School of Life

I watch the students at the University as they arrive, fresh-faced, scared, some maybe crying a bit at leaving their home behind. Taking baby steps as they learn to navigate in their new world.

I see some of them plunge whole heartedly into everything that campus life has to offer. They challenge themselves with classes of substance and do everything to earn top marks, they join clubs, they find and cultivate new relationships. They get the most out of being in college.

Then I see some students who sign up for the easiest classes they can find, and maybe only 1 or 2 of those. They sleep til noon, watch tv or play video games and rarely leave their apartments, even to attend class.

And some students go through the motions. They take on a full academic load and then put forth the least amount of effort possible to earn a barely passable grade. Some of these will panic as the semester draws to a close and beg the faculty for "mercy" and show "death-bed repentance" as they realize they are falling short.

I see all these things every semester.

A parable of life.

I'm Getting Cranky.....

Andy's sick and I'm tired. Together we're sick and tired of the Swine.

and the pneumonia.

Andy's been on antibiotics for the pneumonia for 48 hours now and he's no better. He had a temp of 101 a couple of hours ago. If he's not better in the morning I'm calling up the Doc. Maybe he needs some breathing treatments or something.

The Swine came a calling 14 days ago. Blecht.

At work I'm having an issue of another sort. I am in charge of 20+ student employees. When they don't do their job I feel like it reflects on me. Tonight I'm quite unhappy. I just sent 2 buses full of students to hike the Menan Butte. Normally I have 2 of our more senior students lead each bus's field trip. I couldn't get enough to sign up, so I only had one student scheduled per bus. The busses leave 1 hour apart, so as one group gets done, the other starts. The rest of the time is driving to and from the Butte. Well.....I had a no-show student leader on the second bus. One student had to handle 2 busses normally handled by 4 students. I'm disappointed in them. I feel like kicking some butts. It's a good thing I have all night to calm down. By tomorrow I will just be ticked off. By tomorrow I don't think I'll draw blood.

Preschool

I used to teach preschool.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday my little students would show up at my house. I was very organized and put a lot of work into every session. Every student had their own mini chalkboard which we used when practicing writing. Once they could write their own name without help they could take the chalkboard home with them.

We had singing. I played the piano and had a wide variety of fun little songs that we went through. Every week we had a theme. We started with the letter A. The entire weeks activities were on this theme. Every Friday we took a field trip. I arranged for a pilot to show us his airplane at the airport. We visited a wide variety of places, the fire station, Christmas Tree Lane, museums, and on and on. It was a lot of fun.

Still, it was a lot of work. I decided to put my energies into something else.

That's why I was so confused when the doorbell rang and kids started piling into my house. I was teaching preschool again. I was expecting children, but these kids seemed so much older than my last students. And they were some mouthy rude boys grouped together. And their mothers all came in and wanted to watch, one of them wanted to smoke. One of the pushier mothers tried to team-teach with me. She started giving me songs and activities that she thought we should do. Suddenly I couldn't remember what I had planned for the day. I couldn't think of one song to sing. I couldn't find any of my music. The mothers were starting to complain, the rude boys were being rude. The pushy mother started telling me how I needed to remodel my house to accomodate the amount of children we had attending. I couldn't even form a coherent sentence. I felt so out of control.

I was so relieved when I woke up and discovered it was just a dream.

Take it or leave it, just don't complain

We have a candy dish in our office which we try to keep full. I usually buy the candy and try to get a variety. Students are always popping in to take one. Usually its a positive experience and we love to see how one little bite-sized laffy-taffy can brighten a student's day. In the last couple of weeks, though, I noticed this one student coming in very regularly. He usually takes a bunch of candy. He's not one of our majors, so we don't really know him, but haven't really minded him coming and making a pig out of himself until today.

He breezes in and paws through the bowl.
"Don't you have any good candy? This is all gross"

Excuse me? We don't even know you, and you are complaining about free goodies?

