academic funk

The Bad with the Good

funkyacademic — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:08:15 +0000

First, the good:

It’s official: I’m a full professor.

We move into our new house on May 19.

There are only two weeks of classes left.

The bad:

I have a torn meniscus.

We have not sold our condo.

RBOC

funkyacademic — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:43:54 +0000

–Is it still calling in sick if you e-mail it in? I’ve already done so for tomorrow. Sore throat, cough, headache, body aches. Lots of sick people at the college.

–Today actually felt like spring, though I felt too lousy to enjoy it.

–Friday is professional development day. Even if I’m better by then, I think I’ll still be sick, if you know what I mean.

–I’ve been recommended by my dean for full professor. Yay me!

–Our realtors’ contract is up in ten days. We need to decide if we are going to stay on the market or rent. Given the way the market looks, my aversion to being a landlord is lessening. We have an interested renter lined up if we decide to go that way.

–I’ve been watching John Adams on HBO, which has been quite excellent. I think my favorite scenes are those between John and Abigail at home, particularly when she is acting as his sounding board or editor. They remind me so much of my significant other and myself that it’s scary.

Yes!

funkyacademic — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:39:21 +0000

Because of my recent entry into the world of paycheck-to-paycheck living, I’m learning to bargain shop (OK, it’s not really all that dire, or I would not have bought this at all, but you get the idea). In any case, I’ve started becoming a watcher of Craig’s List because moving (eventually) from a four-room condo to a seven-room house does mean we really don’t have enough furniture to fill the space. And it just paid off. I just bought a coffee table that was originally around $450 from Pottery Barn for $40! And it’s in excellent condition.

I could get used to this.

Can Someone Explain?

funkyacademic — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:41:41 +0000

So today a student comes up to me and asks me for the “list of assignments we’ve had so far so [he] can make them up.” Now, there are times when this might not be a totally absurd question. For instance, after a brief absence, the reason for which I’d been made aware. But, as they say, context is everything. Today is March 26. Classes began in January. Said student, while occasionally popping into class to say hello, has yet to hand in any work. In fact, today was the first time I’ve seen him since ten days before Spring Break, which was last week. And yet, he was absolutely floored when I informed him that I was no longer accepting any of those pre-Spring Break assignments.Now, I don’t mean this to become an anti-student rant of the kind a not-to-be-named-or-linked-to blog is becoming infamous for. I mention it more as a way to try to understand it. This student is in the class I referred to in the previous post. He is not the only student in this class who has remained on the roster and attends (if somewhat irregularly) without doing any work. He is one of only two, however, who has approached me at all about the fact that he hasn’t done the work (the other spoke to me on Monday, had work in hand, explained her situation, and we negotiated a solution). I guess my question is this: Is this all simply high school behavior, or is it something else? Is it some kind of collective denial that transcends the classroom, kind of like the Republicans thinking we are winning the war in Iraq? How can a group of students believe that they can pass a course when they have not done the work for more than half of the semester? Each semester, I have one or two of these, but this semester, it is half of this class. And even though I’ve said to them, more than once, that they should withdraw, they keep coming back to class, but not with any work.I’m just baffled.

funkyacademic — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:44:18 +0000

I haven’t posted in so long, and the only explanation I can come up with is that I’ve been thoroughly depressed, not in the time-to-get-the-meds-checked sense, but over the political scene, the house situation, my college, my students. But Spring Break is here, and I think I can start to exorcise some of these demons:

At the risk of alienating my small readership, many of whom are Clinton supporters, I think that the self-serving, conniving actions of the Clintons are despicable, and if Hillary receives the nomination despite Obama’s being the leader in terms of the popular vote and the pledged delegates, race relations in this country will be dealt a blow that will take many years to overcome. And certainly, John McCain will be our next president. I have been feeling the same kind of despondency I felt in 2000, only this time is worse because it is the Democrats doing it to themselves.

We have not yet had an offer on our condo. This isn’t surprising, given the housing situation, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult. I have a significant other whose worldview is “It’s just money,” but that doesn’t work for me as I watch the dwindling balance in my checking account. The new house is looking fine, but every time we turn around there’s something else that needs fixing. We are now talking about maybe not moving until classes are over since it looks like it will be at least another month before the contractor is done. This state of limbo is not good for me.

