Spring semester: day thirty-six
Well.
I can now safely say that the vast majority of my weekend, more than anything else, was spent sleeping. My eye, which bothered me big time until Sunday night at the least, kept me tired and achy enough to sleep for long hours almost every day I was off, only being awake long enough in the interim times to take care of my household and student-related tasks like cleaning, cooking, laundry, grading, and creating lesson plans for this week. Once more, I did not do my taxes -- again, a failure on my part, but not one without reason.
My eye is fine now, by the way, and has been since at least yesterday morning. Whatever was "infecting" it and was giving me pinkeye-like symptoms is now gone, and I have my normal eye back again. It's still a tad blurry, but even that is rapidly fading by the day. I'm just glad that it's no longer burning, itching, aching, and watering all the time -- a little blurriness I can handle, as I got used to that after the pineapple incident six months ago (until my eyesight finally returned to complete normality around Christmas or so). Whatever caused the "infection" remains a mystery, though I'm leaning more towards allergies coupled with a new scratch that needed to heal.
Over the weekend, despite my massive amounts of sleeping, I did get a fair amount of things done -- I graded everything I had to grade, I did all of the laundry (as well as washed/packed all of my clothes for the Omaha trip, which I have to wash and then put directly into my suitcase out of the dryer so no cat hair/dander gets on them and makes Mama sick when I visit), I cooked a few meals, I paid all of the bills I have now -- officially cutting my bank account's balance in half -- and I wrote up all of my lesson plans for the week so that I know exactly what I'm going to cover in class and how I will do it.
Tomorrow is the "midterm date" for the semester -- midterm grading opened up for all of us instructors/professors yesterday. As I'm collecting work from students this week which will count towards that midterm grade, I cannot calculate midterm grades for everyone until those assignments are graded and tallied. I collect another set of papers tonight (011), a second set tomorrow (210), and another bunch of journals on Thursday (102). Until that stuff's graded, I don't have set-in-stone scores for anyone in my classes. Again, midterms are meaningless anyway, and all students can drop a class anytime until April 4, so again, it's just busywork we have to do as professors -- as much of the work we do every semester is anyway.
We've changed our break travel plans slightly; Daisy is planning to come down on Monday night now (the 17th), taking that night off of work, so that we can get a little more time together. We'll either go back up that night or in the morning on Tuesday, spend a few days there in Omaha, and then come back Thursday night in the overnight hours (as she has work on Friday night, and would have to get back up there on Friday morning. As I have the time off regardless, I'll be happy to do whatever she wants to do or can do -- I'll be doing most, if not all, of my grading and other class-related work (like midterm posting) before I head up to Omaha anyway, as I don't want it hanging over my head in case something happens. I've always been that kind of work before play person anyhow, and these next two weeks are no exception to that rule. If I can time everything right, all I will have to do once I return from Omaha will be my taxes and, unless I do them beforehand (and I must do them soon), and the paying of whatever bills come in while I'm gone. As I get paid again in three days, this shouldn't be a problem.
I sent an email yesterday to the insurance guy in HR, telling him that I'd send the forms over today via campus mail, as I can't submit them electronically (and have to send the life insurance beneficiary form over there anyhow). I've listed Daisy as that beneficiary, for obvious reasons (such as, y'know, I'm marrying the woman) but I have to have a witness sign it with me before I can send it. That can basically be anyone, I suppose, though I'll have a higher-up in the department around when I do it -- possibly the department administrator, the director, or the director's wife (whoever is around). I received a reply from the HR guy telling me that was fine, and that we'd still get everything in before the cutoff date (whatever that would be).
So yes, I have lots of little things to do over the next few days. This morning, as per the usual on Tuesdays now, I have to put gas in the car. Luckily, I won't freeze this time, because the weather has been gorgeous over the past several days -- yesterday, it reached 79 outside. It's almost 50 degrees outside right now as I type this. Today is the first day in a long time where I'll be able to leave the house without wearing multiple layers -- just a light jacket. This is downright balmy, summer-like weather after the single-digit temperatures, crazy-low wind chill, and snowstorms of the past several weeks. Perhaps this means that we'll actually get a spring this year, instead of four months of winter, a week of temperatures in the 60s, and then 90-105 every day until late September. My furnace has been turned off for three days straight now, saving me who knows how much money on my next electric bill. It's wonderful.
It's also a sure sign that spring is coming when I kill my first spider in the house, which I did yesterday afternoon. It wasn't a recluse, but one of those little black furry spiders. Maggie was chasing it, and I paid attention to her, shooed it away, and stomped it. I'm hoping the recluse were all killed by the super-cold snaps we've had off and on all winter long.
As always, today is my long day on two different campuses. Last night I went to bed around 7PM and got up this morning at about 5:15 or so, giving me enough sleep and rest to get through my day without any issues. The much nicer weather will help with that as well -- because it was warm and has remained warm, my allergies aren't even bothering me this morning. As I don't have any grading to do this afternoon before my evening class, I plan to take the 2DS with me to keep me occupied. I have, of course, already beaten Pokemon X, but there's still some post-game stuff to do in the game itself. Mainly, though, I just want to relax and hang out with my friends and colleagues, as it'll be the last time I get to do so until at least the 25th (due to Spring Break being next week).
As for other things? Eh. I'll have to go shopping Thursday afternoon when I get done teaching, more than likely, as I'll need to pick up the essentials by then, but there's not a whole lot else on the docket this week aside from wrapping up everything as neatly as I can as my students and I coast into Spring Break. Even my 011 night class tonight should be fairly short, as I'm doing little more than collecting papers and giving them their next assignment, telling them how to do it, and will be talking briefly about midterms/midterm grading and upcoming reading assignments/chapter coverage in the books for when we get back. My 102 classes this week will be the longest ones, as we're covering different argumentative tactics and logical fallacies (since there are a ton of those to go through one by one). My 210s tomorrow night won't even have an incredibly long class, as we're covering their final large assignment and I'm showing them examples/giving them tactics on how to go about doing it. They also have over a month to work on said assignment, spread out in two chunks and two different peer-review and editing days to help lessen confusion and to address any issues involved with it.
I'm actually excited to plow through this week and get it over with, so that I can have the time off to spend with Daisy and her parents and the time off to sleep and relax somewhere other than this house and/or state for once. We don't have a ton of plans for when I'm in Omaha -- I have to find a jacket for the wedding if possible, and Daisy and Mama want us to eat at a Chinese place they both love, but really, that's about all. I'd imagine the two of us will have a "date night" of sorts, as we usually do, but I don't really think anything else is planned. In packing for that trip, I packed clothing for both warm and cold weather -- because weather forecasts can and do change, of course, over any given week -- so there's pants and shorts, short-sleeve and long-sleeve shirts, socks and sandals, etc. It's always a bit cooler, if not a lot colder, in Omaha than it is here anyway. The differences in weather patterns between here and there are crazy sometimes, so I want to be prepared for any eventuality.
On that note, I'm going to ready myself to leave the house for the day, which translates to "I'm going to drink the majority of a pot of coffee, comb/brush my hair and brush my teeth, and get dressed."
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Dayman
Oh, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, how I've fallen down your rabbit hole...
I've spent way too much time watching this show over the past few weeks. There's a reason for that, of course -- it's fucking hilarious. I don't know how I never got into this show before now.
I'd suggest to Daisy that she and I should watch it together, but it's definitely not her thing -- every character in the show is thoroughly reprehensible and crude. She prefers shows with likeable, inspiring characters. When I watch comedy shows, I just want to laugh. I don't need, or want, to identify with the characters. I just want the funny.
Anyway. Apparently tonight is the night when we spring forward into Daylight Savings Time. I say "apparently" because I knew nothing of this until yesterday. I always thought we did it around Easter, or something, and nobody had mentioned it until yesterday, when my Facebook and Twitter feeds exploded with messages about turning the clocks forward.
In fact, I don't even know when Easter is this year.
Thanks, almighty Google!
So earlier tonight, I went and turned all the clocks forward (with the exception of my alarm clock, which I haven't gotten to yet) so that I wouldn't forget. My phone, atomic clock, 2DS, and computer clocks all update on their own. I do not envy those running the cash registers at the grocery store in Missouri in which I used to work many years ago -- on the night that DST kicks in, the clocks on them go nuts and lock up everything, making all of them completely freeze and reset.
Of course, that's not really an issue anymore as those stores started closing down at midnight even when I was still working there five years ago.
Wow. I just realized that in June, it'll be five years since I left that store, that job, that town, and that state. Time flies, hm?
Anyway.
Since I was awake so early this morning, I did all of my grading. I actually finished it before noon, surprisingly enough. It wasn't easy, especially not with my eye still bothering me as much as it was then, but I got through it relatively quickly. There was less of it than I thought there would be, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been. By the time I was done, though, my eye was watering and was really tired and aching, so I got some food and went back to bed around 2PM or so.
When I woke up at 8:30 or so, my eye was feeling much better, a trend that still continues even now. It's much less blurry and red than it was before, but it is still scratchy and achy. I described it to Daisy as the feeling your eyes get when you're really tired and want to go to bed, that achy-sleepy-scratchy feeling, except the eye feels that way all the time.
"It's probably scratched or infected," she said.
"Or both," I replied. "But the point is, it's getting better."
And it is. Slowly. I'm hoping that by Tuesday, it's completely healed and normal again. I know my immune system is down a bit anyway, as I have another small blister on my lip that developed in the past 48 hours or so. I've been taking L-Lysine for it, and it's drying up and fading away, of course, but that's a sure sign that my body is fighting off some sort of infection or illness. It also doesn't help that basically everyone I know has been dreadfully sick at some point in the past few weeks, including several close friends and colleagues. I tend to get sick once or twice a year, but thus far this semester (knock on wood) I've been able to stay relatively unscathed, if only because I'm only on main campus in close proximity to those folks one day a week.
Tomorrow and Monday, if my eye continues to get better and I can see enough to read the small print/do the math, I plan to draft out my taxes and see what I'll get back. If all goes well, I'll mail them out on Monday or Tuesday. I also have to pay the three bills I have right now, which include my water bill, electric bill, and my Amazon card bill -- the latter of which I'll be able to pay off a big chunk of. I was going to pay those this morning, but as I was grading and my eye was tired/hurting again, I just decided to wait until later. None of them are due for another two weeks or so (or more) anyway, and I get paid again on Friday as I enter my Spring Break.
Daisy is planning to discuss with her boss what the best day to take off next week would be, as that will shape when I make the trip to Omaha over my break. She mentioned that she may take the 17th off if she can, which would be a week from Monday. That means she'd be able to come down that night and we could return that night in the overnight hours (with me driving us) or in the morning, getting a little more time up there together. It depends on what works. Even though I have twelve days in a row off for Spring Break, she still has to work eight of those days, which throws a huge wrench into travel and togetherness plans for a visit.
"Of course," I told her, "if I had a car I could trust to get me to and from Omaha, this wouldn't be an issue. But I don't, because I'm poor."
The Monte Carlo probably could make it there and back if I was really careful and made frequent stops, but I wouldn't trust it completely -- and, as much of the drive is through 20-mile straight stretches of absolutely nothing, where there's no cell phone service whatsoever and no one around, if the car did decide to blow a major part on me, I would be completely and totally fucked, and stranded. I may drive the car 180 miles a week or so, but never all in one day, and I'm always close to a town or I'm within the city of Wichita were something to happen.
So, on that note, I'm going to go back to bed to rest my eye some more and try to sleep. I've been catching up on my sleep fairly well this weekend because of the eye -- I don't know if I'm actually tired, or if my eye just makes me more tired, but as I'm almost constantly sleep-deprived anyway, it sure doesn't hurt.
I've spent way too much time watching this show over the past few weeks. There's a reason for that, of course -- it's fucking hilarious. I don't know how I never got into this show before now.
I'd suggest to Daisy that she and I should watch it together, but it's definitely not her thing -- every character in the show is thoroughly reprehensible and crude. She prefers shows with likeable, inspiring characters. When I watch comedy shows, I just want to laugh. I don't need, or want, to identify with the characters. I just want the funny.
Anyway. Apparently tonight is the night when we spring forward into Daylight Savings Time. I say "apparently" because I knew nothing of this until yesterday. I always thought we did it around Easter, or something, and nobody had mentioned it until yesterday, when my Facebook and Twitter feeds exploded with messages about turning the clocks forward.
In fact, I don't even know when Easter is this year.
Thanks, almighty Google!
So earlier tonight, I went and turned all the clocks forward (with the exception of my alarm clock, which I haven't gotten to yet) so that I wouldn't forget. My phone, atomic clock, 2DS, and computer clocks all update on their own. I do not envy those running the cash registers at the grocery store in Missouri in which I used to work many years ago -- on the night that DST kicks in, the clocks on them go nuts and lock up everything, making all of them completely freeze and reset.
Of course, that's not really an issue anymore as those stores started closing down at midnight even when I was still working there five years ago.
Wow. I just realized that in June, it'll be five years since I left that store, that job, that town, and that state. Time flies, hm?
Anyway.
Since I was awake so early this morning, I did all of my grading. I actually finished it before noon, surprisingly enough. It wasn't easy, especially not with my eye still bothering me as much as it was then, but I got through it relatively quickly. There was less of it than I thought there would be, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been. By the time I was done, though, my eye was watering and was really tired and aching, so I got some food and went back to bed around 2PM or so.
When I woke up at 8:30 or so, my eye was feeling much better, a trend that still continues even now. It's much less blurry and red than it was before, but it is still scratchy and achy. I described it to Daisy as the feeling your eyes get when you're really tired and want to go to bed, that achy-sleepy-scratchy feeling, except the eye feels that way all the time.
"It's probably scratched or infected," she said.
"Or both," I replied. "But the point is, it's getting better."
And it is. Slowly. I'm hoping that by Tuesday, it's completely healed and normal again. I know my immune system is down a bit anyway, as I have another small blister on my lip that developed in the past 48 hours or so. I've been taking L-Lysine for it, and it's drying up and fading away, of course, but that's a sure sign that my body is fighting off some sort of infection or illness. It also doesn't help that basically everyone I know has been dreadfully sick at some point in the past few weeks, including several close friends and colleagues. I tend to get sick once or twice a year, but thus far this semester (knock on wood) I've been able to stay relatively unscathed, if only because I'm only on main campus in close proximity to those folks one day a week.
Tomorrow and Monday, if my eye continues to get better and I can see enough to read the small print/do the math, I plan to draft out my taxes and see what I'll get back. If all goes well, I'll mail them out on Monday or Tuesday. I also have to pay the three bills I have right now, which include my water bill, electric bill, and my Amazon card bill -- the latter of which I'll be able to pay off a big chunk of. I was going to pay those this morning, but as I was grading and my eye was tired/hurting again, I just decided to wait until later. None of them are due for another two weeks or so (or more) anyway, and I get paid again on Friday as I enter my Spring Break.
Daisy is planning to discuss with her boss what the best day to take off next week would be, as that will shape when I make the trip to Omaha over my break. She mentioned that she may take the 17th off if she can, which would be a week from Monday. That means she'd be able to come down that night and we could return that night in the overnight hours (with me driving us) or in the morning, getting a little more time up there together. It depends on what works. Even though I have twelve days in a row off for Spring Break, she still has to work eight of those days, which throws a huge wrench into travel and togetherness plans for a visit.
"Of course," I told her, "if I had a car I could trust to get me to and from Omaha, this wouldn't be an issue. But I don't, because I'm poor."
The Monte Carlo probably could make it there and back if I was really careful and made frequent stops, but I wouldn't trust it completely -- and, as much of the drive is through 20-mile straight stretches of absolutely nothing, where there's no cell phone service whatsoever and no one around, if the car did decide to blow a major part on me, I would be completely and totally fucked, and stranded. I may drive the car 180 miles a week or so, but never all in one day, and I'm always close to a town or I'm within the city of Wichita were something to happen.
