Lockdown

Fall semester: day sixty
Payday, finally

With a month left in the semester (counting final exam day for the department) everything is ramping up like crazy. I told Rae earlier this afternoon that I'm swamped and frazzled, or something to that effect, and I am. Yes, as a professor, there is always something to do; it never really stops from August to December, or from January to May, respectively. As we barrel headlong into November this becomes even more of an issue, as due dates and deadlines become critical at the same time you count down your final paychecks (I have three remaining).

There have been a few updates, though, to stuff I've mentioned previously.

For one, I received this email yesterday from the student loan people:

WHY WE ARE CONTACTING YOU
To advise you that we received the forbearance form that you recently sent/faxed to our office.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION YOU MAY FIND HELPFUL

• Please allow up to 10 business days for us to process your request.
• Once we have processed your forbearance, we will send you a letter indicating whether your request has been approved or denied.
• It is important that you continue to make payments until we approve your forbearance request. If your loan(s) is or becomes delinquent, collection activities will occur until the forbearance is approved.
• If you use Direct Debit, our electronic funds transfer service, we will continue to debit payments until your forbearance request is approved. If you wish to suspend a monthly payment, you must contact us at least 3 business days prior to your payment due date.

...okay, good for them, I suppose?

Using the term "recently" is sort of amusing, as I mailed the forms out on October 23. That was sixteen days ago. I know that it didn't take them sixteen days to receive it and for them to open/process it. So, really, anything I have to send to these people, in order to have them actually look at it in a timely fashion, I have to send a month in advance? That sounds shockingly inefficient for people who manage money for the governme....yeah, you know what? I rescind that statement.

Ahem. Anyway.

Okay, well, there's nothing I can do but wait; I know the forbearance will be granted -- I make waaaaay too little for it not to be. And as for that "continue to make payments" thing? That statement I got earlier this week in the mail says my balance due is $0.00. So, if something pops up, I'm holding on to that and I'll fax it to them from work if they try to give me any shit.

Do I want to be in debt? No. Do I hate it? Yes. Is there anything I can do about it? No, not right now. Not if I want to eat and be able to keep the lights on in the house. Would I rather grow a thick, curled mustache, change my name to Enrico McSpaniard, and become a migrant strawberry picker rather who lives in an RV rather than find some way to eventually pay it off? Yes. At least that would be steady work (probably paid "under the table" and tax-free), compared to worrying about how many classes I'll get to teach every semester, if any, for the foreseeable future.

Speaking of which, I found out yesterday morning via my connections that an English 102 class will be taught next semester on West campus with the same days/times I'm teaching my current 101 class there. I'm guessing this will again be a class that I'm picked to teach, as that's a difficult time/spot to fill, and it is well-known that I love teaching out there. There's another 210 class as well, but it's a 16-week class that's one night a week. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get both and another MW class on main campus, as I have this time around. I haven't a clue, really -- as you know, I won't know what I teach until probably early January. It's possible I'd know sooner, but I doubt it. Not even West campus can pick their instructors; it's just who the department(s) involved assign. Again, all I can do is cross my fingers and wait.

This weekend involves a lot of work for me, actually; I have to create and print out for copies the last two big assignments for my 101 and 210 classes, as they will both begin working on them on Tuesday. I don't have any grading to do (I did all of that yesterday in my off-hours between those classes) but putting together those assignments takes a lot of time and patience, as well as planning. My classes this week will all run the maximum amount of time, for the most part, as there's a lot to cover. We have but two weeks now until Thanksgiving break starts, and only three full weeks of actual classes left. That's not a lot of time to cover everything my students need for their last big assignments.  Amazingly enough, in my 011 class -- with three weeks left in the semester -- they haven't even been given 50% of their points for the class. They've been given 48%. The other 52% of their grade is made in these last few weeks, which makes the course schedule and its grading horribly lopsided. Students who are doing well now may not be by the end of the semester, and that's a terrible way to schedule the course. It's not the lesson plan, though -- that is absolutely wonderful -- it's the way fall semester is set up. It's like that in all of my classes: Easy work, easy work, easy work, midterms, easy work, BAM LOTS OF HARD WORK ALL AT ONCE OMG. That's how it goes in the fall. Many students' grades are either saved or broken in the last few weeks of class.

I was, thankfully, able to set up my final exam in my 101 class to be on the last day of class. None of the students who have that class right before mine have a final in it -- not just not on that day, but at all. And nobody has anything directly after my class that would interfere with them taking the final on that day.  So, during yesterday morning's class, we settled it and I'll be giving the exam that day so that nobody has to come in during finals week. I have to be there all day that day anyhow, since I'll be lording over my 210 students' final oral presentations that night. The "make up" final, if I have any students who need to take one, will either be that afternoon when I'm in my office for hours on end, or on the Monday morning of finals week on main campus in my office there. Barring that, if necessary I could sneak a student into the room where I'll give my 011 final as well at the normal time for that, I suppose. There are, indeed, options.

