My beloved little bitch of a .22.

In response to a challenge that Odysseus linked.

About five years ago, I got my first gun. It was a Lorcin .25 that didn’t work. I quickly got rid of it.

My next gun, however, is still one of my absolute favorites. It’s a Walther P22 that happens to be an absolute pain in the ass in some ways, but a complete joy in others. The trigger is mushy at best, with a long, heavy double action pull. It spits hot brass absolutely every direction—if I want to take that gun to the range, I absolutely cannot wear a tee shirt, much less something lower cut, because I will wind up with a scalding hot shell in my bra. It doesn’t like anything but the Remington Golden Bullets (jams and stovepipes anything else), and has to have the feed ramp cleaned while you’re shooting after about 200 rounds or so, or it jams.

It’s an even bigger twat when it comes to cleaning. The takedown lever is easy to pull, and it’s easy to take apart. That’s not the irritating part. Nor is the tiny little crevices that are almost impossible to get clean. Putting the gun back together is the stone bitch. You almost have to have three hands to properly compress the spring without losing your grip and letting the damn thing send itself into orbit. And the guide rod they supply to put the spring over is honestly too short to help—the cleaning rod does a better job.

That said, it’s an absolute joy to shoot. It’s more accurate than I can shoot it, and I can shoot ten round groups I can cover with a quarter at conversational distances. I can and have put entire 550 round bricks through it in the course of three hours in an afternoon, almost without realizing that I’ve shot that much. The ergonomics are very nice, and the Walther magazine release (lever at the bottom of the trigger guard where it meets the grip, for those who don’t know) is the only one I can reach and work one-handed out of all of my guns, given that I have hands the size of your average eleven year old.

I have put something like 10-15,000 rounds through that gun. I haven’t shot it in longer than I’d like: it’s hard to find time and babysitting to go to the range with just one child that eats food. It’s nigh on impossible to go to the range when you have a baby that still only nurses.

She’s growing, though, and I’ll be able to go shooting again soon. Probably next spring. That will be the handgun going with me.

I may stop teaching papers.

My contract has been moved from the English department to the department that runs the online course program. The good part of this is that I got a $200/class taught raise.

The bad side is that the contract went from 1 page detailing what I was being paid to do (teach two courses/semester) to 3 pages, detailing how I was supposed to teach. One section in particular tells me how I will do my grading:

2.1.1. posts constructive and substantive feedback and grade points on written assignments, exams, and discussion forum activity within seventy-two hours of the due date.

Um...I don't know about anyone else teaching a writing class, but I cannot grade fifty papers in 72 hours. It takes me about 20 minutes to grade one paper. That means three papers per hour. I'd have to grade 17 papers per day to be able to do what they're demanding. That's almost six hours of grading alone, and that doesn't count checking e-mail and class site for questions, answering questions, grading blogs, discussion threads, cooking, eating, sleeping, changing diapers, feeding baby (which necessitates being unable to use one hand for a minimum of 15 minutes--unless she falls asleep, which means if I move before she wakes up...she wakes up)...you know, living.

I can grade blogs decently quickly. With substantive feedback, even. Papers are a totally different matter, and for some reason, the kids that write spectacularly well on the blogs often don't with the papers.

The requirements for the composition classes I teach are simple: I am required to assign and grade 5,500 words of work per class per semester. My papers meet that requirement handily. I could assign and grade fewer papers and still meet that standard.

The blogs outstrip it so far that it's not funny: my 101 class writes 13,500 words per semester in the blogs alone. My 102 class writes 15,000 words.

It really doesn't seem worth it to teach the papers.

I have no words.

I've waited a few days to try to find them, but I still don't. Most of Joplin's funding from FEMA--that intended to fix roads and schools--is being redirected toward the East Coast. Oddly enough, that doesn't yank funding from the trailer park they're putting in across the road from our airport*. Yeah, that's right: a federal program is ignoring rebuilding things that are their responsibility in favor of building new things that aren't.

In all honesty, now that the debris removal is done, I'd far rather the funds went away totally. I do not appreciate the whole "But we have to have government assistance! We can't possibly do it by ourselves!" mentality.

In any case, what has me nearly speechless is the whole assumption that, since the hurricane hit the East Coast, there had to be more/worse damage than the tornado that hit Joplin. I will admit: Irene was much larger than the tornado, and the damage was a lot more widespread, but you can still recognize the areas that were hit. Take a look at the map here: most of the shaded area is not recognizable from the ground.

Joplin has been estimated to have somewhere around $3 billion worth of damage. I'll be surprised if all of the areas that Irene hit cost that much. Yet somehow, it's worse.

I guess the worst part of the whole thing is the unspoken assumption that since it's the East Coast that just took damage, it's somehow more important than all of the tornadoes that hit and destroyed areas in the Midwest this spring/early summer. Even if there was a lot less damage, and a lot fewer lives lost.
_____
* Yeah, now that will be an attractive first impression. Why they couldn't have just taken over one of the trailer parks that have been shut down is beyond me.

