Let me state here, for the record and right now: going to class this morning was a bad idea. If I would've known what I was in for, I wouldn't have even attempted to leave the house.
First of all, yes, I'm fine. The car is fine (though she didn't necessarily like the drive). I made it to and from campus, though it wasn't easy, safe, or pleasant.
So. As you folks know, the snowstorm hit from Tuesday morning until late Tuesday night, finally stopping around, oh, 3AM on Wednesday. I didn't have to leave the house this morning until 8AM. Even if the plows, salt trucks, and whatever other facilities Kansas DOT has at its disposal to treat the roads waited until the storm stopped completely to do anything to the roads, that means there was still approximately twenty-nine hours in the interim from the time the storm stopped to the time I had to leave the house to get roads and highways cleaned off and passable. Therefore, by the time I left the house this morning, there was no excuse whatsoever for every road I had to drive on to still be as absolutely godawful terrible as they were.
I gave myself about ten or fifteen extra minutes total. I didn't think I'd need much more than that, really; I knew it would take a little bit longer than usual to get out of Newton, and I knew the car would take a few more minutes than usual to warm up, even though it had been in the garage -- it was still in the low single digits outside when I left the house this morning, and never got above 10 all day. I assumed this. I expected this, so I prepared for it.
Newton was, and is, a nightmare. The main roads have been plowed maybe once, and it looked like they hadn't been touched after that plowing, which was probably on Tuesday during the storm itself or early yesterday morning. Nothing had been done to them otherwise. No salt, no brine treatment, nothing -- maybe a little sand when they had plowed, but nothing else. As a result, from people needing to drive on those roads to go back and forth, to and from work, every street in Newton -- every street, even the main roads -- were solid sheets of snow and packed ice where unless you have spiked tires or chains on your wheels, you can't get any reliable traction whatsoever, and once you're moving, you stay moving until the snow/ice wants to let you stop. The laws of motion and inertia greatly applied in this scenario. Need to stop at a stop sign or a light? Hope you're not going faster than 10mph, or you will not be able to. I know this well myself, of course, and I was lucky; I have good brakes, but even going 10-15mph, my car would not stop and I slid through two different stop signs. Nobody was around, thankfully. The one stoplight I hit on the way out of town, I prepared for and slowed to a 5mph or so crawl before getting up to it, and was able to stop. It wasn't easy to get going again, though.
Before I continue, I want to state something briefly -- if you own what your auto insurance company classifies as a "sports car," even though it's eighteen years old, has 231,000 miles on it, and is front-wheel drive, it's classified that way for a reason -- and that reason is primarily horsepower and torque. My Monte Carlo has 215hp and a shitload of torque (I'm not sure exactly what). I've done the research; the baseline, stock Camaro for the year my Monte Carlo was made is basically the same car with a different drivetrain and wheelbase. The Monte Carlo, at least the Z34 version I have, is, when it gets down to it, pretty much the same car with front-wheel drive and a different body. On snowpack and ice? It doesn't matter how much horsepower or torque you have; if your foot isn't light as a feather on the gas and brake pedals, you'll end up in the ditch just the same. Accelerate all you want, you'll still go the same speed; all that will change is that your tires will spin faster beneath you. If you don't brake like there's a fresh egg between your foot and the brake pedal, at all times, you won't be able to stop until the laws of physics let you stop. Driving any car on snowpack and ice takes patience and finesse, but driving a car like mine on snowpack and ice takes all that and more -- it takes skill and experience as well.
So. I made it up to the interstate in about ten minutes, crawling through the streets and dodging people who were going way too fast for the road conditions. I figured that, if anywhere was clear and traffic would be traveling normally, it would be the interstate -- I mean, the DOT has to keep the interstates as clear as possible, right?
Apparently not.
I-135 was not that much better, at all, than the Newton city streets were -- except here there's a new variable -- people who expect to be driving 75 at all times, as well as massive tractor-trailers everywhere as well. 135 was an absolute mess. Yes, there were clear spots...here and there, anyway. It had obviously been treated and plowed at least twice, but that didn't seem to help much. I didn't get above 50mph the entire drive down to the 53rd street exit, where I get off to go to West campus -- and neither did many other people, really. Even going as slowly as I was (comparatively speaking, anyhow), I still fishtailed a little bit here and there. Not big-time, mind you, but enough to where I could feel it and adjust for it. I saw no less than four cars spun out in the median or on the sides of the interstate/off-ramps for the first ten miles or so of my drive down the interstate. You have time to notice those things when your top speed can barely be above 45mph or so.
By the time I got to my exit which would take me over to West campus, the interstate was a little bit clearer and more manageable. I could actually see asphalt in most places again, which was good. This gave me hope. I knew the further south I drove, the less severe it would be -- Newton got about a foot of snow, but the Wichita area got a few inches less.
Well, apparently I was wrong.
For those of you who know the area (so, like, four of you reading this), to get from Newton to West campus, the easiest way is to get off at the 53rd street exit in Park City, a suburb of Wichita, and then drive west through Park City all the way out to Maize, which is where West campus is. So, I drive about fifteen miles south and then about another twelve or so directly west. South and west of Wichita proper got less snow, so again, I was hoping the roads would be better down there than they were up here. They weren't.
Park City was as bad as Newton -- it had maybe been plowed once, and certainly hadn't been properly treated. The snowpack and ice was so thick on the streets that you couldn't tell where the lanes were -- it was all just one big, slick sheet of ice in all directions, like a stretched-out skating rink. There are two stoplights I hit in Park City -- one about half a mile into the city, in front of the police station, and the second about three miles further down, at the intersection which takes me out to Maize. The first one is at the bottom of a downhill slope. As you can imagine, downhill slopes are really fucking dangerous when the entire road is a thick sheet of ice.
About, oh, 100 yards out from the stoplight, I saw it turn green. This mattered not, as at my speed downhill (about 25) I wasn't concerned; I know approximately how long that light stays red or green at that hour of the day, and I calculated in my head that I'd get right through it before it turned red. Except, well, I didn't. About 30 yards out, it turned yellow. I braked to slow down, and, well, didn't slow down, because...ice. With about a second to spare, I said "fuck it" and bore down on the accelerator -- in retrospect, a terrible idea, but it got the job done. Terrified that I was going to slam into someone or they'd slam into me, I spun my wheels and slid gracefully through the intersection juuuuust as the light turned red above my head when I went under it. If there'd been anyone directly in front of me who was turning off or who had braked to stop for the light, there's a good chance I would've gotten into a major accident and could've been killed or at least seriously injured.
It was about this time where I considered just turning around and going back home, emailing my students to tell them that it was too bad to drive in there to teach, but as I was already more than halfway to campus at that point, it didn't really matter. If I'd wanted to make that decision, I should've done it before I'd gotten out of Newton.
The roads didn't get better. As I've said before, the drive out to West campus is usually a long, quiet and peaceful one, on two straight-stretches of several miles each with nothing but fields and farms on either side of me for as far as the eye can see. The problem with that in the winter is that those are the roads that don't get treated, the ones that are sort of left to their own devices to drift over or otherwise remain terrible. I could tell that 53rd street (the road through Park City, all the way out to Maize about ten miles away) had been plowed once, but that's about it. Just like Newton. Once I get out there far enough, with nobody and nothing else around me, if I go off the roads into a ditch or field, nobody would find me if I couldn't get the car back out. So, I drove slowly. Carefully. 35-40 where the speed limit was normally 55 (and, in normal weather and road conditions, I go about 65 or so since there are no cops out there anywhere).
The last leg of the drive is a shorter one; I turn off on a street called Tyler, which takes me up to the street that the West campus is on. Tyler is also a long straight stretch for about, oh, three miles, and leading up to the intersection with Tyler and 53rd, people crossing 53rd have to stop. I don't, but they do. Luckily, there was no one around when I got down there, because even slowing down far in advance to about 20 or so, I couldn't slow down enough to make the turn, and began sliding. Diagonally. Right past Tyler. Into the other lane, going towards a deep ditch.
I was able, luckily, to right myself before I went into the ditch, get back into my lane, and drive a little further down 53rd to turn around and go back up to Tyler. This time I slowed down waaaay slow, to about 10mph or less, and easily made the turn. Obviously, though, this should give you some idea of how fucking terrible godawful the roads were. Even though they're old, my front tires have good tread on them, and my back tires are practically new. This matters not when it's this terrible on the roads.
After that, I got to West campus without incident and taught my class. 8 of my 12 students were there, which is pretty good for a day where the roads were this bad and the temperature was in the single digits. With biting wind chills. I apologized to them profusely, saying that if I had any clue that the roads would still be as bad as they were, I wouldn't have held class -- apparently, I had too much faith in the Kansas DOT.
Wichita, apparently, after making a big press statement saying they were ready for the storm to roll in, had run out of salt for the roads; they had to get more shipped down from Hutchinson. It's not like it mattered anyhow, really; what they needed to do more than anything else was plow the damned roads and streets more than once -- make that metal shovel scrape the pavement for twenty miles at a time, not just take a thin layer on top. Salt/brine/sand -- none of that's going to help when it's in the single digits outside. Snow melting stuff stops working when it's below about 15 degrees or so.
Of course, my students all had their own opinions on what should/shouldn't have been done when it came to school closings and road treatments. All of us were in agreement that the university should've remained closed at least today as well -- just because the grounds crews were able to clean the parking lots enough to clear spaces doesn't mean people can still get to the campuses safely. As mentioned above, it if wasn't for a few spates of luck this morning on my way down to campus, I could've been killed. Easily.
The first 23 years of my life, I lived in West Virginia, where two-foot snowstorms every other week or so is standard and commonplace throughout the winter -- and on mountaintops, at that. In all of those years, with all of those storms, only maybe three or four times had I seen worse road conditions there than I saw here today. That's saying something. People give West Virginia a lot of shit over a lot of different things, and most of it is warranted, but they do treat and clear off the roads as much as possible there when there's a bad storm that rolls through. When I was an undergraduate student at WVU many years ago, the university wouldn't close down for snow unless there was a state of emergency in effect. They're a little more lenient on that now, but still -- you get a foot of snow in Morgantown? Tough; WVU more than likely isn't closing. Public schools may close or be delayed, but not the university. Most of the time, anyway. Here, apparently, a foot of snow means the university will close down for at least two days, public schools will shut down for most of the week (there are still some public schools closed for tomorrow, even) and the roads barely get treated at all.
From all reports I've seen, roads in Wichita proper aren't much better, and in many cases are just as bad or worse. Facebook is full of friends and coworkers saying they couldn't get out and/or were very close to being in accidents because of the roads. I would like to have seen how many people -- students, faculty, and staff all combined -- actually made it to campus safely today for classes. I'm guessing it wasn't half of the university's population. While I realize that the university loses a lot of money for each day they have to shut down, when they're still open and roughly half of its workers and students can't get to campus anyhow, is it really doing any good?
However, if we get another snowstorm next week or the week after, or who knows when anytime between now and when spring actually decides to arrive and stay for good...we'll need those cancellation days then. Perhaps I'm being a little too shortsighted.
The drive home was mostly uneventful, actually. Knowing how bad the roads were between here and school already, I centered myself and took even more extra time on the way back, and didn't have any sliding or fishtailing situations. 135 going north, actually, was mostly clear and dry for most of my drive home until I got back up closer to Newton again, where it remained icy and snowpacked. I arrived home without incident, at which point I immediately put the car in the garage again to keep it warm, as it's still in the single digits outside (and, also, to get all the snow/gunk on it to melt and fall off of it). It's now really clear to me that once the weather clears up and stays cleared up, I need to take a few dollars in quarters over to the car wash and scrub her down -- she looks like a junkyard shit on her, what with all the dirty snow and road grime she got on her today alone.
