Feels Like the End

Well, it does. Because it is. It's the end of the summer term at Rose State College, so today I turned in the grades for my lone section of Fundamentals of English. It was an interesting term, and I'll give you the breakdown:

• We had eight weeks to cover sixteen weeks worth of material. We had the same number of class meetings that we would in a normal semester, but instead of twice a week we met four times a week. The classroom time was not a problem, but the students' out-of-class work time and information processing time was seriously truncated.
• I had thirteen people registered when I last checked before the term started. I had ten on my roster the first day of class. I had eight on my final roster, and I never saw three of those. One dropped the first week of class and another stopped showing up on the last week of class.
• I had one day with only one student present.
• I had one day with only zero students present.
• Since this was a developmental class, it was great that I was able to give them so much one-on-one time. Unfortunately, these students were true developmental students and had the usual problem of unpreparedness. The one-on-one time could have been more productive.

So now I'm getting ready for Fall semester. I have five sections at two colleges: one Comp I, three Comp II, and one Intro to Philosophy. I haven't taught any of these courses at the schools where I'm going to teach them, so I have four preps. This should be interesting.

But now I'm faced with a decision I haven't wanted to make: do I pursue my interests or do I meet my obligations? There was hope through the summer that I'd be able to do both, but that hope died. Actually, the death of that hope has changed me. I'm still going to teach, because that's the only work I've ever done that I think was worth my time, but my inability to parlay my qualifications and general personability into full-time teaching means I'll have to take other work, too. At least for the short term.

So this feels like the end of hope, too. And at the end of the month I'll put this blog to rest and start the next one.

...And Then a Hedgehog Shat on My Hand.

It's been an interesting summer so far. For one thing, I think I can finally talk about Other Things. For another thing, even though it's an interesting summer there isn't a whole lot to say about it.

The Other Things to which I kept alluding were potential jobs. OCCC posted three jobs I felt at least minimally qualified for, and I applied to all three. The possibility of my becoming the Communications Lab Supervisor ended pretty quickly, as I wasn't even called for a first interview. That job eventually went to a friend, and she was clearly more qualified than I was, so there's no tension there. If I were on the hiring committee I'd have hired her, too. Though that would be awkward, being on the hiring committee for a job I was trying to get. I'll stop thinking about that now. It's silly.

The second job opening was for a Professor of English Composition. The twist was that it was for a new program of classes for ESL students. No problem. I've had ESL students in every section of Comp I've ever taught. They have different issues than native speakers do, but their problems aren't impossible to overcome. I made it through a third interview for this one, but didn't get the job.

The third position I applied for was the one I really wanted--Professor of English. It involved teaching some Comp, some Humanities, some Literature, and some Philosophy. Perfect. If I were to write up a job description that would fit me, this would be my design. I felt like I had a lot of advantages in my favor: I was the only adjunct (that I was aware of) who had taught a philosophy class for them, I have a good rapport with the full-time faculty and my supervisors there, and I understand they like to hire people from other places. I even used my mentor at OCCC (I'll call him "Martin" here) as a reference.

It wasn't to be. All of my advantages were real advantages, and I interviewed well. I met with the hiring committee, then the Dean of the Arts and Humanities division, and finally with the President and Vice President of Academic Affairs. All of those meetings were good ones. I answered all of their questions, my presentations went well, and the interviewers even laughed at my jokes. The only way I wasn't getting this job was if someone more qualified was interviewing as well.

The problem was that someone more qualified was interviewing as well. Martin. My mentor.

He's been full-time faculty there for eight years or so. He's just shy of having his doctorate in Philosophy. He's also one of the nicest people I have ever met. Every advantage I had he had even more of. When I learned he was interviewing (five minutes before my first interview) I figured my chances were slim. About the only way I'd get the job is if the division didn't want to deal with replacing Martin too after this process. Turns out they just decided to hire the best candidate. Go figure.

On the bright side, now his position is posted. I'm submitting my application today.

Also, we're hedgehogsitting for a family who we've really barely met. They seem like nice people, and "Hedgie" (the animal was named by young boys) won't be a burden to keep. He's quiet, doesn't eat much, and takes up little space. But right after they dropped him off and left, while I was still letting him run from one hand to the other and back again, he pinched a loaf all over me.

It smelled like cereal.

