Rainy dog

I always find humor in Dante's hatred of the rain. It is coming down pretty steadily right now (though it's not pouring, really), and at first he was fine with it during our walk. With my umbrella I didn't care at all.

But after he took care of his business, he was done. He wanted nothing more than to be back inside, but he knows that he has to go on his "full walk," so he doesn't fight it. Instead of sniffing everything, he sniffs nothing, which is saying a lot consider how the only thing he usually wants to do is smell everything in our path. So instead, he has a determined (and mildly annoyed) look on his face as he trudges forward back home, and then gets thrilled at the notion of my drying him off with a towel. (Of course, he still has to go around to every rug in the apartment to dry himself off completely, leaving a hint of "wet dog" everywhere in the house.)

So now I have to get the energy to go to my office. I have a list of things that have to get done today, but mostly I'm dreading meeting with this one student. I had a long talk with him on Friday about his lack of work (i.e., he hasn't turned anything in, although he has taken all three quizzes), and well, he really does not want to drop the class. Of course, he may have to by the end of the semester unless he really starts to put effort into things. But he wants to meet today to go over things that he doesn't understand (because he missed several classes), and I have no problem with this, except for the fact that I have a nagging feeling that he just won't turn his game around. (And I shouldn't say this but quite honestly I have a slight hope he doesn't show up today, since then I will be able to insist he drop, since it'll be the second time he was going to come by to get assistance.)

Moving on...

Come to the Caf?

So this is the second week in a row that right after class, I was asked by a student to come with them to lunch in the "Caf," which is their cafeteria. Last week I just said, "Sounds tempting, but no." I figured it was just a joking invitation.

Then it happened again and I said, "You asked me last week," to which the student responded, "Yeah, and I'll keep asking until you join us!" It's a funny situation, because I know that my students like me, but there's a difference between having them be chummy (they come in to just chat all the time) and them wanting me to join them for lunch.

This is a weird situation of course, because of the question of boundaries. On one hand, there are a lot of faculty that routinely have lunch with students, and so it isn't really that out of the ordinary. (Back when I was an undergrad, we would invite faculty to parties at times, and sometimes they would come, so who really knows where the boundaries are.) At the same time, there is a danger in being "too chummy" with the students. Luckily, I'm past one worry, in that they don't seem to have lacked respect for me even though I'm extremely easy going. That's one danger.

The other problem of course is something that is akin to "looking bad." This is not a huge worry, unless I would have lunch with them every day and clearly have too close of a relationship with the students (which would be frowned upon by both the administration as well as my husband). This is not a real worry either. I like the fact that even in the short time I've been here I have been able to build a good relationship with these students, since I know that it will stick with them forever.

Plus I like hearing them say things like, "Oh, when you teach that class next year it'll actually be a good one, unlike when we took it from [insert other professor name here]." That just makes me feel better.

Surprise!

So it's President's Day, and for the first time I am at a university which closes today. That's fine with me, this is my usual holiday schedule (which is different than a weekend schedule): I don't set an alarm (though I usually still get up near my normal time and today was no exception: 8:30), and from there I treat the day as a "work at home" day. So I get up and go through my normal morning including a shower (not done in the morning on a weekend), and sit down to work in my recliner until the battery in my laptop goes away.

So this morning I get up and go start my coffee, walking by the three windows which have the blinds open (being on the fifth floor with not many other similarly "tall" buildings in the neighborhood, no one can really see in, so I never close the living room or kitchen blinds). While my coffee is brewing I get dressed and when I go back to the kitchen I hear a very familiar sound outside, one that I wasn't expecting. It was that scraping sound of a snow shovel.

But certainly it didn't snow? Ah, but it did! In fact, we got a good 4 or so inches overnight! What a fun surprise! And I was so clueless this morning that I didn't even notice. This is what we get for getting so cocky about the near-70 degree weather on Friday. (Although I thought we already paid for that with the bitter winds of Saturday.)

Chat

I have been enjoying my first year here. The classes are fun to teach, I have almost enough time for research, and the students are for the most part good. Teaching majors of course helps, and while there are a few majors who seem to be majoring in this subject for very unknown reasons, I have few complaints. The really good students are quite excellent, and I like to think I've made an impression on them.

For one, several of them regularly come by my office "just to chat." They usually have five or so minutes before another class, and so they come by. Luckily it has usually been during times that I wasn't that busy (although it can be distracting). There is a part of me that thinks there should be more separation between faculty and students, but at the same time, I have had this type of relationship as a student (both undergrad and grad), so it's definitely not out of the ordinary.