Tasty, cheap, and filling

My mother's lentil soup: don't eat it a couple days before you have a date or interview. Like all legumes, lentils cause really bad gas, and adding garlic to it just makes it all the more...pungent.

This is a very versatile dish. You can add pretty much any vegetable, and/or spice and/or meat to it that you want. It's high in fiber, iron, and protein, low in calories (even with the bacon) and cost.

1 c. lentils
1/3 c long grain brown rice
1 t minced garlic
EITHER 3 strips bacon (uncooked) OR 1-2 T EVOO*

Sort** and rinse lentils. Add to saucepan. Add rest of ingredients. Heat over high until boiling, then turn down to medium-high for an hour or so, or until the rice is tender. Salt to taste.

If you like your food spicy, add a good, solid pinch of crushed red pepper flakes at the start. You can also add Italian seasoning to this pretty easily. Another good add-in if you want a lot of flavor without a lot of trouble is about a cup of diced ham (can purchase in 16 oz packages, pre-diced), and an envelope of dry onion soup mix.

*Extra Virgin Olive Oil
**Pick out and throw away any black ones.

I hate immature jackasses.

Especially in management positions.  Odysseus isn't going to take the gun shop job, after all.  Go read and commiserate.

What a great combination.

The imp started refusing to eat Friday morning.  I noticed Friday afternoon that he felt a little warm, and sure 'nuff, he was running about a two degree fever.  He's only just started eating again this morning, but his temp is still a bit elevated.

The pixie woke me up at six this morning, and when I went in to feed her, noticed that she was a bit warmer than usual.  And I couldn't find the thermometer.  So I fed her, then gave her a dose of baby acetaminophen, and put her back to bed.  Then, five minutes later, I found the thermometer.  And yes, she is still running a small fever--about two degrees.

And that's after the Tylenol. 

Classes are also starting today for my university.  And  I got my two up and running, have received first assignments from a few of my students (that started on Friday), and checked in with the full-time professor for whom I am a teaching assistant.  I found out from them that our new department head would like to be added to all of the online courses as an observer--and that I needed to add our department head to my colleague's class as well as my own, because they don't know how. 

I also need to get in contact with our IT department, and find out what the bloody fuck happened to my e-mail, and why I can't access my inbox, even following their instructions. 

I hope Odysseus's day goes smoother than mine looks to.

Spectacular.

Odysseus got the job.  Now, all I need to do is find a babysitter to watch the kids for the duration of an NRA banquet that the boss asked him to go to.

Ah, bureaucrats. Geniuses, the lot of them.

Recently, Odysseus applied for a sales position with a gun shop that would be opening up in the area.  The owner plans to deal in STI products (go take a look at their guns--I've got their Spartan, and can't speak highly enough of it), as well as other competition-grade pieces.  That's a niche that our local stores don't cover. 

Well, there's a bit of a hang-up in the store actually opening.  The shop owner is planning to sell both used and new guns--but the city council had them fill out the paperwork for a license like the big box stores, for new guns only.  They're going to have to start over with the licensing process, pushing their grand opening back for God only knows how long. 

The shop's owner took possession of the building they're going into at the beginning of the month.  They're taking their time with setup--it's not like they have to hurry, since they can't open anyway.  Odysseus is helping with setup, today.  I don't know if the owner has made his decision on whom to hire, yet, but Odysseus moved into the top three candidates for two sales positions when he went to the shooting competition/second interview the day after his first interview. 

I really hope he gets the job.  I think it's perhaps the best fit I've ever seen for him, and the only downside would be having to come out of the gun closet sooner than later with his parents.

A mistake.

I made one.  I thought Animal Planet would have more stuff that my critter-crazy imp could watch and enjoy than it does, and asked Odysseus to bring the television from the back room (where the imp isn't allowed to go) into the living room.

Nope.  There's nothing on suitable for toddlers after about 10:00 a.m.--after Sesame Street is over.

On the one hand, the imp has picked up a new word: "atch" for "watch"--used in conjunction with pointing at the TV.  On the other, the request is constant, making me wonder if it's a genetic thing that guys are addicted to TV.

I'm just shocked that a cute, fluffy creature mauled a human being!

Never mind that that cute, fluffy, cuddly wild creature was a polar bear.  After all, aren't the environmentalists trying to teach us that wild creatures are just misunderstood?  Shouldn't we walk amongst them without fear? 

I hope that kid's parents sue the environmental movement for brainwashing their kid to believe that predators are harmless.  However, since it's a country whose population leans so far left that the entire country is on the verge of collapse, I'd be willing to bet that they're more likely to sue the people who put the polar bear down than the ones responsible for putting their kid in the way of being Darwined out.

These crimes could not have been racially motivated.

After all, it's only a racially-motivated crime if it's a gang of white kids beating up black people.  Black people are incapable of being racists! 

