Sugared Harpy

I took on too much this semester, in the very real fear that I wouldn’t have enough classes to pay bills. Adjunct life can be wonderful, awesome in its flexibility and my ability to NOT be in an office all day. I walk in, spend some time in an office, teach a class and that is always exciting, and then have my own time.

Now, a lot of that time is spent in grading and prep work, but it’s still something I can do in my underwear :)

This semester I just got lobbed by late additions to my schedule. I likes the money (even though adjuncts are sorely underpaid), I love the classes. I’m just exhuasted!

*But no matter what? It’s all new in January, anyway. Another perk of teaching college in general!

I just need to update you on a few thousand things. Because I know you are on the edge of your RSS feed, waiting for words from me to drip into your parched mouths…ahem.

Daniel had a huge three day migraine, learned that he enjoys moaning for 40 hours at a time with no hope of birthing anything at all, shunning lifegiving food, and then staying home sick today as well without a migraine due to waking up puking in the same bowl he’s thrown up in all last week.

Brett turned 13!

Eileen, Scott’s daughter and my precious wecious new girl child, is 17!

They graciously shared a birthday party together so my family could arrive once and hand over presents.

I made each of them a personal, triple layer cake with ridiculous candles that leaned this way or that. Chocolate for Brett; Strawberry for Eileen.

Cupcakes are the greatest idea for birthday parties ever, I never knew this and now I feel stupid. You just set them out, people eat them, and you have no need to SERVE your guests or cut a cake. Win!

I’m teaching too many classes compared to time in a day; and probably not enough for my bank account. Adjuncting is losing some charm.

Next semester, I’m going to be struggling to get enough classes to pay bills. Why can’t I just have ENOUGH but not TOO MUCH? Or be supported financially with no expectations of knowing how I spend that money?

I want to write a memoir of my childhood. Partially because it was not normal, partially to help organize my thoughts about it and possibly move past some things. Also, I think while my childhood wasn’t representative of kids growing up in the 80s, I’ll bet some parts of it were. Selfish time for adults and parents are adults, you see. Lots more divorced families. A nutty, shifting time. So maybe you (Scott) had an idyllic childhood; my sister, Anne, and I were definitely wondering when someone was going to allow us to eat and if we could please leave the locked basement now. Or wondering when my mother would put on some underwear and stop vacuuming to Prince, because it’s 4am and we’re awfully tired. Or why God WHY do we have to watch our moms make out with random guys on the couch and play quarters off their naked breasts in front of 50 people at our house. And, seriously, Dad? It’s a book I think would be pretty funny, too.

Scott and I discuss getting married and I have made it clear that the onus of a proposal in on him. Mainly because he has a history with me of being wishy washy and then one day, all on board. He’s great, we’re great, but you know, I’m waiting, waiting, waiting for him to decide he doesn’t want to get married after all and choose differently and I want him to have that out. He says he is NOT going to do that, but you know, this is the first time I haven’t felt trapped in a relationship and the first time I WANT to get married for the sake of nothing else but love and I care deeply about it. We’ve already made a $200,000 commitment in this house here but there is something still to being a spouse versus a girlfriend. I love this man so much, so deeply, so much it’s freaking me out sometimes and I feel loved, genuinely loved for me that I am just waiting for it to go stupid on me.

On a positive note, I feel genuinely loved. Sweetly, positively, happily.

Okay, so I don’t like to bitch about work much. I KNOW that compared to the now three hour commute that the boyfriend makes or the sexism my sister faces or the day to day grind of many friends, that my job is sweet as a cupcake. I do what I love, I have winter and summer breaks, I work for only a few hours a day outside the home, etc. etc….I get it.

But this semester has knocked me on my ass.

Why?

Because either I’m suddenly an octogenarian or kids these days are the whiniest, brattiest, most entitled than they ever have been. WTF people under 25? What the hell has happened to you to make you all into Veruca Salt demanding your goddamned A for no effort, attendance, or even faint interest in actual exam? I’m about to load you all into a big ass bus and take you to a neighborhood where not every kid has a unicorn in their backyard. You all need to do a little volunteering at a food bank or for fuck’s sake, donate one of your three-day old Hollister shirts every once in a while.

