Makes me sad

I commented yesterday how Santorum had lost me (not that he ever HAD me - he's a little too far on the nanny-state-of-the-right end of the spectrum for me). And then I got to thinking: Has there EVER been a presidential candidate (at least, that made it down toward the end) that I was super enthusiastic about and wanted to vote for because he or she was great, rather than vote for because he or she was marginally better than the other person running?

And I realized the last person I felt like that about was Reagan's second term.

And I wasn't even old enough to vote then.

That's really sad.

One little happy thing

I think this is the worst spring allergy season I've ever weathered. I'm just miserable, but am holding it together and coming in to work because the thought of the paperwork to take a sick day doesn't feel worth it.

One happy thing though: one of my intro students, after the exam last week, saw me in the hall. He asked if I had them graded, I said I had just begun them, and then he said, "Well, I'm excited for this exam. I studied really hard and I think I did well."

He earned a 96 - the top score. So he was right to be excited. (So often I deal with people who either think they should get maximum results for minimum effort, who don't seem to give a crap about their education - "studying hard? What's that?", or who totally take for granted earning good grades).

(Also, one drive-by comment: Not that he ever really had me all that much to begin with, but Santorum's "indoctrinating professors" comment lost me forever from supporting him. Yes, I agree that not everyone needs to go to college. And I suppose there are some professors who push their agendas in the classroom. But, HELL. If you go to the movies, if you watch Comedy Central, if you listen to really any of the news channels out there now, you are getting some kind of doctrine pushed at you. I'm really tired of profs getting singled out for this, and I'm getting really tired of working hard at a career where I feel like no one outside the university respects me. I know, I know...I shouldn't expect that. But it just seems to me that back when I was a kid, when my dad was a prof, profs were respected, it was seen as a worthwhile career that helped society. Now we're seen as parasites at best. And yes, ballooning university tuitions are a problem....but none of us on my campus have had a pay raise for some six years (well, maybe the administrators have, I don't know). I make a good living ($60K if I teach summers) but I don't think I'm wildly overpaid.

(As I've said before, I think the ballooning tuitions are a fault of three things: first, increasing unfunded mandates towards things like mainstreaming and green initiatives and stuff, and the administrative structure that comes with them - and then there are also lots of vice presidents that are created positions to honor someone (or conversely, get someone you can't fire but want out of the classroom, out of the classroom). And then also, the demand on the part of students and parents for the Newest and Greatest: cafeterias, new dorms with washers and dryers in every suite, fancy workout centers (not for the athletes; for the average student), computer centers with new computers every other year...all of that costs money. And also the fact that stuff like gas, electricity, all those things are going up)

Then again, are there ANY careers today that seem to enjoy general respect? I mean, other than sports stars and movie stars? One of the reasons I love "Dirty Jobs" is that Mike Rowe treats the people mucking out stables or dealing with garbage with respect - and those are people who really DO deserve respect, as they're the behind-the-scenes folks who do the stuff that keeps our society running. (But still, I'd like for once for professors not to be vilified. Yes, I know, there are the lazy tenured people who make the rest of us look bad, but honestly, on my campus at least, they must be less than 10% of the population...)

The death of fun?

This is something that's been rattling around in my brain for a few days: are we, as a culture, forgetting how to have fun? (Or is it just me?)

I watched a few minutes of a documentary on, of all things, Tupperware, while taking a break during my workout (yes, there's some irony there, as I'll note later). They showed film from the get-togethers that the Tupperware sales people - I guess the top-sellers? had, where people (mostly women, because the people who hosted the parties were women) were water-skiing, and speedboating, and even doing a few reckless looking things (I remember a shot of a boat actually being started up on land, and propelling itself into water).

And yeah, yeah: I know the common belief that the 50s were an awful stifling time to be female (though from what my mom's said, being in grad school and a young-married in the late 50s and early 60s does not sound so bad: she and my dad gave dinner parties with themes, and they learned how to cook different international foods, and they went to plays, and they had cookouts with friends, and there seemed to be a culture of "let's get together on the weekends and hang out or play badminton or something" in the department my dad was in at the time)

But now, so much, it seems that a lot of stuff people used to enjoy is now clearly marked Bad For You. (When was the last time you heard of a cocktail party? I don't remember my parents ever giving them so much, but I do remember when I was a kid and they'd have dinner parties, they did serve a few types of cocktails (they didn't have an extensive bar set-up, they weren't regular drinkers) for the people who wanted them.). Or how many times have you seen someone be served a delicious restaurant meal or dessert, only for them to say, "oh, this looks SINFUL."

Stop it, people. Stop. It. Can't we just enjoy something for once without telling the world how guilty we feel (or, more likely: pretending to feel guilty because we think that makes us look virtuous).

Or: going for a drive. The price of gas now makes that prohibitive but even before that, it seems that just tooling around in your car is now sort of looked down upon; it's something that's "not done" any more. (Of course, some people have such awful commutes that the last thing they want to do on a Sunday afternoon is to go for a drive). But I know Sunday drives used to be a common amusement: heck, when I was a kid (after the oil embargoes ended), my family used to do them occasionally.

And a lot of things that used to seem fun have been so regulated, so controlled, so vetted for safety, that they're no longer spontaneous - look at the playgrounds where things like swings have been taken down, because a kid might hurt himself or herself.

