Nothing doing

If I could save time in a bottle--and there's an invention that's bound to earn someone a fortune someday--I'd take a solid hour out of this afternoon and mail it to myself about two weeks from now when I'll have a pile of drafts on my desktop demanding immediate attention and no time to attend to them. What is the point of office hours this early in the semester? No one really needs me right now and I'm thoroughly caught up on my work. I even spent some time this morning revising an essay but I still have a full hour to spend in my office waiting for nothing to happen.

Not that I'm complaining. Nothing is not a bad thing to have happening right now, considering all the somethings that could be happening. Hurricanes! The Delta variant! Cleveland Indians players getting injured! I keep reading about academics on other campuses agonizing over the absence of mask mandates and difficult decisions about whether to send their own children to school and I'm thankful for the relative sanity we're experiencing right here.

Not that everything is peachy. My literature classes are much smaller than usual, attesting to the marginalization of literary study in the general education curriculum, and I'm having the usual problems getting students to engage in discussion. I'm spending way too much time reminding first-year students to pull their masks up over their noses, and then I'm getting glares of contempt that make me sympathize with the 88-year-old psychology prof in Georgia who retired in the middle of class when a student refused to put on a mask. We have compliance here, mostly, but masking is another exhausting thing to have to think about all the stinking time.

And don't even get me started on the weather! I arrive here in the morning feeling as if I'm swimming through heat and humidity, and then in the afternoon I drive home through rain so heavy that I can't see the road. Two days in a row I've had to pull over and wait for a pause in the deluge, and tonight we've got flood warnings. I'd better take my laptop home--if our driveway washes out, it could be a while before I get back to campus.

But the fact that I have a whole empty hour this afternoon suggests that things are, on the whole, pretty good, all things considered. We've survived the first week of classes without any major meltdowns and we're well on our way through the second. Last year getting through a week of teaching felt downright heroic, but this year it's just another check-mark on the calendar, just more water under the bridge. (But let's hope it stays under the bridge because I don't have time to deal with a flood right now.)

Going bananas in the first-year classroom

At the end of a lively activity in my first-year composition class today, a student turned to her discussion partner and said, "You've convinced me to feel slightly less horrible about bananas." Progress is being made!

The students had read about the importance of listening to others before entering a discussion, and I wanted them to practice their listening and persuasion skills in small groups. First, though, they needed a topic to discuss, but I didn't want to let them get sucked into the black hole of highly controversial topics currently causing so much cultural division. Instead, I asked my students to write down a strongly held opinion related to food.

Everyone eats, right? And everyone feels strongly about certain aspects of eating--just ask a mixed group whether a can of carbonated beverage is soda or pop and see what happens. Based on what I heard in class today, it appears that my students feel very strongly about pizza toppings, energy drinks, potato chips, and, of course, bananas. ("They're mushy and gross," says one; "they're colorful and full of potassium," says another.)

Students had to write down three reasons supporting their opinion, explain their opinion to a partner, and then write a brief summary of the partner's argument just to make sure they'd listened closely. Next, the fun part: imagine that you strongly disagree with your partner and present reasons supporting your disagreement. Finally, find some common ground, some point on which you can agree. ("Bananas are a pretty color!")

This was a very basic low-stakes activity, but it got my students talking to each other about a nonthreatening topic--and listening too, which was the whole point. With so much rancor surrounding us in the media and elsewhere, it was fun to hear my students passionately argue in favor of potato chips or against fruit on pizza ("But tomato is a fruit!"). They got to know each other better while practicing listening skills; I got to learn a little more about my students, and no one came to fisticuffs. 

Were minds changed? Maybe not, but at least that one student feels a little less horrible about bananas. Baby steps, people! Baby steps! 

 

Notes from the IOF corner

Halfway through the first week of classes and I'm already worn out:

1. Textbook problems! Way back last spring I ordered a new composition text with readings, but the bookstore instead stocked the same text without the readings, and when I called the bookstore manager to get it straightened out so my students would have the text they need, he said well we have the correct text in stock but it just isn't listed as required for your class, which makes no sense since I ordered the correct text and marked it as "required." Now all the students who bought the wrong book have to take it back and exchange it for the right one.

2. Tech difficulties, not horrible but distracting all the same. I'm not using Zoom in classes this semester (unless...you know the drill) so starting class requires far fewer clicks than last year, but that doesn't mean everything is smooth sailing. I'm using a different type of online discussion in one class and I didn't get the settings quite right so none of my students could access it for today's discussion. I woke up in the middle of the night suddenly understanding what I'd done wrong and how to fix it, but I don't generally take my computer to bed so I couldn't do anything with it until this morning.