I think we may have to just stock the "gross" candy for a while until he gets out of the habit of coming in.

I Need to Get My Head Examined

On Sunday I was talking with the girls and mentioned that I was feeling a little bit like I wasn't sure if I wanted to take any classes this winter semester. They all got the most shocked look on their faces and railed on me.

"What?"
"You can't quit!"
"Just buck up and take your classes. We all want to quit, but we don't"
"If you quit we'll all quit."

I knew they were right. I'm so close to graduating with my BA in art. I really need to stick with it and get this thing done.

I'm currently signed up for 3 classes. I know I can only take 2 on campus to have the tuition-waiver because of being an employee. I've been trying to decide which class to drop.

#1. Digital Illustration - a retake from probably the most talented digital illustrator in the industry. He hasn't taught this for a while. I know people all over the country would love to take this class from him, and here he is right in my own backyard. I'm taking the class. No question. The only thing is whether I'll be taking it for credit (which I don't need since I've already taken the class once), or for audit. I'm swinging toward audit.

#2. Creative Perspective - I've been looking forward to taking this class for over a year. It is only taught in winter, so if I miss it now I'll have to wait another year. I love the teacher. I had Media Experimentation last year from him. He's professional, extremely talented (he designed for Dreamworks before teaching here), and fair. I'm not going to miss this opportunity.

#3. Online Religion - I need this one for graduation. It's an upper division class and a religion class. I need both, so I'd be killing two birds with one stone. But I can't take 3 classes through the college. I'll probably end up dropping this unless I audit the first and then take these other 2. That would still mean I'd have to do the work for all three.

I'm an idiot. I need to have my head examined. I don't know what I was thinking, but yesterday when I opened up my e-mail there was a reminder about the online class registration for LVS. I took digital photography from them last fall and loved it. And its SO CHEAP!!! $25.00 for a 6 week class. I really wasn't going to even look at the classes, but right before I clicked delete I noticed they had a new class. Illustrator 2.0 and 3.0. I use Illustrator at work all the time and I am always trying to figure out how to do stuff.

Before I could talk myself out of it I signed up. Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall.

Pulled 3 Ways

I love my job.
Great people to work with.
Great hours.
Great benefits.

Then
The Dean's secretary had to have surgery.
They asked me to cover her job and my job.
Sure, anything to help out. Besides, it's only for a month.

Then
Our department secretary's Dad died on Thanksgiving night.
Very sad, and I've covered for her job before, so
I'll cover for her, too.

So far so good.
I run upstairs to deliver messages and take care of issues.
I run downstairs to sort mail, deliver messages and take care of issues.
I forward everyone's phones to where ever I happen to be.

Thank heavens for Diet Pepsi and caffeine.

Her Shoes Don't Fit My Feet

I survived yesterday.

Barely!

Actually the day went pretty good. We had a college meeting. This was for the Dean, the Assistant Dean, and the department heads for Geology, Chemistry, Physics, Automotive, Computer Science, Math, Mechanical Engineering, and Architecture and Construction. I was in charge of getting the food, making and sorting all the handouts and stuffing them in the individual folders, taking notes during the meeting and cleaning up afterwards. It went pretty good. I don't think I detracted from the meeting, at least. And they ate all the food, so I guess it was a success.

Then I worked in Geology for 2 hours. It's a different world up there on the second floor of my building. Down in the Dean's office it is all business and quiet. As soon as I went up to Geology it was like walking into the land of the living. Hustle and bustle and students hurrying down the halls, and professors having discussions. It was vital and alive. And a very nice change from the quiet below.

My class went pretty good. On Tuesday we were given the assignment to do something to show primitive man. I came up with a Stonehenge idea and got it done on Tuesday. Yesterday while everyone else was still working on their assignments I was painting sunflowers. The professor came around and wanted to know where my primitive assignment was. I pulled it up and showed him. He looked at it, asked me if I liked it. I said, "Yes! I like this one. And then said, "Well, I think you need to change the grass. It's too scattered." Then he mumbled to himself as he walked away, "She likes it, and wants me to go away so she can go back to her sunflower." He was right, about me wanting him to go away and about the grass. The grass wasn't my favorite part either, so after he left I fixed the grass (it took me about a minute) and then went back to my sunflower.

