We got trouble...right here in Mid-Sized City

So Offspring has apparently gone completely off the rails this week at school, with 4 disciplinary marks in 2 days (they get check marks, and each mark carries a different level of consequence including lunch detention (writing lines at lunch), missed recess, and now we are up to parental notification. The next one is a trip to the principal's office, so I am glad that I do not give the permission to hit my child at school that I am asked to give each fall...

Anyway, I am now regretting, maybe a little, not getting in touch with Offspring's teachers earlier. The school schedules conferences after the first marking period, and since I have heard that teachers don't like it when you get in touch with them before they can form their own opinions about your child, I usually try to wait until then.

I am pretty sure that Offspring's problems are all organization-related. They are getting the kids ready for the much more independent life they will be expected to manage in junior high, and things like coming to class without a pencil or missing a homework assignment are disciplinary marks. But we'll see. I sent a note to her teacher asking for an early conference because the check-box form that they sent home with her infractions was not exactly informative.

She is getting a no TV/computer for a week consequence at home.

But if you have any ideas on keeping a 5th-grader organized, I'll take 'em!

I guess we're just weird that way

So despite the fact that Spouse and I have something bordering on the completely insane to do right now, we made a short family trip over the weekend. See, we have these season passes to an amusement park about 3 hours away in my favorite Central State city. And this was the last weekend that the waterpark part would be open. So we are thinking...fun with the family...get the work done...what will it be.

So we decided to let fate decide. If I could get a room in said city on Priceline for this improbably low price, we would go. Well, guess what, we did, so we did. On the one hand, it was a good decision since the park was quite uncrowded and we even got to ride a lot of stuff we had never been able to do before. I took some grading with me and got most of it done in the hotel room.

But the down side, surprisingly, was Offspring. She had a good time there, but was so upset about her lost time at home (mostly video game time, sadly) that I am considering limiting other trips. Like in two weeks, when Spouse has a conference in the same city, so we could go and stay for free in his room.

The weirdness continues

So Offspring's school participates in the Boxtops for Education program, which involves getting constituents to clip part of the labels from certain food products and bringing them to school. The school mails it to the sponsoring company and gets $.10 each. Offspring's school uses the proceeds to buy library books.

Unfortunately, most of the products are name-brand and cost a fair amount more than the comparable store brand product - sufficiently more that you could give the school $.10 for each product you would buy, buy the store brand, and still save $. So sometime I buy the Boxtops stuff, but I don't usually go out of my way to.

One of Offspring's teachers made an offer that her students could bring in Boxtops, and for every 5 Boxtops, they would get a point on a test.

Which, of course, makes me wonder if we could just buy the points directly. If I buy 5 cans of crescent rolls, store brand, and send the school $.50, I would save $1. Offspring could still get her point. Seems like a win-win, no?

Aversion update

So I have found that I am having to step it up on the aversion therapy.

I was working on papers, but not really getting anything out the door. So I have done a few things to up the ante. The first is environmental adjustment. I found a magazine with a feature on the person who fronts the organization I really do not like, and I cut out several of the pictures and put them in places in my office where I see them regularly. I just did this yesterday, so we will see how well it works.

The second is to set interim goals/consequences. My easiest piece was almost finished - needed one more editing pass, some communication with co-authors and reformatting the frakkin references, which I hate with a passion. I am submitting it to what I think is the one journal in my field that uses Chicago Humanities - you know, with the footnotes and stuff. I don't know how anyone ever published anything when they had to do this stuff on a typewriter. Oh, yes I do. That was back when faculty had administrative support.

Anyway, my interim goal was to finish these things by noon Monday, or I was going to send $10 anonymously to the group. A little prick to the conscience, but not as bad as getting on their mailing list if I don't make the final goal at the end.

It worked. Paper's done, and I'm mailing today.

Now to set a new interim goal.

This seems weird to me...

Offspring's teacher, 5th grade, is on Facebook and friends the kids in her class who have accounts. Also, 5th graders have Facebook accounts. I got a friend request from a friend of Offspring's...

