a teaching focus. And yes, I am in a low-cost-of-living part of the country: I probably paid less than a third of what I would on either coast for my house. And granted, yes, I can live pretty comfortably as a single woman with relatively few needs on $60K or a little less....I probably couldn't if I had kids or was trying to help support a spouse who was unemployed or attending school himself.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not really envious, but that now I see the source of the "overpaid professor" meme.

But, boy damn....I'd love to see the frequency distribution of professor's salaries.

(I actually made an object lesson of this in my stats class....and got a laugh out of the students who know that our pay is NOWHERE near that. I gave an example of how a median is sometimes better than a mean...and to be honest, I'd like to see the MEDIAN full-professor salary in the U.S.).

And yes, I get that law schools and med schools and such have to pay more in order to retain "good" people, but....for the average salary to be well over twice my annual salary, I'm pretty gobsmacked by that.

I also hope that VP Biden doesn't get ahold of that figure....according to this site, he believes we're all overpaid: "V.P. Joe Biden, a few months back, said that the reason tuitions are out of control is because of the high price of college faculty"

(I have not read all of that essay, it's pretty damn long, but what I've read rings true. And I have no idea if the Biden quote is accurate but I'm going to assume that the writer isn't misquoting).

One thing I will say that I thought about, which gives me some comfort: when the higher-ed bubble bursts, those of us who are fairly 'cheap' may actually be the ones who survive. When some of the gigantic state schools have crashed and burned, when some of the private schools have found themselves unsustainable...maybe those of us who have already cut to the bone and beyond will be able to survive...and maybe even later on, thrive, in a marketplace that's been somewhat gutted. Or maybe I'm just telling myself that.

I do know the only things I really have control over are (a) to teach my students the best I possibly can and to make myself as un-firable as possible (even with tenure, it's possible to RIF people during budget cuts) and (b) sock away any extra money against future bad times.

I may have spoken too soon

I've been fielding e-mails from someone re: the project they're required to do. I get the distinct feeling what this guy is asking me is, "Plz plan my project all out for me and tell me just how to do it and where to find all the sources, k thx."

I've been "playing dumb" (in the sense of giving minimal direction and guidance) but I'm afraid this is going to be my demanding student for the semester. I haven't even answered his most recent e-mail as my office hours are technically over and I have a headache and don't feel quite up to figuring out how to respond while keeping it clear that my help is at arm's length, that I'm not going to plan this guy's project for him. I'm not QUITE rude enough to e-mail back, "JFGI," but that's kind of how I feel based on the most recent request...

School has started

Boy damn, last week felt like it was about a month long. (And the week before that was a mountain of meetings. Many of which were kind of useless. We were made to sit through a forty five minute long talk on how to write a syllabus. EVERYTHING the "experts" suggested were things I already do, and some of the things they pointed out, I was like, "You'd have to be a real idiot to leave that off your syllabus, because it would open the door for students to lawyerball stuff")

But hopefully things will have settled down by next week.

I seem to have a critical mass of either non-trad students or international students this fall. And while either group can have their share of problem people, I generally tend to find that the non-trads tend to have their heads screwed on straighter (because they're older and most have been in the workforce, they tend to get that "I'm a special snowflake, unique and deserving of all the rules being bent just for meeee" attitude beaten out of them before they reach me). And the international students often come from more rigorous and less-self-esteem-enhancing schools than our local students. So maybe I'll have a calmer semester than I did this past spring.

Oh, I did learn something in the endless hours of meetings: if a student with a Disabilities Concern has unacceptable behavior in your class, you can call the Student Support office and ask them to have a meeting to put together a behavioral contract. (Or at least your request will be entertained. I never ever got that word earlier, and I put up with things at times that maybe I didn't have to. Like the guy who didn't trust his note-taker to take good notes, so he would stand up and photograph the chalkboard every time I wrote something. It was completely unsettling and more than once I scuttled fast to the side so I wouldn't be in the photo...because God only knows what he might do with them after the semester.). I don't know how far they'll accommodate the prof (this guy also used to mutter stuff under his breath in class, which was also unsettling, but maybe he had no control over that), but at least the fact that they're willing to listen to us...