If you are a person of power in a college environment, for my sake, please stand up for what’s right and quit trying to be nice to these students. You are not helping them, you are stunting their growth and making me look like a asshole.

I teach in SEVERAL different institutions, and I’ve run into similar problems at each one. Problems I have RARELY IF EVER had until this semester.

1. “I can’t believe that you are actually going to follow the departmental policy of failing me after four absences. I overslept! Waaa!”
(This person went to the motherfucking DEAN about this. That I was being “mean.” It’s not even my damned policy, but it IS my job.)

2. “Can you just give me a higher grade? I really need an (insert desired grade here)!”
(I’ve heard this, always just said, um, no. This semester? LET’S CALL THE DEAN AND CHANGE IT!)

3. “I know little Tommy is in your class and is failing for having two tests under 30% and oh, also totally failing a paper he didn’t write one word of but instead copied and pasted from the internets, down to the font, but see, he’s on the basketball team and I need him to have a D.”
(No joke. This is at Tiny Community College. Tommy also likes to miss class and listen to his iPod when he does show.)

4. “I don’t understand this F you gave me, waaaaa!!! I only missed four or five weeks of classes and did really poorly on all my exams! Can’t you just change it? All my other instructors did!”

5. “Just a tip for you, prof. You should email grades so students can know what they are getting and forget about that stupid privacy law that says you shouldn’t. All my other profs do it and I want my grade now!”
(Um, dude, wait ONE MORE DAY and you’ll see your grade online through our system. And honey, flies, more.)

6. “Oh HAI! I showed up for the test thirty minutes late, can you start over? What do you mean you won’t start the slides over?! But I’m here! Just do it! You’re so mean and bitter, why won’t you start over!”
(Um, because the other thirty-plus students are already taking it, we’re kinda in the middle of it.)

7. “I know I didn’t turn in a paper and the semester is over and grades turned in already, but HERE! I wrote half of one. I didn’t cite any sources. I did it! Today! Can you accept this? No? I don’t understand! You’re so mean!”

…I have never, not once, been called mean before. I’m generally the well-liked teacher who has students come visit long after they have left my class.

…am not mean. Nah.

I am not even including some here. Because I’m done with the WHINE BITCH MOAN even on this blog entry.

…halp! comes in the form of Christmas break….and cookies…

“My trip to the art museum was unexpected.”

There is a lot of picture adding and talking about yourself. So far (probably because I haven’t gotten to grading anything yet), it’s been like ramped up blogging.

Awesome!

We had our annual pre-Fall Semester department meeting at one of my colleges today. This is the first semester since I started teaching there that I haven’t taught Art History, I’m only teaching Art Appreciation courses instead (I’ve still got regular ol’ Art History at other schools). I was intended to be the only one teaching the Art History courses because at this school, I was the first and only Art Historian they’ve had.

However, this semester all those Art History courses have somehow migrated to being evening classes. For some reason, I can’t seem to teach all night classes. Oh yeah, MY CHILDREN.

Seriously, I have kids. If I’m going to be leaving them home alone every night after school then I’m going to get a job that has benefits and fucking paid vacation. I can’t teach all night classes, I CAN teach all day while their in school though. They are just too old for a babysitter but too young to really be trusted for that length of time. They’re good kids, but you know, they’re KIDS.

So, I’m teaching Art Appreciation for this particular school and it’s awesome because I have a good schedule. And we’re in this meeting of all the teachers.

One of the teachers has put together a pretty snazzy slide library and he was discussing it to the new instructors, one of whom is another art historian hired to teach the night classes I turned down. Awesome, I think, she’s an art historian teaching art history…good!

That is, until the slide library guy says something to her like, “I’m not a historian, but I’m so excited you are! Can I pick your brain sometime about some of these images, I’ve always wondered how to categorize some things.” She says sure. He does A JIG of glee.

