Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

The time has arrived to return to work. As always, the summer seemed to slip by so quickly. And as always, I'm not ready for the lazy days to end. I've reached the point in my life where I'm thinking a lot about retirement. After 35 years in the classroom, it's definitely time to turn off the lights and close the door. My heart simply isn't into going through the motions of prepping, teaching, grading repeat. My heart is all about being home with the boys and moving slowly through our days. Our summer was absolutely lovely, and I want this kind of life all the time now, not just for three months of the year. The main issue keeping me from retiring now is health insurance. If I knew I had really good insurance that wasn't going to cost a fortune, I'd retire right now. But that won't be the case, so I'm going to keep working at least two more years to hang onto the insurance I currently have. The upside is I do teach at a wonderful place. I have awesom...

is refurbishing the door I found at the architectural salvage warehouse. It will replace the current ugly orange steel door leading into the kitchen. It will be a labor of love for sure. One that will most likely take the rest of fall and all of winter. There are at least two thick coats of paint on one side and maybe three on the other side. But . . . I think the door is solid oak. At least that's what the warehouse helper thought, and I'm going to go with what he said since he deals with this kind of thing all the time. It is incredibly heavy and took all I had to get it out of the truck and onto the saw horses. I guess I'll find out once I get past the layers of paint. Even if it's not solid oak, it's going to be beautiful and look much better than what is currently in place. This morning, after doing work work and making sure everything was in place for the week, I went down memory lane for a bit. I think it was because of the essay assignment I gave my Children...

Tuesday the temps reached 90. Around 5 pm, I realized I am so over the heat of summer. I'm ready for cooler temps and then the cold that will follow. For one reason. Mosquitoes. They've been just awful all summer long. The boys and I can't step outside the back door without an immediate frontal, side, and rear attack. I'm not exaggerating. It doesn't matter what time of day we try to get out. The mosquitoes are waiting and ready to assault us. I've doused myself in more bug spray the last three months than I have my entire life. The poor doggoes end up with mosquitoes on top of mosquitoes vying for space on their snouts. Taking a walk is miserable for them and me. For whatever reason, the mosquito problem seems to be relegated to my side of the village. As soon as we get three blocks away, to the east side of the village, the mosquitoes lessen. And two blocks further they all but disappear. There is a creek about a hundred and fifty yards behind the house, which...

At least for now. Who knows what will happen a month down the road given the increase of variant cases. I'm hoping for the best but am prepared to end up completely online again. As of now, I'll return to campus on Monday. And my big summer project is 99.99% done. All that's left is touching up spots here and there. I finished up the basement windows and downspouts today, along with doing what I could with the doors to the basement stairs. They're not exterior doors, and they're warping because they take a lot of the weather since they're west-facing, but I'm going to leave them until next summer. Then I'll replace them with proper exterior doors. The house last fall. The house newly painted this summer. While I'm excited to have finished painting the house, I now have another issue to address: the septic. I was touching up the attic window and heard a motor shut off. I thought it was my neighbor's air conditioner and didn't think too much ab...

This summer, I did something as a teacher that I've never done in my entire career. I gave a student an A because I got tired of the constant emails bashing me and how I grade incorrectly. Yeah, I'm not proud of how I caved and gave the student exactly what the student wanted, but I decided to do what I did because this student isn't worth my time. The first email I received from this student expressed disappointment in the grade given for the first draft of the first paper. I replied, explaining what I was seeing and why I gave the grade I did (which was exactly what I said directly on the paper as well as in a long end comment the student can access when the paper is returned). Then the replies started coming in: I didn't grade correctly; everything I asked for was in the paper; all of the ideas were there, just "invisible like" (whatever the hell that means). It's one thing to get an email from a student; it's quite another to get an email, follow...

It used to be students would use "my grandma died" as the excuse for not getting work submitted. Poor grandma -- she sometimes died two or three times during a semester. Now, the more typical reason for not attending class and not getting work in is anxiety and panic attacks. And usually the student doesn't inform me of this until after getting the final grade, which for some is most likely what's inducing the anxiety and panic attacks. Over the last six or seven years, the number of students claiming to suffer from depression, anxiety, and panic attacks has increased exponentially. I am truly conflicted over this. I know the conditions are real and some people truly suffer because of anxiety and panic attacks. The idea, too, that so many young people are claiming to experience both suggests something very wrong is happening in our world (hello social media?). This semester, I've had several students tell me at the end of the semester they suffer from both, and ...

