Parallels

Spring semester: day seventy-six

This has been one of the most bizarre days of my entire semester.

But, really, it wasn't bizarre until I thought about it. On the surface, really, it was like any other day.

I will preface this post by saying that I never expect my days to go strangely, and never get a vibe that one is going to, but everything today was just a little...off. Like I woke up in an only slightly parallel universe.

I actually wrote a short story about that scenario once, about a man who wakes up in a different, but only slightly, parallel universe each time he goes to sleep. I should dig that out and revise it; it was very Twilight Zone-esque. Might be publishable somewhere. And it definitely needs a rewrite. Hm. New project for the coming few weeks.

First off, my car is squealing.

No, not in the fun way. And not in the oh-shit-my-differential-is-going-out sort of way. That would be a high, shrieking squeal when the car is started or driving. No, my car is squealing softly, squeaking, in one of the belts or flywheels somewhere, usually when it's first started after sitting for a while (such as all day at school or several days here at home in the driveway). After a few miles, as the car's engine warms up and I drive her around some, it stops. It usually won't squeak at me if I start it again shortly after it was started and driven somewhere, such as when I make a trip to Walmart or something like that, but it's starting to do it a little louder and a little more often now than it used to -- it used to do it maybe once a week; now it's almost every time I fire her up for the first few minutes she runs. Could be nothing; could be just old age and the need for the engine to get up to proper running temperature once she fires up, or it could be a sign that another one of the belts is going out. Who knows. What I do know is that I don't have any loss of power, the transmission is shifting smoothly, and the car is driving fine and normally without heating up any more than normal and without burning any more oil than usual. The heater and vents work, the electronics and lights are normal, the acceleration and brakes are just fine. Therefore, really, it could be anything or it could be nothing. Now, the temperatures and humidity levels have been going up and down a lot over the past few days and weeks, yes, and as I've mentioned in the past, sometimes (briefly) she'll give me a little trouble starting or will do weird-ass stuff like the "Service Engine Soon" light flashing at me for 30 seconds or so, but overall? For a car with almost 230,000 miles on her, she's running really well and really admirably. I don't really have any complaints there, to be honest with you -- the car gets me to school and back with no real issues, and only has to make one more of those school-and-back trips for the rest of the semester -- on Monday, for my students' final exam (on graduation day, we'll take Daisy's car). This is good, because if she acts up badly after that or blows a major part sometime this summer, it's not like there's a massive hurry in spending a ton of money getting her fixed, because it's not like I have anywhere to be on a daily basis after May 17th until I find another place of employment, wherever/whatever that may eventually be. Believe me, if I had reliable summer employment or a good future job lined up and waiting for me somewhere I would have to move to, I'd sell/junk the Monte Carlo and get a used Honda or something. As I don't, well, for now -- as long as she's running -- it's not a major concern.

The last week of classes tends to be a little strange anyhow, or at least a bit out of the ordinary; as I told Daisy this afternoon upon coming home, it feels as if everyone in the department is running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to get everything done or otherwise taken care of before finals week. I seem to be like Neo in the Matrix, calmly traversing all of that, wading through it, walking in slow motion through everyone running around. I'm done, as they say. I've finished my graduate school career. Today, I was just there. 

This morning, after getting out of my squeaky car and walking to the building in the misting rain, I found that I still had not been given the list of exam rooms for our students. This is sort of important, as if I don't tell them where the exam is, duh, they won't come to it. We usually have this information before the last week of classes. Well, today was the second day of the last week of classes, and I had no information. It was my last teaching day. I needed to know where my students' exam was going to be held -- so I went to the office to ask. I was informed by the office administration that the rooms were announced via email last week...which surprised the hell out of me, as I never got an email saying anything of that sort. Yet, all of the rest of the department did. Including adjuncts and assistant professors.

