One month from now, we'll be entering the last week of classes this semester. It can't come soon enough.
As mentioned before, I am almost constantly tired now. It's a continual thing. I'm always running with moderate-to-high levels of stress; I'm always worrying about something else that must be done, something else that must be taken care of right now or Brandon will forget about it because his brain is too tired to remember anything anymore. Yet, as you know well, I can't sleep. I have to force sleeping pills down my throat to be able to get enough rest on Monday and Wednesday nights to even function for those twelve-hour Tuesdays and Thursdays on West campus, and even that's not enough when I'm spending eight hours of those days doing nothing but grading paper after paper for the entire time, as I did yesterday.
Yesterday...well, sucked. I mean yes, it was Halloween, but it's not like I could have any fun. A bunch of friends in the department were having a Halloween party last night, for example -- I had to decline my invitation because I was teaching my night class.
Very few people on West campus dressed up for Halloween. I had about six or seven students dress up (out of the thirty or so I teach on Tuesday/Thursday), and I saw a few costumes throughout the rest of the day worn by other students, but that was about it. Most everyone looked at me as if I was a complete and total idiot. Which, really, made sense, since I was dressed as The Fox, but come on, it's Halloween. I realize it's Kansas, the most no-fun state in the union, but fucking live a little, you uptight farm folk.
Because the fox makeup was indeed makeup, I couldn't touch my face all day or it would smear. Badly. I also had some of the worst allergies I've ever had yesterday, and guess what? Couldn't blow my nose, either, lest the tissues wipe more than half the makeup off my face. I was basically miserable most of the day, and couldn't wait to get home to wash it off.
I mentioned before I'd told my 210 students that for last night only, I wasn't going to take attendance -- I wasn't going to penalize them if they wanted/needed to take their kids trick-or-treating, as most of the students in that class are in their 30s/40s/50s and have kids of that age. Yes, even some of my students in their 50s have young(er) children and/or grandchildren they planned to take out for Halloween. I did, however, assure them that class would still go on as scheduled, that we'd be covering what was on the lesson plan/syllabus as planned, and that if they showed up to class in costume, they'd get ten bonus points. On Tuesday, mind you, more than half the class told me they were going to come in costume, so I was excited.
I got in there last night to teach that class -- after spending all afternoon grading through their Business Letters to give back to them -- to find that I had six out of twenty students actually there. Six out of twenty. All of them but one were in costume. I gave twenty bonus points to them. All of them. Even the one not in costume. At that point, the ones who actually showed up -- two of whom actually have kids as well, yet had skipped trick-or-treating with them to come to class -- deserved all the credit I could afford to give them. Of course, I was somewhat frustrated that I'd spent all day grading through the papers to give back to them when I didn't need to grade but six of them. We covered what was on the agenda, I gave them their papers back and awarded them their bonus points, and we dismissed. We were in there for maybe an hour at most, with only about half of that time being used to discuss actual class stuff. When only six students show up, it's not like a whole lot can get accomplished. Luckily, last night was going to be a somewhat slow night anyhow. It really makes me wonder if people only show up to that class because they'll fail due to absences if they don't, even if they do the work. I mean, not even bonus points could drag more than six of them in there.
Oh well; it made my night shorter and easier, so there's that.
A few interesting things did happen yesterday, and on Tuesday as well, so I'll go down them in a brief list to get them out of the way:
- On Tuesday, I saved a big water turtle's life. No, seriously. I was outside having a cigarette on West campus when I noticed a big turtle crossing the road that leads into the campus. It's a heavily-traveled road. There were no cars coming at that time, but he got to the side of the road and couldn't get up over the embankment (there's a big paved lip on both sides, so once he got down one side, he couldn't get back up the other). I rescued him, picking him up and putting him in the grass leading into the wetlands on the other side of the road. I'm not sure what kind of turtle it was; it was more than likely a mud turtle or musk turtle -- it wasn't a snapper, because I have enough experience with them to know what they're like. Pretty big, though. He was almost as long as my forearm and his shell was probably ten inches across, bigger than your average hardcover book. He was also scared as hell of me, and pulled himself as far into his shell as he could when I picked him up to get him into the grass. I snapped a picture, but it's on my phone (read: I can't get it off there unless I message it to myself, which costs money). Anyway, good deed for the day, right? I am Brandon, Savior of Turtles.
- Yesterday morning, while two of my costumed students and I were standing in the parking lot before class, a Maize cop comes through the lot and stopped right next to us. "I saw all of you from the road," he said -- the road is easily 100 yards away -- "and I had to come see you all up close for myself." We laughed, and he went on his way.
- The two best costumes I saw all day were two girls who dressed in full mascot costumes, with big furry heads, as Tweety and Sylvester. The costumes looked like they'd come from the early 80s and had seen their share of usage, but they still looked good. Mascot costumes, especially the ones with the fully-enclosed heads, absolutely creep me out. I must have some repressed memories or something.
With the end of last night, the terrible month of October finally died a slow, but painless, death. I don't necessarily know what November holds but a lot of work, bills, and even more stress. November means crunch time for the rest of the semester. I've got to cover a lot of work and collect a lot of papers in the span of three short weeks, since Thanksgiving week I'm not holding class and will be out of town for part of it (I also need the extra days to grade a mountain of projects and papers).
I've not yet heard anything back about my forbearance on my student loans; they said it could take up to ten days, and it only went out in the mail a week ago today. If I don't hear anything by next week, I will call them to ensure they got the forms to see if they're still in processing. My first loan payment would otherwise be due around the 17th or something like that, and I absolutely will not have the money to cover it if the paperwork for forbearance doesn't go through on time. It's not really about getting it approved; I make way less than the amount they'd need me to make to not qualify for it -- it's about the timing.
