Big Rumblings

Fall semester: day seventeen

I guess I'm getting paid on Friday. I mean, I think. I don't know how much or what the behind-the-scenes workings are for it. I mean, I do know -- the office administrator forwarded me an email about it this afternoon, which basically said that for all intents and purposes, it had been cleared and OK'd -- but I don't necessarily understand its details or how it's set up. I'll have to ask a few questions in the morning to figure out how it's all going to work since it's all very confusing to me. I mean, I'm a guy with two different English degrees who sucks at math and accounting, so...yeah.

I was able to get some sleep this afternoon, but very little; I napped for about three hours. I was hoping it would be a nap that would turn into a full night of sleep. Not that I didn't rest last night, but just because it was hot and stuffy (in the mid-90s outside again today) and I don't really have a lot to do for my class tomorrow; I'm covering a bit of a chapter in the textbook and I'm going over a handout, and they get their first reading/journal assignment from their other text for the class, the "reader." Then I get to come home and go to bed again if I so choose. I don't know when I'll go back to sleep tonight; all I know is that I can't just stay up all night or I won't be able to function that well tomorrow on three hours' sleep obtained in the late afternoon/early evening hours tonight.

I didn't talk much about the computer setup I have in my office at work now -- I took my old laptop back in, the Dell that I put new RAM in over the summer. I did this because A) why put new RAM in it if I'm not going to use it, and B) because the laptop Daisy got me is a somewhat faster, more powerful machine that I'll need here at home in case my desktop dies on me at some point -- which, as it's almost four years old, is inevitable eventually. I also take the one Daisy got me on trips up to Omaha since it works really well on her parents' wifi network, and if I'd taken it in, any time I leave town I'd have to disconnect from everything and take that laptop home. That just creates another pain in the ass to deal with, and something else to carry the 1/2 mile to and from my car since the parking situation on campus sucks now.

I've set up the old laptop in the office, but apparently the wired connection in my office either doesn't work, or the cable is old and burnt-out, or something, because my laptop doesn't recognize it when it's plugged in. I have to connect to the guest wifi network at the university (because for some reason, even with my university ID and password, it won't let me log on to the secure network), which is incredibly slow and with the old-ass wireless card in that Dell, rather spotty and unreliable. I had to get 302MB of updates and upgrades to that computer, for example, and it took over three hours on Monday morning to get what appeared to be only about half of them -- when I left to go teach, I just said fuck it and left it on and running. The screen turns off after an hour of inactivity anyway, or at least it's supposed to. Unless I wanted to walk an extra mile in the blazing heat on Monday -- back up to the office and then from there down to my car again -- I wasn't concerned about leaving it on. It'll still be on and in sleep mode when I get in there tomorrow morning, and I'll switch out the cables to see if that makes the wired internet work. I can't access the office printer through the wireless, which would mean that if I needed to print something, I'd actually have to bring my heavy-ass, bulky laser printer back to campus as well. When I'm only in there for a few hours in the morning two days a week, that's basically pointless and a waste of time and energy.

The coffee pot works okay enough, though.

Today on West campus, I went over about four or five different handouts with my students and then let them go. Their workshop copies come in on Thursday, and thus there's nothing really more I can teach them for the narrative essay unit. They know what to do, they know what I'm looking for, and they have their topics set and ready; they'll either do it well or they won't, and there's not a whole lot I can do to hold their hands in the process, not that I would anyway. I'll see what they can produce, at least half of them, anyway, when those workshop copies come in.

