April Fool's Day
It's still, technically, Monday night -- even though it's 3AM. And, of course, despite the fact that I took my sleeping pills around 6PM, I couldn't sleep past 1:30 in the morning or so. Insomnia strikes again.
As you folks know, my insomnia and my sleeping patterns are weird. They're both made worse by my near-constant godawful spring allergies which will not go away until the climate stabilizes and doesn't flip-flop between temperatures in the 70s and temperatures in the 30s, 40s, or 50s. It was 73 outside when I went to bed last night -- warmer outside than it was in the house, even. It is 39 right now.
When I've slept over the course of the past week or so, it has been harder than ever to actually get up when I have to or need to. Like, really hard. I don't know why. I'll awaken and my body will fight with me to just keep sleeping. This is part of the reason why I slept until 3PM on Sunday afternoon -- my body just wanted to stay asleep. It didn't want to move, it didn't want to be awake and mobile, it just wanted to sleep and stay in bed.
Of course, when I woke up tonight/this morning/whatever you want to call it -- when I needed to be asleep whether I wanted to or not -- it was the exact opposite. I was awake, I was alert, and my body wanted to be up. There was no telling it otherwise, there was no reasoning with it (even though I'd taken sleeping pills eight hours before so that this exact scenario wouldn't happen), it was done. It had made up its mind: I was going to be up and awake. So here I am.
This puts me in a somewhat difficult spot. On one hand, being awake for 18 hours straight is, really, not that big of a deal for me. Hell, in undergrad I used to go double that without sleep on a regular basis, and did so in grad school sometimes as well. But I'm not that person anymore -- I'm older now; I tire more easily. I'm not, as they say, a "spring chicken" anymore. If I can (and it's rare that I can), I don't like being awake for more than 14 hours or so at a time -- if I'm awake at 5AM, for example, I seriously want to go back to bed for the night at 7PM or so. I awoke at 2AM, so this means that around 4PM this afternoon -- three full hours before my night class tonight even starts -- I'll really be getting tired. At that time I will more than likely be grading through all of the papers I will have collected from my students this morning, which will make it worse. Looks like my coffee pot in the office will get some exercise this afternoon.
This also isn't really a huge deal -- I can come home tonight and go directly to bed if I so choose, and sleep as long as I need to. I don't have to get up early tomorrow; my Wednesday class is a 7PM class, my 210 students. I can get rest without any issue.
Last night before bed, I applied for an editor position at a company in Omaha. Daisy found the job posting somewhere and forwarded it to me a few days ago, and it was the one website that, in the overnight hours, was constantly down for maintenance. Last night it was finally up, so I applied. As it's an editor position, there's a lot of writing and editing involved -- right up my alley for a guy who has taught composition English courses for over four years, was one of the nonfiction editors for the university's literary journal for three years, and before that, was a newspaper reporter with tons of articles written/published. Again, as I said, I don't apply for positions I don't have a shot at, or positions where I know I'm not qualified to do. This one seems to have gone under the radar quite a bit -- I get daily job alerts from Monster.com, and I've never seen it pop up. If I had, believe me, I would've applied for it in a heartbeat anyway -- editor positions are hard to find, and writing positions are even harder unless you want to work freelance (and starve, and end up having ultra-difficult taxes to do at the end of the year). I don't.
As an aside, Daisy has told me that she's doing the household taxes once we're married, filing jointly and all that. She does hers all online. I don't trust the online systems, really, and never have -- most of you know this about me. The one time I did my taxes online, I ended up owing the feds something like $60 that year. Every other year when I've done them manually I get a huge refund, and it's accurate, and I'm sure I'm not doing anything wrong (otherwise, y'know, they'd tell me and adjust my refund accordingly, which they've done once or twice in the past when I've made a mistake on a line here or there). I don't know what her refunds are like or what they'll be like when we file jointly, but she also makes a lot more money than I do right now...like, more than twice as much. A lot of her own refund this year was set aside to help fund the wedding, just like a good chunk of mine will be used to help pay the rent/deposit on our new place in Omaha once we get it. The rest of mine will go towards paying my bills down as much as possible, and possibly zeroing out the balance on at least one, if not both, of my smaller credit cards. I have the feeling I'll need those cards, if not desperately so, this coming summer.
