Early Nights

Countdown to fall semester: three days

Yesterday was....interesting.

Mind you, two nights ago, I went to bed early. I went out to the Dollar Tree on Wednesday night to get birthday cards and a few other little things, and planned to come home, order a pizza, and watch as much of Community season 4 as I could. Daisy was busy with stuff at home, and I wanted to be able to relax, eat, and go to bed early, since I had to spend most of the day on campus. I decided against pizza; I went next door to the Dollar Tree, got Arby's, and then came home. After eating and Community, I was in bed by 8:30. That's not a joke.

I awoke once more at 4:58 AM. Okay, I thought, well, this is at least some good practice for the alarm going off at 5AM four days a week from now until December, and I got up. I was originally planning to sleep as long as I deemed necessary -- yesterday I didn't actually have any real schedule I had to be on campus, or anything like that -- but once I was up, I showered, made coffee, and proceeded to go through my normal wake-up routine. It was easier, since I'd gone to bed at 8:30 PM, than it normally is when I get up at 5 in the morning.

I messaged Parker. "Planning to leave the house around 10, should be on campus around 10:30-10:45 depending on how the parking is."

He responded that the parking was fine, and told me that they'd reopened the entrance to campus that I normally took, which leads me directly to the new parking areas. He was right; the parking lot wasn't even half full. In fact, it probably wasn't 1/3 of the way full, even.

"There was a time where I never thought I'd sit on this couch again," I told Parker as I sank heavily into the couch in his office.

"I know, right?"

"The prodigal son returns," I said, sarcastically.

The campus was mostly quiet, from what I could see. The department, however, was and is still a mess. This semester we're dealing with a new chair, a new set of GTAs teaching new classes, many GTAs returning to teach classes they've never taught before, new GTAs trying to get office keys and their information put into payroll (which they should've done weeks ago; I did mine several weeks before I started there as a student, not four days beforehand), moving from one office to another, students getting books to teach with, etc. I don't know how the administrator ladies up there haven't pulled their hair out yet. Everyone's running around trying to get everything done, and I was really trying not to bother anyone for anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.  So, to make a long story short before I explain the details, here's what I did accomplish yesterday:

• Got my personal code for the copier, so I don't have to make copy orders anymore unless absolutely necessary
• Picked up my teaching books for 011 and 210
• Tentatively got assigned a new office (more on this below)
• Got my 101 syllabus copies printed and ready
• With some finagling (again, more below) got the 011 syllabus materials
• "Helped" -- and I use that term loosely -- Suri set up her new office, and moved a spare desk in Parker's office to another one
• Ran an errand for the department to pick up key request forms 
• Found out my pay scale and first paycheck date
• Briefly met two or three of the new GTAs, but only got the name of one of them

 Mostly, I tried to stay out of everyone's way unless I had something I needed to get done. I do sort of feel like an outsider, now, to a certain extent -- I'm the guy who's still around and teaching, but as an anomaly, not a student. Adjunct faculty, really, is like being one small step up from a graduate student -- you don't have to follow the student rules as much, but you're also sort of on your own for a lot of really important stuff, and you're more accountable for that stuff. It's a concept that I'm slowly getting used to.

I don't know how many new recruits (or "newbies," as all of us call them) we have this semester, exactly; I know it's roughly around ten or so. I also don't know if all of them are teaching. Even with this, the office situation in the department seems to be somewhat dire, despite the fact that about that many of us graduated last semester. Suri and her officemate (a fellow MFA poet who graduated a year before me) were forced to move from one office to another one on the other side of the department for what, at this point, seems to be no real reason, and they may have a third person crammed into that tiny office with them. I've met one of the guys who's taking over my office, but who knows if anyone else is going to be in there with him (and it's a big office). There are about three or four offices I know of which are either partially vacated or completely vacated, including my own, the office of the former interim director, and at least two of the old GTA offices, if not more. Why we've suddenly run out of office space in the department is completely baffling to me, as there's more than enough room to accommodate another ten people as well as those returning, from my personal estimates.

"I think we're going to stick you in the office with [other longtime adjunct]," one of the office ladies told me.

"Okay," I said, "that sounds good to me."

The other longtime adjunct is a guy I know as an acquaintance only; he's nice, pretty laid back, quiet, and mostly keeps to himself. I also rarely see him on campus -- maybe once a week, if that. But, and here's the kicker -- as of yesterday, he had no clue that he'd be getting a new officemate. And he's had his own office, a one-person office -- for many years.

"We don't have an extra key for that office, though, because it's always been a one-person room," she told me. "We'll have to make a new key."

"Okay, so how do we do that?"

"We fill out a key request form."

"Sounds simple enough. I guess if we have to, we have to. Let's do it."

"Except we're out of key request forms."

This is why I ran the errand for the department, over to the financial operations office and back, to retrieve key request forms.

As for getting that office, I don't know how I feel about it. I've seen the inside of it before -- it's small, and there's only one desk. Which means, basically, we'd have to share a desk. I don't know how I feel about it because, really, I don't know how the office's primary owner feels about it, because as of yesterday he'd not been notified that he may be getting a new "roomie," and I can tell you if I'd had my own office for years to have that sprung upon me, I wouldn't exactly be happy about it. This is not, however, set in stone.

"What's your schedule?" I was asked.

"I'll be here in the department on Mondays and Wednesdays from about 7AM to around 2PM at the latest," I said. "The rest of my time I'll be on West campus."

I teach at 11 to 12:15 on Mondays and Wednesdays, though if I'm getting parking I will once more have to be there really early as always. There's a new shuttle system too, since they destroyed the old parking lot I used to build a dorm on, but I'll get to that later.

"Okay, well, he's here Tuesday/Thursday mornings and evenings."

"That would work out fine then, if he's up for it," I said. "We'd never see each other and wouldn't be in there at the same time."

Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm on the West campus teaching my 101 class, and in the second half of the semester I'll be over there as well for my 210 night class. So, if that's how they choose to do it, it's like an office time-share sort of thing.

Of course, this all comes down to whether he's receptive to it. If he doesn't want to share his office, he can tell them no, though I don't know how effective that no will be.

"Why did you give up your office in the first place?" Suri asked.

"Well...because I graduated," I said. "My office is a GTA office; they'll need it to stick new GTAs in there."

And, well, it's not like I knew for certain until about two weeks ago that I was going to have a teaching position this fall.

"Although," I added, "I'd be happy to just have it back at this point. I don't care if I have to share it with GTAs; why would I?"

"Really," Suri said quietly, possibly in reflection on her own situation.

As mentioned above, my office situation isn't set in stone. I don't know where I'll end up.

"So we do the key request form, and how long does it take to get the key made?" I asked. "Hypothetically. I know it's not going to be done by Monday."

The office lady shrugged. "Could be Tuesday or Wednesday, maybe longer."

"So where do I go until then?" I asked.

Honest question, really -- I am indeed splitting my time between the two campuses equally for at least the first half of the semester when it comes to actual teaching hours, though I will be spending considerably more time on the main campus because of parking issues and time constraints involved with those.

"You can open the lounge and hang out in there," she said, "at least until stuff gets sorted out or until someone else gets here."

"Hm, that is true."

We have a grad student lounge across the hall from where my possible new office is. I have access to it as an adjunct, even though it's mainly for the grad students. It's rarely used, really, even though it's a nice little room with a microwave, coffee pot, fridge, a couch and really comfortable chair, etc. If I have to lounge about in there for the first week or so, I can. I suppose, anyway. Until some of my friends get there -- Parker has told me he'll be on campus by 9AM most of the time because of the aforementioned parking scenarios. Parker also leaves campus and comes back a lot as well, so I would assume he doesn't really want to deal with the shuttle system any more than he has to. Neither do I.

The shuttle system, by the way, is a three-year-contract bussing system that the university has set up as an attempt to deal with the parking problem. Students can park at the Metroplex (about a mile or two from campus; it's where we held our Playwriting live reading last fall), which has a massive parking lot, and get buses to campus that run on constant ten-minute cycles throughout the entire class day/night. This is a brilliant idea, and means that if I ever need to come to campus at an odd hour or an off-day that I won't necessarily have to worry about parking. Still, it's much easier and more ideal for me to be able to just park in the lot and walk up to the building.

Getting my 011 materials was a bit of an ordeal. I asked if the Director's wife was there yesterday so I could talk to her, and nobody had seen her. When asked why, I explained that I hadn't gotten any of my materials yet for the 011 class, and from what I knew nobody else had gotten their stuff either. The administrator lady called the Director, who assured both of us that she'd send out the requested materials today. I had them in my email when I got home, and emailed her back to thank her profusely for her help. The materials themselves are very basic; they consist of a rough schedule/lesson plan and what the class entails, but I'll be building my own syllabus around those materials from scratch. That's basically what I'll be doing this weekend (today, if possible, to get it done with). Now that I have a copier code, I can print out one of them here at home and make the copies I need on Monday morning when I get to campus, before anyone else shows up and before the department gets hectic for the first day of classes. The keys I already have will get me into the front office and into the copy room.