Adding insult to injury (ahem, so to speak) there are snow chances every day throughout the next few days. The next storm system, which they're apparently naming "Winter Storm Orion," will sweep through here late in the weekend and into Monday (the 10th, 11th, and 12th, according to the current prediction maps on Weather.com) and could give us nothing, or could give us another 4 inches based on what info is out there right now. Nobody out here in Kansas is really talking about it yet, so we'll see. Next week is going to be hectic enough anyhow what with Valentine's Day coming up, Daisy coming down on Wednesday night, and my need to make up two classes' worth of missed lessons and assignments due to the cancellations this week. The last thing I want/need is more snow to throw more proverbial wrenches into gears. My drive down to campus today traumatized me enough to where I really don't want to leave the house anymore already.
No more news on the paycheck front, though I didn't necessarily expect to hear anything today from anyone. I would imagine the administrator will give me an update tomorrow -- who knows if she (or anyone else in the English department, let alone the payroll department) was even able to make it in today, what with the roads as they were. In the meantime, Daisy is going to do the wire transfer in the morning anyhow, so that I'll at least have some money to pay my bills with. At this point, I've basically accepted that I'm not going to have any of my actual paycheck money in the bank one way or another until at least a week from tomorrow. Even if I pick up a paper check from the university on Tuesday, if it's even done and ready then, it'll still take an average of three days for it to get back home in the mail so my parents can drop it into the bank. At that point I would rather tell them to just put a double amount on my first real paycheck and forget about the "advance" shit if at all possible, since it's not really an "advance" if it's still gonna take them two weeks to sort it out anyway. I don't, however, think they can do that.
As for my weekend, it began this morning when I returned home from campus, even though that was the only class I taught all week. There's not a lot for me to do, to be honest with you; in the overnight hours tonight, I ran a load of laundry, and at some point this weekend I'll clean out the fridge so that I can take the garbage down to the road. My lesson-planning stuff is already done -- contingency plans put in place last week when those classes were canceled -- and my 102 class meets at the library on Tuesday morning anyway. The temperature isn't supposed to get above freezing until at least Wednesday, so none of this stuff is going to melt off until after that, at least. If the roads get better and/or clear off between now and then, it will simply be because people will have driven on them so much in the interim, because if they haven't plowed or treated them any more by this point, it's not like I expect them to from this point forward.
I will have to go out at some point this weekend for some food and other groceries, more than likely. I may wait until Monday if possible, just to let the roads clear up some more and for the temperature to crawl back up out of the single digits. The low tonight is supposed to be around zero.
In the meantime, though? I once more become a hermit for a few days.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Warm-up Time
Spring semester: day thirteen
The university has chosen not to close down for a third day -- which isn't surprising, of course. Classes are, and will be, in session today. In about 90 minutes, I shall leave the house and attempt to safely get to West campus. None of my students have responded to my email, so I assume all of them will be able to get to class -- unless I show up to an empty classroom and twelve emails upon my return home, that is. That would piss me off, especially because I'd be out in the cold and wasting a day's worth of gas driving back and forth for no reason.
As predicted, it is dismally, brutally cold this morning -- 2 degrees above, and feels like -7. While the car has been in the garage since the weekend, it's not like it's much more than about fifteen degrees warmer in there than it is outside, so before I do anything, I'll be sitting in the car for a few minutes in the driveway, trying to get her to warm up a bit before going down the street. If I can make it down the street, that is. I haven't yet heard of anyone else getting stuck or spinning their tires or anything like that, so that's a plus (at least for now, right?) Regardless, I'm giving myself plenty of extra time this morning. The drive to West campus takes about 35 minutes on any given day normally, and if the roads are still bad on several sections of my drive, it will (of course) take me longer today. I have to time things carefully; I don't want to take all sorts of extra time and arrive to campus half an hour before class starts, but I also don't want to get there right at the start time, either, as I've got a lot of stuff to cover today and I need about five or ten minutes of "prep time" in the classroom to get things in order.
The weather forecasters are already mumbling about another possible storm system moving in at almost the same time next week as this week's storm -- Monday night into Tuesday. They don't, however, know if anything's going to come of it yet. Really, I hope nothing does; missing this past Tuesday made my 011 class that much harder, and if I'm forced to miss two weeks in a row because of more snow? It will go from hard to catastrophic. Add in that the end of next week is Valentine's Day, with Daisy coming down on Wednesday night, and another storm system coming in would make everything that much more difficult to navigate through. I'll remind you that this is only the end of the third week of the semester, folks -- it only gets rougher from here on out for me and for my students when it comes to work I, and they, have to do.
I sent an email to the administrator in the department last night about my paycheck stuff, asking her if there was someone I could/should call in the payroll department to get all of my paycheck stuff sorted out or to find out a progress report on things thus far. She responded very kindly and said that she'd check up on it today, and it's possible they called and left a voicemail on her phone at work, and she'd let me know as soon as she heard something. She also let me know that I'm not the only one in this situation -- there's another lecturer (though I don't know who) that's having the same problem right now, and the paperwork and the like to fix it hasn't even been started yet for him/her because they just now found out they weren't in the system. So, really, at least my stuff is in the system now and the fix for my check is in process, which means that I'm not alone and not even the worst off in this situation. I totally feel for the other lecturer, I do. There are maybe ten of us lecturers (or "academic lecturers") within the department teaching classes any given semester. All of us who teach as lecturers do it because we either need to or have to, since the job market for university English instructors is so dismal right now, and it can be (and frequently is) a stressful job with long hours and low pay. It's not like we're all independently wealthy; we have to survive any way we can, so when stuff like this happens, it usually gets fixed really quickly because the department, and the administrators, realize that. We are the second-lowest rung on the chain (the lowest, obviously, being the GTAs) yet we and the GTAs teach the vast majority of the classes the department offers. The vast majority.
Anyway, I'm guessing I'll find something out this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest. I won't be back on main campus until Tuesday anyhow (barring, y'know, a second snowstorm) and Daisy is going to drop some money into my account tomorrow so that I can pay the bills I have now over the weekend...so while it is stressful, yes, I have faith that one way or another it will get resolved fairly soon. It's not pleasant, but it'll be fixed.
Meanwhile, Winter Storm Nika is now hitting my friends and family back home -- it started there last night and will apparently continue through today with freezing rain and ice instead of snow -- it's warmer there than it is here. Some schools there are canceled or delayed as well.
On that note, I am going to get dressed (in multiple layers of warm clothing) and will be leaving the house shortly to attempt my venture down to West campus for the day. Wish me luck, folks.
The university has chosen not to close down for a third day -- which isn't surprising, of course. Classes are, and will be, in session today. In about 90 minutes, I shall leave the house and attempt to safely get to West campus. None of my students have responded to my email, so I assume all of them will be able to get to class -- unless I show up to an empty classroom and twelve emails upon my return home, that is. That would piss me off, especially because I'd be out in the cold and wasting a day's worth of gas driving back and forth for no reason.
As predicted, it is dismally, brutally cold this morning -- 2 degrees above, and feels like -7. While the car has been in the garage since the weekend, it's not like it's much more than about fifteen degrees warmer in there than it is outside, so before I do anything, I'll be sitting in the car for a few minutes in the driveway, trying to get her to warm up a bit before going down the street. If I can make it down the street, that is. I haven't yet heard of anyone else getting stuck or spinning their tires or anything like that, so that's a plus (at least for now, right?) Regardless, I'm giving myself plenty of extra time this morning. The drive to West campus takes about 35 minutes on any given day normally, and if the roads are still bad on several sections of my drive, it will (of course) take me longer today. I have to time things carefully; I don't want to take all sorts of extra time and arrive to campus half an hour before class starts, but I also don't want to get there right at the start time, either, as I've got a lot of stuff to cover today and I need about five or ten minutes of "prep time" in the classroom to get things in order.
The weather forecasters are already mumbling about another possible storm system moving in at almost the same time next week as this week's storm -- Monday night into Tuesday. They don't, however, know if anything's going to come of it yet. Really, I hope nothing does; missing this past Tuesday made my 011 class that much harder, and if I'm forced to miss two weeks in a row because of more snow? It will go from hard to catastrophic. Add in that the end of next week is Valentine's Day, with Daisy coming down on Wednesday night, and another storm system coming in would make everything that much more difficult to navigate through. I'll remind you that this is only the end of the third week of the semester, folks -- it only gets rougher from here on out for me and for my students when it comes to work I, and they, have to do.
I sent an email to the administrator in the department last night about my paycheck stuff, asking her if there was someone I could/should call in the payroll department to get all of my paycheck stuff sorted out or to find out a progress report on things thus far. She responded very kindly and said that she'd check up on it today, and it's possible they called and left a voicemail on her phone at work, and she'd let me know as soon as she heard something. She also let me know that I'm not the only one in this situation -- there's another lecturer (though I don't know who) that's having the same problem right now, and the paperwork and the like to fix it hasn't even been started yet for him/her because they just now found out they weren't in the system. So, really, at least my stuff is in the system now and the fix for my check is in process, which means that I'm not alone and not even the worst off in this situation. I totally feel for the other lecturer, I do. There are maybe ten of us lecturers (or "academic lecturers") within the department teaching classes any given semester. All of us who teach as lecturers do it because we either need to or have to, since the job market for university English instructors is so dismal right now, and it can be (and frequently is) a stressful job with long hours and low pay. It's not like we're all independently wealthy; we have to survive any way we can, so when stuff like this happens, it usually gets fixed really quickly because the department, and the administrators, realize that. We are the second-lowest rung on the chain (the lowest, obviously, being the GTAs) yet we and the GTAs teach the vast majority of the classes the department offers. The vast majority.
Anyway, I'm guessing I'll find something out this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest. I won't be back on main campus until Tuesday anyhow (barring, y'know, a second snowstorm) and Daisy is going to drop some money into my account tomorrow so that I can pay the bills I have now over the weekend...so while it is stressful, yes, I have faith that one way or another it will get resolved fairly soon. It's not pleasant, but it'll be fixed.
Meanwhile, Winter Storm Nika is now hitting my friends and family back home -- it started there last night and will apparently continue through today with freezing rain and ice instead of snow -- it's warmer there than it is here. Some schools there are canceled or delayed as well.
On that note, I am going to get dressed (in multiple layers of warm clothing) and will be leaving the house shortly to attempt my venture down to West campus for the day. Wish me luck, folks.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
The Wrath of Nika, Part V: The Aftermath
Amusingly enough, this is my 500th post here. Hello. Welcome.
Ahem. Anyway.
The university, before I got up this afternoon, issued a statement that all campuses would reopen tomorrow and classes would go on as scheduled:
This is, of course, highly interesting to me that they'd make such a statement so early. No, we're not supposed to get any more snow (nothing accumulating, anyway), but at 3PM today the temperature is 8 degrees and feels like -7, and some roads in the area are just now closing down because they've become drifted over due to the winds and the higher than expected amount of snow predicted. The low temperature tonight is going to be zero, if not below zero in many places, which means that it will still be that cold in the morning when the university is expected to reopen and classes are expected to resume -- and that's even before one takes into account the wind chill and the aforementioned drifting over the roads in the more open areas (such as, ahem, the two several-mile long straight stretches through wide-open fields that I have to take in order to get to West campus in the morning). The school districts for Wichita and Maize (where West campus is) already closed down for tomorrow again, mainly due to the cold and due to the fact that there's so much snow, even with treating/plowing the roads, none of it's melting and there's nowhere for it to go.
