Oh for the love of...

Today has been busy. It is, in fact, my busiest day of the week, and little things have been cropping up regularly that both need immediate attention and cause no little amount of stress. I'll begin with the beginning, because, as the King of Hearts once said, that was the best place to begin.

So, the alarm went off. This is, by the way, a thing that needs immediate attention, and causes no little amount of stress. I had been dreaming of shaving my hands, while on a cruise with characters from a cartoon. I have no idea what it meant, only that I eventually came to the conclusion that it was disturbing. I did not, however wake up when the alarm suggested it. I ended up sleeping in, in nine-minute intervals, a whole half-hour. Or so.

I did manage to crawl out of bed, and even got to the kitchen to feed the cat. She has a habit of sitting right outside my bedroom door in the mornings, which is fine, provided she doesn't scratch at the carpet and beg for attention. My morning went all right, if you consider that I had to change shirts three times, change shoes to match the final shirt, and nab the cat on numerous occasions as she tried to sneak into the closet. She's not allowed in there, since I have my winter stuff in the bottom corner. It's soft, it's semi-enclosed, it's warm and dark, and I really don't want her to fall in love with it.

I got ready in good time, despite the setbacks caused by wrinkles, yokes, and a previously unnoticed stain. I even managed to pack my breakfast. I'd packed my lunch the night before, anticipating a bleary morning. Good job, 'Mira, all would have been well had you remembered that lunch. So we got out of the parking lot here and discovered the missing lunch pail, turned around, and went back for it.

Got it. All is well, until I recall that my office keys are in the basket by the door, and that I left the air con on low. I return to the apartment. I grab the keys, I change the air con, I hang a toy for Charlotte. I go through every room in the apartment checking for possible things I've missed. "I'm not doing this again," I think. "If I leave it this time, it's left." Thankfully, this search turned up a textbook that had been hiding under the futon. I don't make it a habit of placing my books there, and I can't imagine any reason other than a four-legged hairy one as for how it got so far under there. But I somehow saw it and put it in the backpack.

All complete, I then headed for school, and encountered no problem with parking. My office turned up a small emergency, however. My officemate blogged for class the first day of classes that she was afraid of grading the papers, and felt like someone had handed her a scalpel and assigned heart extraction for next Monday. I replied that certainly something was going to die, be it their grades or their confidence. It had been innocent gallows humor, to liven the mood of growing panic as grading drew nearer and no one had told us anything about the program.

The emergency was a comment left by "Curious" suggesting that if we felt so un qualified, we should quit. It was a rather long comment, and somewhat hostile; it explained that we had been given a job and that under qualified people were fired. It was, from the knowledge of the program, certainly someone experienced in the program. My officemate and I got irate, and attempted to explain our humor for what it was. She posted an explanation of the timing, and how stressed we had all been at the time. I posted a full page explaining that this job had come with training, but that I had, at the time, yet to see any evidence of it. I told Curious that too big a deal had been made of our small joke, and that as new graders, we needed encouragement, not advice on quitting. We each expressed our resentment over the orientations that did nothing but confuse everyone.

This doesn't sound like an emergency, does it? In this department, everyone reads everyone's everything. These class blogs are open to all, and people air their grievances on mass email listserves. The emergency comes from being misunderstood in such a way as to potentially turn people against us. We don't need that, especially this early. It isn't a good thing when people start talking about how you don't care about the students, or how you are unsatisfied with your lot. In fact, this is a very bad thing, and our professor for the class also added a comment about all this, expressing concern that we weren't happy with the instruction we were being given.

To make this short, the mess got sorted out via numerous back and forth comments, and all is now smooth and fresh. They are thinking about revamping orientation, and my officemate and I are off the hook for having fun. I learned a valuable lesson as well. The people here are unfamiliar with and not very fond of humor in any form, but especially the sarcastic kind. This does not bode will for me, since I live and breathe sarcasm. I can see potentially rocky times ahead, which I will strive to avoid by suppressing my personality when possible. Expect ulcers. I do.