As for the books for my classes, those were relatively easy to procure. I was lucky in that one of my friends and colleagues who graduated last semester left his 011 textbook behind in his office, as we didn't have any extras. Another interesting thing about 011 is that apparently it doesn't have a workbook to go along with it -- just two textbooks. 210 has a workbook and a textbook. Regardless, I got all of the books and materials I needed, and can spend the weekend (if necessary) putting everything together and readying it for next week.

I suppose -- I mean, I've heard rumblings about it, but nobody's told me anything directly and nobody has confirmed/denied anything -- that there's some sort of meeting on campus today for all new and returning GTAs. As I'm no longer a GTA I'm guessing this doesn't apply to me, and nobody's said anything to me about needing to attend some meeting this afternoon, so my fat, tie-dyed ass is sitting right here all day.

I did wear the cat shirt yesterday, and surprisingly enough, nobody thought it was as tacky as I do. I even got some compliments on it. Some people asked me if I'd made it myself (clearly, those people know me well) and seemed a bit disheartened when I said no, I'd purchased it at Walmart. I'm still wearing it now, actually -- I haven't showered yet since returning home last night and generally wear new shirts as long as possible to "break them in," so to speak.

The other information I got while there yesterday was mainly scattered, with a few tidbits of useful stuff -- I learned my pay scale, as mentioned above. I'm getting $2k per class, which is $6k for sixteen weeks' worth of work. I mentioned before that I knew it would be around this. I've seen some places pay their adjuncts more, and others pay them a lot less, so I'm happy with what I'm getting for such a short period of time of work. That will quadruple what I have in my bank account now and, with paychecks coming every two weeks, will rebuild my savings a little more every month. One paycheck will cover most of my monthly expenses. And, according to the office, our first checks drop on September 13.

"That's sooner than I was expecting," I said, "so that's great."

It may be almost a month away, but I've got more than enough to quite easily last me through when I start getting paid again. And it's real pay this time, not pay supplemented by student loans or anything like that.

"Three classes isn't enough to qualify for you to start paying back your student loans yet," one of my colleagues told me. "You'll be able to defer them or get forbearance on them until you start making real money."

"I know," I replied. "The interest building up will suck, but it's either that or adjust my payment plan to the lowest possible amount and change it back when I can afford to pay more."

My first loan payment, left unchanged, would come due around Thanksgiving. I'll have to log back onto the loans website in the next week or two and see what I can do to change around some things, if possible. Shouldn't be too difficult.

I left campus yesterday feeling a lot more relieved about my situation and the future of the semester. No, I don't know anything about my office yet, I don't have my 011 syllabus put together, but all of this stuff will eventually work out just fine. I've got the weekend to take care of what I can and decompress somewhat -- Daisy will be at work for the next four days, so I'll have the time.

I came home and made food, watched more Community, and decided against ordering pizza once more. If I'm hungry tonight, I may do it then (there's football to watch tonight). It stormed pretty strongly here, and I ended up once more going to bed before 9PM. I slept almost twelve hours -- a first in a long, long time for me -- and, again, it was storming when I awoke. When I got up, I ate breakfast and filled out/mailed out all of the birthday cards I'd purchased, and got on here to write this post.

I don't have a lot of plans for the rest of the day, though I do have a lot to do. I want to finish Community this weekend -- it'll be the only free time I have to enjoy it before I have to stop shirking responsibilities in favor of dealing with student work, and I need to pop the hood on the car to replenish the coolant, windshield washer, and put in another quart of oil before I begin driving her 200 miles a week again. She ran fine down there and back yesterday, but the past few times I've driven her, the "low coolant" light has been on, which means it's either running low, the sensor is going wonky, or the thermostat is sticking again. It's not giving me the "low oil" light yet, but I want to put more oil in her anyway so that the light doesn't come on anytime soon. I try to add about a quart or so a month if I'm driving the car on a regular basis. I need to put the Marvel Mystery Oil in both the oil and the gas tank the next time I fill up next week anyhow. This is my "preventative maintenance," as you know. I'm trying to keep the car in the best shape I can myself for as little money as possible. I will more than likely need new front tires by the end of the semester, though. They're not bad at all, but they're starting to wear down a bit, and regardless of where I am after this semester, the midwestern winters can get rough at times.

Other than that, the car's running well; not running hot, no dripping of oil or coolant underneath it, etc. Looks and feels pretty normal to me. As normal as that car gets, anyhow. The shocks are shot, but everything else is in normal working order.

Daisy's dad asked her last night about when I'd be able to come up again, and she told him it wouldn't be until Thanksgiving, more than likely. In all probability, this is true.

"I have a Monday and Tuesday off in October for 'fall break,' but those days fall at the end of the first eight weeks and around midterms, so I'll be doing midterm grades and preparing to start the business writing class that week," I said. "Aside from that and Thanksgiving, my only other day off until December is Labor Day."

Only scheduled days off, anyhow. If I get sick, the car breaks down, or we get another holy-hell-horrific early snowstorm, I'll cancel class. But it's rare for me to actually do that.

So that's about all that's going on right now. I have my last true free weekend ahead of me, so I'm off to put it to good use.

Plansus Interruptus

Countdown to fall semester: five days

It's Wednesday. Technically, anyway. It's after midnight.

It's also really quiet here. Today has been a relatively uneventful day, though a few interesting things of note have happened. It stormed mildly and rained for several hours this afternoon, which kept it nice and cool all day (right now it's 70). I paid my credit card bill and balanced my checkbook.

However, the final class schedule was released today, which helped to ease my worries a bit. The schedule we got on Friday was the tentative schedule, though usually not a whole lot changes between the tentative schedule and the final schedule. I've never had to worry about any changes, at least not when I was a grad student, anyhow. This time around, however, I did notice something -- and, perhaps, it was something I overlooked before.

As you know, I'm teaching three classes this semester: 011, 101, and 210. I know the 210 class starts in October as an eight-week course; the other two start next week. However, what I noticed was quite interesting. My 101 class, if I'm reading the schedule correctly, may be an eight-week course as well.

I consulted Parker about this, as he is a big part of why and how I've been able to get more classes this semester -- he's always been one of my closest friends and biggest advocates in the department, and I'm pretty sure he helped to organize the schedule.

"My 101 class is bolded," I told him. "It is apparently under the 'block' 8-week schedule. I don't know if that's correct or not, as the meeting times and class lengths are still 75 minutes twice a week -- not three hours twice a week, as the 210 class will be. Doesn't matter to me either way, really; I'm happy to do either style, but I wonder if that's a typo. I may have to ask [administrator] to confirm. She said that the 101 classes on West are typically filled with high school students from [school]. If that's the case, I could understand if it were an 8-week course -- a normal high school semester is nine weeks."

This, if true, would certainly make my semester much more manageable. And I say this because, well, think about it for a moment. The 011 class I'll be teaching straight through, twice a week, for the entire semester anyway. However...if the 101 turns out to be an eight-week course, it changes everything about the second half of my semester. For one, it means I'd teach the 101 course through October, it would end, and then my schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays would basically flip -- after October 10, instead of teaching in the morning and then having to stick around until 10PM, I'd be able to sleep in on those days and go to the West campus at 7PM, thereby ensuring me a lot more free time to grade, sleep, and take care of stuff around the house. It would essentially give me two days more off per week, as I'd only have to teach for three hours on those nights, turn around, and come back home. It would also eliminate the need for me to find something to do around the town for most of the day until I taught the night class. 

Again, I don't know if this is the case, or if there's a typo in the whole "block" thing or the hours the class is actually taught or both. 

Update: Banner, the class administration system the university uses, says that the 101 class is a full-semester class, from August 19 to December 13, so it's more than likely a typo in the class schedule put out by the department. My hopes of having extra free time now have been, basically, dashed. However, it does mean I'll be able to teach the class at a more languid pace; by the time it gets to the point where I'll be teaching all three classes at once every week (the second half of the semester after October 10) I'll need that extra time during the day on West campus to grade everything I have collected. I might be able to concentrate better there than at home, where I'm distracted by the cats and the fast internet on this computer in my house.

I do have access to all of my classes now via Banner, and can see my rosters. The 101 course is currently the smallest, with 8 students. I have 16 in the 011 course, and 17 in the 210 eight-week course. That's only 41 students total dispersed over three different classes, less than I taught on average per semester with only two classes as a GTA. Unless both of the semester-long classes fill up, the first half of the semester is going to go by really fast at a quick clip when it comes to grading and lessons. I'll be on and off campuses, alternating four days a week for 3-5 hours a day (depending on whatever "office hours" I have to hold and where) and really, those first eight weeks will feel just like old times. The second half of the semester is going to bury me under extra work and extra time, though. Coordinating, giving, and grading three different final exams and/or final papers all at the same time is absolutely going to crush me in December. I doubt I'll get much sleep during those last few weeks of classes. 

Mind you, I don't even know if 011 or 210 have final papers or final exams, or "papers" at all. From what Suri told me, the "papers" for 011 are little more than a few paragraphs on a page most of the time, though I don't know how true that is. And I know basically nothing right now about 210 aside from it's a class that teaches students how to write resumes and memos and, well, businesslike writing. I've never taken a class like that before myself, even in undergrad, so I'll likely be learning a lot along with my students. 