The official accumulation count for Wichita was 8.7 inches, which was more or less on track with the later predictions. As you may recall, the earlier predictions called for 4-6 or 5-7 for Wichita before upping it to 6-10. Newton, where I am, was in the 6-10 range, and again, I'm still guessing I got close to a foot up here. This is a graphic KWCH-12 put out this morning:
I don't practice Assaria, I ain't got no crystal ball...
Ahem.
Hutch, as they refer to it, is Hutchinson -- where the state fair is held every year, and is about 30-40 miles-ish directly west of me. Salina is an hour or so north of me. Those totals line up pretty much with what I'm seeing here in Newton -- several inches more than what Wichita got. This isn't really that surprising, based on the history of how storms track in this area most of the time; very rarely will Newton get less than Wichita, and usually gets several inches more, even though at maximum (from center of town to center of town) they're maybe 26-28 miles apart. My drive from my driveway to the new parking lot on main campus is almost exactly 24 miles, because I've clocked it.
Because of the statement that the university plans to reopen tomorrow, I sent an email to my 102 students I'm scheduled to teach in the morning:
That's about all I can tell them, really. Do I think the university will change its collective mind and close down again? No, and I said as much in the previous post I wrote here in the overnight hours. But, do I think of the thirteen of us scheduled to be in class tomorrow (twelve students and myself), half of them or more may still be unable to make it in? Yes, I think that's a distinct possibility, and that's why I told them to let me know if they couldn't make it in. As much as I don't want to (and I really don't want to, as it will entail a lot of extra shuffling around of the schedule in the short term), if I get a bunch of them telling me that they can't make it before I leave the house tomorrow morning, I'll just cancel the class.
Neighbors' cars and other vehicles seem to be able to get in and out of my neighborhood just fine, even though the street is snow-covered and snow-packed. People are going back and forth to work, coming and going as per the usual in cars similar to mine (for example, my neighbor across the street has a low-to-the-ground Impala with aftermarket rims, and seems to be able to get in and out normally). Mind you, I myself haven't left the house since Sunday night, before all of this snow came, so I really don't know what the road conditions are anywhere, and my car has been kept out of the snow and ice in the garage. Unless everything outside my neighborhood is clear, I would imagine it's not going to be a fun trip back and forth tomorrow morning, and I'll have to take plenty of extra time to get down there and back. I guess I'll see for myself when the morning rolls around.
As for my paycheck stuff, this afternoon I sent an email to the administrator in the department asking if there was someone in particular in the payroll department that I could contact for a "status update" on the processing of my check, since as far as I know it's been radio silence from those people for well over a week now. I said that I didn't want to be a bother and I know all of it's frustrating (and, of course, I do mean that) but regardless of what's taking them so long, I still haven't been paid and would like to be before the next payday of the 14th rolls around. Yeah, the university's been closed for the past two days, but they had my information, forms and the like for a week before that with nothing in response. When it's the third week of classes (going into the fourth, for me, after tomorrow), and I haven't been paid since December 20, and by the end of this week I will have had to borrow money not once but twice from my fiancee to cover even the barest of necessities and bills -- yeah, something has to be done here. This is, as they say, a major fuck-up that needs to be rectified.
As the sun goes down, it's getting colder both outside and inside. I have the thermostat on the furnace set to 56, because (again) if I set it higher than that, with this cold, it will run 24/7 and my electric bill will be $400 this month. Because of the cold and the snow, I haven't showered since Monday, though I will soon shower this evening. I haven't before now because, well, why waste the water making myself clean and presentable if I'm not going anywhere and there's no one here to impress? Plus, showering involves getting naked and cold, and I've been bundled up tightly for days in my thickest plush bathrobe. If the cold and snow would go away and I had somewhere to be, as well as people to see and interact with, it would be a different story, obviously.
As the evening begins, many school districts, colleges, and other small universities are closing down again for tomorrow, and the list on local news websites is, pardon the pun, snowballing, and is getting ever larger. All of the small colleges and technical schools, with few exceptions, are already closed for tomorrow, and all of the school districts in the area have either shut down already or more than likely will, with the larger ones (like the Wichita USD) closing down before I even got up this afternoon. As I mentioned before, the university usually follows suit when the Wichita USD shuts down, especially when all or almost all of the school districts within the tri-county area shut down for the day as well. The closings are coming in every 2-3 minutes by the bucketload; I'm watching them pour in via Facebook and Twitter. For some reason this is extremely fascinating to me, especially because I know this time around it's mostly due to the cold, and not the leftover snow/road conditions. I'm guessing 75/25 due to the cold; maybe, in certain places or situations, 60/40. Regardless, I'll keep a close eye on things over the course of the next few hours. If the university changes its mind, it will be stunning at this point, but again, not especially super-surprising given everywhere else closing down. I'm sure there's some sort of peer-pressure at play when the university closes, as well as the inconvenience factor of staying open when all other school districts and the like are closed (many instructors, professors, students, and staff have school-age children all around the area, of course, so when everyone closes but us, people flip the fuck out and thousands of complaints roll in; that's baaaad PR).
Again, it doesn't really affect me one way or the other; if the university remains open and I don't have ten emails from students telling me they can't make it in, I go teach, and I'm gone and back, out of the house about three hours total. If it closes or all of my students tell me they can't make it in, I remain here and put further class contingency plans into action. They have to make a decision by 4:30 AM, as I mentioned here before, even if that decision is to do something weird like cancel morning classes and open at 12PM. I wouldn't be surprised if they do shut down, but wait until the last possible minute to do so -- such as the middle of the night when wind chills will be, according to the Weather Channel, something like -20 to -30. If not? Enjoy walking to or between classes tomorrow, kids!
So, that's been my day in a nutshell. I'll go shower soon and get something to eat, and will keep an eye on things, but I fully expect to be off to campus in the morning in the bitter cold and snow for the first time in a full week. My 102 class last Thursday was the last class I was able to teach at the university before all of this snow happened, ironically. I'll keep you updated on whatever happens.
Ahem. Anyway.
The university, before I got up this afternoon, issued a statement that all campuses would reopen tomorrow and classes would go on as scheduled:
Grounds crews are making significant headway in clearing roads, parking lots and sidewalks of snow. As a result, the university will reopen for all normal classes and activities tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 6.
This is, of course, highly interesting to me that they'd make such a statement so early. No, we're not supposed to get any more snow (nothing accumulating, anyway), but at 3PM today the temperature is 8 degrees and feels like -7, and some roads in the area are just now closing down because they've become drifted over due to the winds and the higher than expected amount of snow predicted. The low temperature tonight is going to be zero, if not below zero in many places, which means that it will still be that cold in the morning when the university is expected to reopen and classes are expected to resume -- and that's even before one takes into account the wind chill and the aforementioned drifting over the roads in the more open areas (such as, ahem, the two several-mile long straight stretches through wide-open fields that I have to take in order to get to West campus in the morning). The school districts for Wichita and Maize (where West campus is) already closed down for tomorrow again, mainly due to the cold and due to the fact that there's so much snow, even with treating/plowing the roads, none of it's melting and there's nowhere for it to go.
The official accumulation count for Wichita was 8.7 inches, which was more or less on track with the later predictions. As you may recall, the earlier predictions called for 4-6 or 5-7 for Wichita before upping it to 6-10. Newton, where I am, was in the 6-10 range, and again, I'm still guessing I got close to a foot up here. This is a graphic KWCH-12 put out this morning:
I don't practice Assaria, I ain't got no crystal ball...
Ahem.
Hutch, as they refer to it, is Hutchinson -- where the state fair is held every year, and is about 30-40 miles-ish directly west of me. Salina is an hour or so north of me. Those totals line up pretty much with what I'm seeing here in Newton -- several inches more than what Wichita got. This isn't really that surprising, based on the history of how storms track in this area most of the time; very rarely will Newton get less than Wichita, and usually gets several inches more, even though at maximum (from center of town to center of town) they're maybe 26-28 miles apart. My drive from my driveway to the new parking lot on main campus is almost exactly 24 miles, because I've clocked it.
Because of the statement that the university plans to reopen tomorrow, I sent an email to my 102 students I'm scheduled to teach in the morning:
Greetings, folks. Hopefully you've stayed indoors, warm, and off the roads as much as possible for the past 48 hours or so. As you may have seen if you've looked at [website], [University] has already made the statement that they will reopen tomorrow, even though many public school districts (including Wichita and Maize) have remained closed. I doubt this will change if they've already made the statement that they'll be open, regardless of how brutally cold it gets and how many snowdrifts form over roads. So. As of right now, as long as the university reopens on schedule, I do plan to hold our class tomorrow. If you cannot make it to class tomorrow due to the roads and/or cold, let me know and I will plan accordingly. I myself will be taking plenty of extra time to make it down there, especially as I don't know what the road conditions are between here and there (and it's not like any of this stuff is going to melt or get better when it's this cold), so I encourage you to do the same. If any of this changes between now and the morning, I'll make alternate lesson plans, update you here, and we'll go from there -- but if not, expect class will be held as scheduled.
That's about all I can tell them, really. Do I think the university will change its collective mind and close down again? No, and I said as much in the previous post I wrote here in the overnight hours. But, do I think of the thirteen of us scheduled to be in class tomorrow (twelve students and myself), half of them or more may still be unable to make it in? Yes, I think that's a distinct possibility, and that's why I told them to let me know if they couldn't make it in. As much as I don't want to (and I really don't want to, as it will entail a lot of extra shuffling around of the schedule in the short term), if I get a bunch of them telling me that they can't make it before I leave the house tomorrow morning, I'll just cancel the class.
Neighbors' cars and other vehicles seem to be able to get in and out of my neighborhood just fine, even though the street is snow-covered and snow-packed. People are going back and forth to work, coming and going as per the usual in cars similar to mine (for example, my neighbor across the street has a low-to-the-ground Impala with aftermarket rims, and seems to be able to get in and out normally). Mind you, I myself haven't left the house since Sunday night, before all of this snow came, so I really don't know what the road conditions are anywhere, and my car has been kept out of the snow and ice in the garage. Unless everything outside my neighborhood is clear, I would imagine it's not going to be a fun trip back and forth tomorrow morning, and I'll have to take plenty of extra time to get down there and back. I guess I'll see for myself when the morning rolls around.
As for my paycheck stuff, this afternoon I sent an email to the administrator in the department asking if there was someone in particular in the payroll department that I could contact for a "status update" on the processing of my check, since as far as I know it's been radio silence from those people for well over a week now. I said that I didn't want to be a bother and I know all of it's frustrating (and, of course, I do mean that) but regardless of what's taking them so long, I still haven't been paid and would like to be before the next payday of the 14th rolls around. Yeah, the university's been closed for the past two days, but they had my information, forms and the like for a week before that with nothing in response. When it's the third week of classes (going into the fourth, for me, after tomorrow), and I haven't been paid since December 20, and by the end of this week I will have had to borrow money not once but twice from my fiancee to cover even the barest of necessities and bills -- yeah, something has to be done here. This is, as they say, a major fuck-up that needs to be rectified.