Art Seminar proved to be quite interesting. All semester long Art Seminar has been notoriously BORING! Yesterday was anything but. The speaker was funny and engaging. His slide presentation was interesting. That by itself was a huge improvement, but to add a little extra spice to the class I noticed that a girl sitting 2 seats over from me was watching something on her laptop. There were laptops open all over the auditorium (mostly with YouTube's on), but this girl was watching something truly shocking (at least for an art seminar). I looked over just in time to see the baby's head crown. Yes she was watching a childbirth! Wow. I was getting all kinds of interesting information at this seminar.

By the time seminar ended I was blurry eyed, but stumbled over to the music building to watch a concert. I went with Lisa and Tyler and watched Abby perform with the symphony. I couldn't quit yawning and my eyes were watering. One time I looked up at the stage and could have sworn I saw the whole thing tilt to the left! It was a little unnerving. It was a very good concert, but I was very glad to go home and go to bed.

Today should be a short day. The student's are all ditching town like rats off a sinking ship. No classes next week. Yea! I can catch up a little.

I'm not sure how long I will be filling in for the Dean's secretary. We haven't heard yet whether she has cancer or not. The surgery by itself will put her out for 6 weeks. I can do this job that long, but I don't think I want it any longer. It isn't bad being here in her office, but it just isn't home. Her desk set-up is different. She is much shorter than I am and so her keyboard drawer tends to hit me in the knees. I've had to move her computer back so I can stretch my legs out, her monitor back so I can see it, and lower her chair. I just hope I remember to put everything back the way she had it before I vacate this place for good.

Long Day Today, Longer Day tomorrow

Today was the first day sitting in for the Dean's secretary. She had surgery this morning. I really really really hope everything went well. I really really really want her to come back to work as soon as she can. I feel like I'm letting down my department, but they want me to help out and I want to help out. Still......

I was there at 7:50 am. Worked straight through to 5:00.
8-1 Dean's Office
1-3 Geology Office
3-5 Dean's Office
No lunch. I ate on the run.

Tomorrow is going to be much, much worse.
8-1 Dean's Office
1-3 Geology Office
3-5:30 Art Class
6-7 Art Seminar
7:30-9:30 Symphony Concert.

I think I will be very very ready for bed.

Mike called his sister last night. I think he was holding out hope that they would change their minds and want us to come for Thanksgiving. No go. Today he finally cancelled his substitute teacher for next week.

Mike is feeling like Uncle Jack, the uncle that moved away and was never heard from again.

TickTickTickTick........

A retired professor still comes to teach a class now and then. This semester he comes on Tuesdays and teaches an Elderhostel group. He usually stops by my office to pick up visuals, samples, and other teaching materials. Today, after picking up the materials he needed, he asked me to accompany him to the teacher resource room. He told me there was a sample in there that he had some concerns about. He said that he thought he’d better say something because none of the “new” faculty knew where this sample came from. (New to him would be the ones hired in the last 12 years.)
He took me over to a tray containing sedimentary teaching samples.
He said, “See this sandstone here?”
I touch the rock. “This one?”
“Yes. That yellow on it is probably carnetite”. (Not sure if I spelled that right. I’ve never heard of it.)
I rub my finger down the yellow part of the rock. “This stuff?”
“Yea. It’s probably uranium oxide. It’s pretty radioactive. You wouldn’t want to have your teachers pass this around the classroom and then eat a sandwich.”
My hand jerks back like it had been bitten by a rattlesnake. He has me go get our sedimentary guy who takes a look at the sample and says, “that looks like carnetite”. He then picks it up and we go off to find a geiger counter. Sure enough, it starts beating out a heavy staccato beat. I’m told that it probably emits beta waves. Beta radiation can penetrate into the body but can be blocked out by a sheet of aluminium foil.
That’s great! I’m suddenly feeling like I need a shower. After we return the rock, and I tell our Sed. Professor that I’d feel better if he went and washed his hands, I go into the bathroom.
I wash my hands extra well.
Twice.