On campus, the deans multiply like bunnies. We’ve got assistant deans who have assistants who have assistants. And. nothing. gets. done. We have a new dean of students who is a disaster. The students are afraid of her, the staff are afraid of her, the faculty think she’s a joke, but no one will do anything about it. I was just elected to the college senate, which I’m sure will prove to be a source of infinite frustration. What was I thinking?

I’ve got one class that I can’t understand. Half of them just blew off their first paper. Handed nothing in. Nada. I’ve never had that happen before. I’ve had students not hand in a paper and then never return to class. Or come and talk to me about an extension. But these students simply did not hand in a major paper and said nothing about it to me. It is now Spring Break. I am no longer accepting that paper. What are they thinking?

And The Wire has ended. Sheee-it.

TMI

funkyacademic — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:47:46 +0000

Tonight in class, while discussing an essay about tattooing and body piercing, a student announces that her friend “had her clit pierced and can now have an orgasm just by walking!” Sometimes I long for the days when students were embarrassed by such things.

Super Tuesday

funkyacademic — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:23:52 +0000

I live in one of the 24 states, and I am voting for Barack Obama today. I’m also staying home from work

Unplanned Hiatus

funkyacademic — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:10:31 +0000

I wish I could say I’ve been on vacation, or I’ve been so happily busy that I’ve had no time to blog. In fact, my absence of the past three weeks or so stemmed from my body, once again, giving out on me. On Thursday, January 17, after winning my weekly poker game, I developed the most excruciating pain in my head I’ve ever experienced. Headaches are nothing new to me, as my regular readers know. I’ve been a long-time sufferer of migraines. But what happened to me on the way home from poker that night was new. I felt like an evil giant was cracking my skull open like a walnut. It was so bad I told the Sig Other he had to get me to a hospital, but we were in Buttfuck New England on a country road in a snow storm, so he pulled off the road and called 911.

Paramedics, firemen, cops–they all arrived the way they do only in small towns where there is nothing to do. They gave me oxygen since I was on the verge of passing out from fear and pain. In the ambulance they kept asking me if my heart rate was always low, and they had a conversation about the color of my fingers (which I learned later were blue). It was a long, scary ride to a hospital one hour from my home, and they immediately took me to CT scan where they found nothing wrong with my head. But they had pretty much forgotten my headache by that point. Once they found out I wasn’t hemorrhaging in the brain (which they suspected because I am on anti-coagulant drugs), they only cared about my “dangerously low” heart rate and decided they were keeping me in the hospital overnight so a cardiologist could see me.

Now, as some of you know, seven years ago, I had my aorta and my aortic valve replaced to correct an aortic aneurysm. I have a congenital disorder called Marfan’s syndrome which affects the connective tissues of the body, causing them to lose their elasticity. Most people who have heard of the disorder associate it with Abraham Lincoln and with professional basketball players, since its most visible characteristic is excessive height. Having a mechanical valve means taking anti-coagulant drugs, and nearly everything health-related that happens to me is affected by that. I am also always at risk for another aneurysm somewhere in the aorta. But back to the story.

They give me a room on the observation floor. They have meanwhile pumped me full of some pretty powerful IV pain killers to deal with the headache (which no one can explain). At about 6 am a cardiologist fellow (it’s a teaching hospital) comes in to tell me that I’m going to have an ultrasound of my heart, but he’s pretty sure he already knows what has happened: my natural pacemaker has failed and I need a new one. Now, I’m frantic. I’m in a hospital an hour from home, and I don’t know these guys. He tells me the real cardiologist will be in to see me and leaves me to the two teenagers who arrive to do my ultrasound. They seem to have a bit of trouble doing the ultrasound (maybe because they are busy eyeing each other the whole time), but they get it done eventually. Shortly after they leave, the “real” cardiologist comes in with the bad news. The fellow was right; I need to have a new pacemaker put in ASAP. Until the procedure, I’m on total bedrest in ICU.

This is happening way too fast for me. I tell the doctor I’ve got my own cardiologist, I’ve seen him for thirteen years, and no disrespect, but I’m not having anything done without his involvement. He hears this without his feathers getting too ruffled and goes away to call my doc. About an hour later he comes back and informs me that I am “Ms. Controversy,” as my doc has said that they have to contact a pacemaker specialist from a particular hospital to come up and do the procedure. He also informs me at this time that he and his partners are a bit concerned now that they have examined the ultrasound further. Something doesn’t look right around the valve. It is possible that scar tissue has formed and is keeping the valve from opening and closing properly, and while they are scheduling the pacemaker procedure, they want to do some more tests. If the valve isn’t working properly, they may just forego the pacemaker and ship me off to Very Prominent Hospital where I had the valve done to have it done again. This is the worst possible news they could give me.