Evil tacos

2 lb lean ground beef
1 packet taco seasoning
1/4 c. tomato sauce
1 can ro-tel
1 can nacho cheese soup, undiluted

In a large skillet, brown ground beef.  Add taco seasoning, tomato sauce, ro-tel, and soup.  Mix thoroughly, simmer 10 minutes.  Serve in tortillas or over nachos (too messy for hard taco shells) with cheese, lettuce, sour cream, black olives, and/or any other toppings you like.  Heats up great for a second (or third) day.  Also good over baked potatoes, or mixed into macaroni. 

I was right about the imp.

He's doubled his vocabulary since I wrote about the assessment.  Not only that, but he knows most of his colors and most of the alphabet, even if he can't say all the letters.  I think he's gone from a ten or twelve word vocabulary to something like fifty or sixty--with more appearing every day.


One of his new little things he does is run to the kitchen door, reach over the gate, look back at me and chirp "Eat?  Eat?" when he's hungry.  And now that he can do that, he's eating every couple of hours.  And he's put on about two pounds.  Yep, my 40" tall son now weighs a whopping 30 pounds.  The pixie is only about ten or eleven pounds behind him.

He also makes specific requests for what he wants to eat: "I wah nutbed" is I want peanut butter bread (nut bread), and he says "ham" quite clearly.  Chicken is still "gak" for the sounds they make.

Other requests are coming, too.  He asks for "ju" (juice), "dink o dur" (drink of water), "Tas" (Thomas the Tank Engine DVD--best reward for good behavior).  He's started asking to draw with crayons on printer paper, too.  Most other requests take a few tries to understand, but  "Pee pee?" is self-explanatory. 

It's amazing how he's turned the corner.  I don't know what flipped the switch, but he's gone from a silent or screaming with frustration little boy to a little boy that still gets frustrated, but does better about getting his needs and desires across.

Oh, thank God!

Yesterday, I finished grading first drafts of my students' last paper for the summer semester.  Their revisions are due Friday, as are their last blogs.

I have totally lost patience for my summer students.  Most of them seem to have only taken my class because they thought a summer course would be easier: either less work, or a teacher that grades easier because they don't want to work.  Well, that might work with some classes; however, I make them do almost the same amount of work (sixteen fewer blog posts, because I don't make them do four posts per week), and since I don't want to work, I tend to get grouchy and grade harder than I do during a regular semester. 

And this summer, the students really tried my patience...about half seemed to have not read the textbook.  A few needed tutoring, but there were no tutors in our campus's learning center for English over the summer.  And one had no idea she couldn't lift whole we articles and post as her blog post with linked credit with no work of her own, and then, when she got no credit, thought I'd let her have a redo. 

The worst offender, though, was one that set her right and left indents a full inch in from the margins, and still didn't make page requirements.  She did this on every paper.  And then, on top of that, created a new blog every week instead of putting new posts on the one she created at the start of semester.  And this despite the chapter on that assignment in my textbook specifically telling them not to do that, and giving explicit instructions on what to do.  And she had the gall to ask me how she could pass my class.  Simple, sweetheart: READ THE CHAPTERS, FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE ASSIGNMENT SHEETS, AND DON'T TRY TO CONVINCE ME THAT THREE PAGES (instead of the minimum of four) WITH TWO INCH MARGINS FULFILLS THE REQUIREMENTS!!!  And DON'T try turning in a five page paper with a page and a half of text, two inch margins, and two blank pages before a couple of half-assed works cited entries for your research paper (which has a minimum of five pages of text and a good works cited page). 

Thank God I've got three weeks before the fall semester starts.  After this summer, I'm going to need it.

Sam's Club is a working mom's best friend.

I love my Sam's Club.  My $40 membership (Advantage, not Advantage Plus) saves me $.02 per diaper--which adds up fast, when you've got two in them: we save something like $10-15 per month on diapers.  Same with Pull-Ups for the imp. 

Other advantages include insanely good meat prices, bread prices, and bulk dry goods prices.  Yeah, sometimes you're better off going with an off-brand, or a smaller size if you won't use the full quantity, but sometimes the name brand is enough better that it makes sense. 

One of the things that saves me a lot of time and effort is buying paper plates and bowls, plastic flatware, and the disposable aluminum warming pans aimed at restaurants (a pack of 30 cost about $10 or so, the last time we got them).  All minimize cleanup, and the pans are great to make a couple dozen casseroles at once for freezing to save time later. 

I just wish they carried minutes and hours one could buy--I never seem to have enough time.

Frustration

It's odd how different the pixie is from the imp. I mean, there're a lot of similarities—they are siblings, after all, and both have the same stay-at-home mother and devoted father—but just as many differences.

Both were born early—the pixie stayed put longer than the imp, but was still impatient—and both were able to hold their heads up and look around quite well, just days after they were born. Both took to nursing quickly and easily. Both are incredibly happy and secure babies. Both are strong kids, and sat, rolled over, and crawled early. The imp started army crawling (elbows and knees, with his belly close to, but not on, the floor) at five months, the pixie at six on both hands, one knee and one foot.

