Breakin' Up Is Hard To Do...Well, Not Really

After the last class I taught for GCUO, I decided I wouldn't teach for them anymore. The experience is best summarized by a phrase The Man uses in describing why he doesn't like to eat Cornish hens: "Too much work for not enough meat." The GCUO students seemed to be functioning in the borderline intellectual range and hadn't clue one about the rules of grammar, spelling, scholarly discourse, et cetera, and were deeply offended when I had the gall to point out their errors. Such flaws would have been more acceptable if the class was a freshman level course, but I was teaching seniors who were theoretically ready to graduate. When I received the email to teach for them again, this is what I replied to the class scheduler:

Hi Faceless Corporate Drone,

I tried to access the GCUO website to decline this invitation to teach, but was unable to do so because once again the server is not functioning properly. This email serves to notify you that I will not be accepting any further contracts from GCUO. I teach 3 sections of undergraduate psychology at the local community college (2 live and 1 online). Those 3 classes combined don't require as much effort on my part as 1 GCUO course. The compensation is also better and I have fewer students, far fewer restrictions and no micromanagement regarding the way I run my classes.

I did the math for the last GCUO class of 20 students. With each student paying $1685 per course, that generated $33,700 for the university. It seems a little unfair that the hardest working person in the loop - the faculty member - received only $1,150, including the $100 bonus for having more than 18 students in the class. That's less than one student's tuition for the class, and what I make in one day in my private practice - which incidentally also requires less effort than one days' work at UOP. I didn't work myself nearly to death to earn a doctorate for the privilege of working for less than minimum wage and while being micromanaged in the process. It's no wonder the university is constantly searching for faculty. Once instructors figure out the hoax, the logical choice can only be to cut one's losses and move on.

Have a great life,
Dr. Brainiac

All the faceless drone at corporate had to say was this:

Hi Nerdwina,

Thank you for your email. I manually declined the class for you and forwarded your email to payroll to inactivate your faculty status.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Have a great day,
Faceless Drone


Her response just affirms my decision to work for myself and serves as a reminder that I don't have to settle for anything less than what I deserve in any area of my life. I worked too hard for far too long to accept anything less than every good thing the universe has in store for me.

Anticlimactic Acceptance

Okay, so yesterday I received an email from Giant Corporate University Online that I've finally passed muster and have been accepted into the loving arms of the faculty body. The process, beginning with the request for my resume May 16, has been ridiculously long. I have participated in nearly six months of "training," including several ever-smaller classes and finally teaching my first undergraduate class with someone watching over my shoulder. The last part was a good thing because I had an experienced faculty member to mentor me through the process.

Don't get me wrong. In this economy I'm happy to have another dribble of income. Every little bit helps and I'd really like to keep my car and keep The Girl's tuition current. The Man still isn't working, hay season is over, and we're living off of savings and 401K. We're not starving but that pool of money isn't unlimited. I'm working the community college gig again - 2 Psych 101 classes early MWF, leaving me the rest of the day to see patients or whatever. It's a fun job and I've done it enough now that the class basically runs itself. I have full autonomy to run my classes and my policies as I see fit and can be as hard ass as I please. Interestingly enough, the students meet every challenge I set for them and all of them say I'm their favorite instructor. The GCUO job pays a little more and I can do it in my jammies, but I have to do things in such a politically correct manner and have to worry about the faculty development team snooping around looking for things to hold against me. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you...

The thing is, I'm just not excited about GCUO. The students didn't seem to have a clue about academic rigor, the importance of using APA format when writing papers (in pursuit of a psychology degree!? -SERIOUSLY??), or even what constitutes a scholarly reference. A couple of the students were adequate but most of them needed to go back to junior high to learn how to write - and use spell check - and follow instructions. They got mad when I insisted that they learn to use the library system, maintain a high level of academic integrity, and do their own work without the expectation that I hold their hands or do the work for them. Then they whined about what a big fat meany I was when they were surveyed. --Yes, GCUO sends out customer satisfaction surveys to the students - and oddly enough their survey responses held a very strong positive correlation to their grades - go figure. The experience reminded me of a phrase I heard once, "Never try to teach a pig to dance. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."

The next few months are going to find me launching my private practice and I may be scraping for patients at first. So I think what I may do is just teach a GCUO class here and there when I need extra cash and wean myself off the corporate teat as my business picks up. At least I'll know up front the challenges that I'll face in dealing with students in a university with an open enrollment policy and no placement tests to sort them by academic level. Send positive energy my way. I'll need it.