Again, it'll probably be mid-month or so at the least before I get either of my tax refunds. The sooner I get them, the better. Obviously.
As it's chilly outside right now (37, apparently, according to my desktop weather app), I chose to wear a pair of pants, a t-shirt, and a zip-up fleece jacket today. It's supposed to be about 60 or so for the high -- if it were going to be that temperature all day, and was that temperature now, I'd probably wear shorts. It's not, so I'm not. I may get to wear shorts to teach in tomorrow evening, as it's supposed to be around 70 tomorrow and rainy. That means it'll be warm and slightly muggy in the evening. I am positively aching to wear shorts, short-sleeve shirts/t-shirts, and sandals to teach in every day. Spring thus far has been like a car whose engine will only fire up every fourth or fifth time you turn the key -- the rest of the time it just spins but won't turn over.
Or, of course, it's only really warm and nice on the days I don't have to leave the house -- like it was all weekend when I was off.
I probably shouldn't make car references like that when I am now concerned about my car's ability to actually start and run, right? Right.
Anyway.
I mentioned briefly before that tonight in my 011 class, it's conference night. I'm a bit ahead of schedule with those students -- which is good, because I'm really right where I need to be overall in that class with its assignments -- so tonight is conferences and that's it. No lessons, no journal assignments/topics, no coverage of chapters or readings out of either textbook -- just the conferences. I told my students last week that if they don't have a draft of a paper to conference with me on, they may as well not show up, as they'll be sitting there doing nothing. I also said that of course, if they don't show up, they'll still be counted absent. If they don't conference with me, they're shooting themselves in the foot anyhow.
Why? Because on conference night, they're supposed to bring in a draft of their paper that's due the next class period. They're supposed to sit down with me at my desk and talk about it with me one-on-one. If they do that, obviously, I tell them all of the errors that need to be fixed, I show them places where their paragraphs/writing in general could be improved or added to, and I point out awkward wording to them so that they can go fix it and get a great grade on the paper when they turn it in to me the next week. In addition, they get other sets of student eyes on their papers when they trade them back and forth for peer-review while they wait. I don't require students to conference with me. They can do whatever they want, turn in a good or bad paper regardless of their conference, etc. But it is one of the ways I structure the class in order to help my students. Most professors probably don't do it the way I do. Most professors in my position probably wouldn't do it at all, or they'd opt for the more traditional workshop format for their papers (I believe that's the way the original 011 syllabus has it set up).
Therefore, if students don't conference with me, they're choosing not to get direct one-on-one help with me when some of them absolutely need it, and it's on them -- they're shooting themselves in the foot. But, then again, as more than half of my class has basically decided to stop showing up or doing any of the work at this point anyhow, I'm guessing those students don't care. I'll have at least four or five students who, if they don't show up tonight, will automatically fail for the semester. Most of them are the ESL students who shouldn't be in the class anyhow, and who seemed to give up on it and its coursework a week or two before Spring Break. Oh well. Again, I can't completely rewrite the class for students who barely speak or understand English -- 011 is a class designed for native speakers and writers.
Before you think I'm sounding cruel, cold, or uncaring, I will say that I've had many ESL students in my classes who have done exceedingly well in them, including in the classes I'm teaching this semester...especially when they've shown up, done the work, and asked for questions and guidance when necessary, of course. I can only do so much as a professor -- I am but their guide. I can't write papers for them, and I can't show up knocking on the doors of their dorm rooms or homes telling them that they have to come to class.
As I also mentioned before, I need to talk to the ESL/remedial director about this problem today if she's there and in the office (she's been really ill as of late), especially as I've got many students in that class who are about to fail either for absences and/or will fail mathematically after this next paper is due. This is the most problem-fraught class I've ever taught at the university simply because it's a night class and because a lot of students enrolled in it shouldn't be. My professorial evaluations for my classes, all of them, are within the next week and a half or so. I know the students who are there in my 011 class that night will give me good evaluations, because they're the ones who actually show up, do their work, and ask questions about their work.