The Summer

I'm not sure how this summer is going to develop yet. I have a training session to go to this week, and then next Monday I start teaching my one section of Fundamentals of English. I need to find another part-time job to fill in the income gap, but I'm not sure where to go for that.

My class runs from June 2 to July 25, which means it ends the Friday after my 20 year high school reunion*. I don't know if I'll be able to go. I want to--it should be surreal--but I don't know if I can swing it, financially or logistically. I may not get a chance to visit Minnesota until August.

*This isn't causing me any trauma yet. I'm sure at some point it will, but so far no aging-related breakdowns. Just the usual ones.

A New Semester

I have all my ducks in a row, for the most part. My schedule was simplified last Wednesday when the Assistant Humanities Dean called to tell me I was losing my Comp II section. Now I'm teaching the two Comp I sections and two Fundamentals of English sections. I don't have much planning to worry about for Comp, now that I've taught this textbook for a semester, and Fundamentals shouldn't be too tough--less intense grading than for Comp, anyway. So I'm not worried about that.

I don't like the loss of income resulting from the change, though, so I'm going to find another part-time job for weekends. Now that we have no holidays ahead of us, no travelling to think about for a while, I can just concentrate on wage-slaving. This has been a hard year, with disruptions from the move, periods of unemployment (and underemployment), and the chaos of transferring our entire lives to a largely uncertain new setting. Now we're pulling out of it, though.

So when classes start tomorrow (and Michele sits at home because her class was canceled--boo) I'm presenting a new face. The no-nonsense, deadly-serious taskmaster.

Right.

We'll see.

Ow.

My parents never gave me that line about hoping I had kids exactly like me. They were too nice to wish that on anyone, but if they had, their wish would be coming true right now.

I was an unenthusiastic student in high school (understatement of the year candidate right there). Slept through Uncle Jimmy's Algebra class, meandered my way through Money Matters twice, did homework only when threatened. My parents heard the same thing at every conference: "He'd do well if he'd only apply himself."

And that's a good way to describe my Comp students--many of them, anyway. They're smart, they articulate their ideas well at times, and they're interested in improving themselves. But they are capable of some stone-headed statements. Such as:

I also believe sending Soldiers to Iraq was a good idea, and that the nine/eleven attack was Saddam Hussein’s way of declaring war on us, so it was necessary for his capture.

This is the kind of stubborn ignorance that earns the conservatives their reputation for willful stupidity. Wow.

Or this gem:

I believe that by partially eliminating suffrage in the United States, we have inevitably created suffrage in other countries.

On what planet do you spend five weeks writing an essay, submit two drafts for peer review, pretend to assemble an argument about a topic, and fail to learn the meaning of the word at the core of said essay? Blergh.

Then there's the need to point out the durability of certain phenomena:

Abortion has been around for a long time.

Immigration has been around for centuries.

The career of nursing has been around longer than I have been a live.

Poorly-developed essays have been around for longer than they should have been. Yikes.

Some of the ideas can't be classified as anything other than WTF?:

Is abortion safer than childhood?

Tuition should be considered highly for picking a university as don’t let it be in the way of a dream for there is many scholarships and grants available for students if they only search hard enough.

In June 2007, Louisiana passed the law that any undergarments being exposed due to their pants not being pulled up enough, will be charged with indecent exposure.

Everybody cares about their belongings right? Well we belong to the earth and it can’t take care of us we have to take care of it.

When the experiment was over the scientist got the results that water was just as good for you than water and that Gatorade did not do any good for you than water.

At least those nefarious undergarments are facing punishment. And so is my brain. Maybe even capital punishment:

The Death Penalty speaks to us all; everyone has an opinion on it.

And euthanasia is always an option:

There are a couple different types of ways to apply euthanasia. The two most common are a lethal dose of narcotics or a narcotic that cancels out the drug that the patient needs to survive. Most times the patient’s doctor will only hook them up to a device which holds the lethal dose. Then the patient pushes a button to release it whenever he or she likes. This is the only way I know about. I don’t think it would be very professional for a doctor to use a gun instead. More importantly it would hurt everyone’s ears.

I can appreciate when a student knows that he's not doing what he needs to be doing and embraces the humor in his failure. Because that's how I see these examples of bad writing. My failure. How did I let this happen? I'm glad it was only a few of them.

Stunt Wife?

Today is a day for packing, laundering, cleaning, running errands, and--most painful of all--grading. I'm going through my Comp students' Evaluation essays, for which they were allowed to evaluate a movie, if they wanted to. One student picked The Prestige, a movie about magicians. I haven't seen the film, but I think I'll have to, just to understand the essay.