Is The Effort Worth the Reward?

The final task for this week's training at Giant Corporate University is to summarize the learnings for the week. I couldn't write there what my real take is on the situation, but I can share this "real" interpretation of what I wrote there with you because I know you understand.

Dear Diary,

Although there are some exciting and significant developments in the works for my real job, this has been a shitty week at Giant Corporate University. One of my colleagues has no command of the English language and tries to use words that she clearly doesn't understand in her communications, making her writing unintelligible. I can't even respond to most of her posts because I don't know what she's saying, and am not sure she does either. This was the self-appointed leader of our team. Sigh. As the type who will usually go along to get along, I just let her do her thing, even after she used her caps lock key on me and another guy when we weren't going by her schedule (a schedule that we didn't agree to in the contracting process, I might add) but what I really want to do is hunt her down and kill her with my bare hands for butchering my native tongue. I have plenty of IQ points to spare, but I fear giving them to her would be a waste because she already thinks she's intelligent and knows everything. Tragic she's unaware of her deficit.

The facilitator is barely present, and leaves very short, almost cryptic messages when she is in forum. After several days of wondering whether my posts met criteria and no responses to communications for clarification from at least one of my colleagues, out of the blue my indicators of success mysteriously appeared. This reinforces some of my recently learned professional lessons that sometimes learning what "not" to do is just as important as learning what to do.

Even though technically we're supposed to have 2 days off per week, I'm finding myself working every stinking day. Since the first day of the course is a wash because there's no way to earn the necessary participation credits because there's nothing to respond to but introductions, which don't count, and there was something due every other day of the week, that means that GCU is turning into a 7-day-a-week job for which I'm still not getting paid and I'm starting to build more than a little resentment about the situation. I worked too hard for too long to get where I am today to be anyone's slave, especially when there's no guarantee of employment at the end of all this prattling on about nothing of real substance. I keep trying to remind myself that it's not the end of the world if I don't get the job and it may be a blessing in disguise if I don't since the pay isn't much more than minimum wage because Giant Corporation keeps most of the money. If I don't get voted off the island, I'll get about what one student out of the 20 pays to take each class I teach. There are 80-zillion programs out there and the more I get to know this one, the less I'm liking it.

Speaking of work, I'm finding most of the assignments to be asinine busy work. Every night I troll through what everyone else has said looking for some nugget upon which to expound my personal and professional wisdom (providing I have any, of course). There doesn't seem to be a clear criterion about what is considered acceptable so some folks prattle on and on and don't say anything. I've probably been guilty of that, too just because sometimes there's just nothing to say.

Also unrelated and twice removed but not really, I thought this component was supposed to be specialist training. I don't understand why I'm the only psychologist in a class full of nurses, IT guys and teachers. I'm not stupid - it's clear that this is still more generalist training. Any posts relating to my specialty area have come from me. Or maybe they're thinking of the other kind of specialist training.

Only one more week. Let's consider it an exercise in frustration management. Thanks for the vent.

Breathe...

4 Months From Now

Sigh. Here I sit trying to cobble together enough business every month to pay my bills. Altogether they aren't much really, but I thought seriously that I'd at least be making a living wage by this point and could contribute more to our family expenses. As it stands, I have what amounts to a handful of part time jobs, none of which pay worth a crap because they're kind of on an on-call basis, and the people I work for have pretty crappy reputations, so the referrals aren't coming in like they used to, so I'm not getting called as often. Granted part of the problem is that some of the referring agencies are at the end of their budget year, so they should pick up a little after September 1.

The good news though is that four months from today, my postdoc year (read: indentured servitude) will be over and I can start my independent professional life on my own terms. Sure I'll be slogging through the Medicare and insurance provider paperwork and trying to get established in my own practice with all the headaches and bills that entails, but at least I will be working under my own reputation and license, not someone else's. The better news is that I am already beginning to establish my own reputation and relationships with the major referrers in the region. They like my work, they like me personally and they have made it very clear that they want to know when and where I hang my shingle. It just can't be done until after the licensing paperwork is completed. I'll mail it December 4. Last year when I filed my provisional paperwork on the same date, it was approved December 31. Of course I didn't get the confirmation for a couple more weeks, but at least I got it.