An interesting aside: one of my former Engineering English students is in that 210 class. Bitchin'. She's one of my good ones, as well.

I have still heard nothing back from the Director's wife after my email to her yesterday; I'm really hoping to hear from her by sometime before Thursday morning at the absolute latest, so that I can get my syllabus made and readied for class to print up and be done with. Nobody else who has classes she reigns over has gotten anything from her yet either (because, oh believe me, I've asked around) so at least I am not alone there.

Regardless of what happens, it'll be an adventure. I'm running off into mostly uncharted territory here, really, and it's interesting to think about the experience and thrill I'll get from helming classes again. Especially three really different ones with different curricula and timeframes. This is not only a test of my fortitude as an instructor, but a challenging one, and one that I'll get to enjoy on a purely academic, intellectual level. When I've said in the past, many times, that I love teaching and that it is quite possibly my calling in life, I wasn't kidding.

In other news, it looks like the rest of my week will be spent in a solitary fashion, and I will be running my errands and going to campus alone on Thursday. Daisy's mother recently had surgery, and is recuperating at home, and after both of us talking about whether she should come down here or not or stay and take care of her mother (who, incidentally, told her she should just come down anyway because it will be a while before she can do so again), we decided tonight -- or, really, Daisy decided and I fully and completely supported her on her decision -- that Daisy's place right now is with her mother at home, and unless something drastically changes, that's where she'll stay and not come down here in the morning as she'd planned.

Really, I'm fine with this. Family comes first, of course. I love Mama and worry about her anyway, and I told Daisy that if I were there, I'd be taking care of her as much as possible as well, just like her. This isn't a lie; I adore Daisy's parents, and I've often said that, were it possible for us to do so, I would love to live down the street from them for the rest of our lives in order to be an active part of the family.

"We can work something out at a later time," I told Daisy. "I love you, and I love Mama, and if Mama needs you, she needs you. Don't worry about it. It's okay."

I didn't want her to worry about me or feel bad because she couldn't come down. I still don't want her to feel bad. I have a lot to do, yes, but it can be done solo, and she's barely had any sleep over the past two days. I just want her to get rest, stay around the house, and take care of her mother, because that's really what she needs right now. We were planning to go to campus together and to see the new Percy Jackson movie, but that -- and anything else, really -- can wait until everything settles down somewhat.

As mentioned, a good chunk of my day today was spent taking care of things I needed to get done around the house and for my classes, but mostly financial stuff. I need to go over to the Dollar Tree tomorrow -- my parents both celebrate birthdays next week, as does my ailing grandmother and my godfather (all of them within a day or two of one another) and I need to get them cards. I've forgotten about the cards every single time I've been over there this summer, and usually I'm really on-the-ball when it comes to the month of August and birthdays and the like. I guess I can chalk that up to being somewhat preoccupied with other stuff, but no more so than I was last summer or the summer before that -- arguably the two worst summers of my entire life.

Note: I know Daisy will read this and think "but we got together last summer!" so I have to add the disclaimer here that I'm not including her in the "worst summers" thing.

"By my rough estimations," I told her earlier tonight, "I would run out of money a lot earlier than I thought I would based on my current projections."

"Yeah," she said, "that's usually how it happens."

"Adding in the cost of gas -- since I haven't driven anywhere this summer -- and my credit card bills that I will have to pay on until they're paid off, based on my estimates I would run out of money around mid-October, now. I mean, I'll be fine, since I'll start getting my paychecks from the university in a month or so, but had I not gotten those classes to teach, I'd be in serious panic mode right now."

"Well, remember, baby, even if you're out of money, I'm not. I have money. I won't let you fail."

She's right, and her job does pay a hell of a lot more than mine does, but that's not her responsibility, and she has responsibilities of her own. I've written about this before -- I never want to be dependent on anyone else, ever again, for basic survival.

Cat shirts and teaching clothes be damned, that's why I keep myself on a pretty tight budget when I do my shopping. One of those credit cards, as mentioned above, has been completely paid off (for the moment, anyhow; I'll more than likely order pizza with it tomorrow, since Daisy won't be here). The other I still have about $100 on. I know, I know, $100 in total credit card debt is nothing, but keep in mind that I'm not a millionaire or anything, either. I have a third card that I've never used yet, a card I keep for catastrophic emergencies only. That's the card I'll have to use if I blow a major part on the car, or if I have to end up junking the car eventually and buying a beater from a low-rent auto dealership. Because, yes, that card's limit is enough for that. It's also what I'll use if I get really sick and have to go to the doctor/dentist/ER, or something anywhere else along any of those catastrophe-esque lines.

Barring that, and keeping my finances mostly in check, I'll probably end up using it to help cover some of the wedding costs, if possible. That also depends heavily on where I am monetarily or career-wise at the end of spring, as well.

So those are my plans for tomorrow and for the rest of the week, really -- to rest up, to take care of my pressing school things, to go to the Dollar Tree, and to order a pizza. All of it rolled together is sort of cathartic, really. No, Daisy's not here, which would make it more cathartic (and more hectic at the same time -- no, don't try to figure that one out), but I'll be able to take care of everything I need to take care of and I will be able, finally, to get the last of my leisure time in before I'm swept away by classes again.

Creating Monsters

Countdown to fall semester: seven days

SEVEN DAAAAAAAYS

Ahem.

I put together a message list last night via Facebook so that all six of us in the Raiding Party (also known as the "Knot Lot" or "Wedding Posse") can communicate back and forth in private about putting together plans, travel arrangements and the like as we lead up to the wedding.

This may have been a mistake. It seems that I have created a monster. A five-headed dragon hell-bent on somehow destroying me (metaphorically speaking) in the days leading up to my wedding.

Some of the best quotes thus far (names withheld, of course):

1. "What day do we crush your entire being with alcohol?"

2. "I hate few things in this world as much as I hate stretch humvees, so let's get one of those. I will christen it with a splash of red paint to signify its stateside status as a barbwire tattoo magnet, while everywhere else in the world serves as a principle target. I have no direct knowledge of Omaha's seedy underworld, but I will research. I see here the experience of my misspent youth shall again pay its generous dividends."
    "I'm in." 
    "Clearly, you are King of the Misfits. LEAD US."
    "FOLLOW ME TO VICTORY!"
    "Is that what they're calling jail cells now?"

3.  "I was going to say something along the lines of survival is good, but survival with all limbs, extremeties, and bodily organs functioning is better."
     "I only need one hand, most of my legs, and all of my vital organs."

4. "I've always wanted to dress you like a Hobbit" and "C'mon, you've got the feet for it..."


...this group has been in existence for less than twenty-four hours, folks. Can anyone imagine the ideas that will be brought forth over the course of the next nine months?

Misfit pirates, ahoy. 

I am totally satisfied and put at ease by this, honestly. These people are my friends and family, and people I love and trust. They're also going to do everything they can to make the experience fun and awesome. I'm not exactly down for any sort of traditional "bachelor party" type of thing, though; I've never been that sort of person and have never wanted one, really. I told Daisy to do whatever she wants for her bachelorette party, if she has one, but for me? Eh. I'll just be happy to have everyone together and in one place. We could go crazy through the streets of Omaha, or we could sit in a quiet bar or restaurant and be happy and more laid back. It doesn't matter to me one way or another. What's important is being around my friends and loved ones -- who, in this case, are one and the same.

I created yet another monster tonight as well -- and that monster is me.


I have, every week, a few errands I need to take care of, even when not much is going on. I generally keep a to-do list for myself. Today, for example, that to-do list was to refill the water bottle in my fridge, take a shower and run the load of laundry consisting of my grass-mowing clothes and shoes, recreate and rewrite my English 101 syllabus and first unit lesson plan (something I'll write more about in a bit), go out grocery shopping, and make waffles for Daisy for when she arrives in about 36 hours. I accomplished all of these things, but I created a monster of myself along the way. And I'll tell you how.

As you folks probably know -- at least those of you who go to Walmart on a regular basis -- Walmart continually rotates their clothing stock. I've actually had one Walmart or another in my life since the first one was built in Morgantown in the early '90s while I was growing up there, and I've watched their clothing selection, which was originally quite limited and consisting of mainly blue jeans, underwear/socks, and cheap workshirts, blossom into massive clothing centers of sorts over the past fifteen years or so, places where you can find damn near anything you want at a pretty reasonable price. It used to be shameful to say that you got most of your clothing from Walmart. Now it's really not anymore. And, really, anytime I need something fairly basic, whether that's the aforementioned socks, underwear, or jeans or something else, Walmart is where I go. I'm not necessarily proud of that, but I'm certainly not ashamed of it. My favorite pants, and I own several pairs of them, are black, Wrangler carpenter pants I purchased from Walmart a few years ago, for example. I have a large number of comic-book-related t-shirts, both Marvel and DC. Over the past three years or so, the vast majority of them have been purchased at Walmart. Not kidding. Yes, I have some obscure ones I've gotten from Amazon and the like, but most of them are $7.50 Walmart tees. My favorite sandals came from there, I get almost all of my white t-shirts and dye for tie-dyeing there, etc. I could go on, but I'm pretty sure you get the point. 