3. New masks! One style makes my glasses fog up so I can't see what I'm doing in class; the other style feels much flimsier but doesn't make my glasses fog up. It wears me out to have to make these life-or-death decisions every stinking day.

4. Emails! I'm not the only one having a rough start to the semester. I'm responding as quickly as I can but I sense a lot of anxiety among students who are panicking about every little thing. One student wanted me to summarize the entire plot of Homer's Odyssey, to which I responded, "You could easily go and read a plot summary online, but then you would miss out on the most valuable part of the learning experience: immersing yourself in an unfamiliar world and feeling your way around until it starts to make sense. If you feel lost, you're probably in the right place. It will become more clear the more time you spend there." I hope this is true.

5. I've been realizing for the past couple of years that my opinions and experiences are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the current academic climate. I try to stay up-to-date on what's happening in my field, but nevertheless I feel a steady but subtle pressure pushing me gently toward the Irrelevant Old Fart corner, and there's nowhere to go from there but out the door. This is the way the career ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

First-day-of-class fumblings

I had set my first-year composition students to work writing about their personal goals when a student raised his hand and asked, "Are we allowed to use first person?" Part of me wanted to point out that it's really difficult to write about our own experience without using I, but mostly I wanted to celebrate: He knows what it means to write in the first person! He's not an ignoramus!

Of course I don't expect my students to be ignorant, but on the other hand, we've been warned that this year's first-year students have faced educational disruptions during the pandemic and may have arrived on campus woefully unprepared for college-level work. On the other hand, maybe their pandemic experiences built their resilience and self-regulation; maybe they were forced to strengthen just the kinds of skills that will serve them well as independent learners. I mean, who knows? It would be a mistake to draw conclusions prematurely about what kinds of students this past year has produced. I'd rather see some evidence first.

Based on the evidence I've seen so far--two first-year classes first thing in the morning, two upper-level classes later in the day--all I can say for certain is that they were all present and followed directions. I did have to remind a few students to pull their masks up over their noses, but otherwise they were model students. But they all have reading and writing assignments due Wednesday, which will provide more evidence about essential skills like reading and writing and following instructions. 

As for me, I'm already worn out after only one day of classes and I still have to stick around for a department meeting this afternoon. I put up some new photos of my grandkids in my office to infuse the place with youthful joy, so now I can get to work reading my students' first-day-of-class writing while surrounded by happy grandkid smiles. There's nothing to despair about today, but ask me again in a couple of days and I'll be the first person to let you know. 

In the surreal world of Health Insurance Math

I spent a big chunk of my afternoon yesterday in an alternate universe where all the math rules we learned in elementary school no longer apply, and trust me: you don't want to go there, but someday you probably will. It goes something like this:

Me: I switched all our prescriptions from a 30-day supply at Pharmacy A to a 90-day supply at Pharmacy B, as instructed, but my husband's cholesterol medication went from $16 a month at the old pharmacy to $214 for three months at the new pharmacy. That doesn't add up.

Cheerful Health Insurance Person (hereafter CHIP): Well why would you make the switch if it costs more?

Me: Because I was told we were REQUIRED to switch to a 90-day supply at Pharmacy B.

CHIP: Well, you're not actually REQUIRED to switch. You have to switch only if you want your prescriptions to be covered by your health insurance plan.

Me: And why wouldn't I want our prescriptions covered by our health insurance plan?

CHIP: Because some of them will cost more.

Me: Then what's the point of having health insurance?

CHIP: The deductible! If you pay $214 for a 90-day supply at Pharmacy B, it counts toward your annual deductible, but if you pay $16 each month at Pharmacy A, it doesn't.

Me: Listen, if you add up my husband's medical expenses for his whole entire life, they wouldn't add up to our annual deductible. You want me to pay that much more for a prescription on the off chance that this is the year that he'll get hit by a heart attack or a brain tumor or a crosstown bus?

CHIP: Well, I may be able to get the price lowered with a coupon. I'll call the pharmacy and see what I can do.

[Time passes. I still can't do the math. The phone rings again.]

CHIP: I figured out the problem: you would pay less if your husband took more.

Me: Um, what?

CHIP: I have this coupon that allows Pharmacy B to lower the cost of the 20-milligram tablets to $55 for a 90-day supply. Unfortunately, your husband is taking the 10-milligram dosage, which is still $214 for a 90-day supply.

Me: So a 10-milligram tablet costs four times as much as a 20-milligram tablet?