This happens pretty frequently for me, actually -- one out of every five or six emails sent to me via the department just disappears into cyberspace, and I never get it. I don't know why. I don't know if I need to be added to some sort of list, if the servers just don't like my address, or what. Needless to say, it causes me some headaches/stress from time to time and makes me look like a complete ass on occasion at best, and inattentive/aloof at worst.

I got the exam room number and the printout which was sent out via the email I never got -- it'll be me alone with my students, not crammed into another room with a bunch of other 102 students -- and is right down the hall from where I teach my 9:30 class. They are, apparently, still finalizing the grading partners for everything; the 102 director confirmed with me once again this afternoon that Suri and I had requested each other for that list, so I'm pretty sure that list is still being made. Again, that's really late in the semester for that to be happening as well; normally we find out our partners and the exam room at the same time on a printed memo that's put into our mailboxes in the department at least a week or two before the last week of classes, not during. However, the department has been a total mess this semester (which I may or may not write about long, long after graduation), so I can sort of understand things going a little more slowly than usual. And, again, remember -- chickens with their heads cut off. All of the important stuff is getting done, so that's all that really matters.

I taught what may very well be my last two classes ever today, in which I collected papers (easily 500-600 pages to read and grade through between now and Monday), told my students the exam room, time/date, grading scale, and went through the stuff they needed -- and I gave my normal end-of-the-semester pep-talk/speech. This time, however, it was more subdued.

"I want you kids to know that today, for better or worse, is the end of my teaching career for the foreseeable future," I said. "I don't know if, in the future, I'll ever teach another class again. I'm graduating in a week and a half, and while many of you engineers may have jobs waiting for you directly out of undergrad with your Bachelor's, the situation is a little more grim for those of us getting English degrees -- even Master's degrees. There's no guaranteed jobs for anyone, and thousands of MFAs graduate every year for every open teaching position at any school. Because of that, I don't know if I'll ever teach again. And I love teaching. Teaching all of you how to write better has been my life for the past three years."

All of them looked at me very seriously, as if they thought I would start crying in front of them, or something like that. I did not. I was not in a crying vein; I was in a serious vein.

"And over those past three years," I continued, "with two full classes each semester, teaching hundreds and hundreds of students, I have seen and I have put up with a deeply impacted ass-full of bullshit in all forms -- I've put up with whining, I've put up with excuses, I've put up with students who didn't listen, didn't care, and didn't do the work, but you know what? In the end, it's all been worth it. And, most importantly, you folks -- you didn't do that. You didn't give me any shit. You're intelligent. You're engineers. You come to class, you ask questions when necessary, you pay attention, and you do your work. Teaching this class has been one of the most fun, most fulfilling experiences of my life. So, to you brave souls, as you venture forward into the rest of your undergraduate careers, I have but one thing to say to you -- thank you."

They sat there stunned. I don't think they knew how to react one way or the other. At least, that's what I thought at the time. Later, a slow realization came over me -- these students never get thanked by anything, or anyone, other than by their own grades. Most of their professors don't care if they learn anything or if they pass their course -- they're just another set of numbers. I've never been like that. I want to see my students succeed. I help them when they need it. I help them when they don't necessarily need it. I don't hold their hands through my course, but I do push them along and make them earn their grades. I, to some extent, teach them how to succeed. I make myself relate-able; I let them know that I was once where they were, that I am still, to an extent, where they are -- as I am a student myself (well, I was until I passed my comps, anyhow). I never claimed to be above them or to be better than them in any way, even as their instructor, and if I made a mistake in something, I admitted my faults. I was human to them in a way most professors aren't.

If I do ever teach again, whether it's for this university or another one, that's not going to change in me. It just won't. It's part of who I am, fundamentally, as a person and as a professor.

My last teaching day ended with a whimper and not a bang. My students took their practice exit exams one by one, turned them in, and left. Suddenly, I was left in my classroom all alone with nobody there and a stack of papers in front of me. I put them in my bag, hit the lights, and left -- it seemed fitting.