The imp started wanting to put down to play at about two and a half months (he's been home for a bit more than a month at that point). Then, a bit later, he wanted me to go away: he'd fuss until I put him in his crib to play, play for a little while, then start fussing again, looking from me to his bedroom door and back until I took the hint. When he was sleepy, he'd go to sleep for a nap—on his own. No fuss.

Despite having a worse case of acid reflux than the pixie, he started eating baby food (pears—he flat refused cereal of all types) at four months, transitioning to three full meals of baby food per day (about six ounces of food per meal—a jar of corn and a jar of lamb being a favorite meal) by about nine months.

The pixie, on the other hand, loves socializing. She's only started wanting down to play within the last month or so, and usually gets upset if there's no one in the room with her. She's seven and a half months old, and has only just now started to leave the room I'm sitting in to explore. She sits herself up and is cute at us (wrinkles her nose, grins, puppy pants, flaps her hands, and shakes her head at us) until we get down on the floor to play with her.

She won't take a bottle. She won't take a sippy cup. She won't eat much baby food—all I've found that she likes is sweet potatoes and prunes, and won't eat much of those, and can't seem to get the hang of using a spoon. She leans forward like she wants the bite, then sticks her tongue out and licks the spoon. She won't take the spoon in her mouth, and gags if I push the issue.

The most frustrating thing, though, is the sleep issue. I never have had many problems getting the imp to go down to sleep. Indeed, he has a self-imposed bedtime of about 8:00, and wakes about eleven and a half to twelve and a half hours later. He naps well at home, usually about an hour and a half to three hours. When he was the pixie's age, he slept 'till eight, went down at ten for an hour, 1:00 for two hours, then another nap at about 4-4:30 for another two hours. I know he slept a lot—he was eight weeks early, and was trying to catch up on growth (and he did—with a vengeance: he's over 40" tall, and won't be three years old 'til October).

The pixie hardly naps. I'm lucky if I can get her put down for a half an hour in the morning, and another half an hour in the afternoon. Bedtime is 9:30-11:30, and that's after an hour or two of fighting with her about going down. I'm hesitant to let her "cry it out" because that just seems cruel. She's a happy, happy baby on the sleep she gets, but mama's definitely not a happy camper. There have been times that I've been tempted to have an adult beverage before her last nurse before bed, just to see if she'll go to sleep easier and sooner. I haven't given in to that temptation, but it's there.

Worst of all, the whole battle of wills thing over sleep—the battle I'm currently losing—is making me shorter tempered with the pixie and the imp (though he does earn the scoldings, and/or time outs: his favorite things are chasing the cat, messing with Daddy's computer, poking things at the framed posters on the wall to watch them swing, and spit painting. Soaking his finger in spit, and flinging or wiping it onto the wall, crib, high chair tray, toys, doors, windows, chairs, etc., ad nauseum. ). The raised frustration level and raised scolding is making me feel like a total failure of a mother. Which only makes it worse.

A better fit I cannot imagine.

My beloved Odysseus, who had taken a year's sabbatical from working after a payday lending managerial position nearly swallowed his soul, has a job interview Saturday with a new gun store planning to open in the area.  He has a second interview coming up with a bank next Wednesday for the position of personal banker. 

Either would fit him quite well, where personality, qualifications, and skills are concerned.  The former, though, would pretty much require coming out of the gun closet to his parents (who, as far as we know, still don't have any idea that either of us have a concealed carry permit. 

Keep him in your thoughts and prayers. 

And it’s mind over (I don’t) matter…

I really need to go engage in some lead-based therapy. Some loud meditation. Poking little holes in paper at football field distances.

One of the best and worst things about the way my mind works is that I can have a flashback but keep functioning well enough that almost no one notices.

What I mean by that is that I almost always have four or five different trains of thought going on different topics at once. I rarely am able to quiet my thoughts and focus on just—one—thing. So, I can have a full flashback (smells, sounds, tactile sensations [makes my skin crawl, that one], tastes [sometimes a wonder I can eat anything], and sights) on one track, and still be functioning on the others. It's not quite split personalities—it's all me—but I imagine it's as close as someone marginally sane can get.

And I will admit it came in really handy in my college years. And it comes in very handy now when I'm grading papers for Comp I, Comp II, posts for American Literature, and trying to make sure the imp doesn't run over the pixie as she's crawling over the floor, or trying to figure out how to pull up. It does get tiring, though, not being able to focus on just one thing. There are very few things that can totally absorb me.

One of the few things that do take all of my focus is shooting. Another is something one shouldn't mention on Blogger without an adult warning.

I've been having flashbacks, recently. And there's very little I can do about it. I can drink a bit—a little dims the sensations, but too much throws me headlong into them. I can get out from under them if I can focus all of the trains of thought on just one thing. If I had good, reliable babysitting, I could take one of my bolt-action rifles to the range with about sixty rounds, and spend something like three hours loading the five rounds all my bolt-action rifles take, working the bolt, lining up the shot, steadying my breathing and paying attention to my heart rate, taking the shot, and walking down to the target to see where it landed.