That class seems to be opening up a bit more, or at least they're loosening up a bit and realizing I'm not the boogeyman. I got a few students to speak up today and interact in class a bit more, students who hadn't said anything in class discussion yet for the entirety of the semester until now. My classes always seem to be a bit squirrelly until after the first workshop session occurs anyway, and then they loosen up and feel more comfortable with themselves and with me as their instructor. I've seen it for years at this point. My 011 students, for the most part, are different -- aside from two or three students in that class, it's like pulling teeth to get them to interact in classroom discussion or to have them share their work from their journal assignments. Perhaps that's because it's a remedial English class and they're all ashamed they're in it, perhaps they're bored because the lesson plan requires me to cover really, really basic stuff (for example, tomorrow I'm covering the parts of speech, with special focus on coordination between sentences and coordinating conjunctions), but I really don't necessarily think that's an excuse. Being a student is like having a job; if your boss tells you to do something, you do it. Similarly, if your professor tells you that you need to participate in class discussion in order to be able to pass, you do it or you don't pass. I'm not a tough instructor; I'm laid back and pretty easy-going, but if necessary I can and will be a total hardass and put these kids through English boot camp. I have no qualms about doing that -- it taps into my primal urges of being the one who makes the rules and is in charge at all times. I can be a good cop, or I can be the bad cop. I'd much rather be the good cop.

I've already had three or four students automatically fail 011 because they've never shown up to class. I'll have to send out that email tomorrow to notify them and urge them to drop the course, since they can no longer pass it (not that it's a credit-giving course anyhow). On Monday, I had seven out of the twenty students in that class just not show up, a first, and because of that it prompted me to ask my West campus students this morning -- most of whom have classes on the main campus as well -- if there was some sort of campus function happening yesterday that I was unaware of. Except for the students who have never shown up, I almost always have perfect attendance in my 011 class.

I have to treat the 011 class a bit differently than I would treat a standard composition course (such as the other ones I've taught for the past three years), and that's because it's a credit/non-credit, pass/fail course. It's a slightly different scenario than teaching a standard course. These kids are in this class because they must be, and they're forced to spend $150 on books (yeah, the texts are that expensive) for a course that doesn't even give them credit hours that counts toward a degree field or major of any sort. It's a course that, even with the cost of books, I believe that a lot of those students don't take seriously simply because of that fact. 011 is a proving ground, a training scenario, a scrimmage, for what they'll deal with in college. They're placed into it based on their ACT/SAT scores in English, and they can't get out of it until they've successfully passed it. Because of this, they can't progress into any sort of degree field or move up at all within the university system until they've passed it. It's a trap. Some of the students, based on their diagnostics, don't necessarily need it -- and some of them desperately need it but don't care. It is, more than any other course I've ever taught, the class that lets me see firsthand if someone is cut out for college. That may sound harsh to say, but it's really the truth. Some people just weren't meant to go to college, yet since Flat State University basically accepts anyone with three or four functioning brain cells (something like 90% of all applicants get in; I've read the stats), classes like this must exist. There's no more pressure on me to pass or fail these students for this class than there is for any other class, but I've noticed very quickly that this is more of a "hey, this is what writing in college is about, so if you can't do this, you may as well give up and go work fast food" sort of class than any other class I've ever taught. Again, it sounds harsh, but it's not. I know why the class is there and I see the purpose of it. It's just not necessarily pleasant to admit that, really, that's what it is. That's why some students see it as a complete joke of a class, and why others are completely overwhelmed by it. Not everyone is cut out for college.

Yet, obviously, there are still rules and regulations I must follow for it -- if you miss a certain number of days, you fail automatically. Sorry, department policy. If you fail a paper and can't raise your grade with a rewrite, sorry, that's on you. I make every class I teach as simple and enjoyable as possible and give my students every chance to succeed, sometimes even to my own detriment or to the squandering of any free time I would have otherwise. Yes, I want my students to enjoy my classes and feel at ease in them, but I also want them to learn something, and I want them to prove to me that they've learned something in their work.

Again, I go back to what one of my friends and fellow adjuncts told me when classes were just starting up: you're an adjunct now; you can teach the class however you want, and structure it however you want.