Of course, I am egging them on. I have already had a few discussions about California with some students, both of whom are from there, and just to have some fun I just discuss all of the things wrong with the state. (Which aren't always bad things, for example, I have said that I am too bitter a person to be able to handle such perfectly sunny weather all the time, and that's sort of true.) One of my students is in love with In N Out burger, which is a statewide burger chain out there. C and I always go there to eat when we're out there, and while it's good, it does not hold a candle to What-a-burger in Texas.

That being said, my mother in law gave me an In N Out t-shirt for Christmas, so I am wearing it to class today (it's going to be 65!), because I can only imagine that this one student will probably freak out a bit. It'll be fun.

I'm not going crazy

So a few minutes ago a high-pitch humming began. It's rather piercing, and extremely distracting. At first I thought I was hearing things but it got Dante's attention and well, he got up and moved to the other room (although I think it's just as bad over there). It's bothersome enough I may have to leave the house early, and go to my office because even just now, in the midst of this rather waste-of-a-time post, I zoned out and just focused on the sound.

A positive side of this is that we lose the ability to hear higher pitches as we get older, and this is pretty high. Age will never get me.*

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* Although last night I realized age is getting Dante. He got up off the couch and made an "old-man" noise, which he used to never do. Sure he would always stretch like crazy, but this was a noticeable groan, as if all of his energy was going into getting up. Kind of sad, my dog is older than I am.

And yet

So the student finally talked to me. He was full of great excuses.

• "I never got those emails you sent" Um, that excuse is pretty lame, considering I emailed his Fordham account and one of my emails was sent as a reply to an email he sent me.
• "I came by your office a couple of times to ask you questions and you weren't there, so that's why I didn't turn in those homeworks." Equally lame. You are an adult now and have to learn how to take responsibility. You see me every day when you come to class, and that is a time to ask for a good time to come by my office.
• "Your office hours are when I have practice." Again, see above.

So then he asks if he can come by shortly after four today, to ask me questions, and he has not yet arrived. I will give him until five and then send him an email (that he probably will not get) to say that I waited for an hour. That is far more generous than I have to be. Right now I'm not really in the mood to deal with it, and I feel as though this is a problem that will not change.

If I don't get the third assignment by Friday (which, by the way is a week late), I will tell him he should drop the class because he is just wasting his own time. And mine.

Just drop

I have a problem with a student, "X." X has not turned in a single one of the three homeworks that have been due (and I assume on Friday I can upgrade that to four), but has come to most of the lectures (X has missed three or four). I have sent X emails several times to stay after class or come talk to me at some point about this, and every time X has managed to duck out of class while I'm talking to someone else, evading me.

Turns out there are several problems, as I went to the chair to discuss this yesterday. First, X is a sophomore, so shouldn't even be taking my class. He's an athlete, which means he has a different advisor from other majors (although I also noticed that X has not declared this has his major), and thus that is the source of the problems here. Also, it turns out he didn't turn in the homework for the class that the chair teaches,* so at least it's not only a problem in my class.

But really the big problem I have is with the blatant refusal to discuss this problem with me. I have to say, it would be completely within my rights to ignore the issue, send in an "F" during midterm grade reporting, and just fail the student if that is what it comes to. I think that is wrong, and thus am more than willing to work with the students to ensure they do not fail (without going overboard, of course). Since he refuses to speak with me, I need to now contact his advisor, which honestly I do not want to do, because I think I have better things to do with my time.

What I would like is to be able to just unilaterally drop him from the course. If (and note the big IF) he scores perfectly on everything from now on, he'll get a "C." I would like X to just drop the class, for his own sake (and quite honestly, perhaps if atheletics is such a major part of his life, I would personally advise him to drop science as a major).

I will not rant on the serious issues involved with athletics here, because I've done so before, and I do realize it will never go away.

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* As a sidenote, I find it interesting that while I have had three assignments turned in during the first month of the semester, the chair has had only one.

Parenting

Far be it from me to discuss parenting as if I know everything about it. (Obviously with that intro, you know I will.) I know that having a child is a harrowing experience, and that it can be (if not is) one of the most difficult jobs around, if for no other reason it is a 24/7 gig.

However, I have come to the conclusion that my neighbor is the absolute worst mother. I used to think this a while ago, but really I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. But let's talk about why.