(I really prefer my higher caliber rifles, but built the way I am, I'd wind up with a wet shirt while I'm nursing. As a friend recently remarked, I've got tits like Pamela Anderson. At under five feet in height. Yeah, not much room to shoulder a rifle without mammary tissue being involved.)

Unfortunately, the pixie, at seven months, is flat refusing a bottle, as well as most baby food. She seems to like sweet potatoes, but we can't tell if they cause her to have a bellyache or not. She's also, unfortunately, been unwilling to go to bed at her usual time (and never naps for more than half an hour during the day when put down) recently, making…something else…a bit more difficult to find time for.

Another thing that helps is diving into a good book. I've been reduced to that more than I'd like—I have papers to grade, and children to care for (and play with, and teach, and watch grow).

I can sometimes direct the flashbacks to…less bad times, but not always.

And talking never helps. Neither do any medications—those usually work exactly opposite of the way they're supposed to. I should know: when my mother regained physical custody of my sister and me (she never regained legal custody—the state kept that), we were remanded by court order into therapy. And we had about a dozen different drugs apiece tried on us.

The worst for me was Prozac. I still have lingering effects from that, twenty years after taking it for a month. My sister took it longer, and the effects are far more pronounced in her—a distinct inability to control emotions and impulses.

Sometimes I wonder if, perhaps, I wasn't a borderline sociopath before the attempts to "fix" what my male genetic donor broke.

Sometimes I wonder what I'd be if I hadn't had some odds and ends of weirdness in my psyche to fix myself as best I could. And sometimes I wonder what I'd be if the "professionals" had managed with me what they manage with so few.

And sometimes, I wish I could just get all the way past this. I wish I could see the point in forgiveness of sins against me, but as the song says, I'm not Jesus.

Sorry this is rambling, everyone. I'm a little tired, and more than a little down.

One skillet fajitas

~1 lb meat (4-5 chicken tenders, 2 breasts or thighs; pork stew meat; beef stew meat)
2 cans Ro-Tel
1 can corn
1 c minute rice (brown or white--your choice)

Brown the meat (chop up the chicken into bite sized pieces, if using chicken), add the rice, Ro-Tel, and corn.  Simmer until rice is done.  Should take about 30 minutes total, serves two with leftovers.  Serve with warmed tortillas, tortilla chips, or baked potato; cheese; and/or sour cream. 

Note to self:

Never again buy colored bubble solution.  The imp hates the mess, and will not blow the bubbles. 

And oh, boy is there ever a mess!!

An argument for marrying your best friend.

Odysseus and I celebrated our seventh anniversary, yesterday. We have been near-inseparable for the past thirteen years. He's been my best friend almost from the moment we met. I've been his for just about as long.

His parents have been married for over thirty years--another pair of best friends.

I got very lucky. I didn't have a good example of a lasting, happy marriage to learn from as I grew up. My own parents separated at five and a half years of marriage (thank God), and divorced at seven years. My maternal grandfather passed away six months after I was born (and I can't imagine anyone married to my late grandmother could possibly be happy), and my paternal grandparents didn't have a happy marriage, even if it was a "'til death do us part" one.

My Odysseus and I have been through small business ownership, a long distance relationship, long periods of unemployment, graduate school, and two pregnancies (one difficult pregnancy followed by mild ppd, one difficult period of our premature child spending more than a month in the hospital). We've had disagreements, and both have had to compromise preferences on things we really wanted.

Everything has just strengthened our marriage. We talk through the big things, and usually little things just sort themselves out.

I cannot imagine what my life would have been like without him.

A good day.

I got all my grading caught up, and Odysseus got to go shooting with some family friends.

Eventually, I'll have had enough practice to be willing to post a range report about my Spartan with pictures. Right now, my targets just embarrass the gun (though, all rounds do stay within the chest area on a silhouette target--which is why it's my current concealed carry piece).

I want a professional, not a social worker.

Our imp isn't talking. It's not just "he doesn't talk much" but more like "at all." Oh, he says a few things, but he's not nearly where he should be for how old he is.

So, we did what any responsible parents would, and took him to a speech therapist to get an assessment. The therapist was a part of the still-standing outstanding hospital system in Joplin, and was very good. She noticed a few things about him, and says he definitely needs speech therapy.

Then, she made the mistake that makes me doubt her abilities and professionalism: she recommended the state-funded programs. The ones that send a therapist to your home to help with your under-three.

Thank you, no. I will not have a social worker in my home. I'd really rather not have one attempting speech therapy with my son, or any type of therapy. If my son is doing speech therapy, he's doing it with a real speech therapist that has a degree in it, and has done that and only that for his/her career. I will not permit someone with a degree in social work with a few credit hours in language acquisition to provide "therapy" to my son that may or may not help him learn to talk.

I'm more than capable of doing the research and learning enough to do that much. We neither need nor want government involvement in our family.

It's taken me this long to figure out how to even start.