And other things are now made "medicinal" - there's a PSA that runs on the cartoon channel about "Get out and play, an hour a day" exhorting the kiddies to run around lest they become obese. When I was a kid, running around an hour a day was just a given; going outside to play after school was the reward for either not having homework, or getting your homework done. Now it's been turned into something people "must" do. And adults exercise for health - I do an hour-long workout most days, and it's not fun. Oh, maybe the first 20 minutes or so is, but after that, it's just enforced, because I know I need to do it for good health. (If I had more free time in my life, maybe I'd hike. Or I'd bike, if my balance and the horrible potholey streets and the terrible drivers in my town didn't make me feel I was taking my life into my hands). When I was a kid, getting exercise was easy, and we didn't think of it as exercise....

And other things. Certain foods become "approved" because they have health-giving compounds. You "should" eat a certain amount of fatty fish in a week. Or, a small square (but only a small one!) of dark chocolate - because it's good for you.

And hobbies: I know people who take up hobbies not because they want to relax or have fun, but because they've read that Sudoku or crossword puzzles or bridge slows down mental decline.

And stuff like Farmer's Markets....or shopping at local businesses. I started doing it because it was fun, now I'm told it's a virtuous thing to do. And you know? Going to the Farmer's Market is less enjoyable when you have people walking around talking loudly about how much "better" they are than the louts who shop at wal-mart. 

And it seems that any more, we spend a lot of time either apologizing for stuff that seems "sinful" (because it's not expressly good for us) or justifying things as being "good for us." And for me, I don't know, that saps a lot of the enjoyment of things away. It's like we all now have giant checklists of Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots (Or at least If Thou Dost, Thou Must Express Thy Feelings of Guilt).

And the thing is: in a lot of arenas, we aren't really allowed to talk about the things that traditional religions would classify as sins: cheating on your spouse, lying to people, being unkind to others...

And it also seems that there's a frantic but fruitless attempt to have fun - I would argue that a lot of the cheating-on-spouses falls into this category. (And I'd imagine it's not really fun, not in the long run, and causes more guilt, even in the most debauched person, than eating a big slice of chocolate cake would). Or we go after more and more loud, flashy, and in some cases, violent entertainment.

I think of what older relatives talk about having done for "fun" back in the day - they played cards. Or they made popcorn and sat around the table and talked. Or the kids rode bikes all over town. Or they jumped off the railroad trestle into the river and swam (wow, would that ever be illegal now. But my mom said she never heard of anyone being injured or killed doing it...). People had less "stuff" (especially in my mom's family), but they spent more time just enjoying themselves - no one really "exercised" (except for the guys on the football or track teams, and that was to build themselves up to compete), no one really worried about what they ate except for a few people with health problems.

It seems to me we're turning into a nation of worriers...unable to have fun.  That we overestimate some risks (and maybe, underestimate others).

Oh, I'm sure some of this is colored by my own feelings right now: I'm working a really tough schedule this semester, and it seems most days I come home, do what I "must" (Grading, generally) for the next day, and then am too tired (and it's too late in the day, at any rate) for having fun. And it seems the people around me are equally weighed down by work: I can't remember the last time a group of us from the department went out to lunch together (we used to do that several times a semester).

And I don't know how to change things or fix things...

What I need

I think this weekend I need an extended period of time in my sewing room.

I have a quilt top partly done (as in, I was stitching two pieces of fabric together, the phone rang, I went to answer it, and then never got back to it other than to turn off the sewing machine).

Making quilts - like knitting and embroidery - are things that keep me from getting too "broken." It's what brings me back to who I am, and helps me forget the troubling things of the past week. (Like: one of my disabilities-concerns students called me up ALL ANGRY because I didn't tell him what room the lab met in, and he didn't know where to go. Um....we meet in the room where we always meet. The room that's listed on your schedule. This is someone who was absent for the past three labs and he acted as if I had deliberately moved the lab and not told him....he didn't even bother to check before calling if we were in the same room as we had been in the last time he showed up to lab. And yes, I realize, I have to discount some of the reaction because of the challenges he may face, but: I don't like having long, rambling, hostile, angry phone messages. Also, he called when he KNEW I was in class...actually called while the lab he "couldn't find" was in session.)

It also helps me shrug off some of the bad news that presses on me - like that there's a move afoot to abolish tenure for profs in my state (and apparently that includes ALREADY tenured people...and profs could be let go without clear cause, which is extremely alarming. I mean, I'm a good teacher and I do probably my fair share of research and more than my fair share of service...but still, tick off the wrong legislator and you're gone. Or maybe make a little TOO much pay in one year, and you could be replaced by a younger model. And while in some cases there'd probably be recourse in the form of appeals, still, that makes everyone's lives more difficult. We already have post-tenure review, with the aim of  "encouraging" people to do their best (I've never heard of tenure being revoked for non-performance, but the way our Policies and Principles manual is worded, it sounds to me like it could be).

I try to remind myself  that things will ultimately be OK (even if that "OK" means "only in the Afterlife"), but I'm a born worrier, so it's hard to shut that kind of thing off. But going and working on quilt tops - either sewing pieces together, or cutting a new quilt - does.

Friday has to come early for me this week.

Busybodies. Freaking busybodies.

The people who will intrude in other people's lives and tell them how to live their lives, even when that person is hurting NO ONE (or no one but themselves) with their choices. This news story of the little girl whose lunch was allegedly confiscated because a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, a box of apple juice, and a bag of potato chips aren't "nutritional" enough (and in return, her mom was forced to buy a school lunch, of which the girl ate three "chicken" nuggets - and I use the scare quotes deliberately, if the nuggets are like the cafeteria nuggets I've had).

I feel for that kid. If I had been her? I would have cried inconsolably for the rest of the day - I was a little rule-follower, and even when the rules made no sense, I tried to follow them. And I was also an unpopular kid, so I felt like the teachers were my only allies at school - and so, if I felt they turned against me by ratting me out to the Food Police...well. I probably would have begged my parents Never To Go Back To School Ever Again.

