Poem of the Week

December 26
by Kenn Nesbitt

A BB gun.
A model plane.
A basketball.
A ‘lectric train.
A bicycle.
A cowboy hat.
A comic book.
A baseball bat.
A deck of cards.
A science kit.
A racing car.
A catcher's mitt.
So that's my list
of everything
that Santa Claus
forgot to bring.

An Email

Again from Ruined for Life
I wrote this in response to a talk with my unprofessional director about teaching more in lock-step with my colleagues. I went to a progressive education school and incorporate ideas that were not commonly used in the 19th century. I am not a slave to the text book and that bugged a few malcontents, who wanted the safety of just going through the book page by page.

October 11, 2010

Dear Dr. L,

I've thought a lot about our talk. I appreciate all your feedback and I will now use the book a lot more and do it all in sequence more slowly (one concept at a time).

Also, I need to ask you a favor. If one more student comes to you with even the smallest complaint, please fire me. I am so stressed in this job. I can't sleep or eat properly. I think it's because I'm living in such a dirty, run down apartment, surrounded with men who enjoy toilet humor and now teaching students who complain about every little thing because they love to criticize the woman who's below them in the pecking order.

I will try to do this job, but really perhaps unemployment would be better.

Also, today I will tell Reggie that I will not be in his crude movie full of bad jokes.

I offered to write the teachers' script, but he wanted to do this horrible, degrading movie. When I was in my 20s I actually pursued screenwriting as a career. While I never became famous, I was accepted into Act One: Writing for Hollywood. One thousand people applied and I was one of 30 selected. I have received writing honors from the American Film Institute and gotten praise and been invited to interview to write for the television program "Family Ties" and "Growing Pains."

As a Christian, I will not participate in his movie. I was going to, but should follow my gut and refuse.

Thank you for your consideration.

Susan

What Should I Do?

From Ruined for Life, my old blog

I just tried to download the new Explorer and learned that this computer is running on illegal Windows software. I'm going to see if others downstairs are. It could be the vendor's misdeed. If I worked in the US, I'd just explain the situation to my boss. At DDB Needham they were so above board on this stuff. I'm not there anymore. Part of me wants to report them. Yet I sort of think the validation test got reported to Microsoft.

I'm having a bad day. I thought things would be smooth sailing as of Friday afternoon. My classes are winding down. I've got a lot to grade, but am on schedule with that. Next week Monday and Tuesday I'm giving tests and Weds. is sort of a Last Harrah fun day. Thurs. I'm home.

I walk in the door after a little pizza party with my Bible Study group and the phone rings. It's Young Ok calling about the schedule. Mine is kind of weird or rather bad. The good thing is I can get Mon. off because all classes will meet twice a week for 75 minutes. Everyone just has to work 4 days. My four days are oddly timed. Weds and Fri. I start at 9 and end at 5:45 so I have these long gaps. (Thank God I live on campus and can go home in between.) Tues and Thurs. I start at 3 and end at 6:45. I know I can somehow make lemonade out of these lemons, but I'm curious if everyone's schedule is so poorly constructed. My guess is that they aren't.

Then I'd asked to teach 6, rather than 5 classes to make some extra money. Since I have such a crappy social life here, why not work like crazy and have little time to dwell on the negative? Well, that request was impossible to meet because I'm not working on Mon. Huh? I've got a huge gap Tues. - Friday.

I'm livid because Geoffrey always gets to teach extra (he taught 3 extra classes this term). He makes an extra $22K+ (US) from his double summer school and extra regular term classes. That's per year. Julian and Scott also teach extra.

I'm really aware of my low status. They couldn't give me extra classes the last two summers either. What is up?

Well, this makes me really want to report their widespread software piracy to Microsoft. My motives are now tainted. When I first learned of the illegal software, I thought of reporting it. I just sent a letter to Pearson publishing to report flagrant illegal copies made of their chemistry text. So I'm on this whistleblowing wave.