Saturday

I survived my week.

I was so busy all week doing my job, the secretary's job, the student secretary's job, and starting 2 classes that came home exhausted at night. I'm hoping by Monday that I will not have to be doing the student secretary's job anymore. I really hope she's feeling better.

Abby has bee quite sick ever since she moved out. At first she said she felt sick to her stomach, then dizzy, then hot, then cold, then her throat hurt. I finally insisted she go to the doctor. She has a whopping case of Mono. Her throat is so closed off he told her to "go straight to the emergency room if it gets any worse". Through it all she hasn't missed a class and still went to work. Except last night and this morning. She is not working any more for a while until she feels better.

We brought her home for the weekend so that she could have more quiet and rest.

I went to my doc visit yesterday. I felt tired, but not sick, when I entered the waiting room. By the time they called me back however, I was starting to feel really ILL! They had a tv going in the corner that had little clips running about heart attacks, strokes, high cholestral, and on and on. As I sat there watching it the hypochondriac in me started imagining the worst!

My checkup went just as I expected. Everything looks good so far. I have to go in for more tests next week. It will be nice to get a clean bill of health. and if not that, it will be nice to be proactive and get things back under control.

True Confessions.....

A couple of things.....
1. Yesterday after the first part of church, called Sacrament Meeting, I was sitting on the front row waiting for all the adults to clear out of the room. We had Primary in there right after, and I lead the music, so I was just waiting for Primary to start. The oldest man in our ward walked (very slowly and bent over) past me. I hadn't spoken to him for a long time, but I caught his eye and said, "How are you doing, Joe?" He reached out his hand to me and took mine. We talked for a few moments before he moved on. I had to get up and go into the bathroom for a little cry. His hand and arm felt exactly like my dad's did in the final weeks before he died. Very wasted and bony. It just brought up too many memories.

2. I don't know if it is totally because of having one of those years and the stress has been getting to me....

or,

if something is actually physically wrong,

but I'm having enough problems to prompt me to go to the doctor this Friday. It's probably nothing, but I just want to get checked out.

3. Take one 50 year old woman,
and add;
her job,
and her co-workers job, (she's out for another month at least)
and a new semester,
and one on-line photography class,
and one digital illustration class taken on campus,
and weekly water-media illustrations for Watercolor Wednesday,
and weekly any-kind illustrations for Illustration Friday,
and painting the outside of a house,
and daily 2-mile walks,
and .......
you get one very busy person!

I like the things I'm doing. I even throw in sewing, gardening, and once in a big while I even cook a meal or clean!

I'm not complaining. If I feel overwhelmed I just don't do some things. Ever since I decided to do that I've been accomplishing so much more. I don't understand it, but it works.

Last week I was feeling like I just wasn't going to get around to doing an illustration for Watercolor Wednesday. Time was running out. The prompt was "Beatrix Potter". I had ideas running through my head, but didn't feel like I had the time to do anything. Then one evening I thought, "I don't have time to do the illustration I wanted, so I'll just try drawing a rabbit for a little while." I didn't think I would get anything worth posting, but in about an hour I had a nice little illo done which I was able to put on. It wasn't what I'd originally planned, but it was better because I just enjoyed the process and didn't worry about it.


"Peter's eye caught on the jacket, all blue, in the shop window. He made the purchase, as he missed wearing the one he had in his youth."

If I don't get to this week's prompt I'm not going to feel even a little bit guilty. But I may just go doodle for a while, though. Who knows, something may turn up.