The training for the giant corporate online university feels oddly like American Idol. There ended up being 378 trainees in my entry level class, then I was assigned to a group of 1o. Within the first week 4 of them dropped. Of the remaining 6 only 3 of us were in the same entry class so there was at least one other huge ass entry class somewhere. The training itself seems like a lot of busy work, but they have selected me to continue on to the next stage so that's good, I guess, except so far I'm not seeing a lot of attention being paid to academic rigor. After the next 2 weeks in developing syllabi et cetera (mind you I've already been through the first 2 weeks so in total this will be a full month of "training" i.e. working for free), the next stage will see me actually teaching a class with an instructor's instructor who can give me feedback on how I'm doing. I appreciate that. I will get paid the full rate for a doctoral level instructor for teaching that class, but that won't happen until the end of September. At least it's something to look forward to, but there's no guarantee that I'll even be offered a position until after the class wraps up in mid-to-late October.

Still no word on whether or not I'll be teaching at the community college again, and class starts in 3 weeks. The Psyc/Soci instructor/coordinator guy left in May, which is why the division chair asked me to apply for that job, which I did immediately - in May. Now the division chair is leaving so the two top leadership positions in that area are vacant, and nobody's saying a word. I'm debating whether to shoot a friendly email to the human resources coordinator to check on the status of my application.

The good news of the whole thing is that at least I'm 2/3 of the way through the postdoctoral purgatory year and that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Take one look around and you can see that nobody's starving around here. We still have a roof over our heads, the lights are still on, and I still have stuff I can sell on eBay. I can do anything for 4 months. However, if you know the money fairy, could you send it my way? Kthxbai.

Individual Differences

I've been busy re-organizing my files and files and files of testing protocol blanks. Really, I didn't realize just how much I'd accumulated and how horribly disorganized they were. Now everything neurocognitive rehabilitation-related is in one file, everything assessment-related is in 3 files and all of the important articles and lectures are in another file. 'Tis all good. Over the course of the reorganization, I ran across this and thought y'all would appreciate it.

The Fable of the Animal School

Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of "a new world," so they organized a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying, and to make it easier to administer, all the animals took all the subjects.

Duck was excellent in swimming, better in fact than his instructor, and made passing grades in flying but was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming to practice running. This was kept up until his web feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. Nevertheless, average was acceptable in school, so nobody worried about that but Duck.

Rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much make-up work in swimming.

Squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class, where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He also developed charlie horses from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and a D in running.

Eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel had the highest average and was Valedictorian.



I have not clue one from whence this came. If you know the author, please let me know so that I can give them due credit.

Hanging Up My Chalk

The Dean of the Humanities Department called me to come teach again. Although it was fun, I had to decline this time. Once I get caught up on stuff around here, it will be time to get a real live full time job that pays real live full time money. I've renamed the blog for that class and am leaving it open to public view for awhile, but eventually I'll take it down. Enjoy it while you can if you have an interest in such things.

In the interim, I'm still selling soap, have a bunch of books I no longer need for sale on Amazon and am about to sell a really nice Gemeinhardt KGM Limited flute so that I can continue to have a little of my own money in my pocket until I'm ready to go back to work. Speaking of, I have a boatload of stuff to do today so I'd better get on it.

Dayamn. Where You Been At?

Hi y'all. First, I want to thank everyone who was kind enough to take the time to email or comment to check on me, especially since I missed CCC Monday. No, I didn't meet some untimely demise, but a really really lot has been going on and I've either not had time or energy to get in and make a post, although I have been leaving a comment or two here and there on other people's blogs. I'm okay - quite well, actually - just way busy. Soooo I suppose an update is in order to cover the activities of the last couple of weeks. Settle in, this post is going to run a little long - even for me.

The Girl
We traveled down to the other side of Austin to Texas State University in San Marcos over Memorial Day weekend for the All-State Solo & Ensemble competition. The Girl made a second division on her memorized class I solo. She had a little bauble in the "easier" first movement, and never fully recovered from it. She played the second movement that she was so worried about the memorization almost flawlessly. She had a little stall in the third movement, but overall she did a great job. Then again, they say that a I at region is like a III at state so her II is flippin' awesome for a Freshman, really. She even got a little silver medal to put on her letter jacket - yeah, she lettered when she made All-Region symphonic band back in December. If I haven't mentioned it before, she's a phenomenal flute player. Better than I EVER was, and I was damn good, as in full-ride scholarship good.