As the sun goes down, it's getting colder both outside and inside. I have the thermostat on the furnace set to 56, because (again) if I set it higher than that, with this cold, it will run 24/7 and my electric bill will be $400 this month. Because of the cold and the snow, I haven't showered since Monday, though I will soon shower this evening. I haven't before now because, well, why waste the water making myself clean and presentable if I'm not going anywhere and there's no one here to impress? Plus, showering involves getting naked and cold, and I've been bundled up tightly for days in my thickest plush bathrobe. If the cold and snow would go away and I had somewhere to be, as well as people to see and interact with, it would be a different story, obviously.
As the evening begins, many school districts, colleges, and other small universities are closing down again for tomorrow, and the list on local news websites is, pardon the pun, snowballing, and is getting ever larger. All of the small colleges and technical schools, with few exceptions, are already closed for tomorrow, and all of the school districts in the area have either shut down already or more than likely will, with the larger ones (like the Wichita USD) closing down before I even got up this afternoon. As I mentioned before, the university usually follows suit when the Wichita USD shuts down, especially when all or almost all of the school districts within the tri-county area shut down for the day as well. The closings are coming in every 2-3 minutes by the bucketload; I'm watching them pour in via Facebook and Twitter. For some reason this is extremely fascinating to me, especially because I know this time around it's mostly due to the cold, and not the leftover snow/road conditions. I'm guessing 75/25 due to the cold; maybe, in certain places or situations, 60/40. Regardless, I'll keep a close eye on things over the course of the next few hours. If the university changes its mind, it will be stunning at this point, but again, not especially super-surprising given everywhere else closing down. I'm sure there's some sort of peer-pressure at play when the university closes, as well as the inconvenience factor of staying open when all other school districts and the like are closed (many instructors, professors, students, and staff have school-age children all around the area, of course, so when everyone closes but us, people flip the fuck out and thousands of complaints roll in; that's baaaad PR).
Again, it doesn't really affect me one way or the other; if the university remains open and I don't have ten emails from students telling me they can't make it in, I go teach, and I'm gone and back, out of the house about three hours total. If it closes or all of my students tell me they can't make it in, I remain here and put further class contingency plans into action. They have to make a decision by 4:30 AM, as I mentioned here before, even if that decision is to do something weird like cancel morning classes and open at 12PM. I wouldn't be surprised if they do shut down, but wait until the last possible minute to do so -- such as the middle of the night when wind chills will be, according to the Weather Channel, something like -20 to -30. If not? Enjoy walking to or between classes tomorrow, kids!
So, that's been my day in a nutshell. I'll go shower soon and get something to eat, and will keep an eye on things, but I fully expect to be off to campus in the morning in the bitter cold and snow for the first time in a full week. My 102 class last Thursday was the last class I was able to teach at the university before all of this snow happened, ironically. I'll keep you updated on whatever happens.
The Wrath of Nika, Part IV: Snow Day, Again
Spring semester: day twelve
I've been relatively silent on the storm for the past 36 hours or so, though I now have a bit of an update for you folks, I suppose.
Winter Storm Nika -- whose winter storm warning ended an hour ago -- dropped close to a foot, if not a full foot of snow here on me in Newton. And, as of right now (1:22 AM) it is still snowing. Hard.
I didn't sleep well last night; I tried, though. I went to bed relatively early (around 2 or so) and slept off and on for about four hours. I woke up -- from a nightmare, no less -- with particularly bad heartburn and an inability to return to sleep. It didn't matter, after all, since I didn't have to worry about going in to teach yesterday. Even if the university hadn't closed, I wouldn't have been able to get out after mid-morning or so (but I'll get to that).
When I got up with my heartburn, it was about 6AM, roughly. In the overnight hours, when the snow was supposed to start, it hadn't done much; there was little more than a dusting to a half-inch on the ground and streets here at my house. It had apparently been snowing off and on, lightly, through most of the night. The neighbor across the street from me always leaves for work at 5AM, and when he does, he takes his car that he parks on the street. The spot where his car sat was bare, and over the course of two more hours or so, it slowly covered up. The snow was taking its time, spitting in five-to-ten minute squalls which became easier to see, of course, once it gradually got a bit lighter outside. But it wasn't doing a whole lot at all. More "snow showers" than anything else. I began to wonder, around 7AM or so, if the university and all of the schools/businesses/colleges/everything else had closed down for the day prematurely.
By 8AM -- the time I'd normally leave the house to teach on Tuesday mornings -- it was light enough to see everything, and it was coming down steadily, yes, but not heavily. Nice, fluffy flakes, but they were pretty, but not dangerous. I could've gotten out with no issue and gone to class if they hadn't closed down the university -- I've braved worse snows to go to Walmart before. There was maybe an inch on the ground and roads at this point, judging from tire tracks from people coming and going in the neighborhood for work -- not the three inches the weather people were saying we were supposed to get by that time. I could still see grass, house roofs, etc. What I'm saying is that it wasn't major at that point.
By two hours later it had become a white nightmare. Around 9, the snow became moderately heavy. By 10, it became whiteout conditions. By 11 and 12, the news channels were reporting that the area was getting 1.5 inches per hour. Based on what I saw here, that was pretty accurate. While I could've gone to teach my morning class were the university open, I would've had real trouble getting home.
By this time, I had talked to Daisy for a while after she'd gotten off work, and there was probably 4-5 inches on the ground here, easily. Mind you, though, I was really tired and wasn't feeling well -- my heartburn was still kicking up reflux, I hadn't slept well at all, and my allergies, because of the snow and the low-pressure system that had swept in, were going nuts. Daisy told me about her night at work before we both got offline so we could eat and go to bed (as she hadn't been to bed yet, and I wanted to go back to sleep).
Around this time, my friends and colleagues began taking over/under bets on snowfall totals and when/if the university would close down for a second day. I found this somewhat amusing, but didn't really pay much attention to it myself. Based on the snow that was falling -- and very steadily getting worse and much heavier -- I knew that even if the university stayed open on Wednesday (today) that I'd more than likely cancel my night class anyhow due to the fact that, y'know, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get out of my driveway regardless. I could shovel all I wanted to, but even with that, it was quite possible that I'd not get much farther than a few streets over through my unplowed residential neighborhood without getting stuck. So, with that in mind and knowing that I wouldn't have to leave the house until at least another 30 or so hours anyway at the earliest, I went downstairs, turned on the electric blanket, and went back to sleep for about seven hours.
A number of things happened when I was asleep, most of which I wouldn't find out about until after I got back up.
The first was that about an hour or two into my nap, I heard my neighbor on the farm next door plow out most of the street and all of our driveways with his tractor. It briefly woke me until I realized that's what the noise was, and then I immediately fell back asleep.
The second was that when I did wake up, it was night -- like, 9PM -- and when I looked out the bedroom window, I could see that it was still snowing...and there was a lot more on the ground than there was before I went to bed. I went to bed around 2. At that time there were maybe six or seven inches on the ground, which is how I knew that there would be little chance of me getting out for my 210 night class anyhow. Now, in the dark of night, it was still coming down pretty good and there looked to be at least ten inches, if not more.
When I got upstairs to the living room to get a better look at it, my average guesses were confirmed -- there was at least ten inches on the ground, easily. I could see the tracks and path where the tractor had plowed out the driveways, including mine, but barely, since about five more inches had fallen since he'd plowed. Trees were weighted down with heavy, thick snow, and judging from the height of my mailboxes, which come up to my chest when I'm standing on the street, there looked to be about a foot of snow, roughly. This is, of course, an estimate -- I haven't gone out in the night to measure it, and I could be off by an inch or two, give or take, but a foot total is pretty close. Preeeeeetty close. More than that, it was still snowing, and was still coming down pretty hardcore when I started this post several hours later (though I haven't checked in the meantime).
The second thing that I found out was that, yes, the university had closed down again for a second day, roughly at around the time they closed before (4:55 PM). This really didn't surprise me in the least...not after looking outside, anyway. This meant that I didn't have to leave the house at all until Thursday morning at the earliest -- I have my 102 class on Thursday morning -- so I emailed my 210 students the lesson plans and readings, and told them to just bring in their papers next week when we met and we'd pick up where we left off. The 210 class suffers the least from university closures because most of the assignments are either right out of the book or right off my handouts, and the ones at the beginning of the semester are short and mostly easy.
This still leaves the problem of getting out to go teach on Thursday morning, however. I am pretty sure the university isn't going to close down three days in a row -- the storm wasn't that big. None of this stuff, however, is going to melt. At all. The temperatures aren't going to reach above freezing for the next week almost, and we're currently under a wind chill advisory that says it'll feel like -15 to -20 outside for most of the day today. Unless all of the roads I travel on get treated really well today, it's going to be rough to get to campus on Thursday morning regardless. Again, it'll be hard to get out of my neighborhood, even, let alone to the interstate and to the west campus on the back roads I have to take to get there. The problem involved here is that I can't avoid it -- if the university is open, I must teach my class on Thursday morning. On Tuesday, they're having their "library day" where they go to the main campus instead of the west campus and look up articles for their first papers, and I have to be able to go over what that will entail, as well as what the papers themselves will entail. I've already had to cram the week's lessons into Thursday's class, so without that class we'd fall way behind -- possibly as far behind as my 011 class was falling before I messed around with the lesson plan in there. I do have some leeway with the 102 students, but not enough to just up and miss an entire week's worth of classes before their first paper is due, regardless of weather and/or road conditions.
It is now 2:25 AM, and while it still appears to be snowing lightly, it has mostly stopped.
This brings up an interesting issue with my payroll stuff as well. As you know, I hadn't heard anything on Monday. With the university now being closed yesterday and today, that pushes things even further back than before. Mind you, the payroll office still had all of my information for a full week before these closures this week, so I'm sort of wondering what I should do, or can do, if anything. Because of this setback, and because I've been waiting for so long with no word, no news, and (most importantly) no money, Daisy is going to wire transfer me some cash on Friday, again, once she gets paid, so that I can write out the checks for my electric and water bills and get them in the mail over the weekend. Not much else can be done -- the bills are still due when the bills are due. With the university closed, it's not like I can call or email anyone with questions or updates on what's going on, either. This snowstorm has snarled everything, and has turned a shitty situation into a shittier one. Again, I hate to have to ask for help from anyone, much less Daisy, but this entire situation is out of my control until everyone comes back to campus and shit gets rectified.
"Worst-case scenario," I told her, "is that if I have to, and can get it soon enough, I can get the paper check and cash it at Walmart, paying the $4 check cashing fee or whatever. I can pay at least my water bill, if not the electric bill as well, at Dillon's in person with that money if it's too close to the due dates for them to get that check in my bank account and mail the payments. If I can pay one or the other with that money, I can pay the other already from my bank account. I just don't have enough in there right now to cover both at once. But the problem, the thing that's out of my control, is getting that paycheck in the first place. I can't do anything until that's in my hands."
At the earliest, and I mean earliest, I could pick up the check on Thursday afternoon after my class. But that would entail them having already made it and readying it for pickup, by Monday, without them sending any confirmation info to me or to the department. Rae told me that I can get them to cut me a check on the spot if necessary, as she had to do that once when she switched bank accounts. I don't know if they can do that, however, when the request has already been put into their system for a different "advance" check. Judging from the fact that I've heard nothing about any of the payroll stuff, I'm guessing it's not ready to go and it's not there waiting for me -- especially not now that the university has been shut down for two days in a row. This is the message the university has posted on the front page of their website, with obvious identifying information redacted by yours truly:
That's generally more info than they tend to give out when the campus closes. It also makes me wonder if they're already planning to close down a third day on Thursday as well. While I don't necessarily think they'd need to, with how nasty it is out there I can't say it would totally surprise me if they did. However, there's a lot of winter left to go, and with that comes the possibility that we'll get even worse storms than this one between now and the end of this month. They'll probably save all the days they can in the case that worse storms roll through in the next several weeks. I'll again remind you that it snowed all the way up to finals week last spring -- the last day of classes last May it was like, 25 degrees and snowing.