So, on that note, I'm going to go back to bed to rest my eye some more and try to sleep. I've been catching up on my sleep fairly well this weekend because of the eye -- I don't know if I'm actually tired, or if my eye just makes me more tired, but as I'm almost constantly sleep-deprived anyway, it sure doesn't hurt.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Doctor My Eye
Last night, my eye was bothering me so much that I just went to bed around 8:30 or so. It was aching and burning, watering and itching, and I could not get it to stop -- despite the fact that I'd taken two loratadine pills for my allergies earlier in the evening and an aspirin as an anti-inflammatory precaution. What it needed, apparently, was to be closed and in the dark for many hours. So that's what I did -- I went to sleep.
This morning it's better, though not by a lot. it still aches, it's still blurry, sensitive to light, and irritated (like it was when the pineapple cut it open before), but it's not itching, burning, or watering. So I did some research and looked into the issue (no pun intended) and basically boiled it down to two things: either I've scratched it again while rubbing it a few days ago, and it just needs to heal up over the course of a few days, or I have allergic conjunctivitis -- basically, allergy-based pinkeye, which can be triggered by allergies to basically anything (and isn't contagious or discharge-producing like the viral or bacterial varieties, and won't generally transfer to the other eye as well). Or both. Regardless, in any case, according to all of the information I've found, it'll take a few days to heal up and get back to normal. As it's not bothering me anywhere near as much this morning as it was yesterday and Thursday, that's a good sign.
There's nothing in my eye, and no visible injury or scratch that can be found; I pried my eyelids open last night and looked around with a high-powered LED flashlight to see if I could find anything, and aside from the eye being red and bloodshot (obviously) everything looks normal. As my allergies have been terrible this past month or so, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if it's allergy-based pinkeye or if it's getting really irritated by a little microscopic scratch in there somewhere that I can't see.
"Maybe there's scarring left over from the pineapple," Daisy said.
"Maybe, but I doubt it," I replied. "If that were the case, my vision probably would've been permanently affected on some level after that healed up, and it wasn't."
It did take a while for my vision to un-blur and return to normal after the pineapple incident, but it did, and I've been perfectly fine since...up until this week, anyway.
There's nothing that can really be done for it but to get rest and let it heal; I have eye drops that Daisy got for me when I hurt said eye with the pineapple, and I used some of them last night, but they didn't really do much but make it water and ache a bit more. Sleep seems to help it more than anything else, as does staying out of bright light. There seems to be little else I can do but wait.
In other news, last night I finalized my lesson plans for this coming week and printed out the sheets/handouts I needed to get ready for my classes. There's a few other things I need to do regarding my classes, such as make sure some files are uploaded to Blackboard and, of course, the grading I need to do of my 011 students' journals and rewrites and the PSAs for my 210 class. Everything else that's class-related has already been taken care of.
Because I went to bed so early last night, I got up at 5AM today. This means that I'll probably take a nap this afternoon at some point again, if only because my eye(s) will need rest after I work on the aforementioned grading. I'd like to get all of that done today if only I can, so that I can have time to work on my taxes tomorrow and/or Monday.
My health insurance stuff has been solidified, though it's mostly pointless anyhow. As I don't know if I'll return in the fall (or if I'll even be living in Kansas past, say, June) my coverage basically begins as soon as the paperwork is signed and put in, and ends on May 31. Yeah, seriously. It's stupid. I told them not to do the double-withdrawals for the summer as I cannot see that far ahead yet and don't know where I'll be, and if I do end up staying at the university in the fall, I'd have to re-up everything again then anyway. So, basically, I'm getting about a month and a half of insurance coverage, and that's it. It's pathetic.
On the plus side, for that time I have dental and vision coverage, though it's not like I'll get to use it anyway -- it doesn't cover much, the plan is basic, and if I couldn't afford to go to any doctor before, guess what? I still can't, 'cause I'd still have like a $40 or so co-pay out of pocket. It's for reasons like this where, if I've ever needed any sort of medical care, I've always gone to the health department's "free clinic" option. When it came to actually picking an option for the insurance, it was basically a toss-up as they really don't differ that much based on plan or provider.
It also turns out that I can't e-sign the paperwork as requested, because the forms won't let me. I'll have to physically print and sign them, and send them over to the office on Tuesday via campus mail. The HR guy said to sign them and take a photo with my phone, except, well, my phone is not a smartphone and doesn't do that. There's a camera on it, yes, but good luck reading any text that the camera would snapshot, because it's a very old phone with very low resolution. My actual camera doesn't capture fine details like that too well either, so again, pointless. I hate that everyone assumes that everyone else has a smartphone now. Not everyone does, and not everyone wants one. I don't have one, and I really don't want one.
Daisy keeps telling me that once I get one, I won't know or remember how I lived without one. No thanks. I hate the telephone. I hate the fact that nobody knows how to socialize anymore because everyone has their faces buried in their phones. I hate the fact that I can't teach a class without students texting back and forth or playing games on their phones. I hate the concept of being plugged into everything and being reachable at all times, because fuck that, if I want to be available I'll let you know. There's a reason my cell phone is turned off or silenced most of the time: it's because I hate it and hate the fact that I need it at all. The last thing this already terrible society needed was constant internet access on their telephones, available anywhere anyone went.
Anyway. Whoa, did I get off track there.
So I'll have to do the paper forms once I get back to campus, and they'll just have to wait on them to get them in. Again, there's not like I can do anything about that, and overall the entire process is mostly pointless anyway. It's basically me saying "here, let me give you $60 or so I'll never see again because you asked me to fill out some bullshit forms for health coverage I'll never, ever use before it expires." Because, honestly, that's what it is. Once my employment contract with the university comes to an end in May, so does the coverage, so...I don't really see what they're trying to accomplish here. It seems like health insurance masturbation.
It's chilly this morning, but not overly cold; yesterday afternoon it got up to 61, which felt wonderful while it was that warm. Today we're supposed to get a rain/snow mix for most of the day and it's barely going to get out of the 30s. Next week, however, once I go back to class, it's supposed to be in the upper 60s, if not 70s for a few days. While that's probably not warm enough to wear shorts and flip-flops, as it'll still be cold in the mornings, I do welcome it. I want the nightmare of cold and snow and up-down temperatures to be over, if only for my allergies' sake and for the sake of my eye actually feeling normal again once those allergies go away.
The cats have been fighting like crazy this morning; over what, I don't know, but I've had to break them up twice. Some days, they're just little assholes for no reason. They're all sitting with me now in my Man Cave upstairs as I type this, and seem to be getting along okay, but I'm not going to pretend I know how feline politics works when I don't even speak or understand their language.
On that note, I'm going to get something to eat and begin my grading so that I can go back to sleep eventually and rest my eye some more. Daisy is gone to her sister's for the day, as her niece is having her birthday party this morning. I don't know when she'll get to sleep before she has to go back to work tonight again, but she's already left and I probably won't be in contact with her that much all day and night because of that.
This morning it's better, though not by a lot. it still aches, it's still blurry, sensitive to light, and irritated (like it was when the pineapple cut it open before), but it's not itching, burning, or watering. So I did some research and looked into the issue (no pun intended) and basically boiled it down to two things: either I've scratched it again while rubbing it a few days ago, and it just needs to heal up over the course of a few days, or I have allergic conjunctivitis -- basically, allergy-based pinkeye, which can be triggered by allergies to basically anything (and isn't contagious or discharge-producing like the viral or bacterial varieties, and won't generally transfer to the other eye as well). Or both. Regardless, in any case, according to all of the information I've found, it'll take a few days to heal up and get back to normal. As it's not bothering me anywhere near as much this morning as it was yesterday and Thursday, that's a good sign.
There's nothing in my eye, and no visible injury or scratch that can be found; I pried my eyelids open last night and looked around with a high-powered LED flashlight to see if I could find anything, and aside from the eye being red and bloodshot (obviously) everything looks normal. As my allergies have been terrible this past month or so, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if it's allergy-based pinkeye or if it's getting really irritated by a little microscopic scratch in there somewhere that I can't see.
"Maybe there's scarring left over from the pineapple," Daisy said.
"Maybe, but I doubt it," I replied. "If that were the case, my vision probably would've been permanently affected on some level after that healed up, and it wasn't."
It did take a while for my vision to un-blur and return to normal after the pineapple incident, but it did, and I've been perfectly fine since...up until this week, anyway.
There's nothing that can really be done for it but to get rest and let it heal; I have eye drops that Daisy got for me when I hurt said eye with the pineapple, and I used some of them last night, but they didn't really do much but make it water and ache a bit more. Sleep seems to help it more than anything else, as does staying out of bright light. There seems to be little else I can do but wait.
In other news, last night I finalized my lesson plans for this coming week and printed out the sheets/handouts I needed to get ready for my classes. There's a few other things I need to do regarding my classes, such as make sure some files are uploaded to Blackboard and, of course, the grading I need to do of my 011 students' journals and rewrites and the PSAs for my 210 class. Everything else that's class-related has already been taken care of.
Because I went to bed so early last night, I got up at 5AM today. This means that I'll probably take a nap this afternoon at some point again, if only because my eye(s) will need rest after I work on the aforementioned grading. I'd like to get all of that done today if only I can, so that I can have time to work on my taxes tomorrow and/or Monday.
My health insurance stuff has been solidified, though it's mostly pointless anyhow. As I don't know if I'll return in the fall (or if I'll even be living in Kansas past, say, June) my coverage basically begins as soon as the paperwork is signed and put in, and ends on May 31. Yeah, seriously. It's stupid. I told them not to do the double-withdrawals for the summer as I cannot see that far ahead yet and don't know where I'll be, and if I do end up staying at the university in the fall, I'd have to re-up everything again then anyway. So, basically, I'm getting about a month and a half of insurance coverage, and that's it. It's pathetic.
On the plus side, for that time I have dental and vision coverage, though it's not like I'll get to use it anyway -- it doesn't cover much, the plan is basic, and if I couldn't afford to go to any doctor before, guess what? I still can't, 'cause I'd still have like a $40 or so co-pay out of pocket. It's for reasons like this where, if I've ever needed any sort of medical care, I've always gone to the health department's "free clinic" option. When it came to actually picking an option for the insurance, it was basically a toss-up as they really don't differ that much based on plan or provider.
It also turns out that I can't e-sign the paperwork as requested, because the forms won't let me. I'll have to physically print and sign them, and send them over to the office on Tuesday via campus mail. The HR guy said to sign them and take a photo with my phone, except, well, my phone is not a smartphone and doesn't do that. There's a camera on it, yes, but good luck reading any text that the camera would snapshot, because it's a very old phone with very low resolution. My actual camera doesn't capture fine details like that too well either, so again, pointless. I hate that everyone assumes that everyone else has a smartphone now. Not everyone does, and not everyone wants one. I don't have one, and I really don't want one.
Daisy keeps telling me that once I get one, I won't know or remember how I lived without one. No thanks. I hate the telephone. I hate the fact that nobody knows how to socialize anymore because everyone has their faces buried in their phones. I hate the fact that I can't teach a class without students texting back and forth or playing games on their phones. I hate the concept of being plugged into everything and being reachable at all times, because fuck that, if I want to be available I'll let you know. There's a reason my cell phone is turned off or silenced most of the time: it's because I hate it and hate the fact that I need it at all. The last thing this already terrible society needed was constant internet access on their telephones, available anywhere anyone went.
Anyway. Whoa, did I get off track there.
So I'll have to do the paper forms once I get back to campus, and they'll just have to wait on them to get them in. Again, there's not like I can do anything about that, and overall the entire process is mostly pointless anyway. It's basically me saying "here, let me give you $60 or so I'll never see again because you asked me to fill out some bullshit forms for health coverage I'll never, ever use before it expires." Because, honestly, that's what it is. Once my employment contract with the university comes to an end in May, so does the coverage, so...I don't really see what they're trying to accomplish here. It seems like health insurance masturbation.
It's chilly this morning, but not overly cold; yesterday afternoon it got up to 61, which felt wonderful while it was that warm. Today we're supposed to get a rain/snow mix for most of the day and it's barely going to get out of the 30s. Next week, however, once I go back to class, it's supposed to be in the upper 60s, if not 70s for a few days. While that's probably not warm enough to wear shorts and flip-flops, as it'll still be cold in the mornings, I do welcome it. I want the nightmare of cold and snow and up-down temperatures to be over, if only for my allergies' sake and for the sake of my eye actually feeling normal again once those allergies go away.
The cats have been fighting like crazy this morning; over what, I don't know, but I've had to break them up twice. Some days, they're just little assholes for no reason. They're all sitting with me now in my Man Cave upstairs as I type this, and seem to be getting along okay, but I'm not going to pretend I know how feline politics works when I don't even speak or understand their language.
On that note, I'm going to get something to eat and begin my grading so that I can go back to sleep eventually and rest my eye some more. Daisy is gone to her sister's for the day, as her niece is having her birthday party this morning. I don't know when she'll get to sleep before she has to go back to work tonight again, but she's already left and I probably won't be in contact with her that much all day and night because of that.
Friday, March 7, 2014
The Burning
Spring semester: day thirty-four
I'm pretty sure that either my allergies are really, really bad right now, or I re-scratched my previously-injured eye again while rubbing it due to them, because my eyes have been dry/burning and bloodshot/watery for the past few days now. I used to think that it was just in the mornings as part of my other allergies (they're always really bad when I wake up for the day) but it's not simply that, at least with the pineapple-eye. It's blurry like it was before when I injured it six months ago, and it just aches and waters almost constantly...which triggers all of my other allergies too. It doesn't bother me as bad as it did when I injured it, but believe me, it's still a pain in the ass.
A big part of it is probably because I've been somewhat sleep-deprived as well; when I came home from teaching and doing my shopping yesterday, I ate lunch and went back to bed. While I slept, yes, I only slept for about...six hours? Something like that. I wanted to sleep for about ten or more -- a real, full night's worth of sleep. As I didn't, while I got back up and have gone about my evening/night since, I still don't feel very well-rested. As you folks may know, I've always had sleeping issues, though in the past year or so they've gotten particularly bad. I've now learned that it's not that I don't have time to sleep -- I mean, I do only work/teach three days a week, and two of those days are basically half-days (not counting lesson-planning time and grading time, of course) -- but it's still a problem. I've become dependent, at least on Monday nights, on taking a sleeping pill in the evening just so that I can force myself to sleep through the night and be able to take on my long day on Tuesday. I had to get more of those yesterday, actually, when I went to Walmart, and I took the last one out of my last packet of them about ten minutes ago so that I can sleep when I go back to bed fairly soon, and sleep long without having to worry about getting up at a pre-set time or by an alarm clock. It's a general restlessness -- I don't have any medical issues, such as sleep apnea (Daisy tells me that most of the time, I don't even snore) that I'm aware of, my bed is incredibly comfortable to me, and while I do drink a lot of coffee, I do know when not to drink it so that I can sleep...so what is it? I'd tell you if only I knew.
Daisy says that not only do her allergies make her tired/fatigued (as do mine), but they make it hard for her to sleep sometimes as well. If that's all it is, I can understand it, but still. Even when I'm incredibly exhausted I can only sleep for about eight hours or so at a time, and it's just not enough in some cases, for some days. This is one (of the many) reasons why Daisy and I put an elliptical machine on our wedding registry. No, nobody will probably get it for us and we'll probably end up getting it ourselves, but if I can bust my ass on the elliptical for an hour or so every night before bed, my hopes are that I can wear myself out enough to basically pass out and stay out for a long period of time, and get actual rest.
In other news, I've already started my work for the weekend. Next week, as you are probably aware since I've been talking about it, is the last week of classes before Spring Break, and I have a lot to accomplish in my classes between now and a week from now when my break officially starts for me.
Between that last sentence and this one, I went to bed for the night and got up around noon or so. My eye is still irritated, but it's not constantly burning and watering like it had been before. This may be because it's 55 outside right now and my allergies aren't going nuts anywhere near as much as they have been as of late. In fact, they're really not bothering me at all right now. I've opened the windows and turned off the furnace, obviously, in an attempt to air the house out and get whatever allergens are in here to sort of "blow out."