The thing is - when we're graduating kids who can't read, who can't show basic respect to another human being, and who can't even minimally take care of themselves - it's WAY overstepping bounds to criticize a lunch a kid's mom packed for her.

 There are so many OTHER busybodies in the world. I fully expect before my career ends, I will see myself forced to either submit my packed lunch for Health Inspection or be required to prove I exercise the amount of time I do in a day - under the guise of "Wellness." (Already, my health insurance company sends me a god-awful nannying "birthday" card reminding me of crap like, "If you're overweight, get your weight under control" and "eat lots of fruits and vegetables and less meat and sweets." And "move more, eat less." RAEG. Like I'm not smart enough to figure out that leading a healthy lifestyle is good for me. (And yeah, yeah - I know, there are people who probably AREN'T. But why harass me? I barely make my deductible by December, it's not like I'm a huge drain on their resources.) Oh, and of course there's the obligatory "limit stress." Well, if stress is the result of a thwarted desire to choke the living daylights out of some idiot who desperately deserves it, the health insurer is a little late on that one.

With all the health-nannying, food-nannying, exercise-nannying kids get, I would not be surprised if in five or ten years eating disorders among teens and young adults becomes even more common, and then people run around going, "How could this have happened? SOMETHING MUST BE DONE."

Also: exercise in the form of running around outside (like I used to do as a kid, and frankly, I was a pretty skinny kid) becomes a lot LESS fun when you have the President's wife coming on television to tell you you "should" be doing it.

Trying to love them.

Mostly, I like my students. (I particularly like my soil science class this semester; they're all pleasant and responsible people. I could probably set up the lab, unlock the door, and let them have at it without my having to be there...and I'd come back to find they'd successfully completed the lab AND cleaned everything up - in fact, left the lab cleaner than it was when they walked in.)

But I have three students...well, that I probably need an attitude adjustment about (this comes because my women's Bible group last night wound up discussing how we are called to love the unloveable).

Person #1: wrote "joke" answers on the first exam. One "joke" answer I can roll with, sometimes it even makes me laugh. (I wrote, "Nice try but no points" next to his first one). But as I went on, I got the distinct feeling that (a) this person isn't taking this class seriously and (b) he put in some of these answers on the assumption that I wasn't going to READ the exam, just skim and give points for filled-in places. Which irritates me, because that means he assumes I'm not doing my job. (This is someone I've had in class before and he does seem like someone who doesn't take his education as seriously as he could).

Person #2: I actually have an easier time with this person because I understand there are extenuating circumstances. This is someone with multiple learning disabilities (and because of HIPAA, I can't know what they are). They lack "filters" and tend to blurt stuff in class, which makes me tense up and makes class uncomfortable. But they're also one of those bad-luck bears: they've been out sick or injured (apparently this person was in a car wreck last week) quite a bit, and they huffily* told me when I suggested they needed to get over to Disability Concerns and take the test I had dropped off that, "The dean told me I had a week to get everything made up." Interesting, the dean didn't bother to inform the student's professors....Also, this is someone that several faculty strongly suspect has a substance-abuse problem, and I'm coming to see how they see that, and wonder myself. (I just really hope this person can pass my class on the first go, so I'm not dealing with them for multiple semesters). The sad thing is, this is someone who plans to be a neurobiologist/neurosurgeon...and I just don't think they have the ability. They can't focus for very long at a time....

(*I suppose it could be that they're autism-spectrum and I'm interpreting brusqueness that some autism-spectrum people have as "huffiness.")

#3 is the one I have the hardest time with. This is someone who is/believes himself to be very popular: he's in a frat (I think he's even an officer). He wears ironic sideburns. And he's a jerk to me and the other students in class. I've had to speak to him twice (in what, four weeks of class?) about him talking loudly and out of turn in class. And he comes unprepared and then gets upset when he gets 'called' on it, as if "Because I'm in a frat and I'm Mr. Cool, I shouldn't have to do this stuff." He earned a 69 on his first exam and proceeded during the rest of class to crack jokes about "69." Dude, I know what that number represents in the sexual realm. But let me tell you, in the grading realm, in this class? It means that you will need to repeat the class unless you do much better. (I try to have a sense of humor, but there are some things I just can't have a sense of humor about very much.) (I will say if he needs to repeat the class? I will not be teaching this particular class in the fall so I won't have to deal with him. I guess I can take comfort in that.)

So, I realize we're called to pray for our "enemies" (and I don't really regard these as "enemies," just as people I let get under my skin). So I guess I need to try to pray for these people. (And not necessarily pray, "Please let Person #3 not be a jerk today")

A quick question...

What would your interpretation be if you were driving in to work and the person ahead of you had a U.S. flag on their car antenna, but the flag was upside down?

Is it just someone who's too much of an idiot to put it on correctly? (At that, I will say I'm not fond of flags as car antenna decorations and such - they get tattered very fast and that seems disrespectful to me). Or are they sending a message? I know militarily, a flag flown upside down means "we are in dire distress" but I have also known people who seemed to hate and reject a lot of what the U.S. stands for as flying/wearing flags upside down. Of course, that was during the Bush era, so I don't know. Maybe it means something different now. I don't know. I don't think I'd fly a flag upside down unless my state had been invaded by a foreign army and no help was forthcoming....

So I don't know what to make of the driver in the car. (I didn't see a university parking sticker on it, so I don't think it's likely it's a prof here).