I've been watching the situation with the boyfriend and it's not been meeting with my approval, especially since the Hickey Incident that I didn't blog about but has kept me from allowing The Girl to go over to his house again - ever - even with his parents at home, since clearly this type of behavior isn't unacceptable in their world. Recently some of his friends called her to tell her that even though he's been pushing for exclusivity with The Girl, he had sex with another girl at a party at their house, and that they had gotten into a physical altercation with him over it. Naturally, he denied it. To her credit, she told him "You know, whether you did it or didn't do it is irrelevant. I don't need the drama," and broke up with him. The friends called her a few days later to tell her they made it up so she took him back.

She and I went to his high school graduation last week and had an interesting and character-building experience. His family wanted us to sit with them. I was trying to not do that, but they were waiting for us near the entrance (grr). The dad was drunk off his ass, reeking of scotch and behaving inappropriately - big damn surprise. Now, this was the same high school I graduated from over 20 years ago and it was the White Trash Capital of Texas even then but oh. mah. gawd. There didn't appear to be any respect or decorum for the nature of the event. People were there in cutoff shorts, tank tops, flip flops, walking up and down the stairs, talking on their cell phones, screaming and yelling when their graduate's name was called so that the next name couldn't be heard. I couldn't hear any of the speeches over the din of the funkified white trash parade. It was not good and I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I am rather proud of myself for having the self-restraint to not commandeer the microphone and loudly proclaim that the graduation was off and if they would all kindly return to their trailers, the world would be a better place.

The Girl got really upset with me earlier this week over him. I told her I realized he was the first boy who ever really liked her back, but asked her what she could possibly see in him. He doesn't have a job, doesn't have a car, doesn't follow through and is mooching off his best friend & his live-in girlfriend (who are barely scraping by with their high school diplomas and minimum wage jobs) since his dad kicked him out of the house (again). He's been "gonna" get a job since we've known him and hasn't made that happen. He was supposed to swear in to the Army several weeks ago and still hasn't done it, putting him in danger of being arrested, and us being arrested for harboring if he comes to our house. The government is really funny about making sure people who have signed contracts with them hold up their end of the deal, and he doesn't believe that they WILL come after him if he doesn't follow through. Call me neurotic, but I'm not willing to go to jail and lose everything I've worked for for the last 10 years over his skinny ass.

There are millions of guys out there who would love to have a smart, funny, pretty girlfriend like The Girl - guys who understand that a date is when the boy picks the girl up, takes her somewhere and pays for it...not the girl's mama driving over to pick him up in another town (and/or taking him back home), then bringing him back to her house where she has to cook the food that she bought and watch movies for which she paid. He told me once that he wants to be a good husband and father and I told him that in order to be those things, he has to be a good boyfriend first. So far he's not showing me the model of a good boyfriend. I told him that I'm tired of it, tired of her being so worked up over him when he has not proven himself worthy of such drama and that I'm not going to allow her to see him until he gets his act together. Basically I dared him to go out and be successful - then, we'll talk about whether he's acceptable boyfriend material. I've been fortunate to have other strong women like my mom, my best friend and an unsolicited waitress at the ready to reinforce my hard line of "No Scrubs." I don't think I'm being too harsh about this. We'll see if he actually leaves for boot camp July 9th like he's supposed to. I have a sneaking suspicion he'll find more excuses as to why he can't live up to his word.

Between taking her to class with me, shopping for party supplies & band camp gear and having friends over to swim nearly every day, I've been keeping The Girl inordinately busy. She'll be at band camp 150 miles away all next week. Then she'll be too busy helping prepare for 3 parties in just over 3 weeks to even think about boys. Well, except for one of her best girlfriends - Jason, which is a story for another day.

The Home Front
Mother's Day found me with a brand new gas grill that I'm still trying to adjust to the subtleties of proper flame adjustment but I'm getting there (as seen in the above pic of the eastern half of our magic pahhhtio). See, our family is a little back-asswards. Usually it's the dad who does the grilling. Around here, it's me. The Man smokes a To. Die. For. brisket on the 4th of July, but overcooks my steaks, so I don't let him near my grill. The Girl and I like 'em bleeding and twitching and he has never grasped the concept of putting ours on several minutes after his. Besides, with his work schedule he barely has time or energy to eat, much less cook.

Since The Man's daughter and her family moved to a house nearby, we've been spending a lot more time with them. The Man's first wife and her husband have also been spending a lot of time there. It's a little odd to hang out with the first wife but I like her and I guess since it's been over 20 years since they divorced and they have both moved on, it's kind of a good thing. They are planning to come for the 4th.