I'm also lucky enough to get the exam early from the department so that I can give said exam on the last day of class, and if I'm lucky, I may be able to get my grading partner (whoever that may be) to grade them before I have to give the 011 final on the Monday afternoon of finals week, saving some time. Already the wheels are turning in my head. Already I'm trying to plot things out, plan them out, in order to maximize my time and efficiency -- but more than that it's so that I can get in, get out, and get the hell done with this semester.

Today already has been spent recuperating and doing various chores around the house. Daisy will be going back to work tonight, and I got to speak to her briefly last night when I got home, but she's been sleeping since I got up this morning. The muscle relaxer her doctor put her on makes her incredibly tired and feeling loopy, so I don't, and haven't, really bothered today except to tell her I hope she sleeps well. I don't want any messages I send her to wake her up with phone vibrations or anything like that. Smartphone people problems, right? I don't have one myself, as you may know, and I so rarely use my phone anyway that it wouldn't matter if I did. My phone is basically emergency use only, mainly because I so hate telephones, and it costs me money every time I do use it.

That's my actual phone, by the way. In case you were wondering. A Samsung SGH-T139. Yeah. I know the model number. I've had this phone for four years. Some people's marriages don't even last that long.

Ahem.

While we're on the subject of marriages, Daisy is going to see one of her close friends get married next month. It happens during finals week (at the end of it, I think) so I won't be able to go with her as requested, but it marvels me at how fast the wedding itself was put together. This friend got engaged on September 2. The wedding is a little more than a month from now. That, my friends, boggles my mind. Three months to plan a wedding from engagement to ceremony? I couldn't do it. Daisy and I have been engaged for almost nine months now, and I can't wrap my mind around that fast of a turnaround -- to go from not even engaged to married in a quarter of a year. I want to know how that woman has time to sleep with all of the planning and the like that must be going on.

In comparison, Daisy and I have done relatively little planning. We're more focused on the big things that will happen between now and then, such as where I'll be working and when, where Daisy will be working and when, and where we'll be living and when. We don't exactly have a ton of free time to deal with or worry about many of the "little things," so to speak. We have the bigger ones taken care of -- the venue and date, and the registries -- everything else we're playing by ear and planning as we go, because really that's about the only way we can do it. Daisy works strange hours and tends to be constantly swamped, asleep, or sick/in pain with her muscular issues when she's off work, and until at least a month from now, I'm going to be practically buried in student work and will suffer near-constant lack of sleep every other day or so. From mid-December to March or so, we'll be able to focus a bit more time on some of those things as I either won't be working over the Christmas Break, or I won't be busy yet when I do begin teaching again, but I would imagine a large amount of the planning will be semi-last-minute. Getting everyone's flight info and trying to synch as much travel as possible is going to be a logistical nightmare in itself, not to mention everything involving the catering of the wedding (vegan only, and we have to avoid many different types of foods due to allergy issues and gluten intolerances) and attire for most of the people involved in the wedding itself. My side is easy, of course, what with the tuxedo t-shirts, but Daisy's side isn't that simple.

On a related note, my mother asked what I thought they should wear to the wedding. I didn't exactly know how to answer that question. I told her something business casual would do -- it doesn't have to be something supremely dressy; "church clothes" at best, or something along those lines. They could show up in jeans and t-shirts if they wanted to; it makes no real difference to me, really, but I know it makes a difference to Daisy to some extent. Daisy's side is going to be dressy, I would imagine. I'm just not a "traditional" dressy person. In fact, I totally hate getting dressed up. And something rubs me the wrong way about making people get dressed up on my account, even for a wedding. It seems like such a bother. Yes, I take the wedding seriously -- I take it very seriously -- but it's just like any other day, really, except at the end of that day I get to call Daisy my wife. Again, I'm laid back. I don't get worked up over things. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter what anyone wears?

Anyway. We'll work it all out as we go, I suppose.

It's been very warm for the vast majority of this week; yesterday, it was 29 when I left the house and 65-70 by the afternoon. It's November. We're supposed to have temperatures in the 60s all the way through the middle of next week, then it's supposed to get cold for a few days, then get back up into the mid-fifties and possibly sixties again. Again, November. This either means we're going to get horrific snowstorms all the way through April and May again, or it's going to be warm all winter and we won't get anything at all. It's Kansas, folks -- anything goes here. Here I was, expecting it to be velvet shirt weather.

Yes, I own a velvet shirt. It's green. I only wear it when it's really cold, as it's like a portable furnace otherwise.

Some of my students yesterday asked me about my eye, and if it had healed. I had basically forgotten about it, really. I'm at about 98% of my normal vision in it again, to the point where it's almost hard to notice any real difference between the two eyes except for a very slight blurriness.

On that note, I'm going to make some coffee and get started on my lesson plans while I wait for Daisy to get up for the night.