The confusing part? This:

As Robert and Alfred partnership breaks apart or disappears when Alfred tied the wrong knot on Roberts stunt wife during a magic show causing her to drown.

Do I need to take some sort of hallucinogenic drug to understand that? Is there a decoder ring? I had to get this in the proper file pronto, before I lost consciousness.

Red Barbarian Needs Food--Badly

No, I'm not hungry. I'm just running out of energy. I'd been kicking ass on NaNoWriMo, writing better than my 2000 words a day, and then I was nailed with a bunch of stuff all at once. Grading, planning, writing tests. Yesterday I thought I was getting seriously sick, and had to take a long nap just to finish grading.

I know--whine, whine, whine.

So my novel is hovering just over 10,000 words--about 3000 words behind schedule now. I might be able to catch up over the weekend. It's not like I don't know where the story is going. I have more notes than I'll have novel when I'm done.

But that's why I haven't been blogging. I'm getting crushed.

I'll try to be better.

Happy Halloween

Boo.

I didn't wear a costume today, but I told my Logic students that I was dressed as my own evil twin. Then they asked me if my evil twin would be nicer to them than I am.

Rotten skunks. Hehe.

On another note: Still not eating meat, seventy-two days later. It's gotten to the point now that I don't even consider that during the course of my day. We discuss what we're going to eat, we pick something, and we make it. The fact that meat isn't included in the conversation becomes less noticeable all the time.

Weird.

Tomorrow starts NaNoWriMo. I think I'm ready. I need something to kick me in the ass and make me keep at it.

I got confirmation today that I'll be teaching two sections of Comp I at OCCC next semester. I'll also be teaching two sections of Fundamentals of English and one section of Comp II at Rose. That's more like a real workload. Should be fun.

We'll be driving to Minnesota for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how many days we'll be up, but we'll have time to see many of you in the Twin Cities area (those of you not traveling to other places, that is). That's only three weeks away. Yikes.

Surrounded By Idiots

In the late 1980s and early 1990s the American musical tide was shifting. Hair metal had taken hold of the guitar-based music, to the extent that Metallica, the couterculture gods, began writing three-minute songs based on a single riff. The music got dumb, and that's why grunge was able to succeed. It parodied the dumbness of popular rock the same way punk parodied the slick glamour of 1970s overprocessed, cheesy arena rock (see The Eagles, who suck, for further information).

But there was still decent music in the pre-grunge and early-grunge eras--mostly underground, where most of the best music has historically been. One of the bands who caught my attention was Wrathchild America, who gave us the song "Surrounded by Idiots."

On days like today, when it seems like I need a hammer and a chisel to get ideas into students' heads, I hear that song in the background, like whatever voices compelled David Berkowitz to kill people. I'm not compelled to kill--just to use explosive language to force people to learn.

So here's Wrathchild America, and their video for "Surrounded by Idiots":




Enjoy.

I'm Still Here!

I'm almost through with the grading lump, so I thought I'd take a moment and let you know I'm still alive. Sometimes, no matter how smoothly I'd like the semester to go, these things happen in spurts. Like when a boa constrictor eats a rabbit here and a squirrel there, and then realizes it can have a goat. And it eats the goat, but then the snake lies around digesting for a while.

I've been digesting. And I'm almost done.

Some updates, though:

• Forty-eight days into the pescetarian thing I'm still going strong. Sure, I've had a few blips, like that first week when we visited a spice store owned by some acquaintances and they needed someone to try their barbecue beef. I did it, and it was good. Then I had the accidental meatball at a party. I also wound up eating meat in soup two times at restaurants. And then we went to a physics function and Michele mistakenly scooped up some meat in a bean dish on the table. I ate it for her. So, five slips in forty-eight days. And I haven't really craved meat like I thought I would. And, even though I didn't do this for health reasons, I'm down to 217 pounds. That's 28 pounds lighter than I was in August.
• I interviewed at Rose State College on Friday. I'll be teaching there in the Spring in addition to my sections at OCCC. Probably just Comp, but maybe Comp II as well. That would be new and fun.
• We've been invited to a Halloween party, so today we bought our costumes. I'm not going to say what they are--I'll leave that to Michele, because she's really excited about them--but think Terry Pratchett.
• I like teaching Logic more every day. I might not get too many more chances to teach it, as there are a few people at OCCC who want to but couldn't this semester, but I love taking a tough subject and making people understand it. I get more epiphanies in a week of Logic than I do in a semester of Comp.
• The temperature is still in the 90s here.

