Seriously?

Warning: snark ahead.

Mostly I try not to write pejorative things about students on this blog for a host of reasons, but I must share with you: WTF?

No, dear freshmen, emailing me even the most apologetic message a whole day after you miss your presentation in class is not going to explain to me why you didn't email me beforehand. You weren't suddenly abducted by aliens at the start of my class and only now came to, or were you? I can imagine a bunch of reasons why someone would not be able to contact me beforehand, but the excuses I've been handed for missing presentations are totally and completely the kind where anyone but a child would realize that they should send an email upfront to save the situation. And therein lies the problem. And I just love having to send the email that says: if this were a job, you'd be fired.

This is not making it easier to get up and get going today. In good news, I managed to freeze my entire bushel of green beans by 9:20 last night. We now have 16 packages of green beans in the freezer. That should make winter much nicer. I love green beans.

I do not love stupid student tricks. But I better get going anyway. For those of you starting today or soon, I envy you the hopeful excited part. I hope it all starts and goes well.

On Call: A Troubling Start to the Weekend

So this weekend Absurdist Lover is on call at his job. This means that he gets disturbed all the time for problems as lame as printer jams. Ugh. His being on call every six weeks or so is absolutely the worst part of the job for him -- and for the whole family because it means that I have to be prepared for him to have to leave at any point. Double ugh.

So last night, Tot decided he wanted to go to sleep at 7pm. This from the late-night toddler. (Speaking of: he's two months away from three years old! I can't believe it. Surely he deserves a better moniker than Tot, now that most sources seem to call him a "preschooler." Am working on it and thinking about whether he and AL should have monikers that really fit them more than just their relationship to me, but I digress and still don't know what I think about it all.) But I am not one to argue against his sleeping. So he slept. I thought it would be a good time to start freezing the bushel of green beans I ordered from my CSA. A bushel. I had no idea how much a bushel really is. It's a lot. So I took a nap, then got up and made a start around 11pm. AL was gone on his first visit to work at that point. Of course, Tot woke up at 2am and stayed up until 5am, so that nap I took that robbed me of some green bean time ended up being totally inspired. I went to bed at 6:30am. Tot woke up at 9:30am, bright-eyed and shiny-faced. At that point, AL was already gone, having been called in for the second time since he started being on call at 7pm. (The first notice of the first call-in was at 8:30. The darn place can't survive without him for even two hours!)

All this to say: his being on call sucks for the whole family (no going to any of the fairs going on right now because it would suck to waste the entry price); Tot was on some weirdo schedule yesterday, though he's fine today, though I'm quite tired because of it; the upshot of all this is that I managed to freeze about or at least almost half a bushel of green beans in the wee hours last night.

I did take a picture of the now half-full bushel box, which I'll post later. (I haven't downloaded photos to my computer for ever. Though not a big deal, of course, it seems like a big job for some reason. Perhaps everything seems big now.

Oh, gotta go. Tot wants to take a nap. More later.

***A half hour later***

False alarm. He decided he wanted to look at a particular page of The Cat in the Hat, which then meant that we went through all the subsequent pages (not reading, but he likes to flip the page and ask, "What happened?" and then I try to help him figure out what happened based on the pictures). When he got to the last page of the book, the one with just white on it, he did what he did last night: asked about coloring the pages. And I said no, that we don't color our books, only our papers. And then he promptly got up and ran to his desk so he could color pictures of trains. He loves trains and asks daily about going to the train tracks. He also loves cars, buses, and motorcycles. And most recently, probably because his Montessori teacher is an artist herself, painting. Actually his paintings have really nice composition. We hung them up. I like them, even apart from being his mom.

I'm sure I should get started on those green beans, but my energy level has dipped. (I never do well when he teases me that he's going to take a nap and then doesn't.) He's busy with AL talking about "orange" and "red." So cute. I'm going to go and grab what family goodness is available to me this weekend. Talk to you later, most likely about green beans, transplanting container garden vegetables and herbs, and the bounty of local organic food in this region. (Not about work, though I'm up to my navel in summer quarter. I really don't like being so far off the normal academic schedule. It's very alienating. So instead of gearing up for the fall semester, like so many of you with that familiar mix of excitement for it all to start again and dread that summer is over, I'm deep in midterms. Next academic year will be better, I've been promised. I swear I put it on the first draft of my annual report that keeping myself from complaining about my schedule was a part of my departmental service.)