Of course, since it's the first of the month, while I've paid all of my other bills and rent already, another set of bills came in today -- the water bill and a bill from the Publisher's Clearing House, as I spent a whopping $6 on a vegetarian magazine subscription for me and Daisy. I guess I should pay those this weekend just to get them out of the way. They're another one of those "do it now or I'll never remember to do it otherwise under this mountain of stress and other shit to do" things. This afternoon, for example, I spent three hours putting together the next assignment for 210, the Resume/Cover Letter, because it's not included in the book (yet it's been included in the syllabus and in the lesson plans I was given by the Director, so I'm sticking to those). It replaces the "Personal Website/Dossier" assignment, mainly because students will not have time to put together those things when it comes to an eight-week course. So much of that class has been changed around for the eight-week version of the course, and I've had to further streamline a lot of it myself. I'm the professor; I can do that. Were I a simple GTA teaching the course, I wouldn't have as much leeway. I'd like to be able to give my students two or three weeks to do their big final assignment, the Proposal/Request for Grant Funding, but I can't; the most I can do, really, is shuffle around a few days and offer them the ability to turn in a draft of it before Thanksgiving that I can either grade or look at as a draft before they turn in the final copy during the last week of classes...while they're giving their Oral Presentations on said project. That's the last grade they have in the class, and takes the place of a "final exam" sort of grade. I hate the way the last two weeks of that class will be set up, because Thanksgiving is crammed right in the center of it. If this were a first eight weeks class, it wouldn't be a problem. If this were a second eight weeks class in the spring semester, it wouldn't be a problem. But this is a second eight weeks class in the fall semester, and it's the worst time to do a class with this much work, especially with Fall Break delaying it by a week and with Thanksgiving cutting a second week out of the schedule. It's not even a full eight weeks -- it's more like six. Because of that I must change a lot of stuff around, shorten some things, and eliminate some others. My computer losing all of its data last week was even more of a burden to getting everything planned and taken care of on time, so I'm not just rushing around trying to get the 210 stuff done, but the 011 and 101 stuff too.
Anyway, I created the Resume/Cover Letter assignment from scratch since it's not in the books, wrote up three good, solid prompts for it, and went online to get example resume and cover letter templates that my students could use as guidelines if they don't have a lot of experience doing this (though many of them do, obviously, judging by the wonderful assignments I've been receiving thus far in that class). I then found a list of 44 resume-writing tips, edited it and pared it down to 30 or so (because some of them were stupid) and put that all together for my lecture on Thursday night.
Despite all the time I spent grading yesterday, I am still not done. I have graded my 011 students' papers that I'll return to them on Monday, and I graded through my 210's Business Letters, but I still have all of my 101's workshop copies to go through this weekend -- something that I can't do on Tuesday after class, since we're workshopping them on Tuesday morning. The bad thing? I have nothing to grade (for once) on Tuesday or for most of Thursday. I'll have some rewrites to work on for Thursday, and I'll have my 210's PSA assignments to go through (which won't take a long time at all to grade), but this coming week is light on assignments and even lighter on lesson planning. I'll be staring at the walls on West campus bored out of my skull. If I bring a book to read, I'll fall asleep. If I do anything but grade or work on things that are, y'know, important, I'll fall asleep. Or I'll go stir-crazy. It isn't like being on main campus -- there's no one to talk to, no one to hang out with or go get food with. It's me, four walls and a monitored-internet-connection computer. There is very little to do there but work. And I will go nuts if I do nothing all day but just sit there.
Daisy went out last night for Halloween -- I came home and Skyped with her briefly so that she could see me in the makeup and hat one last time before I took it all off -- and then she went out and I went the hell to bed. Her costume this year? She calls it "The Princess of Sexy," and it involves hair extensions, showing off the girls, fishnets, a tiara, and a pink tutu.
No, I'm not making any of this up.
She went out again tonight to go to a late Halloween party with friends; she traded shifts with one of her coworkers, so for once she didn't have to work on a Friday night. I am not the partying type, of course, but maybe once a year or so at the most. Again, I would've probably gone to my colleagues' party had I not had to teach last night and had I not been on campus for twelve hours beforehand. I never get to see any of my friends anymore except for Parker, and I don't even think I saw him this week. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll see Suri or a few of the new GTAs who I don't really know that well.
I worry about Daisy. I know it's an irrational fear; she rarely goes out, and compared to some of the other women I've dated, she's Mother Teresa -- very quiet, very reserved; she very, very rarely even drinks. I also know she's a big girl who can take care of herself, and she's the only person on the planet (aside from, say, my parents) that I can, and do, completely trust on absolutely everything. I don't question her, I don't second-guess her judgment; I never have to. We're big communicators, and our entire relationship is transparent. There's nothing we wouldn't tell each other, and we're always in contact one way or another -- I, for example, tell her every day when I leave the house when she can expect me to be home, and that I'll message her and tell her when I'm home and safe. She's more of a worrier than I am when it comes to that stuff. It's like a reflex at this point; I don't think anything of it. I want Daisy to know where I am and what I'm doing. She does the same with me most of the time as well.
But I still worry. Part of it is that October died so quietly that I almost expect the proverbial "other shoe" to drop now on November 1, when I should be least expecting it. Part of it is that I know she's tired and sleep-deprived, and isn't feeling well to begin with, but went out to this party tonight out of obligation to her friends and their want for her to be around and to join them. Part of it is also because i get all paranoid and weird when I myself am sleep-deprived, which I am -- I didn't sleep well last night, and got up at 9:30 this morning.
I'm sure she'll be fine, obviously, but that's also a sure sign that I need to go to sleep. So. Off I go.
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