My office hours are over and have been over for a week -- all I had left to do was take care of the very few small tasks left I still had around the office, around the department, before I could go home. This entailed working my very last hour ever in the Writing Center. Mind you, this is the last week of classes, and the morning/midday hours are generally the busiest hours of any given week -- but especially the last week of classes. My normal hour in there is supposed to be from 4-5PM on Tuesdays, though I've only worked that hour in there once because I realized what a terrible, horrible, foolish mistake I'd made in scheduling that hour. For one, there are four people on the hired staff working that hour -- I'm usually not needed. For two, after about 3PM on any given day, the Writing Center gets really quiet.  For three, getting out of there and trying to leave campus and go home at 5PM on a weekday is an absolute fucking logistical nightmare with Wichita rush hour traffic, which bottlenecks for a span of about two miles or so almost as soon as I get on I-135N. What is normally a 25-minute or so drive can easily turn into an hour-long drive to get home if I leave around 5PM, a stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper trip all the way out of the city that is not only supremely frustrating to me, but in warmer weather tends to make the car's engine run a bit hot (it being a massive, naturally-aspirated 215 HP V6 and all). Because of these factors, I tend to do my hour in the Writing Center from 1-2, 2-3, or occasionally 3-4 at the latest. Today, everything else was done; I wanted to get off campus and go home, as it was dark and starting to rain. I chose to work the 1-2 hour, and then go home after it was over. I also chose this hour because it was early afternoon during the last week of classes, and figured that they may have been shortstaffed and would need all the help they could get from GTAs like me, especially as half of us tend to blow off the Writing Center during the last week of classes.

I got in there at 1PM to find...nobody. One of the four people on staff was helping a student, who quickly finished her work. Another student (one of Suri's students, actually) was making up a practice final. One of my fellow GTA colleagues was working his hour as well, and had nobody to help. While I was there, a student came in to make up another test and another came in to have someone look over his dissertation -- we directed him to the proper editor(s) for that (as that's not the job of the Writing Center). That's it. What I expected to be a crazy-busy hour in there, especially since they'd already posted on the door that the average wait time was 25 minutes or so during this week, was...completely uneventful.

Again, it's like I was living in a slightly-off parallel universe.

I said my final farewells to the staff for the semester and gathered my things in my office, making sure to put on my field jacket that I've had hanging on the back of the office door for the past month or two (because, as I'd been told, it was raining) before I left. I got in the car, fired her squeally ass up, almost got run over by a pack of Arabic students stuffed into a Jaguar, and finally made my way home. I drove through squalls of heavy rain mixed in with light drizzle and warm winds.

My last day of actual classes and actual teaching on campus is done and over. All that's left to do now is proctor my final, grade my students' papers, post grades, pack up my office, and graduate. I will be home from now until Monday morning, barring a trip or two to run errands (primarily to Walmart and to the Dollar Tree, both of which I have to go to over the course of the next week or so). I'll have to get gas in the car and in the tank for the mower, too -- since as soon as there's a day where it's not going to rain, again, I desperately need to mow the grass. I also want to make sure my car has a full tank of gas so that I won't have to get any more for some time.

I did, however, face a conundrum when I came home. You see, aside from stuff like boxed mashed/scalloped potatoes, mac & cheese, cereal, couscous, and rice, I have little else in the house to eat. I have a ton of "pantry" foods that require cooking, and I have some frozen soup in the freezer, but I really didn't want to do anything. I'd been awake since 5AM. I was tired. I didn't want to go shopping. I didn't want to cook, or make a sandwich, or even stop at Burger King on the way home (though that thought did cross my mind, briefly). I really just wanted to have something ready that I didn't have to work on, something I could put in my mouth-hole and be full of.

Of course, if you know me well, this usually constitutes ordering pizza.

