On the plus side? I shouldn't have any bills due (that I haven't already paid, anyway) before the next pay cycle. Shouldn't. They'll be due a few days after that, yes, but I shouldn't have any due before. That's still cutting it a bit too close for comfort when it comes to my need to, y'know, eat and survive in the interim. I am stressed about this, obviously, but there is literally nothing I can do but wait and see what happens. I mean, it's not like I won't get paid or anything like that, even if they do something wonky like a double-amount check on the 14th, but that wouldn't be ideal for right now, of course.
Last night, as an attempt to stay occupied and get stuff done well in advance, I updated all of my assignments and due dates/lesson plans for my 210 class for this semester in preparation for the coming months. I had to wait for the laundry to finish anyhow -- Pete yacked on the blankets again yesterday morning, twice, so I had to wash those again. I don't understand what the cats' obsession is with vomiting on the bed, but it seems that almost every time I change the sheets/blankets, they immediately yack on the clean ones as a form of protest. Against what, of course, I couldn't tell you. This is a relatively new phenomenon that's only sprung up in the past year or so. So, since the comforter is so big and I always have to run it two cycles in the dryer to get it completely dry, I busied myself with updating all of those lesson plans and doing other odds-and-ends chores around the house, such as finally cleaning off my fan and running the dishwasher. In the interim, I talked to Daisy, and when I heard the dryer buzz, signifying that I could make the bed and finally go to sleep in it, I bid her goodnight and went downstairs.
Daisy, after the two of us had a long discussion two days ago about how she hasn't gotten sick (not seriously ill, anyway) in almost a year...is sick again. She doesn't know what it is, but she has general nausea and other flu-like symptoms which made me a bit concerned while I was talking to her last night at work. I haven't yet talked to her today, which is understandable since she works on Saturday nights and sleeps through the day.
We got the snow and ice the weather people were predicting -- more of it, actually, than originally forecasted. They kept changing the forecast around between Thursday night and yesterday afternoon, but generally, my area and south of my area wasn't supposed to really get anything. Last night when I went to bed, it was coming down hard, as it had started around nightfall. Once I could see it all when I got up this morning, there was probably a good half-inch or more of snow and ice coating everything outside -- more ice than snow, actually. Not like, the shiny, watery, ice-storm-ice, mind you, but the little ice ball pellets that are almost snow, but aren't. Luckily, I don't have to go anywhere today. In fact, I don't have to go anywhere until Tuesday...and therein lies the problem.
It's Saturday afternoon at 1:20 PM as I write this. Upon checking the Weather Channel's forecast for this week (as I always do over the weekend before I have to return to campus to teach)...I found that they're predicting a pretty big snowstorm, Winter Storm Nika, to hit here. On Tuesday. My longest day of the week. The only day of the week I have to be on both campuses. The only day of the week where I am forced to be out of the house from 8AM to 10PM, and drive a round trip of about sixty miles. The only day where, this week -- if they fix it and have it ready -- I might be able to pick up my paycheck from the main campus.
Cities that could see significant snow accumulations from west to east Tuesday and into early Wednesday morning include, Omaha, Neb., Wichita, Kan., Kansas City, Chicago and Detroit. Given that the storm is still several days away, exact amounts are uncertain and will depend on the track of the area of low pressure associated with Nika. That said, six or more inches of snowfall seems like a good bet wherever the heaviest band of snow eventually sets up.
My local forecast, while not putting me under any sort of Winter Weather Advisory or anything like that just yet, already has on the predictions for Tuesday that we'll get 4-8 inches of snow here during the day. And yes, it's going to hit during the day, not that night, not the night before -- during the day, when I'm out in it and have to drive through all of it.
Mind you, we're still three days out at this point, and even in the section I quoted above, they say that exact amounts are uncertain, but I now have to start coming up with contingency plans. The Monte Carlo goes well in the snow -- she's big, bulky, heavy, and as long as there's less than about five or six inches on the ground or the roads, if I need to get back and forth, I can easily do so, given enough time and patience. She has big tires and a wide wheelbase; ice is another story, but snow isn't generally a problem.
I'll be on West campus shortly before 9AM on Tuesday, as I teach my 102 class there from 9:15-10:30. My 011 class is at 7PM on the main campus. By 10:30 AM, unless it comes in really quickly and hard in the morning, I'm guessing that it's not going to be too bad to travel in. My contingency plan has to go into effect at this point, as I'm put into a tight spot here by my schedule.