My overall point is that they rotate their clothing stock a lot, and add a ton more to it while marking everything old down on clearance at different times of the year. As fall is rapidly approaching, they're trying to clear out their stock of shorts and short-sleeved shirts as quickly as possible, so, for example, all of those are on clearance right now. I ended up picking up three nice, plaid button-up shirts for $5 each, shirts which will be good shirts for me to teach in this fall. I now probably have enough somewhat dressier clothing to teach in for a few weeks at a time. Supplemented with my stock of fleece pullovers/jackets and zip-up hoodies, jackets, and sweaters, I should be just fine for the fall semester when it comes to somewhat respectable adjunct professor attire. I hated to spend the extra $15, but I do need these things; I am no longer a graduate student simply teaching a few classes to get free tuition and a small paycheck -- I am now a professor, living completely off that paycheck, more... adult(?) and more respected, and I can't get away with teaching every day in my Batman shirts and board shorts. 
 
Well, I probably could, but it's not necessarily a good look for all-the-time anymore. 

But then, I saw it, and those things I wrote about above went completely out the window. I became a monster when, and because, I purchased this: 

 

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is, indeed, a rainbow tie-dye shirt with a screenprinted cat on it. And yes, I plan to wear it. A lot.

You may think this is the tackiest thing you have ever seen, and I would be inclined to agree with you. It is as if the clothiers of Walmart dove deep into my brain's subconscious while I was sleeping and picked out two of the most prevalent things in my life, two things which help to define me as a person -- tie-dye and cats -- and combined them in a wholly unholy fashion into the monstrosity you see above. I was drawn to it. It was like hypnosis. I don't remember seeing it, I only remember mindlessly picking it up and putting into the cart, because for some inexplicable reason I was not leaving the store without that shirt in my possession.

Also, the cat in question looks remarkably similar to my cat Sadie, or "my shadow," as I call her, since she rarely leaves my side:

See the resemblance? It's spooky -- though this is, regrettably, an older picture of her.

There's this too:

 

Ahem.

Anyway. I am going to be that guy, the guy who wears that shirt un-ironically in public places. I'm planning to wear it this week when I go to campus to pick up my other course materials and office stuff, partially because I can and partially because it's sort of my last blast of being able to wear whatever I want, whenever I want when I'm on campus -- starting a week from today, as I mentioned before, I have to exude at least a bare minimum of class most of the time. That shirt is totally classless and I know it full well; it may not be as bad as my shirt displaying the graphic of a guy giving two middle fingers and saying "Welcome to Wichita," but it does not have class and sticks out like a sore thumb. It's more of a special occasions shirt, much as the "Welcome to Wichita" shirt. That one I almost feel as if I should bequeath to an incoming GTA whenever I make my final departure from the university -- whenever that may be, anyway. 

I did get my other groceries at Walmart as planned; it's not like the cat shirt hypnotized me that much. 

As mentioned above, one of my other tasks today was to redo, reorganize, and complete my 101 syllabus for this semester. I wrote here before about how the template syllabus emailed out to us was riddled with small errors and conflicting information; the class has been changed quite a bit since I last taught it in 2011. The interim writing director added a fifth paper, changed around a lot of the readings, and meticulously scheduled everything possible with almost no wiggle room for various small things or instructions that may occasionally pop up (such as when I notice, for example, that everyone is making the same exact error in a paper -- things like that need to be addressed). Our former department chair, who has once more re-assumed the position of Writing Program Director -- the position he had when I started grad school -- has taken the class back to form, and it is now operating with the original four-paper plan I always taught my class under, with very few other changes. This is different than what post-2011 grad students and other instructors have taught, so it will be an adjustment for them, but for me, this change isn't really a change at all; it's basically a return to the structure I always taught 101 under. It allowed me to re-craft his template syllabus and blend it with my own from two years ago, tweaking things here and there (changing page numbers to reflect those in the newer editions of the books, replacing one reading with another, etc), but for the most part I will be able to structure and run the same class I ran back then. As such, I completed overhauling my syllabus within an hour, and spent another half hour or so reworking the schedule for the entire first unit of the class. I now have a foundation, lesson plans, and a base of operations to work with -- and could dive right into teaching the class tomorrow if I wanted to. All I need is my class roster and to make copies of the syllabus. 

My 011 class is not this simple. We are now less than a week from the start of classes and I still have no lesson plans, template syllabus to build my own from, or the class's required books. Suri, my friend who has taught 011 in the past, gave me a weekly lesson plan she constructed herself, but it is only one small piece of the puzzle, and not enough to create an entire class around. 011 is the remedial English class; it's a class that students who need more work in English before they take 101 and 102 test into, and it's a no-credit class as well (as far as I know, anyhow), meaning it doesn't count toward their total hours for any given degree program. As such, it focuses on the basics of writing -- the parts of speech, grammar, sentence structure, paragraph structure, etc. It is a wholly different class than English 101 or 102. While I could craft my own unique 011 course from scratch (I did this anyhow, basically, for my 681 "Editing American English" course's final project about eighteen months ago), I would much prefer to have a tried-and-true method of instruction instead of flying blind and solo into the jungle of remedial English. The person in charge of this program is the Director's wife, who -- as you may recall -- I have a great working relationship with already, as it was she who originally designed and helmed the Engineering English courses before I took over. She's very good about getting us course materials and allowing us to have our reign over our classes, so if I have to report to anyone as an adjunct professor, I'm glad it's her. She hasn't sent out anything yet about the sections of 011, though. Amanda, who is in my groo...ahem, Raiding Party, is teaching 011 for the first time this semester as well, and we're both looking forward to getting the materials for the class. 

Being the proactive person I am with a really friendly, respectful working relationship with the Director's wife, I sent her a brief email earlier about teaching 011 this semester and needing the syllabus and any template lesson plans she has. I don't want to be or sound needy, of course, but I do need to get that stuff all finished, if possible, tomorrow or Wednesday so that I can print it out here at home and drop off a copy order for the syllabi on Thursday when Daisy and I go back to campus again. The 011 syllabus is critical to that mix, as it's the first class I teach on Monday.

"If I don't get any of that stuff," I told Suri a few nights ago, "I may as well go into class and say something along the lines of 'Hi, I'm your professor, but even though I have three years of teaching experience under my belt, I've never taught this class before and have nothing for you. See you Wednesday.'"

"That might actually be a better idea," Suri said. I wasn't sure whether she was being sarcastic or not. 

I also told the Director's wife that she could meet Daisy, referred to in my email as "my fiancee," if she was going to be around Thursday and could chat about the class and the like.

I know the department is busy; that much is apparent, what with all of the orientation stuff going on right up through Friday (I would assume, anyhow). I don't like bugging or bothering anyone when I don't have to, but I think a few days of advance notice on anything would be nice. That may not usually be how the department works, I know, but I'm naturally antsy and when I have work that needs to be done, it drives me up the wall if I can't do it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Add Daisy coming down here into the mix, and if I don't get it done ASAP, I'll likely be working on it all weekend up until I go to bed on Sunday night, not only losing my last few days of precious time off but also more than likely missing most of this weekend's NFL preseason games. I also have the new season of Community arriving on my doorstep today, and I have to pay my credit card bill and the re-registration on my car sometime relatively soon as well. I mean, I've already got stuff to do. I have to take care of what I can when I can.

Right now, however, it's incredibly late and I am incredibly tired. If I do not go to bed soon, I will not awaken until late afternoon.  

The Raiding Party

Countdown to fall semester: eight days

It has been a busy and productive past two days. This morning I did as I mentioned in my last post, and got up (fairly) early. I drank a pot of coffee, popped an allergy pill, and then dressed myself to go to the gas station to fill the 2-gallon gas tank I use for the mower. While there, I found that 1.8 gallons of gas (it began to overflow the tank) was something like $7. Yikes. Then I remembered that I haven't filled that little tank since...oh, spring 2011-ish, and that it had lasted me and the mower well over two years. I could've topped off the car's gas tank as well, but as I've only driven 22 miles total since my last fill-up, there was little point to it. What, put less than a gallon in my car? Why bother?


From there I drove back up the street to the car wash. I'd brought quarters with me -- eight dollars in quarters, in fact -- to wash the car. It's $1.75 in the machine per "cycle," which, if you've not gone to a self-service car wash since the 80s or 90s...is exactly like the self-service car washes of the 80s and 90s. I did a soak cycle, a soap pressure-wash cycle, and did half-and-half of a rinse and spot-free rinse cycle. This is almost always what I do. It takes about ten minutes to wash and rinse off the car. And damn, did my car need it. As I said yesterday, it was getting hard to tell that the car was actually black once, seeing as it had a brown-grey layer of dust and dirt on it from over a year of going unwashed. When I power-washed it with the gun, I watched that brown-grey stuff run off in layers. Most of the car's paint and clearcoat is still really good; there's a little rust around some of the edges, and/or cracks in the plastic molding here and there (at some point before I bought it, someone smacked it gently in the front right quarter panel area, and it's bent in a bit towards the headlight), but overall the car's body and paint is in pretty good shape. The only place where the paint is really faded is on the hood (the hood is almost grey at this point) and on the front part of the roof, where it looks like someone had attached a luggage rack or police light to it at some point.

