The Mythical Tofurkey

Countdown to 30th birthday: six days
Countdown to flight back home: seven days

I am completely done for the semester.

This is not something I take lightly, to be honest with all of you.

This is how I feel at the end of the semester:



At the end of any semester, for a few days I am left listless and out of sorts. This is because I go from a four-month period of high stress levels and constant responsibility to...nothing. All of a sudden, nothing. This sharp dropoff leaves me feeling, well, out-of-it. And yet, a week from today at this time, I will be in my parents' house in West Virginia, the home in which I grew up, even further away from my normal hectic life than I usually am. The thought is a bit jarring, to say the least.

I don't mind flying; after the first flight I made about four years ago (which, admittedly, was a bit scary for me) planes ceased to bother me. I actually rather enjoy flying now. It's peaceful to look down at the earth and see how beautiful it is from six miles in the air. As mentioned before, this is the first trip back home that I will have taken without having anyone to accompany me at all, in any way -- when I flew back over spring break, Lady and I were together then and she spent a few days at the house with me, and flights home before that were taken with my longtime ex -- but this time, it's just me. Perhaps next time, Daisy will be able to join me, but right now it's just me. I'm also a lot less restricted on this trip because it's just family involved. I may see a friend or two while I'm home, and I plan to have lunch with my longtime friends Wayne and Jane (as I did the last time I flew in) but I don't know about anything/anyone else. The vast majority of my trip will be spent with my parents, extended family members, and (hopefully) my siblings, before coming back home on the day after Christmas. A few days later, I'll be going up to Omaha to spend the New Year with Daisy -- and to finally give her parents their own Christmas gifts.

Daisy and I have been trying to get this weekend's trip to work for several days now -- I originally told her to come down on Wednesday, which she couldn't do. Then I said Thursday/Thursday night would be fine, but she was busy doing a lot of stuff and also wanted to give me a day to relax. Then she was supposed to come down this morning, leaving early. She just now left the house (or so I assume) tonight around 6PM, which means she'll be rolling into Newton around 11 or 12. Again, Daisy's visits have little to do with when I'd like her to be here and more about when she actually arrives. I've said before that she operates on her own timeframe -- Daisy Standard Time, or DST. I can't really complain about this (at least not seriously, anyhow); the woman has always marched to the beat of her own drum, so-to-speak, and this time she was late because she was baking me a birthday cake and bringing with her not only all of my birthday/Christmas presents (I'll get to that in a bit) but the makings of an entire vegan Christmas dinner for us -- including the mythical tofurkey.

(Update: 6:47PM -- she's just now leaving. Again, DST.)

I've never had tofurkey. I've only heard about it, usually as the butt of a joke. When I did a Google Image search, however, it doesn't look half bad. So, really, I'm as open to it as I am anything else Daisy and I eat together. The only thing she's ever steered me wrong on is vegan breakfast sausage -- which she loves, and I absolutely cannot stand. At all. I haaaaated it. That's not her fault, though. We all have our different tastes.

Because of her trip (and because I desperately needed to) I took the liberty of cleaning the house from top to bottom over the course of the past day and a half or so. This included scrubbing the hell out of my bathroom, which hadn't been properly cleaned -- as in, completely cleaned -- in well over a year. Don't get me wrong, I do clean the toilet on a regular basis, as well as scrub down the shower, but everything else just sort of gets pushed to the wayside when I'm busy with school. I vacuumed the upstairs and downstairs, including the carpeted stairwell (no small task as it's really hard to vacuum), did all the dishes, washed the cat hair and man-sweat off the comforters and sheets, and cleaned the cats' room better than it's been cleaned in months. All of this desperately needed to be done so that I didn't feel like such a horrible slob.

I also went to the post office early this afternoon and mailed a large box to my parents -- said box contains most of their Christmas gifts, as I don't have room to take said gifts with me on the plane. This saved me a bit of room in my bag to pack essential things like, oh, underwear. And pants. I plan to dress in layers when I fly out anyhow to save more space, but eh. I sent it in the biggest flat-rate box the post office had on hand, and it'll arrive on Monday -- well before I get there.

When Daisy gets here, we have plans for the weekend -- tonight, we'll have dinner (a laaaaaate dinner) and tomorrow we're going to do my birthday stuff. She apparently got me a bunch of stuff for my birthday, some of which she ordered from Kohl's (why she got me stuff from Kohl's when she could've more than likely gotten it cheaper on Amazon is beyond me, really). I don't know anything about what she's gotten me for either my birthday or Christmas except for one big gift, which I will reveal at a later time after I open it. Mind you, I also told her that I didn't need anything at all -- just having her here is good enough. It's the same thing I told my parents as well, really. I don't need anything for Christmas or for my birthday; really, I'm perfectly happy with the stuff I have. Holidays aren't necessarily big gifting occasions for me, especially since I'm an atheist. They're more about spending time with people who are important to me...though I will say that I don't mind the whole "gifting" part of it.