I know we have some serious problems, both in terms of fiscal policy/government spending and also in terms of those in Washington figuring they're entitled to do what they want, regardless of the will of the people (or in some cases, the Constitution), but I still think we have hope as a nation. I also think maybe people are beginning to wake up about the idea of over-reaching government, what with this fight over Obama wanting to require Catholic institutions to pay for birth control for their workers. (I think - and I certainly HOPE - the First Amendment wins here. And I know that, as a Protestant, if I were working at a Catholic institution, I would not expect birth control to be made available to me: you take a job, you accept the fundamental policies of your employer.)

Sugar is the new salt...

Apparently the new bugaboo that needs to be limited is sugar. Because we're not smart enough to limit our intakes ourselves. Or sugar is addictive. Or whatever.

(I find it ironic that there is someone running for president who apparently favors legalization of all drugs - even meth - and yet, there are others who would make sugar a controlled substance).

I guess what the would-be regulators want to regulate is processed food that's high in sugar - sodas, candy bars and the like. (I say "guess" because the article is behind a paywall: a link to it is in this Forbes article). But if they really wanted to regulate "all" sugar - wtf? Does that mean fruit becomes contraband? And what about using sugar as a preservative - for many years, jams and jellies were one way of keeping nature's bounty edible by using enough sugar to prevent microbial spoilage of the fruit. (Yes, we have freezers now. But they're bad for the environment: all that refrigerant, all that electricity). And sugar used to be a part of curing meat (it still is, as far as I know). And glucose - hell, glucose is what cells RUN on. Yes, they can make that from non-sugar things, but still. Do they still allow Type I diabetics to carry glucose tablets? I can see regulations on sugar "for our own good" carrying all kinds of unintended consequences.

I don't know. This kind of thing makes me tired, but I suppose if we wind up with some kind of federally-subsidized healthcare for all (and I think that's coming, no matter how hard people are still fighting it), we will be told it's our patriotic duty to submit to these regulations (and others) because we're not smart enough or strong enough to limit sugar intake on our own. That anyone who develops Type II Diabetes (never mind that it's a disease with a strong genetic component) didn't do all they could to keep from costing the government - and by extension, the taxpayers - a lot of money. Public shaming! You get the red D to wear on your chest!

I limit my sugar intake. I don't AVOID sugar, I don't tie myself in knots over "Oh cripes, I WANT this tangerine. But it has sugar in it, and that's bad, and besides, I already had an apple earlier today, I'm probably better off just sucking on this broccoli stem instead." But I don't go crazy with the amount of sugar because, well, it's better for my health to have balance in my diet. (For example: I don't care for soda, so not drinking soda is a convenient way for me to avoid large amounts of sugar. But if you like soda and want to drink it, peace be with you.) I try to take responsibility for my own diet and I am insulted that there are people who are telling me I'm ADDICTED to sugar and need to be made to go cold turkey.

I like chocolate - so I eat a little chocolate every few days. And dammit, I don't want to have to go to Walgreen's someday and ask the pharmacist, and sign a register, like you do for psuedoephedrine.

Here's the thing: a bureaucracy's goal is to perpetuate itself. When we've managed to, I don't know, people starving in the streets (though the ads tell us childhood hunger is still a big problem), bureaucracies have to find something else to do. And since we're (still) a prosperous nation where most of the problems have been solved, bureaucracies manage by demonizing and regulating other stuff. First it was trans fats. Then it was salt (at least in NYC). Now it looks like sugar's next. And then there are those articles out there about how sitting is really, really bad for you - maybe we could lower unemployment by having the government hire people on the dole to hang out in office buildings and scream at workers every 10 minutes or so to get up and walk around.

If we were in the middle of a famine (and God forbid that ever happens), I don't expect we'd see the stories about how "food x is really bad for you" or "food y will give you this disease."

Once again, I think of good old C.S. Lewis: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."

What makes it better

There's a fairly new (sit-down, order off the menu, not a buffet) Chinese restaurant in my town. It's pretty good - I've eaten there a few times.

And they do carryout. I realized that for $3.50 I can get a couple pints of hot and sour soup - hot and sour soup that's better than what I can make from scratch at home.

So on my way home at "lunchtime" (close to 2 pm - I have an AWFUL teaching schedule this go-round), I picked a batch up. Ate half of it, have the other half for later this weekend.

I know people sometimes make rude jokes about Chinese restaurants, but several of the ones I've known - run by immigrants - the people running them are super-nice and friendly, and they work really hard to be a success. And the food at this one is really quite good, and they make some effort to plate it up nicely when you eat at the restaurant. I hope they continue to have good success, both because I like having them as a food option, but also because the people who run it are nice and do seem to be hard workers.

Facepalming.

Two things:

1. I'm getting really tired of all the Komen stories/misinformation/snarkiness. And this reminds me why I vet charity groups very carefully before I give.

2. I'm irritated at a person in a group I belong to. This group, one of our activities, is that we give out scholarships to students. We have guidelines that we follow. We've been very pleased with past recipients - most have graduated with honors, and a number of them are still in the community, working in whatever field they earned their degree in.

Because of a quirk, this year we have two International students (Well, granted - one of them is in the process, if she has not already achieved it, of earning citizenship here). One person didn't like that and threw a right fit when the second International student was named. (The first one was a "continuing" scholarship - we re-award scholarships until a student graduates provided they keep a minimum 3.0 GPA and are making reasonable progress toward graduating).

It got kind of ugly. At one point (did I mention I'm Chair of the scholarship committee?) I was very tempted to get up, say, "If you can pick people better than the rest of us, then you may have MY place on the committee."

The thing is: there is NOWHERE in the guidelines that we are restricted to U.S. citizens only. We'd have to change the guidelines. And what this person was doing was trying to get us to revoke the scholarship from the most qualified applicant and award it to someone less-qualified simply based on membership in a particular group. Which would not be ethical given the situation.