As an aside, apparently they've changed the way evaluations are being done -- at least for adjuncts/lecturers -- from this semester forward. We got a memo about it late last week. Now all of us have to give our evaluations to the directors of whatever programs we're in/under so that they can individually evaluate us one by one. This has never happened before. I don't know what that's about, of course, but it's new, and the GTAs don't have to do it, just us. I had fleeting fantasies about them giving us raises for our good work, but I'm sure it's just so they can bitch at the instructors who get lower evaluations than others, and will probably use said evaluations as reasoning for not renewing their contracts for the next semester. I'm realistic.
Of course, I plan for this to be the last semester I teach at this university anyway, so it won't affect me any if that is what it ends up being used for. Which, of course, wouldn't surprise me in the least.
Today is April Fool's Day. On many April firsts in the past, I have not had to teach or attend class, and I could avoid all the bullshit involved with all liars' favorite day on the calendar. Unfortunately, this year that's not the case, as I not only have to teach but it's my long day as well. I don't find April Fool's Day jokes or pranks funny, and never have. It's not that I'm a gullible person, it's that I hate dishonesty in all its forms. As such, I don't make jokes or pranks, and when someone tries to fool me with one, I generally give them this kind of look:
It's just stupid to me, that's all. I told Daisy that it's one of the reasons I plan to hole up in my office this afternoon grading papers (aside from the fact that, well, I need to grade papers) -- it's so I don't have to deal with jokes and pranks from anyone. It's so childish. The worst part is that they're always hurtful jokes or pranks, too. When someone posts a news story, for example, that says Netflix has bought the contract and will be producing 26 new episodes of Firefly, that's not a funny joke. That's hurtful and angers/saddens a lot of people when it turns out to be untrue.
That prank, by the way, is an annual one, and appears every year on one site or another. I've already seen it once today. It's not a fun little lie or joke. It's just evil.
I have drained an entire pot of coffee in the four hours I've been awake thus far, and have noticed no increase in energy or alertness, nor any lack of fatigue. I told Daisy that when I get home tonight -- probably a little earlier than usual due to the conferences in my night class -- I will probably want to eat and go directly to bed. She doesn't have any plans for the evening, though, so it feels like I'm abandoning her when we actually have time we could be talking. I can't help it that much; I'll be awake and alert for at least a little while after I get home, but it will more than likely just be long enough to eat and check my school email/messages before I'll want to crash. It is a very, very rare occurrence that no matter how tired I am beforehand, I don't need to "wind down" when I get home. I can count on one hand how many times I've come home from work or school, disrobed at the door, and have fallen into bed to sleep the entire night/day through. No, usually I need about an hour or more of simple "decompression time" before I can rest. Tonight that hour will be spent eating and getting ready for bed...and then bed.
I can, though, take solace in the fact that three weeks from tomorrow, my Wednesday night 210 class will end. They turn in their final projects on the 16th, and then on the 23rd they give their oral presentations (which acts as their final exam), and the class is over at that point. If I had more students in that class, it would go another week or two until the actual end of the semester for those presentations alone, but as I only have eight students -- all of whom are doing really well -- well, we can wrap things up and be done. All of them are psyched up about this, too.
I've tried to plot out my schedule after that point because it'll be interesting to see my comings and goings for the rest of the semester:
April 23 (W): 210 class ends; no more driving to West campus (or anywhere else) on Wednesdays after that.
May 1 (R): 102 class takes their final exam, class ends. No more driving to West campus at all after that morning.
May 6 (T): The only day I have to be on main campus before final exams, and only for my night class's last session that night at 7. Also, probably the only day this semester I'll actually get to park on campus instead of taking the shuttle down.
Apparently, by the time the end of the semester rolls around, I'll be saving a ton of money on gasoline for the car and will be able to get some good sleep on a regular basis again. This also helps me out because it'll give me more time to be packing and cleaning up this house.
I also hope that the final exam schedules are released by the time May 6 rolls around, or otherwise I'm going to be completely out of the loop and will have to call/email the department administrator to have her forward me the times and schedules. With the department being shorthanded, I'm guessing it'll take longer to get those done and ready this year compared to previous years/semesters.
So that's what's going on in my life right now. I leave the house in about an hour (almost exactly an hour, actually) to start my really long, exhausting day of teaching. I keep looking at the calendar and mumbling to myself that I really only have a month of this to go, stay the course, stay the course, etc.
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