Is this weird?

Secret ambitions

They include the sublime and the ridiculous. I think I have the best chance of visiting Antarctica.

1. Win Ben Stein's Money
2. Write a novel
3. Front a rock band
4. Visit Antarctica
5. Do a Fulbright in Indonesia or the Philippines
6. Teach a large lecture course and be amazing
7. Botox out the "concentration line" between my eyebrows
8. Be interviewed as an expert on TV

What what's your secret ambition?

Whoa is me

So as I mentioned earlier, last weekend was Freshman Week here at ol' PrettyGood. Now we are a church-affiliated school here, and the church our family goes to is right on the edge of campus. So when Mom and Dad send their child to a church-affiliated school, generally, not always, they are from a churchy family and they expect that their precious offspring will attend a church during college.

For the freshmen who haven't quite made it to that point, they often show up with their families that Sunday of Freshman Week.

The sermon yesterday was on goal-setting, which was a good one for the freshmen and their parents, I think.

But it also was good for me, and started me doing a little informal calculus in my head. Family. Work. Personal growth. Since I am religious, there is that, too. But balancing that equation is really tough, and a continually changing model. Then we throw in my looking for a new job and moving the family. If we are able to move to site A, that is good for my work and personal growth. But maybe it's bad for Spouse's work, and thus his happiness. Or the schools aren't as good, so it's bad for the kids. But it's nearer family, which would be good for the kids, since I am increasingly aware that I am not happy that my kids don't really know their family very well at all.

Now my head hurts.

Keeping up appearances

This article and some of the comments that followed (especially #87) really make my blood boil.

But it also makes me think.

Today was Freshman Weekend here at good old PrettyGood. This is a weekend when the helicopters swoop in to check up on the Offspring, fill their refrigerators, take in a football game, etc. And one of the events of the weekend is the annual Parent-Faculty Breakfast on Saturday morning - a time filled with cold coffee, sweat and small talk with the progenitors of one's students. Really, it is largely freshmen and their parents who attend (sometimes just the parents, and they are walking around with a scrap of paper with the names of the profs scribbled on it by their children, who are back at the dorm in bed.)

In the Fall, Spouse teaches seniors and grad students, and I have two grad classes and one undergrad, where no student is less than a sophomore. So to say we don't do a lot of business is an understatement. Most of the faculty in my department end up playing wing man to the one guy who teaches the 300-freshman lecture course. And that's fine. I go anyway, since it is part of my collegial duty.

Some years past, Spouse and I have gotten a babysitter for this festive event, although finding a high school or college student who wants to get up and hang around with my kids at 8 on a Saturday morning is both difficult and expensive.

Other years, when we really don't believe we will have anyone come for us, we split the time and trade off the kids in the middle.

That was the plan for this year, and I took the girls out for pancakes while Spouse did the first half of the event.

We met him on campus for the tradeoff, and I was careful to not get too close to the festivities with the girls, mostly because being seen with them makes me feel less than professional (although, oddly, I don't have the same concern for Spouse. (I think if the kids are seen on campus with either of us, it reflects badly on me, even though I know this is an irrational fear).

I think that's why comment #87 really hits home - this person thinks professors must not work very much because they do pick ups from school and come have lunch with their kids sometimes. While I do feel blessed by the flexibility I have in my schedule, I was answering student e-mails at 6 this morning, and I will spend tomorrow evening grading reading questions in preparation for classes this week. I wish I didn't have to feel guilty about making choices to do those kind of things so I can spend some time with my kids.

The pain, the brain and the drain

A friend of mine in another department is going up for the the big T this year, and is working on his letter that goes with the dossier today. Although I prefaced it with "I don't know that I would take advice from me, but," I sent him a copy of mine to use for ideas on format, style, etc. This meant that I had to re-open and look at that letter, which was surprisingly painful.