Before leaving the car wash, I bought two packs of the pre-moistened glass-cleaner towels out of the vending machine there and stuck them in the car; at some point I need to clean off the inside of the windshield, as it's dusty and fogs up really easily. It's not smoke residue, just dust and dirt (I only very rarely smoke in the car, and never when I'm driving because I can't focus on the two things at once).

I returned home, came back upstairs to drop off my pocket stuff (wallet, phone, keys, etc) and went back downstairs, where I filled the empty gas tank of the mower and began mowing.

It was a nightmare.

I don't like to over-dramatize things, but, it sucked. A lot. The rains have made the grass grow not three, but at least four or five inches in the past two weeks. I also don't have a flat yard; both my front and back yards have some incline to them, the back more than the front. And I have a dinky, four-year-old, $80 push mower from Walmart. Therefore, my yard was a jungle more than it has been for the entire summer. And, unbeknownst to me, unseen under that thick jungle, it was also a wet, muddy swamp. This was after three full days of no rain, and after yesterday when everyone in my neighborhood seemingly mowed their own yards with no issue.

It took me more than twice as long to mow the grass as it normally does. The mower got clogged with wet grass and sputtered off no fewer than fifty times, which was basically once per pass in the back yard. It was tiring and infuriating. Add to this that I took extra time (probably close to an hour) trimming the weeds out front with scissors and hand clippers as well, since they're so tall and against structures that the mower won't get them, and my back muscles are sore now. By the time I was finished with everything, it was close to 4PM, and my thick t-shirt was soaked through with sweat almost to the point where it looked like I'd showered with my clothes on. I stripped in the basement and took a long, cold shower upstairs to cool off. Even with the coffee to supply me with energy and the allergy pill to keep me from dying due to pollen overload, I was still absolutely exhausted. It felt like a thousand-mile walk to put the mower back into the garage from the back yard.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I may be a bit out of shape.

This is not, however, the "big story" of the weekend. The big story of the weekend is that I have assembled my "groomsmen" party for the wedding, but, well, the process behind that has been an interesting one.

For a while, as you may know, I was considering not having any sort of groomsmen or a "groom's party" at all. Daisy has already picked all the members of her bridal party save for one, and all of them knew without a doubt they'd be in the bridal party from the beginning. I, however, had it much harder -- while Daisy is surrounded by family and friends in Omaha, mine are few and far between out here in Kansas, and many of them have already graduated and moved on (or will graduate and move on before the wedding occurs). This wouldn't normally limit me, but with us both right in the middle of the country, for anyone not in the surrounding area it will not only be expensive for them to attend the wedding, but they more than likely will choose against it due to the travel factor. I've got many people who love me dearly all across the country, but I don't know how many of them love me enough to be able to afford a few days off work and the airfare to fly to Omaha. Especially dudes, which is generally what a party of "groomsmen" is supposed to be. They're traditionally all male.

I'd run the idea across Daisy's plate before about having female groomsmen, or exclusively female groomsmen. I thought it was cute and funny that she would have her bridal party all decked out in dresses and flowery shit, and I'd have a badass troop of women decked out in sport coats and pants. She thought this would be cool -- I could pick anyone I wanted for my "groomsmen" and we'd roll with it. I brought it up again last night -- because, clearly, if I'm getting married in nine months I need to get my proverbial shit together -- and asked her if she meant that, if she thought it would be a good idea. She once again gave me the affirmative.

Now, mind you, I do have male friends. I do. But, again, most of them are graduating or have already graduated and moved on in life. On the other hand, I have many more female friends than male friends (and it's always been that way, for some reason), and I tend to be a lot closer to my female friends than the guys, with only a few exceptions -- Parker being one of them, of course. So, I floated the idea publicly on Facebook:

Seriously considering my "groomsmen" to be comprised primarily of women (with the exception of Parker) dressed in jackets/slacks and tuxedo t-shirts. So not kidding. Thoughts?

I got many affirmatives and much support with this idea, so I decided to press forth with it -- or at least a version of it, anyway. 

By the way, yes, that is the wedding attire for my side. I'll be wearing it too.

Parker was always a given; it had been decided many moons ago that he would be a part of the wedding in some fashion, if only to be in charge of my wardrobe (which yes, he supports wholeheartedly as well). I always thought he knew he was de facto in the groom's party because of this, yet he was taken aback and honored when we started talking plans for everything last week. I told him that of course he was in -- he was the first person to tell me he'd be at the wedding and offered anything he could do to help once Daisy and I announced our engagement back in February. So, with me and him in place, I could begin to assemble my group.

I will start by saying that there were several I had in mind anyway from the get-go. Daisy told me that a group of five or six is what she was shooting for, so that was my magic number as well...which was good, since even though the wedding itself is going to be fairly small and non-traditional, the number of people I wanted to involve with it on my side was about that many. I began to put together my A-Team.

I love it when a plan comes together.

First up was my brother -- my oldest brother who's married with three kids. If anyone in my family aside from my parents would actually come to the wedding, it would be him. I sent him a message last night about it, but got no response (he works weird hours, he plays in bands, etc -- this was to be expected). I moved on.

Obviously, if I'm doing this the way I want to do it, there was no way I was doing it without asking Rae -- and she accepted quickly and wholeheartedly. She's totally gung-ho for the occasion and has been since the beginning, much like Parker. Rae, of course, graduated with me this past spring, and now lives/works in her hometown of Cincinnati, but had already made plans to come back here for the wedding regardless.

Next was my friend Amanda, who I'm really close with but haven't really mentioned here in the blog. She's also a colleague and still a current grad student. She also immediately accepted; as a plus, she goes to Omaha all the time, so she knows the city.

That was four. I asked two other friends; one declined due to her upcoming graduation and not knowing where she's going to be or what she'll be doing by the time the wedding rolls around -- which I completely, and totally understand; for fuck's sake, I've been there, you know? A lot. Totally legit reasons there, with no hard feelings on either side whatsoever. The other was my friend April in Portland, who I've written about here before at length, and who already planned to fly in for the wedding and wished we could get more time together while she was here. Well, this was her chance. April also immediately accepted this afternoon, and was also totally gung-ho about it.

That only left my brother.

I've never been especially close with my brother; he's more than ten years older than me and we've always operated on slightly different wavelengths. He has also been married since I was in middle school, so for most of my formative years I only got to see him and spend time with him during the holidays or during gatherings of the extended family on my dad's side. As you may know, we're not related by blood; he's my dad's oldest son, though we have always looked upon each other as brothers, and that's never going to change. I haven't seen him in at least eighteen months, though we are in regular contact most of the time on Facebook. What he doesn't know is that I look up to him quite a lot, and always have -- he's got a wonderful wife and is a great father to three awesome kids, holds down a respectable, awesome job, and...oh yeah, he's covered in tattoos and has been in several fairly successful bands which have released actual, successful albums and have gone on successful tours. Yep, that's my brother. And I am very proud to call him that.

Because he's my brother, logic, tradition, and flat-out rank would dictate that he be selected for the title of "best man," though with a group as non-traditional as my A-Team was, I didn't even know if I should have a "best man" or "best person" at all. And, of course, I didn't want to offend Parker, the only other male in the group besides myself. I told Parker that I was asking my brother to be my best man, and hoped that it didn't offend him or otherwise cause ill will between us. Let me tell you, that was hard to say. I knew on some level that Parker wouldn't mind (and he didn't; he was flattered to be in the running at all) but for that split second, I had to make one of those tough choices that could have ended up souring proverbial milk between one or more parties. So I asked my brother if he wanted the job, and totally meant it -- not out of obligation or out of guilt, but because I want him there and want him to be a part of the wedding.

He got back to me this afternoon, accepting it and giving me the affirmation that he was incredibly honored to do so and be asked. I now have a family member in my wedding, something that I thought only Daisy would get to have, since I'm so far from the rest of my family.

So the gang was set. "The Raiding Party," as I called it, was complete. I made the announcement on Facebook. I have picked an ensemble of really eclectic people, only two of whom (Parker and myself) have no tattoos whatsoever. April and my brother are covered in them, and Rae and Amanda have several between them.

Well, at least I don't think Parker has any tattoos. He may have one hidden somewhere he never talks about; I've never asked, actually.

This is, of course -- in total Brandon fashion -- strongly contrasted with Daisy's bridal party, consisting of (those I know so far) herself, her two sisters, and two friends, one of whom is her best friend and maid of honor. In comparison to Daisy's bridal party, my Raiding Party is like the Addams Family, where Parker is the only normal one.

"Just think of the photography alone," I told the members of my party. "Seriously."

Imagine, if you will, all of Daisy's bridal party in their pretty dresses and flowers getting their traditional, sweet family-and-friends wedding pictures taken. And now imagine us, in tuxedo t-shirts, probably sneakers as well, with people who have multicolored hair (April is notorious for this, and I encourage it hardcore for the wedding), tattoos, and beards on the guys (well, again, except for Parker; the man is always clean shaven). We're going to look like misfit pirates in suits. And it's going to be awesome. I told my brother that he can cut the sleeves off the tuxedo t-shirt for our photo shoots if he likes, as that would let him show off the tats.