Anyway. I'm getting off track.
"I'll just do the wire transfer on Friday," Daisy said, "and then you won't have to worry about those bills, you can pay them and mail them like you always do and if you get a paper check at some point soon, you can just send it to your mom to have her deposit it for you."
"Okay," I said, sighing. She knows how much it pains me to need help from anyone. "Thank you."
"Of course, baby."
The overall point of the discussion was that I have a few plans of action -- cashing the check and paying one, if not both, of those two bills in person at the grocery store being one of them, but all of those plans become moot unless I can actually get said paycheck soon. That is the one glaring problem in this whole scenario that I have absolutely no control of. And it's looking more and more like it'll be at least next Tuesday before I get that check in any form. That's almost another week, and it will mark two weeks from the day the department requested it -- so, an entire pay cycle, just up in proverbial smoke.
While I should be paid normally, direct-deposit right into my account on Valentine's Day (the next payday) because I watched the administrator enter my information into the system myself, that's still a week and a half away, and regardless of what I do with my first check, even if it's paper, that "second," normal one all has to go to rent and other bills in an attempt to help get myself back into the black. I'll see nothing of it; it'll be gone almost as soon as it clears my bank account.
On Thursday morning I will see if there's anyone I should contact about the situation, especially as I expect the university to reopen then. Obviously, there won't be anyone there to answer my questions before then. It'll also be the only chance I have to get ahold of anybody before next week to see just exactly what's going on. I have no other choice, really -- it seems to be one of those situations where if I don't keep continually prodding people and asking questions, nothing will get done. All of this just to get paid the money I'm owed, the money that I'm supposed to get paid for being an employee, faculty, even, at a state university. Yes, I fully realize how absurd this is, and realize I shouldn't have to be doing any of this proverbial teeth-pulling at all, but apparently I do.
"Cancel," Daisy told me when I told her that if the university is open on Thursday, I must make it to campus one way or another to teach my students. "Stay home. Enjoy your time."
"Can't," I said. "If they're open, I have to make it there."
With some classes, there's only so much I can do outside of the classroom. 102 is one of those classes where in-class discussion and lecture is key. So is 011. 210, on the other hand, really isn't. I could teach 210 almost entirely online and have it be nearly the same class I teach now in-person.
Anyway, it's late. The temperature has dropped into the single digits and the wind is blowing strongly, creating snowdrifts outside. I'm going to go back to bed, since I have fuck all to do for the next 36 hours or so other than sleep and find out whether the university will close down for a third day in a row.
I've been relatively silent on the storm for the past 36 hours or so, though I now have a bit of an update for you folks, I suppose.
Winter Storm Nika -- whose winter storm warning ended an hour ago -- dropped close to a foot, if not a full foot of snow here on me in Newton. And, as of right now (1:22 AM) it is still snowing. Hard.
I didn't sleep well last night; I tried, though. I went to bed relatively early (around 2 or so) and slept off and on for about four hours. I woke up -- from a nightmare, no less -- with particularly bad heartburn and an inability to return to sleep. It didn't matter, after all, since I didn't have to worry about going in to teach yesterday. Even if the university hadn't closed, I wouldn't have been able to get out after mid-morning or so (but I'll get to that).
When I got up with my heartburn, it was about 6AM, roughly. In the overnight hours, when the snow was supposed to start, it hadn't done much; there was little more than a dusting to a half-inch on the ground and streets here at my house. It had apparently been snowing off and on, lightly, through most of the night. The neighbor across the street from me always leaves for work at 5AM, and when he does, he takes his car that he parks on the street. The spot where his car sat was bare, and over the course of two more hours or so, it slowly covered up. The snow was taking its time, spitting in five-to-ten minute squalls which became easier to see, of course, once it gradually got a bit lighter outside. But it wasn't doing a whole lot at all. More "snow showers" than anything else. I began to wonder, around 7AM or so, if the university and all of the schools/businesses/colleges/everything else had closed down for the day prematurely.
By 8AM -- the time I'd normally leave the house to teach on Tuesday mornings -- it was light enough to see everything, and it was coming down steadily, yes, but not heavily. Nice, fluffy flakes, but they were pretty, but not dangerous. I could've gotten out with no issue and gone to class if they hadn't closed down the university -- I've braved worse snows to go to Walmart before. There was maybe an inch on the ground and roads at this point, judging from tire tracks from people coming and going in the neighborhood for work -- not the three inches the weather people were saying we were supposed to get by that time. I could still see grass, house roofs, etc. What I'm saying is that it wasn't major at that point.
By two hours later it had become a white nightmare. Around 9, the snow became moderately heavy. By 10, it became whiteout conditions. By 11 and 12, the news channels were reporting that the area was getting 1.5 inches per hour. Based on what I saw here, that was pretty accurate. While I could've gone to teach my morning class were the university open, I would've had real trouble getting home.
By this time, I had talked to Daisy for a while after she'd gotten off work, and there was probably 4-5 inches on the ground here, easily. Mind you, though, I was really tired and wasn't feeling well -- my heartburn was still kicking up reflux, I hadn't slept well at all, and my allergies, because of the snow and the low-pressure system that had swept in, were going nuts. Daisy told me about her night at work before we both got offline so we could eat and go to bed (as she hadn't been to bed yet, and I wanted to go back to sleep).
Around this time, my friends and colleagues began taking over/under bets on snowfall totals and when/if the university would close down for a second day. I found this somewhat amusing, but didn't really pay much attention to it myself. Based on the snow that was falling -- and very steadily getting worse and much heavier -- I knew that even if the university stayed open on Wednesday (today) that I'd more than likely cancel my night class anyhow due to the fact that, y'know, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get out of my driveway regardless. I could shovel all I wanted to, but even with that, it was quite possible that I'd not get much farther than a few streets over through my unplowed residential neighborhood without getting stuck. So, with that in mind and knowing that I wouldn't have to leave the house until at least another 30 or so hours anyway at the earliest, I went downstairs, turned on the electric blanket, and went back to sleep for about seven hours.
A number of things happened when I was asleep, most of which I wouldn't find out about until after I got back up.
The first was that about an hour or two into my nap, I heard my neighbor on the farm next door plow out most of the street and all of our driveways with his tractor. It briefly woke me until I realized that's what the noise was, and then I immediately fell back asleep.
The second was that when I did wake up, it was night -- like, 9PM -- and when I looked out the bedroom window, I could see that it was still snowing...and there was a lot more on the ground than there was before I went to bed. I went to bed around 2. At that time there were maybe six or seven inches on the ground, which is how I knew that there would be little chance of me getting out for my 210 night class anyhow. Now, in the dark of night, it was still coming down pretty good and there looked to be at least ten inches, if not more.
When I got upstairs to the living room to get a better look at it, my average guesses were confirmed -- there was at least ten inches on the ground, easily. I could see the tracks and path where the tractor had plowed out the driveways, including mine, but barely, since about five more inches had fallen since he'd plowed. Trees were weighted down with heavy, thick snow, and judging from the height of my mailboxes, which come up to my chest when I'm standing on the street, there looked to be about a foot of snow, roughly. This is, of course, an estimate -- I haven't gone out in the night to measure it, and I could be off by an inch or two, give or take, but a foot total is pretty close. Preeeeeetty close. More than that, it was still snowing, and was still coming down pretty hardcore when I started this post several hours later (though I haven't checked in the meantime).
The second thing that I found out was that, yes, the university had closed down again for a second day, roughly at around the time they closed before (4:55 PM). This really didn't surprise me in the least...not after looking outside, anyway. This meant that I didn't have to leave the house at all until Thursday morning at the earliest -- I have my 102 class on Thursday morning -- so I emailed my 210 students the lesson plans and readings, and told them to just bring in their papers next week when we met and we'd pick up where we left off. The 210 class suffers the least from university closures because most of the assignments are either right out of the book or right off my handouts, and the ones at the beginning of the semester are short and mostly easy.
This still leaves the problem of getting out to go teach on Thursday morning, however. I am pretty sure the university isn't going to close down three days in a row -- the storm wasn't that big. None of this stuff, however, is going to melt. At all. The temperatures aren't going to reach above freezing for the next week almost, and we're currently under a wind chill advisory that says it'll feel like -15 to -20 outside for most of the day today. Unless all of the roads I travel on get treated really well today, it's going to be rough to get to campus on Thursday morning regardless. Again, it'll be hard to get out of my neighborhood, even, let alone to the interstate and to the west campus on the back roads I have to take to get there. The problem involved here is that I can't avoid it -- if the university is open, I must teach my class on Thursday morning. On Tuesday, they're having their "library day" where they go to the main campus instead of the west campus and look up articles for their first papers, and I have to be able to go over what that will entail, as well as what the papers themselves will entail. I've already had to cram the week's lessons into Thursday's class, so without that class we'd fall way behind -- possibly as far behind as my 011 class was falling before I messed around with the lesson plan in there. I do have some leeway with the 102 students, but not enough to just up and miss an entire week's worth of classes before their first paper is due, regardless of weather and/or road conditions.
It is now 2:25 AM, and while it still appears to be snowing lightly, it has mostly stopped.
This brings up an interesting issue with my payroll stuff as well. As you know, I hadn't heard anything on Monday. With the university now being closed yesterday and today, that pushes things even further back than before. Mind you, the payroll office still had all of my information for a full week before these closures this week, so I'm sort of wondering what I should do, or can do, if anything. Because of this setback, and because I've been waiting for so long with no word, no news, and (most importantly) no money, Daisy is going to wire transfer me some cash on Friday, again, once she gets paid, so that I can write out the checks for my electric and water bills and get them in the mail over the weekend. Not much else can be done -- the bills are still due when the bills are due. With the university closed, it's not like I can call or email anyone with questions or updates on what's going on, either. This snowstorm has snarled everything, and has turned a shitty situation into a shittier one. Again, I hate to have to ask for help from anyone, much less Daisy, but this entire situation is out of my control until everyone comes back to campus and shit gets rectified.
"Worst-case scenario," I told her, "is that if I have to, and can get it soon enough, I can get the paper check and cash it at Walmart, paying the $4 check cashing fee or whatever. I can pay at least my water bill, if not the electric bill as well, at Dillon's in person with that money if it's too close to the due dates for them to get that check in my bank account and mail the payments. If I can pay one or the other with that money, I can pay the other already from my bank account. I just don't have enough in there right now to cover both at once. But the problem, the thing that's out of my control, is getting that paycheck in the first place. I can't do anything until that's in my hands."
At the earliest, and I mean earliest, I could pick up the check on Thursday afternoon after my class. But that would entail them having already made it and readying it for pickup, by Monday, without them sending any confirmation info to me or to the department. Rae told me that I can get them to cut me a check on the spot if necessary, as she had to do that once when she switched bank accounts. I don't know if they can do that, however, when the request has already been put into their system for a different "advance" check. Judging from the fact that I've heard nothing about any of the payroll stuff, I'm guessing it's not ready to go and it's not there waiting for me -- especially not now that the university has been shut down for two days in a row. This is the message the university has posted on the front page of their website, with obvious identifying information redacted by yours truly:
[University] closed for a second day
Because of continuing inclement weather, [University] campuses will be closed again Wednesday, Feb. 5. All classes and activities are canceled.
