I feel another coming on.

Ok, I'm bitter, I'm rEEEEALLY bitter right now.

I stayed in Harper all day so that I could meet with my RWL students and help them through the (truly appalling) introductions and conclusions for their papers. In fact, I had TWO damn seminars today and one of them was arranged to be at 5fucking30 in the evening until 7goodamnPM so that it would fit in their oh-so-busy schedules.

And only 1 person showed up for the evening seminar. Out of, like, 6.

And so...

Dear student,

I admire the speed with which you wrote this essay, but I am fairly sure it is impolitic on your part to loudly proclaim to your friend that you wrote it 15 minutes before class right in front of me. Although I am nice, I am not deaf, and I am still grading you, you stupid, stupid moron. Besides the fact that your authorial haste is apparent from your entire lack of ideas, structure, coherence, style, and penmanship (invest in a printer), your utter ignorance of the prompts presented to the class is also a clue to your complete lack of effort on this assignment. I want you to examine the marks that I have indicated on this paper and stab yourself in the hand with a sharpened #2 pencil once for each grammatical mistake (twice if it is a homonym mistake).

If you can still write after that, hand in a revised draft.

--Me

More grading.

Ok, all but 2 of the theses graded - 22 midterms to go.

More bitterness to follow:

Dear Student,

This paper exists, for me, in a state of liminality - it doesn't wholly suck, and yet, it is not good. Your argument, while wholly adequate for the task, is still appallingly benign. Your analysis, while technically complete enough to make your point, has all the enthusiasm of unflavored gelatin. Your style, while clear, is as flavorless as ginger ale. Your paper is, in fact, the kind of unoffensive clear broth given to those who have the intellectual equivalent of severe food poisoning. After reading the papers of your peers, it was just the thing to make me less angry and more sleepy. I would finish commenting, but I have fallen asleep twice while thinking of something to say.

Thanks,
Your TA

4 down 6 to go.

Ok - partially through with grading theses.

2 of the ones I have graded are glorious. One of them I'm going to nominate for the prize.

The other two? Er... um... non-glorious. One was so non-glorious it made me angry.

I have also become the not-so-proud owner of 22 undergraduate RWL papers to grade. Bleah.

I do have to say this for grading papers. It has made me an absolute MASTER of saying "this paper sucks" in a really nice way. I mean, I can look at a piece of shit and extract the only glimmering piece of tinsel that the cat swallowed at Christmas and somehow wrap everything up with that tinsel as a bow.

This niceness is causing, however, frustration. We have to be nice ALL THE TIME and can't ever let the student (even if he/she has obviously written this paper at 4am high on methamphetamines and smack and the paper smells faintly of urine) see our solid professional demeanor crack.

But in private we're saving up all that bitterness in the "comments that could have been."

Thus, today I am donating my comment space on this blog to you all - to write the comment that should have been written on that horrible paper where you were nice. To let loose that one bitter, cutting snipe that would have reduced your student to tears and possibly suicide.

Think of it as our suicide prevention day.

Just to get the ball rolling, I'll post a few here:

Dear student,

This paper sucks like a whore at carnival. There is no thesis - not even by the end when most people come up with at least some lame-ass attempt at a coherent idea. If I had to choose a metaphor for your structure, I would choose a deceased morbidly obese man who has been floating in a lake for a few days getting puffy. Let me explain: the idea was over-large to begin with, but with the addition of all the watered-down prose it ballooned full of all the hot air you were blowing and is now so offensive to see it makes me want to vomit. Please resubmit when you think of something to say.

If you have any questions, contact the professor because I am too tired to talk to you,
Me

OR

Dear student,

I would like to say that the ideas in this paper are gems that you just need to show off in a nice structural setting, but I would be lying. Your ideas are more like chips of flint. They're opaque, uninteresting, dangerous, and can in theoretical extension (and the addition of a little tinder) hurt someone. Although I find your immature and vaguely misogynistic and racist style and word choice appalling, it is nothing compared to the horror that is your introduction. Don't bother rewriting it, you'll never learn.

Go away,
Me

OR

Dear student,

Although I love cotton candy, marshmallows, and fresh-out-of-the-dryer terrycloth towels, not everything fluffy and insubstantial is good. Your paper is a perfect example of this phenomenon. It's fluffy and insubstantial, but somehow I'm not smiling. Please remove everything that you lifted from "A Woman's Book of Empowering Phrases" and your fifth grade book report and resubmit with a thesis.

Thanks,
Me

Ahhhh. I feel better. You can too! Post!

I'm not a bad person.

For not wanting to grade papers, right?

I have currently been avoiding about 11 thesis drafts.

The boy is on call tonight, so I may try grading them at home this evening.