Speaking of, my house is party central this summer and we have loads of reasons to celebrate. We are hosting 3 parties in the next few weeks. First will be The Man's birthday gathering on the 16th. I'm going to keep it simple and low-key for about 20 guests. I'll be grilling steaks over the fire pit and serving them with salad, baked potatoes and some kind of bread. Instead of birthday cake though, I'm going to make his favorite dessert - coconut meringue pie. The following weekend, Suz, my best friend since age 3 is getting married here. She's hired a kick ass blues band for the party afterwards and has already made arrangements for a couple of kegs and the margarita machine. Cool thing about that is that we know the margarita machine guy - I dated him briefly in high school, we've done business with him for years, and Suz's beloved graduated with his wife and they were really good friends. They'll be here for the party and depending on how much margarita machine business he has between the wedding and the 4th of July, he may just leave the machine here since he'll have to bring it back anyway ;oD. We won't be able to leave the house! My liver is screaming, already... Party number 3 is our legendary annual 4th of July bash, which we will be having on the 4th this year because of The Man's work schedule and our July travel schedule will make having it on either of the surrounding weekends a problem.

The Man
Speaking of The Man, we had a bit of a spat Friday night. Instead of screaming and crying or pouting about the situation, as women are wont to do, I gave him a very sweet Hallmark card, wrote him a heartfelt letter encouraging him to leave his place of employment and gave him the "Get Out of Jail Free" card from the Monopoly game Saturday when he got home from work. I can hear the brakes squealing, now... "WHAT!? You aren't working but you want the breadwinner of the family to quit his job!?" In a word, yes. You see, we were never better as a couple than the year and a half he was unemployed. He was happy farming his hay and cattle and doing a little consulting work on the side. He had energy left over at the end of the day to be "present" with his family and friends - not just taking up space or squeezing them in when he had a minute. He was a better husband, dad, friend, brother...he was just better and we all miss that Man terribly.

The job has literally sucked the life out of him. He leaves for work at 5:30 in the morning and doesn't get home until after 7 in the evening most nights and he has to work every other Saturday - in a place where the company culture is steeped in negativity and crazy-making bullshit. When he gets home he barely has the energy to eat dinner, then he passes out on the sofa in front of the TV and I have to wake him up when I go to bed - and it takes several attempts to rouse him. I've tried to be patient, loving and understanding, but it has taken a toll on our nearly 14-year relationship and has essentially killed our sex life (<--decidedly not good). Unfortunately that was pretty much the first thing to go.

Sure, the money was a little tight but we made it work and considering that we didn't have all the extra expenses like the gas from driving 90 miles a day, $200 a month in dry cleaning, all of the business lunches he pays for, and his work clothes, which includes custom made shirts (our sales rep Ann Atkins is fabulous, by the way), $200 shoes, $40 a pop for ties - on sale...the list goes on...maybe when you factor all that in, the job isn't worth the money.

I want my husband back. Our friends and family want him back, too. We made it before, we can sooo do it again. Besides, I'll be going back to work again soon so that will generate some income aside from what he can draw from the interest in his retirement fund. I saw him slide that little yellow card into his shirt pocket this morning. Keep sending that positive energy his way.

The Dissertation
Okay, so (Queso!? I LOVE queso!) I turned in my dissertation May 22nd, fully expecting to get slammed with another round of revisions. Didn't happen. Wednesday, June 6, I got the "officially official" official notification that I get to defend my dissertation July 19th and graduate July 21. No shit. Cool thing about my program is that they don't let you defend until the dissertation is at a point where they know you cannot fail. I received a few very minor edits from beloved second faculty reader a couple of days ago and talked to him on the phone about them last night. I was seriously prepared for a lot of shit to be thrown at me but he just wants me to expand my discussion section a little and add something about the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Then, once Her Majesty My Dissertation Chair is happy with it, he's happy with it. Of course, she said once he's happy with it, she's happy with it. So if everybody else is happy, I'm happy. Then I have to put together about a 45-minute Keynote (sort of like PowerPoint but way better) presentation about it for July and if there are any more minor edits, I can do them after graduation. Even though I've made all the appropriate travel plans and reservations, addressed the invitations and have ordered the academic regalia and signet ring, (although mine will be antiqued yellow gold with my school seal on top, PhD on one side & 2007 on the other) it doesn't seem real. There will be much partying going on that week, too, it just won't be at my house, but more on that later.