But, because that person raised a stink and another person joined in, we called a vote: do we keep this recipient or reject her? (I was ready to resign if the vote was to reject - I think that would be very wrong). The vote, with two opposed, was to grant the scholarship.

So, I went to the group president later and said: if we're going to have this problem, we need to address it. If people genuinely have a problem with us awarding to International students, then we have to rewrite the guidelines. (I didn't like the idea, neither did she, but we agreed we had to put it forward to the group).

(I will note my mother's response to all this, when I told her, because it's also kind of my opinion: "If the American kids aren't earning high enough grades or doing enough outside stuff to be the top candidates, then they need to work harder.")

Also, I'll note we get probably a disproportionate number of International student applicants, because so many of the other sources of aid are closed off to them. (Also, I've met a large number of U.S. students with the attitude of "Meh, I'll get loans, I don't have to work for them, and if I can't pay them off when I graduate, let them come after me.")

So anyway: we researched it, brought the issue before the membership, and opened it up for discussion.

Several women pointed out what my mother said. And a couple did remark on the fact that International students have fewer choices.

And then the original agitator spoke up. Now, I tend to be a very literal-minded person, so I did not get what she was getting at at first, using very veiled language. But then, as she kept speaking, I realized what she was saying:

"What if one of our scholarship recipients goes home and becomes a terrorist?"

Okay, that insulted me on three levels:

1. The two "International" students we have, one is from South America, one is from Vietnam. They've been recommended by several professors and community leaders. They hold down jobs in the community. While I am sure some "real" terrorists slipped by the notice of many, so do many American citizens who commit horrible crimes - and for that matter, there are homegrown terrorists. Neither of these kids in question seem to show any kind of ill-will to the U.S. The student from South America, in fact, is working to become a citizen, because, as she said, she was so impressed with the freedom and opportunity we have here and she wants to stay here and build a life.

2. Both of the students are Christians, they noted that in their cover letters. One had a church leader write a letter for her. While I'm aware that some Christians can become violent....most of the violent terrorists we've seen in recent years are not Christian. (Not that their faiths entered any into our decision, other than the fact that the one letter emphasized the conscientiousness and ethics of the student).

3. The thing that made me angriest? What I "heard" her saying was, "I don't think the scholarship committee is discerning enough or smart enough to recognize someone who might later present a problem and dishonor us." That was the point where I really wanted to say, "Okay, fine, lady. You get my slot on the committee; I'm DONE." Of course, I wouldn't really want to do that - as a friend of mine (not in this group) I vented to noted: "You really don't want someone like HER doing the picking, do you?" (The person in question is an attention-hound, someone who's never worked a day in their life, and someone who once berated ME for not doing more volunteer work during the day - even though she knows I teach full time. "Can't you just cancel class occasionally?" was her response. Um, no, not if I want to keep my tenure, I can't.)

I kind of abstained from discussion because at that point I was so nettled that I figured nothing I could say would be helpful.

Finally, we reached a compromise: for every scholarship slot, the committee will have a "top 3" choices which the membership will then vote on. While this will slow things down considerably and mean more work - it also means the people who think we aren't working hard or being careful will see what an effort it is to pick and choose. I'm all for making them read all 15 or however many applications that we need to wade through to pick the applicants.

The only thing is? I suspect in some ways this will spike the chances of International students a little. I know since that one person got so nasty about it I'd think twice, unless the International student was clearly head and shoulders above all the U.S. students. If it's a matter of one activity or .2 of a GPA, forget it - I'll push forward the American kid. Not fair and not right, maybe, but people who are nasty and unpleasant get their way in this world, and I'm too damn tired of fighting and being yelled at.

No good deed goes unpunished. And volunteers are usually thanked with criticism. That's just how life is.

Holy. Crap.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this, but: Software like Turnitin is now being used on college application essays, and is finding some are plagiarized.

The downside of this is that it just further erodes my enthusiasm for human nature. The upside is that colleges can and should IMMEDIATELY ashcan those applications. (Hell, they should have a nasty letter they send out the applicant, saying something like, "Nice try, do you think we are that stupid?")

(And yes, yes, I know: there are false positives. But I think TELLING students up-front: we will be analyzing your essay using software to detect plagiarized content could help, though I'm sure it will also bring on an avalanche of special snowflakes who get rejected demanding to know if it's because their essay turned up a false positive...when actually, they just didn't make the cut.)

The hope of Udacity?

I've read a little commentary on this and I'm not sure what to make of it. I think it could be a good thing, but I also think that we have a history in the U.S. of too-uncritically embracing "the new" in education because it is NEW rather than because it is GOOD. And that sometimes what must be done to keep quality in something high is overlooked and the "oooh, shiny" aspect is emphasized.

In short: Sebastian Thrun, who was a tenured prof at Stanford, ran an enormous (and enormously popular, apparently) online course in artificial intelligence.

There were 160,000 students in the course.

Yes, you heard that right. All of the grading, all of the exams and such, were entirely automated.

Part of the...I guess you'd say, controversy? Was that Stanford would not "credential" students who took the course on line. (I presume that means they wound up taking it for no transferrable credit). (Another aspect: the course was apparently free...which is kind of amazing. And also is probably why Stanford couldn't grant credit for it.)

Thrun has since left Stanford, and wants to start up an online university (called Udacity, and I admit, the name makes me want to throw up a little, but I hate most cutesy brand names). Apparently Udacity is going to be free, which makes me wonder a little bit: how will they pay their "content providers" (or professors). How will they pay people who do grading in the courses that can't be 100% machine-graded? Will they sell ads, like some online publications do? Will they expect the people writing for it and working with it to do so pro bono? None of the articles I've seen address how Udacity will pay for itself. (Which makes me...not exactly suspicious, but concerned.)

