A Gentleman's C

There was the one who refused to follow instructions and then peppered me and the TA with panicked emails when he couldn't get things to work.  There was the one who sat in the front row with his finger up his nose.  There was the one I only saw twice, on exam days.  There was the one who came to every class, always prepared, but who spectacularly failed every exam.  There was the one who insisted on telling me when she was on her period.  There was the one who missed an exam and then insisted that I or the TA had lost it.  There was the one who came in with a black eye because he got into a brawl.  There was the one who wasn't going to vote because, "the system is rigged against conservatives."

Well, it was none of these.

This was a terrible term.  I taught my two most difficult classes (as in, I care about them), Monday through Friday.  At some point I decided that to teach both of them around lunch time would be a great idea, and so that's how they were scheduled.

Every morning, every day of the work week, I prepped for class.  Then I taught class.  Then I had a few hours left to do everything else until I had to deal with Angry Teenager who gets out of school at around 3:00.  Consequently, I got absolutely nothing done for the entire autumn term.  Furthermore, I was exhausted and stressed every day of the week.

Maybe other people don't need a whole morning to prep for class, but my prep time usually expands to fill the time available.  ("Ooh, I should update my literature review on [obscure topic] and tie in all these current events!  And make new powerpoints with video links!") Maybe other people can get "deep work" done in little 45 minute blocks, but I can't.  I was spent by about week 7 into the term, and I am ever so grateful that it's (almost) over.  Just a few more term papers to grade!

To all my compatriots, I lift a glass to you this evening.  May your grade complaints be few, and may your holidays be merry!

I teach in a classroom with lots of electronic stuff.  There's a computer, of course, mounted on a podium of sorts that is bolted to the floor.  There is a data projector and a screen, and even a smartboard that should, in theory, permit me to write on my powerpoints during a lecture.  Each student's place in the room has a workstation, so we can do fun demonstrations during class.  Sounds great, right?

Except... it isn't.  The screen for the projector comes down over the whiteboard so I can't use the whiteboard and the projector at the same time.  The smartboard is, for reasons beyond comprehending, located behind the podium that is bolted to the floor, so it is useless for demonstration purposes even on those rare occasions when the smartboard software works.  The individual workstations require a login that depends on some central authentication, and it is more frequently the case that a login "fails to be verified" instead of taking students to the software they need.

Rather than using the built-in tech, I've been bringing my own tablet.  This requires a completely different collection of electronic devices.  To project the tablet screen I have to plug a dongle into a switch, but the switch doesn't like HDMI, having been constructed well over 10 years ago.  So I have another converter-type thing that the dongle has to plug into, and I have to disconnect everything from the switch, bypassing it completely, to hook the converter to the projector.

This has been working fairly well (I get to the classroom about 15 minutes early every day to perform these electronic gymnastics), until last week.  My dongle has decided to disconnect from the projector at random intervals averaging about 15 minutes long.  Disconnection requires that I reset the dongle, restart the tablet, and reconnect the tablet to the dongle.  I noticed last week that the dongle felt pretty warm during all this drama, and so Friday, after hooking and unhooking everything, I balanced my dongle on top of an ice pack I borrowed from the main office refrigerator.

It worked!  I got through an entire lecture with no interruptions.

I am truly touched that people have kept this blog on their feed readers.  I apologize for my long period of silence.  As my career has evolved I have found it less necessary to vent anonymously, and at some point I found myself with little to say.

In addition, having just finished almost a decade of not-really-administrative but yeah-it's-kind-of-administrative service, at some point in my role as a university representative I decided that exploding online, where anonymity is just an illusion, was unwise.  But my service is now over, and I find myself not quite so angry.

My students have not changed, though I find that I love them and handle them better than I did.  It helps that Angry Kid is now Angry Teenager (please send thoughts and prayers) and that I have learned to appreciate swift and appropriate confrontation even if it involves screaming.  I was also promoted to full, so I am now one of the silverbacks who seemed, back then, to be made of Teflon.  (I have not read a student teaching evaluation since, I think, 2010.)  My students will always disappoint me, and so it is on me to lower my expectations appropriately and try to meet them where they are.  You might criticize me for this, but the system is what it is; I can't change it, I can only adapt to it.  My students still drive me absolutely crazy, and, should I begin blogging on a regular basis again, I'm sure I will have lots of material to share.

Best to you all!

Is anyone still here?

Yes, I am alive!