Incredibly, it is May 4th. Tomorrow morning, I turn in final grades.
Last night, I sent an article to a journal. I wonder if it will be published. I have publishing opps. popping up all OVER the place. However, I have such a bad history of things not getting published, that I’ve become quite cynical. All you need is a glitsy, glossy article with lots of tables and figures and p values and other statistics, and you might get published. What ever happened to talking face to face with another person, in depth, to really get into an issue from the inside out? It’s called: qualitative analysis! WHOA, what a concept. Sociology has gone the way of tables and figures, unless you happen to know someone who knows someone. Hmm, it seems the cynicism is taking over, so let me stop.
The semester is at an end. This academic year is at an end. I’ve completed my 2-year cycle of classes. It should be easier from here on out. My only problem is, I keep changing and rearranging courses to make them BETTER! Hah. So I end up creating new tests and new assignments, sometimes even changing a text book, putting in tons of more work for myself. What a silly person I am.
I really reached the exhaustion point at the end of this school year. There is change in the air on my college campus. I think a lot of athletes took my class hoping for an easy B, or even an A, and suddenly they realize they’re not making the grade they needed in order to play next year. So they freak out. There is a new A.D. and I think he is instituting new academic requirements. I’ve had a number of students freaking out at the end of this semester. It puts a lot of tension in the air. One person had a little temper tantrum when I wouldn’t take his extra credit after the final. My syllabus states, and all semester I had been repeating, last day for extra credits or assignments of any kind = last day of classes. So he had a little hissy fit and crumpled up his paper and threw it angrily into the wastebasket before walking out. A couple of other students did similar things. Two of them needed a B and are getting a C. One guy plagiarized his paper and then announced he was still going to get an A in my class. He got a zero on his paper. Plagiarism is a serious offence. I don’t think he quite got that. It just amazes me, it really does. It amazes me when people don’t turn in a final paper, when they don’t even come to the final. What an announcement of “I don’t care!” What are they doing, REALLY?? This is COLLEGE!! I don’t get it.
Others wrote very nice notes to me about how I was their mentor. Some wrote very nice things about what they learned about gender in my sociology of gender course, which I had doubts about. It was the first time I had taught that.
I was on USC campus today. There was excellent, free, quality WIFI in any building. I sat in the “Nanotechnology” building waiting for AL in a meeting and surfed the ‘Net. Professors, students, all were walking around. Asian students, who I never see outside of Columbia. The library had a huge reflecting pool out in front of it, with a fountain. Inside the library was so beautiful, spacious, computers everywhere, printers all over the place! It was SOOOOO NIIICE!! I’ve MISSED so much, that kind of quality place. Wow. I can’t even get my office cleaned or painted. It is scuzzy. It was trashed when I arrived. Trashed. Nobody even checked to clean it out. It is dirty, no one ever takes a broom to the floor, let alone….. a MOP?! I’ve learned, from many conversations, that people literally eventually PAINT their own offices!! You can’t get an office painted where I’m at. Mine was painted by my predecessor, probably 15 years ago. It is a dirty, medium murky blue. AWFUL. The air conditioner spits out puky, lukewarm air and shuts off automatically after 6 or 7pm. (Everyone should be HOME at that hour. Heaven forbid someone wants to work in the evening.) ……… I’m going to stop now. I really am tired this school year. Yes, I need my summer off.
Doctor Grandma 
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