First, once a month (roughly, I'm not here every weekend but this has occurred at least three times since I've lived here and I feel like it's more often), she has an all-night party that involves ridiculously loud music (and saying something to her does nothing and calling the cops does nothing; I guess stopping murders is more important than a little noise). Luckily these have always occurred on Saturday nights, and often when I was getting home very late myself, so whatever. But I always wondered what she did with the child during these parties.

I found out the day after one of them. As I was coming inside with Dante, there was an older (and stress the "er" part, she was maybe in her early forties) woman with a child in a stroller, slowly bringing the kid up the stairs. I offered to help, and she at first declined because (a) I had the dog (and thus only one free hand) and (b) she was going to the top floor. Since that's where I was going, I insisted and helped her. Turns out this was the grandmother of the child of my neighbor.

Now, at this point I understand that parents need time off. Having the kid go to grandma's house is almost required on a regular basis if she lived nearby. But the problems here are primarily with the fact that the (very hungover, I could tell) mother did not go pick up her own kid, nor did she go downstairs to help her mother carry her daughter up five flights of stairs! Bad mother? Not really, but bad person? To some degree, yes.

But after that I started noticing how often she went out pretty much every weekend, with her mother staying with the kid (yes, I'm that nosy neighbor, but only when my neighbors make a lot of noise that is easy to listen to). The other night she went out and for over an hour the poor daughter just cried and cried. I felt bad for her. In addition to her mother just wanting to party all the time (the mom is probably something like 20), her mother just looks at her with detest it seems, when I run into them in the hall. Kind of breaks my heart.

Fizzling on a Friday afternoon

I wish my class on Friday were later, except for the fact that I don't like late classes. Generally, late morning is most ideal, and that is when the class is (well, it overlaps lunch, which is mildly upsetting but not a big deal), and most of the time I love that.

However, there are times when I am severely exhausted by the end of the week. This is one of those times and if my class were later in the afternoon, then I would be able to just teach the class and head out. Note of course that really all I'm hoping for is for the end of the day to be here, even though there really is no reason for me to stick around.*

Yesterday was a full day, with an early morning faculty meeting, a trip to Brooklyn to give a talk (and any trip that requires me to leave the Bronx is exhausting in and of itself; I am not a commuter-type), then after a bit of relaxing and prepping for class, I had a 9:30pm conference call last night (due to a previously mentioned collaboration with someone in Taiwan). So I'm ready for the weekend, even though there is plenty left for me to do.

Ah, maybe I will just head home.

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*Except for the fact that I will definitely not get any work done if I head home now, while I may get something accomplished by sticking around.

Just too early

I was reading another academic blog about the issue of weekend emails. That is, that people are expected to be "on call" at all times to respond to emails should the issue arise. The particular issue didn't have to do with students, but with other work-related issues. I haven't come across this too often (yet), but because of some international colleagues, I have had another problem come up several times, most recently this morning.

One of my collaborators is in Taiwan (T), while another is local (ie, in the same time zone as me, and we'll call him L). Of course it is natural that we get emails from T overnight. But this morning, while I was still in bed (as it was 5am), he sent an email to confirm that we were still having a conference call tomorrow night. L confirmed (that's fine with me) and said, "How about 10pm, although I mildly prefer 9?" This response was sent at 6:30am. A short time later, 9:30 was suggested as a compromise, and then L said "No, considering our last meeting, this will go past ten anyway, and 9 was just a mild preference, so let's say 10." This last email was sent just as my alarm was going off.

Now, let me say this, our last meeting began at 10, and lasted until 11:30pm. That being said (which I did in an email as soon as I could), I would prefer an earlier time for starting, because it lasted so long.

But really, I was frustrated that the decision was just being made, as if 6:30 in the morning is a perfectly acceptable time to expect a response from someone. It would have been better, I feel, for either of them to make a comment urging a quick response from their colleague, to weigh in. I almost felt like pointing out that we set it to be 9pm originally (which is 10am in Taiwan, so it's not an absurdly early hour, by the way), but I don't really mind it being at 9:30.

Why won't it cease to amaze me?

I have a particular problem with a certain type of person. It's common in students and generally the "everyday person on the street" and it grates on my nerves. Let me give you two examples

1. This comes from an email I received from a student yesterday, who hadn't come to class all last week. He was severely in danger of failing last semester and I could see the pattern repeating itself this semester, so I emailed him telling him I don't want a repeat of last semester. His response was to say that last week was really tough because the two sports he plays are overlapping right now and he had a lot of practices last week and three games this past weekend. Apparently this is important enough for him to not do his schoolwork (they had homework due Friday), or show up to a class that is required for his major. He's asking if he can meet with me outside of class once a week to "make sure he keeps up with everything," and quite honestly I am very close to just saying no.
   
