Archive for the ‘The School’ Category

This past weekend was my 10 year high school reunion. I tried to go in without expectations because I knew that there were things that could go right and things that could go entirely wrong. I just went with the goal of having a good time, even if I didn’t know a soul there. Or if no one remembered me.

Thankfully, I knew several people. My graduating class had over 500 students, I would venture to guess that at graduation I knew about half of them. At the reunion, I knew maybe 1/3 of the 100 people that showed up. If that. And there were some who I recognized, but who I could never have named if my life depended upon it.

Throughout the night I caught up with friends, I told stories to my husband of friends from my childhood and teenage years. It was a lame party in general, with relatively crappy music, a completely empty dance floor and the worst lights ever, but all of that was inconsequential. It was still fun (for me at least).

Toward the end of the evening I was talking to a very old friend of mine. We met the first day of 5th grade and were instant friends for years. While we were talking another girl I was never great friends with but knew well enough came up to me to say hi. And then she said something entirely unexpected.

She told me that a classmate of ours (whose name I did not recognize AT ALL) had texted her that day to say he wouldn’t be coming to the reunion. He said that he was bummed and that he really only wanted to know what 3 people from our class were doing, and one of them was me. When I inquired, she said he had explained that it was because he just knew the 3 of us were going to do something impressive with our lives.

(Side note- I was a huge dork. I got straight As in all my honors and AP classes, I was nominated (but did not win) Most Likely To Succeed. I was a relatively big academic fish in my high school, but by no means was I the smartest.)

And I couldn’t help but laugh when she told me he wanted to know what I was doing. What am I doing? I’m still in school. I haven’t done anything with my life, let alone anything impressive. I got a teaching credential, started teaching and then quit because I hated it. I am now in school and am in no way at the top of my class. I will graduate in May, but in 10 years, my accomplishments are very few. I’ve gotten married, I’ve lived in a few cool places, I’ve racked up a metric fuckton of student loans, but I have done nothing noteworthy.

And I kind of felt…deflated.

I’m happy with my life. Unquestionably, I am. I know I’m going to love my future career, but now I feel like maybe I could’ve or should’ve done more with my life. I feel like I’ve disappointed people I didn’t even know were watching. I didn’t live up to expectations, expectations that I didn’t even know were set for me.

I’ve been reliving this conversation over and over and I just feel kind of sad. I feel like I should’ve done something bigger or better. Or like I’ve somehow wasted 10 years of my life even though until this weekend I wouldn’t have traded most of those years for the world.

And now I find myself wondering what this person thought I would become. And what they would think of me if they had actually made it to the reunion as planned.

This post is likely going to make some of you nod and some of you shake your heads.  In fact, it’ll probably make those who usually nod, shake their heads and vice versa.  Some of you might never come back, and I’ll have to live with that.

I’ve been following the economic crisis from a distance.  I don’t know the intricate ins and outs, but I do understand that it is impacting people everywhere and that the ripple effect is yet not known.  It has been building for years and it is impossible to put blame on any one person or even administration.

On a personal level, Slappy and I are largely unaffected (for the moment) because he has a 5 year job contract with the hospital (even if the pay is fairly lousy) and I have loans from graduate school.  We are in debt and will be for years to come, but we’re in good condition with our debt, largely because we’ve planned for it.

Others are not so economically lucky and it is a terrible fate that many face.  However, being down on your luck is not an excuse for some of the things I’ve seen lately.  When I see people on blogs and on twitter talking about not paying bills, overdrawing checking accounts and defaulting on loans, it pisses me off.  Or when I hear about my hairdresser who let her home go into foreclosure because she was planning on moving any way, it makes me angry.

That is stealing.

If you walked out of a store with a 24 pack of water without paying, you’d be arrested.  So why on earth should you be able to use all the water in your house without paying a water bill?

And yes, a distinction needs to be made here.  I don’t mean to lump everyone together.  There are plenty of people who are without a job for reasons they cannot help.  There are plenty of people without a job who are trying to secure one.  And there are plenty of people without jobs who are doing something about it and are making ends meet.  Those are not the people I’m talking about.  I’m talking about those who are in an economic crisis, but don’t seem to be working on getting out of it.  I’m talking about those who point blame at the government and stay in their overly air conditioned houses, using their wireless internet, piling up bills that they can’t and won’t pay.