Seriously, all we need are a few motorcycles and some aviator shades, and we'd be a gang. And I already have the aviators.

So that's one more piece of the puzzle done. Like I said, Daisy still has to pick one or two more people, but I've got my side of things locked down. Travel, however, may be a problem. Again, as I mentioned, I didn't want to put people into a situation where they'd be taking off work and spending a bunch of money to fly to Omaha, but it looks like that's the way it's going to happen anyhow, at least for half of us. Me, Parker, and Amanda will all be here, but my brother's flying from Pittsburgh, April's flying in from Portland, and Rae (who I'm guessing will be flying) is coming in from Cincy. All of them would be coming anyway, but for some reason I still feel guilty about it.

Daisy is coming down this week; she should be here on Tuesday night or early Wednesday. It's the last time we'll get to see each other for a while with classes starting up for me in a week. Once more, she will come with me to campus, when I go down there on Thursday to see what I can set up with getting books and literature for my new classes. I need to have the syllabus for my 011 class finished and ready by Friday, as otherwise I won't be able to get copies of it made before class on Monday (especially if I don't have office space there somewhere by that time, whether it be with Parker or otherwise). On the first day of classes, it's not like anyone has time to make copies of syllabi for who knows how many GTAs and professors, and by that time I'll have to know how many copies I need, as well. The latest I can put in a copy order for my 101 syllabus is on Monday morning when I get there, and I'd have to have them made by the time I left that day, otherwise I'd be rushing around the West campus on Tuesday morning before class starts trying to get copies made there...which is probably not the best way to give a good impression to the West campus staff on my first day there. I doubt I'll have to rush a lot of this; I'm guessing I'll get a lot more information via email either tomorrow or Tuesday, but still, a bit of panic sets in when I realize that I don't have everything I need taken care of, I don't have access yet to my class rosters or most of the necessary materials, and classes start in a week. Once that first day hits, it's one long slog as always to the end of the road in December.

AND I just realized that I need to email back the university in Maryland to tell them that I'm teaching here this fall. Shit. Gotta do that tomorrow too.

So much to do, so little time, I suppose.

Ch-ch-changes

I logged on to the university email system this afternoon to shoot an email to the two administrators, asking them if they'd double-check to see that I was on all of the pertinent mailing lists (since I didn't get the tentative schedule email yesterday). I hate to bother them, but that's kind of important and with me being on the main campus much less this semester than ever before, it's even more important that I know what's going on in the department when it comes to administration and events. My campus email is and has always been spotty anyhow; last summer, for example, it didn't work at all for about a month when I was teaching summer sessions. Students would email me and said emails would simply vanish into cyberspace, never to arrive in my inbox. I proved this in class one night when I had a student send me a test email from her laptop which (of course) never arrived, and she showed it to me in her "sent" folder showing that it had been successfully delivered. I had to resort to having students email me at my personal address (something that I'll never do again if I can possibly avoid it, if only because I've eschewed most email communication for communication via Twitter and Facebook). I've known fellow instructors who have given out their personal cell number to their students for calls and texts, which I think is insane, but y'know, whatever, to each their own. My phone is off 90% of the time anyhow, and it's prepaid, so that wouldn't exactly work for me even if I had that sort of mentality.

Anyway, once I'd sent my email, I clicked on Blackboard for the first time since May to check it, and...whoa. It's been majorly updated. I can't add anything to any folders for any classes yet, since those classes I'm teaching haven't been assigned to me, formally, through Blackboard or Banner, but the layout has been overhauled and changed around quite a bit. This is at least the third major update Blackboard has had since I've been teaching...for only three years.

For those of you unfamiliar with academia or what Blackboard is, it's a program integrated into the university's online/email/classes system. It can be used for a large number of things, but at the university, we English instructors mainly use it for storage, messaging, announcements, and plagiarism detection (through the built-in, and often-mentioned-here SafeAssignment). There's a "page" set up for each class we teach, and on that page we can post folders full of class documents, readings, assignments/SafeAssignments, and class announcements. At least, that's what I've always used it for. There are many other uses for it, including an interactive grade board, online journals, online testing, media center, etc. 90% of what Blackboard can do is lost on simple composition and writing classes, since most of the class instruction comes simply from, y'know, being in class and listening to the lecture. I used Blackboard a lot more for my Engineering English classes, since those students were all nerds like me and appreciated being able to click on videos from YouTube, for example, that discussed another angle of what we were covering in class. Most of my grad school classes didn't use it at all, and because it's such a pain in the ass to do anything with at times (especially the online grading component) I try to use Blackboard as little as possible outside of posting class documents and sending out announcements.

I forgot to mention before that last week when I was on campus, I learned something really interesting about the new recruits (read: incoming new GTAs) -- their orientation is now almost two full weeks long, and includes all sorts of stuff that me and my colleagues didn't have to deal with when we were students. My own orientation, in 2010, was three days -- the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of the week before classes started. It was relatively painless; there were a few long lectures, including the infamous "don't have sex with your students, but if you do, we've got good lawyers, and whatever happens we've never lost a case" speech, and then we got our schedules and offices. In fall 2011, we had to go in there another extra day because there was new Blackboard training (go figure) on stuff that approximately 5% of us would actually use, and 90% of that training was rendered obsolete by the end of that semester anyway, etc. I think I went for one day of orientation last fall, because it was the only day that all of the GTAs were required to attend. I can't exactly remember now, because by last fall it didn't matter, and I already knew the drill on everything -- it was mainly just going through the motions and having a day to set up my office a bit more to ready for the semester overall. I really couldn't tell you what the hell they've got GTAs in there for almost two weeks for now, unless there have been some really drastically-updated policies for GTAs this fall.

I'm cultivating my professor look for the fall, and as such, I haven't shaven in about two weeks, if not longer. The last time I shaved was the week before Daisy was here, so that would be a little more than two weeks ago now. I will "trim up," so to speak, before I begin teaching, but the beard is coming back, especially as my hair grows out over the fall.

"Oh no, I just thought of something," Daisy told me the other night.

"What?"

"You're going to have all of those high school girls taking your class fawning all over you," she said.

My 101 class is taught on the West campus; I've been told that the majority of the students who take 101 there take it through the local high school as seniors, for a dual-credit, off-campus course. I took my own English 101 (and 102) class in high school before I started at WVU, though it was still in the high school itself and taught by one of the normal high school teachers. My class is still a university-level English 101 class; it's taught no differently than any other 101 class.

"No, they're not," I told her, "trust me. I am not an attractive man."

Well? I'm really not, you know. Even less so when I have long hair and a beard like a wild woodsman.

"I should have you start wearing your wedding ring already, to class," Daisy told me, rolling her eyes.

I do have my wedding ring already -- the ring I'll more than likely use as my wedding ring, anyway. I bought it on Amazon months ago very cheaply to test the style and fit, and ended up liking it so much that I'll probably end up using it. If I see something else I like in the meantime, I may get another one instead -- but, for all intents and purposes, I've already got the ring now.

As an aside, for a guy as big as I am, I have relatively short fingers and small hands. They're not like, club fingers or anything, but it's just something I've noticed while looking for rings for both of us.

Anyway, changing gears...today is the first rain-free day we've had here in Newton in almost two full weeks, and right now I'm hearing no less than three lawnmowers going at once around my neighborhood, including both the neighbor next to me and the one behind me. Meanwhile, I slept until 1PM, because I couldn't care less.

I will have to mow my grass again sometime over the next few days if it stays dry; I may do it tomorrow. I have no gas for the mower, however, so I need to go get that first. I really don't care about it. It's going to rain more this coming week anyway, so even if I mow it tomorrow it'll grow another three inches by next week, and I won't have any time or patience to cut it then, either. It is the chore-iest of all of my household chores, and by far the most physically strenuous. Add terrible allergies to that, and halfway through mowing I'm coughing, sneezing, and gagging in addition to all of the sweating. When it's been rainy and the grass is actually healthy, it's a huge pain in the ass to mow it all -- I have to take an allergy pill and allow it to kick in, and drink basically a pot of coffee rapidly in order to give me enough energy to do it in the morning (before the sun gets too high in the sky and blinds me, or burns my pasty white skin off). Yet, I know I have to do it soon or I will no longer have time to do it except on my days off from teaching. With all of this rain and the (mostly) mild summer we've had for the past month or so, I would imagine I'll be mowing well into mid-September or October.

But oh well. It's not like I have any choice in the matter. I have to mow the grass, since it is, y'know, a city ordinance. I can be fined for it if I don't do it.

I've been more preoccupied as of late with school stuff, getting time with Daisy, and watching episode after episode of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, which I will more than likely (sadly) finish tonight during dinner. I have ordered the fourth season of Community, which came out last week, I think, and that will be coming soon to replace the hole left by Todd, but still.

