Friday fragments, with pulchritudinous yodeling

I've been meeting with a million first-year advisees this week so my brain is a little fried, which may explain why I'm struggling to comprehend reality.

A student is currently earning an F in a math class but assures me he'll bring it up to an A by the end of the semester and I think no wonder he's failing math, but then maybe it would be possible to bring an F up to an A if the prof hands out a whole lot of extra credit. I remind the student of a common advisor mantra--D's get degrees--but he sees an elusive A gleaming on the horizon and thinks it's easily within his reach.

A student in the Nature Writing class wants readers to care about the harm we're doing to our pulchritudinous planet but I tell her I hear pulchritude in the voice of W.C. Fields so maybe she ought to choose another word. She doesn't ask me who W.C. Fields might be so maybe she knows, but she doesn't know for pulchritude.

All the commuter students in my 9 a.m. class were a little late this morning because the Oil and Gas Expo taking place in the rec center has resulted in big trucks taking up the parking spaces commuter students need. Maybe I should have warned my commuters to attend class via Zoom while circling the lot. 

I'm getting a cortisone shot in my sore knee this afternoon from an orthopedist who can't understand why I'm not begging for surgery on both knees, because the X-rays reveal that the arthritis is worse in the left knee, which doesn't even hurt. He says the cortisone shot might provide some relief to the sore knee but it won't last so I'd better get used to the idea of a knee replacement tomorrow if not sooner, but instead I'm getting used to the idea of seeking a second opinion.

My partner in faculty training tells me about a dream in which a vendor is supposed to be training faculty in a new technology but instead he's standing at the front of the classroom dressed in German folk garb and yodeling while his young daughter dances nearby, and while my partner is trying to signal to the presenter that he's lost the plot, I'm rushing around the room passing trays of food, presumably because it's impossible to yodel with a mouth full of cake. This scenario may be a dream, but it doesn't feel too different from what's going on in my world right now.