Last Sunday, we had a guest minister at our church. Our church was not in the path of the tornado that hit us May 22; however, several churches were. A couple have shifted their congregations into older buildings that belong to the same denomination, but we offered to share ours with a couple of other churches.

Well, we have our services at 8:00 and 10:30. We're usually done, and most of us are even out of the fellowship hall well before 1:00, when the church that took us up on our offer has their service.

Last Sunday, our service went way short. We were out before 11:30, despite having our usual mid-service meet and greet, and communion. I was a little surprised--our usual rector, though prompt, usually gets us all taken care of and out of the service at around noon.

Then I heard a couple of ladies from our congregation--part of our vestry, I think--talking about why: the minister that was coming in at 1:00 made a point to come in and demand that we be out before his congregation came in.

Excuse me? Dude: not your church building. You are our guests. Be gracious. Don't bully our clergy, or our guest clergy.

I hope that, when you get your church rebuilt, it catches fire. I have no doubt that you're going to be spanked for your behavior--God's a better parent than I, and I don't permit my kids to throw tantrums, nor will I permit them to bully others.

Argh. Papers. Students. Comp teachers other than me.

I have a bunch of people to hunt down and beat with the papers of their students. One of them is at least one, if not two, of my colleagues in the college where I work.

I have a class that started at 25, and has shrunk to 15 or so. Out of that class, I have 15 different levels of competence in writing. Most of the class is white females, but I have one male, about 19 years old, still turning in work at midterm. I have one Vietnamese girl, one from India, and one black girl from the inner cities.

My writer who was born in India speaks three languages: the local language from where she was born, Hindi (the state language), and English (learned in '03, when she and her family immigrated to the US). She's got some odd sentence structure and word-level idiosyncrasies, but she's still a far better writer than most of the class, almost all of whom are native speakers and writers in English.

One of the worst writers, but with the most potential, is the black girl. She went from doing next to nothing right on her first paper's first draft (it was double-spaced, at least) to earning an A on that paper's revisions. And it was her work--the turn of phrase was the same, and so was the thought processes her writing showed. It was just totally reorganized and expanded from one paragraph in a rambling mess into a movie review. All it took was basically outlining what she'd said in her paragraph for her. She did the work to rewrite the paper from disorganized, unfocused, underdeveloped mess to not just readable, but good.

Her second paper was eminently readable and well developed and organized, with just a bit needed to be done to fix some small problems with focus on her topic. It was single-spaced, but still quite good--a complete contrast to her first draft of her first paper. Again, still her work.

She told me that no one had ever explained to her, point by point, what went into a successful paper before. I'm guessing she never had a teacher who was a competent writer--it seems to be rarer all the time--and may not have had a teacher who was competent in anything.

She's obviously smart. There's no other way she could go from six pages of nothing to four pages of well developed, focused, and organized essay.

What I don't understand is that she passed Comp I with this kind of deficit. I understand that her public school not just dis-served but mis-served her in ways that aren't forgivable. It's the public schools in the inner city--I expect nothing different (though I wish to heaven it was). I want to know who taught her Freshman Composition I. I want to beat the thunder out of them with the two drafts of her paper and scream at them for not teaching this child how to write a paper. All I should be doing at this point is teaching her how to write a persuasive piece, and polishing the gem that she is.

This child isn't a nigger. The people who either didn't teach her, or who taught her wrong, are--no matter what their pigmentation. I suspect they're also racists, and held her to a lower standard than what they held their other students to.

Another reason my husband and I both carry.

Today, I had lunch with a friend--just me, her, and my pixie. Odysseus took the imp off for some guy time and fast food fries (huge treat for the boy, since he doesn't get them often).

Lunch for me was terrific. Lunch for the guys went well, too, according to Odysseus.

And then they went to leave. And someone brushed against his gun trying to squeeze past him. Of course, Odysseus moved first to secure said firearm, then to identify who'd brushed against him to assess threat level.

The moron in question was a deputy sheriff that was wider than he was tall, gabbing to a partner with no situational awareness, and who Odysseus saw texting away on his cell phone as he left the parking lot.

Yeah, to serve (cake) and protect (his own privileges). I don't trust him, or those like him, to do their damn jobs and stand between the sheep who they're supposed to support and protect and the wolves that would do them harm. And that's assuming that, beyond being unwilling to move their fat ass for anything but a donut, they wouldn't be the wolves themselves.

Then again, I have issues with the legal system anyway.

Linked story courtesy of my beloved.

Once you vote Democrat, you can't get credit.

I recently read that our national credit rating is about to go down if we don't get a plan together to get our spending under control. Under the current administration, our spending has increased more than the spending by every administration in the entire history of the nation put together. Obama increased our national debt more than all the presidents from the first to the first one I remember in the first year and a half his stupid ass has been in the oval office (despite spending more time golfing or campaigning than working—thank God for that).

It made me think of this:

Sometimes you gotta laugh, or you're gonna cry.

It's really bad when the left's partisans are telling them they've gone too far.