I also have to say for ONCE I am not teaching an overload. We finally caved and hired adjuncts (a couple of our own Master's-level graduates) to take over some of the heavy lifting of the basic-classes labs. It's surprising how freeing it is to have one more afternoon open a week. And I guess I didn't realize how beaten down we all were by regularly carrying 14 or 15 hours, instead of the 12 that is supposed to be the maximum (And we get one contact hour for every 2-3 hours in lab....so 14 contact hours can mean 20 hours of instruction time, not counting grading, prep, lab clean-up, etc., depending on what you teach.) And yes, we (mostly) do all our own grading. (I wouldn't have it otherwise; most of  my lab reports include a short essay for the "discussion" and my exams tend to include essay sections, and I feel like I need to read and grade those, because I know what I expect).

And I think most people who teach college will tell you that grading is actually the toughest part.

I'm still trying to figure out how to schedule the "outside" stuff. Tuesdays I teach an early morning class and an afternoon class, so I plan to go home for lunch that day, but I think I'll bring my lunch on other days and plan to do research work (I have so much data stacked up that I need to enter into my databases, it's not funny) and I also want to do some background reading for a project to be begun this spring. I hope I can keep up my motivation for that, not having a couple of intro bio labs to deal with should help. 

Crazy.

If I were a state of California taxpayer, I'd be ticked.

Cal State schools are threatening to disallow admission of in-state grad students (because out of staters bring in more bucks in terms of tuition, and they "can't afford" to serve the in-staters any more. Or so it's claimed).

Um, wasn't the reason a state university system was set up, was to educate the residents of that state?

And at any rate: if I were a prof in a department and was told, "We don't care how qualified this person is, and how good they'd be, you can't bring them in because we won't make enough tuition or fees off of them," I'd be seriously considering another line of work. Or at least another university system. 

Alumni magazine thoughts...

I got the alumni magazine from my grad school the other day. I read a bit of it while waiting for dinner to cook.

I was struck by an article about a woman who provides dental-care for low-income children. That is commendable. But that wasn't what struck me about the article. What struck me were two comments she made:

First: when she was handing out free toothbrushes to children, a girl came back the next day to ask for another. Because, she said, her father took hers.

Now, I know there are probably different motives that could lead to a father taking his daughter's free toothbrush ("not wanting to take charity" being one). But I'm going to assume that he took it as he did not have one of his own.

Okay, that's sad. But. How much does a toothbrush cost? (Honestly, I don't remember: I bought a multipack a year or so back, and also, my dentist hands them out at the every-six-months checkup, so it's been a little while since I bought one). But I'm guessing they're under $5? Maybe $3?

While I suppose there are people out there for whom $3 is a really big deal...sometimes I wonder if some of what we are told is abject poverty where someone cannot get the basic necessities of life, is actually a difference in priorities. I know I have a lot of students who claim they are "too poor" to buy the textbooks listed for my class, but then they whip out a fancier newer cell phone than what I choose to have, and start texting on it. If you can afford the latest iPhone and a data plan and apps and many text messages, you can afford textbooks...maybe not both...but you have to decide what's more important. (Yes, I get that for some people a cell phone is a necessity. Well, I have one with a very basic plan that's like $25 a month. My cell phone does two things: It makes and receives calls, and it can receive and send texts. It has no apps, it has no camera, it has no games...)

I don't know but I admit I kind of object to someone claiming they need me to "find a cheaper textbook option" or not use a textbook at all, when they are spending money on something that I have chosen not to buy for myself....

I realize that sounds heartless, but you know, my mom grew up poor. Her family didn't take much assistance (towards the end of my grandmother's life, she did accept some of the "commodity food" that was given out, to make ends meet). But my mother's parents set their priorities: first priority, keep a roof over their heads. Second priority, see that the kids had nutritious food. Third priority, see that the kids were clean and equipped for school, and that they went to school. Toothbrushes and soap and that one good solid pair of shoes came before entertainment.... Growing up, my brother and I were considerably better off but still we got that same mentality taught to us: No, we won't take a vacation at Disneyland because the car needs to be fixed so your dad can get to work. No, we won't go out to eat every week because it's more economical to prepare food at home...

