Just Kill Me Now: Part Deux

So, it's the end of the third week of classes...

At this point, students should have it pretty much figured out by now.

"Should" being the operative word.

I make it a habit to ensure students have access to course materials in numerous places: Blackboard (online interface for those unfamiliar), course webpage, handouts. I provide them with *all* of the assignments for the whole semester the first week of class and continuously incorporate discussions about said assignments in relation to readings they are *supposed* to be reading. The calendar (hard copy handed out first week, read through with the class, and posted in BB, webpage, etc.) lists due dates; the classrooms and schedule of classes are in at least four different places. The syllabus has thorough directions for submitting writing assignments, checking email, online addresses for course resources (repeated in Blackboard).

This week I had at least a full third of my students *still* confused about where classes met; two asked if we were going to have any writing assignments...

At that point I almost tore my hair out.

Seriously?

Not only do they have assignments due all semester long, those assignments are posted everywhere but on my forehead and ass and one was due yesterday.

Oh, and did I mention that I have been repeating due dates, going over rough drafts, and um, even had, like, a peer review session and everything?

Are we going to have any writing assignments?

Just fucking kill me now...

K-cup number three on the way. Thank the whales it's Saturday.

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To My Knowledge: One Does Not Equal Fifty

Last time I checked, 1 in 100 equals 1%.

Not exactly revolutionary. Nor major. Just... you, know. One.

So why is the right collectively circle-jerking over *one* senate seat? One?

Really?

My dare to the GOP; go ahead and filibuster.

Do it.

Reconciliation has happened more often in recent history than the GOP cares to recall.

A big one that cut Medicaid funding: Bush's 2005 "Deficit Reduction" bill.

Yeah, when the going gets tough, cut off the poorest laborers in the nation.

Why not add a side of health care coverage denial with that? It's low-cal and oh-so-cost-effective.

When the flu season fires up and those who cannot afford to take sick days because they have no health care (or sick days) go to work sick and prepare food, or clean hotel rooms, or drive cabs, or harvest produce, and use public transportation... then will that *one* vote really matter?

I suppose when you are down, every scrap of a mote of a hint of a lint of a whiff of a win counts.

Go ahead.

Stick with that 1%... or 41%... still not a majority. But I suppose when you have a huge group of pusspusses like the Dems, one really does equal fifty.

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Keurig Rocks: Or; Why I Don't Go to Church

Preachers.

Preachy people.

Self-righteous people who think they are better than other people because they go to a building where they sit in pews and pray memorized prayers and look at a dead guy on a cross (is my post-traumatic-Catholic showing?).

I am currently hopped-up on decadent, brewed grounds easily accessed via pre-measured, self-contained K-cups of caffeinated bliss. Thank [insert external force of personal choice here] I did not try to blog on the second cup... it may have gotten ugly.

Despite the title of this post, I am not blogging today about church. For those readers who find solace and a sense of community and purpose in church: I am happy for you and mean no insult.

The focus of today's screed is preachy people.

The same types who go to blogs, or professional list-servs, snark, and post opinion and then complain that no one wants to *engage* them.

Fuck. NO, no one wants to engage you if you conduct yourself like this.

Why should they?

When people sense that a person's only purpose is to insult, disrupt, and belittle, they will not engage said person and back away.

Slowly.

As if from a wild, wounded animal that does not *want* help but merely wants to let you know how HURT! MAD! RIGHT! they are. There is no reasoning with someone whose only lines of thinking are "You are wrong because you suck" or "You are going to hell because this book says so" or "You atheists are the reason our country is suffering" or "Haitians are dying and suffering because they made a pact with the devil."

No. I am only interested in "conversing" with those who are respectful and have a modicum of social skills. I don't respond well to preachers. Those who claim to have the capital-T Truth figured out and no one else is entitled to an opinion or a point of view. People who cannot listen. They want to monologue.

Good luck with that.

And so I will close today's brief blogologue* (cuz that's really what a blog is unless you have faithful, good commenters like I do *hint, hint*) by simply saying:

People are a bag of contradictions. And if you haven't figured that out yet, you do not live in reality and/or have not reached maturity equal to a college freshman.

I am off to go have another cup 'o joe to which I recently became addicted after purchasing the evil Keurig. Or maybe a Chai Latte. Another bit of ammo for the trolls: I am a librul, chai-latte-drinkin', edumakated, eleetist who won't play with you. Go to church; those folks will be nice to you in order that they score metaphysical points for some collective delusion of an after-life. I'd rather go to hell; all the fun people are there.

* Copyrighted term by Tom, my patient, brilliant, and magnificent husband.

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OMFG: Or; Why Cats Can Make Even the Suckiest Day Better

Can't. resist. the. cuteness.

Must. post. kitten. video.

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At Least Watch the Video at the End

So I have been tuned out for quite some time now.

Sorry to have neglected you, dear reader. I find I either have too much to say or nothing at all and both at the most inconvenient of times.

As I gear up to start the new semester, I am looking forward to a year of monumental changes (again).

Tom is working on his last push toward his degree. We will both be on the national job market this coming fall... and we both want to be the spousal hire. (If you are in higher ed, the primary hire tends to have more pressure for tenure review, I believe. This means we are both scared shyteless about the whole prospect of academic and scholarly scrutiny.)

I will be teaching six classes (150 students roughly, give or take the ten or so I intend to scare off the first week of class; kidding [kind of]). (*UPDATE: In my pure insanity, I agreed to take on a 7th class in April; add 30 graduate students to that total.)

Plus, I landed a gig as a subject matter "expert"--I still cannot type that or say it without cackling-- for a university starting a Master's program in my area of "expertise".

It is colder than frozen hell here. Yet, our old chimney is leaking beneath the litter boxes in the laundry room. The plague continues to plague us (me, mostly). I am working up the strength to return to a workout routine after a couple of weeks of "bed rest" (read: sleeping until 10AM) and holiday "merriment" (read: gorging on everything naughty and fattening. Might as well just rub it on my ass, 'cuz that's where it goes...)

Thanks to all who sent holiday greetings: family, friends, bloggy companions. I would resolve to be better at keeping in touch this new year of the second decade of the second millennium but I am a terrible liar, even in print. I miss you all and miss this blog thing... I will try to post at least once a week. I will try. And I have been reading along with your blogs.

I leave you with a video sent to me by one of my students from last semester with Happy 2010 wishes to all:

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