When it comes to work for next week, what I was referring to before I went to bed was that I have tooled and re-tooled my 210s' assignment for their big Proposal/Grant Request project and have tightly structured the rest of the semester around it. When I taught the 8-week version of the class, my students had but two weeks to put it together and have it ready to turn in, and then had to give an oral presentation on it the next night. The amount of work almost killed the students, and two or three of them couldn't do it all because they couldn't keep up. With this class being a full sixteen-week class and having only eight students in it, they have more time to get all of this stuff done; as it's the final project in the class, they have almost a month to work on and finish it before they give their Oral Presentations (their last grade in the class, sort of their "final exam") on it. However, as I'm sending them off into Spring Break to begin working on it and to begin doing their research, I have to make sure everything is done and ready for them to work on it by Wednesday night -- that means I have to get all of the handouts and assignments ready as well as print out and make copies of the 21-page example that I give them as a guide to follow. That's more behind-the-scenes work than it seems, and while I'm almost done with it, it takes me a while to structure and re-structure things to adapt the assignment(s) to a class that meets half as often but for twice as long.
The email went out this morning to all instructors/professors that midterm grading opens on Monday; I've already discussed midterm grades with my 102 students, but will have to do the same for my 011s and 210s as well. For the latter, the semester is progressing fast enough to where they'll know what they have in the class by the time midterms come about. For the former? There's still about 60% of the class assignments to go, and the midterm isn't indicative of anything for them (except that for some of them, they've already failed due to absences). I have to send out those emails as well this weekend. Luckily, my classes next week should be a breeze as we ease into Spring Break; I collect papers and give out the next assignment to 011, I collect journals and do a few activities for 102, and I collect papers and give out the big assignment to my 210s. I'll have a lot of grading to do come this time next week, but it shouldn't take me an incredibly long amount of time, and I'll be starting it ASAP once the break officially starts for me.
The plan, as of right now, is to spend the first half or so of my break at home doing that stuff and taking care of anything else that needs to be done. On Tuesday the 18th, Daisy comes down here and we either go back up that night or go back up in the morning, and I'll stay until Friday or Saturday (the 21st or 22nd). She should be taking that Friday off (or the Saturday off, depending on which one's available) and we'll come back on whichever night she can get off. I'll have a day or two here in the interim to finish up everything that needs to be done before I return to teaching and my schedule returns to normal for the remainder of the semester -- it'll be the last visit to Omaha I get until I go up there for the wedding itself.
As for the logistics of everything else going on with our living situation after that? Obviously, I don't know anything yet. With the semester ending basically two months from today, I need to get some useful info from the department/university in a hurry so that I can begin making plans for the summer and for survival. Even if all goes well with the university and I end up staying here for the foreseeable future, there's only a very slim chance that I'd have any sort of gainful employment through them over the summer, and despite our savings and the like, we can't survive and be able to pay our bills unless both of us are working -- regardless of what we're doing.
Daisy is the failsafe here; while nobody's going to pay me a livable wage for summer work unless I work some manual labor or backbreaking wage-slave job for those months, especially if I'm going to return to teaching in the fall in some capacity, Daisy already works full time and is looking to either get a promotion in her current company or get a better job that will allow us the breathing space needed to move and to survive and pay our bills. She's looking for that in Omaha, though, and has sent out several applications for new positions, so it's going to boil down to whether or not she can find something new and whether or not I'll be offered the position at the university that I've been looking to do now for almost two full years. Worst-case scenario is that neither one happens and we're both broke and scraping by on and with nothing after the wedding. There are so many variables at play that neither of us can say "Here's what we're doing and where we're going to be," because even now we just don't know. Many things need to fall into place, and until even one of those things fall into place we can't make any real plans. It's not that we're dragging our feet or hemming-and-hawwing, it's that our hands are tied for the moment even to the point where we can't make any true contingency plans because we can't see that far ahead.
Obviously, this is troubling and stressful. I'm basically scraping by paycheck-to-paycheck as it is, and am trying to spend or use as little money as possible aside from paying my bills so that there can be something left. Also obviously, that can only go on so long as well.
I also need to make some sort of decision this weekend on the insurance plan for the university, and let the HR guy know. Even if it's only going to be effective for a month or two if I don't come back in the fall, I have to do something to tell them what I want to do and have them put it into action. And I have my taxes to do as well. All of this stuff is so stressful and still hanging over my head that I just want to crawl into bed and curl into a ball until it all goes away, even though that's not how real life works.
I'm pretty sure that either my allergies are really, really bad right now, or I re-scratched my previously-injured eye again while rubbing it due to them, because my eyes have been dry/burning and bloodshot/watery for the past few days now. I used to think that it was just in the mornings as part of my other allergies (they're always really bad when I wake up for the day) but it's not simply that, at least with the pineapple-eye. It's blurry like it was before when I injured it six months ago, and it just aches and waters almost constantly...which triggers all of my other allergies too. It doesn't bother me as bad as it did when I injured it, but believe me, it's still a pain in the ass.
A big part of it is probably because I've been somewhat sleep-deprived as well; when I came home from teaching and doing my shopping yesterday, I ate lunch and went back to bed. While I slept, yes, I only slept for about...six hours? Something like that. I wanted to sleep for about ten or more -- a real, full night's worth of sleep. As I didn't, while I got back up and have gone about my evening/night since, I still don't feel very well-rested. As you folks may know, I've always had sleeping issues, though in the past year or so they've gotten particularly bad. I've now learned that it's not that I don't have time to sleep -- I mean, I do only work/teach three days a week, and two of those days are basically half-days (not counting lesson-planning time and grading time, of course) -- but it's still a problem. I've become dependent, at least on Monday nights, on taking a sleeping pill in the evening just so that I can force myself to sleep through the night and be able to take on my long day on Tuesday. I had to get more of those yesterday, actually, when I went to Walmart, and I took the last one out of my last packet of them about ten minutes ago so that I can sleep when I go back to bed fairly soon, and sleep long without having to worry about getting up at a pre-set time or by an alarm clock. It's a general restlessness -- I don't have any medical issues, such as sleep apnea (Daisy tells me that most of the time, I don't even snore) that I'm aware of, my bed is incredibly comfortable to me, and while I do drink a lot of coffee, I do know when not to drink it so that I can sleep...so what is it? I'd tell you if only I knew.
Daisy says that not only do her allergies make her tired/fatigued (as do mine), but they make it hard for her to sleep sometimes as well. If that's all it is, I can understand it, but still. Even when I'm incredibly exhausted I can only sleep for about eight hours or so at a time, and it's just not enough in some cases, for some days. This is one (of the many) reasons why Daisy and I put an elliptical machine on our wedding registry. No, nobody will probably get it for us and we'll probably end up getting it ourselves, but if I can bust my ass on the elliptical for an hour or so every night before bed, my hopes are that I can wear myself out enough to basically pass out and stay out for a long period of time, and get actual rest.
In other news, I've already started my work for the weekend. Next week, as you are probably aware since I've been talking about it, is the last week of classes before Spring Break, and I have a lot to accomplish in my classes between now and a week from now when my break officially starts for me.
Between that last sentence and this one, I went to bed for the night and got up around noon or so. My eye is still irritated, but it's not constantly burning and watering like it had been before. This may be because it's 55 outside right now and my allergies aren't going nuts anywhere near as much as they have been as of late. In fact, they're really not bothering me at all right now. I've opened the windows and turned off the furnace, obviously, in an attempt to air the house out and get whatever allergens are in here to sort of "blow out."
When it comes to work for next week, what I was referring to before I went to bed was that I have tooled and re-tooled my 210s' assignment for their big Proposal/Grant Request project and have tightly structured the rest of the semester around it. When I taught the 8-week version of the class, my students had but two weeks to put it together and have it ready to turn in, and then had to give an oral presentation on it the next night. The amount of work almost killed the students, and two or three of them couldn't do it all because they couldn't keep up. With this class being a full sixteen-week class and having only eight students in it, they have more time to get all of this stuff done; as it's the final project in the class, they have almost a month to work on and finish it before they give their Oral Presentations (their last grade in the class, sort of their "final exam") on it. However, as I'm sending them off into Spring Break to begin working on it and to begin doing their research, I have to make sure everything is done and ready for them to work on it by Wednesday night -- that means I have to get all of the handouts and assignments ready as well as print out and make copies of the 21-page example that I give them as a guide to follow. That's more behind-the-scenes work than it seems, and while I'm almost done with it, it takes me a while to structure and re-structure things to adapt the assignment(s) to a class that meets half as often but for twice as long.
The email went out this morning to all instructors/professors that midterm grading opens on Monday; I've already discussed midterm grades with my 102 students, but will have to do the same for my 011s and 210s as well. For the latter, the semester is progressing fast enough to where they'll know what they have in the class by the time midterms come about. For the former? There's still about 60% of the class assignments to go, and the midterm isn't indicative of anything for them (except that for some of them, they've already failed due to absences). I have to send out those emails as well this weekend. Luckily, my classes next week should be a breeze as we ease into Spring Break; I collect papers and give out the next assignment to 011, I collect journals and do a few activities for 102, and I collect papers and give out the big assignment to my 210s. I'll have a lot of grading to do come this time next week, but it shouldn't take me an incredibly long amount of time, and I'll be starting it ASAP once the break officially starts for me.
The plan, as of right now, is to spend the first half or so of my break at home doing that stuff and taking care of anything else that needs to be done. On Tuesday the 18th, Daisy comes down here and we either go back up that night or go back up in the morning, and I'll stay until Friday or Saturday (the 21st or 22nd). She should be taking that Friday off (or the Saturday off, depending on which one's available) and we'll come back on whichever night she can get off. I'll have a day or two here in the interim to finish up everything that needs to be done before I return to teaching and my schedule returns to normal for the remainder of the semester -- it'll be the last visit to Omaha I get until I go up there for the wedding itself.
As for the logistics of everything else going on with our living situation after that? Obviously, I don't know anything yet. With the semester ending basically two months from today, I need to get some useful info from the department/university in a hurry so that I can begin making plans for the summer and for survival. Even if all goes well with the university and I end up staying here for the foreseeable future, there's only a very slim chance that I'd have any sort of gainful employment through them over the summer, and despite our savings and the like, we can't survive and be able to pay our bills unless both of us are working -- regardless of what we're doing.
Daisy is the failsafe here; while nobody's going to pay me a livable wage for summer work unless I work some manual labor or backbreaking wage-slave job for those months, especially if I'm going to return to teaching in the fall in some capacity, Daisy already works full time and is looking to either get a promotion in her current company or get a better job that will allow us the breathing space needed to move and to survive and pay our bills. She's looking for that in Omaha, though, and has sent out several applications for new positions, so it's going to boil down to whether or not she can find something new and whether or not I'll be offered the position at the university that I've been looking to do now for almost two full years. Worst-case scenario is that neither one happens and we're both broke and scraping by on and with nothing after the wedding. There are so many variables at play that neither of us can say "Here's what we're doing and where we're going to be," because even now we just don't know. Many things need to fall into place, and until even one of those things fall into place we can't make any real plans. It's not that we're dragging our feet or hemming-and-hawwing, it's that our hands are tied for the moment even to the point where we can't make any true contingency plans because we can't see that far ahead.
Obviously, this is troubling and stressful. I'm basically scraping by paycheck-to-paycheck as it is, and am trying to spend or use as little money as possible aside from paying my bills so that there can be something left. Also obviously, that can only go on so long as well.
I also need to make some sort of decision this weekend on the insurance plan for the university, and let the HR guy know. Even if it's only going to be effective for a month or two if I don't come back in the fall, I have to do something to tell them what I want to do and have them put it into action. And I have my taxes to do as well. All of this stuff is so stressful and still hanging over my head that I just want to crawl into bed and curl into a ball until it all goes away, even though that's not how real life works.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
tl;dr
Spring semester: day thirty-three
Finally, I'm coming to the end of my week. This is good, as I didn't sleep well last night and because my allergies are once more going nuts this morning as I attempt to wake myself enough to go into proverbial battle (read: teaching my last class of the week). My seasonal allergies seem to be much worse this year than they've been in a long time, and I don't know why. I just try to deal with them and push them aside as much as possible, and sometimes that's easier to do than others. This week, especially, it's been difficult.
This morning in my 102 class we're covering a chapter each out of both books, and I've got a handout packet for them on MLA citation and reliable research sources. This is because for their first assignment, the Article Review (which I collected on Tuesday, and graded that afternoon/yesterday), about half of them "get it" and the other half of them really, really didn't. This worries me, as the Article Review is really, really basic. It is what it says it is: an article review. They find a scholarly research article from the library databases, published in a journal or other reputable scholarly publication, and then review it. They pick apart the author's argument and describe its strengths, weaknesses, any bias present, the author's credibility, whether the author addresses the opposition, etc. And then they conclude the review by taking a stand on whether or not the article would be useful as a research source were they to write a research argument paper on that same subject. That's all. Their 102 workbook even lays out for them what they needs to do in each paragraph for the assignment -- it does everything but find the article and write it for them. About half the class did this wonderfully. They followed the assignment and reviewed an article really well. The other half of the class tried to make it into a research paper or make their own argument about the author's claims, and that's not what the assignment is. Some of them didn't even name the article, or name the author, in their papers. Some of them didn't use in-text citations or include a Works Cited page, which made me even more clueless as to what article they were reviewing or what information was theirs versus that of the author(s) of the article. Even more troubling is that some of the students who did these things are students I had last semester in 101, who know how to do these things already.
Upon discussing this dilemma with a few colleagues who also teach 102, I've found that I'm not alone -- a lot of students are having trouble wrapping their heads around this assignment for some reason.
"I don't get it," I said. "The workbook lays it out for them. It gives them an outline to follow and what to put in each and every body section of the paper, including the introduction and conclusion. There's no legitimate way they can screw it up if they just follow the template."
"None of them read the template, apparently," one of my colleagues told me. "We can tell them all we want that the assignment is laid out for them, but they won't read it."
"I know these kids aren't stupid, though," I replied. "I have some really good writers in my class. I know because I had them last semester, and I've already had one long-form take-home quiz...plus, about half the class 'gets it' and did the assignment near-flawlessly. So what is it?"
"They don't care," my colleague said. "Simply put, they don't care. They can't be bothered to read two pages in the workbook to tell them how to do the assignment. They can't be bothered to read anything that's not on their iPhones and not animated with bells and whistles."
She's probably right.
I call this "too long; didn't read" syndrome, or "tl;dr" for short. Many of you have probably seen that somewhere on the web before in discussion/comment threads or memes. They even make t-shirts with that on them now, as if there's some sort of pride in it:
Anyway, when I get back into class this morning, there's little else I can do but throw the proverbial (and in this case, actual) book at them. When half of the class gets a low C or below on the assignment, that's a problem, as that half of the class needs a serious wake-up call. Welcome to college, where you have to follow directions.
I will of course stress again that the other half of the class did really well on the assignment, and followed the directions perfectly. I had two perfect papers in that class. But, for the rest of them? That's why I have the MLA citation worksheet and the reliable research sources packet that I'll be giving out today.
Last night in my 210 class, I collected their PSA assignments and began coverage of the Resume/Cover Letter, which isn't in their books -- instead, I put together a packet of instructions, at least two or three examples/templates of how each part of the assignment should be formatted (to give them some ideas, stylistic or otherwise) and then a long list of do's-and-dont's of resume/cover letter writing. One of the tips? You guessed it -- don't make your resume or cover letter a long, ponderous block of text, or it'll also suffer from "tl;dr" syndrome.
Those students, however, get it. They're almost all older, non-traditional students, and know the ins and outs of business writing already; going through my class and the assignments in my class is simply rote for them. Again, 210 is quite possibly the easiest class I could ever teach, as the assignments are simple and straightforward, and the students in said class are usually in a business-related field, so they know what they're doing. Plus, and I'll stress this once more -- there are only eight of them.