And I'm still keeping up on the quizzes:
Your results:
You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 70% Wash (Ship Pilot) 60% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 60% Alliance 60% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 50% River (Stowaway) 45% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 45% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 35% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 20% A Reaver (Cannibal) 15% Inara Serra (Companion) 10%

Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgment but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz

And:
Your results:
You are Jack O'Neill

Jack O'Neill 78% Daniel Jackson 72% General Hammond 60% Thor 52% Samantha Carter 49% Teal'c 41% A Goa'uld 38% Dr. Frasier 20%

You are a born leader. You are often cynical. You are loyal to the end but you are no brainiac.

Click here to take the StarGate SG-1 Personality Test

There was another I saw about political alignment here, but I can't get the graphics to work. Let's just say I make Gandhi look like Hitler. And the farthest person away from me on the graph? Dubya. I'm way down in the anarcho-syndicalist bottom-left corner.

Anyway--I'll have more of substance to say soon. I just needed to send up a flare, because my brother says my five minutes are up.

The Perfect Storm

I'm liable to be out of commission, blog-wise, for the next few days, as I've been struck by several grading obligations all at once. A round of essays for my two Comp sections will eat up most of my time, and what that doesn't claim will go to grading Logic quizzes and weekly homework, some extra credit, making lesson plans for the week, and creating a Unit Test on categorical logic.

This semester is tough, even though I only have three sections. Since my Comp textbook and syllabus were chosen for me, and since I've never taught Logic before, I have to make all of my materials from scratch. Next semester should be easier, because even though I'll change a few things I'll at least have my lecture notes on hand from this time around.

So I hope to be back in communication soon. If I'm not back in five minutes . . . just wait longer.

Update

A. I seem to be doing fine without meat. This is unexpected, because I'm a life-long carnivore. But here I am, thirty-five days in and twenty pounds down. I can't say I don't drool a little when I see a Wendy's commercial, but I haven't felt the need to break the program.

B. Teaching is fun, even if today I had the second confrontation in three weeks with a student who has no idea how the power is distributed in the educational system.

C. Tom Maltman's book is good. Even if you don't know him, it should be a good read. I'm transported, and I don't say that lightly.

Guess Which File This Goes In

From a student's in-class writing from Thursday:

"There was a huge traylur that I had to pull behind the tractor."

"What's the problem with that?" Cletus and Durnell want to know.

This is not a dumb student. This student's speech is articulate, and all assignments so far indicate that this student is capable of college-level work. It has to be that this student hasn't read much. And apparently got no help to this point in working out some dramatic spelling issues.

Here I come to save the day.

Bringing the Hammer Down

I feel like I'm a pretty easy guy to get along with. My sense of humor is such that if someone attempts a joke I'm likely to chuckle out of anticipated humor. I spend my time hoping that everyone hopes the best for everyone. I imagine that nobody acts consciously to complicate anyone else's life. I'm probably wrong, but I like to treat adults like adults.

And then today happened, and reminded me that most Americans are still infants.

I looked to the back row of my 11:00 Comp class today, and there is one of my students with a white ear-bud in his ear. Clearly, he's listening to an iPod. Right then I want him incinerated, but I just give him a frown and a head-shake. I figured he'd take a hint.

Not so much.

When I looked back in his direction, I saw him leaning back against the wall, his eyes slitted, and he's singing along with the music.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I said.

The class paused, suspended for a moment from listening to Victoria's reading of her memory from before she was ten years old.

Student popped his eyes like I'd just caught him in the shower with my daughter and he yanked the earphone from his head. I think I lost it, but not as much as I should have.

"Get that shit out of your ear," I said. "Use some damn sense."

We went on with the lesson, and the student in question kept his head low for the rest of the class. I regretted for a moment using that kind of language, but I can't be too uptight about it. If I'm going to spend my time preparing a lecture, a lesson plan, and homework, I'm sure as hell not going to let some halfwit derail the whole enterprise because he'd rather listen to music.

He's welcome to listen to music. In my class, even, if that's what we're doing.

I'm still too pissed. I should just shut up.