My go-to for relieving the annoyance that comes with reading the final drafts of some student work is wrapping my favorite knit scarf around my neck, putting on my quilted deep green coat, then donning my boots to head out for a walk. So far today, I've needed two walks. I simply don't understand. During the last sixteen weeks, I've repeated some very basic information. Still, I get essays that don't demonstrate the student heard what I was saying (or even read the information as much of what I said was also offered in writing). After I give a failing grade for not following directions, I receive an email asking why the paper didn't pass. I then have to take time explaining, usually to a student who didn't attend class on a regular basis, which resulted in the student not hearing what I was saying and the student not going into the folders where the information was provided in writing. These students wear me out. Over the last fifteen years, much has chang...

My bum has been planted in this darn chair all day. And I wonder why my clothes are getting tighter! But, I'm nearly finished with putting my entire summer online classes in place, and once class begins on Monday, all I'll have to do is read the papers and blog posts once they start coming in. Fingers crossed the classes I've created are easy to navigate and clear about what is expected (who am I trying to kid? There'll be students who'll have issues -- there always is). Good news: one of my haiku was accepted by Haiku Journal . If you go to the journal online, Issue 58, you'll see my name listed with the other authors. Then just scroll down until you find my haiku. This particular haiku is my favorite of the group I created to submit to the contest sponsored at the site where I post my work for critique. This was also the favorite for my writer friend who offered feedback when my haiku went days without a critique on the very site that is designed to offer...

Grades are in, and out of my four classes, only one student is complaining about the course grade. A student who didn't turn most of the assignments in by the due dates. A student who waited until finals week to work on two major papers and the semester-long project. A student who inundated me with emails about how rough her semester has been. When I refused to answer a list of questions she sent last week about concepts that were covered during the semester, she became very upset with me and told me I'm out of touch with the younger generations, I don't listen, and I am the cause of all her stress. I do feel for this student. From what she wrote and the fact that she sent email after email several times during the week, I'm pretty sure she's dealing with mental illness. My hope is she gets help. I sent her series of emails to my boss to clue him into what she said and how she said it. I also encouraged the student to contact my boss to set up a meeting where the ...

Back to work today. To be honest, I was totally ready to get back to the routine of designing the curriculum, teaching, figuring out how to get the writing center moving forward, and seeing all my friends. I've missed all of them very much. I saw them a couple of times during my leave, and we texted at times, but not seeing them on a daily basis created a hole in my life. They're wonderful people I am so glad are my friends. I did run into a problem first thing. I turned on my computer and began working on a document only to have Word crash on me every single time I opened the document. I tried other documents. I tried creating new documents, but each time, Word closed out on me after about five seconds of being up on the monitor. This is really weird to me since my computer was off the entire time I was gone. What could possibly have happened to the program while the computer was off for seven months? Thankfully, I can work from home tomorrow, doing all my Word doc work from...

As I was driving to work today, the thought that a week from tomorrow I go in for my promotion portfolio defense flitted through my mind. A nano second later, that rush of adrenaline that happens when a person feels fear shot through the pit of my stomach. I calmed myself, thinking hopefully my portfolio readers are all reasonable people. Then, almost as soon as I sat down at my desk my phone rang. I answered and found it was one of my promotion portfolio readers. Another rush of adrenaline coursed through my core, speeding up my heart. The reader, someone I've known for many years and have cycled with, tells me a page from my teaching philosophy is missing. The last page. Pages 1, 2, 3, and the works cited were all there. Page 4? Where'd it go? I quickly pulled the document up on my computer to check it. Yes, page 4 was there. Why it wasn't in the portfolio is beyond me. I checked, double checked then triple checked each copy of the portfolio before submitting them, so I k...

Lovely Beautiful Daughter went back east yesterday. I began missing her before we had even left the house to take her to the bus which would carry her up to O'Hare. The last time we said good-bye at the small airport here in our little city, I watched her wipe tears away as she went through security. Yesterday, I wiped tears away as I walked back to the car. We had such a wonderful time together during the five days she was here. She's a spark of life that makes everyone around her feel happy. While she was here, I didn't get my students' paper read like I'd hoped to. A few years ago, I would have been agonizing over not finishing the grading as planned, really stressing myself out, but now? Now I shrug it off and send a note to all students, telling them I'm behind and will complete the grading during the next few days. My position about my job, about teaching writing, these days is so different from just five years ago. I believe having strong writing skil...

This week I've been conferencing with my English 102 students over their final papers. I love having these conferences as it's an opportunity for me to take time with each student, being able to sit back and enjoy the student's work followed by listening to the student explain the choices made for the papers. I learn so much from the students. When I do these conferences, I try to compile some passages from various papers. Passages that speak to me, make me uncomfortable, fill me with sadness, or evoke joy. I try to keep these passages close by to remind myself of why I teach. Here are a few from this semester I'd like to share: --from a student paper in which the author explored her cousin being born with Maple Syrup Urine Disease and having to undergo a liver transplant. The liver came from a little girl who had died in a car accident. This is from a scene of Evan's third birthday where he had two cakes. "But the next set of candles was not for Evan; ...