CHIP: That's correct.

Me: Four times the cost for half the dosage?

CHIP: Right. I asked them whether he could get the 20-milligram tablets and cut them in half, but they said he can't.

Of course he can't. That's the kind of math we teach in elementary school: Cut this large thing in half and you get two things, each half the size of the original thing. We need to start telling kids that each half is worth four times the value of the original or they'll never make it as far as Health Insurance Math, which I'm convinced is designed to deter customers from ever asking questions about anything.

In the end we moved the prescription back to Pharmacy A, where he will continue to pay $16 a month that won't count toward our annual deductible. Then again, out-of-pocket medical expenses can be deducted on our taxes, provided that we itemize...and here we approach the surreal world of Tax Math, and trust me: you don't want to go there.

There will be yelling

Suppose you're hard at work in your office on a Sunday afternoon in a quiet campus building; you have to step just a few doors down the empty hallway to the ladies' room and you don't even bother putting on a mask because you're convinced that you're the only person in the building, but then you open the door to the ladies' room and see a man staring at you.

A strange man!

In the ladies' room!

I may have been a little bit startled. Okay, there may have been a modicum of yelling and jumping involved, but you'd be startled too if you saw a strange man where he didn't belong in a building you thought was empty.

A very strange man, in fact. It took me a moment to register that he was not a living, breathing human being at all but a cardboard cutout of Robert Pattinson--not someone I'd expect to encounter in the ladies' room of my campus building. Not sure what he was doing there but this morning he was gone. Maybe the yelling scared him away.

The thing is, I really wanted to do some yelling in my office Sunday afternoon. After years and months and days of working very hard to coordinate the efforts of more than 30 scholars, I finally put the finishing touches on the collection of essays I'm editing on teaching comedy, and I sent the whole mess off to the publisher with a very satisfying click. At that moment I might have appreciated a whole lot of hurrahs and confetti and drum rolls and applause, but it's hard to get appreciation from an empty building. 

In fact it's hard to get anything from an empty building except bored, so I suppose I should be grateful for the brief break in my dull routine that brought Robert Pattinson so unexpectedly into my life. Yes, there was yelling, but not quite the kind I'd expected. 

A finger in the dike

Finally, a resolution to our very fluid mask policy! Shortly after I posted yesterday, the Powers That Be issued a mandate requiring that masks be worn inside buildings on campus, starting today. This will replace the official [INSERT POLICY HERE] policy, which is a tremendous relief. A uniform mask policy will be less confusing and easier to enforce than a patchwork of separate policies differing across departments.

Like many professors, I'm glad I'm not at the University of Iowa right now, where the administration tried to prohibit faculty from even talking about masks or vaccines with students (read it here). According to Inside Higher Ed, the original order "said instructors 'may only make statements regarding mask usage or vaccinations in the context of course material discussions of health-related issues.'" If staying alive during a pandemic is not a health-related issue, I don't know what is.

In other teaching-related news, I finally found some new teaching shoes. They're ugly as sin, well deserving the term clodhoppers, but I ought to be able to stand up in them through four classes without massive foot and ankle pain. Gone are the days of cute teaching shoes! I'd rather be sensible than suffering.  

But maybe I can make up for it with some cute masks. The new mask policy is a finger in the dike of a very fluid situation, but until this flood dries up for good, I'm going shopping. 

Clodhoppers. Not cute.

Embracing the fluidity, sort of

I keep getting emails telling me everything is fluid right now, a great description of the current state of my sinuses, which insist on reminding me of the power of ragweed pollen, that tiny particle that makes the entire content of my skull flow like Niagara Falls down the back of my throat. 

But the emails are not talking about my sinuses; they're talking about campus pandemic policies for fall semester, which begins one week from tomorrow. Those of us diligently working on syllabi (instead of putting them off to the last minute) were delighted, therefore, to receive an updated mask policy that must be included on all syllabi--until we actually read the policy statement, which consisted of a whole bunch of please-don't-sue-us language followed by [INSERT DEPARTMENTAL POLICY HERE].

I wish I were making this up, but alas, no: our official mask policy looks like a proofreading error. I suppose I could simply copy and past [INSERT DEPARTMENTAL POLICY HERE] on my syllabi, but then I'd be the one looking incompetent. (Could this be an administrative attempt to kick the incompetence can down the road?) A follow-up email from the Powers That Be said that yes, we will have a more specific policy eventually but we need to be patient because everything is so fluid right now, which makes me hate the word fluid with every cell in my body, including the cells that are so worked up right now about fighting off ragweed pollen. 