The other thing that struck me was the dentist's  comment that she sometimes saw children with sippy cups full of Mountain Dew, and whose breakfast was a bag of chips. This kind of thing makes me crazy. It's that kind of thing that will eventually lead the health fanatics like Bloomberg to ban sugar and salt and everything else: because some people can't take the responsibility to feed their kids properly. (Oh, I SUPPOSE some people are ignorant enough to think that Mountain Dew is equal in nutrition to milk...) And yes, again: maybe people can't afford better. But that's why we have WIC! I have a friend who was on WIC for a while (long story....her husband left her, she had some health issues...). Yes, it was a pain in the neck to figure out what was eligible and buy just those items - but she did it. And she and her kids got basic nutrition as a result.

Yes, all those things take effort. It takes effort to go and apply for aid if you need aid. It takes effort to look at your paycheck and go, "Dang, I only have $50 this week to spend on food for my family, how am I going to make that work?" But I'm starting to get tired of the people who seem to me not to want to put any effort in, and who just take the easiest road out. Because I know people who are faced with problems in life, and instead of sitting down and going "I need someone to fix this for me" they say, "Now what do I need to do to start getting this fixed?"

It strikes me that maybe the way out of poverty, or if not "poverty," having a lower socioeconomic status than you really want, is partly related to an ability to delay gratification (like: "No, we can't go to Disneyland this year because") or to prioritize things ("We need to buy you good sturdy school shoes. I'm sorry we can't get the fancy tennis shoes right now.")  But it seems that that's a hard lesson....and a lesson that may not be being reinforced in our culture like it should be.

Another thought on the "Mountain Dew in a sippy cup...." I remember seeing a young boy, maybe 18 months, whose parents gave him a Pepsi....and he freaked out after drinking it, got very hyper, they had to pick him up and carry him out of the restaurant because he got so disruptive. I wonder how many of our kids have caffeine (and possibly, high-sugar) habits as a result of heavy soda consumption, and that's affecting them in ways that might just be diagnosed as ADHD? When I was in charge of helping organize the meals for youth group, I PLEADED with people NOT to bring caffeinated pop, as some of the kids were clearly sensitive to caffeine but didn't have he self-control/ didn't want to look "weird" to the other kids by declining the caffeinated pop in favor of water or a caffeine-free alternative. There were always a few people whose behavior seemed worse to me on nights when they had caffeine as opposed to nights they did not. Now, I may be prejudiced in that, as I know I am quite sensitive to caffeine (I don't really get hyper, but I get shaky and anxious) and I also know my parents were very strict about no caffeinated pop for my brother or me until we were over 16 or so. But it does make me wonder what a couple of full-caffeine sodas a day might be doing to the brains and emotions of kids who are not fully grown yet.

I guess what I'm saying is that I was raised to be a responsible person, and it frustrates me to see people who are not responsible, and then in some cases, others are expected to pick up the slack/help out/put up with the consequences of bad behavior/whatever.

"Writing across the curriculum"

This is a new push on my campus. And I mostly agree with the idea. The more writing a student does in ALL areas, the better his or her writing is going to get. Provided, of course, the people teaching the students are capable writers themselves and that they take the time to grade well.

Unfortunately, a lot of our intro comp classes are heavily adjunct-taught. Which means there's a wide range of commitment: from people who work hard and bust their butts to teach the students to write, even though they are working under poor conditions (low pay, no benefits, large classes, and a student pool that really doesn't have much writing experience), and then there are others who just phone it in.

I have writing assignments in all the classes I teach, ranging from short "positional" papers in the non-majors class to a large research project in my majors classes. I also have critiques of journal articles that several of my upper-division classes do. Generally, the upper-division students are pretty good: they usually come to me after having one of the two real hard-ass people in the department who hammer on them until their writing improves. In those cases, I don't have to do too much other than not allow the students to get lazy.

