The Pissed Off Professor

Having made it through the whirlwind of WEEK ONE of summer school, here’s where things stand:

THE GOOD
Each of my classes is full, and most of my students appear to be motivated for the rigors of summer session.

It only took three days to get the keys I needed to get into the classrooms I’m using.

The parking situation isn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought it would be considering most of the main faculty lot is a pile of rubble right now.

In terms of my teaching game, I seem to be right on, and I have been each day so far—that’s a weird kind of miracle, and it feels good.

THE BAD
The bookstore decided to order 15 book sets for my 28-student classes. This has created some interesting problems in terms of students trying to study and do homework and in terms of how much scanning I have to do.

One of my students decided the textbooks I put on library reserve were for her alone, and despite the steep fees for failing to return said books after the two-hour limit, she still has them in her possession.

One of my returning students thought summer session started this week not last week.

Another student from last semester—a student who clearly hated me—showed up this morning asking to be added, and since each of us knows she hates me, I asked her why she wants to take another class from me. At least she had the guts to tell me that “while I’d love to avoid ever taking another class from you, I really need this credit, and you’re the only teacher teaching the class. I suppose you could call me desperate.” How could I not let her in?

THE UGLY
The student who has been hogging the reserve textbooks found out today that her overuse was going to cost her about $60 in fees, so she asked me to write a note to the library asking that her fines be waved since no books were available in the bookstore. When I refused, she stomped her foot and called me mean. She began to cry over not being able to afford the fines. She cried through the first 10 minutes of today’s quiz. She failed the quiz, and to me, this adds a bit of insult to injury: the fines are obviously not going to be money well spent.

I had two problem students in my 8:00 am class: one was a sit-in-the-back-and-sleep problem, the other was a I-can’t-get-to-class-before-8:15 problem. On Wednesday, I kicked sleeping guy out, and as he left, he made certain everyone in the room understood that in his opinion I was a “fucking bitch.” Without my class, he won’t be eligible for his sport, so today, his coach was kind enough to ask for a meeting to “talk” about how his athlete might get back into my class. I’m not sure the coach appreciated my ending the conversation with, “Well, there’s really no need for a meeting as your athlete has zero chance of returning to my class: I am, after all, a ‘fucking bitch’—at least that’s what your athlete called me as he exited the room.” Pregnant pause. “So,” says the coach, “I guess that’s a ‘no’?” Uh, yes. . .no.

Mr. Late guy got his first warning on Wednesday, and on Thursday, I informed him another tardy at any point would be cause for his being dropped. Guess who was late today? You got it, so while textbook girl was crying, I was kicking late dude out.

All things considered, it has been a good first week—no, really, it has.

Summer Session Countdown: T-Minus 4 Days

I think I have the most of what I’m going to need for my first week of school squared away. The job has been made a bit easier by the recent, bad weather: there’s been no temptation to wile away my time in the sun while gazing at the passing wildlife.

Today, though, the sun is out, and the birds are singing. As I completed my morning rounds of watering and filling feeders and baths, I realized that beginning Monday, I’m going to miss out on the best part of the year for relaxation in the wilderness.

Summer session only lasts six weeks, but once it’s over, the cooler weather will have given way to the warmer stuff, and the mornings just won’t be the same.

Soon the pregnant does will wander off to have their fawns, and I may miss that first new baby of the season while away teaching. The new babies only keep their spots for a short time, and they quickly lose their wobbly legs—I don’t really want to miss either event.

The birds are just beginning to bring their young to feed, so I’ll miss out on some of the flying lessons that take place in the early morning hours, and on a scale of cute, beginning flying lessons are near the top.

Then, there is the mating season for squirrels, and that is something that really must be seen to be believed, and that, too, I shall likely miss.

How can an English class possibly compete with any of this regardless of my level of preparedness and enthusiasm? And this is coming from the teacher.

Summer Session Countdown: T-Minus 6 Days

I spent the better part of yesterday revamping the Web site I use to augment my English classes. It is one of the things I seem to do on an almost semester-by-semester basis, yet someplace in the back of my mind, I know the site doesn’t get used to the degree it should.

