Sunday Walk

I'm working on a new poem about walks taken at the edge of evening, about the perfume of dryer sheets, of rot. About the air thawing. About February.

This Is Just To Say

I was hemming and hawing in front of the fridge today. A can of Diet Pepsi looked delicious, so sweet and so cold. (Williams gets that credit). But, I was resisting because soda isn't good, even diet soda. Then I realized that I swig diet cola most every Friday night at The Eagles, and THAT diet soda also contains lots of cheap whiskey; thus I drank 'er down. It was worth it. Sometimes, I just crave that caramelly, fake sugared, fizzy stuff.

You want more proof I am OCD? A new work laptop was given to me, and it's got Vista (which, whatev, it's fine). BUT, the icons for the folders are different in Vista. So instead of cute little closed folders on my desktop, I now have these icons that are open folders, so you can see stacks of papers inside.

It looks like this:



And it looks messy. And it is making Lu crazy!

More proof? You don't need anymore proof. You all know I am completely rulesy and crazy.

We're doing a Vermtown float this weekend, baby. Buckle up.

This Borscht Could Use Some Dill.

That's all I'm saying.

I think that my family is a bit surprised that I became a teacher; they all know I have no patience. None whatsoever.

And it's true. I have no patience for stupidity, for people who don't shovel their walks, for ignorance, for my idiot neighbor boy, for Dr. Laura, for energy drinks, for laziness, for Nancy Grace, for bad parenting, for the grandma-sweatered, flowery-smelling History prof down the hall, for dollar loan centers, for Elizabeth Hasselbeck.



In the classroom, however, I have the patience of St. Monica, the, uh, patron saint of patience. I will calmly answer the same question over and over again. I will explain next week's assignment in a billion different mediums: verbal examples, drawings on the board, written on the class blog, diagrams in sand I have truckloaded in. I answer e-mails professionally, when I really want to write, "YOU MAKE MY LIFE BAD." I will bend over backwards.



Except for yesterday, when I almost lost it. I was explaining, againagainagain, the rule for commas after conjunctive adverbs: commas go after the conjunctive adverb if said conjunctive adverb is more than two syllables.

(Did I know this rule before teaching basic writing? Nope. Will I stand in front of them and talk about it ad naseum and act like THE authority of comma usage and conjunctive adverbs? Absolutely.)

One student was just not getting it. At all. And I got frustrated. I raised my voice, let my irritation creep into it, leaned into her, jabbed my finger at her paper, and asked, a bit harshly, "How many syllables are in this word?" Silence from her. Then it hit me. She didn't know what I meant by syllables. I took a step back and softly counted it out with her, and she said, "Ohhh!! OK!" And she got it.

I could use this story to lament about education today. I could complain and raise my blood pressure. But I won't. In teaching, and especially teaching the unique student demographic that I do, you need to step out from behind the podium and meet them where they are.

She's a good student--she's going to make it. And I'll continue to work on hanging onto my patience, if even I am clutching onto a very, very, very thin thread.

St. Monica, pray for us.

Understood You

For the past three years of my illustrious teaching career, I have written "avoid 'you' in formal, academic writing" about a billion times on student papers. I talk about it in class nearly every week. I tell them it sounds accusatory and little slangy.

I tell them they are not Uncle Sam.

I tell them to find a title; to use "students", "citizens", "workers", "alcoholics". Anything but you.

I just got done planning my 033 class for next week, and guess what? They're writing a process paragraph which encourages, advocates on behalf of, and even glorifies the use of "you." Why would a writing text do that? I'll just beat "understood you" into them. Maybe that will help.

I like the understood you. It gets me, man. Because I'm a little bossy. And I like me some rules.



On a completely unrelated note, I am making homemade pizza tonight.

The Montgomery Flea Market

I had my advanced comp studs analyze commercials today. They all did an awesome job, but one student brought in a particularly awesome commercial:



How much do you love, love, love local commercials?