In an unscientific survey conducted by me into my own grading habits, it was revealed that students receive noticeably higher grades when I listen to Sigur Rós. The how and the why remain elusive. The wide range of emotion? The strings? the vocals? Difficult to pinpoint. Anyway, speaking of students, this semester began well. I’m a little tired though.
The semester also brought back the Hope College students. This makes me happy because the they bring back a scholarly atmosphere to my local coffee haunt. Being around people reading books, studying and writing essays helps keep me focused on my own tasks. Breathing reminders that what I’m doing matters. During the summer it’s a smattering of older local folks and hordes of high school kids. High schoolers ought to be in cages when not in class or at a minimum-wage job. Do they accomplish anything other than pissing off everybody around them?
A handful of my students complained in their journals about Blackboard; specifically, that they don’t like it, they lack consistent access to a computer, and believing that I should teach its use. That all strikes me as the mewling of kittens. The college pays for a helpdesk to support IT and software problems. Ask them. Would these same students complain that their bosses at their jobs should teach them the work? What kills me most is one who wrote that I should change teaching practices to better suit his needs. Laugh. Privileged bastard. Who thinks like this? “No officer, I did not stop at the sign because it was not convenient for me to do so.” Write that on the ticket’s backside and send it off to the courthouse. The clerks always appreciate a good laugh.
Work on the house continues if the pace is jerk-and-stop. The passthrough between the living room and kitchen is cut. Hanging the drywall on the kitchen side hasn’t yet happened. No paint yet, either. Right now my kitchen is barely functional. I tore out the cabinets on the east side two months back and tore out the other side yesterday. I’m hoping that Adam will have time soon to help with the drywall and cut out the cabinets on the sink’s right side. I’m dying to get the kitchen into something functional... and ready for a bit of goddamn personality. At times I want to call a professional re-modelling organisation and throw a couple thousand dollars at them. I don’t have a couple thousand dollars to throw. People warned me about the perverse combination of glacial pace and piecemeal finances involved with owning a house. I wanted so much to disbelieve. The living room is a headache located in a far off future realm of terror that maybe will come ashore this winter. A big problem is that I lack a sense of style. A friend in Ann Arbor, who also recently bought a house, mentioned in conversation that some piece of furniture ‘didn’t match the house.’ He used it as a throw away comment but it panicked me. I thought the piece in question was lovely and would kill to have it. Did this mean I like the wrong things or that I have no sense of what works and does not?
A short stack of things are graded. A larger stack remains. Back into the beautiful sun, on the bike, to home. Ryu will want a walk and a short stack of chores need done.
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