Blowing snow is hindering ground crews' ability to keep roads, parking lots and sidewalks clear, and cold temperatures will make travel and walking treacherous. Students, faculty and staff are urged to remain at home and limit travel if possible. Continue to check [website] for further updates.
That's generally more info than they tend to give out when the campus closes. It also makes me wonder if they're already planning to close down a third day on Thursday as well. While I don't necessarily think they'd need to, with how nasty it is out there I can't say it would totally surprise me if they did. However, there's a lot of winter left to go, and with that comes the possibility that we'll get even worse storms than this one between now and the end of this month. They'll probably save all the days they can in the case that worse storms roll through in the next several weeks. I'll again remind you that it snowed all the way up to finals week last spring -- the last day of classes last May it was like, 25 degrees and snowing.
Anyway. I'm getting off track.
"I'll just do the wire transfer on Friday," Daisy said, "and then you won't have to worry about those bills, you can pay them and mail them like you always do and if you get a paper check at some point soon, you can just send it to your mom to have her deposit it for you."
"Okay," I said, sighing. She knows how much it pains me to need help from anyone. "Thank you."
"Of course, baby."
The overall point of the discussion was that I have a few plans of action -- cashing the check and paying one, if not both, of those two bills in person at the grocery store being one of them, but all of those plans become moot unless I can actually get said paycheck soon. That is the one glaring problem in this whole scenario that I have absolutely no control of. And it's looking more and more like it'll be at least next Tuesday before I get that check in any form. That's almost another week, and it will mark two weeks from the day the department requested it -- so, an entire pay cycle, just up in proverbial smoke.
While I should be paid normally, direct-deposit right into my account on Valentine's Day (the next payday) because I watched the administrator enter my information into the system myself, that's still a week and a half away, and regardless of what I do with my first check, even if it's paper, that "second," normal one all has to go to rent and other bills in an attempt to help get myself back into the black. I'll see nothing of it; it'll be gone almost as soon as it clears my bank account.
On Thursday morning I will see if there's anyone I should contact about the situation, especially as I expect the university to reopen then. Obviously, there won't be anyone there to answer my questions before then. It'll also be the only chance I have to get ahold of anybody before next week to see just exactly what's going on. I have no other choice, really -- it seems to be one of those situations where if I don't keep continually prodding people and asking questions, nothing will get done. All of this just to get paid the money I'm owed, the money that I'm supposed to get paid for being an employee, faculty, even, at a state university. Yes, I fully realize how absurd this is, and realize I shouldn't have to be doing any of this proverbial teeth-pulling at all, but apparently I do.
"Cancel," Daisy told me when I told her that if the university is open on Thursday, I must make it to campus one way or another to teach my students. "Stay home. Enjoy your time."
"Can't," I said. "If they're open, I have to make it there."
With some classes, there's only so much I can do outside of the classroom. 102 is one of those classes where in-class discussion and lecture is key. So is 011. 210, on the other hand, really isn't. I could teach 210 almost entirely online and have it be nearly the same class I teach now in-person.
Anyway, it's late. The temperature has dropped into the single digits and the wind is blowing strongly, creating snowdrifts outside. I'm going to go back to bed, since I have fuck all to do for the next 36 hours or so other than sleep and find out whether the university will close down for a third day in a row.
Monday, February 3, 2014
The Wrath of Nika, Part III: Snow Day
Spring semester: day ten
I'd like to start this post with a bit more of the timeline stuff, because it's especially interesting and pertinent to what's going on...
3:38 PM Monday:
The Winter Storm Warning gets updated a little over two hours before it's scheduled to go into effect, upping the accumulation totals to 6-10 inches.
4:50 PM Monday:
Wichita and Derby public schools close for tomorrow. Derby, if you're unaware, is south of the city; it's where the south campus is for the university.
5:10 PM Monday:
The university closes down for tomorrow. According to my former Playwriting professor, this is the first time in the 15 years she's worked at the university that they've closed down ahead of the storm. I immediately begin putting my contingency plans into effect for my classes tomorrow that I won't get to teach by going to Blackboard and sending out messages to my students.
6PM Monday:
We officially enter the Winter Storm Warning.
6:30 PM Monday:
I finally finish all of that student stuff mentioned above.
As soon as the university shut down, a ton of other school districts and colleges shut down as well. Kansas State shut down before 7PM, and even businesses/factories/etc are already closing down for tomorrow. The closings list on local news websites has hundreds of them listed. This state, seemingly, has lost its damn mind when it comes to coming snow. This isn't even a huge storm. It's a significant one, yes, and I'd even go as far as to say it's a big one, but it's not huge. Huge was last year, the week after Valentine's Day, when we had what amounted to three big snowstorms back to back during the latter half of February, each one close to (or more than) a foot. I don't think people panicked this much even then. Maybe they remember those storms and are bracing for the worst this time around, I don't know. It's not exactly the kind of storm that should elicit full-on panic mode. Half-on panic mode I can get behind.
Anyway.
No news today about my paycheck stuff, though the entirety of that is now on hold at least until Wednesday with the university closure tomorrow. I'll be lucky if I can even get out of my driveway to go teach my students Wednesday night on West campus -- if they don't close down on Wednesday, too. I don't know if they will or not, but with the way people are acting and with the sheer swiftness the university elicited in shutting down for tomorrow, anything's possible I suppose. I guess it really hinges on if we do get close to a foot of snow in the next 24-36 hours or so, as some media outlets are predicting.
At this point I've basically stopped paying attention to the weather forecasts. They don't matter one way or the other to me at this point, since campus is already closed tomorrow and I won't have to leave the house again for almost another 48 hours -- and that's only if they're not closed again on Wednesday and I can actually get out to teach my 210 class that night. I sent them an email a little while ago telling them as much. It's not like I own a snowplow, and while the interstate will more than likely be clear, that's only about half of my actual drive to West campus when I teach over there. I still have to get through Newton's residential areas and streets without getting stuck in a ditch, and then once I get off the interstate, West campus is about ten miles out in the country on long, straight-stretch roads with fields on either side of me, and I don't know if those roads will necessarily be treated or passable even by Wednesday night. I could get 3/4 of the way to campus Wednesday evening and then get stuck somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. It'll be dark before I even leave the house, so both ways it'll not be that pleasant if I can even make it there and back. And that's if the car makes it out of the driveway in the first place. So, who knows. It's certainly not going to get warm enough to melt anything, so whatever isn't clear will be snowpack and hard, thick ice. It's not going to be fun.
I'd like to start this post with a bit more of the timeline stuff, because it's especially interesting and pertinent to what's going on...
3:38 PM Monday:
The Winter Storm Warning gets updated a little over two hours before it's scheduled to go into effect, upping the accumulation totals to 6-10 inches.
4:50 PM Monday:
Wichita and Derby public schools close for tomorrow. Derby, if you're unaware, is south of the city; it's where the south campus is for the university.
5:10 PM Monday:
The university closes down for tomorrow. According to my former Playwriting professor, this is the first time in the 15 years she's worked at the university that they've closed down ahead of the storm. I immediately begin putting my contingency plans into effect for my classes tomorrow that I won't get to teach by going to Blackboard and sending out messages to my students.
6PM Monday:
We officially enter the Winter Storm Warning.
6:30 PM Monday:
I finally finish all of that student stuff mentioned above.
As soon as the university shut down, a ton of other school districts and colleges shut down as well. Kansas State shut down before 7PM, and even businesses/factories/etc are already closing down for tomorrow. The closings list on local news websites has hundreds of them listed. This state, seemingly, has lost its damn mind when it comes to coming snow. This isn't even a huge storm. It's a significant one, yes, and I'd even go as far as to say it's a big one, but it's not huge. Huge was last year, the week after Valentine's Day, when we had what amounted to three big snowstorms back to back during the latter half of February, each one close to (or more than) a foot. I don't think people panicked this much even then. Maybe they remember those storms and are bracing for the worst this time around, I don't know. It's not exactly the kind of storm that should elicit full-on panic mode. Half-on panic mode I can get behind.
Anyway.
No news today about my paycheck stuff, though the entirety of that is now on hold at least until Wednesday with the university closure tomorrow. I'll be lucky if I can even get out of my driveway to go teach my students Wednesday night on West campus -- if they don't close down on Wednesday, too. I don't know if they will or not, but with the way people are acting and with the sheer swiftness the university elicited in shutting down for tomorrow, anything's possible I suppose. I guess it really hinges on if we do get close to a foot of snow in the next 24-36 hours or so, as some media outlets are predicting.
At this point I've basically stopped paying attention to the weather forecasts. They don't matter one way or the other to me at this point, since campus is already closed tomorrow and I won't have to leave the house again for almost another 48 hours -- and that's only if they're not closed again on Wednesday and I can actually get out to teach my 210 class that night. I sent them an email a little while ago telling them as much. It's not like I own a snowplow, and while the interstate will more than likely be clear, that's only about half of my actual drive to West campus when I teach over there. I still have to get through Newton's residential areas and streets without getting stuck in a ditch, and then once I get off the interstate, West campus is about ten miles out in the country on long, straight-stretch roads with fields on either side of me, and I don't know if those roads will necessarily be treated or passable even by Wednesday night. I could get 3/4 of the way to campus Wednesday evening and then get stuck somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. It'll be dark before I even leave the house, so both ways it'll not be that pleasant if I can even make it there and back. And that's if the car makes it out of the driveway in the first place. So, who knows. It's certainly not going to get warm enough to melt anything, so whatever isn't clear will be snowpack and hard, thick ice. It's not going to be fun.
Can it be spring yet? No, seriously. Like, ten days ago it was almost 70 degrees outside. Can we get back to that sometime soon, please?
The Wrath of Nika, Part II: A Timeline
3:20 PM Sunday:
4:22 PM Sunday, from the lead meteorologist at KAKE-TV in Wichita:
7:31 PM Sunday:
9:56 PM Sunday:
10:53 PM Sunday:
11:03 PM Sunday:
Approximately 11:30 PM Sunday:
12:09 AM Monday:
2:02 AM Monday:
4:24 AM Monday:
8:04 AM Monday:
8:42 AM Monday:
10:26 AM Monday:
12:45 PM Monday:
1:10 PM Monday:
So here we are.
I've kept this running timeline of updates since yesterday, as you can see, to document changes and news about this storm over the past 24 hours. Each time I looked or kept tabs on things, as you can see, it got worse. This seems to be a continuing trend not only with this storm, but basically any snowstorm that hits the area -- it is not often that a massive storm is predicted and we only get about half of what they're calling for, or nothing. Usually what happens here (and, ironically, back home in West Virginia as well) is that they call for one amount and we get more.
There's still been no news or updates on my paycheck situation, so as it's going on 2PM now, I don't really expect to hear anything today, and even if I did I doubt I'd have the time at this point to get to campus before the offices closed for the day. Rae suggested I call the payroll office to see where they are in the process, but as my cell is close to being completely out of minutes (again, those cost money) and I probably couldn't get down there, get a parking spot/shuttle over before the office closed? There's no real point. I did send an email to the Director (he forwarded a bookstore management thing to me, and mentioned another position in Nebraska that was being offered by a university one of our former GTAs works at), and in my thanking him for the info, I asked if he'd been told about what was going on with my pay stuff. He's generally left out of the loop with the day-to-day operations stuff, but he does have clout to get some stuff pushed along, and as he considers me a vital part of the composition program, well...we'll see. As for the payroll people, if I hear nothing else one way or the other from them or the department administrators, I'll have to contact them somehow; I have a draft email ready to be sent to them, but again I'm waiting a bit to see if I hear something today (and to see if they shut down the university tomorrow or Wednesday, as even if I sent something today they wouldn't respond until they were open again).