After we do my birthday morning thing we're going to Hutchinson (30 miles to the west of here) to do some Christmas shopping for her parents as well as for us. I don't know what she's gotten her parents (well, I know a little of it) but I'm sure she's not yet done, and I haven't been to Hutchinson in almost a year. I do have a little spare cash right now -- not a lot, but enough. I've already paid all of my bills -- the ones I've received, anyway -- and I can afford a shopping trip. I will have a bit of cash to work with once I get home, too; usually the go-to birthday gift from my relatives is money, and I got a royalty check from my Cafepress stores about a month ago that I mailed home for safekeeping so that I can cash it once I get there.

On Saturday night we're doing Christmas dinner, and on Sunday morning it's like our "Christmas Morning" of sorts, where we'll exchange all of our gifts. We're doing this so that we can have our own little Christmas before I fly home, and because -- as I told her before -- by the time I get home from West Virginia I will be "Christmased-out." And this is true, really. I've sent all of the Christmas cards I'm sending this year already -- all four of them -- and am looking forward to an under-the-radar holiday for the most part, holed up in my house back home, drinking freshly-ground coffee and good beer. Because, generally, that's what happens when I go back home. I tend to eat and drink a lot. Because I'm home and I don't have to buy my own food for once. Also because my parents stock the house with food like there's a nuclear apocalypse coming.

Daisy will more than likely return home on Monday morning, and I'll have a few days in the interim to relax a little and prep the house for my trip -- including locking everything down and making everything cozy, comfortable, and secure for the cats while I'm away. I'll have to leave the house at about 2:30 AM on Friday morning to ensure that I get to the airport with enough time to park, check in for the flight, and go through security. The flight lifts off at 6AM -- customary for any and all flights I get out of Wichita. I've always told my mother to fly me out as early as possible, as that means I'll get on the ground in Pittsburgh as early as possible as well.

I suppose, to change gears a bit, I should talk a bit about the grading process, as I am completely done for the semester now. At least the finals were fairly easy and not incredibly time-consuming to grade, anyhow. I switched off with the director of the 102 program on Monday afternoon, and by the time I got back on Wednesday afternoon, she had them done. I calculated everything and entered the grades on the Banner system before I went to my last Playwriting meeting that evening, a process that took, on the whole, about...oh, 90 minutes or so. I dropped off the exams and forms in the office, said final farewells to those classmates of mine that I wouldn't see again until January, and left. Most of them have left town already at this point, or will do so over this weekend; Rae and Jay left today, Ryan left yesterday, and I know several others who are leaving within the next few days as well. Some aren't coming back -- at least two new recruits who started the program this fall have abandoned it for greener pastures elsewhere. They have their reasons, of course, but that marks four different grad students who have left the program in their first or second semester over the course of the past semester year, and -- let's be honest here -- that never fucking happens, much less four. There may be more than that, too; I'm not certain.

(Update: due to driving through some nasty storms hitting the area -- yes, in mid-December -- Daisy messaged me to let me know she'll be arriving shortly after midnight.)

The semester ended with a whimper, really -- at this point, the finals week grading ritual is routine for me; I know how the game is played, I know the moves I have to make, the chess pieces to position around the board, etc. When things come due, they come due and I do them with little ceremony or emotion. It's all about taking care of business, metaphorically speaking. Yes, some students failed my classes this semester. Yes, some of them passed with very high A's. This is par for the course for any given semester, really. Surprisingly enough, though, I have not yet received any emails from students bitching/whining about their grades yet -- and really, I don't expect to. Those who did badly know why they did badly, and perhaps they've learned a lesson about spending more time on their schoolwork.

I will also say that I've been told that most of the students who do poorly in English 101 or 102 are the students who don't end up staying in college -- they're the ones who tend to give up and leave because life is hard. This is probably why only a very small number of them are ever seen or heard from in the department again. That's right, folks -- because I don't just gloss over assignments and actually educate my students, there are more than likely a decent number of students who have dropped out of the university due to failing my class. I'm not sure whether I should be proud of that fact, or pointing and laughing, or feeling discouraged and shaking my head in sad disappointment. It's not hard to pass my class. It's not hard to pass 101 or 102, period. You just have to show up and do the work -- for any student who is dedicated to their education, these classes should be a cakewalk. Now, mind you, I may be a bit biased because I have a degree in English, but still. It's not difficult. There's just, well, actual work involved. Work that some of these students, apparently, don't want to put in. That much, over the almost three years I've been teaching, has become abundantly clear.

Ahem, anyway, soapbox rant over. On that note, I shall leave you fine folks -- Daisy will arrive in a little while, and I still have to do some last-minute tidying and deodorizing of my humble abode. I shall write here again probably at least once more, if not twice more, before my flight back home -- I will want to show off the gifts Daisy and I got each other, at the very least. And for those of you who are traveling over the next several days? Be safe, be cautious, and have a wonderful journey.