A very long day

Hey folks, I just now got in. Yes, it is late at night, or early in the morning. That's all right. That just means I can start on today's "To Do" list right away. My day was filled with enlightening occurrences, which no doubt you want to read about. If this isn't the case, I suggest you stop reading, because I plan to talk about my day.

Today (yesterday) is one of my classmates' birthdays, so we celebrated. Plans were planned after our first class, which was a doozy. Plans were finalized after our last class, which was also a doozy, but for very different reasons.

Before the first class, which would be pedagogy 1, I had to correct all the "mistakes" I made on the grammar quiz, and write in the margins why the "correct" answer was correct. At the beginning of that abysmal quiz, I conceded the point and called the correct answers correct. Not what we'd say in real life, but the test was written over a decade ago by people with no conception of a grammar shift. That's fine. The last few pages, however, got a taste of my personality. The only thing that dictated that my choices were incorrect was that the test writers' choices differed. Nothing but personal preference accounted for one answer's correctness and the others' incorrectness. I told them so. I did not have to defend my answers to the class, though most would have agreed with me, but I did turn the thing in, so my answers will be read by the professor. Good. I think she'll agree with me on many of them.

After this, I began to grade papers. I encountered my first real case of P-. Sorry, folks, but I'm not allowed to actually accuse a student of P-, so I avoid using the word. Suffice it to say that I recognized the writing from the textbook, and looked it up. Several sentences are word for word from the example in the book, with the topic replaced. The summaries are original (I can only presume), but even the writing concern matched the example. I had to flag the draft and send the suspicion on to the classroom instructor. A sad, sad day.

I graded between classes, ate, and even got together a list of the things I plan to change while I polish the short-short into a publisher ready manuscript. It was a productive hour and a half. After this time, I went to my Feminism class. This class really upset me today. I was so upset, I didn't speak a word. I didn't raise my eyes from the table top more than a half dozen times. I stared at my books, my fingers, the dust, anything but the grotesqueness at the end of the conference table.

Allow me to tell you about a man I call "Pink." Pink is the only male in the class, and while I don't fault him for being there, or anything like that, I would have a better time of it if he wasn't who he is. First, he has some kind of lung problem that causes him to spit out his words like Sylvester the Cat from Loony Toons. Even his breathing is a backed up spit waiting to happen. He is inattentive during class, and often breaks out into loud snores. We ignore this, in an attempt to not be rude. He spends his wakeful class hours complaining to those nearby that he's having a hard time staying awake. I know this because I have had to listen to it during a class. I now make serious attempts, bordering on rude, to avoid sitting within two chairs of this man.

His physical appearance is that of the stereotypical Brooklyn plumber. He is thick, swarthy, slightly dirty, ragged, with poor taste in clothes and a look about him of lowness. I do recognize that many plumbers are great people, and I mean no offence to plumbers. Or Brooklynites. I'm merely using an image most people will be able to connect with Pink.

Pink has nothing constructive to say during class. He seems primarily concerned with making sure we don't think he's like "all the other men." He regularly makes what he must think are rousing statements of support for us, such as "Well, you know, women do every bit as much as men, and they deserve to get paid as much. You know, it just isn't right that they're treated any different, 'cause I mean, I know a lot of ladies, and they are great. Men are wrong to try to, you know, keep women down, and I think a lot of men are afraid of women..." I'd go on, since he does, but I just can't. It's painful.

That is Pink. I call him pink because he wears a pink hat "to make the men uncomfortable." Pink is the reason for *my* discomfort during class today. He is the reason I was unable to participate in class discussion, the reason my eyes never left the desk and immediately surrounding items of interest, the reason I stayed after to talk to the professor.

Pink was wearing a wrestling shirt, one of the ones where the scoop neck reveals a navel, not to mention nasty old man nipples. Pink is somewhere between forty and fifty years old, I think, and has tattoos over his entire torso. His skimpy little wrestling shirt looked at first glance to be no shirt at all, and at second glance to be two thin strings coming up like suspenders. Pink sat at one end of the table, and the professor came to class after most of us had arrived, so she sat such that almost all of us had to look in Pink's general direction to see the professor. Much of the discussion originated in that area of the room, and class was extremely quiet today. I know why I didn't contribute anything. I do not know if the reason was similar for the rest of the class.

Pink's attire has not been this bad before now. It was never clean, never professional (not even as professional as T-shirt and jeans), and never kind to the eyes. But it was never obscene before. It never showed hairy, wrinkle, nipply, tattooed torso. This time it did, and it turned my stomach.

I mentioned this to the professor after class, explaining that I hadn't known what the proper way to deal with this kind of thing was, and that I couldn't seem to come up with a nice way to say it. She told me to just say it. I like people like that. I told her how offended and distracted and disgusted I was, and I identified the reason. She seemed relieved someone had mentioned it. My officemate stayed after to address the same issue. The professor told us that she couldn't address the issue on her own, unless students had complained. We assured her that we were complaining. She'll be doing something about it, although I don't know what.

After this, I graded more papers, and thought about my revisions. I went home, played with the cat, read for class, got picked up by my classmate whose birthday is today, and along with two other classmates, had dinner at Olive Garden. Rarely have I had as festive a celebration. We sat there eating, and talked for hours. Then we paid up and headed to the movie theater to watch Vanity Fair. It's based on a Victorian novel about social climbing. The movie's not bad, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again.


This little outing is the first outing where I felt like an adult, a working woman, out with her working woman friends. We all talked about our job, about our classes, about our lives, etc. And it wasn't like we were giggly girls out for a night on the town, but like we were women trying to relax. I got a lot of relaxing done, and came home to write this.

It's been a busy day. I really want sleep, but I can't quite get it yet. I have to take care of some personal business, replying to emails and the like, and I have to come up with two topics to write my two papers about.

Charlotte says hi. She's killed a few roaches today, as far as I can tell by the little black corpses. I think I'll keep her. My little pest control. She bit me today, hard. I left for class early to spite her. I think she thought I was playing, and pounced me. Or maybe I startled her. In any case, she didn't just set out to bite me, and she's been very well-behaved aside from that.

I'm off.

End.