If you’re unable to pay your bills, you should not continue to have high speed internet service in your house.

If you’re unable to pay your bills, you should not have a TiVo let alone be wracking up the cable/satellite bills to make it useful.

If you’re unable to pay your bills, you should not have a live in nanny when you know that daycare is more affordable.

If you’re unable to pay your bills, you should not have a housekeeper.

If you cannot live within your own means, you need to stop paying for things that are not necessary and minimize your expenditures.  This is not political, this is COMMON SENSE.

Is it more difficult to get by without a nanny and housekeeper?  Of course, and yet, people do it all the time.  Is it unpleasant to not have a computer hooked up to the internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?  Heavens yes.  But there are places, like libraries and internet cafes, where you can get internet access for MUCH cheaper than the cost of a computer and the associated cable/internet services.  You can get a cheaper cell phone plan, you can buy clothes at places that are less expensive.  You can minimize costs, it’s simply not all that difficult.  It’s just less pleasant.

Yes, it involves sacrifice.  Yes, it means missing out on things you like.  That’s part of life, and it’s not fair that those of us who are planning and budgeting are having to pick up the slack for those who are choosing to live beyond their means (which does not mean those who simply have no money and therefore no means.  I mean people who are just being frivolous, unconcerned overspenders.)

I don’t think the whole economic crisis can be solved with such a simple plan, but I do think it’s something we need to examine.  I think we need to take a look at our lives and the lives of our friends and families and we need to look at what we’re doing.  We need to be outraged about overspending.  We need to be outraged by people taking advantage of the system.  And we need to be outraged by those who think that they can get away with stealing.

We cannot expect the government to fix nation wide economic problems if we aren’t even willing to make economic sacrifices within our own homes.  Change has to begin somewhere.  Why not here?

So, I may or may not have mentioned that these past few weeks have been all different kinds of stressfully crazy, but as of tonight, it’s all over. I took my last test tonight, I’m done with this crappy sub-par school and onto a bigger and infinitely better one. I’m more happy over this than I can put into words. I’m done with going to school from 7-10 Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and from 4-10 on Tuesdays with my side helping of an online class. It was too much, but I made it, I crossed the finish line and I think I stand a good chance at walking away with a 4.0 in spite of overloading myself.

To celebrate this accomplishment and Slappy’s upcoming commencement, we’re going to Florida for the weekend, just the two of us, the sun and some quiet relaxing time. Really, I can’t even put into words how much I’m looking forward to seeing the ocean gulf, listening to waves crash and having someone else cook and clean up after me. No tests, no papers to grade, no lesson plans, no responsibility.

I’m sure I’ll check in at some point because we don’t really do the whole unplugged thing, but if you don’t hear from me for a ew days, understand that I’m in Florida, in search of my sanity and enjoying the hell out of the hunt.

The 4 tests awaiting me next week have already started to take a toll on my stress levels. It doesn’t help that this headache hasn’t gotten a single iota better, or that I’m not sleeping nearly enough right now, but even without those extraneous factors, knowing that I need an A or a B in each of my classes is stressing me the hell out.

But after last night, I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’m not the most stressed.

You see, the girl I have been working with in one of my physics lab (it’s possibly the most ridiculously easy course of all time, by the way) was losing her shit last night about the final exam, next Wednesday. This was after the lab prof told us we didn’t need to memorize any formulas because the test would be that easy. Seriously.

So, in completely ignorance of the prof’s reassurances of the simplicity of the test, my lab partner began trying to copy down every single formula and bit of information from the semester into her notebook while we were doing the world’s most tedious experiment.

In the middle of the experiment, another person we were working with went up and spoke with the prof because he didn’t have a copy of the lab because when he tried to print it off, instead, he got a copy of the Adobe Acrobat user agreement. The prof made some joke about how that probably wouldn’t help him out much and told him not to worry about it.

She saw the papers and got the most crazy-eyed look and squealed, “what’s that?!?”

“The Adobe Acrobat user agreement,” I said.