Happy fall semester, everyone! May all your syllabi write themselves and your copying get done!

Grading

Must grade. Am being very virtuous and getting started on it as soon as I can. Have six projects to do that have taken me 30 minutes each in the past, but I'm hopeful I can reduce this time. Wish me luck.

***

11:35am

I've finished three projects. There is no way to fit the work into 20 minutes, and even though I still have three projects to grade before I can consider myself done for the day, I MUST take a break. Most of these projects can only be described by the term "hot mess." Almost all of these students are very early freshman students (as in they graduated from high school about three minutes ago) and are difficult in the usual ways of such young students. I used to really enjoy teaching such young students and being involved in their "transition to the university," but I don't much enjoy teaching this class to these students at this university. Part of it is the focus of the course, which in many ways I support. In other ways, I think the focus does a disservice to colleagues who will have these students down the line. Because of this concern, I may be spearheading a department project on a related topic.

Oh, I wish I were closer to done with grading for the day. Tot is at daycare instead of Montessori, so I can take extra time today if needed. (His Montessori school is closed for a couple weeks before opening for the official fall school year, which I finally managed to get Tot registered for and everything: money has been an important recent concern with moving to a house and everything.)

Oh it's simply been forever since I blogged. Mostly this is because with Tot in Montessori my teaching days are more frequent but shorter, so I really have to use all the time I have. I have far less free time, it seems. (I feel quite behind on work things, especially the chapter I have due.) A big part of this is Tot being more of a handful. Part of this is my recent obsession with Big Project, which I'll tell y'all about some other time. And part of this is my pact with myself that when I'm home with the family, I'm really with the family, cooking and doing home things.

I've been cooking a lot because we're getting beautiful bountiful vegetables from our CSA. Have I mentioned my oodles of containers of plants? (And more coming because I just ordered seeds from Seed Savers Exchange to attempt a fall harvest. There's a raised bed in the backyard that I hope and pray has not been treated with RoundUp and other noxious chemicals that have been linked to birth defects. I haven't yet decided whether to experiment with it yet, though of course I'd build it up by putting in new organic soil.)

My favorite things in my life -- besides my family -- center on food and farming: getting cheese through this ordering system for local farmers I'm experimenting with; going to the New City farmer's market to get organic sweets (last week: blueberry crumble pie -- does it get any better than that? I think not); working on my own garden for a fall harvest; cooking and adding new recipes to my recipe book. I'm considering taking a correspondence course on medicinal herbs in the fall as well. Of course, I'd want to grow some herbs as well.

But for now, I've got three projects to grade. See you on the flip side.

***
2:15

I'm done. And thank goodness because that last one was a complete fail. I did manage to read one today that was pretty much okay. Now I've got to do something else, because jumping right into scholarship? Not gonna happen. I need a break before I can even think of working out. GAH!

Instead of blogging, I'm looking at things like this

Amazing!

The impossible occurred: I actually graded one project the day it came in!

Of course, now I have to go and pick up the Tot, so that's all I can manage. But one is better than my usual, which is none. . .for days and days and days. And then there's that pressure to grade and the procrastination and self- and project-loathing. I've made myself a resolution to try to bypass all that by moderating my emotions, not beating myself up about grading, and just getting the hell on with it.

Since I am prone to not giving myself enough credit, I have to say: I'm pretty proud of myself. I really could've easily wasted the time.

The one I graded was very interesting. I look forward to reading the rest of them.

Unexpected Day Off

So we're having a terrible storm that has robbed Tot's Montessori of power, which means though I have a complete day of teaching along with a department meeting nestled between my two classes today, I'm home with Tot. So many things are power struggles with him lately that I'm not as overjoyed for the unexpected day with him as I wish I were and, of course, feel a bit bad about that. (Lest y'all think that we're terribly traditional in the Absurdist Household, Absurdist Lover did offer to stay home, but he's got this huge deadline at work tomorrow, and I'd rather that he just go and deal with the mountain of work he's got rather than let the stress mount even more. For me, getting behind in my classes by cancelling today is just an annoying and unwelcome wrinkle.)