   Quite honestly, he can come to my office whenever if he has questions, but I really do not think that because he wants to play two sports at once during the last semester of his senior year, I should have to waste my time trying to help him out. I did so last semester, only because I'm a nice guy and it was only for the last few weeks of the class. But the problem is that he wants everything to just be handed to him on a silver platter, as if he's entitled to it. This is common in a lot of students it seems (not all), and man I'm not sure how much I can handle.


2. The other story comes from the uproar here because alternate side-of-the-street parking is back in effect. As you have possibly heard, there's been a lot of snow up in these parts, and for at least the last month, parking rules went out the window (at least the ASotS and meter rules). People were all in an uproar that this was just the city's way to "stick it" to those up here in the Bronx who are struggling to survive, etc. Apparently "they didn't have time to dig out their cars."
   
   Um, it's been at least two weeks since the last major storm (after that we had more snow, sleet, and rain, but no real accumulation), and you didn't have time to dig out your car? If you didn't dig it out in two weeks, why have a car in the city? Also, one person was saying how the city should be doing that, helping, and handing out free shovels to help.
   
   I'm all for social programs, but these people obviously do not understand where this "free" stuff comes from. It's like the magic "free" water in the tap, or people who think that electric cars will solve the energy crisis.*

I have to say that while I understand that life is difficult, these people need to realize that you know what? It sucks, but it is manageable. For those like my student, sometimes you have to give up something you like to be able to do something you're required to do. For those like the populace, if you want "free" things handed out, then stop complaining about taxes going up. I'm completely fine if taxes were raised and the nation/state/city could do more for the general people, but let's see the public outcry (from the same people) then.
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* It will solve the polution problem to some degree, but the majority of our energy still comes from dirty sources like coal and oil, and where do these people think the electricity comes from? Oh that's right, the "clean" outlet in the wall.

It'll happen

So I'm geared up to revise the lab manuals for the freshman courses. This is something I thought about last fall when I first saw what we had, and they aren't terrible, per se, but man they could be a lot better. Some of it has to do with just being rewritten but in a lot of ways, my main goal is to at least unify the styles of the labs.

But of course the main difficulty is having to type all of them up, since we have none of them digitized. Then the editing can begin. Luckily, it turns out that my TA for lab this semester is a student worker, so he gets his pay from federal work study money, and there are two hours free that he has each week. So I recruited him to my cause, and it begins today! With any luck, by the end of this semester the labs for the fall course will be finished. By that I mean retyped, edited, and all of the figures redone. Hopefully also we can have the second semester labs at least digitized, and then during the fall I can work on revising them before the spring hits.

Luckily I was able to find the student to help, otherwise I feel like this would have very easily fallen by the wayside. But nope!

And the sun is out today, no more terrible weather (now), and my students can't complain that they have to trek in horrid weather for class. And I don't have to ice skate to work today.

The semester has begun

So the semester is officially in full swing, despite the number of snow days we've had. Well, technically, no full day of classes have been cancelled, only delayed openings and early closings. Luckily my class is at 11:30am, so it has never been cancelled, much to my students' chagrin. Since I'm in walking distance (unlike the rest of the department who all live in the 'burbs), I have no need to cancel class, and I never will. In fact, a student said to me, "Yes you will, at some point." I responded with, "Only when the university cancels the class, will I do so." The big issue I think is that the students are used to classes being cancelled by the other faculty because they live so far, and thus don't want to risk driving in.

And of course there are the usual issues with the freshmen. I think they mean well, and they honestly don't think that the things they do are their fault, but I don't think I'll ever "have heard everything." Although I will say this about my students in the lab I'm teaching this semester. I was very clear that absolutely no late lab reports will be accepted, so if they don't turn it in when it is due, they will have to redo the lab at the end of the semester during the make-up lab session.

Student X, upon arriving to lab yesterday, told me there was a printer problem (sadly, this is a standard excuse but from my experience with printers, I usually buy it), and as such just planned to make-up the lab at the end of the semester. I asked X if the lab was available, and X responded, "Well, in my email." So I brought X to my office to print out the report, because well, I must say that I was impressed that the student didn't try to beg me to "please please please let me turn it in tomorrow, I promise!"

Good times.