Well, our pedagogy class with Dr. Guh was actually very beneficial. Allow me to backtrack a wee bit. My sarcasm in the school blog was taken as disinterest in the program and chastised by the prof. I corrected the mistake by deleting the posts he felt were presenting a bad front, and wrote a nice long post about the bickering going on in the listserve, the pointless and disorienting orientation, and the fact that no one would ever answer our questions. I asked how I was supposed to think highly of the program when all I had to go on was complaints from those in the know, avoidance of my questions by the very people who wrote the program, and no real introduction to the really good bits of the program. I wrote that while I had no reason to be positive about it, I would rework my viewpoints, and try to ignore the negative input from the program itself.

There appeared an email to the listserve expressing concern that all the arguments and complaints on the listserve were jading the new people, and that the listserve should be used for constructive comments and questions, not personal battles over issues. I see some correlation. Also, the thing with Curious, and then also Guh's class.

She gave us some genuine question answer time, and actually gave us the answers we needed. She showed us what we needed to see, offered real advice on situations, and helped with several troubleshooting spots we were facing. Wow. I actually got something out of it.

I read for pedagogy 2, and ate a brief lunch between classes. I also dealt with minor issue number whatever. I haven't been counting. The professor I observed wants to meet with me for an hour or so in addition to sitting in on her class next week, and has decided that we (the other observer) need to be mentored. I personally would rather see what the students see, rather than know about the lesson plan for the day. For one, what they see with this prof is what they'll see when (if) I do those things. For another, I don't have the time or desire to meet with her. In fact, there are many, many things about this that I brought up with my pedagogy 2 prof. But that's jumping ahead of things.

Feminism went well, and there were no mishaps; I read more between classes, and formulated with observer 2 what was going on with the semi-controlling "mentor". We *then* went to pedagogy 2, and ended up staying after to talk to the prof. In fact, the class got out at six, and we were talking until about seven-thirty. About all sorts of things, but mostly addressing additional concerns we had and questions we needed to have answered. Today has been most informative and I think that, on the whole, it was a good one.

I got home and made lemon pepper chicken. I had some rice with it, and called it a meal. Charlotte was upset that I got home so late, and was very needy while I cooked, which wasn't a good thing. But after I ate (it was delicious), I did a few dishes and played long and hard with her. Then I remembered that someone was going to call with the time for the demo yoga class tomorrow, and turned my cell phone on. After calling back the people who had called, I sat down to write the newest extracurricular assignment down before I forgot. Our good doctor has been nominated for a home makeover, and I need to write a sappy letter. It should be fairly easy, and as a creative writer, I can throw in some nice images I guess.

Well, while I was doing this, Charlotte was batting at the fish bowls. No problem; she does this frequently, and the fish don't seem to mind. This time, something went wrong. She jumped back, and knocked the rock off the cardboard, and into the water, crushing the stupid betta that didn't swim out of the way. I thought fish were supposed to be smart about avoiding objects in the water. They certainly avoid my cup when I try to change their water.

Well, Edgar didn't avoid the 5+ pound rock, and he didn't revive, either. So I flushed him, cleaned the rocks, and set the whole mess in the sink. I don't think Charlotte cared much about the fish; she was too busy lapping up the water that had sloshed over the sides and soaked everything on the table. After I mopped up the water, set a heavier book on the only surviving fish (Kent, my long-time favorite), and finished writing down the assignment, I took a blow drier to the books I had retrieved from the mail *less than five hours earlier*. The books are now fine, the table's alright, the remaining fish looks traumatized, and Charlotte is dozing, stretched out across the entire length of her scratching board.

I took the time to blog, since I needed a break, and now I half expect the next mishap to be my computer dying. So I'll post this now, and at least save myself the heartache of losing a rather large entry.

End.


Here’s the saved to Word file. I first tried to post it; it failed. I then tried to email it to the blog; it failed. I tried again the normal way; it failed. Here is your bona fide problem, just in case you thought days get better after dark.

End again.

PS: The cat is now observing poor Kent. He’ll be going in the bedroom tonight. The fish, not Charlotte