Yeah, I know this. But I am a rather by-the-book sort of person. Yes, I've designed and redesigned classes before, sometimes from scratch, but there is only so much I can pull out of my ass and give these kids the same sort of coursework and assignments they'd need to succeed. For the 011s I have to keep a delicate balance of not too simple for the smarter folks, and not too complex for the ones who need more simplified instruction. It is a very fine line, and having never taught this class before, I'm flying blind and solo week-to-week, depending on lesson plans from the Director's wife to be able to structure paper assignments and in-class activities. The lesson plan schedules can say "Illustration Essay" or "Definition Essay" all they want, but I have no clue what that means without seeing an example or an actual assignment sheet with the requirements for it. The other, more advanced composition classes I've taught don't teach essays like that. An "argumentative research paper" is pretty self-explanatory. "Illustration Essay" is not. I want to be able to plot all of that stuff ahead of time so I can know what I'm asking of these students, but that's greatly hindered by the fact that I don't have those assignments in front of me to look at, and that I've never taught the class before. Common sense and looking at the reading assignments in advance only gets me so far, like a puzzle with missing pieces.

I've titled this post "Big Rumblings" because there are a lot of those things going on around the department and on campus right now. On Thursday, famous poet Gregory Orr -- who, if you're a fan of poetry, you have heard of and read before almost without a doubt -- is doing a reading on campus. In a little over a month from now, a much, much more famous writer is coming to campus for a reading. I can't divulge who it is, because the department as well as the university as a whole is keeping it pretty under-the-radar (more than likely so that said writer won't get mobbed) but I can mention that said writer will be here and will be doing a reading because it's listed on the writer's tour schedule on their website. Most of the department knows about it, but has been keeping it very tight-lipped and quiet for good reason. It will get out eventually, I would imagine, over the course of the next few weeks -- but I'm not saying anything about it here.

The other thing that's been rumbling as of late is my car, unfortunately. This morning on my trip to and from West campus, I noticed that the wheel bearing was a little louder than it was before, there's a weird squeaking that the car exhibited in the past (but stopped doing a long time ago) that's back again, and it isn't a belt, and it felt like the transmission was slipping a few times. I could be imagining the latter, of course, but who knows. The car is really old and wearing out; it finally crossed 228,000 miles this morning on my way to campus. The coolant sensor has apparently gone out completely, as the "low coolant" light is now on no matter what, no matter how much coolant it has in it (believe me, it's full). On the plus side, it doesn't appear to be leaking or dropping any more oil or coolant in the parking lot(s) or driveway anymore, since really the only time it's driven is on the highway to and from school. Unless it's burning them off somehow, it's not losing any fluids.

At this point, with how poor I am, I'm basically doing what the auto shop guy told me to do with the car, which was "just drive it until it dies." Unless there's a major problem with it, such as a tire blowing out or a belt breaking again, I can't afford to get anything else done to it -- all I can do is keep the fluids and oil filled at the proper levels and run some fuel system cleaner or Marvel Mystery Oil through it every few weeks. I love the car, but as much as I'm driving it now -- it was a 56-mile round-trip today alone, just to teach -- it will not last forever. It just won't. I would not be surprised if I'm driving another car, in better or worse shape, by the time I get married next summer, and would not be surprised if I have to start frantically searching Craigslist for another vehicle in a few months, if not sooner. The gas I put into the car this morning is more than it's worth for a trade-in value with how old it is and with its miles and cosmetic issues.

As you may recall, my motto last year was "hey, car, please just last until I graduate." Now it's "hey, car, please just last until I have a job with a salary I'm comfortable with." It worked for the former, but I'm fairly certain it won't work for the latter. If I could afford a car payment every month I would've already bought something newer, something that I wouldn't have to worry would strand me at home or at one of the two campuses I must drive to on alternating days. But, I can't afford that, as I am the lowest-of-the-low-paid adjunct faculty at a relatively small state school.

Despite this, the car is a tank -- I drove that fucker home with no serpentine belt, no belt tensioner, no power steering, and the engine overheating and smoking for twelve miles on the interstate, at 40mph (the fastest I could get it to go in order to get home before it died completely), and it didn't kill it. There was no other way to get it back to the house at 11PM on a weeknight. So, yes. Tank. If I were a religious man (I'm not) I would be saying a blessing over that car every day just for taking me to work and back again with few, if any, issues about it.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is supposed to be the last scorchingly hot day for a while -- according to the Weather Channel, the heat wave will break tomorrow evening, and with it will come showers and thunderstorms. Finally. The high for Thursday is supposed to be 80, and the high on Friday a scant 78. For the next ten days, it's not supposed to get out of the 80s, and we're supposed to have a chance of rain/storms almost every day. This is a very, very welcome change. I desperately want it to start feeling like fall soon; I told Daisy earlier tonight that it was 92 upstairs in my house, and still 84 downstairs. As of 10PM, this was still accurate, even with the AC running. I finally shut it down a little while ago, and I'm looking forward to the coming week to where I shouldn't have to run it at all.