But maybe it's a good thing, since I need to do something to kick my brain into gear about being employable any time in the near future. Even though I have a lovely photo of the person who represents the PAC that it is looking more and more like it will be getting my support right on my monitor, I am still not making good progress on getting papers out the door. I think part of the problem is that I am not in the habit of doing actual work in my office, doing things like class prep, administrative stuff and blogging instead. I slotted some of my 12 office hours a week (! What was I thinking) as my research time. I think I am going to have to start going and sitting in the library to work.

I had to meet with chair yesterday to go over stuff for a grad faculty meeting I'm running next week. As I have posted before, I have a bad habit of trying to "manage up." Back when I was a happy little soldier, it was generally friendly conversation, but now that I am bitter and damaged, it takes a lot of effort to not say "Well, sugar, if you want something to happen, you have to actually DO something."

I think I really need the weekend.

Whap!

Today, my students get to work on projects that require them to learn a fairly complex software package. I call it Whack a Mole day, because I spend the whole class running between the 5 really needy ones who don't know how to manage files or even do basic stuff on the computers before they can get to the stuff they need to know how to do.

It amazes me that I still get students like this - I guess it keeps those geek guy computer fixers (look! MommyProf is not violating anyone's trademarks!) in business...

To infinity, and beyond

Offspring was one might excited 10 year old yesterday when she called me after school, because her principal had arranged for an astronaut who recently got off the ISS to come and speak with the kids. She wanted to talk with both her Dad and I about how one prepares for such a career. Her Dad suggested that it required a combination of both academic success and physical success. I told her it required a lot of determination, emotional stability and great skills in math and science. We discussed having her go to her math teacher and ask to learn more math, but she decided that might be rude. But we can do some more at home, so that made her happy.

Her stated career goal is bioinformatics, but she is more interested in physical science now.

Plus, co-incidentally had on her T-shirt from the Introduce a Girl to Engineering day that Flagship State U. had for Girl Scouts a few years ago.

A great day for women in science at our house.

Fists of death and my need to control them

Lots of irritating stuff going on, on the student front. Plus, this week is super busy for me, with Spouse having night commitment last night and me having them tonight, Wednesday and Thursday.

My students are being extra flaky this year, even the graduate students, and I have to consciously remind myself to keep my temper in check. I don't think "What is wrong with you? Do you pay attention AT ALL?" would be a very good way to start a productive class session.

Something to look forward to

So my last remaining Grandfather is presently in the mental health unit at the hospital. Apparently, he got confused and violent - enough so that he sent two of the staff of the assisted living place where he is to the emergency room.

He's never had any sort of a mental health issue before, and they think it was caused by dehydration. Apparently, this is a large problem in the eldery, particularly those in institutional care, since medicines many elderly take exacerbate it and it is difficult to force someone to drink.

I feel on the one hand that I should be calling or sending a card or something, but on the other, I am one of 10 grandchildren, I'm not the favorite and neither is my Dad. So he would have to spend some time working out who I am. Plus, he is pretty deaf and has a lot of trouble hearing over the phone.

So there is nothing much that I can do, but I do find it tragic and sad.

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday night all right

Sign one that you are old:

You no longer consider Saturday night as a time for which you need to make special plans.

Recalling 911

I grew up outside New York City - sufficiently close that you could see the Twin Towers if you went to the right place in town. In my suburb, lots of people commuted into "The City" and people would take the, then relatively inexpensive, commuter train on nights and weekends sometimes to go to a museum or catch a show or just walk around in the cityness.

I moved away for college, and grad school, and now live in Central State, more than 1,000 miles away. But "The City" will always be a place that feels a little like home to me.

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was already here at PrettyGood. I was getting ready to go to a 9:30 class, when the department secretary hung up the phone and said "Oh my God, a plane just hit one of the World Trade Centers!" My chair had a TV with cable in his office, and we watched for a bit, as the second tower got hit and then the plane hit the Pentagon.

My brother-in-law works for a defense contractor and was in the Pentagon that day. But I had to go to class.