I don't know. I admit, I'm somewhat leery of online teaching. Don't get me wrong: when it's done the right way, it can be very good. It can provide a wonderful benefit for students who work long hours and only have "school time" at hours that conventional programs would not be open. It's probably a Godsend for people with certain disabilities that makes leaving the house difficult. Or for people living in remote areas.

I can see it working well, for example, for a small-ish, writing-intensive class, where students submit their work to their prof, discuss in online fora, maybe even critique each other's work.

But in the sciences there are some challenges. Labs, for example: unless you expect students to come in to a campus once a week (or once a month for a long day), you can't really do labs the way you'd normally do them. Or, at least, I couldn't...my field labs, for example, are geared to specific sites and require multiple people working together as a group. And in some cases, safety issues would prevent students from doing certain labs at home. And, say what you will, I DON'T think online simulations of stuff are an acceptable substitute...maybe for a few lab exercises, yes, but I think manipulating "real" stuff and dealing with the "real" challenges that sometimes come up in field settings (or even in the lab) are valuable. And having students together in a lab room - I have seen that the students learn from each other, and that one group's problem provides a jumping-off point for discussion or troubleshooting by the other students. And I'm not sure how that would work online.

The other issue that faces online courses is cheating. Especially for classes, like, say, Introduction to Biology for Majors, like I teach. It's an intensive course, the students are expected to master it before they move on...so I can see a motivation to cheat. (I've heard others who teach online classes say, "You just have to assume they're taking tests with their textbook open, and write the tests that much harder.") I know some classes use on-site proctored exams, which would maybe improve conditions, but my campus does not. (Every time we've raised the concern about exam security in online classes, the only response we get is, "Weeeeeellll....you know, 80% of students in conventional classes report cheating." Which, to me, is not a response: for one thing, no citation for this is EVER given, so it could be a made-up statistic (80% is depressingly high). Also, it's not clear if that 80% means "most of them tried it once, got busted, and never tried it again" - it would be a lot harder to catch someone cheating online).

(As I said before, maybe online classes are best for the kind where students are mainly evaluated based on papers, rather than exams)

My other concern with online teaching, is that the quality can vary widely. (Well, that's also true of in-person teaching). But it does seem that there's less quality-control in online courses...we've had a few people come in as transfers with online basic-level classes who didn't know jack, despite earning decent grades.

My biggest concern, though, is the uncritical, unquestioning acceptance, the making a one-size-fits-all solution out of any "new" educational theory/process/tool/whatever and telling faculty that they WILL use this tool. The idea of "adapt or die" (except, in this case, the adaptation may not actually confer an advantage).

The other thing that concerns me is that I could see some universities looking at this model, seeing giant dollar signs, and going "We'll get faculty to teach thousands of students! We'll be ROLLING in tuition money!" without really thinking about the challenges or costs of setting up such a system. (I've seen it happen, on a smaller scale, with regular on line classes...we had someone nearly quit because TPTB decided, two days before classes began, to double the enrollment in one of his classes without really telling him.) The problem is that some people are not really aware that teaching online is still TEACHING. That you still have some of the issues to deal with that you have in a face-to-face class (plus the added issue of "I missed the quiz and now it's time-locked, can you unlock it for me" and technical problems on the part of the students). If you're doing anything OTHER than purely machine-graded automated testing, the amount of time required is going to scale upward with the class size. (Oh, how I wish TPTB realized that for in-person classes....)

The other issue with the way the original huge AI class was taught was the lack of grades/credentials. I can see highly motivated people who just want to learn taking classes like these for personal enrichment....but without grades or some kind of final evaluation, you can't tell (as an employer, or grad school, or whatever) if the person who took the class really learned from it or if they slacked their way through it. (And for the autodidactic types: there are already many things out there to feed that need....as noted in the comments on the Joanne Jacobs article - those "Learning Company" CDs and dvds, and, even simpler technology, books.) So I don't know how "new" it is allowing "adult learners" to learn about something they're interested in purely for fun.

I think the "credentialing" will be the biggest issue going forward: how do you "prove" someone learned something? I wouldn't go to a doctor who took all his or her coursework online for no grade; I wouldn't hire a technician for my lab without some kind of clear evidence that he or she knew what he or she was going to be doing. And I don't think most employers will have the time or patience or funds to apply a battery of tests to EVERY new potential hire to weed out the ones who don't know anything. (And as much as Thrun seemed to hate the idea of "weeder classes" - well, you DO need to decide who is good and who is not-good at something, and employ only the good ones.)

A lot of people are either heralding or damning Udacity for "bringing on the death of the university." I think my reaction is "not so fast, amigo..."

Things and stuff

Things flit through my head, I think of posting on them, but meh. They all add up to one thing: We're kind of screwed right now. If I, with no degree in economics or Political Science or any of that shizz can see that we're going to have to cut federal spending, and damn soon....why can't the people we elected find the backbone to SAY that to people? (That's a rhetorical question; I know the answer already)

So it's easier right now to focus on my day-to-day life than to worry about what will happen in the coming years.

That said, I'm glad the weekend's here. I've dealt with a lot of aggressively-clueless people ("I CAN'T FIND THE ARTICLE YOU SAID I WOULD BE ABLE TO FIND!!!" um, it's right there), self-centered people ("I don't care if it takes you three hours, do it for me."), demanding people (someone comes in five minutes before I'm going out the door for a day and DEMANDING help right then, even though I've had 3+ hours of office hours earlier in the day), rude people, and on, and on.