Shit. Now I have to start actively looking for a job. If you know of anyone looking for an already-licensed neuropsychology postdoctoral fellow in the Dallas/Fort Worth or Waco areas, send 'em my way. They won't be disappointed.

I think that's everything for now. The pool's warm enough to get in...I think I'll go do that.

Never Say Never

Apparently the Humanities Department chair at the college got some really good feedback from the kids about me and called me Thursday to ask if I'd teach general psych again for Summer I from 8-10:30 am Monday -Thursday. Either that or he was peeing on my leg and calling it rain because in reality he couldn't find anyone else to take the class.

The Summer I session lasts from May 29-June 28, and the pay is the same as what I got for the entire long semester, only all in one shot instead of spread out over 4 months. So since I already have the KeyNote presentations and the exams prepared I accepted the class. I just hope the first course wasn't a fluke and this one turns out to be the class from hell. Then again, I do have a flute to pay for for the foreseeable future, and a trip to pay for in July, so the money will come in handy. We'll see how it goes.

I can do anything for a month, right?

tags technorati : teaching

Despite Everything I Got Something Done

Hi y'all. Didja miss me? Well, lemme tell ya...since getting back from the band trip Saturday I've been busier'n a three-peckered billy goat. Saturday evening we had dinner with The Man's daughter at their new home around the corner from us along with several family members and close family friends. Sunday my mom came by to have me take some pictures of her for a new book she's having published. I've been trying to get the final exam ready to give the kids this morning and we had one of those killer Texas thunderstorms with 90-mile-an-hour straight line winds last night that downed a bunch of trees, including the one pictured above, which landed over my driveway, bent the pole fence out front and blocked the road. I drove The Man's demo out to the gate to take the picture and upon coming back down the driveway in reverse, I slid off the concrete and buried the truck up to its axle in the mud. I didn't take a picture of that. I think I muttered something under my breath that rhymed with truck...can't be sure. At any rate, The Man had to push me out of the mud with his big ol' tractor before he could use it to move the trees out of the road. You can imagine how happy he was with me. ;oD

During all this, our dinner (a really nice pot roast I'd had on the stove since 10:30 am, with smushed taters & brown mushroom gravy and steamed squash - all from fresh & from scratch -Slick would be proud..) was getting cold. Then, before we could even sit down to eat, our son-in-law brought the Grandtwins over for about an hour or so because the power was out at their house. They chattered throughout American Idol. Gr. It's the only show I watch and I was invested in Pinhead Chris' departure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the crayon pictures with all the hearts and flowers and shit are great, but shut up already - jeez.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I was supposed to make up a mock dataset and run and write up a mock curvilinear regression analysis so my consulting faculty will be happy with the knowledge that I understand curvilinearity before she goes on vacation tomorrow so I can move ahead with my dissertation. I'd planned to get it to her early yesterday evening but that didn't work out because of all the other crap going on. Without that, I can't officially move on until she gets back May 29, which, naturally, will put me in a huge bind if I'm going to have the draft of the last 2 chapters in within the next couple of weeks so I can graduate in July. Because you know - I can't shit without the committee's permission or without giving them a fully detailed description of its color, texture, aromatic and flotation qualities, et cetera. Of course, the storm knocked out both my internet and cell service, so even if by some miracle I had gotten it finished according to plan, I couldn't have sent it to her anyway. So I stayed up after everyone else went to bed (that's actually when I do my best, least distracted work) until around 1:30am and got it done. Interestingly, the internet tower beamer thingy reset itself about 15 minutes before I was finished so I was able to send it to her last night instead of waiting until this morning to try to send it from school. That was good because the internet service there is dodgy most of the time anyway.

So. I get up around 5am and toddle out the door this morning at 7 for my last day as a college professor. There were 6 students who had to take the final. Unfortunately, I had to bake in extra security measures because one student was ratted out for cheating on the last exam (I gave the ratter a couple of points extra credit to make sure she passed the course with an A). At any rate they were finished within 30 minutes and while I was there and had the classroom all to myself for another hour and a half, I went ahead and graded them, filled out the grade report, and turned it in at the administration building. As of 10am Central Hell Time, I am no longer a college professor - yippee!