Once I'm done today, I will return to Newton, stop at Walmart to do my weekly shopping for necessities and grocery items, and then will come home, eat, and go back to bed, more than likely. Again, I didn't sleep well last night, and I have the feeling that in about six hours (roughly, 1PM or so), I'll be really tired again.
I do have a decently long weekend full of busy-work ahead of me -- I have the 210 papers I collected last night to grade through, as well as rewrites and journals for my 011 class. I also have to do some big-time lesson planning, as next week is the last week before Spring Break (so I have to get my students' proverbial ducks in a row before I send them off for a week without classes). Plus, I really should do my taxes and get them taken care of, and I need to pay my electric and water bills. My new credit card bills should be rolling in within the next few days or so as well, and the sooner I can pay those down more, the better. Oh, and I need to email the HR insurance guy to tell him which plan I'm picking/using for my health insurance probably by tomorrow at the latest, as well, so that I can e-sign the paperwork and they can get the ball rolling.
As an aside, it'll be the first time I've had any sort of comprehensive health insurance for about ten years. Well, about ten years, anyway. I was covered on my parents' plan until I graduated college (I think), and I graduated in 2005. So, nine years. None of the jobs I've worked in the meantime have provided me with coverage. I had a very basic plan during my first year as a grad student, but they charged me so much for it (something like $400 a semester) and it covered so little/I never used it, so I dropped it when it expired. This new plan, whichever one I choose, is a big, comprehensive plan that covers almost everything to some extent under one umbrella. I don't know that I'll ever use it, of course, especially if I don't return to the university in the fall, but it's good to know that at least for a while, I'll have it -- even if that's a short while.
There's been no more news on that front either, sadly -- at this point, Daisy and I are slowly beginning to plan for the worst-case scenario, the one in which after our wedding, I'm basically unemployed until I can find something in Omaha, which may be easier said than done. I've been waiting on this same stuff at the university to come to fruition for at least two years now, roughly, and at every juncture it has stalled or fallen flat thus far. That's not the fault of the department or anyone in it, of course, it's just the way funding and scheduling is available or not available based on any given semester year.
"I really need to hear something soon," I told Daisy. "We're rapidly reaching that 'window of no return,' after which we have to make a living situation decision and start planning around it."
This is true; while Daisy has been searching for and applying for new jobs as of late, they've all been in Omaha; she has no reason to apply for any here if I find out that there's no sustainable way we can stay here. That information, right now, is solely in the hands of the university and the higher-ups in the department as a hammer waiting to drop one way or the other. Even if the program/position I've been waiting to hear about is going to be a no-go, I still need to know that ASAP so the two of us can start making definitive plans...and so that I can start applying for jobs, teaching or otherwise, in Nebraska. We have to be able to survive this summer, and we can't do that for very long when I get my last paycheck of the semester shortly before the wedding. So, yes, it's a tricky situation, and not one that I'm particularly a fan of. And there's only so much money I can save in the meantime when I have bills to pay, a wedding to help fund in any way I can (or may be necessary), and credit cards to pay off.
On that note, I must take my leave of you folks. It's really foggy this morning (interestingly enough) and I need to be able to take a little extra time to get to campus because of that. I shall update you folks on everything at some point this weekend, once I take care of my big tasks.
Finally, I'm coming to the end of my week. This is good, as I didn't sleep well last night and because my allergies are once more going nuts this morning as I attempt to wake myself enough to go into proverbial battle (read: teaching my last class of the week). My seasonal allergies seem to be much worse this year than they've been in a long time, and I don't know why. I just try to deal with them and push them aside as much as possible, and sometimes that's easier to do than others. This week, especially, it's been difficult.
This morning in my 102 class we're covering a chapter each out of both books, and I've got a handout packet for them on MLA citation and reliable research sources. This is because for their first assignment, the Article Review (which I collected on Tuesday, and graded that afternoon/yesterday), about half of them "get it" and the other half of them really, really didn't. This worries me, as the Article Review is really, really basic. It is what it says it is: an article review. They find a scholarly research article from the library databases, published in a journal or other reputable scholarly publication, and then review it. They pick apart the author's argument and describe its strengths, weaknesses, any bias present, the author's credibility, whether the author addresses the opposition, etc. And then they conclude the review by taking a stand on whether or not the article would be useful as a research source were they to write a research argument paper on that same subject. That's all. Their 102 workbook even lays out for them what they needs to do in each paragraph for the assignment -- it does everything but find the article and write it for them. About half the class did this wonderfully. They followed the assignment and reviewed an article really well. The other half of the class tried to make it into a research paper or make their own argument about the author's claims, and that's not what the assignment is. Some of them didn't even name the article, or name the author, in their papers. Some of them didn't use in-text citations or include a Works Cited page, which made me even more clueless as to what article they were reviewing or what information was theirs versus that of the author(s) of the article. Even more troubling is that some of the students who did these things are students I had last semester in 101, who know how to do these things already.
Upon discussing this dilemma with a few colleagues who also teach 102, I've found that I'm not alone -- a lot of students are having trouble wrapping their heads around this assignment for some reason.
"I don't get it," I said. "The workbook lays it out for them. It gives them an outline to follow and what to put in each and every body section of the paper, including the introduction and conclusion. There's no legitimate way they can screw it up if they just follow the template."
"None of them read the template, apparently," one of my colleagues told me. "We can tell them all we want that the assignment is laid out for them, but they won't read it."
"I know these kids aren't stupid, though," I replied. "I have some really good writers in my class. I know because I had them last semester, and I've already had one long-form take-home quiz...plus, about half the class 'gets it' and did the assignment near-flawlessly. So what is it?"
"They don't care," my colleague said. "Simply put, they don't care. They can't be bothered to read two pages in the workbook to tell them how to do the assignment. They can't be bothered to read anything that's not on their iPhones and not animated with bells and whistles."
She's probably right.
I call this "too long; didn't read" syndrome, or "tl;dr" for short. Many of you have probably seen that somewhere on the web before in discussion/comment threads or memes. They even make t-shirts with that on them now, as if there's some sort of pride in it:
Anyway, when I get back into class this morning, there's little else I can do but throw the proverbial (and in this case, actual) book at them. When half of the class gets a low C or below on the assignment, that's a problem, as that half of the class needs a serious wake-up call. Welcome to college, where you have to follow directions.
I will of course stress again that the other half of the class did really well on the assignment, and followed the directions perfectly. I had two perfect papers in that class. But, for the rest of them? That's why I have the MLA citation worksheet and the reliable research sources packet that I'll be giving out today.
Last night in my 210 class, I collected their PSA assignments and began coverage of the Resume/Cover Letter, which isn't in their books -- instead, I put together a packet of instructions, at least two or three examples/templates of how each part of the assignment should be formatted (to give them some ideas, stylistic or otherwise) and then a long list of do's-and-dont's of resume/cover letter writing. One of the tips? You guessed it -- don't make your resume or cover letter a long, ponderous block of text, or it'll also suffer from "tl;dr" syndrome.
Those students, however, get it. They're almost all older, non-traditional students, and know the ins and outs of business writing already; going through my class and the assignments in my class is simply rote for them. Again, 210 is quite possibly the easiest class I could ever teach, as the assignments are simple and straightforward, and the students in said class are usually in a business-related field, so they know what they're doing. Plus, and I'll stress this once more -- there are only eight of them.
Once I'm done today, I will return to Newton, stop at Walmart to do my weekly shopping for necessities and grocery items, and then will come home, eat, and go back to bed, more than likely. Again, I didn't sleep well last night, and I have the feeling that in about six hours (roughly, 1PM or so), I'll be really tired again.
I do have a decently long weekend full of busy-work ahead of me -- I have the 210 papers I collected last night to grade through, as well as rewrites and journals for my 011 class. I also have to do some big-time lesson planning, as next week is the last week before Spring Break (so I have to get my students' proverbial ducks in a row before I send them off for a week without classes). Plus, I really should do my taxes and get them taken care of, and I need to pay my electric and water bills. My new credit card bills should be rolling in within the next few days or so as well, and the sooner I can pay those down more, the better. Oh, and I need to email the HR insurance guy to tell him which plan I'm picking/using for my health insurance probably by tomorrow at the latest, as well, so that I can e-sign the paperwork and they can get the ball rolling.
As an aside, it'll be the first time I've had any sort of comprehensive health insurance for about ten years. Well, about ten years, anyway. I was covered on my parents' plan until I graduated college (I think), and I graduated in 2005. So, nine years. None of the jobs I've worked in the meantime have provided me with coverage. I had a very basic plan during my first year as a grad student, but they charged me so much for it (something like $400 a semester) and it covered so little/I never used it, so I dropped it when it expired. This new plan, whichever one I choose, is a big, comprehensive plan that covers almost everything to some extent under one umbrella. I don't know that I'll ever use it, of course, especially if I don't return to the university in the fall, but it's good to know that at least for a while, I'll have it -- even if that's a short while.
There's been no more news on that front either, sadly -- at this point, Daisy and I are slowly beginning to plan for the worst-case scenario, the one in which after our wedding, I'm basically unemployed until I can find something in Omaha, which may be easier said than done. I've been waiting on this same stuff at the university to come to fruition for at least two years now, roughly, and at every juncture it has stalled or fallen flat thus far. That's not the fault of the department or anyone in it, of course, it's just the way funding and scheduling is available or not available based on any given semester year.
"I really need to hear something soon," I told Daisy. "We're rapidly reaching that 'window of no return,' after which we have to make a living situation decision and start planning around it."
This is true; while Daisy has been searching for and applying for new jobs as of late, they've all been in Omaha; she has no reason to apply for any here if I find out that there's no sustainable way we can stay here. That information, right now, is solely in the hands of the university and the higher-ups in the department as a hammer waiting to drop one way or the other. Even if the program/position I've been waiting to hear about is going to be a no-go, I still need to know that ASAP so the two of us can start making definitive plans...and so that I can start applying for jobs, teaching or otherwise, in Nebraska. We have to be able to survive this summer, and we can't do that for very long when I get my last paycheck of the semester shortly before the wedding. So, yes, it's a tricky situation, and not one that I'm particularly a fan of. And there's only so much money I can save in the meantime when I have bills to pay, a wedding to help fund in any way I can (or may be necessary), and credit cards to pay off.
On that note, I must take my leave of you folks. It's really foggy this morning (interestingly enough) and I need to be able to take a little extra time to get to campus because of that. I shall update you folks on everything at some point this weekend, once I take care of my big tasks.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Happy Places
Spring semester: day thirty-two
Hey folks, guess what day it is?
That's right, it's...
Wait, you mean...this isn't the meaning of today? Shit. Oh well. I'm an atheist anyway.
Ahem.
My internet at home has been really buggy as of late again, what with the dropped connection issue and the like that seems to pop up every two or three months and stick around for a while. It seems, however, that recently it's been worse. Now, almost anytime I try to do something bandwidth-intensive (such as play a game on Facebook, download my podcasts for the day, or even Skype with Daisy) it will almost always drop my connection at least once, if not multiple times. It's dropped it three times already while I've been working on this post, and I'm not even really doing anything but running a game on Facebook in the background. Calling Cox (my internet provider) won't do anything -- they'll just tell me "oh, it's because you need to buy our new modem since we upgraded the lines last year!" No, that's bullshit, because my modem works perfectly fine, quickly and reliably, about 90% of the time with no issues -- it's just whenever I want to use it for a high-bandwidth application that they drop my connection. And that's total bullshit, especially as I pay $63 per month for unlimited, second-to-the-highest-tier speed and access. And I don't even use it for constant high-bandwidth applications such as Netflix or Xbox Live or anything like that -- I get podcasts, I play Facebook games, I Skype, and I blog and check my emails. Really, that's it. I do nothing else with it.
My allergies have been really bad as of late -- in the mornings when I wake up now, my eye (the one I stabbed with a pineapple) is incredibly irritated for about the first half hour I'm awake, getting all itchy/watery/painful until I wake up fully and it gets used to being open and being used. The eye itself healed fully months ago, at least to the best of my knowledge, but my allergies seriously irritate it to the point where I can't see out of it that well, my vision blurs for a few hours, and it just waters and itches like crazy when I first get up. It's possible there's a little scarring or something there that still needs to heal up that exacerbates it, but it's becoming a real pain in the ass when all I want to do is wake up and go about my day without it bothering me, as I have for the past six months now.
Tomorrow is my oldest half-sister's birthday; she'll be 23. Monday was my middle half-sister's birthday, and she turned 21. For both of them, it's their first birthday after the death of our other sister last fall, and I'm sure it weighs heavily on them. I've really not had any contact with them since then, or really anyone else on that side of the family save for an aunt or cousin or two. As you may recall, I reached out to them and told them I was here to talk to and wanted to talk to them about anything and everything if they wanted to, but never got any response from them. I want to be there for them, obviously, but I don't want to butt into their lives or bother them, so I've since left them alone. It's not my place, and I've been so far removed from that side of the family since both of my surviving sisters were toddlers that I don't expect them to consider me a priority. I'd love to invite them to my wedding, but they wouldn't know anyone and it would be incredibly awkward even if they did come, so I've basically remained silent on everything. I can't and won't do anything else that may possibly make things awkward or weird.
Overall, however, this week I'm in a happy place. Well, happy enough, anyway. So far, it's been a pretty good week. I feel mostly at peace with myself and my surroundings for once. This afternoon, I will receive seasons 3 and 4 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in the mail, tonight and tomorrow morning I shall teach my remaining classes for the week, and this weekend I'll be grading and (hopefully) doing my taxes/paying my bills. I'm in a good place right now. I have enough money to live on, I have food in the fridge, the snow/ice is melting, and I feel calm and centered. Why do I feel calm and centered? I don't know, exactly, but it's a good feeling.
Yesterday was an interesting, albeit busy, day. I taught my morning class, then went to main campus (where I had to reschedule my HR appointment due to the tornado drill in the afternoon), dealt with the tornado drill by cramming myself into one of the downstairs lecture halls with a few friends from the department, and then went to the HR benefits meeting.
The HR benefits meeting was, basically, a sit-down, half an hour long slideshow presentation with the guy in charge of explaining to me insurance and insurance plans the university offered (three different ones, with a choice of three different providers per plan, all with different rate scales/pricing/etc). It was interesting, but mostly boring -- what it boiled down to is that I can get health/life insurance coverage for about $30 taken out of each of my paychecks, since I make so little. I have to let him know via email which one I want over the course of the next few days, and then he'll send me the paperwork, I'll e-sign it, and it'll start.
As for the summer coverage and coming back for the fall? I explained my situation to him, and of course, he understood that -- especially as an adjunct -- I don't ever know if I'm going to be able to teach the next semester or not, as it is up to open sections and availability, but I especially don't know what's going on as I still have to wait on the good word from the director on my status for this summer and fall (and if that will change or improve based on the budgets). Betting on the side of caution, it's more likely that this will be my last semester teaching at the university here than it's likely that I'll be asked to stay on in a different, higher capacity, so once I pick my plan I'm going to tell them not to bother messing with the summer coverage, as it would cost me double over the next two months and I'd probably not end up using it anyhow -- apparently my term ends on May 11, according to the insurance guy. Hey, whatever can be done can be done, and what can't, can't.
After the HR meeting I stopped at the bookstore and bought a t-shirt supporting the men's basketball team, and returned to my office, where I then graded all of my 102 students' first papers for hours on end until I was finished. That left me with about a half hour or so before I went to teach my night 011 class, so I basically vegetated and just...lounged about during that time. I needed it. I'd been proverbially running all day long at that point, and had been incredibly busy from the moment I'd left the house, with various tasks to do and manage.
Once I got to my night class, it was fairly short -- we covered a reading out of the book, and I collected their journals. The rest of the class was in-class conferences for their papers that will be due next week. Of my nineteen students, only twelve showed up. Of those twelve, only about six of them had drafts for me/their peers to look over, and the rest just left when we began conferences.