Um, dude, I’ve been teaching here for three years. Teaching art history. As an art historian. And YOU TALK TO ME ALL THE TIME.

Ahoy!

I’ve changed the design a bit, yes again. As you can see, I’ve included a background from the link from yesterday. I chose a Mooresque design.

Oooooooooh.

The header image is a return to my usual pilfering of images from wga.hu. This one is by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson, called Mademoiselle Lange as Venus, painted in 1798.

I chose the image because of my simple gut reaction of: PRETTY! It’s what I believe most of us do with art or other stuffs. We like it. We look.

But naturally, like most images I tend to go for, this one has an awesome story. Lucky me, lucky you!

According to the Minneapolis Institute of Art,

“Miss Lange was a talented actress known for her beauty and wealthy lovers. Girodet had painted an earlier portrait of her that she found unflattering.

“When she refused to pay the agreed-upon price and insisted that the painting be removed from public view at the Paris Salon, the enraged Girodet sought revenge with this second, satirical portrait.

“Eighteenth-century artists sometimes portrayed people as mythological characters to highlight their virtues. Girodet inverted this convention to defame Miss Lange. Danae was one of the mortals loved by the Greek god Zeus, who transformed himself into a shower of gold and fell upon her.

Girodet shows Miss Lange greedily catching the gold coins. All of the painting’s details are scathingly symbolic. For example, the turkey wearing a wedding ring represents a man the actress married for his fortune. The cracked mirror denotes her inability to see herself as Girodet saw her—a vain, adulterous, and avaricious woman.”

Kick ass, no? Art is never boring.

Holy moly, fellow artsy bloggers! I just ran into THIS:

Patterns based on historical architectural designs.

Now, some are based on historical designs in a VERY LOOSE AND FAST way…so be aware, but still so fun. So right up my alley.

Prepare yourselves.

I’ve been enduring training for the possibility of teaching some online classes. Really as supplemental income to my regular teaching…and I’m curious about it. The training is three weeks, all online, and the assignments are simple, more of a way to teach you the software and the university’s expectations for instructors and students.

Okay, so.

One assignment called for me to respond to particular scenarios posted. As in, what would I do as an instructor?

This is one such scenario (edited down a bit, it was longer):
You give your students the usual bio assignment at the beginning of an introductory English class. One student, Jerri, responds with this post: “Straight up – I’ll duke you out for class English chicken…no really. Hair pull to the knee…. WHACK! That’s Phat!

Whack! That’s Phat! Those don’t even go together, but oy.

I doubt if “That’s cool,” is posted it would be considered a problem.

Another scenario got me irritated because of other trainee responses, not the thing itself:
A graduate student asks for an extension on a paper. When he does turn in the paper, you find that it is exactly the same as one turned in by another student. The other student turned his in on time.

My response was something along the lines of (1) It’s possible the the students exchanged papers to see if they were on the right track, and the late student accidentally uploaded the wrong paper. A quick email should fix that right away, seeing that they would have the correct paper readily available. (2) If the late party is clearly guilty, the former party may or may not have realized that their work was being used but should have exercised caution before sending out their paper. (3) Both could have used the same paper-writing service, which is not acceptable.

My actions, however, for most of the above situations are pretty much the same. Copy both papers for my records, file and incident report with the school, and contact the students.

Here’s what got my goat. Most of my fellow trainees could not understand that I was seeing multiple situations and still adhering to school policy of filing an incident report.

“As long as these papers were not originally shared in the distance class, then someone email the other student the paper. Sorry but that is the situation.” (Typo not mine)

“Melissa, students need to learn “early on” that rules and regulations are important. That should be taken into mind.”

“Melissa, no question between two students, academic integrity is violated by each student. We need to stick to rules of plagiarism without a doubt.”

And yet their own answers were: file an incident report. Just like mine. My answer just didn’t come with the automatic assumption that students are out to get me. Some totally are, some just aren’t.

Shuttlecock, that is!

Grounds of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (Rodin’s The Thinker and Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s Shuttlecocks):