Daisy is very happy for me that I've gotten three classes to teach, but she is also distressed because it means we will have much less time together. I'll be working all week, and she'll be working at nights on the weekends...when I'll still be working because I'll have grading and lesson-planning to do. Unless she somehow gets her nights off switched to the weekends -- basically the opposite schedule she has now -- she'll never be able to come and visit during the semester because I'll be teaching during the days (and, later in the semester, the evenings as well) every day but Friday. Neither of us like this, of course, and we realize it's not ideal, but it is what we have to deal with right now in order for me to be able to survive and pay bills. For the first half of the semester, at least, my workload should be relatively light and my free time at home to sleep and decompress should be somewhat abundant, but that depends on what the paper schedules turn out to be this semester and how they run for the clasess I'm teaching. I may be home more, but if all the time I spend awake is spent grading and/or lesson-planning, it's not going to be that fun. Once the business writing class starts in October, everything will become even more hectic as two of my four days per week, I will be outside of the house for thirteen or fourteen hours straight again.

I shrug. There's just not a lot that I can do about it, and I need the money. Badly. This is my lot as a teacher. I told her, of course, that I wouldn't just up and ignore her, that I love her and would do everything I could possibly do to make as much time for her, for us, as I can. But it's going to be a long, lonely semester for the most part, filled with lots of work to do. I barely get a few hours per day to talk to Daisy now -- long gone are the days where we'd spend ten hours a day on Skype together. We both work and sleep and have other shit to do.

Today I vacuumed the house, as it sorely needed it. I need to clean the toilet later, possibly tonight, and I need to get a shower as well. I haven't showered in probably three days, mostly because it hasn't been 95 degrees outside or in the house, and I haven't been sweating through my clothing every few hours like I do when it's that hot. Right now it's a comfortable 82 outside, and 84 in my Man Cave.

I still didn't sleep that well last night into today; I should have, really, since a lot of my stresses were/are lessened, but I kept waking up every few hours, my allergies were killing me, and the cats always seemed to want to sleep exactly where I needed to stretch out my legs.

Maybe if it's nice in the morning I'll go run the errands I need to do before mowing the grass; I need to get gas for the mower anyway, so maybe I'll do that and go over to the car wash to finally get the layer of road dirt and Kansas dust off of the Monte Carlo. It's been over a year since I've washed the car. No, that's not a joke, that's totally the truth. I haven't washed her since like...last July? Something like that? And ugh, does she need it. She's no longer black, but a grey-brown sort of black. There's still a fair amount of shine left in her paint, even though it's old and faded; she can look good when I want her to:

And that was when she had her old, shitty back tires, too.

On that note, I'm going to end this post; I have little else to say, and I need to go eat dinner, shower, probably clean the toilet, and go to bed sometime tonight so that I can get up early in the morning.

A Time of Great Change, Part II

Countdown to fall semester: ten days

I have received my teaching schedule for the fall. Or, rather, one of my friends has forwarded it to me, as I was not apparently on the email list for it (this happens a lot more than I'd like to admit, to be honest with you; it used to happen all the time when I was still a student there).

I am pleasantly surprised, though I'm going to be busy. Very busy.

I have three classes to teach: 011, 101, and 210 -- the latter of which is business writing. 011 is on the main campus. 101, as I knew before, is on the West campus. The business writing class is also on the west campus, but it is a night class and it is also an 8-week class which will start meeting on October 10 (if I'm reading the schedule correctly).

This is a lot to take in at once, obviously. Aside from the pay, which will be nice but is the least of my concerns right now, I've never taught 011 or 210 before. Essentially I'm being thrown into these classes with no prior instruction on how to teach them or lesson plans to follow for them. I'll pick up the books and then basically be off on a running start. I'll get a bit of prep time for the 210 class, of course, but still a running start.

So, in a way, it's very similar to when I first started teaching three years ago as a GTA. Greeeeeeeat.

I also won't have any full days off; my 011 class is on Monday and Wednesday, and my 101 class is on Tuesday and Thursday, on different campuses. When the 210 class starts up, it'll be on Tuesday and Thursday nights for three hours each time. That'll make those nights long ones; I won't get home until probably close to 11PM (par for the course for me on those days, really, as I'm used to those late nights from grad school).

Well, except for Friday. Because no English classes are taught on Fridays, and it's been like that since 2010.

I don't know anything about office assignments; what I do know is that I'll have to have copies of my syllabus done by Monday morning (the 19th) when I first start teaching, and I'll have to get those printed/copied somewhere. I don't have a set of 011 books, either, so all of that may have to wait until I actually get to campus. If possible, I'll more than likely go in sometime during this coming week to see if I can get all of this stuff sorted out. I don't really have a choice, honestly; I have to be able to see what I can get done before these classes start. As tonight is Friday night, it's not like I can hop in the car and go down there tomorrow.

This is about as official as things get right now; nothing has been entered into Banner or Blackboard yet, so I can't access my class lists or anything like that to know how many copies of my syllabi I'll need, nor do I know how many students I have total in all of my classes combined. But, I will say this: it takes an even larger weight off of my shoulders to know that I'll be doing something to keep busy, something that I'm good at and love doing, and will be getting 3X what I was originally expecting to be paid ('cause, y'know, three classes). This will do more than simply cover my monthly bills and expenses -- it will hopefully allow me to slowly begin saving money again, and will allow me to save up some cash to put toward the wedding, if I'm lucky. Will it make me financially stable? No, not by a long shot -- I'll still have to adjust my monthly loan repayment amount pretty soon, more than likely -- but it will make me stable enough for the time being to where I won't have to pinch every penny, worry about being able to keep my gas tank full, or worry about ordering a pizza once in a while due to finances. It will make me okay for a while.

As for the newspaper? I don't know. I'll have to play it by ear for a few weeks to see what's going to happen and how busy those classes will keep me. Small classes will mean more time to write and do writing-like-things. Large classes will mean I'll never sleep and will be constantly grading things with little time for anything else, especially in the second half of the semester when I'll have the business writing class under my wing as well. Still? I don't really care about the work. Yes, I'll be teaching, which means that there will be a lot of teaching work involved. And, if I learned anything as a graduate student, it's that enough strong coffee and cigarettes can and will get me through basically anything, even a total, delirious lack of sleep.

I have gotten a set of updated 101 lesson plans from Parker, and have requested 011 lesson plans and a syllabus from my friend Suri, who has taught the class before. I'll need those things to that I'm not completely lost when I go in there in a week and a half.  Parker has some great, really-detailed lesson plans, which is something I needed since I haven't taught 101 in two years.

Much of the next ten days will be spent drafting out lesson plans and syllabi; I don't really have much of a choice there. The (now former) Chair, restored to his former position of Director of the Writing Program, sent us an example syllabus for 101 a few days ago, but while it is useful in many respects, it is two years old and has a lot of parts and parameters which are no longer applicable to the class, some dates are wrong, etc. We were encouraged as GTAs (and even more as professors, now) to edit and curtail our template syllabus to whatever we wish it to be as long as we don't alter the assignments of the class. I can do this and can do it quite easily; I've only been doing it for three years now, after all. I still need a bit more information from the department and from the program itself before I can finalize a syllabus.

Also, apparently the department is an absolute mess right now; Parker will be trying to get me into the spare desk in his office so that I have a base of operations on the main campus for printing, copies, and whatever office hours I'll have. Parker is also highly-respected in the department, so he has a bit of pull as well. If I can get into the spare desk in his office, it'll all be gravy for the main campus side of things.

The problem, however, comes in around October.

As mentioned above, I have a night class on the West campus, the business writing class. That starts October 10, on Tuesday/Thursday nights. I teach in the same room, my 101 class, those mornings as well. You can probably see where this is going -- there's a nine-hour gap between my classes.

Some of you may be asking well, why don't you go home, get food, take a nap, etc between the classes and then come back?

Yeah, I could do that if I wanted to, if I wanted to drive 100 miles a day twice a week in my poor old car, and spend the gas money to do so. I'd rather not. I can't afford the gas for that, nor do I have the patience involved. Once October rolls around, I'll have to be able to set up shop somewhere in the West campus building, somewhere I can do grading and other class-related work, because I won't really be able to leave and go back home/come back. I could wander around the small town of Maize if I'd like; there's a Five Guys there, as well as a shopping center and a (huge) Goodwill store across the street, but I can't do that shit every week. For one, as much as I love Five Guys, they're expensive and I'd gain 100 pounds over the semester. For two, that wandering the town shit is going to get really old really fast. I could drive over to the main campus and back as well, but that would also put a fair amount more miles on the car, and I'd have to fight tooth and nail for parking there during the midday hours.

At least I'll always have the Goodwill right next to West campus, though, so that I can get rid of a bunch of my old stuff and/or get more dressy-like clothes. I'm not exactly sure how "dressy" I'll have to be as a professor. I mean, I have some dress clothes, but still, it's August, and even if it's in the 70s outside now, it will more than likely be in the 80s or 90s before it cools down for the fall. I want to be able to actually, y'know, dress like I normally dress, at least sometimes anyway.

Still, I will admit that I can't wait to break out the several new pairs of corduroy pants I purchased from the Goodwill in Omaha earlier this summer. And I have slowly been collecting more dressy-ish clothing to teach in, or at least clothing that isn't t-shirts-and-shorts. For example, when I was at Walmart two days ago, I picked up two sweatshirts on clearance for $3 each. I've picked up some polo shirts, some somewhat classy button-up shirts and a jacket or two as well, all on clearance. Is it enough to clothe me classily for four days per week? Probably not, but it's enough to keep me business-casual a lot of the time. I'm never going to be one of those professors who wears sport coats with patches on the elbows and sharp, sassy neckties, as good as that may make me look, because it's totally not my scene. I'm the guy who dresses nicely a few days a week, and wears hoodies/comic book t-shirts the other days. At least the first half of the semester's attire will depend heavily on the weather. It's 73 degrees right now in August. At this rate, who knows, we could be getting snow next month. After all, we had snow in May.