As an aside, I don't require my 011 students to conference with me on their drafts -- that's up to them. They don't lose points or anything if they don't, mainly because the conference day is set up to help them if they need it. Usually those who conference with me do better on their papers, and I enact what I call the "early turn-in rule" -- which means that if they do conference with me, and if I look their paper over and it's a passing paper as-is, I'll tell them what I'd give it then and there, and they have the opportunity to either have me record that score then or take it home to improve it between then and the due date. This benefits not only me (as it's fewer papers for me to grade overall) but benefits the students who actually understand the assignment and can write well already. There are several of those in any 011 class I teach, usually. Obviously, if the weaker writers don't do drafts and don't bring in papers for me to look over -- and just leave when the conferences begin, as is their right to do if they so choose -- that's on them. Everybody gets the same opportunities to conference with me in class. If they don't use those opportunities, oh well. I've laid out the rules and regulations of everything very clearly, so it's not my fault if they don't follow them and don't pay attention to them.
I actually had a discussion about that yesterday with the Director's wife, who runs the remedial and ESL programs at the university. I have at least a few students who failed the class automatically last night by not showing up for the fourth time -- the English department's attendance policy is quite clear in that anyone who misses more than 20% of class days will automatically fail a class. For a class that's one night a week, they can miss up to and including three days, but if they miss four they automatically fail (as four days is not only a month worth of missed classes, but it's 25% of the semester). One of the students who had missed three days showed up last night, late, didn't say a word, and left when the conferences started. Wow, that's helpful, buddy. I can't really help this fact; I also can't go to these students' dorm rooms and drag them to class or force them to do the work for the class. Again, I go back to my old adage of welcome to college, where you actually have to show up and do the work to pass a course.
Anyway. So that class was really short last night -- I'm guessing maybe forty minutes, as I only had a third of them who'd actually done what I'd asked them to. I did get several rewrites, and I have a stack of journals to grade through (again, only about half the class, roughly, turned in journals), so at least half the class gets it and is doing what I ask them to. After the class was over, I took the shuttle bus back to the parking lot where my car was, and drove home without incident -- where I ate a dinner of Boca burgers and steamed broccoli, Skyped with Daisy for a while, and went to bed well before midnight. I got up around 9:30 this morning.
Today I have to do a few student-related tasks before my class this evening, but nothing major. The Weather Channel says we're supposed to get rain/snow showers this afternoon and evening, but so far it's just mostly cloudy and it isn't doing anything. There's some snow showers up to the northwest of me, but whether they'll persist long enough to have it do anything here remains to be seen. It's 34 degrees outside here, and was almost 40 yesterday, so most of the stuff on the roads did and has melted off -- yesterday morning's drive was a hairy one to get out of my neighborhood, but after that, all roads I drove on were completely clear and dry. Upon my return home last night, the neighborhood streets (except for the ones right around my house) were mostly clear, even. That's a good thing, yes. However, if it does rain/snow mix tonight for my drive to and from West campus for my 210 class, it'll be interesting and possibly nerve-wracking depending on how nasty it gets and how quickly that nastiness piles up. Those students turn in their PSA assignments tonight and I get them started on their Resumes/Cover Letters.
I did have to get gas yesterday morning in the cold, and as expected, it was $3.45 a gallon. That's higher than it's been here in a long time, which really sucks. Because of my travel cycles, I almost always have to get gas on Tuesday mornings now. I generally put about 180 miles on the car every week, and I always fill up between 200 and 215 on my trip meter (I don't like to push it, even though I know I could get 350-400 miles on a full tank of gas in that behemoth I drive around). I could, if I wished, stop to get it on Thursday afternoon (as I return home from teaching) instead, or go out to get it over the weekend, but generally those are the busy times for the gas station and I'm lucky if I can get a spot in one of the terminals without driving around the station five times waiting for someone to pull out. Thursday afternoons, if I need to, are also now the times where I'll generally stop at Walmart on the way home to get groceries for the week, and after I do that I usually just want to come back home and be done with interacting with society for my days off. I'll probably stop there tomorrow on my way home as well, just so that I don't have to go back out this weekend for anything.
So yes, that was my day yesterday, and today I'll be taking care of the above aforementioned things as well -- I also have to get a shower, shave, and clean the cat box at some point this afternoon. Nothing else is really going on, so I expect the rest of my week to be calm, quiet, and centered.
Knock on wood, anyway.
Hey folks, guess what day it is?
That's right, it's...
Wait, you mean...this isn't the meaning of today? Shit. Oh well. I'm an atheist anyway.
Ahem.
My internet at home has been really buggy as of late again, what with the dropped connection issue and the like that seems to pop up every two or three months and stick around for a while. It seems, however, that recently it's been worse. Now, almost anytime I try to do something bandwidth-intensive (such as play a game on Facebook, download my podcasts for the day, or even Skype with Daisy) it will almost always drop my connection at least once, if not multiple times. It's dropped it three times already while I've been working on this post, and I'm not even really doing anything but running a game on Facebook in the background. Calling Cox (my internet provider) won't do anything -- they'll just tell me "oh, it's because you need to buy our new modem since we upgraded the lines last year!" No, that's bullshit, because my modem works perfectly fine, quickly and reliably, about 90% of the time with no issues -- it's just whenever I want to use it for a high-bandwidth application that they drop my connection. And that's total bullshit, especially as I pay $63 per month for unlimited, second-to-the-highest-tier speed and access. And I don't even use it for constant high-bandwidth applications such as Netflix or Xbox Live or anything like that -- I get podcasts, I play Facebook games, I Skype, and I blog and check my emails. Really, that's it. I do nothing else with it.
My allergies have been really bad as of late -- in the mornings when I wake up now, my eye (the one I stabbed with a pineapple) is incredibly irritated for about the first half hour I'm awake, getting all itchy/watery/painful until I wake up fully and it gets used to being open and being used. The eye itself healed fully months ago, at least to the best of my knowledge, but my allergies seriously irritate it to the point where I can't see out of it that well, my vision blurs for a few hours, and it just waters and itches like crazy when I first get up. It's possible there's a little scarring or something there that still needs to heal up that exacerbates it, but it's becoming a real pain in the ass when all I want to do is wake up and go about my day without it bothering me, as I have for the past six months now.
Tomorrow is my oldest half-sister's birthday; she'll be 23. Monday was my middle half-sister's birthday, and she turned 21. For both of them, it's their first birthday after the death of our other sister last fall, and I'm sure it weighs heavily on them. I've really not had any contact with them since then, or really anyone else on that side of the family save for an aunt or cousin or two. As you may recall, I reached out to them and told them I was here to talk to and wanted to talk to them about anything and everything if they wanted to, but never got any response from them. I want to be there for them, obviously, but I don't want to butt into their lives or bother them, so I've since left them alone. It's not my place, and I've been so far removed from that side of the family since both of my surviving sisters were toddlers that I don't expect them to consider me a priority. I'd love to invite them to my wedding, but they wouldn't know anyone and it would be incredibly awkward even if they did come, so I've basically remained silent on everything. I can't and won't do anything else that may possibly make things awkward or weird.
Overall, however, this week I'm in a happy place. Well, happy enough, anyway. So far, it's been a pretty good week. I feel mostly at peace with myself and my surroundings for once. This afternoon, I will receive seasons 3 and 4 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in the mail, tonight and tomorrow morning I shall teach my remaining classes for the week, and this weekend I'll be grading and (hopefully) doing my taxes/paying my bills. I'm in a good place right now. I have enough money to live on, I have food in the fridge, the snow/ice is melting, and I feel calm and centered. Why do I feel calm and centered? I don't know, exactly, but it's a good feeling.
Yesterday was an interesting, albeit busy, day. I taught my morning class, then went to main campus (where I had to reschedule my HR appointment due to the tornado drill in the afternoon), dealt with the tornado drill by cramming myself into one of the downstairs lecture halls with a few friends from the department, and then went to the HR benefits meeting.
The HR benefits meeting was, basically, a sit-down, half an hour long slideshow presentation with the guy in charge of explaining to me insurance and insurance plans the university offered (three different ones, with a choice of three different providers per plan, all with different rate scales/pricing/etc). It was interesting, but mostly boring -- what it boiled down to is that I can get health/life insurance coverage for about $30 taken out of each of my paychecks, since I make so little. I have to let him know via email which one I want over the course of the next few days, and then he'll send me the paperwork, I'll e-sign it, and it'll start.
As for the summer coverage and coming back for the fall? I explained my situation to him, and of course, he understood that -- especially as an adjunct -- I don't ever know if I'm going to be able to teach the next semester or not, as it is up to open sections and availability, but I especially don't know what's going on as I still have to wait on the good word from the director on my status for this summer and fall (and if that will change or improve based on the budgets). Betting on the side of caution, it's more likely that this will be my last semester teaching at the university here than it's likely that I'll be asked to stay on in a different, higher capacity, so once I pick my plan I'm going to tell them not to bother messing with the summer coverage, as it would cost me double over the next two months and I'd probably not end up using it anyhow -- apparently my term ends on May 11, according to the insurance guy. Hey, whatever can be done can be done, and what can't, can't.
After the HR meeting I stopped at the bookstore and bought a t-shirt supporting the men's basketball team, and returned to my office, where I then graded all of my 102 students' first papers for hours on end until I was finished. That left me with about a half hour or so before I went to teach my night 011 class, so I basically vegetated and just...lounged about during that time. I needed it. I'd been proverbially running all day long at that point, and had been incredibly busy from the moment I'd left the house, with various tasks to do and manage.
Once I got to my night class, it was fairly short -- we covered a reading out of the book, and I collected their journals. The rest of the class was in-class conferences for their papers that will be due next week. Of my nineteen students, only twelve showed up. Of those twelve, only about six of them had drafts for me/their peers to look over, and the rest just left when we began conferences.
As an aside, I don't require my 011 students to conference with me on their drafts -- that's up to them. They don't lose points or anything if they don't, mainly because the conference day is set up to help them if they need it. Usually those who conference with me do better on their papers, and I enact what I call the "early turn-in rule" -- which means that if they do conference with me, and if I look their paper over and it's a passing paper as-is, I'll tell them what I'd give it then and there, and they have the opportunity to either have me record that score then or take it home to improve it between then and the due date. This benefits not only me (as it's fewer papers for me to grade overall) but benefits the students who actually understand the assignment and can write well already. There are several of those in any 011 class I teach, usually. Obviously, if the weaker writers don't do drafts and don't bring in papers for me to look over -- and just leave when the conferences begin, as is their right to do if they so choose -- that's on them. Everybody gets the same opportunities to conference with me in class. If they don't use those opportunities, oh well. I've laid out the rules and regulations of everything very clearly, so it's not my fault if they don't follow them and don't pay attention to them.
I actually had a discussion about that yesterday with the Director's wife, who runs the remedial and ESL programs at the university. I have at least a few students who failed the class automatically last night by not showing up for the fourth time -- the English department's attendance policy is quite clear in that anyone who misses more than 20% of class days will automatically fail a class. For a class that's one night a week, they can miss up to and including three days, but if they miss four they automatically fail (as four days is not only a month worth of missed classes, but it's 25% of the semester). One of the students who had missed three days showed up last night, late, didn't say a word, and left when the conferences started. Wow, that's helpful, buddy. I can't really help this fact; I also can't go to these students' dorm rooms and drag them to class or force them to do the work for the class. Again, I go back to my old adage of welcome to college, where you actually have to show up and do the work to pass a course.
Anyway. So that class was really short last night -- I'm guessing maybe forty minutes, as I only had a third of them who'd actually done what I'd asked them to. I did get several rewrites, and I have a stack of journals to grade through (again, only about half the class, roughly, turned in journals), so at least half the class gets it and is doing what I ask them to. After the class was over, I took the shuttle bus back to the parking lot where my car was, and drove home without incident -- where I ate a dinner of Boca burgers and steamed broccoli, Skyped with Daisy for a while, and went to bed well before midnight. I got up around 9:30 this morning.
Today I have to do a few student-related tasks before my class this evening, but nothing major. The Weather Channel says we're supposed to get rain/snow showers this afternoon and evening, but so far it's just mostly cloudy and it isn't doing anything. There's some snow showers up to the northwest of me, but whether they'll persist long enough to have it do anything here remains to be seen. It's 34 degrees outside here, and was almost 40 yesterday, so most of the stuff on the roads did and has melted off -- yesterday morning's drive was a hairy one to get out of my neighborhood, but after that, all roads I drove on were completely clear and dry. Upon my return home last night, the neighborhood streets (except for the ones right around my house) were mostly clear, even. That's a good thing, yes. However, if it does rain/snow mix tonight for my drive to and from West campus for my 210 class, it'll be interesting and possibly nerve-wracking depending on how nasty it gets and how quickly that nastiness piles up. Those students turn in their PSA assignments tonight and I get them started on their Resumes/Cover Letters.
I did have to get gas yesterday morning in the cold, and as expected, it was $3.45 a gallon. That's higher than it's been here in a long time, which really sucks. Because of my travel cycles, I almost always have to get gas on Tuesday mornings now. I generally put about 180 miles on the car every week, and I always fill up between 200 and 215 on my trip meter (I don't like to push it, even though I know I could get 350-400 miles on a full tank of gas in that behemoth I drive around). I could, if I wished, stop to get it on Thursday afternoon (as I return home from teaching) instead, or go out to get it over the weekend, but generally those are the busy times for the gas station and I'm lucky if I can get a spot in one of the terminals without driving around the station five times waiting for someone to pull out. Thursday afternoons, if I need to, are also now the times where I'll generally stop at Walmart on the way home to get groceries for the week, and after I do that I usually just want to come back home and be done with interacting with society for my days off. I'll probably stop there tomorrow on my way home as well, just so that I don't have to go back out this weekend for anything.
So yes, that was my day yesterday, and today I'll be taking care of the above aforementioned things as well -- I also have to get a shower, shave, and clean the cat box at some point this afternoon. Nothing else is really going on, so I expect the rest of my week to be calm, quiet, and centered.
Knock on wood, anyway.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Nine Degrees of Separation
Spring semester: day thirty-one
It's nine degrees outside, hence the title of this post. It apparently feels like -2, and is only supposed to get up to the high 30s today for my long Tuesday on campus.
I will again remind you that my Spring Break starts in nine days, at around 11AM on the 13th.
Despite having all sorts of free time this weekend, I didn't do a whole lot. Thursday I went to bed after coming home and eating lunch, Friday and Saturday I spent poring over/obsessing over the snowstorm forecasts, and Sunday and yesterday were really just spent sleeping, doing household chores/making lesson plans, and sleeping some more. I went to bed last night at a little after 7 with the help of a sleeping pill, woke up from a nightmare about a tornado at around 11:30, and then slept again until around 4, where I was dozing off and on until the alarm went off at 5.
It's now 5:49, and I'm wide awake and ready to take on the day. I do have a longer day than usual today, filled with errands and extra things to do that I wouldn't normally have to take care of on a Tuesday -- I have my meeting with the benefits people at 1PM, and there's also a campus-wide tornado drill at the same time. I emailed the benefits guy and asked him if I should show up before that or wait until it's finished. They do a campus-wide tornado drill every year, usually around this time of year. When it happens, you're forced to sit in one of the tornado shelters on campus for roughly half an hour until the all clear is issued. It's a pain in the ass for people who have stuff to do during that time (such as those of us who would be in the middle of one of our classes, or something like that), but of course it is understandable why they do it. I mean, this is Kansas, after all, and it is rapidly nearing spring (despite what the temperatures and snowstorms here would tell you). I expect to see at least one or more tornado watches/warnings before the month is out. Knowing my luck, that shit will happen when I'm in Omaha over my Spring Break.
Aside from those other errands, I've got grading to do this afternoon, and review (as per my lesson plans) for my 011 class tonight. That class shouldn't take that long; tonight is an in-class conference night, I'm collecting journals, and we're going to briefly discuss a three-page reading I assigned them last week. That's it, really. After I slept well last night (for the first time in a while, actually) I don't expect to be tired throughout the day today, but I know I probably will be once I return home this evening...whenever that time may be.