The New York Times opinion pages--not generally known for Constitutionally-based opinion--is saying that the rape of the fourth amendment by the leftist regime that the ingnorati elected three years ago is (drum roll, please) more dangerous than any other rights violation.

via Random Acts of Patriotism

Cannot say it better.

"Laws aren't just for the little people. If the government cannot be constrained by laws, then the government is invalid. Period. If I violate laws, I run the risk of fines and jail time. Just because you work in a government building doesn't shield you from that."—Robb Allen

He was talking about gun rights, state gun laws, and local gun ordinances that violate people's rights by being stricter than state or federal law; however, it applies across the board.

Now, we just have to get Congress and the TOTUS POTUS reminded of that.

Disgusting.

I heard, from a family member, one of the most horrifyingly callous abuses of the charitible natures of Joplin residents unharmed by the tornado that tore through here a bit less than three weeks ago. She and her husband were moving back to this area from one a few hours away, and had brought their kids to stay with their aunt and uncle (his brother and sister-in-law--nastier, trashier people besides my male genetic donor I have yet to meet). Last weekend, they went to pick their kids up to take them home, and their oldest daughter had this to say:

"Aunt **** didn't feel like cooking, so we went to get some free food."

Free food. As in the Red Cross food centers, and the restaurants setting up to feed victims and volunteers in their parking lots, and the people cooking in their homes for those either victimized or helping out in the aftermath of the storm. Just because she didn't feel like cooking.

Yes, that was my reaction. I am so glad I am of no relation to that person. That is not an individual I'd be allowing anywhere near my kids (and think she had no business having two of her own). That sense of entitlement is one that I've personally seen in government housing, in families where the parents aren't married because they can collect more money if they're each collecting a disability/welfare check, and both working for cash under the table. I would not want my kids growing up thinking that that sort of behavior is remotely acceptable, much less something to be imitated.

I wouldn't be in the least surprised to hear that this winner was caught looting. Except she'd never bother stirring her lard ass off of her couch.

Why I'm surprised I still attend church at all.

Listen. Look up the official video, if you like--I can't watch it.

My dad was a minister. That minister.



I seriously have no clue how in the world I kept my faith in God. God knows it made me lose my faith in several institutions set up to supposedly keep children safe and prosecute criminals.

What brought that up was thinking about the difference between the church I've chosen to attend, and churches like the one I was raised in. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear about something like this in the church I was raised in.

No way will I raise my children anywhere near beliefs like that.

If that means I'm going to hell...well...best to do that for doing the right thing than go to what someone else sees as heaven for something they think is right but that I know is wrong.

According to my mom, I'm going to hell.

I was born into an evangelical Protestant denomination--the church formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the RLDS--not Mormons, though, they're heathens). That church baptized kids when they hit eight years old (or twelve--it's been a long time since I was willing to step foot in that church, since my male genetic donor was one of its ministers).

Mom now thinks that that's wrong, wrong, wrong--after all, Christ was an adult when he set the example.

Christ was an adult. He was thirty. John the Baptist was only a few months older than he was, and literally could not have started his ministry soon enough to baptize Christ any younger.

However, my mom willfully closes her eyes and mind to this little fact. And swears that, since I'm a member of the Episcopal church, and since the imp was baptized at two months old (and the pixie will be next Sunday at a hair over six months old), I'm going to hell because I'm doing it wrong.

Thanks, Mom. If that's the case, then she's going to hell for willfully standing in my sister's way where mental and emotional healing is concerned, because she's doing the parenting thing wrong.

In case you can't tell, I'm a little unhappy with my mother at the moment.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

I recently went in to my department on campus to turn in a copy of my gradebook. While I was there, I checked my department mailbox. I found a copy (nice copy—plastic spiral-bound with cardstock covers) of a report from a conference attended by our (now former) head of department. Apparently, the powers that be want completely uniform classes for uniform, measurable results, and we're all expected to jump on the bandwagon with them by redesigning our courses.

Good luck with that. Trying to get all of the professors—especially in the humanities—to agree on curriculum for the big, core class sections (i.e., freshman/sophomore level survey classes, and composition classes) is like herding cats: impossible.

It's been attempted before, but my department's inhabitants in particular jealously guard their right to choose their own textbooks and readers, particularly for the composition classes. And I suspect that, if consensus were forced, the one with the fewest teaching skills, grading skills, and desire to teach that particular class (but who is able to talk about nothing until the rest of us wind up nodding and agreeing just to shut him the hell up) will be the one who gets to set curriculum and textbook.

I won't lower my standards to that. I wrote my own textbook, have created my own assignments, and make my students do more graded writing than anyone else in the department. I don't edit their papers for them (like one colleague), don't hold with grade inflation (like most of my colleagues), and (unlike a colleague also in the adjunct office) actually grade their work whether they mark it "confidential" or not.

I will admit that one thing in that eighty-page handout made sense: many of my colleagues in the humanities take the basic, entry-level, freshman survey courses, and teach their own pet ideas without regards for what the course is supposed to convey. And I will admit that composition is vulnerable to that—one of my new colleagues (hired since I had the imp) suggested that, since composition classes don't have "content," it's up to us to make the class meaningful, so he makes the students study and write about the Harry Potter series.