The weather slightly worries me, especially on those late nights the second half of the semester will bring. As you know, Kansas is a really weird state. It's not uncommon to get a snowstorm/ice storm in November or early December as the semester is wrapping up, and it's a long, dark drive back home -- especially from West campus -- if the weather is bad. I'll have to deal with that if it comes to it, of course. It's not like I'm the kind of person to cancel classes at the drop of a hat, especially if I'm already on campus (as I will be those nights) but it is something to think about, at least.

But, of course, I'm getting too ahead of myself.

Hearing the news today and seeing my schedule -- however tentative it may be at this juncture -- has made me more...tired, really, than anything else. I'd been under so much low-level stress that learning what I'll be doing, when, and where lifted those weights off of me and left me...sleepy. Like I've been in some sort of low-level panic and it's somehow, subconsciously, kept me from being able to get quality rest as of late. Last night, for example, I slept terribly. It took me forever to fall asleep, and I only got about six hours of actual rest, during which (for at least part of it) I was having some really crazy, stressful dreams. I know part of my shitty sleep cycles are due to my allergies as well, allergies which have been terrible. Even now, I have a sinus headache, and while my ear doesn't feel like it's getting infected anymore, my lungs, nose, and head have been clogged up, and my joints feel all achey as well. Allergies plus lack of quality sleep compound and feed upon one another, as you could probably guess.

This weekend, aside from taking care of updating my syllabi and lesson plans as much as I can, I don't plan on doing a whole lot. I don't have anywhere to go or anything pressing to do except pay my Amazon card bill, and there's football on all weekend. I'll probably enjoy a fair amount of that, honestly. And, since I can afford it...I might order a pizza.

A Time of Great Change, Part I

Dear Mr. [my last name]
I hope this email finds you well. We have reviewed your application for the adjunct position and would like to invite you to campus for an interview. However, for the fall semester, we are looking  for adjuncts who have daytime availability to teach face-to-face classes. If you are available to teach during the day, would you be able to visit our [redacted] campus next week on Tuesday before noon or after 2:30 or Wednesday after 2:30 for an interview? The interview process takes approximately an hour. Best,

[Name], PhD

Professor of English
[School]

You've got to be kidding me, right?

I just received this email yesterday afternoon.

I don't know how to respond to it, really.

The school in question is a community college. In Maryland. In the DC area, actually, right next to where the Washington Redskins play football.

I applied for a teaching position there at least two months ago; they were one of the first applications I filled out (I have a list). They were also one of the many schools which I wrote off about a month ago now because there would be no more time to move cross-country to teach someplace. In June, when I applied, that would have been feasible. In August, it is not. No way, no how. Especially not now that I'll be teaching here this fall.

The email above -- while it is indeed nice and to-the-point, shows that the department there must've read my qualifications and cover letter, but neglected to notice my physical location of Kansas. Can I fault them for this? Well, yes, of course I can -- unless they think I am independently wealthy (which would negate the need for me to be teaching for them as an adjunct), a little closer reading would have helped them to realize that I can't just hop a plane to DC for an interview in four days. It is, again, bittersweet, as this is the only interview request I've received all summer for any teaching position outside my own university.

Had they replied a month ago? It might have been do-able. I might have been able to fly home to visit my parents, detour to that interview, and then fly back here. Now? Nope. It's August 9. Classes here start in ten days. Ten days. I don't know when classes start there, but if they start around the time they do here, that's A) a really fast window for interviews, and B) they must be absolutely desperate for help.

Sorry, can't do anything about it now, ma'am.

I will have to reply this weekend, telling them I have accepted an adjuncting position here, and that I am now unavailable -- but with the caveat that if they would like to hire me on in the spring I would certainly interview with them again at that time, though it would have to be via telephone or Skype. I don't know what else to say, really.

I also received rejections for two different positions I applied for at the University of Colorado, both of them form emails delivered within one minute of one another. Classy.

I have been in sort of a hermit's hibernation period over the past few days, trying to soak in the last bit of "summer vacation" I have left. I put that in quotes because it's not so much "vacation" as it is "forced temporary unemployment." I haven't heard anything else from the department, and Parker (who has been teaching this summer and has been up there quite a bit) told me that it's been crazy busy, so I should cool my proverbial jets and relax a bit while everything works itself out. Whether I'll be offered anything else is unknown, and to be honest with you, I'm starting to get a little panicky about that. I know I'll get the one class I've already been given, but again that's little more than a stopgap when it comes to finances. I told Daisy I hope I get a big load of classes, four or five total, because -- while that will almost certainly not happen, and I would be so busy teaching, grading, and making lesson plans that I'd never sleep, it would allow me to save a buttload of money for the wedding and be able to move out of here whenever necessary. And, of course, I wouldn't have to worry so much about paying bills and starting those student loan payments in a few months.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to Walmart. I did not want to, but I could wait no longer -- I needed to get the essentials for another few weeks' survival, and needed cigarettes and coffee. As an aside, I've been drinking relatively little coffee as of late, but I was still almost out of it. This is the first time I've left the house in a week, since I was over at the newspaper last Friday morning. When I go out nowadays, everywhere I go it feels like people are staring at me and judging me silently for some reason. I don't know why, but it does. Yesterday I think I looked fairly normal -- tie-dye shirt, khaki shorts, flip-flops -- but it still felt like everyone was staring at me and judging me, as if they can tell I'm mostly unemployed and useless to society. It was a really weird feeling. I got the stuff I needed at Walmart and got the hell out of there. It was, to say the least, unnerving.

I think my allergies are building up so much that they're compounding on one another, mostly because of all of the rain and storms we've been getting here over the past two weeks or so. I woke up yesterday morning with what feels like a possible ear infection coming on, and have been unable to shake it. I can take allergy medicine and my congestion and the like will go away, but as soon as the pills wear off, everything comes back full-force. Since I can't become dependent on the pills to get rid of everything, I can't take them all the time. I've been drinking a lot of water as well, since I want to see if I can help flush everything out of my system that way. Plus, for some reason I've been really thirsty over the past week, and have been drinking a lot of water. Last night I was having a lot of bowel trouble, and couldn't actually crash and fall asleep until after I took medicine and it kicked in. It's like my body is staging a revolt of some kind.

The storms have quieted down a bit over the past two or three days; I've been awakened once a night or so by a few loud thunderclaps, but nothing else, and certainly nothing like the storms we've been having over the past two weeks. It'll thunder loud once or twice, and then I'll hear a few more softer rumbles, and then nothing. Apparently rain comes with it, at least for a while -- the pavement is always wet or puddled when I get up in the morning. However, it's a lot more difficult for me to hear storms when I'm downstairs in the below-ground bedroom and the low drone of the fan(s) blowing on me creates ambient noise. Since I started this post, however, there's been a lot of little storms and moderate rain popping up on the radar around the area, so I know that once I go to bed I will probably once more be awakened once or twice to some loud thunder.

As for my car and how I hastily stowed it in the garage a few nights ago, apparently I did it well -- when I took it out yesterday I realized that I couldn't have put it in there straighter if I'd tried, and that's a pretty big feat for me since the car is a fucking landboat. When I came home from Walmart, I made sure to pull up in front of my garage door as straight as possible, so that in the case that I have to do the same thing once more if we get more rough storms, I can pull her straight in and pull her in quickly, even with no light but my headlights and if a storm is raging around me.

In this time of change, this time of my last few days of, well, almost total unemployment before I become an honest-to-god professor, I mentioned that I've been rather slothlike and sedentary, trying to enjoy my time left before I have to begin teaching again. It's been my only true relaxation time the entire summer -- up until last week, I got up every day with a mission: apply for whatever jobs I can, be depressed, freak out little by little when nobody wants to hire me as the days pass, etc. Now that I know I'll be teaching again, and that I have a sort of rough game plan laid out for me for this fall, I've finally been able to actually breathe, and I've been able to relax somewhat. Not completely, of course, but somewhat. Enough to where it's not a chore or a miserable exercise to even get up and go about life. Daisy's presence here last week helped with that a lot as well, but being able to relax and do what I want, when I want to, without total gloom-and-doom and failure hanging over my head? I cannot tell you how much that helps me mentally and emotionally. My stress levels, while they will always be high, have lowered considerably.  My sleep has improved. Somewhat, anyway. I can't tell you exactly how much. My energy levels have remained much the same, though I no longer feel as if I'm being crushed by the weight of the earth. This is good.

In my downtime I have watched the entire first season of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, a fantastically amusing show from Canada that a friend recommended to me. I liked it so much that I watched the first season of thirteen episodes in two sessions -- ten on Wednesday, three yesterday -- and I ordered the second season set from Amazon immediately, even before I'd finished. It arrives sometime today via UPS.