As my week reaches its midpoint, I am once more awake now (as mentioned before) battling insomnia and an inability to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Daisy says I should read a book or attend a seminar on sleep to see if I can figure out what's wrong with me, as there are "other options besides pills."

"Not for me there aren't," I said. "My insomnia is getting worse and worse by the year. No book or seminar is going to fix that. They'll tell me things like 'make sure you get eight hours of sleep per night' or 'don't drink coffee or smoke four hours before you need to sleep' or 'eat X meals at X times every day,' and none of those things work for me because I don't and can't work on that sort of schedule."

I'm not a 9-to-5 wage slave working the same hours at the same job five days a week; if I were, not only would I want to slit my wrists due to the monotony, but I more than likely wouldn't have sleeping issues in the first place, since my body and brain would desperately want to sleep away the depression of working in such a soul-sucking, corporate-esque position like that. I have a very strange, unorthodox working schedule where I have to be awake quite early every morning and am usually done by noon (or shortly thereafter) every day. Coincidentally, those are also the hours that I get the best sleep -- late nights/early mornings through early afternoons -- so I'm completely thrown off. I've always been a night owl and it's in my body chemistry and metabolism to be one ever since I was in middle school -- to throw a schedule at me that runs counter to everything my body and mind has ever known since I was a child throws me into a low-level shock, a stressful chaos. Not needing to stay on campus for hours on end just because of parking and classes I'm taking also throws me off, as after a while my body did get used to that in graduate school. It's awesome to be able to return home and pull into my driveway for the day at, say, 11:30 or 12 on most days, but with it comes the vast emptiness of time I'm awake when I'm not tired enough to sleep, because my body wants to be waking up at those times.

Obviously I don't eat on a preset schedule either; I eat when I'm hungry, and when I'm not, I don't. Yesterday I had two different meals before I went to bed last night, and today, I ate this afternoon and then had to pass out for three hours. I made a baked potato when I got up tonight, as I was hungry again, but did not feel the need to go immediately back to bed. My entire metabolism, my sleep schedules, my need for rest at different times -- none of it is any longer on any sort of set pattern, and it's just getting worse and worse for my insomnia. At this point the only thing that I can depend on to ensure that I sleep when I can and when I need to are sleep meds, and I so very rarely use them (maybe three times a year, when I just can't turn off my brain enough to rest). I have a desperate, irrational fear of becoming addicted to them, and therefore never use them unless absolutely necessary. And, as mentioned before, I can almost never use them when I really need to anyhow -- right now, for example, I wish I could go back to bed and sleep for twelve hours. Twelve hours from now, I will have already gone to campus, taught my class for the day, and will have returned home. I have to leave the house in six hours. Because of my oddball schedule I can never get the rest I need to be able to get when I need to get it, and if I try -- such as I did this evening -- my body tells me no! and wakes me up three hours later. If I do somehow get a good long amount of sleep after class one day, falling asleep between 2-to-4PM or so, I'll still wake up at midnight or 1 at the latest, and then by the time I have to go back in to teach again in the morning, I'm dreadfully tired again because I've been awake so long that my "day," my "useful awake hours," have passed. It's a brutal, never-ending cycle of sleep-deprived foggy misery.

On that note, I do have to continue the rest of my week in the morning (whether I want to or not) and find out what my paycheck thing means, so as much as I really don't want to, because it'll make me feel worse, I need to shower and at least attempt to go back to sleep for a scant few hours. If I can't sleep, I can't sleep, but I won't be able to say I didn't try to.