Honestly, it’s a waste of my time, but I pretend it’s going to help a few people.

And, I suppose it might. Maybe. Right?

One other class-related task I did was checking enrollment, and I discovered the lists for the Fall Semester has been added to the database.

Imagine my surprise when I saw two of the students who are enrolled in my fall English Writing 300 class are students who failed my course this past semester.

One of them is the I-chose-my-job-over-my-class student, and the other was one of the post-Spring Break disappearing acts. Both were solid students, but each gave up.

I’m still trying to figure out why these two students decided to retake my class. I see two possibilities: one, the students figure they know what to expect and have some of the work done already; two, the students liked my class.

I wonder: could the second possibility be true?

Summer Session Start Countdown: T-Minus 8 Days

A new semester is approaching, and I’m at the stage during which I begin to awake in the middle of the night from either odd dreams about teaching, or things I must remember to get done before the session begins.

Last night’s wake-up call had to do with my arriving to my first day only to find my handouts hadn’t been photocopied as I’d requested. Unable to get them done before the scheduled start-time of my first class, I’d be forced to begin my first day unprepared.

I know where this dream came from: I’m experiencing a good deal of concern over the having an 8:00 am class. Now, before you laugh, let me put this in perspective: I live 75 to 90 minutes from my campus—75 minutes without traffic and 90 minutes with.

However, in the three years I’ve lived up in the mountains, the commute traffic I’ve hit has been of two kinds: the return home kind when the delays are frustrating but can’t result in my being late (or rushed), or the mid-morning kind when I drive into it and out of it in about 30 minutes’ time.

The route I travel is almost all (potential) commute mileage, and with an 8:00 am start time, I’ll be traveling among the folks en route to work for 60 of that 90 minutes: I’ll hit all four of the cities I pass through either at the beginning or heart of their commute-times, and the potential for accident and traffic delays is a math problem I can’t handle with my English-teacher’s brain.

My concern is not getting up: I wake up on my own between 5:30 and 6:00 am, so setting an alarm for 5:00 am is not going to create disaster for me. My concern is whether or not leaving by 6:00 am (allowing two hours to drive and park and get to my classroom) is sufficient.

(I think we can all agree there is an ugly, palpable difference between getting up at 5:00 am and getting up at 4:30 am, and if I have to leave at 5:30, that means I’ll have to get up at 4:30 am, and that is not pretty.)

It also means I’ll miss most of the commute traffic, and that’ll put an even uglier spin on things: in other words, if leaving at 6:00 am won’t do, I’ll leave at 5:30 am, but leaving at 5:30 am will mean I’ll likely miss the commute traffic responsible for a 6:00 am departure’s ineffectiveness, so I’ll arrive at 6:45 am for an 8:00 am class.

It is a time-traveling problem, and I am the time traveler.

My goal has been to get to campus between 7:30 and 7:45 am which will allow me time to park, walk to my office, and get to class. (In a pinch, I might even have time to make some photocopies.)

Now it’s time to cue the scary music: when I dropped off my photocopies last week, I learned my classrooms had been changed. (One of the silver linings of the 8:00 am class was not only my teaching in the English building—saving time if I were behind—but also having both of my classes in the same room.)

My reassigned location? If one were to draw a line from my office to the farthest point on campus, one would land at the new location of my 8:00 am class. This means I must now add a few minutes to hike from my office to my first classroom to the mix of timing issues for the morning. (I’m in good shape, and I can walk with the best of them, but even at that, with a book-and-paper-filled bag or two, this is a 10-15 minute power-walking adventure, and I am obligated to stop at the office before beginning and ending each of my teaching days.)

There is not a quick-and-easy drive-here-drive-there parking solution, either. Our campus has been renovating the parking for the past year, so at least one staff and one student lot is in a state of construction at any point in time.

Last week, I saw they had torn up the main staff lot, so getting a space is going to be like a Christmas bonus in the summertime. (Though we don’t get Christmas bonuses. Or any bonuses. At all. Ever.)

Of course, given the time my class starts, I ought to be able to find a parking space, eh?

There’s that good ol’ silver lining—wheeeeeeeeee haaaaaaaw!