That Year

A decade or so ago I was having a rough year. I thought to myself that everyone has a hard year once in a while and I must be having one of them.

Little did I know.

Beginning last September I have been having one of those years. For 12 months I have had the highest stress, the most problems, and the most emotionally draining experiences of my life. I think this is the year that will forever live in my memory as "That Year".

It began when a year ago my Dad took a turn for the worst and was hospitalized for 21 days in the ICU. Since then we have had everything from my Dad's death in May to threatening letters from the IRS to one of our kids being fired from 2 jobs (one his fault and one not) to Mike's city job being threatened by firing (politics), to health issues, and on and on and on.

I think you have to keep a sense of humor or you might lose your sanity. Something happened last night that I am still shaking my head over. "Did that really happen?" It was so ridiculous that I still have a hard time believing that it really happened.

It all started when Andy was fired from his night watering job. He would go set the water in all the city parks to water the grass and then go back every few hours to change them. The city's park's director (an idiot) kept getting mad at Andy for not keeping the parks green. He gave Andy 10 days to green everything up. Andy watered day and night 7 days of the week for those 10 days. On the 10th day Andy left to go put the first set on at around 10 pm. He was home again in 30 minutes very upset. He was fired because the grass was not green. Mike has been butting heads with this idiot park director for 2 years now (Mike works for recreation, but has to use the parks tools all the time) and was quite put out at the treatment Andy received. He told the mayor that in talking with some lawn-care people they stated that the grass would never green up unless it was fertilized. The mayor told the director, they fertilized, and lo and behold - the grass turned green.

Meanwhile they had hired a new night watering guy. Andy was not getting his job back. I think idiot fired Andy as a way to hurt Mike. He's kind of like that.

Now fast forward 6 weeks to the middle of August. I have the habit of going to the park at around 9 pm to walk. Mike works on the chemicals for the splash park and I walk the path, putting in my 2 miles. I was getting more and more irritated at the doofus (I call him doofus because of the ridiculous outfit he wears while watering complete with large black garbage bags tucked around his waist like an apron, rubber boots, and fishing hat on his head with a miners light on top) who waters the parks now. He was starting earlier and earlier. The parks are supposed to be open until 11:30 pm, but he was watering at a little after 9. And for some reason instead of watering the middle of the park first, he watered the edges, right on the walking path. I was dodging the spray every night!

Mike had talked to him about starting too early, but he refused to change.

Last night I went with Mike at 9:00 and started my walk. When I had made one round I noticed that doofus was circling the park in his pickup. I saw the pickup park over by the splash park and thought I was going to have to dodge sprinklers again.

I made another round, and as I approached the splash park I saw doofus heading right towards me. I tried to keep my head down and avoid eye contact but he started speaking to me. He said, "excuse me, are you going to be walking much longer?" I said I had 2 more rounds. He said, "I'll wait until you're done before I start the water if that's okay." I was very surprised and thought "hmmmmm, maybe he's not as much of a horse's heiny as I thought he was.

Wrongo!

I made another round of the park, and when I approached the splash park I saw Mike standing on the path waiting for me. I asked him what doofus said to him.

He said he couldn't repeat it.

I thought he was kidding. "No really, what did doofus say to you?"

Mike said he really couldn't repeat it because there was so much profanity in it he didn't want to shock me.

Apparently, Mike was in the chemical room, checking the water, pumps and everything else and doofus opens the door and walks in. Mike half turned around to see who was there and doofus immediately started swearing at him and yelling and said he was going to throw Mike in the pit where the pumps were (doofus is about 60, I doubt he could move Mike 6 inches). Mike said he just very calmly kept saying, "please leave, please leave". Doofus then said that Mike better not write any more letters complaining about the early watering, blah blah blah" (Apparently someone wrote a letter, not Mike, complaining about the same things we were complaining about). At one point when Mike said, "please leave" doofus said, "you just threatened me. I'm filing charges."

What? You gotta be kidding me!