I have gotten all eight badges in Pokemon X and am now making my way up Victory Road to the Pokemon League. It's been a fun and interesting game thus far. I might take the 2DS with me in case I get everything finished early this afternoon before I have to go teach.
According to the news, gas prices went up to $3.45 last night in Wichita -- that's the highest I've seen them in many months. I don't know whether I'll need to get gas this morning or not; I'll have to check once I get in the car and take it out of the garage this morning -- I go by mileage, not by the gauge (as the gauge isn't exactly reliable a lot of the time in my car), and I can't remember where I'm at on that. On the plus side, I can actually afford gas again without worrying whether or not it's going to break me.
Of course, even though it's supposed to be warm this afternoon, I will be wearing layers this morning upon leaving the house. I originally wanted to get up and shower, but I showered yesterday, so I don't really need it and don't really have time for it anyhow before I leave this morning. I'll shower tonight (if I have the energy) or tomorrow before I go to teach my evening 210 class -- which should also be really short and easy. In my 210 class I'm collecting their PSA assignment and giving them their next one, the Resume/Cover Letter. That's it. That one doesn't even have any corresponding passages in the book(s) for the class, as it was created solely by someone who taught the class years ago as a filler assignment that they'd find useful, as I mentioned before.
Also, apparently today is Fat Tuesday. From what I hear, anyway. Hm. Interesting. Okay.
Tomorrow, as if we were being served leftovers of the weekend storm, we're supposed to have a "wintry mix" most of the day. I don't really know if that's going to affect my drive down to West campus tomorrow night or not, especially if they're treating/have already treated all of the roads. I had several more students email me last night to tell me that the roads all around both campuses are fine and are clear, but the neighborhoods and side streets are not (which I expected, of course), so at least my drive to/from both campuses today should be okay once I get out of my own neighborhood.
So that's my day ahead of me, really. I'm glad I'm not tired, and I'm glad I'm not overly stressed (for the moment). I keep reminding myself that I've only got another week of this or so before I get almost two full weeks off to relax, spend time with Daisy, and sleep when I need to/can. I also keep reminding myself that it will get warmer soon, and I will be able to break out the shorts and flip-flops to teach in within the next two or three weeks, but when it's nine degrees outside right now and there's a wintry mix expected tomorrow, that seems so, so far away, so distant that it's a fantasy.
It's nine degrees outside, hence the title of this post. It apparently feels like -2, and is only supposed to get up to the high 30s today for my long Tuesday on campus.
I will again remind you that my Spring Break starts in nine days, at around 11AM on the 13th.
Despite having all sorts of free time this weekend, I didn't do a whole lot. Thursday I went to bed after coming home and eating lunch, Friday and Saturday I spent poring over/obsessing over the snowstorm forecasts, and Sunday and yesterday were really just spent sleeping, doing household chores/making lesson plans, and sleeping some more. I went to bed last night at a little after 7 with the help of a sleeping pill, woke up from a nightmare about a tornado at around 11:30, and then slept again until around 4, where I was dozing off and on until the alarm went off at 5.
It's now 5:49, and I'm wide awake and ready to take on the day. I do have a longer day than usual today, filled with errands and extra things to do that I wouldn't normally have to take care of on a Tuesday -- I have my meeting with the benefits people at 1PM, and there's also a campus-wide tornado drill at the same time. I emailed the benefits guy and asked him if I should show up before that or wait until it's finished. They do a campus-wide tornado drill every year, usually around this time of year. When it happens, you're forced to sit in one of the tornado shelters on campus for roughly half an hour until the all clear is issued. It's a pain in the ass for people who have stuff to do during that time (such as those of us who would be in the middle of one of our classes, or something like that), but of course it is understandable why they do it. I mean, this is Kansas, after all, and it is rapidly nearing spring (despite what the temperatures and snowstorms here would tell you). I expect to see at least one or more tornado watches/warnings before the month is out. Knowing my luck, that shit will happen when I'm in Omaha over my Spring Break.
Aside from those other errands, I've got grading to do this afternoon, and review (as per my lesson plans) for my 011 class tonight. That class shouldn't take that long; tonight is an in-class conference night, I'm collecting journals, and we're going to briefly discuss a three-page reading I assigned them last week. That's it, really. After I slept well last night (for the first time in a while, actually) I don't expect to be tired throughout the day today, but I know I probably will be once I return home this evening...whenever that time may be.
I have gotten all eight badges in Pokemon X and am now making my way up Victory Road to the Pokemon League. It's been a fun and interesting game thus far. I might take the 2DS with me in case I get everything finished early this afternoon before I have to go teach.
According to the news, gas prices went up to $3.45 last night in Wichita -- that's the highest I've seen them in many months. I don't know whether I'll need to get gas this morning or not; I'll have to check once I get in the car and take it out of the garage this morning -- I go by mileage, not by the gauge (as the gauge isn't exactly reliable a lot of the time in my car), and I can't remember where I'm at on that. On the plus side, I can actually afford gas again without worrying whether or not it's going to break me.
Of course, even though it's supposed to be warm this afternoon, I will be wearing layers this morning upon leaving the house. I originally wanted to get up and shower, but I showered yesterday, so I don't really need it and don't really have time for it anyhow before I leave this morning. I'll shower tonight (if I have the energy) or tomorrow before I go to teach my evening 210 class -- which should also be really short and easy. In my 210 class I'm collecting their PSA assignment and giving them their next one, the Resume/Cover Letter. That's it. That one doesn't even have any corresponding passages in the book(s) for the class, as it was created solely by someone who taught the class years ago as a filler assignment that they'd find useful, as I mentioned before.
Also, apparently today is Fat Tuesday. From what I hear, anyway. Hm. Interesting. Okay.
Tomorrow, as if we were being served leftovers of the weekend storm, we're supposed to have a "wintry mix" most of the day. I don't really know if that's going to affect my drive down to West campus tomorrow night or not, especially if they're treating/have already treated all of the roads. I had several more students email me last night to tell me that the roads all around both campuses are fine and are clear, but the neighborhoods and side streets are not (which I expected, of course), so at least my drive to/from both campuses today should be okay once I get out of my own neighborhood.
So that's my day ahead of me, really. I'm glad I'm not tired, and I'm glad I'm not overly stressed (for the moment). I keep reminding myself that I've only got another week of this or so before I get almost two full weeks off to relax, spend time with Daisy, and sleep when I need to/can. I also keep reminding myself that it will get warmer soon, and I will be able to break out the shorts and flip-flops to teach in within the next two or three weeks, but when it's nine degrees outside right now and there's a wintry mix expected tomorrow, that seems so, so far away, so distant that it's a fantasy.
Monday, March 3, 2014
The Grind
Spring semester: day thirty
Apparently the "official" snow totals are out for the area, now that the storm has rolled through and has finished. Wichita got 3.1 inches officially, which I find hard to believe as it snowed down there a lot longer than it snowed up here today/tonight, and Newton officially has 5. Which is less than I have in my driveway/yard, so something's screwy there. It's melting off a bit now in the sun, and the melting trend should continue for the rest of the week as it's only going to get warmer -- but it was still -1 this morning when I went to bed.
The university did not close. I was surprised by this, of course, since everywhere else shut down for the day. The temperature, even now, is fighting to be up into the teens for the day, and that's probably just due to the sun alone.
I sent an email out to my students last night telling them that if they did have to go out today, whether the university was open or not, if they shot me an email telling me what the road conditions were around the area (and if those road conditions were actually accurate, not them making it up to see if I'd cancel class) I'd give them five bonus points towards the grade of their papers that will be due tomorrow. It would be nice to get some sort of information on the roads instead of me just venturing out into the tundra with no warning and no clue what they're like tomorrow morning. My furnace is fighting to keep the temperature in the house even in the fifties, let alone anything warmer. It's probably in the low 50s downstairs, and that's with the furnace constantly running. It's either that or completely freeze in here.
It has been this cold, or worse, here in Kansas once or twice before since I've been living here; in my first two semesters at the university there were days where the high temperature was around 1 or 2, though those days weren't accompanied by a snowstorm the day/night before, and weren't accompanied by every school district in most of the state closing down for the day. And those days weren't in March, they were in December and January. Go on, tell me more about how climate change isn't happening. I'm all ears.
My sleep schedule is out of whack again; I won't really be able to right it until I go to bed Tuesday night after I get home, and only partially then. I've been sleeping at odd intervals for strange numbers of hours ever since I got home from classes on Thursday, and can never seem to get enough rest. I'll sleep for six or seven hours, be awake for eight or ten more, and then go back to sleep for another eight or nine. Repeat, on a cycle, for four and a half days. Never do I feel as if I am fully rested, and usually only wake up because I have to pee. True story.
This morning before I went to sleep, I watched my neighbor in the house next door to mine get stuck in the driveway at least four times trying to get out. He did, eventually, get out -- but that's how nasty the streets are here...in a nutshell, anyway. The guy with the tractor has since plowed out the sides of the streets for the mailman to be able to get in and out, but I doubt he'll plow out the driveways. I don't necessarily think I'll have any problem getting the car out in the morning. One of my students did respond to my request for road conditions, and told me that as of early this afternoon, highways are clear and dry, most main streets are cleared off, and the ones that remain slushy are "melting fast." That's a plus, at least. I know my neighborhood is going to be a nightmare to get out of in the morning, but at least I don't have to worry about possibly dying when I go to/from my classes tomorrow. No more than usual, I mean.
I have a 1PM appointment tomorrow with the benefits people in HR to talk about the insurance stuff. I really don't know what I'm going to tell them, honestly.
Hey, I work here now, yes, but I'm not paid enough for you people to take huge chunks out of my checks every month and still be able to pay my bills...and I don't know if I'm going to return in the fall yet or not, because that depends on budgeting information and funds that are completely out of my control, and information I won't have until later this month at least, so...
Et cetera. I'm sure you get the idea. Whether they will or not remains to be seen.
I have to focus, obviously, on the stuff at hand in front of me. Titan was, for most purposes, a dud of a storm here -- lots of hype and not a lot of payoff. The same isn't true back home in West Virginia, but here, I was expecting more with all of the forecasts and fear-mongering they were doling out, and was sort of expecting the university to be closed today and possibly tomorrow as well. Since none of that happened, it's just back to normal, back to the grind tomorrow, whether I like it or not.
No, I didn't do my taxes this weekend. This is, of course, a failure on my part. I cannot summon the willpower to sit down and work on them, and my anxiety about doing them is as bad as it ever was, even though I know it's not particularly difficult work to do. It's all mental -- it's something that I don't want to do but am forced to do, and something that I don't trust anyone else to do, so I'm even more forced into it. I don't like being forced into things. This also means I've basically screwed myself on time constraints for the rest of the week -- if I want to do them this week it means I'll have to do a lot of my grading and lesson planning in off-hours and strange days/times where I wouldn't normally be doing them. That also means that tomorrow is going to be even longer than usual, as I not only collect my 102 students' papers in the morning, but I have my HR appointment in the afternoon. I'll teach that morning class, collect those papers, go to main campus, go to said appointment, and then go back up to my office to grade those papers the rest of the day. I won't have a lot of free time to do much else. Then I'll teach my night class, collect their journals and rewrites (giving me even more to grade), come home, and exhaustedly pass out.
Shit, I'm tired even thinking about that, and it's not even four in the afternoon.
This morning I ordered the next two seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia so that I'll have something to watch when I have meals here at home, alone with the cats. It was the highlight of my day. In the next hour or so, I need to make something to eat, ready my stuff for tomorrow, and see if Daisy is awake yet before going back to bed in order to sleep enough to slog through my day tomorrow. Ugh.
Apparently the "official" snow totals are out for the area, now that the storm has rolled through and has finished. Wichita got 3.1 inches officially, which I find hard to believe as it snowed down there a lot longer than it snowed up here today/tonight, and Newton officially has 5. Which is less than I have in my driveway/yard, so something's screwy there. It's melting off a bit now in the sun, and the melting trend should continue for the rest of the week as it's only going to get warmer -- but it was still -1 this morning when I went to bed.
The university did not close. I was surprised by this, of course, since everywhere else shut down for the day. The temperature, even now, is fighting to be up into the teens for the day, and that's probably just due to the sun alone.
I sent an email out to my students last night telling them that if they did have to go out today, whether the university was open or not, if they shot me an email telling me what the road conditions were around the area (and if those road conditions were actually accurate, not them making it up to see if I'd cancel class) I'd give them five bonus points towards the grade of their papers that will be due tomorrow. It would be nice to get some sort of information on the roads instead of me just venturing out into the tundra with no warning and no clue what they're like tomorrow morning. My furnace is fighting to keep the temperature in the house even in the fifties, let alone anything warmer. It's probably in the low 50s downstairs, and that's with the furnace constantly running. It's either that or completely freeze in here.
It has been this cold, or worse, here in Kansas once or twice before since I've been living here; in my first two semesters at the university there were days where the high temperature was around 1 or 2, though those days weren't accompanied by a snowstorm the day/night before, and weren't accompanied by every school district in most of the state closing down for the day. And those days weren't in March, they were in December and January. Go on, tell me more about how climate change isn't happening. I'm all ears.
My sleep schedule is out of whack again; I won't really be able to right it until I go to bed Tuesday night after I get home, and only partially then. I've been sleeping at odd intervals for strange numbers of hours ever since I got home from classes on Thursday, and can never seem to get enough rest. I'll sleep for six or seven hours, be awake for eight or ten more, and then go back to sleep for another eight or nine. Repeat, on a cycle, for four and a half days. Never do I feel as if I am fully rested, and usually only wake up because I have to pee. True story.
This morning before I went to sleep, I watched my neighbor in the house next door to mine get stuck in the driveway at least four times trying to get out. He did, eventually, get out -- but that's how nasty the streets are here...in a nutshell, anyway. The guy with the tractor has since plowed out the sides of the streets for the mailman to be able to get in and out, but I doubt he'll plow out the driveways. I don't necessarily think I'll have any problem getting the car out in the morning. One of my students did respond to my request for road conditions, and told me that as of early this afternoon, highways are clear and dry, most main streets are cleared off, and the ones that remain slushy are "melting fast." That's a plus, at least. I know my neighborhood is going to be a nightmare to get out of in the morning, but at least I don't have to worry about possibly dying when I go to/from my classes tomorrow. No more than usual, I mean.
I have a 1PM appointment tomorrow with the benefits people in HR to talk about the insurance stuff. I really don't know what I'm going to tell them, honestly.
Hey, I work here now, yes, but I'm not paid enough for you people to take huge chunks out of my checks every month and still be able to pay my bills...and I don't know if I'm going to return in the fall yet or not, because that depends on budgeting information and funds that are completely out of my control, and information I won't have until later this month at least, so...
Et cetera. I'm sure you get the idea. Whether they will or not remains to be seen.
I have to focus, obviously, on the stuff at hand in front of me. Titan was, for most purposes, a dud of a storm here -- lots of hype and not a lot of payoff. The same isn't true back home in West Virginia, but here, I was expecting more with all of the forecasts and fear-mongering they were doling out, and was sort of expecting the university to be closed today and possibly tomorrow as well. Since none of that happened, it's just back to normal, back to the grind tomorrow, whether I like it or not.
No, I didn't do my taxes this weekend. This is, of course, a failure on my part. I cannot summon the willpower to sit down and work on them, and my anxiety about doing them is as bad as it ever was, even though I know it's not particularly difficult work to do. It's all mental -- it's something that I don't want to do but am forced to do, and something that I don't trust anyone else to do, so I'm even more forced into it. I don't like being forced into things. This also means I've basically screwed myself on time constraints for the rest of the week -- if I want to do them this week it means I'll have to do a lot of my grading and lesson planning in off-hours and strange days/times where I wouldn't normally be doing them. That also means that tomorrow is going to be even longer than usual, as I not only collect my 102 students' papers in the morning, but I have my HR appointment in the afternoon. I'll teach that morning class, collect those papers, go to main campus, go to said appointment, and then go back up to my office to grade those papers the rest of the day. I won't have a lot of free time to do much else. Then I'll teach my night class, collect their journals and rewrites (giving me even more to grade), come home, and exhaustedly pass out.