Dumb Things I Have Read

I had a good week teaching, and now I'm looking over the Incoming Assessment essays my composition students wrote on Thursday. The essays are mostly what you'd expect: some students already know what they're doing, and I'll need to find ways to challenge them beyond the basics; some kids can put a sentence together but can't organize a body of thought yet; and others can't find their asses with both hands.

In her introduction, one of my students wrote this sentence:

“This statement is very true for the most part.”

That sentence provided an unfortunate first impression of what was actually a competent essay. It's an indication that this student is in the right place--if her writing had no flaws she wouldn't need my class, and if she and I both do what we're supposed to she'll stop writing like that soon.

But I couldn't help laughing. And retyping the sentence in a file marked "Dumb Things I Have Read."

The first year I was a teaching assistant we were all forced into Portfolio Assessment. Every essay our students wrote during the semester was revised and placed in a plastic folder, their names were removed from their work and replaced by numbers, and the piles of folders--huge, slippery stacks of yellow plastic--were given to other TAs at random.

We had two days from the time we could pick up the portfolios to the time we had to submit them. Most classes had around twenty students, and each of those students wrote about five essays. That left each of us with about 100 essays to read and only 48 hours to read them in.

We crammed into our office, a converted classroom with eight desks for sixteen TAs. And a nasty couch. Everyone made an appearance, and some of us were there for the whole day. I spent sixteen straight hours reading essays, and at some point something broke in my mind. I'd read an essay and the errors caused me hysterics. I laughed until I cried. The unintentional comedy of freshman writing imposed on my overstimulated mind was too much.

Weeks later I wished I had recorded some of the sentences that made me laugh so hard. The next semester I started my file. It contains some real gems:

“When this happened the world was hit with many sexually transmitted diseases and soon the condom was being enforced to use more during intercourse.”

And any subject could produce a winner:

“I have one word of advice for young ladies that might be in the same shoes as I once was, never give up on your dreams because of your economic status.”

“But a inhumane act on a developmentally disabled person is an act of utter repulsion and insolence.”

I continued recording these nuggets through my Intermediate Writing class and while I taught Intro to Creative Writing. Short stories seemed like a rich source of nonsense:

“While standing at the proofing machine, Jamie was sitting at her desk slumped over just waiting for some work and had a look on her face as if she could have been doing something better than sitting there.”

“My supervisor came rushing over like a busy bee trying to shuffle for work to conjure up for the people in the napkin area.”

“Now my tears came pouring down like an erupting water fall.”

“Jane, trying to remember who Claire was, started to shed tears, realizing that she couldn’t even remember what she had done the following day.”

“The call was made to Susan’s parent who lived in a small farming community outside of Chattanooga Tennessee at eleven thirty six p.m.”

And this is why I teach. To help students learn how not to do this. And to amuse myself. Some ill-considered sentences, while uncomfortable, are great for a laugh:

“I remember opening the door and seeing nothing but plain white walls, ceramic tiled floors, a very tiny window, and my new roommate sitting at his desk with his computer in his boxers.”

Ouch.

So Far, So Good . . .

Two days into the semester and I'm still standing. I think my Logic class was in shock the whole hour on Monday, but I had enough time with my two Comp classes today to make them comfortable. That's more important in Comp anyway, since they're going to rely on each other for feedback and honest criticism much of the time. I really enjoyed my 8:00 group this morning. They made me feel really good to be a teacher again. Really. And I like the word "really."

The schools here seem to rely heavily on adjuncts--more than the Minnesota schools did, as far as I could tell. I've already had people who adjunct at Oklahoma State University and at Rose State College say they're going to try to promote me for sections at their schools for next semester. I would like that. Especially Rose State, which is even closer to home than OSU is. Obviously, OU would be the best choice from a travel standpoint, but they have TAs to cover a lot of their Comp sections, so my best hope there would be Creative Writing courses (which I would love--I'm just saying . . .)

Michele seems to be settling in at school nicely, making friends and such. Maybe she'll blog about that some time soon. The weekend, maybe.

And no new bug problems. That's good, too.

Meeting the Neighbors

This morning I had a meeting on campus with the professor who has been teaching OCCC's Intro to Logic class for the last few years. He gave me all of his class materials and some advice for how to maintain some semblance of sanity while teaching logic to eighteen-year-olds. Nice guy. I'm glad he'll be around so I can continue to pick his brain.