She looked at me, in all seriousness and said, “Well, do I need to know it? Will it be on the test?” After she snatched it out of the guy’s hands, she read for a minute and then exclaimed, “what the hell does this have to do with physics?”

What the hell indeed.

Oh. My. God.

Okay, so I perhaps have written a thing here or there about my chemistry class. This intro chem lab is going to be the absolute death of me. But hell if I’m not going to go down fighting.

So last Tuesday I did not go to lab because I had a fever and felt like heaping pile of crap. I rarely miss school, but I really just didn’t think I’d make it through the day and in retrospect, I’m pretty sure it was a good decision. Health wise. Pain in my ass wise, it was a horrible call.

In an attempt to be responsible (let’s keep that in mind) I drove myself out to school and dropped off the chemistry lab report that was due Tuesday afternoon so that it wouldn’t be counted late. I read through my syllabus and because it said that points would be deducted for each weekday that a lab was late, I didn’t want to chance it. I drove out, my idiotic professor wasn’t in yet (I was like 5 minutes early), so I left it with my lab partner to turn in.

When I got home, I sent the lab professor an email, letting her know that I was sick and asking if I could use someone else’s data to do this week’s lab so I wouldn’t get behind.

The next morning I got an email letting me know that, first, I’d need a doctor’s note for my absence. Because apparently even in college, you can’t just be sick. I called my doctor’s office, told them my symptoms and they didn’t want to see me. They said it sounded like the flu and for the protection of other patients, unless things escalated, they’d prefer if I stayed home (this is not terribly abnormal, nor unreasonable in my opinion). So I emailed her and told her this and casually mentioned that it seemed a little mother freaking ridiculous that I needed a doctor’s note. Which, in retrospect was probably not necessary, but I didn’t feel good and I was annoyed.

Next I called my neurologist’s office who said they’d be happy to write me a note to excuse my absence. In fact, the nurse told me to call them whenever I needed one. It’s almost like I have an excusable health condition that isn’t to be toyed around with. Weird, right?

So I got my note. And when I got home from getting my note I had another email from the lab professor (to the whole class, not just me) letting me know that our test was being pushed up a week and telling us which labs to study. Silly me, I thought that I had not received my graded papers to study with, so I emailed her and asked if I could pick them up to help with my studying. You know, the quizzes and lab reports with all the pertinent information on them, that sort of thing.

When I got a response 2 days later, I discovered that no, she hadn’t actually returned any of them. So we are being tested on material we haven’t gone over and material we don’t have at our disposal to study. Which is stellar, as always.

And this time she informed me that the lab I dropped off the day I was gone would not be counted because “someone else obviously turned it in.” Um, no shit sherlock. I dropped it off at school. Does she think someone else did it for me? Hello, you have 4 weeks of labs of mine there, why don’t you compare the handwriting? Or, I don’t know, look through it and see that I obviously did it myself. Who the hell cares who turned it in?

The answer is of course, her. Because apparently, you can’t turn in work if you’re absent.

So, according to her, the right action would’ve been to hold on to the lab report and turn it in tomorrow, a week late, with a doctor’s note. And because I didn’t do that, she’s not counting it. NOT COUNTING IT. That sound? Was my head exploding. I turned in an assignment ON TIME. I did the responsible thing and drove out to school when I felt like shit and she won’t grade it. She also accused me of lying about my doctor’s office not wanting to see me while sick, even though I had already told her that I had a doctor’s note. So basically, even if I had been lying, which I WASN’T it was totally a moot point.

In true adult fashion, I sent her back an email that was perhaps a little lot snarkier than I should’ve, but you know what? This is fucking ridiculous. It just is. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do in this course. I’m doing the homework, I’m studying for the tests (okay, right now I’m blogging instead of studying, but let’s set that factoid aside for now), I’m even tutoring other students. And I’m getting screwed.

I’m angry on levels beyond my own ability to express them. I’m feeling cheated when I’ve done exactly what’s been asked of me and more. I don’t know how I could be more responsible (okay, not sending snarky emails, yes, we can check that off in the more responsible list, I know) or studious. What am I missing here?

I sense an epic battle of wills on the horizon. I also sense that there won’t be any winners in this war.