Shit, I'm tired even thinking about that, and it's not even four in the afternoon.
This morning I ordered the next two seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia so that I'll have something to watch when I have meals here at home, alone with the cats. It was the highlight of my day. In the next hour or so, I need to make something to eat, ready my stuff for tomorrow, and see if Daisy is awake yet before going back to bed in order to sleep enough to slog through my day tomorrow. Ugh.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Wrath of the Titan, Part V: Cold
It's Sunday at 11:43 AM, and it's snowing like hell.
I got up about an hour or so ago. I don't know how much is out there right now, but it's not a ton of snow everywhere yet -- maybe three or four inches at the most. If that's all we get, even if the roads aren't completely treated that well, the Monte Carlo would have no trouble getting me back and forth on Tuesday. The Weather Channel, for Newton, says we got 2.4 inches last night, and another 3-5 are still expected today and tonight until this storm finally moves off to the east...where it will hit my family and friends back home in West Virginia much harder than it hit here, apparently. I stopped paying attention to most of the forecast stuff last night before I went to bed, as it really didn't matter once the snow was actually coming down pretty good. The Winter Storm Warning is in effect for another six hours or so, so I'm guessing it's not all done yet and may actually get worse between now and tonight. It's sort of taken its time getting here anyhow.
In doing my lesson planning yesterday and posting my weekly Blackboard announcements to my students, I encouraged them to be watchful and mindful of the weather, as it was just then starting to snow and the forecasters were starting to freak out about it. I told them to keep an eye on the closings lists and on their university email accounts -- as of right now, it's still a toss-up as to whether the university will close down tomorrow. I don't teach tomorrow, of course, but many of my students have class on Mondays, so I told them to pay attention. Of course, I don't know if it's any better or worse in Wichita proper, but I do know that it's 7 degrees there right now, and with the wind chill that feels like -11. I also know that the actual temperature tonight is supposed to drop to -7 or so, making it the coldest March morning on record tomorrow morning. Salt and most other ice-melting stuff stops working after the temperature gets below 10-15 or so.
I also told my students that unless the university is closed on Tuesday, or unless we got a lot more snow than originally forecasted, my own classes this week would be held as scheduled unless they heard something from me. My first class is 9:15 on Tuesday morning, and while that gives the road crews plenty of time to clear stuff off and get the streets clear, if the worst isn't over yet, then I'll have to make a decision sometime tomorrow on whether I'll hold my Tuesday classes. Even if the university shuts down tomorrow, I'm pretty sure they won't shut down on Tuesday as well. It took a lot more snow than we currently have to shut down for two days last month, with similar (read: only slightly warmer) temperatures. Then again, Wichita apparently got a lot more sleet and ice, and then the snow on top of that, so who knows. Again, I haven't had the TV on and I've only been following forecast data and the like online. If I had to make an educated guess about tomorrow? I'm guessing the university probably will close and then reopen on Tuesday, based on the snow and the low temperatures alone. But, of course, who knows.
In other news, I mentioned last week that I received an email from the payroll & operations lady telling me that I qualified for benefits (health/life insurance) and that I needed to let her know what I was planning to do, if I was planning to stay there and teach again in the fall or not, because that would affect what she'd deduct and how she'd set things up so that I'd have insurance coverage in the summer when I wasn't working there for the moment.
If that makes sense.
As you folks know, I don't know what I'm doing yet. Daisy and I could be living anywhere and doing anything, but it's most likely going to come down to two different scenarios, depending on what happens within the next month or so -- we'll either remain here in Kansas and I'll have a new, different position within the university's English department (which means she'd be moving here and would be getting a job here), or we'll be living in Omaha someplace, as Daisy already has a decent job there, has been looking for/applying for better ones, and it probably wouldn't be incredibly difficult for me to find gainful employment there in a teaching field or otherwise. But before any of this can happen, and before any decisions can be made and any plans can be put into action, she and I are both waiting on information on my own job status for after this semester with the university. Again, I can't really talk about this yet, as there's little to talk about before I find out any more info on it, but needless to say, if I remain at the university in the fall, it will be a big deal and I will discuss it when appropriate.
So, getting back to the point, I was sort of at a loss as to what to tell this lady when it came to benefits packages and deductions, so I gave her the reader's digest version in a short rundown and asked her what I needed to do now. She directed me to the HR benefits people, who also sent me an email telling me I qualified for everything and that they'd like to make an appointment with me for Friday so that my benefits could kick in on March 1. I didn't get that email until Friday night. That's partially my fault, I know, but still. Short notice, much? Ugh.
I responded and told them that, weather permitting, I'd be able to meet with them on Tuesday when I was back on main campus, and asked what I needed to bring with me to set all this stuff up. They said that was fine, but there's some big seminar on Wednesday (which I can't go to, as I'll be teaching on West campus that night) and asked if I wanted to reschedule the appointment for Thursday (which I won't do, as I still only teach on West campus on Thursday and then go home).
As an aside, it's more of a time and gasoline concern than anything else. I'm not going to spend extra time and gas driving around back and forth, making extra trips (especially if the roads are shitty) to sign up for benefits packages that will end up costing me money out of my paychecks for benefits I'll likely never use. I use more than three gallons of gas on Tuesday alone -- my car gets about 20mpg; my round-trip on Tuesday is 70 miles (from here to West campus, from West campus the back way to main campus, and then from main campus back home that night). Any extra trip to/from Wichita costs me about $10-12 more in gas, roughly. No, if I can make it in to campus on Tuesday with no issues (if the university isn't closed and if the roads are passable, that is), I'll meet with them then and will tell them so via email tomorrow. I don't want any extra shit, I don't want to sit through any seminars or informational sessions, I just want to tell them my situation and see what they can work with if necessary -- but I doubt they'll be able to do much when it comes to info on my future employment plans that I do not yet have.
So there's that.
It's stopped snowing in Newton for the moment, though it's blowing and drifting around quite a bit (I see it swirling off my roof, which is right behind my window here in the Man Cave). The temperature has dropped two more degrees, and is now 4 here, 5 in Wichita.
I mentioned last night that I printed out extra copies of my tax forms so that I could draft them all out before mailing them away (or file them electronically, as for university employees there's this free file-it-online thing they've set up now), but I...it's really, really hard to force myself to just sit down and work on them. I'd rather sit down and grade a stack of 200 terrible papers before doing my taxes. I just dread it so much, and hate it so much. I'm always afraid I'm going to screw something up or forget to add/subtract a line here or there and it'll all go to hell because of that. I also totally don't trust most of the online systems for doing anything because I'm old-fashioned like that. I don't know whether or not I'll be able to gather enough willpower to work on them today or tomorrow or not. I do have to do them soon, as Daisy and I both need the money from any refunds to go basically directly into wedding expenses and for living/moving expenses after the wedding is over, and because otherwise I won't have a ton of time to do them over the course of the rest of the semester. There's Spring Break, yes, but I plan to be visiting Daisy and her family in Omaha for a good chunk of that.
...After typing that last sentence, I made some food and then went back to bed. It was really, really cold (and still is) and the house couldn't keep warm enough for me to be comfortable, despite the fact that I turned the furnace up to 70 or so for a few hours. As I was preparing to go back downstairs, I read an updated forecast that said it wasn't over yet, and with it was an accompanying radar map showing a lot more snow moving this way. Okay, I thought, and went to sleep.
I woke up at about 9:30 PM, and the snow had come -- in fact, when I awoke, it was still coming down pretty good. It's since tapered off in the past hour or so and now looks to be mostly, if not completely done. It's dark, so I can't really tell how much is out there, but by the looks of it from my front window, eh, 4-6 inches? Something like that. It looks to be a few inches more than was here this afternoon when I went to nap. I got on my computer to find that the Winter Storm Warning had been extended to midnight now, when it previously was supposed to expire at 6PM. It's still snowing like crazy in Wichita -- though it's on its way out -- as evidenced by the latest radar image:
Whether the university closes tomorrow or not doesn't affect me anyhow -- as you know, I don't teach on Mondays. However, I do find the whole situation interesting.
Meanwhile, back home in West Virginia, they're getting hit now -- and hit harder -- by Titan. WVU, Fairmont State, most every school system/county/district, most government offices, and many roads and highways have completely shut down until at least Tuesday. The bare minimum for snow totals back home at my parents' house on top of the mountain is 6-10 inches, and they'll probably get more than that (they always do).
At this point, more than anything else, I'm concerned about being able to get out and back and forth, to and from my classes on Tuesday. I don't know what the road conditions are around the area, or even if most of them will be passable 36 hours from now. Again, ice-melting road treatments like salt and brine won't do dick when it's below about 15 degrees or so, and with temperatures more than 20 degrees below that point for the past two days, all night tonight, and for most of the day tomorrow, it's likely that road conditions won't improve. So, I'm in sort of a bind. If none of this looks any better by this time tomorrow night, should I (possibly) risk my life and car on Tuesday morning by going out in it, attempting to get to class safely -- and in doing so, ask my students to risk their own lives/cars to do the same? I don't know.
We're supposed to have a gradual warm-up this week, where it's going to get into the high 30s, then 40s, and then 50s and 60s again by the middle of next week, but that doesn't help me for Tuesday's classes. My car is in the garage, warm and inside out of this shit, and she generally likes the cold -- but only to a certain point. Get the temperature below 20 or so and she haaaates it. That's when she has trouble starting (on rare occasions) and idles/runs roughly and loudly -- that car really is like an old woman sometimes when it comes to the cold.
So, really, I don't know. I will likely email my students tomorrow afternoon and try to crowdsource road conditions from them, especially the ones who live out by West campus (which was a nightmare during the last snowstorm) to see if they can give me some road condition updates. Regardless, I can't really afford to cancel my night 011 class if I can possibly avoid it, as we've already missed one class earlier this semester due to snow, and missing another will completely throw them off-schedule -- as I've mentioned here before. Plus, if I'm going to meet with the insurance people, I have to be on main campus at some point in the afternoon on Tuesday. If I have to cancel my morning 102 class on Tuesday, however, it's a lot less of a big deal. Obviously, though, I hate being put into situations like this, and think that when it's this cold and this nasty outside and on the roads, the university should be closed. But I'm not the one in charge of that decision, of course.
I got up about an hour or so ago. I don't know how much is out there right now, but it's not a ton of snow everywhere yet -- maybe three or four inches at the most. If that's all we get, even if the roads aren't completely treated that well, the Monte Carlo would have no trouble getting me back and forth on Tuesday. The Weather Channel, for Newton, says we got 2.4 inches last night, and another 3-5 are still expected today and tonight until this storm finally moves off to the east...where it will hit my family and friends back home in West Virginia much harder than it hit here, apparently. I stopped paying attention to most of the forecast stuff last night before I went to bed, as it really didn't matter once the snow was actually coming down pretty good. The Winter Storm Warning is in effect for another six hours or so, so I'm guessing it's not all done yet and may actually get worse between now and tonight. It's sort of taken its time getting here anyhow.
In doing my lesson planning yesterday and posting my weekly Blackboard announcements to my students, I encouraged them to be watchful and mindful of the weather, as it was just then starting to snow and the forecasters were starting to freak out about it. I told them to keep an eye on the closings lists and on their university email accounts -- as of right now, it's still a toss-up as to whether the university will close down tomorrow. I don't teach tomorrow, of course, but many of my students have class on Mondays, so I told them to pay attention. Of course, I don't know if it's any better or worse in Wichita proper, but I do know that it's 7 degrees there right now, and with the wind chill that feels like -11. I also know that the actual temperature tonight is supposed to drop to -7 or so, making it the coldest March morning on record tomorrow morning. Salt and most other ice-melting stuff stops working after the temperature gets below 10-15 or so.
I also told my students that unless the university is closed on Tuesday, or unless we got a lot more snow than originally forecasted, my own classes this week would be held as scheduled unless they heard something from me. My first class is 9:15 on Tuesday morning, and while that gives the road crews plenty of time to clear stuff off and get the streets clear, if the worst isn't over yet, then I'll have to make a decision sometime tomorrow on whether I'll hold my Tuesday classes. Even if the university shuts down tomorrow, I'm pretty sure they won't shut down on Tuesday as well. It took a lot more snow than we currently have to shut down for two days last month, with similar (read: only slightly warmer) temperatures. Then again, Wichita apparently got a lot more sleet and ice, and then the snow on top of that, so who knows. Again, I haven't had the TV on and I've only been following forecast data and the like online. If I had to make an educated guess about tomorrow? I'm guessing the university probably will close and then reopen on Tuesday, based on the snow and the low temperatures alone. But, of course, who knows.
In other news, I mentioned last week that I received an email from the payroll & operations lady telling me that I qualified for benefits (health/life insurance) and that I needed to let her know what I was planning to do, if I was planning to stay there and teach again in the fall or not, because that would affect what she'd deduct and how she'd set things up so that I'd have insurance coverage in the summer when I wasn't working there for the moment.
If that makes sense.
As you folks know, I don't know what I'm doing yet. Daisy and I could be living anywhere and doing anything, but it's most likely going to come down to two different scenarios, depending on what happens within the next month or so -- we'll either remain here in Kansas and I'll have a new, different position within the university's English department (which means she'd be moving here and would be getting a job here), or we'll be living in Omaha someplace, as Daisy already has a decent job there, has been looking for/applying for better ones, and it probably wouldn't be incredibly difficult for me to find gainful employment there in a teaching field or otherwise. But before any of this can happen, and before any decisions can be made and any plans can be put into action, she and I are both waiting on information on my own job status for after this semester with the university. Again, I can't really talk about this yet, as there's little to talk about before I find out any more info on it, but needless to say, if I remain at the university in the fall, it will be a big deal and I will discuss it when appropriate.
So, getting back to the point, I was sort of at a loss as to what to tell this lady when it came to benefits packages and deductions, so I gave her the reader's digest version in a short rundown and asked her what I needed to do now. She directed me to the HR benefits people, who also sent me an email telling me I qualified for everything and that they'd like to make an appointment with me for Friday so that my benefits could kick in on March 1. I didn't get that email until Friday night. That's partially my fault, I know, but still. Short notice, much? Ugh.
I responded and told them that, weather permitting, I'd be able to meet with them on Tuesday when I was back on main campus, and asked what I needed to bring with me to set all this stuff up. They said that was fine, but there's some big seminar on Wednesday (which I can't go to, as I'll be teaching on West campus that night) and asked if I wanted to reschedule the appointment for Thursday (which I won't do, as I still only teach on West campus on Thursday and then go home).
As an aside, it's more of a time and gasoline concern than anything else. I'm not going to spend extra time and gas driving around back and forth, making extra trips (especially if the roads are shitty) to sign up for benefits packages that will end up costing me money out of my paychecks for benefits I'll likely never use. I use more than three gallons of gas on Tuesday alone -- my car gets about 20mpg; my round-trip on Tuesday is 70 miles (from here to West campus, from West campus the back way to main campus, and then from main campus back home that night). Any extra trip to/from Wichita costs me about $10-12 more in gas, roughly. No, if I can make it in to campus on Tuesday with no issues (if the university isn't closed and if the roads are passable, that is), I'll meet with them then and will tell them so via email tomorrow. I don't want any extra shit, I don't want to sit through any seminars or informational sessions, I just want to tell them my situation and see what they can work with if necessary -- but I doubt they'll be able to do much when it comes to info on my future employment plans that I do not yet have.
So there's that.
It's stopped snowing in Newton for the moment, though it's blowing and drifting around quite a bit (I see it swirling off my roof, which is right behind my window here in the Man Cave). The temperature has dropped two more degrees, and is now 4 here, 5 in Wichita.