Of course, I can't deal with the whole healthcare thing until I figure out what's going on with my pay, so let's hope I don't get sick anytime in the near future.
I did get my W2s though; I haven't even opened them yet. They're in the spare room with my other tax stuff. Daisy told me to at least draft out my taxes online on TurboTax this year, as she's already completely done with hers and did it fairly quickly. I'll probably try it, of course, and may even look into it as soon as this week if I'm truly snowed in and stuck here for a few days with little else constructive to do. Hell, at this rate, I may get paid a refund more quickly than I'll actually get a paycheck, so it's worth a shot, right?
For now, though? Eh. I have little to do until the snow starts rolling in. I'm going to make some food and probably lounge about a bit. I'll update you, of course, on all of the changes and new things I hear.
A WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MONDAY EVENING THROUGH TUESDAY EVENING.
* TIMING... SNOW WILL DEVELOP ACROSS THE AREA MONDAY NIGHT. SNOW MAY BECOME HEAVY ON TUESDAY... BEFORE DIMINISHING AND ENDING LATE TUESDAY EVENING.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS... IN EXCESS OF 6 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE BY TUESDAY EVENING... WITH CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING POSSIBLE TUESDAY EVENING INTO TUESDAY NIGHT.
* WINDS... WILL INCREASE FROM THE NORTH AT 15 TO 25 MPH AND GUSTY BY TUESDAY EVENING.
* IMPACTS... TRAVEL WILL LIKELY BE IMPACTED STARTING MONDAY NIGHT AND CONTINUE THROUGH TUESDAY EVENING. THE HEAVIER SNOW WILL RESULT IN REDUCED VISIBILITY. CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING IS ALSO EXPECTED.
4:22 PM Sunday, from the lead meteorologist at KAKE-TV in Wichita:
Please SHARE, Thanks: OK folks, I've been talking about the possibility of a big snow, that includes Greater Wichita...along with a big chunk of KAKEland, for several days...and it still looks likely.
Starting after 11PM Monday, through the day Tuesday, the snow will fall.
Watch Ben Pringle, CBM tonight on KAKE News for the first outlook totals, and locations impacted. Of course, they will be updated as refined as we get closer. I'll be back in the office tomorrow afternoon.
However, I would go ahead and make common sense preparations for dealing with a significant snowfall, including the likelihood that numerous schools will be closed on Tuesday...possibly into Wednesday, too. Not to mention that travel may become very hazardous, if not impossible in some areas, until crews can work on the roads.
7:31 PM Sunday:
Kansas City meteorologist JD Rudd, who used to work in Wichita and now does internet-based forecasts for both areas, posts a thirteen-minute video analyzing his thoughts on the snowfall predictions, basing it on five different computer models (all of them saying no less than 4-5 inches for the Wichita area, and most saying 6-8). He finishes by saying his own expertise leads him to predict, very early and unverifiably due to the data on hand, that the Wichita area will get 4-6 inches, widespread. It's a "strict average" of all the models. He also says this may change greatly over the next 24 hours, indicating that if so, it will be to higher amounts.
9:56 PM Sunday:
Wichita Meteorologist Ross Janssen (KWCH-12) predicts six inches for the area on Tuesday, with up to a foot north and northeast of the city. The Weather Channel changes their previous forecast of 6-7 inches to 3-5 inches for Tuesday, but ups their "snow chances" to 100%. This shows how, even at this point, everyone is still speculating wildly. Janssen also mentions that there's another storm system primed to hit later in the week, but there's absolutely nothing about that which can be predicted yet.
10:53 PM Sunday:
The weather app on my computer tells me this; the sleet stuff is new:
MONDAY NIGHT
CLOUDY. A CHANCE OF LIGHT FREEZING RAIN OR SNOW
AND SLEET IN THE EVENING THEN SNOW AFTER MIDNIGHT. NOT AS COLD. SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATION OF 1 TO 2 INCHES. LOWS 20 TO 25. EAST WINDS 5 TO 10 MPH. CHANCE OF SNOW 80 PERCENT.
TUESDAY
SNOW. SNOW MAY BE HEAVY AT TIMES. HEAVY SNOW ACCUMULATIONS. HIGHS 25 TO 30. NORTHEAST WINDS 10 TO 15 MPH. CHANCE OF SNOW 90 PERCENT.
TUESDAY NIGHT
CLOUDY WITH A 50 PERCENT CHANCE OF SNOW. AREAS OF BLOWING SNOW. COLDER. LOWS 5 ABOVE TO 10 ABOVE. NORTH WINDS 15 TO 20 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 30 MPH. LOWEST WIND CHILLS AROUND 10 BELOW.
11:03 PM Sunday:
The Weather Channel changes its forecast yet again, now to 4-6 inches.
Approximately 11:30 PM Sunday:
I go out to, and return back from, Walmart, in order to get groceries and pre-storm essentials.
12:09 AM Monday:
The Weather Channel updates its forecast again and predicts 1-2 inches Monday night before the 4-6 on Tuesday, bringing the totals for the next 36 hours or so up to 6-8 again. This matches the forecast on my weather app above.
2:02 AM Monday:
Slowly acquiring a bad headache (usually a sure sign that nasty weather is coming, I go to bed for the night.
4:24 AM Monday:
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN WICHITA HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR SIGNIFICANT WINTER WEATHER... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO MIDNIGHT CST TUESDAY NIGHT. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.
* TIMING... SNOW WILL DEVELOP ACROSS THE AREA MONDAY NIGHT. SNOW MAY BECOME HEAVY ON TUESDAY... BEFORE DIMINISHING AND ENDING LATE TUESDAY EVENING.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS... WILL REACH UPWARDS OF 6 TO 9 INCHES BY TUESDAY EVENING... WITH CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING POSSIBLE TUESDAY EVENING INTO TUESDAY NIGHT.
* WINDS... WILL INCREASE FROM THE NORTH AT 15 TO 25 MPH AND GUSTY BY TUESDAY EVENING.
8:04 AM Monday:
In its daily news email sent through the listserv to all faculty and staff, the first item on the docket for the day is how to find out if the university is closed due to inclement weather. They also link to the policy and procedures manual (which hasn't been updated since 2006) that says a decision on whether to close for the day will be made by 4:30 AM and, when necessary, a decision on whether to close for evening classes will be made by 2PM. By bringing this up first thing in the daily news email, it becomes apparent to me that they're already making plans to close down for at least one day.
8:42 AM Monday:
My mother emails me from back home to tell me that Winter Storm Maximus (what the light snow/ice I had earlier this weekend became once it moved east) dropped 8-9 inches of snow on them back home, and WVU closed down for the day. Several roads and parts of the interstate were also closed.
10:26 AM Monday:
The Weather Channel updates its forecast again, now that most meteorologists have a better idea of what's coming -- the 1-2 inches in the overnight hours is still expected (all snow, now; no sleet/ice), but they've upped the total for tomorrow to 5-8, which brings the overall total to the 6-10 range. This matches, roughly, with the updated forecast on my computer's weather app, as well. News channels around the area start putting out graphics for snow accumulations that match this projection, or make very similar ones -- one thing that they all have in common is that none of them are calling for less than six inches tomorrow. The news channels are also now saying that it's not going to start in the overnight hours, but by around 8PM.
12:45 PM Monday:
The Weather Channel's hourly forecast claims that the snow (for Newton, anyway) won't start until around 2AM, but it will continue for a full 24 hours, not just 12, until around 2AM Wednesday. Previous forecasts claimed that the bulk of it would be done by 3PM tomorrow.
1:10 PM Monday:
So here we are.
I've kept this running timeline of updates since yesterday, as you can see, to document changes and news about this storm over the past 24 hours. Each time I looked or kept tabs on things, as you can see, it got worse. This seems to be a continuing trend not only with this storm, but basically any snowstorm that hits the area -- it is not often that a massive storm is predicted and we only get about half of what they're calling for, or nothing. Usually what happens here (and, ironically, back home in West Virginia as well) is that they call for one amount and we get more.
There's still been no news or updates on my paycheck situation, so as it's going on 2PM now, I don't really expect to hear anything today, and even if I did I doubt I'd have the time at this point to get to campus before the offices closed for the day. Rae suggested I call the payroll office to see where they are in the process, but as my cell is close to being completely out of minutes (again, those cost money) and I probably couldn't get down there, get a parking spot/shuttle over before the office closed? There's no real point. I did send an email to the Director (he forwarded a bookstore management thing to me, and mentioned another position in Nebraska that was being offered by a university one of our former GTAs works at), and in my thanking him for the info, I asked if he'd been told about what was going on with my pay stuff. He's generally left out of the loop with the day-to-day operations stuff, but he does have clout to get some stuff pushed along, and as he considers me a vital part of the composition program, well...we'll see. As for the payroll people, if I hear nothing else one way or the other from them or the department administrators, I'll have to contact them somehow; I have a draft email ready to be sent to them, but again I'm waiting a bit to see if I hear something today (and to see if they shut down the university tomorrow or Wednesday, as even if I sent something today they wouldn't respond until they were open again).
Of course, I can't deal with the whole healthcare thing until I figure out what's going on with my pay, so let's hope I don't get sick anytime in the near future.
I did get my W2s though; I haven't even opened them yet. They're in the spare room with my other tax stuff. Daisy told me to at least draft out my taxes online on TurboTax this year, as she's already completely done with hers and did it fairly quickly. I'll probably try it, of course, and may even look into it as soon as this week if I'm truly snowed in and stuck here for a few days with little else constructive to do. Hell, at this rate, I may get paid a refund more quickly than I'll actually get a paycheck, so it's worth a shot, right?
For now, though? Eh. I have little to do until the snow starts rolling in. I'm going to make some food and probably lounge about a bit. I'll update you, of course, on all of the changes and new things I hear.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
The Wrath of Nika, Part I
WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM MONDAY EVENING THROUGH TUESDAY EVENING...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN WICHITA HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM MONDAY EVENING THROUGH TUESDAY EVENING.
* TIMING... SNOW WILL DEVELOP MONDAY NIGHT. THE WORST CONDITIONS AND THE BULK OF THE SNOW... IS EXPECTED BETWEEN 3 AM TO 3 PM TUESDAY.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS... 6 TO 7 INCHES IN THE HEAVIEST SWATH. CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING IS LIKELY TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING.
And so it begins.
Most of you know by this point that when a significant snowstorm rolls through, I tend to get worked up about it. Daisy's best friend (and maid of honor in the wedding) who reads this blog religiously -- even more than Daisy herself or my parents -- always likes to poke fun at me about it. I completely understand this and find it amusing, especially since I tend to write long series of posts devoted to the snow and not much else when it does hit. It's not that I like the snow or want it -- believe me, especially with my paycheck stuff going on this week, I don't -- it's that when a big storm system rolls through, it royally fucks my ability to leave the house to teach or to plan for important things that need to be done, such as, ah, picking up my damned paycheck if they get it taken care of. My working out of contingency plans and strategies here in the blog is not only helpful -- it's like thinking in text -- but it's therapeutic. It's how I deal with being "snowed in" and how I plan for the eventual thaw and the return of my ability to leave the house.