Sometimes I get people in my upper-division classes who are getting me first, before either of the hard-asses. That makes my job a bit more involved. In some cases, I think it's laziness: students want to see what they can get away with. I've once in a while gotten a paper with text-speak in it, and I've really graded that down harshly: you need to be able to communicate in a way that is accepted by a majority of the population who will be reading what you write, and I'm sorry, but text-speak is NOT YET ACCEPTED in the vast majority of workplaces.

One thing I'm going to increase emphasis on this fall is: know your audience. Think about the audience for which you are writing. There are many styles of writing, even within scientific writing: you will write differently if you are writing a manuscript for a national journal than you would if you were writing a report for the local highway commission. You will write differently if you are writing for other scientists than you would if you were writing for the general public. You will write differently if you are writing up your own experimental research than you would if you are simply doing a review of the existing literature.

Also, in my non-majors class, I'm going to remind them about considering their audience. And that these are positional papers and not opinion papers: what is important is the quality of your argument and the quality of the sources with which you support that argument. I had a few instances this summer of students writing papers that essentially said, "I believe this is the correct opinion so I'm saying it" and they didn't bother to find sources. They got graded down quite a bit for that.

I did also have some very good writers; I hope they have not spoiled me for the fall, especially seeing as I had a class of 18 this summer and will have twice that this fall. One of the real frustrations I have is just the whole process of slogging through. (I know: English teachers have it much harder, because their students write more and the papers are longer). But it's so discouraging to get the fifth paper where the person doesn't get the difference between their/there/they're or something. I've threatened to have stamps made up explaining:

their/there/they're
your/you're
its/it's (I know that one is more subtle and easily missed, and occasionally I have to stop and go back and correct myself when I'm writing. But still.). 

Also, I want a stamp that explains that apostrophe-s is how you make a POSSESSIVE, not how you make a PLURAL. (I'd get the Bob The Angry Flower Poster that refers to that, but I'm afraid certain of TPTB would interpret it as "too mean and demeaning to the students," so I don't).

These are the largest things the students screw up. I have fewer problems with verb agreement (though sometimes people mess that up, especially if they have a long sentence with funky clauses in the middle of it, and they lose their place, and they forget what the subject was). I have a few problems with the totally wrong word being used. (Best example ever: the student who said "boneified" in a paper when they really meant bona fide).

I have LOTS of problems with plain old awkward writing. I tell the students, "Read your paper out loud to yourself. If it sounds ugly and clunky, rewrite the part that sounds ugly and clunky." But I don't know. Maybe some people can't "hear" clunkiness like I can?

I also occasionally get people who do sentence fragments. Or who do big giant run-on sentences with way too many clauses. I'm actually sometimes guilty of that but at least my run-on sentences stick to a single topic. (I jokingly blame my long, many-clause sentences on my part-German heritage).

I don't often get someone who "doesn't know what a sentence is" (one of our English profs claimed this was the case with some who came through his classes). But I do get people who can't spell, or who think that they can just put a word in the paper that they heard somewhere and never saw printed out, but that they kind of sort of think they know how to spell it, and how it's used. (I get some people who use badly wrong words in the hope of looking "smart.")

I don't worry so much about passive voice, though few of our students have that problem. I also don't harp as much - at least in the non-majors class - on split infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions. (Though I will say I've also seen it argued that both of those are outmoded rules, and that they are actually "ghosts" of people with backgrounds in some other language - Latin, maybe? - claiming things about English syntax that are not necessarily true. I don't know enough to be able to argue one way or another, but in my formal writing I do try not to split infinitives or end sentences with prepositions, just in case my reader is one of the old-school types who has a real problem with that. I admit in my grading I'm mostly happy if people can write coherently and have the important information in their paper, and what I view as smaller "stylistic" touches I'm less likely to note.)

One of the bigger issues I have with some of the research papers - and this may be partly a laziness issue, and an unwillingness to dig as deeply - but a lot of times I get students putting in all kinds of irrelevant information. Meaning, "I found an article on my topic but it's not really on my topic but I need a citation so I'm going to use it any way rather than searching more." So I will get a long discourse on leafcutter ants in a paper that's really over one of the local ant species or something. And I find that some of the students are a little stymied or upset when I grade them down on that and tell them the information is "superfluous." I'm not sure best how to counteract that. I know that writing is a very experience-oriented thing, and knowing what information is "right" for a paper, versus what is unnecessary or "too much" or "too off topic" is something you kind of have to just learn for yourself by working. I don't know.