(Another power struggle over whether putting one's feet on playing cards one has just dropped is a good idea. We do a lot of threatening time in his playpen these days. It's easy to feel like a terrible parent. I lose my temper often.)

But the upshot is that I can blog. Unfortunately, I feel like I have little to say. I'm teaching, doing service work (wow: it would be great if I could make some headway on this report I meant to start but didn't yesterday), and trying to work on the major revision for Article Slightly Outside My Field. For that article, I've been putting some very odd things together, but I knew before that there were some Australian researchers putting them together too. Now I see they have a book due out next year. I can't figure out whether I feel bad about being scooped or relieved to know that I'll be able to simply gesture to them as evidence that putting these things together does make sense. I wish the book were out now. But as much as I went nuts researching and ILL-ing articles that I could find from these researchers, this aspect of things is a small part of the overall argument. (That is, this is theory while the main thrust is application.) Why is it so easy to get all obsessed about one difficult part of one's argument rather than focusing on that which is going to get the most pages? Of course, there's lack of self-esteem and imposter syndrome in the mix, but is it also, in this case, that I'm more interested in delineating that theoretical argument than the main thrust of the chapter, which includes both application (which is okay) but also a specific kind of analysis that I'm not really thrilled about doing?

It's foolish to think I'm really going to get a lot done today, when keeping Tot out of trouble is already a major never-ending project. If anyone has great ideas about specific indoor activities to do with an extremely active tot of 2-3/4 years, please let me know.

Where Am I?

I am in a new house which is still only half-unpacked, but liveable enough, and I'm too exhausted to care that many things are still in boxes. Tomorrow begins my second week of summer teaching. I also have a couple reports to write and a really strong revision to do. Tomorrow, Tot begins his third week of Montessori, which he may be a little young for at this point. He is also testing boundaries all the time and making ample use of his favorite word "no." He lies down and refuses to budge in all sorts of places, and we have to threaten him with his playpen all the time. Taking care of Tot is really exhausting. And on top of everything, I feel, as is usual when I teach in the summer, completely separate and alien from the academic world that very wisely has packed up its ivy-covered ivory towers and gone to the beach. I want to be at the beach too (but only metaphorically). I can't make myself read the Amanda Cross mystery I have because it's too academic and sardonic and feels too much like work. I'm teaching a class and engaged in some activities that require me to be very active and forthright, to push myself out there, to advocate, to be present and articulate. All I want to do at this point is read something mysterious and magical and watery where things can be understood yet remain unsaid. I want to watch Practical Magic over and over again. I want to investigate the divine feminine principle, amid all this assertive masculine doing energy. I want a vacation where my only duty is to vegetative life. I'm thinking a lot about religion, about how Judaism tugs at me, though my life would be so much easier if I became a Christian, but I don't feel it the same, how I don't know why Judaism should be so important to me since I'm not Jewish by Jewish law and the family nostalgia shouldn't work on me because 1) they weren't that Jewish in terms of religion, except when my mother converted; 2) whatever good points my family of origin had, I don't have nostalgia for them. How my first religion really was astrology and wicca, coral rings of protection, and that calls to me too. (Maybe it's just ritual that is tugging at me?)

In short, I have a lot going on and a lot of other stuff going on in my head, but it's a blur, a whirlwind, a summer thunderstorm threatening hail. I want to back to writing creatively, discover a new way of being a writer in this very busy life. Do I wake up an hour early like so many dedicated women writers? The danger with this is that I get so little sleep as it is. My schedule is somewhat flexible, surely I should be able to sneak in some writing? But then I get ambitious. If I can get some writing published, it might count for tenure. Just like with crochet: it's not enough to just enjoy the doing of it, suddenly I have to crochet all my Christmas presents. Chanukah presents. Solstice presents. (Solstice is the one that really makes more sense to me, though Christmas makes more sense to me now that I have a child.)

I'm rambling. I'm also dozing off. I just wanted to say to hi to y'all. I'm enjoying reading y'all's blogs during the few minutes I have between activities. I hope things will balance out soon, and I can write a blogpost that makes sense. Have enough alone time so that the talk in my head makes sense to me.