My 011 class only meets once a week, on Tuesday nights. This makes cramming everything into the class that these students need difficult in the first place, and we're just now beginning to get back on schedule a little bit because we were locked out of the room the first week. Last week, as you know, I finally gave the diagnostics and was able to cover the first few lessons out of the book (to a group of students who mostly didn't understand what I was saying). This week, I'm giving them their first paper assignment and we're supposed to be covering two different readings in their reader, as well as the "description" and "narration" sections in their textbook. I've already assigned these readings to them, but as the majority of the ESL students stuck in there only about half-understand me anyhow, who knows if they'll all actually do the work.
What I'm saying is that regardless of how this snowstorm tracks, whether we get the maximum amount or the minimum amount, I'm going to have a fair amount of people missing from that class on Tuesday night...if that class is even held, that is.
On days where the area is supposed to get a lot of snow -- days, mind you, not nights beforehand -- as the weather gets worse during the day, and if it shows no signs of stopping or getting better before the nighttime, the university will usually cancel all classes after 4PM. They've done this several times in the past few years, much more often than they've actually closed down the entire school for the day. The problem is that even if they don't, I may not be able to teach that night class anyway because if the weather gets continually worse, I may not be able to even get home.
Here's the even bigger problem involved -- I have to go to main campus on Tuesday regardless of weather if they have my paycheck fixed, done, and I need to pick it up. I cannot avoid that. It's the only day of the week I'm on main campus, it's the only day of the week I can make copies and take care of in-the-department stuff, and if I want any more money to my name, paper check or not, before February 11 (next Tuesday) or February 14 (the next payday)? I must pick it up if it's there and ready. It's not something that I can put off, it's not something that I can wait on if I want to be able to eat, pay my bills, and put gas in the car, even if I may and probably will have to mail it back home to my parents for deposit first and have to wait a few extra days anyhow.
So, unless it's really, really godawfully bad outside, I'll still be making the drive to both campuses on Tuesday regardless. I'll then have a decision to make, and it will be based on the most updated weather forecasts I can possibly get -- do I go home and cancel the 011 class, or do I stick around until 4 or so to see if they'll cancel the evening classes anyway? I'll know my answer to that question, and the decision I'll make, by the time I pick up my check -- if it's even ready -- that afternoon.
Make no mistake, I do not want to cancel my 011 class that night, as it would throw everything into panic mode again for lesson planning, and we'd once more be behind. If the university cancels evening classes, I can't do much about that anyway, but at least the blame wouldn't be on me for it, per se. That class is hard enough to teach as a once-a-week night class as it is, at least right now. It will get easier down the road as we get into the papers and the readings/lessons that deeply correspond to those papers (they'll basically be giving me a paper on every other class meeting for most of the semester as it is) but these first few weeks have been rough because we can't really settle into a groove, so to speak, with all the setbacks and inconveniences we've had. So, I'm put into a difficult spot if this storm hits the way they're predicting it to -- if I hold class and the university doesn't close down for the evening, I risk not being able to get home safely (or at all) if there's like, eight inches of snow on the ground. If I cancel my class we're put behind again, big time. If the university cancels evening classes, we're put behind again as well.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do in this situation, really, or what I should do. Logistically, with any other class, I could put everything online on Blackboard and have them get all of the information they needed, as well as their reading/writing assignments, and have them understand and do them. However, this is 011 -- most of the native English-speaking students haven't been in school for many years because they're returning adults, and they don't necessarily know how the university scheduling and online systems work yet. The ESL students in there (who should be in 013) have trouble with English anyway, so anything I'd tell them may sound/look like gibberish when I put it online in text form. 011 is a class where you sometimes have to spoon-feed the students everything in order to get them to do even half of what you tell them to do, and as I mentioned here before, I can't make the class any simpler than it already is -- being put another week behind by weather and/or cancellation of classes will just make it even more difficult to get into that much-needed groove.
Of course, I am the person who goes for the lowest-risk-to-myself situation possible. It is very possible, especially as I haven't heard anything yet, that they may not yet have my paycheck stuff sorted out and taken care of by Tuesday. If I don't hear anything from the administration on Monday, I will assume that's the case, and I will watch the weather forecast carefully to figure out whether I'll even leave the house period on Tuesday. My 102 students are intelligent enough, and on-the-ball enough, to do their reading/writing assignments correctly if I cancel that class and post the stuff online for them. Cancelling a class that meets twice a week isn't a big deal, and I have the time and ability in there to space things out a little more, rework the schedule a little, and still get everything done when I'd return to teach them on Thursday morning. I'm really not concerned about that class at all -- I'm concerned with the paycheck stuff and the 011 class.