So back to CT scan, this time for the heart. They find the valve is opening and closing properly though there is a build-up of scar tissue that must be explored further at some time. I’m just so happy now to be getting away with just the pacemaker. I’m sent back to ICU to get my blood ready and to receive IV anti-biotics, since my condition also makes me susceptible to infections. By the time they have my blood at the proper clotting level it’s 4:30 pm. I have since met the pacemaker guy; he’s tall, dark and handsome, and the nurses are ga-ga over him. He doesn’t do much for me; I’m too sick to care.

My “one-hour , painless” procedure takes three hours and hurts so much I am crying. They try to insert it on the left side, but the veins are blocked so they have to start over on the right. But they tell me it goes well, and when I get back to ICU they give me enough painkillers so I sleep a few hours. I spend the next day in ICU while they try to get my blood regulated again. And I’m not allowed to get out of bed for twenty-four hours. This means I have to learn to pee in a bedpan. I’ll spare you the details. I’m pretty tired until the next evening, when S. and I watch the Giants win the NFC Championship in the regular hospital room I’ve been moved to. During the night, my neck starts to hurt, enough so that I can’t get comfortable enough to get any sleep.

By the next day, I’m in complete agony. A parade of doctors see me and puzzle over why my neck hurts. They give me five different pain killers, ending with two shots of morphine that don’t even touch the pain. Finally, one of them diagnoses me, and tells me I have one of the most painful injuries possible, a trapezius muscle strain, probably caused by the hospital bed. He orders the most powerful pain killer they have, and they decide that though my blood is now right, they can’t possibly send me home in the state I’m in. I’m actually relieved.

I go home later the next day, what is normally a twenty-four hour admission having taken five days. That night, I develop a terrible migraine headache, which lasts for the next several days. I eat muscle relaxers and Percosets like candy for three days, which are now a blur. I miss the first week of classes. For the past week I have mostly just read, slept and watched TV. I go back to work–to meet my classes for the first time–on Monday. I saw my cardiologist yesterday, and he is satisfied with my progress. I start seeing yet another cardio-specialist in two weeks who will monitor my pacemaker. The artificial parts are multiplying.

Oh, and one of those drug-induced days after I got home, we closed on our house. S. and our lawyer had to keep pointing me where to sign. For all I know, I’ve signed a confession to the Kennedy assassination. We are having some work done: painting, floors being refinished, carpeting replaced. We probably won’t move for at least another six weeks, but that isn’t a problem since our condo doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. On March 1, we’ll pay two mortgages for the first time. But I’m in love with the house.

A Question

funkyacademic — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:58:29 +0000

Am I the only one who feels guilty about considering herself a feminist yet not wanting Hilary to win?

Three Cucumbers in a Bathtub

funkyacademic — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:21:30 +0000

When I was a T.A., one of my composition students couldn’t come up with a title for his paper, so he slapped the above on before handing it in. Lately, I can’t think of titles, so I’m stealing.

I’m feeling a little guilty since I don’t have to go back to work for two more weeks, and I have a feeling most of my readers are back way before then. And I don’t actually teach for another five days after that. Just remember while you are hating me that I will probably get out much later in May than you all do.

And pity me, since I got the letter yesterday informing me that so-called Professional Day two weeks from today, which is usually a three-hour affair, will be ALL FRIGGIN’ DAY LONG this semester. It’s core competencies day! Lucky us. Now, let me say I am certainly not opposed to the idea that the college needs to have a sense of what students should be able to do when they leave us, but we’ve all been here before, haven’t we? And we know the result. After being talked at for an hour, we’ll all go into our breakout groups and waste large sheets of paper with our brainstorming which some busy bee will collect, and we’ll never hear about it again! Think I’m getting cynical after eleven years of this? Nah.

I’d rather be packing. Now that I’ve accepted the fact that we are going to be dirt poor paying two mortgages, I’m looking forward to moving. We are having the bedrooms painted before we move in, and new carpeting installed throughout the upstairs. I am so happy that I’m going to have an office of my own. And that the pooch is going to have her own little yard. One thing I won’t miss about condo living is not being able to just open the door and let her out.