I will say I think my colleague who threw a hissy a couple years ago over some plagiarized papers in his class - and stopped doing them - is having to start doing so again because of this new WATC project. I have to admit I'm kind of gratified by that, in a schadenfreude type of way, because he kind of smugly told me one day, shortly after he decided to stop doing papers, that he was "glad" I still did papers in my classes, because "The students still get writing experience without my having to offer it." Seriously, man, seriously?

Entitled couponers

I often wondered, once a bit of light was shone on "extreme couponing," what would happen in my little town if a couponer got in one of the (few) open lines at a store and gummed up the works.

Well, I saw it yesterday. I had to run to Walgreen's for a few things...mainly a birthday card for a woman at church who is celebrating her 90th. Got my stuff, got in line, realized it wasn't moving.

The woman at the head of the line had  a few items and a stack of coupons, and she was arguing with the cashier. The argument centered around three things, apparently:

1. She wanted to be able to use four coupons on an item; the cashier told her store policy was to allow two (also, it's possible two of the coupons were duplicates).

2. She wanted to apply a coupon for hairspray to a bottle of shampoo, with the argument that the same company made them, so why did it matter?

3. She believed she was due money back because her (multiple for each items) coupon values should exceed the sales price.

And she wasn't nice about it, either. On the rare occasions when I've used coupons, if something went wrong (like, I hadn't read carefully and it was for an item other than what I had), my reaction is "Oh, sorry! Never mind, just ring the thing up at the stated price." I wouldn't think of harassing the checkout person - who usually is in a fairly low-authority job. But this woman did.

The checkout person called the manager, but apparently he either wasn't in or wasn't leaving his office because he never showed. The woman continued to argue: she was DUE these things. It was her RIGHT.

I stood there, feeling sad that I would grow old watching this argument. Under other circumstances, I might have gone and put back the items I was planning to buy and just left, but I really wanted to get that card out.

Finally the person at the cosmetics counter opened her register and the rest of us who were waiting trooped over there. The woman with the coupons was STILL arguing with the cashier after I had paid and was walking out the door.

Look: I have no problem with couponing. I don't do it because I don't take a newspaper (and our local paper stinks, anyway) and also most of the items I've seen on offer for coupons are things I don't buy (convenience foods, kid's cereals....). And I feel like my time is worth more than the thirty cents or whatever I might get back. But I get that some people treat it as a hobby, or as a way of "supplementing" family income without having to work outside the home. And good for them.

But please, please, couponers: don't be a jerk about it. If the store has policies limiting coupon use, don't berate the cashier, who probably didn't make those policies. Don't try to get money off on stuff you don't have coupons for. And try your best NOT to tie up the lines so everyone else behind you is greatly delayed.

I don't know. I see an awful lot of people in my daily life who believe they are "special" to the exclusion of everyone else. It makes living in community harder.

The lone giraffe

I left yesterday afternoon from "home" and got home (the home where I live) today. It's too far to travel to see family; I wish they lived closer or I did. I find myself a little lonely; I have TCM on in the other room just for the sound of another "living" being)

(But not TOO much closer, not like on the same block...I don't know if I could take all of us being all up in each other's business all the time. I find I get overwhelmed too easily by too much stuff going on. And at big family gatherings, I find I wind up just clamming up and not voicing my desires in re: what restaurant to go to or what to do, because not being part of a couple's united front, I usually get voted down, and it just adds to the time it takes to plan anything. My family is not so good at making decisions...)

I will say as one of the few of the "younger" generation who is not coupled....it's a little different. A little strange. I realize now that I don't count for as much, in a way. I guess that's OK. Still, it's aggravating when I'm hungry and tired and just want LUNCH and it's 1:30 pm and people are still discussing what to do - and it's not my house so I can't just stalk into the kitchen and make a peanut butter sandwich or something.