For as long as I can remember, my dad (who is a principal) has had a little quote taped to the inside lip of his top desk drawer. It says: “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

Tonight, I wrestled with a pig. And it got REALLY dirty.

Said pig is my chemistry lab professor. Not the one I was ranting about last week. This chemistry lab professor is an entirely different kind of wrong. She said she taught at another university (has yet to mention its name though) and seems to have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but instead of admitting that, feels a need to tell everyone else they’re wrong.

Her profound lack of understanding of other humans has led to my fingers being seriously burned and my GPA dropping. Both of which I am pissed off at. And tonight, we can add me being yelled at in front of a group of my peers. Oh, it’s ugly.

You see, each week we have a lab report due, including our data sheet from the last lab, post-lab questions and observations and conclusions. We also have a quiz on the upcoming lab. As usual, we are expected to show all work and be precise.

Seems reasonable, yes?

No. Because even if you show an ENTIRE page worth of work, which is all correct, and then make one very VERY tiny error, you get zero points. Of the 5 assigned to the problem. No partial credit, but everything is worth 5 points.

So I emailed her. Politely. And I asked if we could go over her grading policy because some of my classmates have been copying other peoples’ answers, with no work, and receiving some credit for those answers. And I don’t know, something about that sounds like we’re valuing CHEATING over trying.

But first I had an exam for her. In the middle of the exam, I realized she had made a mistake. I brought it to her attention. I asked her to make sure it wasn’t just me, but since there were 3 other people at her desk with the same problem, I was comforted that it wasn’t. She went on about how then if we think we did it right, we should just leave it alone. Even though the problem didn’t work.

I asked her, again, VERY politely, if she could look over her key and make sure that the problem was correct. Her answer? Not right now. Maybe in 10 minutes.

Excuse me? There’s a possible error on your test and you’d like to make us all wait 10 minutes before you’ll even look at it (side note: when she finally did, I was absolutely freaking right. Thankyouverymuch).

The test went fine, and our grading meeting began.

I had my lab reports covered in post-it notes reminding myself to ask her why I received no credit for doing work. I spoke in a quiet voice the whole time because half of the class was still taking the test, and I asked her about the partial credit. She said no. She said she didn’t have time to grade papers and give partial credit. I suggested not making the questions worth 4-5 points if there was no way to get anything but a 4/5 or a 0.

And she LOST IT.

And I quote: “Who the hell do you think YOU are telling me how to grade papers? You don’t know my job. You don’t know what I do. I make up my grading scale and that’s not my problem.” Now, to be more accurate, that should all be in capital letters because she SCREAMED it at me. Seriously. Screamed.

I very quietly responded that I was a TEACHER and that I have nearly 100 students, and yet, somehow I always managed to grade and give partial credit. (So maybe I didn’t need to go there, and yet, it felt SO good.) And then I tried to tell her that the person behind me had cheated during the exam, and this was really the highlight of the evening…

(again, I quote) “I don’t have time to patrol everyone for cheating. That’s not my job.”

So we can go ahead and pencil into this mega-week the writing of the email to the head of the chemistry department. Because a) don’t yell at me in front of my peers and b) people are cheating. And it’s not MY job to patrol it either. But I will not be put in a situation where my academic integrity is lost because she cannot even watch the 20 people in the room to see if they’re cheating.

NEVER wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and you’ll most likely wanting to slaughter the pig. And the pig will still think they’ve done nothing wrong.

Because the pig is crazy. And has no idea of the shitstorm that’s coming.

So, I’m not sure if you’ll remember, but back in July I took a soul-sucking chemistry class 4 nights a week for 3 hours a night to try and get it over with. And you may not remember, but the professor was God-awful. And I really mean it. Really, really, really awful.

I did not, however, take the lab component of the class, which is just one of the 5 ways I ended up in science lab night class hell this semester. But that’s neither here nor there. What is here and there is that I switched schools. That chemistry class and all my other post-bac classes had been at a fairly decent local university but this semester I’m at the WORST place of “higher” education in town and I’m taking 5 labs and an online class (envy me).

So you can imagine the sheer shock of watching my professor from this summer at the old university, walk into my lab at the new crappy college. The new instructor. And of course she recognized me. OF COURSE. (Though she did call me Amy, which is starting to be disconcerting because that’s what they call me at work. Was I supposed to be an Amy?)