I'm thinking I'll turn on my Xbox, grab a glass of wine, and every time I finish grading a paper - kill something. Ahhh catharsis.

So, the Katie update (probably more for me than you).

- Jobs: haven't heard back from the MAPH people yet - currently biting fingernails and hoping for an interview. Have to apply for other things too (although I'm not currently sure what they are)

- Writing program: a lot less stressful than the past 2 quarters, although I have a lot more students. During class I get to sit in the back, take attendance, and read. First seminar was on intros and conclusions, so I'm waiting to see what I get this Thursday with their first papers.

- Preceptees: Theses to comment on, paranoia to soothe, and last minute crises to field.

- Family: Now my mom's frustrated with me - Urk. Although my sister is in town and that means things are nice here.

- Dissertation: Actually doing much better! Met with V----- and things went very well. I think I have an idea for the intro to my proposal and the theory seems to be untangling itself rather nicely. Also there have been some spectacular finds in journals from the 1800s so there is a chance that all of this work will pay off in some good ways.

- Apartment: a disaster. I should put together the kitchen table, but that means I have to stain the table and I'm a little too lazy for that right now.

Back to the coal mines.

--kt

Joy and Bitterness.

Apparently that is my new theme for this month.

A long explanation of the new craptacular bitterness I'm experiencing regarding developments in my family problems is available for those who ask me personally, but let's just say that there is a real possibility none of my stuff at the house in question will ever return home.

Crap.

Anyway.

On to JOY. There are wonderful amounts of joy this evening because:

(1) I'm not working on anything in particular
(2) I've finally converted the sunroom to an office.

This is spectacular. I have a desk that has places for everything. I found this cool filing thing by the dumpster that is awesomely perfect for sorting papers. I even reworked my metal filing cabinet to hold hanging files. Oooooooh I LOVE hanging files.

I'm not sure if the rest of the world shares my office-supply fetish (although I think that it is primarily a girl-based phenomenon) but there is something about a new pen that makes a day bright and shiny. I even recommend to my preceptees that when they are stuck for motivation they should go drop $20 at the office supply store and then return to work (apparently they have tried this and it works). So now with the advent of hanging files in my office space this is my favorite room in the house. Not to mention that it has beautiful open windows that are letting in the slightly chilly yet deliciously fresh night air - and my very hot neighbor is walking around topless.

Sigh.

Right now I am sorting files and generally getting things in order out here.

So, again, a touch of joy to sweeten the cup of bitterness.

Mary Poppins was right.

In which Katie teaches outside, goes to IKEA, and embraces hermithood.

Now that the weather has gotten tolerable, I have been seduced by the siren song of class outside, much to the general amusement of my students.

I always assumed that it was merely the hard-hearted cruelness of professors that kept me inside a stuffy seminar room on days when the sunshine was warming the backs of my less attendance-scrupulous classmates. Turns out there are some actual problems with teaching disinterested students outside.

1. dirt - they just aerated the quads which makes for a rather bumpy and er... dirty space for sitting. This drove my class off of the grass onto the benches where we encountered...

2. bugs - little tiny waspy-like biting things that were freakishly albino white. I actually had a student ask me after class - "Is that was flying termites look like?" . Yipes.

3. sooo many things to fidget with - I knew that something was wrong when I was gesturing towards students and their comments with a clod of dirt.

4. Wind - speaking as someone with long hair.

5. Noise - because I'm deaf

6. general distractibility - because I'm so easily amused.

Needless to say, a timid professor would collapse in the face of such opposition. So I have revised my previous view of my professors - they're not hard-hearted, they're just sissies. As I reviewed introductions and conclusions for the 50th time with the sun beating down on my back and the happy smiles of contented students, I realized that despite the flaws, teaching outside is really much better.

From my title it is clear that I have been to IKEA. What is not clear is that I got an awesome desk that is now living in my sunroom and taking up entirely too much space. This is part of an overall plan that involves my actually getting some kind of work done on my dissertation.

I also, in a fit of desperation, emailed my professors and set up a meeting to discuss the draft of my proposal that I have not as of yet written in hopes that this will kick my ass.

Consider it kicked.

So I will try to spend a bit more time in the sunroom with my fancy new desk getting things done instead of spending a lot of time in front of the TV playing Oblivion on my new Xbox 360. Also I hope to spend a little less time and $ in my car driving to places where I procrastinate by shopping.

And I think that it's working. Yesterday (my first solid day of working in a looong time) I felt damn terrific.

Today, today is good.

Evaporation

Hello all,

This is a kind of general notice that for this week (and probably part of next week) I will be disappearing into work and such. My preceptees handed in their drafts, and I need to seriously get some work done on my dissertation.

So - Hugs, and I will talk to y'all soon!

KT