I'd been flirting with the idea of ordering pizza for several days, as you know if you've been reading my past few entries. Neither Pizza Hut nor Papa John's had any good specials going on right now, though. I did have enough points for a free pizza from Papa John's, but getting a free pizza and nothing else is sort of an asshole thing to do, since I still tip the delivery person pretty well.

I found some coupon codes for Papa John's that let me get any large 3-topping for $7.99. That's about half the normal price, roughly. That coupon code also allows me to get as many pizzas of that configuration as I want for the same price. With that and my free pizza coupon code, it was actually worth getting something for once -- so I got two pizzas with the $7.99 code (both of them extra cheese, onions, and hot Italian sausage) and got a free one with the free Papa Points code I had (green peppers, extra cheese, and bacon). I threw in an order of "chicken poppers," which are really just chicken nuggets, and a 2L bottle of Mountain Dew because I wanted some soda, and the grand total came out to $28-something. I put it on my Amazon card and added in a $10 tip for the delivery driver -- this is pretty customary for me regardless of what my order is or how much it comes out to; I usually give them at least a $5-10 tip, and tend to tip more if I'm using my card instead of cash.

I spent the next half hour or so talking to Daisy, waiting for the pizza to arrive. This in itself is nothing unusual, but what happened when it did arrive is.

Near the time the pizza was supposed to be here, I went out into the living room several times to watch for the driver -- at this point, the Papa John's people know me pretty well, they know my address, they know to come upstairs instead of going to the downstairs door (because I'll never hear them knock down there; it's too far away from me up here and sound doesn't carry well through the thick walls and floors of this house). I even have it set up on the delivery order page that I am on "floor two" so they'll come up the stairs to the landing/overhang balcony. Most of the delivery drivers, of which there are two or three who come here on a regular basis, already know this and know me, so this isn't normally a problem.

When the pizza was five minutes late, I went out to the living room to look out the window to see where the driver was. I know they can be late sometimes, especially if there's a train going through town; the train tracks bisect this town into the north and south sides, and go right through the center of it. There are seven tracks. It's a big midwestern hub for freight and passenger trains, and frequently a really long train moving through town can clog up traffic for fifteen minutes or so (I know this because I have had to wait for trains for that long before). So, when I went to the window, I looked out.

There was a car parked at the end of my street with the Papa John's light on top of it. It was empty. Hm.

I stood on the porch for a minute, listening to see if he was coming up the stairs. He wasn't. I walked down the stairs and looked around. Nobody. Nobody anywhere, in fact -- for it being 75 degrees and gorgeous at a time of day when the white trash neighbors' kids are usually running around the neighborhood screaming, not a soul was around anywhere.

"Hello?" I called out. "Pizza person?"

Nothing.

I went back into the house and turned on my phone, still watching out the window. Usually if they can't find me or I don't hear them knocking on the door, they call. Nothing. As I was looking out the bfront window, I heard a pounding...on my back door. As in, the door that leads out to my jungle of a yard, on the back deck that hasn't been cleaned off in two years, where nobody goes ever.

What the fuck, man? Seriously?

The pizza guy, who looked like he was about fifteen, explained to me that he couldn't figure out how to get upstairs to the front door. Uhhh...

It's not hard, I wanted to tell him. See the space between the two sides of the houses, the one with windows and STAIRS in it?

Clearly, one doesn't have to be too bright to become a pizza delivery driver. The guy was still nice, and he thanked me for the gracious tip; I told him I always tip drivers well because I know they need it and know it isn't a fun job.

When I was living in Missouri, I had a friend who delivered pizza for Papa John's. In his mother's car (because his own car had died). He got mugged one night while doing it. It's not a fun or easy job.

I thanked him, he walked back out to his car, and left. He was not one of my normal delivery drivers, obviously -- but do you see what I mean when I say that everything about the day was a little "off"?

Anyway, I ate my pizza, Daisy went to bed later, and so did I. When I went to bed it started storming, finally, though nothing bad. Just some hard rain and a bit of thunder/lightning. Nothing major.