We had no idea what was going on with them - the phone lines into and out of DC were hugely overloaded, and it wasn't until that afternoon that we found out he was ok. It turned out that a co-worker of his was running late and sitting on the interstate overlooking the building when the plane hit it. He called my brother in law, and he was out of the building before the alarms even went off. He ended up walking to a friend's apartment several miles away to wait until things cleared out enough that his wife could come get him (his car was in the Pentagon garage, and it was quite a while before he could get it).

I talked to my Mom that day and it was awful. She was so upset. Many of the people who commute from my town work in the financial industry, and were in the area that day. Some were lost. You could see the smoke from our town for a week afterwards, and they were asking people in the suburbs to donate things like dog food for rescue dogs and menthol rub for rescue workers to put under their noses so the stench of decomposition wouldn't be so bad.

I have been back to NYC many times since 9/11/2001. The first time, I took students to a convention there and it was St. Patrick's Day weekend, 2002. You couldn't walk past a fire station that didn't have flowers and teddy bears and pictures piled up outside as an impromptu memorial for all of the emergency workers who were lost when the buildings collapsed. We were there for the annual parade, which in New York is a huge, day-long event that, this year, had a whole lot of units wearing black armbands in honor of the fallen. I will never forget noon. The Cardinal of New York asked that the parade stop at noon for a minute of silence. And even in a city as grand as New York, with a life of its own, everything stopped. The parade. The traffic. People talking on the street. It was so quiet you could hear the birds and pieces of paper blowing in the street. Sixty second later, life went on.

It is a different life, though. Subway cars have signs and announcements reminding people to report suspicious activity. When I took students again 5 years later, they raised the alert level, and there were armored vehicles in Times Square. It is more nervous, more suspicious, but still going on. And it is still my favorite city.

And Athena wept

So, I administer our graduate program in basketweaving here at ol' PrettyGood. While the uni as a whole is pretty good, the grad programs in general, and ours in particular, are pretty middle of the road (sorry GradDean, but you know it's true!).

Every couple of years, we get a kid applying who has what we'd call an uneven record. Usually, it's good GREs, but a mediocre to poor undergraduate record. When it's for a good reason like multiple surgeries during undergrad, we feel like we can admit. If they are applying straight out of undergrad, hoping to use graduate school as a method of delaying adult life, we don't. The ones who graduated some years ago and have been working are trickier, as we have to use the letters of rec and the personal statement to try to divine if the student has matured enough to handle the stresses of grad school. My softie colleagues tend to be of the "awwww, let's give the kid a chance" school.

We have one of those this year. She graduated 3 years ago, with an A in the major, but an overall B- average because she apparently doesn't do a lot of work in classes she's not interested in. A few of her letters addressed this and swore she had matured, etc. We admitted her on probation, which means no funding and you have to get a B average on your first 9 hours or out you go. She took 9 hours this summer, and ended the summer with 6 hours of incomplete!

Then this semester, she missed the first week of class (classes meet once a week), hasn't turned in any work, and last night, showed up to class an hour and a half late (in a 3 hour class!) because she "forgot to look at the clock." Holy mess.

I asked her to come in and meet with me, because I want to encourage her to reconsider graduate school at this time, since with her level of responsibility, it is highly unlikely that she will finish.

She wanted to meet last night after class, which I did. Her first statement was "Well, I am really disappointed in this program because I wanted to take all applied basketweaving, not all these classes in basketweaving theory and methodology." Whaaaaaaat? "Did you not read the degree plan when you applied?" I ask her.

"Well I just ASSUMED that the program would be applied basketweaving." Her jaw drops when I show her the degree plan she applied for, and how it includes statistics and even more methods classes.

I don't even know what to say to this. I don't have the power to say "Hit the road, Jane. You are wasting your time and money being here."

This is before I get to the part about how she is likely to flunk out. "I know," she says. "These classes are hard!"