But there's nothing to be done at this point but to blow my nose and wipe my weepy eyes and embrace the fluidity, but have you ever tried giving Niagara Falls a big 'ol hug? Goal one for fall semester: embrace the fluidity without getting dashed to pieces on the rocks. It's a start.

 

A hand in the dark

Fearlessness and energy abounded yesterday as our grandkids scrambled like mountain goats over rocks and ridges while making their way to caves at Hocking Hills. Meanwhile, I scrambled to keep up but often failed. They marveled over bugs and fungus, admired the caves, and played in the sand, but only one thing slowed them down: going through a dark tunnel through the rock on the trail to Old Man's Cave. The two older kids entered first, holding hands with each other, but soon they were reaching back in the dark to grab my hand. If my grandkids reach out for a hand in the dark, I'm happy to help--and they pay me back in smiles that keep me forging ahead even when the path is difficult. 

It's really not possible to capture the grandeur of the big caves in a photo.

Dancing in a cave

 

Feeding on late-summer limbo

A doe and two fawns have been hanging around our yard lately, and yesterday morning I saw them nibbling amongst the tomato plants. That explains a lot. This year it seems I'm raising a garden to feed the wildlife and putting out bird-feeders to give the raccoons a challenge. And then one of my hummingbird feeders sprung a slow leak, which a horde of bees discovered before I did. I can't get close enough to take down the feeder without disturbing the bees, and one thing I don't want to do right now is disturb a horde of bees.

So I left 'em alone and went to Jackson, where this morning we saw some deer out at Lake Katharine and heard a whole lot of quiet. When the songbirds take a break, the woods just feel emptier. We saw rattlesnake plantain blooming in several places, their tiny white blossoms barely visible at the end of a narrow stalk. Otherwise it feels like the whole place is at rest, just gathering energy for the next big show--the fall color season.

Early August is a limbo time even when I'm not in the woods. I've finished much of my summer work and I can't get back to my course preps until I get some more clear guidance about teaching conditions. I'll enjoy some fun grandkid time over the next couple of days but then when I get back to campus, the hiatus will be over and it will be all systems go.

So it's nice to let all systems stop for a little while. Let the bees, fawns, and raccoons enjoy their feast; I'm baking zucchini bread.

Rattlesnake plantain orchid

 

 

Earning a perfect 10 on the birthday-cake floppage scale

I knew the exact moment when I ruined my son's birthday cake this morning: I'd rushed and mishandled the chocolate so that it wouldn't combine properly with the egg whites. If I were on the Great British Baking Show, I would have dumped the whole mess in the trash and started over, but I'd already used all the chocolate and I didn't want to drive to town to buy more and I don't have multiple mixers and bowls or a staff to clean up my messes and I just didn't have time to deal with it, so I guess my son is getting a flop cake for his birthday. I'll spoon some cherries and whipped cream on top. No one will ever know what it was supposed to look like.

Except me, of course. Always my own worst critic.

The reason I didn't have time to start over is that I'm scheduled for a long-delayed mammogram today, a prospect that fills me with what I would call The Twisties if I were an Olympic gymnast flinging myself into the air instead of a harried mom trying to fling together a birthday cake. Nobody gets a mammogram for fun, of course, but the prospect of being manhandled and brutally smooshed fills me with an internal twisting that makes it hard to concentrate on mundane matters like the right method for melting chocolate. 

I should have known better than to try to do anything requiring coherent thought on a day when I have a mammogram scheduled. Like many people, I postponed basic medical care during lockdown, so this summer I've been catching up on eye exams and dental care and routine diagnostic tests. Someone should create a routine diagnostic test to measure how the prospect of getting routine diagnostic tests can disrupt a person's mental state, as measured on a scale of birthday-cake floppage. Dental x-rays: no disruption at all; a beautiful and delicious cherry-filled Swiss roll results. Eye exam involving puffs of air, bright lights, and dilation: moderate disruption resulting in a flattish cake with droopy layers. Mammogram: maximum disruption resulting in a so-called "cake" that's unrecognizable and possibly inedible.

Fortunately, my son is a full-grown reasonable person unlikely to throw a tantrum over a ruined birthday cake, but that won't stop me from apologizing about a million times, even though it's not entirely my fault. I could blame the mammogram, but what does my son know about that kind of--well, discomfort hardly does justice to the situation. Garage door slamming down on your most sensitive bodily parts is more accurate but who wants to imagine such a thing over supper?

Let 'im eat cake. Even a flop cake is better than no cake at all, and whipped cream can cover a multitude of sins.