I don't know. It's been a while since being single hit me this hard. ("The lone giraffe" is how I used to describe it - meaning, that spare giraffe left behind after the Ark departs, because it didn't have a mate). Part of it is, I really don't feel like I have a template to base my life on. All my childhood, I grew up seeing television shows and movies and reading books about families...mostly a mom and a dad and a couple (or more, if you're talking the Waltons) of kids. It was kind of understood that grown-ups were married and had kids. I don't know what one is supposed to do as a single, especially a single without prospects. (The sitcoms now will feed you plenty stories of singles who have friends-with-benefits and such). I admit it, not having been more social, not having tried harder, is one of my bigger regrets. Part of it was that I was awkward and uncomfortable and I always thought I was unattractive and weird and that guys wouldn't like me...

But I got busy in college, planning ahead for my eventual career. And where I was at the time, and what I was involved in....the social opportunities were not appealing to me - go to the bars, or join a sorority (not that I would have been likely to get in one), or be part of the casual "hook up" culture that repulsed me so much. In retrospect I probably should have worked harder to seek out the Christian groups on campus, but the one I tried going to a meeting of...well, they were very theologically conservative, and as a biologist, I didn't feel like having to explain again and again how it really was possible to accept evolution and still believe in God.

By the time I was in grad school, most of my colleagues were married. And of course now, the guys in my age group are mostly multiply-divorced guys. Not that that's such a huge red flag (though a guy who has been through three divorces in twelve years, yeah, that's kind of a red flag), but one guy I started out hanging around with, I soon realized he wanted a woman in his life mostly to be a stepmom to his kids and a housekeeper for him. And while I would have nothing against being a stepmom, and I have nothing against pitching in on housework...I don't want that to be the primary reason someone's interested in me.

So, I don't know. What do people who are in their 40s and 50s do on holidays? I don't think I'm going to be able to travel home for Thanksgiving this year because of how my schedule goes. I don't like the chirpy "brave" suggestions that some magazines make, about rounding up a group of similarly-situationed friends and having Thanksgiving together....I really only know one other person who is unattached without close-by family, and I'm not sure I'd be up for cooking a big dinner with him. Or spending an entire afternoon with him.

For that matter, I'm not wild about the suggestion of going and working in a soup kitchen or somewhere on the holiday. For one thing, I know lots of local families that do that...it would just remind me more of my aloneness to be one of the few singles there. And also, the local place has turned away volunteers on holidays before - because there are too many. That's a good thing, but I think it would kind of hurt to show up with that as your only plan for the day and to be told, "Sorry, we don't need you."

The question is how to find a way to "do" the day without risking falling into self-pity. I know one year when I thought my travel plans were going to fall through that I figured I'd just make a big thermos of soup and stay in bed reading most of the day. (But that borders on self-pity).

The bigger fear that all of this is a stalking horse for, is what do single people do after their parents are gone, if their siblings live too far away/are too involved with their own lives? Do they just get used to making a turkey sandwich for Thanksgiving or going and working at the soup kitchen on Christmas? How long does it take a person to get used to having no presents to open on Christmas morning? (Yes, I realize, it's childish, but - I like having at least one present to open that is NOT something I bought for myself).

I don't know. I do great during working hours, during busy times - in fact, I often find I wish I was around people LESS than I am some days - but during the quiet times, the long weekends or the holiday times, if I don't travel to visit family, I can get kind of lonely and stir-crazy. Yes, I have friends - but most of my friends are part of a larger family and I don't like intruding on family time (I'm sure some of them would say it wasn't intruding....but then again, sometimes even in my extended families I feel at times like an intrusion). Or I have other friends who are kind of flaky about planning and schedules and who do stuff like say "We should get together!" but then can never settle on a time, or who back out at the last moment. And there's only so many times I can be thrown on my own devices before I stop asking those friends. (Am I the only person with flaky friends? It seems there are a lot of people in my life who just can't be on time/keep appointments/not change plans at the last minute).

I know this is one of the ways in which I am selfish: I want my time alone when I want it, and yet, I also want people to interact with. I'm just not very good at going about it.