I don't know how to control for this, but I am thinking things like how I need to get her out before she gets close to the end and does her evaluation of the program, dissing it because it was not what she "assumed" it would be.

Aversion therapy

So I have a really, really large research schedule for this semester. I have time blocked in my schedule, but that time has been ending up getting stolen for things like service work and the holiday, and if I don't get very serious, I'm not going to make it.

So I am stealing an idea from this product to remain motivated. I have X things to get out the door by Dec. 1. If I don't do it, I am writing a pretty good sized check to a PAC run by someone I really disagree with. I have a picture of this person taped to my monitor at work.

If I do it, I get the keep the money and get a piece of art I like.

We'll see how it goes. Hopefully, I will have a merry Christmas!

Starting behind

When you are a Mommy/Prof, 3-day weekends are not a blessing. You see, I don't usually teach on Mondays anyway. So Monday is that wonderful day when I get to do a lot of my class prep for the week and I have several hours blocked out on my schedule for research. You know, that thing I need to do a lot of in order to achieve escape velocity from dear ol' PrettyGood U?

So when Monday is a holiday, and I have the anklebiters at home for 3 days, I get very behind for the week. Don't get me wrong - I love the anklebiters, and I really appreciate any time I get to spend with them outside of the grind of the school year. Love em so much that Spouse and I even took them on a mini fun trip over the weekend.

But now, at 6:21 a.m., as I head to the kitchen to go make breakfast, lunches and put dinner in slow cooker before said anklebiters wake up, I know that this is a week when I will pay.

For the love of Pete

Ring ring ring.

"Hello"

Click Click

"This is Pirate Pete, the superintendent of rural suburb schools. In the past few days, the district has been receiving many phone calls regarding the plans of President Obama to speak to schoolchildren in a broadcast yesterday.

"The district has decided that remarks from the president do not relate to our instructional program. We will not be showing the presidents remarks in rural suburb schools.

"We will, however, put a link to the remarks on the district web site, and you are welcome to view them with your own children."

Click

---------------------------------------

For the Central State impaired in the audience, here is the subtext:

"We have received a lot of calls from parents threatening to keep their kids home on Tuesday if we make them listen to the president. Many citizens of Central State are concerned that our socialist president will be inserting subliminal messages intended to brainwash the children of America. If we do not meet attendance goals set by Central State on a given day, we do not get our funding for that day from the state. Therefore, you win."

--------------------------------------------

I told Offspring we would make time to watch it at home. Every kid needs the importance of education reinforced for them.

Guilt and backaches

So on Wednesday nights, I am in class until 9 p.m. I am usually pretty tired after that, so I don't bring my laptop home, since I know I will not be doing any more work that night.

Then, on Thursday morning, I find myself walking across campus to my office carrying nothing but a purse and lunch. I worry that I look like a slacker.

Things that make me a saaaaaaad panda

Visiting a world-class science museum with a distant relative and her kids when we happen to be in the same city. Having her tell me "The only thing I don't like about this museum is all the stuff about evolution. You know, with the kids." Realzing she has two master's degrees. In SCIENCE.

Mommyprof's secret code revealed

In honor of grading my first batch of papers yesterday, here is a secret decoder between

what i wrote

and

WHAT I MEANT

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i don't think you understood the author's point here
YOU DIDN'T DO THE READING, DID YOU?

please make sure you proofread your work
SINCE YOU ARE A GRADUATE STUDENT TURNING IN THIS SLOPPY MESS, IT IS APPARENT THAT YOU HAVE LITTLE RESPECT FOR ME OR YOUR OWN WORK

be sure to support your points
I AM NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR OFF-THE-CUFF OPINIONS

not sure what point you are trying to make here
WELL, I RECOGNIZE THESE AS ENGLISH WORDS, AND YOU DID THROW IN SOME BASKETWEAVING VOCAB, BUT, HUH?

sorry, ungraded because I don't take late work
THAT THING IN THE SYLLABUS THAT WE WENT OVER ON THE FIRST DAY? YEAH. I MEANT IT.