So, all of this being said, let's review my four possible plans for Tuesday:
- Go to teach my morning 102 class, go to main campus to pick up check (if it's ready), and teach night 011 class as normal if I can do so and the campus doesn't close down, possibly be unable to return home safely or at all in the Monte Carlo if weather is terrible
- Go to teach my morning 102 class, go to main campus to pick up check (if it's ready), and examine weather/wait for cancellation while I'm there to gauge whether or not I'll even attempt to hold the 011 class
- Go to teach my morning 102 class having cancelled my 011 beforehand, and get the fuck home if it's getting really bad (if the check's not ready)
- Cancel both classes, stay home and go nowhere on Tuesday if it's really bad and the check's not ready, hoping it'll be done by Wednesday so I can go pick it up in the afternoon before my evening 210 class, or on Thursday after my morning 102 class.
Approximately none of these plans are ideal. If Winter Storm Nika would hit any other fucking day of the week aside from Tuesday, I could avoid all of these contingency plans with minimal stress or issue. If it hit tomorrow or Monday, I wouldn't have to worry about any of this -- it would be mostly cleaned up by the time I went to teach again. If it hit Wednesday? Fine, fuck it, I'd cancel my 210 class that night and we'd take care of everything online. If it hit Thursday? Same thing; I could cancel my morning 102 class and do everything online. It is, and has always been, my terrible fucking luck that every time a snowstorm rolls in, it hits on the worst possible day for me. Please note that every time I've had to travel in the winter -- whether to Omaha to visit Daisy's family or to West Virginia to visit my own -- I have always been shadowed by a snowstorm on one end of the trip or the other. My flight back home to visit my parents last Christmas was bookended by not one, but two different snowstorms, one as I arrived and a second one as I left that closed down the Pittsburgh airport and delayed my flight back to Wichita for two extra days. When I went to Omaha this past Christmas, a snowstorm hit on, and the day after, my birthday, which made driving a little treacherous here and there until we got out of Kansas, and then I got another one here as soon as I returned home.
Kansas does tend to get its worst snows in February -- well, today's February 1st. Here we go, right? Last February, if you'll recall, the university closed down for at least two days running, maybe three (I can't remember) because we got over a foot of snow the week after Valentine's Day.
"When am I coming down?" Daisy asked me a few nights ago, in reference to her Valentine's Day trip down here.
"Well, Valentine's Day is on a Friday," I said. "You already took that day off. I have Fridays off anyway. I'll have to teach the Wednesday night and Thursday morning beforehand, so...I guess if you come down that Wednesday night and get here around the time I get home from teaching my class, we could have dinner, go to bed, and you could sleep through my Thursday morning class while I'm gone. Then I'd come home and we'd have all the way through Saturday before you had to leave and go back to work."
"That's probably what I'll do then," she said. "I'd have to leave on Saturday by 2."
She works Saturday nights. She works on Friday nights too, but several weeks ago she specifically requested Valentine's Day off so that she could come down here and we could spend it together. It's not only Valentine's Day, but it's the one-year anniversary of our engagement...so it's rather important.
Of course, I don't know exactly what our plans are, or if we'll be able to have any real plans. Yes, I should be paid on Valentine's Day (it's the second payday; the first was supposed to be yesterday) but all of that check -- if it's all done and goes through correctly -- must go to my rent and other bills for the month. My budget is going to be very tight until I can get all this shit sorted out.
Because of the coming snow and the fact that I'm on a budget for groceries and the like, as mentioned before earlier this week, I planned to order pizza yesterday so that I didn't have to go shopping. I didn't get it yesterday, but I activated my new Citi card this morning (the old one expired yesterday) and used it to get some pizza this afternoon. It was $40 or so (tip included), but $40 in pizza will last me several days and will save me from needing to get a ton of groceries this week. I'll still have to go to Walmart soon -- probably before the snow hits, so either tomorrow night after the Super Bowl or on Monday -- to get cigarettes and cat food/litter, tissues, toilet paper, etc, stuff like that, but I won't have to spend a ton of money there and I'll be able to use my Discover card. I'm saving my other two cards for gas and incidentals if necessary -- again, no real choice there, as I can't use any money out of my bank account for anything but bills.
So that's where things stand right now; I will update you (of course I will, it's me) on all of the snow and contingency plans as new information comes in on it. For now, though, I'm going to wait for my pizza to arrive and I'm going to eat something that's not ramen, a sandwich, or Pringles for once.
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