As it turns out, she absolutely as horrible as a lab professor as she was as a regular course prof. Who could possibly imagined? (Hint: the answer is anyone she’s ever come across!)

Last night we had to do a freezing point experiment where we put a chemical in a test tube, put that in a freezing water bath and measured the temperature at regular intervals until it froze. So she got the chemical and we started. Simple enough, yes?. After 6 minutes of trying to freeze the substance, everyone was stuck at 2 degrees Celsius, but the solution hadn’t frozen at all.

We asked her for help and she told us to keep going, it would surely freeze soon.

And so we did.

After 10 minutes, someone kindly pointed out that we were trying to freeze the wrong substance. And granted, it was only one letter different, but you are a TEACHER, you’d think you’d take the time to find the right chemical? I mean really, reading is just not that tough of a skill to master. And this chemical we were trying to freeze? Has a freezing temperature of -120 degrees. I swear, she’d have made us hold it in the damn freezing water bath until next week too.

After I finished my lab, I asked what lab we’d be doing next week and I kid you not, the woman didn’t know. So she let me choose. Apparently the concept of a syllabus is totally lost on her. And the idea of PLANNING is a mystery. Wrapped in an enigma.

Do you know what’s really weird? Somehow, someway, next week? We’re doing the shortest lab in the manual.

Coincidence? You bet your ass.

This has been the day few days week that never ends. But I finally have good news. Rather lots of it too. Um, but none of it is health related. Feel free to lecture me about advocating for my own healthcare in the comments. I need to hear it. I’m starting the Topamax on Monday and there’s a good chance that I might not remember what advocating for one’s health is afterwards.

Anyways, I left the house at 6:45 this morning to take a Microbiology test that I was not at all prepared for. I could tell you that I haven’t had the time, but we all know that’s a lie. I had a week off of work in which I could’ve learned a lot, but I didn’t. However, despite my lousy studying practices, apparently my guessing abilities have blossomed. Because I got an 88 out of 100. This is fantastic news, especially when you discover that the class average was a 48. So, methinks 40 percent above the average is commendable.

Then I went to work, which was, as usual, a giant zoo of chaos.

Somewhere in the middle of my day I got other good, nay, awesome news. Slappy, who is now in his 4th and final (praise the Lord) year of medical school, sent out his residency application last night around 9. As of this morning, he already has an interview at one of the programs. As of this evening, he has 2. And this is his application without any letters of recommendation attached, which is very impressive and awesome. Did I mention it is awesome? because it is. I’m so freaking proud of him.

Then, I left work early for a sporting event on the Northshore. For those not familiar with the geography of New Orleans, there is a big freaking lake here and to get to the northshore, you must drive across a big freaking bridge over the big freaking lake (that sentence originally contained the F bomb 3 times, I censored it because I’m feeling cool like that, yo). Like seriously, a 25 mile long bridge over water. Which is intimidating. It is horrendously frightening when you have to drive said bridge in wind gusting up to 40 miles an hour. Or when the waves in the middle of the big freaking lake are breaking like a foot below the bridge.

(Also, edited to add, because this was too good not to share: I noticed halfway through the drive that something was moving about in the trunk of my car. And then I noticed a smell. And then I remembered that we never removed the bag of CAT FOOD from my trunk from evacuation. So when I finally got across the freaking big lake, I have like a solid inch of cat food in my trunk. And my car smells like a cat’s mouth. I’m thinking if I just lock the cat in the trunk for about an hour I’ll take care of the mess, but perhaps not the smell.)

But I made it, and the sporting event actually went pretty well, which again, was a wonderful surprise.

To balance out the good, the big freaking bridge was closed by the time I got to leave the sporting event (which was, um, like 8:15pm) and therefore I had to drive AROUND the big freaking lake. I will never again complain about the causeway, because seriously, the amount of time it saves is unreal.

I got home at 9:45, ate dinner, watched America’s Next Top Model from last night (don’t judge me) and now I’m contemplating the merits of packing. This weekend is my weekend to fly home and bomb take another test, but the weather is concerning. We’re not getting a direct hit by Ike by any means, but we are again getting a good bitchslap by the dirty side of it. The winds are a little ridiculous. I might have to switch sides of the broken bed (that’s another story for another time) with Slappy tonight so that if the hammock outside our bedroom comes flying in it takes him out first. What? I have a plane to catch tomorrow.