I mentioned last night that I printed out extra copies of my tax forms so that I could draft them all out before mailing them away (or file them electronically, as for university employees there's this free file-it-online thing they've set up now), but I...it's really, really hard to force myself to just sit down and work on them. I'd rather sit down and grade a stack of 200 terrible papers before doing my taxes. I just dread it so much, and hate it so much. I'm always afraid I'm going to screw something up or forget to add/subtract a line here or there and it'll all go to hell because of that. I also totally don't trust most of the online systems for doing anything because I'm old-fashioned like that. I don't know whether or not I'll be able to gather enough willpower to work on them today or tomorrow or not. I do have to do them soon, as Daisy and I both need the money from any refunds to go basically directly into wedding expenses and for living/moving expenses after the wedding is over, and because otherwise I won't have a ton of time to do them over the course of the rest of the semester. There's Spring Break, yes, but I plan to be visiting Daisy and her family in Omaha for a good chunk of that.
...After typing that last sentence, I made some food and then went back to bed. It was really, really cold (and still is) and the house couldn't keep warm enough for me to be comfortable, despite the fact that I turned the furnace up to 70 or so for a few hours. As I was preparing to go back downstairs, I read an updated forecast that said it wasn't over yet, and with it was an accompanying radar map showing a lot more snow moving this way. Okay, I thought, and went to sleep.
I woke up at about 9:30 PM, and the snow had come -- in fact, when I awoke, it was still coming down pretty good. It's since tapered off in the past hour or so and now looks to be mostly, if not completely done. It's dark, so I can't really tell how much is out there, but by the looks of it from my front window, eh, 4-6 inches? Something like that. It looks to be a few inches more than was here this afternoon when I went to nap. I got on my computer to find that the Winter Storm Warning had been extended to midnight now, when it previously was supposed to expire at 6PM. It's still snowing like crazy in Wichita -- though it's on its way out -- as evidenced by the latest radar image:
I am the pinpoint in the center of that map, obviously -- that's where Newton is in relation to Wichita (for those of you who aren't from here).
There are many closings all around the area, both schools and businesses. Basically every school district out here has shut down for tomorrow, including the USDs for Newton and Wichita, and most others I've seen, though I'm not sure it's more for the snow, more for the cold, or a combination of both.
The university, however, remains open. As do most other colleges in the area. Which, obviously, I find a bit surprising given that the snow is still happening in Wichita and the low temperature tonight is supposed to dip to -7 or lower in some places. Even if the snow's not incredibly bad, temperatures below zero expected to last well into the morning hours would usually be a prime reason to close down the university anyhow, as nobody should be out in that, and there have been numerous warnings via the news to stay indoors, off the roads, and out of the cold unless absolutely necessary.
I'll also remind you that my Spring Break starts in about a week and a half.
Whether the university closes tomorrow or not doesn't affect me anyhow -- as you know, I don't teach on Mondays. However, I do find the whole situation interesting.
Meanwhile, back home in West Virginia, they're getting hit now -- and hit harder -- by Titan. WVU, Fairmont State, most every school system/county/district, most government offices, and many roads and highways have completely shut down until at least Tuesday. The bare minimum for snow totals back home at my parents' house on top of the mountain is 6-10 inches, and they'll probably get more than that (they always do).
At this point, more than anything else, I'm concerned about being able to get out and back and forth, to and from my classes on Tuesday. I don't know what the road conditions are around the area, or even if most of them will be passable 36 hours from now. Again, ice-melting road treatments like salt and brine won't do dick when it's below about 15 degrees or so, and with temperatures more than 20 degrees below that point for the past two days, all night tonight, and for most of the day tomorrow, it's likely that road conditions won't improve. So, I'm in sort of a bind. If none of this looks any better by this time tomorrow night, should I (possibly) risk my life and car on Tuesday morning by going out in it, attempting to get to class safely -- and in doing so, ask my students to risk their own lives/cars to do the same? I don't know.
We're supposed to have a gradual warm-up this week, where it's going to get into the high 30s, then 40s, and then 50s and 60s again by the middle of next week, but that doesn't help me for Tuesday's classes. My car is in the garage, warm and inside out of this shit, and she generally likes the cold -- but only to a certain point. Get the temperature below 20 or so and she haaaates it. That's when she has trouble starting (on rare occasions) and idles/runs roughly and loudly -- that car really is like an old woman sometimes when it comes to the cold.
So, really, I don't know. I will likely email my students tomorrow afternoon and try to crowdsource road conditions from them, especially the ones who live out by West campus (which was a nightmare during the last snowstorm) to see if they can give me some road condition updates. Regardless, I can't really afford to cancel my night 011 class if I can possibly avoid it, as we've already missed one class earlier this semester due to snow, and missing another will completely throw them off-schedule -- as I've mentioned here before. Plus, if I'm going to meet with the insurance people, I have to be on main campus at some point in the afternoon on Tuesday. If I have to cancel my morning 102 class on Tuesday, however, it's a lot less of a big deal. Obviously, though, I hate being put into situations like this, and think that when it's this cold and this nasty outside and on the roads, the university should be closed. But I'm not the one in charge of that decision, of course.
Wrath of the Titan, Part IV: More Issues
Saturday, 11:04 AM: The Winter Storm Warning gets updated.
Saturday, 1:16 PM:
I live in Harvey County. It's not doing anything here in Newton yet, aside from the aforementioned freezing fog that's been around since I woke up. There's nothing on the radar map around me for more than 200 miles. "It has started," my ass.
Saturday, 3PM: Still nothing going on here. It's just gray. I finish my lesson planning, print out tax forms for drafting, and prepare to get something to eat as I watch the last several minutes of the basketball game.
Saturday, 3:08 PM: Light snow begins in Newton. The ground's frozen, so it's blowing around the driveway/street in little whirls. There's still nothing on the radar around me, so it's lighter than the radar can pick up. This...troubles me.
Saturday, 3:23 PM:
There is still nothing on the radar anywhere around us.
Saturday, 5:47 PM: While it's showing up on the radar as ice, and light ice at that, it's not -- the snow in Newton has officially begun.
Saturday evening: The Winter Storm Warning gets updated again.
They've also updated the forecast as well -- 2-4 inches tonight, 2-4 more tomorrow, for a total of 4-8 for here in Newton. I can see that happening.
Saturday, 6:39 PM:
Saturday, 11:54 PM: The temperature has dropped to 12 and the snow -- which, for the moment, is fine and powdery -- is blowing hard against the house, but it's not a particularly heavy snow yet. I estimate about two full inches on the ground/street now, though the wind/drifting is possibly skewing that estimate a bit.
Not a big update, of course, but interesting enough. The forecast for Newton has also been updated, with an inch coming tonight and 2-4 more tomorrow, which seems to be in line with most of the weather forecasts I've seen.
* TIMING... AREAS OF FREEZING DRIZZLE WILL CONTINUE INTO THE AFTERNOON... AND MAY BECOME MIXED WITH AND CHANGE TO LIGHT SNOW AND SLEET ACROSS CENTRAL KANSAS. THE WINTRY MIX WILL BECOME MAINLY SLEET AND SNOW LATE TONIGHT AND INCREASE IN COVERAGE... BEFORE BECOMING ALL SNOW ON SUNDAY.
* SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS... OF 2 TO 5 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE TONIGHT AND SUNDAY... WITH THE HIGHER AMOUNTS GENERALLY NORTH OF HIGHWAY 54.
* ICE ACCUMULATIONS... UP TO ONE-TENTH OF AN INCH WILL BE POSSIBLE ESPECIALLY ALONG THE HIGHWAY 54 CORRIDOR... FROM KINGMAN TO WICHITA TO EUREKA.
Saturday, 1:16 PM:
I live in Harvey County. It's not doing anything here in Newton yet, aside from the aforementioned freezing fog that's been around since I woke up. There's nothing on the radar map around me for more than 200 miles. "It has started," my ass.
Saturday, 3PM: Still nothing going on here. It's just gray. I finish my lesson planning, print out tax forms for drafting, and prepare to get something to eat as I watch the last several minutes of the basketball game.
Saturday, 3:08 PM: Light snow begins in Newton. The ground's frozen, so it's blowing around the driveway/street in little whirls. There's still nothing on the radar around me, so it's lighter than the radar can pick up. This...troubles me.
Saturday, 3:23 PM:
There is still nothing on the radar anywhere around us.
Saturday, 5:47 PM: While it's showing up on the radar as ice, and light ice at that, it's not -- the snow in Newton has officially begun.
Saturday evening: The Winter Storm Warning gets updated again.
* TIMING... AREAS OF FREEZING DRIZZLE WILL CONTINUE INTO THE EARLY EVENING ACROSS SOUTH CENTRAL KANSAS... WITH LIGHT SNOW AND SLEET ACROSS CENTRAL KANSAS. THE WINTRY MIX IS EXPECTED TO TRANSITION TO SNOW AND SLEET FOR ALL AREAS BY LATE TONIGHT AND SUNDAY.
* SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS... WILL RANGE FROM 2 TO AROUND 6 INCHES... WITH THE HIGHER AMOUNTS ACROSS PORTIONS OF CENTRAL KANSAS TO THE NORTH OF GREATER WICHITA.
* ICE ACCUMULATIONS... UP TO ONE-TENTH OF AN INCH WILL BE POSSIBLE EARLY TONIGHT... ESPECIALLY ALONG THE HIGHWAY 54 CORRIDOR... FROM KINGMAN TO WICHITA TO EL DORADO.
They've also updated the forecast as well -- 2-4 inches tonight, 2-4 more tomorrow, for a total of 4-8 for here in Newton. I can see that happening.
Saturday, 6:39 PM:
Oh, that's so not fucking good. That's basically saying that what, some places could get 20 inches of snow? For fuck's sake.
Saturday, 8:19 PM:
You are only serving to fill me with more dread, Mr. Rudd.
Saturday, 8:56 PM: There's already an inch on the ground in Newton, roughly, and everything is snow-covered. It's still coming down at a decent pace, though it's not bad/whiteout conditions yet or anything, though the temperature drops by another degree or two every hour and has done so steadily since last night. The fact that this isn't even the real storm yet is what's troubling to me. My weather app revises its totals to 4-5 inches for Newton, but it hasn't updated in hours. The Weather Channel forecast remains steady at 4-8. I wait for the latest forecast models (because, yes, I follow those) to make their data available.
Saturday, 11:54 PM: The temperature has dropped to 12 and the snow -- which, for the moment, is fine and powdery -- is blowing hard against the house, but it's not a particularly heavy snow yet. I estimate about two full inches on the ground/street now, though the wind/drifting is possibly skewing that estimate a bit.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Wrath of the Titan, Part III: The Timing
Early Friday afternoon, from KWCH-12 in Wichita:
Friday, 3:07 PM:
Friday, 5:15 PM, the Sunday forecast for here in Newton:
Friday, 6:57 PM, screenshots from JD Rudd's latest forecast video:
Friday, 9:04 PM: As you can see, all of these forecasts vary wildly, some by as many as four or five inches. Nobody will have a really accurate prediction until the morning. Some forecast models have worked the whole ice storm/sleet factor back into everything, as evidenced by JD Rudd's video screenshots above, while others have not. Because I have no social life and all of my friends are apparently in Seattle right now, this is my Friday night -- collecting data on this stuff due to my own morbid fascination with weather.
Friday, 10:50 PM: KAKE-TV in Wichita gives an updated prediction map:
Saturday, 10:58 AM: As if on cue when the weather changes drastically, my allergies are going bugshit crazy. The actual Weather Channel forecast for Newton does not match the warning above at all, or any previous watches/warnings or snow maps; the forecast says an inch of snow/sleet tonight, and then another inch of snow tomorrow. Even the weather app on my computer is calling for 3-4 inches by tomorrow night. I also find out that Daisy is supposed to get roughly the same amount of snow in Omaha, if not a little more, as this is a very large storm...and she's still at work being forced to work long hours of overtime. It's also supposed to start there before it starts here.
Saturday, 11:26 AM:
Saturday, 11:54 AM: There's not really any new data available -- depending on who one believes, it could snow an inch or eight inches here over the course of the next 24 hours or so. Thoughts of ordering pizza are now out the proverbial window, as it's already misting ice/freezing fog outside, which is glazing over the cars in the neighborhood. I don't want to make any delivery driver go out in that. My own car was put in the garage yesterday afternoon, as planned, so she's safe from all of the nastiness about to hit. I, of course, am still here at home with no real plans for most of the day. I'm going to try to draft out my taxes this afternoon and work on some lesson plans, but that's about it. The temperature has already dropped twenty degrees from what it was last night (it's 25 now), making it prime snow weather. And, because of the change in the weather, again, my allergies are killing me. I'm probably going to excise myself from society and from the internet for most of the day so that I can get my minor tasks taken care of and finished, and can focus on my taxes, before spending the afternoon watching the basketball game and spending the evening watching it snow.
Friday, 3:07 PM:
* TIMING... OF THIS WINTER STORM IS FROM SATURDAY NIGHT THROUGH LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON. THE MAIN THREATS APPEAR TO BE SLEET AND SNOW ACCUMULATIONS... WITH SOME FREEZING RAIN AND MINOR ICE ACCUMULATIONS POSSIBLE ACROSS SOUTHEAST KANSAS.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS... IN EXCESS OF 5 INCHES ARE STILL POSSIBLE ACROSS CENTRAL KANSAS... WITH A FEW INCHES OF SLEET AND SNOW POSSIBLE ACROSS SOUTH CENTRAL AND PORTIONS OF SOUTHEAST KANSAS.
Friday, 5:15 PM, the Sunday forecast for here in Newton:
Friday, 6:57 PM, screenshots from JD Rudd's latest forecast video:
Friday, 9:04 PM: As you can see, all of these forecasts vary wildly, some by as many as four or five inches. Nobody will have a really accurate prediction until the morning. Some forecast models have worked the whole ice storm/sleet factor back into everything, as evidenced by JD Rudd's video screenshots above, while others have not. Because I have no social life and all of my friends are apparently in Seattle right now, this is my Friday night -- collecting data on this stuff due to my own morbid fascination with weather.
Friday, 10:50 PM: KAKE-TV in Wichita gives an updated prediction map:
They also state that again, this probably will change as the storm rolls in. This map puts me in the 3-6 area, and that 3-6 swooping line basically sits a hair's width above the university's campus on the north end of the city.
Friday, 11:39 PM: An independent meteorologist puts this graphic on Facebook:
Saturday, 4:19 AM:
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 6 PM CST SUNDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.
* TIMING... LIGHT FREEZING DRIZZLE IS POSSIBLE DURING THE DAYLIGHT HOURS ON SATURDAY... BUT THE MORE SIGNIFICANT WINTER WEATHER WILL DEVELOP THIS EVENING AND PERSIST INTO SUNDAY.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS... 3 TO 5 INCHES ARE EXPECTED OVER THE WARNING AREA. HOWEVER HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE NORTH AND EAST OF A LINE FROM SALINA TO NEWTON TO EUREKA.
* ICE ACCUMULATIONS... ONE TO TWO TENTHS OF AN INCH ARE EXPECTED OVER SOUTHEAST KANSAS WITH LIGHTER AMOUNTS ACROSS SOUTH CENTRAL KANSAS.
* WIND CHILLS... OF -10 TO -15 ARE LIKELY TONIGHT ACROSS CENTRAL KANSAS... AND OVER MOST OF THE AREA ON SUNDAY.
Saturday, 10:58 AM: As if on cue when the weather changes drastically, my allergies are going bugshit crazy. The actual Weather Channel forecast for Newton does not match the warning above at all, or any previous watches/warnings or snow maps; the forecast says an inch of snow/sleet tonight, and then another inch of snow tomorrow. Even the weather app on my computer is calling for 3-4 inches by tomorrow night. I also find out that Daisy is supposed to get roughly the same amount of snow in Omaha, if not a little more, as this is a very large storm...and she's still at work being forced to work long hours of overtime. It's also supposed to start there before it starts here.
Saturday, 11:26 AM:
Reno County is the county adjacent to me to the west.
Saturday, 11:48 AM: KWCH-12 releases their latest projection map; in Newton, I'm in the 4-6 range. The bottom of the 4-6 range is right on the county line. Around the same time, Meteorologist JD Rudd calls for a much wider swath of 4-8 for the Wichita area, also including me.
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