I'm still waiting for feedback about the mock analysis from the consulting faculty so I didn't know what to do with the rest of the day. After some thought, I took a book about sex and sexuality that I'd bought donate to The Girl's high school library to the librarian (more on that another day) then came home, took a nap and as soon asI woke up, I sat down to let y'all know I haven't forgotten about you. It's just been crazy around here - and believe me - I know crazy - in the biblical sense.

Oh yeah - and I have poison ivy. Again. More on that later, too.

tags technorati : bitching, statistics, teaching, Texas, dissertation, American Idol,

What Do You Mean I Get Graded, Too?

So this morning in class the kids were doing their "major project" presentations and things were progressing swimmingly. I moved seats to get a better view of the presenters and what to my wondering eyes did appear sitting in one of the desks behind me, but my boss, the Chair of the Humanities Department of the college. How the hell he got in without my knowledge is beyond me. Apparently I underestimate the sneakiness.

This may come as some surprise but my language in class tends to be rather colorful. It's not uncommon for me to say "shit" or any of its derivatives at least a dozen times in our hour and a half time slot. Today however, the students were the teachers, not me. My role was try to engage the observers in asking questions of the presenters about their material. Given the uncivilized hour of our class that's hard to do. Unless, of course, we're talking about sex. Then I can't get them to shut up.

So I introduced Dr. Sneakiness to the class, and as he rose to leave he handed me a performance evaluation. He had been *GASP* grading me the entire time he was there - however long that was. Actually that's probably good because had I known he was there I don't know how I would have reacted. I'm just really glad I'm through lecturing and all that's left are project presentations and the final, which only about six students have to take.

Oh? The evaluation? Perfect marks all the way down the line. Good thing he didn't come last Tuesday for the social psych lecture I blasted through so we'd have time to review for the exam. I think I said shit 20 times and fuck at least once. I'd have definitely been dinged for professionalism...Man, was it my lucky day or what?

tags technorati : teaching, woohoo

Sex Talk Redux

Sometimes people surprise me. As the grand finale to two days of lecture about sex and sexuality, I had prepared a mashup of slides from the Centers for Disease Control that showed various and sundry body parts (mostly oozing and/or crusty) afflicted with an assortment of sexually transmitted diseases. Seriously, these were pictures that made one ask, "Why the hell did they wait so damn long to go to the doctor!?" while cringing and grasping at one's own genitalia.

Mind you, these were nasssssty stuff, my preciousss. So I forewarned them at the end of Thursday's lecture that we'd be looking at STD pictures Tuesday and that when the time came, anyone who was squeamish or didn't think they could handle it for whatever reason could leave. No question asked. Granted, I encouraged them to stay, particularly if they had little or no experience with sex so they'd know what to be on the lookout for, just in case. Still, it was their call.

To my astonishment, when the time came though, nobody chickened out and left. Not even the ones I was sure would take me up on my offer for a reprieve because of religious reasons or whatever. Will wonders never cease?

tags technorati : sex, teaching

What I Really Wanted to Show Them

Today's lecture topic in my intro psych class was human sexuality. We had loads of fun and I posted a lot of videos on the other blog but these are the ones I REALLLLLY wanted to show them.
Puberty Pals:


...But we like hookers:


Live Long Enough to Find the Right One:


From the Misinformation Committee:




And it all sounds so lovely with a British accent:


The reality:

Too Much Work For Not Enough Meat

Holy jumped-up-Jesus-on-a-pogo-stick! Whoever says, "I wanna be a college professor when I grow up," is clearly delusional. Goodgawdamighty.

Maybe the fact that I have attained the exalted status of adjunct faculty is the problem, but I doubt it. Just setting up the lecture notes and relevant Keynote (sort of like Power Point, but waythefuck better) presentations is chewing up an inordinate amount of time. One must review the text, decide what's relevant, and turn it into something half-assed interesting for a roomful of people who would much rather be abed than listening to a (gasp!) middle-aged woman prattle on about topics they can barely pronounce, much less really give half a fat fuck about at 8 in the morning.

These conceerns don't even take into consideration that in addition to the lectures, I have to write and score the homework and exams, assist with structuring the "major project" and grade it. Oh, and although I have no office, therefore no "office hours," I still have to be available on some level to answer questions, give official ass-kickings, et cetera. Given the amount of work and the time frame involved, it is seriously not worth the money, which is really a trivial amount, even without considering the amount of work involved. Good thing money's not the reason I'm doing it.