Last night, I sent a variation of the same email to all three of my classes, as all of them will meet on Tuesday or Wednesday, telling them to watch the weather forecasts and keep an eye on the university's homepage and all of the media outlets around the city for closings and cancellations. The university has been known to close for snow and other nasty weather before -- they closed down for a few days last spring because of big-time snowstorms in February, as I mentioned in my last post. They were also heavily criticized by the media, students, faculty, and staff when they pre-emptively closed before a storm hit (read: when they didn't really need to at that time), and then didn't close down the next day after it hit, when they desperately needed to. I'm sure they haven't forgotten that. We had bad snows in Spring 2011 that they shut down for, they closed for a few days in Spring 2012 for the same reasons (I think) and last spring we had at least two or three days off because of snowstorms. In recent years the university has become much more lenient on these things -- they realize that the bulk of their students, as well as staff and faculty, commute to campus. Our university is known as a "commuter school" due to the fact that most of the people attending college there or working there do not live within the city limits of Wichita -- they live in the many smaller towns and suburbs dotted around the area, some further away than others, and drive back and forth every day. This is also why parking on campus is such a terrible, godawful problem. Everyone gets there at the same time, and then people fight over spots, snipe spots from others, etc.
Anyway.
In my very similar emails to all three of my classes, I tried my best to set up contingency plans in the event of a university closure, adding that even if the university doesn't close, there's a damn good chance that I may cancel my classes at least on Tuesday, if not Wednesday, anyway. My Monte Carlo goes decently well in the snow, yes. She's a trooper -- big, heavy, with a wide wheelbase and a strong, if old, engine. But even with that, there's only so much snow I can traverse safely for a 50-60 mile round trip, especially in whiteout, blowing-snow conditions, and that amount (without those conditions) is generally 4-5 inches at the most, 6 if it's an absolute emergency and I have the time to drive 15-20mph all the way to my destination and back.
However, I've seen how the university reacts when snowstorms are coming in and are hitting during the day instead of during the night -- and here's what I predict will happen. I predict now, especially if the forecast changes for the worse between now and tomorrow night, that Tuesday morning classes will go on as scheduled. Yes, I know, bold prediction, right? Their pre-emptive closure last year will make them be a bit more cautious, probably, but not cautious enough to shut down for the day Tuesday unless it gets really, really bad on Monday night. My expectations, then, are that Tuesday morning will roll around and there will be no closure. However, as the morning goes on and afternoon approaches, when the bulk of the heaviest snow hits (according to those projections above at the top of this post), my guess is that they'll close down for the evening and cancel all classes after 4PM. They've done this in the past much more frequently than they've shut down for an entire day. The high temperature on Wednesday, after this storm is supposed to pass, is supposed to be 10, with a low of -2 and hard, nasty winds. This means there will be no melting, and road treatments such as salt or brine will be mostly useless. With the wind making snowdrifts and the cold being so biting, if they cancel evening classes on Tuesday they will almost assuredly close everything down on Wednesday.
My 210 students, who meet with me on Wednesday nights, got a variation of my emailed announcement that basically said that I don't really expect this storm to affect our class, as our class meets...oh, 28 hours after it's supposed to end, but if the university closes on Wednesday, obviously we won't have our night class. If it gets particularly terrible -- as in, they update the forecast for more than what's seen above, that's probably a good assumption anyway. I also told them that if the university's not shut down on Wednesday and they hear nothing from me, assume that our class is going on as per the usual -- even if it takes me over an hour to get to West campus Wednesday evening, if it looks like I can make it, I'll still hold class. It's not like I have to be anywhere else or do anything else on Wednesday.
My Tuesday classes, however? Even now, I can't really see myself leaving the house on Tuesday at all, regardless of whether the university closes for the day, the afternoon/evening, or stays open. Not with that forecast above and the timeframe it gives out for the snow. If the heaviest snow starts at 3AM Monday night, and won't end for twelve hours (3PM Tuesday)...my morning 102 class is situated right in the middle of that time, at 9:15 AM. I leave the house around 8:10 or so, meaning that if I could even get to class on Tuesday, the entire time I'd be out of the house the weather would just be getting worse and worse. By the time that class ended, if I went, I wouldn't even be sure that the Monte Carlo could make it to main campus, let alone teach my evening 011 class and be able to make it home afterwards if the university stayed open. And, really, attempting to make it to main campus, getting there, and later finding that evening classes would be canceled anyway would seriously not only be a waste of my time and gas money, but would be dangerous travel. No, at this point -- barring any changes in the forecast that say Nika is going to take a different track and that we're not going to get as much snow, I'm really not even planning to leave the house Tuesday. I already assume that Tuesday evening classes will be canceled either by an evening closure, a full-day closure, or my own cancellation, so that doesn't really factor into my decision at all.
What does this mean for my paycheck stuff? I don't know. Really have no clue, actually. Tuesday will mark a full week that it should've been worked on and/or otherwise fixed and remedied, and I expect to hear some sort of news about it tomorrow, as everyone will be there but I won't be (I don't teach on Mondays). But, obviously, with the coming storm the earliest I would be able to pick it up would be either tomorrow afternoon before the storm (which, I suppose, I will do if absolutely necessary and it's ready) or, after everything rolls through, Thursday afternoon once my morning 102 class is over and I should be starting my weekend. Again, I more than likely won't be going anywhere on Tuesday, and Wednesday I only have the 210 class on West that night (if the university remains open anyway). This storm throws all of that into trouble, and throws my finances once more into panic mode. I told Daisy that I may have to ask to borrow more money from her again if this situation stretches out much longer -- regardless of weather concerns, my bills are still piling up and I can't pay them until I get paid somehow. My two lower-limit credit cards are reaching their max because I have to use them for gas in the car and food/supplies, and while my Discover card has a much higher limit, the balance on it is slowly ballooning as well to the point where it will take months to be able to pay it all off. I really can't play this waiting game shit much longer -- I need a paycheck in my bank account now. I have to go out tonight after the Super Bowl and get groceries/supplies with my Discover card just so that I can make it through this coming week or so with the snow. I can't do this forever; I can't keep doing this "bare minimum" shit because the payroll people at the university can't figure it out and fix it.
As an aside, however, I did find out something amusing (and unexpected) with my payroll stuff last week -- apparently, I get an additional $150 for every class I teach on West campus because it's a satellite campus of the university, as an extra "stipend" to cover "travel costs" -- meaning, primarily, gas.
"I get paid extra for that?" I asked.
"Yeah," the administrator replied. "They used to do reimbursement for mileage too, but now it's just the flat amount. Didn't you get it last semester? You taught over there last semester too, right?"
"I taught two of my three classes over there last semester," I said. "Just like I do this semester. If I got it then, I didn't know about it because nobody mentioned anything about that to me before."
Typical of the university, actually -- nobody tells you anything unless you specifically ask about it. I doubt I got it last semester because of that, because it's one of those things that must be manually entered when payroll is set, and is easily overlooked (I found that out as well). I also doubt that, even though I will get it this semester for both classes I teach over there, that I'll even notice it -- it will almost certainly go directly to state and federal taxes on my paychecks and there won't be any real difference. Maybe a few dollars' difference on each check for this spring. Not enough to do anything with, especially not when gas for my car is approximately $35 a week -- far below anything an extra $300 per semester would balance out. Its help is negligible when my car only gets 19-22mpg on a good week, and generally averages about 18. That's the drawback of having a big, powerful engine, folks.
Like the paycheck thing, I'm playing a waiting game with the snow. I have created alternate lesson plans for all three classes as contingency plans, and am waiting to see if I have to put them into effect. I've streamlined the 011 class -- which certainly won't meet one way or the other even if the university is open on Tuesday evening -- to have them focus on and begin work on their first papers even if they have to get the directions through Blackboard. Next week is their first workshop conference week, which gives us time to go over a little discussion of that paper in class before I look at their drafts and they peer-edit their papers back and forth. My 102 class is easier; I can put their reading assignments and first paper assignment online for them on Tuesday, and they can read/follow directions before discussion of everything in class on Thursday (by which point I'm confident that I'll be able to get to and from campus just fine if they treat the roads well). If the 210 class doesn't meet Wednesday night, I have all of their lesson plans for the rest of the semester ready to go anyway, and they can be easily instructed via Blackboard as well. It won't be a big deal. The problem is juggling everything I can around weather, class meeting times, and the schedule for the semester. For the 011 especially, there's not a whole lot of breathing space or wiggle room, so certain parts of many lessons have to be eliminated or greatly shortened. 011 is not the kind of class that really lends itself to a once-a-week structure that well.
As for everything else? Eh.
I'll watch the Super Bowl tonight; I won't exactly care that much about it, but it is the last football game I'll see, of any sort, until two months after I'm married, which is really depressing because it reminds me how long the off-season really is. As I mentioned, I have to go shopping afterwards -- something I'd like to avoid but can't -- and I will, of course, be continually monitoring the snowfall forecasts and predictions. While I look forward to more than likely not leaving the house at all on Tuesday, it's not like I can really enjoy it or revel in a "snow day" given the circumstances and my monetary situation. And unless it gets really nasty before I go to bed tomorrow night (which, I would imagine, is unlikely), I'll still have to get up early on Tuesday morning to see if campus is closed and/or cancel my classes, so it's not like I'll get to sleep in. I may be able to go back to bed if necessary, but I won't be able to sleep in.
In other news, apparently my drainage system isn't backed up after all, or was only clogged temporarily. I've since run two full loads of laundry, taken two showers, and have run the dishwasher without any sort of backup in the basement drain, so I'm guessing if it was clogged, it's since been flushed out. I'll keep an eye on it over the next week or so, of course, just to be cautious, but for now the crisis appears to have been averted. My furnace started its squealing shit again this morning, though, so I've turned it off to let it rest for most of the day. That'll help my electric bill anyway, and leaving it off for a while before turning it back on tends to make it be quiet for another month or so when it is turned back on. I don't know what the squeal is; the furnace is older than I am, all-electric, and it's not a belt (this furnace doesn't have belts). All I know is that the longer I can stand to leave it off, the lower my next electric bill will be. I desperately want this cold and snow to leave Kansas and stay gone, because if that happens and I can leave the furnace off, my electric bill will be about $50 or so at the most. I know this; between April and July my electric bill drops like crazy because I'm generally not running the furnace or the air conditioner (the bills I receive in late July, August, and September? not so much, as the bill is for the month prior).
I will, of course, keep you updated on the snow, forecast, payroll stuff, and my plans of action for the week -- though a lot of it I really don't expect to change that much.
EDIT: KWCH-12 in Wichita just released this updated projection map about 40 minutes ago, noting that the storm system "is still 36-48 hours away, so expect updates and changes to this PRELIMINARY snowfall forecast."
Yes, in case you were unaware, that is the state of Kansas. In case you were also unaware, Newton (where I live) is basically right in the middle of the bottom lip of the "7-10+" band, with Wichita south of me in the 4-7" range. So, based on this, I could get four inches or close to a foot. I live on the south side of Newton, which technically means my actual house is more than likely baaaaarely inside the 4-7" area, but still. This is not really that encouraging, especially when coupled with the note that this is simply preliminary.
So. Let's see what happens.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Much the Same, Part II
No more information has become available about my paycheck/payroll stuff; I asked the department administrator yesterday and she hadn't heard anything. I'm not sure what this means, if anything, but regardless, it's out of my hands and I now won't know anything else until Monday at the earliest -- almost a full week after this stuff was processed and taken care of. At this rate, who knows whether or not I'll get any check before the next pay cycle on Valentine's Day; the payroll people took care of it really quickly when I had to get the advance thing done last semester. I believe they had it done in a little more than a day, though I didn't pick it up until the next day I was on campus after the weekend.
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.
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:
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.
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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