Mike finally said, "if you're not going to leave, then I am."

That's when doofus decided to leave.

As he went out the door, doofus turned around and said,

(I still can't believe this)

"Do you want me to shut the door, Mike?"

Uhhhhhh, did I miss something here? Weren't you just threatening my husband with bodily harm and now you are being all Mr. Politeness?

The more I think about it the more convinced I am that Mr. idiot park supervisor sent doofus to try and engage Mike in a fight so that he could charge Mike with assault. Mike is strong and healthy and doofus is a tottering old doofus. I'm so glad Mike refused to rise to the bait.

Still, it's very disturbing. I really hope Mike quits working for the city. It's just so unpredictable now and I can't see it getting any better.

The Great Salt Valley

Last night my three daughters and I just returned home from a 2 day trip to Salt Lake City.

A lot happened. It will take me a few posts to tell it all, but it involves
~ playing bumper cars with a semi on the freeway doing 75.
~ Lisa, Joni and Abby being thrown upside down multiple times.
~ Joni being fingerprinted.
~ Elephants


I would explain more in detail right now, but I found out right before I went to Utah that our secretary in the Geology department is gone for 6 weeks starting 2 days ago and now I get to do both her and my jobs until she gets back. So I have to go to work now.

Don't worry, no one got hurt, Mom.

hmmmmm, maybe I'd better call my mom and explain before she reads this and has a heart attack. ha ha ha

Worse than Chinese Water Torture........

Memo sent to the physical facilities office here on campus:

There is a fan or some other kind of motor in the ceiling that keeps trying to start. It sputters for a few seconds and then rests, sputters and rests. Then it grinds and strains for 20-30 seconds and then gives up and we have a few moments of blessed silence before it starts all over again. We are being driven slowly insane. Please come and put us out of our misery (by fixing the fan).
Thank you.

This is my third request for the stupid thing to be silenced. I'm tired of going home with a headache. I think I may bring my hammer to work tomorrow.......

Looking for a rock to hide under........

It’s been a very long time since I posted anything. For a while I just had no desire. I didn’t want to write anything depressing, or negative. A lot of things in my family’s life were falling apart. I just couldn’t bring myself to write about it all. Writing about it would require thinking about it, and I was doing my best to think positive, energetic, life-affirming thoughts.
Then a few interesting things happened and my mom or my daughter would say, “You should blog about that”. It kind of got me thinking that maybe I should.
So, here goes the first story. Actually this is the latest story. This happened to me yesterday.
A student came in to my office and asked me how to access one of the network drives. I told her it was not a problem! “Let’s go into the computer lab and I’ll show you how to do it.” She informed me she had class in a couple of minutes but could come back after it let out. “Great! I’ll see you in an hour.”
You would think I could remember longer than 60 minutes, but apparently not.
I look up from my desk to see a young lady standing there expectantly looking at me. I said, “Hi, can I help you?” She kind of looked at me funny, said yes, and then kept looking at me. Suddenly I realized it was that same girl who needed to get on one of the network drives.
“Okay, let’s go into the computer lab. You log on and then I’ll show you what to do.” While she was logging on I walked a few steps away to check the network address and then walked back.
Pointing to the screen I said, “Okay, click the start button and then go to My Computers”. She looked up at me curiously and said, “will this get me to Google Earth?”
“No.
Now after clicking My Computer you click Tools and Map Network drive.”
She obediently did everything I asked.
“Now in this box you need to type this.”
As she was typing I happened to look up and met the gaze of the girl in the next row. She was looking at me like I had green horns or something.
Suddenly it dawned on me.
I was helping the wrong girl!
Apparently I can’t remember longer than 2 minutes either.
After expressing extreme embarrassment and apologizing to the poor girl who just wanted to get on Google Earth and complete her assignment, and begging her to “please forget the last 3 minutes of my life.” I turned my attention back to the right student.
I know she thinks I’m an idiot, and after that little experience I would have to agree with her.