As I was leaving the apartment this morning I heard a harsh quacking sound, as though a fifty-pound duck were hiding behind the stairwell. I turned and waited for the assault, but instead of a hyperglandular waterfowl I saw a stocky little chihuahua. She was barking, and the sound was so funny I couldn't help laughing as I reached down to pet her. She sniffed at me and licked my hand.

And then she was joined by a second dog--same size, probably a litter-mate. As he got closer I heard the neighbor lady yelling, "Chica! Paco! Come here!" Chica kept licking my hand and Paco got close enough to sniff me. Neighbor Lady said, "She's fine, but he'll probably snap at you."

I said, "I think your ducks are barking at me."

She didn't laugh. She called for her dogs again, but they were reluctant to stop sniffing me. They finally left, though, and I went to campus.

But now I've met the neighbors. They look like this:

Today a Job, Tomorrow . . . the World

Today I got a job. It's a good job. I'll be teaching two sections of Comp and one section of Intro to Logic. I like my new job. These are good times.

The only problem is that my new job doesn't start for a month. So I might need to get another new job to occupy my time in the interim. When school starts, though, I could quit this second, hypothetical new job and concentrate on my real new job.

For now, though, I am content.

We Made It.

We're in Oklahoma now, settling into our apartment. The caravan has left and we are busy putting our domicile together.

More good news: When I accessed the internet today I found an email from the Composition Instruction Coordinator at Oklahoma City Community College, and she wanted to set up an interview for tomorrow morning (Tuesday the 17th). The bad news is that she sent the email last Thursday, just hours after I dismantled the computer, and I didn't see it for four days. I called and left a message on her voice mail. I returned her email. She hasn't called back yet. Hopefully tomorrow.

I'm not happy with the way I comported myself over the weekend. I was at turns a brat, a clown, a raving lunatic, a pure idiot, and a general asshole. And those were my good moments. My family faced down the worst behavior of my adult life and didn't strangle me. I don't deserve such good will.

Another note: I've decided on aliases for my in-laws: Skiffy and the Cat Whisperer. I will explain later, because the stories behind both amuse me. But for now, I need to get to bed so I can wake up bright and early tomorrow to iron clothes and wait for the phone to ring.

It's Been a Hell of a Week

I haven't posted in a while, but that's only because there isn't much to say. Life has been bumping along pretty monotonously since the holidays wound down, which is mostly a good thing. I'm only working about 55 hours a week now, so I get a little more time to write than I'd had while Book Store was blazingly busy. Just a few things are worthy of mention:

1. It's cold. According to Michele's perusal of the internet this morning, it was -13. With wind chill? -34. I'm not one who generally takes note of the temperature, because it just doesn't impact what I do or how I do it, but this is crazy. The air, without movement, makes my cheeks sting. My eyes continue to water ten minutes after I've gotten inside. Days like this make me hope Michele gets a letter of acceptance from the University of Texas at Austin. And fast.

2. I'm a loser. American Zoetrope announced the winner of their screenplay contest, and it wasn't me. They also listed the top ten runners up. No me. The semifinalists and quarterfinalists included about a million names. But not mine. Lucky for me I have another screenplay in the works and it feels better than Running the Asylum did as I wrote it. It's more cinematic, funnier, and more commercial. I hate thinking of that as a benefit, but screenwriting is as much business as art. Maybe more.

3. I was sick. Yesterday I only lasted two hours at work before I had to go home, green and gasping with nausea. Just the day before we'd been exposed to others with the same bug, but I didn't worry--I never get that stuff. I have a stomach of iron. If either of us gets something, it's usually Michele. No consolation when I was facedown in the throne yesterday doing the technicolor yawn.

4. I'm interviewing. I sent my resume off to an online university, and while they're not hiring right now, they want to put my materials on file for future possibilities. I identified about ten courses they list that I'd be qualified to teach and they agree on four of them, so they sent me an e-mail interview. It feels weird interviewing without seeing the interviewer, for a job at which I may never see my supervisor or my students. Complete disconnect. But I have no way to predict our direction for the next six months or so, and I really want to teach. This might be the only way.

Hopefully we start hearing from grad schools soon. That will help a lot. This limbo crap sucks. On the bright side--I'm writing pretty well now, though I have creative ADD. I spend a week on my short story, then completely fail in the AZ contest and hit the screenplay hard. I should be taking some sort of drugs, I think. Prozac or Zoloft or crack*. Something.

*I am, of course, kidding. I would never take Zoloft.