I try to love people - my faith calls me to - but I find that people are awfully good at making themselves hard to LIKE.

It's just nice to be able to stay home for a day and not interact with people. People wear me the heck out.

When I can get my thoughts together better I want to write about this new online "Udacity" thing that some people are claiming WILL REPLACE UNIVERSITIES AND MUH HA HA WILL KILL THE CUSHY LIFE PROFESSORS HAVE HAD UP TO NOW. But not just yet.

That said...

Even though it looks like I have one person with a lot of problems that I will be having to deal with (this is also someone who doesn't seem to follow either written or spoken directions well), I do have a lot of good students.

Now, by "good," I mean something a little different from some faculty. Some of my "good" students earn good grades, but some of them are C/B students. Not the top of the heap. But that's okay. Because they're nice people. And they work hard in class. And they're polite to the other students, and try to help them out when they're having difficulty.

And a lot of them have interests outside of school...in one of my labs the other day, I was talking about a program I had seen part of on National Geographic, about "What happened if they drained the Great Lakes." (The title sounds kind of cheesy, but it was a really interesting program). And a bunch of them had seen it, and one guy knew quite a bit about the satellite/remote sensing techniques they used to predict what the lakefloor topography was.

And as I said, they're just friendly people. And someone who is polite to me and to the other people around them, that goes a long way with me. Few things make me tired faster than someone who's unpleasant, especially if they're doing it in the service of trying to get what they want. So I'm grateful for the polite students. I feel better after having class with them, I feel like we're less likely to be hurtling off a cliff, at least as far as the upcoming generation of workers goes. (Granted, a few of my students are non-traditional - the guy who knew all about the remote sensing stuff is probably in his 50s; he greeted me one day as "young lady," which made me chuckle, because I don't feel so young any more). But it is a nice thing to have positive interactions with students and I'm just going to have to look for that and notice it when it happens, to keep me on an even keel for when I have to deal with the Special Snowflakes of the world.

And so, it begins.

I have a research project in one of my classes. To maximize the chances of student success, I require (first) a paragraph or so giving the hypothesis/question they want to use, and then, after I approve that, I have them write a proposal with methods, etc.

It's a giant pile of work for me but I think it's valuable, at least for some of the students.

Well, the ideas were due today. And one dude comes up and says, "Uh, I'm not from around here..." And I'm thinking, this is a lead in to, "I left my paper at home."

But no. It's "I knew some of the plants and insects and stuff in [state that is actually not very far from where we are now], but I don't know the stuff here, so I couldn't come up with an idea."

And I just looked at him in dismay.

He's known about this for over a week. He hung around a long time in lab this week and he could have asked me about it. But nooooooo, he waits until the due date and then brings up some excuse as to "I don't know what to do because" when he could have VERY EASILY rectified that by talking to me. (He also came to my office to talk to me about other stuff this week).

I'm afraid this is going to be my "makes me tear out my hair" person this semester. He has a reputation: he took, I think, four tries to pass the prerequisite for the course I teach. (He has some learning disabilities, but he gets many accommodations). He has a habit of just randomly talking in class which creeps me out - I recognize that it may be related to one of his disabilities but still, it's hard for me to talk about some complex topic when someone is talking about birds or other unrelated stuff. (And yes, I've mentioned it to him. Apparently he has a hard time controlling it. And I know, it feels very churlish of me to be complaining, but having a constant undertone of someone muttering stuff...it sets off several of my internal "alarms," I think because I once knew someone who muttered a lot before BIG GIANT UNPREDICTABLE ANGRY OUTBURST)


Also, several of my colleagues suspect the individual of having a substance-abuse problem; he's seemed a bit unfocused at times and occasionally smells of alcohol. (Or so they've told me).

Look, I get being a little avoidant. I'm a little avoidant myself. But waiting until the day something is due and then throwing up a reason why you're clueless when you could have come in and talked about it - when you've shown you're already not afraid to come in and talk to the prof? Just irritates me.

SOPA/PIPA

One interesting thing about this whole crappy situation: This is one of the few times in the past few years I've seen people who leaned left and people who leaned right united in their opposition to something.

(Apparently politicians and some Hollywood types are the main supporters of this. Or so it seems.).

This is one of those things...this just shows the overreach of the government. This is just another example of someone going "SOMEONE MUST DO SOMETHING" and some politicians get the idea that "DOING SOMETHING" means passing a very broad-brush law.

If I'm reading things right, in fact, what most people WANTED done (that is, stopping piracy from OVERSEAS based sites - where most of the piracy seems to be happening) isn't even covered by the bill. Idiocy. And even though it's been "modified," (to apparently take out the IP-grabbing part), still, it just needs to be trashed and to go away.

If so many people, and especially so many people in the tech world despise this, and point out that there are going to be giant unintended consequences that will actually hurt a lot of people - perhaps even some this bill is claiming to help - why won't Congress listen and at least let it die, if not totally vote it down?

This reminds me a bit of that "Consumer Protection" bill of a few years ago - remember when some Chinese-made toys (even by big companies like Mattel) showed up with unacceptable levels of things like lead and cadmium? And Something Had To Be Done? And if the original bill had passed as planned, most thrift stores would stop selling used children's clothing, and some libraries were concerned that a lot of their children's books would be in violation and would have to be scrapped? Same kind of thing...a situation where laws that were probably already in place were broken, but to try to punish the lawbreakers, new legislation was proposed that would punish many innocent people.

LED "candles"

I have to admit, I think these things are genius.