The idealist in me hopes that I can touch someone and inspire them to seek a deeper understanding of a field about which I am passionate. However, given the uncivilized hour of the class meeting and the diversity of my students, of which only one has sort-of expressed a desire to study psychology, I am highly skeptical of such an event actually coming to pass.

Anybody got a really cheap dog & pony sideshow act you can rent me until early May? Dancing midget Jell-o wrestlers? Firefighter magicians? Nekkid cowboy trapeze artists with bandanas & Reddi-Whip? At this point I'd consider just about anything.

We ain't got none o' them tecknalogickabul advantsmints, y'all.

Okay, so Thursday the humanities department chair at the local community college called and asked me to teach a general psych course. Dumbass here agreed, having wanted to do one for some time just for the experience. Friday afternoon around 3, for the sake of convenience, I met him at my local post office to get the textbook, which is an information overload if I've ever seen one. I took a full course - sometimes two or three - over what is covered in each chapter. There is no way in hell anyone can learn all of that in one semester so we're just going to cover the high points. Sometimes too much is just too much.

During the ice storms of the last few days, I've been working feverishly trying to get everything set up because what little I was given seemed woefully inadequate. The official syllabus mainly just addresses plagiarism and the official bibliography didn't have anything on it that had been published within the last 12 years (raise your hand if you can pronounce unethical...). The class scheduling was particularly bothersome because we'll have 2 fewer class periods to address the 14 chapters of textbook material because our final is first in the lineup, and we're supposed to have a "major project" in there somewhere. Did I pay attention to any of those red flags? Hell no I didn't. I was just excited to be offered yet another distraction from that stupid dissertation thingy. I needed another one - no, really - I did. Seriously.

So I get all this crap (including making a blog for class communication since as yet I have access to NOTHING at the school aside from the textbook) done over the weekend, fully expecting the school to be techno-nerd compliant, because it's a college, right? Guess what? It isn't. There's 1 (count 'em) 1 LCD projector for the whole college - scratch that, there is another one that belongs to the nursing department, but it belongs to the nursing department. Psychology is not part of the nursing department. Great.

Shit. Can't show Power Point presentations and minimize 25 people staring at me for an hour and a half waiting for me to say something deep and philosophical that they can can hold in their hearts foreverandever with no LCD projector. Can't do halfassed fun (okay, mildly interesting) live multimedia-driven lecturish kinda stuff with no LCD projector. Luddites. Good thing I'm not in it for the money.

Needless to say, after general introductions and threats of public humiliation for getting on my nerves for tardiness, eating in class, et cetera, plus a potty/water break were over, I reaallllyy should have let them go. Did I? No. Hell no. Not right away at least. No, I stood there and stammered some dumb bullshit about Wundt and introspection and some other dead guys with bushy eyebrows and something about Freud until they started giving me that "WTF!?" look as if I'd grown a third eye. I have a teenage daughter. I am all too familiar with that look. It was at that point I mercifully let them go.

I can pick up wireless internet access from another classroom so it's not a total loss. After class and about a 45-minute wait on the department chair, I received sort of a tour and brief access to the group copy card to make copies of the syllabus, etc., I still have no official paperwork filled out or access to the online component of the textbook (dammit - that's the fun stuff, too), or anything else. So what did I do? I went straight to CompUSA in Fort Worth and bought an LCD projector. I've been considering one for a long time so now I have one. Too bad the salesman sold me the wrong part to hook my MacBook's mini DVI into the VGA cable. I'll go back tomorrow and exchange it for the right part. Oh well, it's only money and time - I pull both of those out of my ass at an alarming rate, right?

Am I Being Too Harsh?

A local community college called Thursday to request my services in teaching a Psych 101 course, beginning Tuesday. I accepted because, aside from clearly having nothing else to do, the one typical graduate school experience not incorporated into my doctoral program is teaching undergraduate coursework. The pay is negligible compared to the amount of work involved but some things aren't about money. Realistically, it's rather like shacking up, because it incorporates all of the work but none of the commitment or financial gain of marriage (or tenure-track).

Since it's just one section and I'll only be on campus about an hour and a half, two days a week, I've set up another blog, here for class communication. Take a look and tell me what you think. In particular, I'd like feedback about my class rules . These things were important to me as resident nerd during my undergrad work, and back in the day, if the prof wasn't willing to say something to offenders, I wasn't shy about voicing my disapproval. Am I being too harsh? I don't think so, but then again these continue to be my pet peeves.