Addicted to Stress?

It’s here. The last three weeks of the quarter. I’ve been dreading it since the quarter began because two of my classes are backloaded.

Here’s my run down for the next three weeks.

Women’s Studies: 5-10 page Literature Report (due Friday). Teach a class on the poetry of Sharon Olds (Thursday). Do my book club presentation with my book club group (which we may need to re-work from the ground up because it seems we missed the point of our book entirely in the reading). Read one complete novel. 5-10 page final paper on which author, that we have covered in the class, is absolutely essential (or completely non-essential) to the learning objectives as outlined in the syllabus.

Astronomy: 3 tests. 2 labs. 2 moon observations (out of five total, I have completed three of them). Number of lessons to complete from Telecourse Guide: 13. Number of videos remaining to be watched over the next three weeks: Also 13.… [Read More]

Walking Wounded…

Last weekend, we found that the family dog had a blood clot in his ear that had to be repaired. He went into the vet for surgery and came home Monday night. Those of you who know me must realize that my dog is one of the family as far as my son and I are concerned. My daughter thinks that way too, but she also imagines him dressed in pink frilly bonnets with ribbons dangling off them. The dog disagrees with her view of the world and there is some tension in the house as a result.

You may not have known, however, that my husband thinks of our dog as part of the family too. When I talked to him about the potential for how bad the surgery could have been, he said, “I just can’t see not doing it. It doesn’t make sense.”

For many people, that phrase “I just can’t see not doing it.”… [Read More]

Public School?

The public school system my children are in is starting to scare me. I was okay when they sent a letter home informing us that drug dogs were going to be in residence on school grounds while children were there. I was okay with random, unannounced locker searches (they use the dogs to sniff out questionable lockers and open them in the presence of school officials).

That’s great. I’m all for protecting my children from being exposed to drugs and drug dealers. The dog program has been very successful, and only rarely do they ever find anything of illegal nature in the lockers.

What scares me about the school district, is this story of questionable validity that my son told me today.

A transfer student at his school apparently attempted to strangle a girl on campus today. To hear him tell it, “He grabbed her and swung her around and around, then he dropped her and ran away.… [Read More]

Traditional Ideas of Literature and Discrimination in the Contemporary World

Today in my women writers class, our instructor posed a question for us. I’ll attempt to quote her as best as I can here, “What is the difference between literature and crap? There are a lot of people that would argue to you that what we are reading in this class is crap. Alcott isn’t literature, she just wrote novels. There are many more people that would tell you that we don’t need a class on women writers, that this class is worthless and a waste of your time.”

I didn’t realize that I’d said it out loud at the time, but I was thinking, “She must have been talking to my husband.” then my instructor looked at me directly and said, “What was that?” So.. I repeated it and her eyes went wide and then she continued on with the discussion. After class I was pulled aside and she talked to me about what my husband thought.… [Read More]