I love the look of tealight or votive candles in my house, but I rarely used them for two reasons:

1. I'm very paranoid about open flames. Even though I keep the candles in a holder (and usually one that's taller than the candle, like tealights down in a glass), I worry if I get called to the phone or something. And you can't light them and forget them, or leave the room for long.

There have been several bad fires here in the past few years that were attributed to unattended candles. Now, granted, the person may have been less careful with them than I am, but still.

2. The smoke that candles - even "eco friendly" soy candles - can bother my allergies. (And most scented candles I can't have - the scents bother me. And it's increasingly hard to find unscented candles in just ordinary stores. I do keep a bunch on hand for power outages but I don't like to use them for "everyday" in case I need them and then don't have them).

But I bought some LED "candles" recently. They're not perfect - the light they give off is more orange than a true candle flame, and the flicker seems a little artificial looking. But those two problems are minor compared to the benefits of the things. I like having LOTS of tealights on the mantel in my house, so I bought a pack of 24 LED candles and lined them up, and scattered some throughout the room (coffee table and such). I really like the way they look all lit up. And they don't make smoke that makes me cough or that leaves deposits on the wall.

And, best of all: I could light them, leave the room, and not worry. In fact, one night I had an evening meeting and I lit the "candles" and left them going when I left the house.

Because I live alone, sometimes coming home to an empty dark house is a little depressing. It's SO nice to come home and have those tiny "candles" flickering in my living room, making it seem more homey and friendly.

(Yeah, I know: I could leave a lamp on. But I was a kid during the energy crisis of the 70s and I STILL hear my dad in my head going "Turn off that light! Do you think we're made of money?" so I can't, quite. If I felt less safe where I lived - if I felt like I needed a light on to see that no one had broken in in my absence, I would. But right now the "coming home to a dark house" is an emotional issue and not a safety issue...so I turn out the lamps when I leave.

(When I'm out of town, I set several on timers. And my neighbors know that I'm gone and keep an eye out on the house for me))

I don't know how long the lights will last. I hesitated buying them because I thought, "They'll be cheap crap that will poop out right away." So far, I've had them on for a few hours (maybe as many as 8) and they seem to continue to be working fine. And the batteries are replaceable, though I don't know but that the button batteries might cost more than a whole new tealight would. (Supposedly those tiny LED lights can last for 10,000 hours or more....)

They're not really bright enough, even en masse to read by, but maybe with a reflective surface...meaning they'd be good in a power outage.

But they're just a little thing that I really like right now.

I dunno, it just seems ugly to me.

Apparently the Southern cook Paula Deen has been diagnosed with Type II diabetes.

I'm seeing all kinds of snark and "color me surprised" comments and the like.

I realize that fat people are one of the last bastions of people it's OK to make fun of, but this just seems needlessly mean to me.

Type II diabetes can be a deadly disease; it's not something to make light of.

I don't know, but sometimes it seems like our culture is just getting so ugly and there are so many people who are just sitting around waiting for someone to suffer a misfortune that they can laugh over. (This is one of the times that I wish "My Name is Earl"-style karma was in operation, so the people who had a good guffaw over someone else's misfortune would find misfortune of their own...)

I may be particularly sensitive because a person close to me was recently diagnosed and I've seen just how much they've had to change their life (diet, medications, exercise) to try to deal with it. It's not funny and it's not cool to laugh at it.

ignoring the debates and stuff

I know, I know - how can I be an "informed voter" if I don't watch them.

But meh.

One thing I will say: I'm really off of Gingrich for now after hearing how he's reacted to stuff. The last thing we need in the White House is some petty, hair-trigger-temper guy who takes stuff personally and gets in a snit over things and claims that people are "playing dirty" so now he's gonna "play dirty" too.

I hate to say it, but it seems like we're kinda screwed for four more years.

(And if it turns out to be Obama vs. Paul? I'm seriously considering not exercising my right to vote this fall. As my brother says: some of the stuff Paul says sounds good and reasonable, but the stuff he says that's NOT is REALLY in "dealbreaker" territory.)

One of those things I don't get:

The brilliant, blinding hatred some people seem to have for Tim Tebow.

Yeah, yeah, he's a Christian, and yeah, yeah, he shows it off. And yeah, he's an argument against abortion (as I've heard, his mom was told he'd be severely mentally disabled and it would be preferable to abort. She chose not to, he was born healthy...I suspect that happens more often than doctors like to admit; the daughter of a family friend faced exactly the same issue some 20 years ago, with a similar outcome - she was told her child would not have a normal nervous system and would likely be anencephalic, and her response was, "Fine, then, if the baby lives only a few hours after birth I will hold the baby for as long as he lives and then bury him." And the baby was born perfectly healthy...)

There are a number of entertainment-types who annoy me (Bill Maher would be one...) but I find it preferable to ignore their existence than to say unpleasant things about them every chance I get. (That said: Bob Beckel's smackdown of Maher on "The Five"? Was pretty good. I may disagree with Beckel about a lot of things but he strikes me as a decent and principled guy....more like the old-school sort of person who could argue politics for hours with someone, but then go have a beer with them afterwards and be friends with them. So often now, it seems that if two people disagree politically, it's hard for them to be friends.)

I dunno; what seems to me to be an increasing number of ad hominem attacks against people who aren't specifically inciting them. (What did Tebow do to hurt anyone? I mean, besides openly demonstrating his faith, and that seems to me to be a pretty petty thing to get upset about). I don't like that; it seems that there's just an increasing level of ugliness and rather than going after people's policies or ideas, we are now going after the person themselves. (See: attacks on Romney's being a Mormon; Alan Colmes' beyond-the-pale statements about the Santorum's mourning of their dead infant)