And, finally, as today marked my 35th day without chocolate, I finally got to re-introduce it into my diet. And maybe I’ve built it up too much in its absence because it was actually not as good as I remember. That said, I’m pretty sure I’ll never ever go 35 consecutive days without it again. Hell, I might not go 35 non-consecutive days without it again.

So while it was a 14.5 hour work day and I’m so completely exhausted I might keel over here and now, it was also a day which included a good grade on a test, my husband getting 2 residency interviews, a success at coaching, not dying on the causeway and chocolate. A good day indeed.

Hallelujah. Can it be the weekend now?

It has been a day.

I left for work related stuff at 5:30 this morning and I arrived home at 5:30pm. In those 12 hours I literally did not have 20 minutes of non-working time, even if you added together all the 5 minute blocks I might have had. I got to work late because the thing in the morning ran long (yes, I’m being vague, it’s called not wanting to get fired) and then the copy machine ran out of paper so I had to walk to the other copy machine which is as far away from where I was standing as any object could be. I was subsequently later for my first class than I was already running, which is just great when you work 5 feet from your administrator’s office door. It’s also great to start the day playing catch up.

Just as I sat down for lunch, which was my only promised break of the day, the front office called and asked if I could watch another teacher’s class because she was going home sick. I’m not sure why they ask because you can’t say no, so I didn’t even have a lunch break today. I realize this breaks many labor laws, but I think it just broke my spirit. I needed at least 10 good minutes away from children, more for their own good than anything else.

I realized halfway through the day from hell that I had a class tonight that I had totally forgotten about. It is a lab (I took the class it goes with last year) and I was already on the fence about dropping since I have to miss 2 classes for work stuff, but when I realized that I had neither a) bought the lab manual; nor b) done a single moment of homework for the class and it was already approaching 5:00 (for a 6:30 lab), I knew that it was time to just drop that ball altogether.

It’s the first time in a long time that I’ll admit that I’ve bitten off about 12 times more than I can chew. Working full time, volunteering at a clinic 3 days a week, taking 2 full classes, applying to 30 some-odd graduate programs and coaching a sport is too much. Once you add in that my head is in a constant state of THROBBING RIDICULOUS PAIN, it just reaches a critical mass and I start to lose my shit, or at least my will to do anything.

I have a test tomorrow morning and I haven’t yet studied for it. I have a big sporting event tomorrow that I feel is going to reveal my severe ineptitude as a coach. I am flying home Friday for a test on Saturday that I have roughly a snowball’s chance in hell of passing, and then I have to fly back and start the cycle all over again. I’m almost hoping that Ike stays between California and Louisiana a little longer so that my flight will be delayed. Yes, I’m a horrible person.

And while this is one big gigantic whine of a post, it doesn’t even begin to cover the sheer amount and force of the stress I’m feeling. I want to sit in a dark corner and rock back and forth. I actually found myself singing to nothing (no radio, no ipod) in the car and didn’t bother to stop myself when I realized. Holy crap.

Dear this week, I bequeath to thee my ass, that way you can more easily kick the crap out of it.
p.s. Feel free to keep the extra 5 evacuation pounds that have taken up residence on it.

Lanny tagged me to do a Meme, and I am going to do it, in fact, I’m going to do the crap out of it, but not today. I still feel so remarkably lousy that I just don’t have it in me to be creative or funny.

I think I am starting to turn a corner on this, but I felt so much worse yesterday than I had Monday that I feel like it’s going to take a while just to get back to feeling crappy, let alone to feeling well. If I could just have like a 15 minute break from coughing, I’d be beside myself with gratitude. My poor voice is just gone and my whole abdominal area/ribs are insanely sore from the incessant hacking. It hurts everywhere.

Oh, and tonight is my last chemistry test and chemistry class since I’m opting to take my B and run, without taking the final exam. Which means that tomorrow is day 1 of GRE studying. I bet it’s difficult for you to resist wanting my life every day. But really, do try to contain your envy.