Umm…that kind of turns a composition class—one where learning how to structure the paper IS the content—into a literature class. When the focus leaves the skills set—paper organization (and thesis statements), development at the paragraph level, sentence structure, and grammar and editing—because of a perceived lack of course content (which is supposed to be the teaching of course skills), of course we wind up with course drift.

The problem isn't the courses. The problem isn't the curriculum objectives. The problem isn't the administration's perceptions. The problem is the professors who don't want to teach what they were hired to teach. And the problem with the whole concept of course redesign is the reliance on education theorists, theory buzzwords that mean absolutely nothing, and administrative nincompoops who see the problem, but have no clue how to fix it*.

In any case, I think it's an effort doomed to failure by the sheer size of the task, the lack of clear objectives set by administration, and the obstinate foot-dragging I foresee from the ones that actually teach the classes.

*Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach come up with theories to justify their existence in teaching the teachers. And those who can't do that go into administration.

I bow to no one.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or have been totally out of touch with the news cycle, pretty much everyone in the world knows that Joplin, Missouri, was hit—hard—by a tornado on May 22. One of the worst things this tornado did was hang out for nearly a minute right in front of one of our two spectacular hospitals, then plow in a straight line from that hospital to our Home Depot. Six miles of not jumping, of having other little tornadoes spinning within it, of winds in excess of 200 mph, of moving at half the speed a storm of its size normally travels. It left a swath of destruction six miles long by three quarters of a mile wide.

One manager of a local Pizza Hut gave his life to save as many of his workers and customers as he could, putting his own body on the line to hold the doors of a walk-in freezer closed with a bungee cord.

Before the storm had even settled, people were showing up at the hospital with pickups, hoping to help save lives by moving victims from a place where, not only was the building's structure horribly compromised, but leaking natural gas.

For the past week and a half, Joplin has been inundated by volunteers, well-wishers, and donations of goods and money. Joplin has symbolized the generosity of a nation.

I have been humbled by the generosity and love offered by our fellow citizens.

I have also been outright disgusted and revolted by the selfishness and pettiness of some individuals, and classes of people.

For instance, a local privately owned group of radio stations has been doing 24/7 storm coverage, from 4:00 p.m. on May 22 until yesterday, when they started to transition back to normal programming. Some of the DJs have lost their homes, all their possessions (but thankfully not their families), almost everything--to the point that a listener showing up with a fresh package of socks nearly brought one to tears. They've provided a vital service: putting people on live that wanted to know that their loved ones had survived, airing announcements made by emergency workers, charitable organizations, and politicians alike, announcing where to find this or that service or organization, or where to find shelter or supplies. Sometimes, they'd get someone call in, to announce that they'd found a pet wandering near where a house had been destroyed, and giving out their phone number to reunite the pet with the owner.

Yet last week--last Wednesday--someone called in complaining that there wasn't any music on the music stations.

Obama's visit demonstrated a tone-deaf arrogance I've never personally seen so blatantly displayed in my life. While it crystallized some realizations about the nature of pride in oneself and government assistance for Odysseus (which I've understood most of my life, and danced around here, here, here, here, and here--his comment over at Tam's blog at 12:46 a.m. sums it up nicely), it clarified for me exactly how our elected officials see us: as subjects who are expected to cater to their convenience.

BHO was in Ireland when the storm hit. Bill Clinton would have cut the trip really short, and been back the next day to be visible in feeling our pain (and our boobies, if he could get away with it). Obama didn't. He didn't come on Tuesday. Nor on Wednesday, or Thursday.

No, he chose to come on Sunday. He decided to time his arrival and travel to either campus or to the zone of destruction to coincide with church letting out.

The media tried to spin it as Obama stepping into the role of "the nation's pastor" in "deeply religious" Joplin--but his behavior kind of demonstrated otherwise (watch from about :36 on very closely--thanks for pointing that video out, Vilmar.).

A leader that understood he was but first among equals--only in charge because somebody has to be, and we all agreed that that somebody would be him--would have timed that differently. He would have come a bit more quietly, a bit more quickly, and been a bit more considerate about blocking every major intersection in a city that's already taken a blow to the heart.

Obama did the opposite.

I'd be willing to bet the asshole in chief likely visited residential districts that were destroyed--and blocked people from salvaging what they could from their destroyed homes in so doing.

That demonstrated a way of thinking that only works if you start with the assumption that he sees himself as the first emperor of the nation, and that we are his subjects--nothing more than cardboard cutouts placed to give him something to rule, something to make him look good.

And then, this legend in his own mind swore to finish the work the tornado started, by funneling aid into Joplin, whether we want/need federal aid, or not.

I am not a subject. I will not bow my head to any save my Creator. I will not wait at any intersection behind a police barricade on my way home from church like a good little peon.

I will vote this son of a bitch out of office in November, 2012. I will beg the nation to do the same.

We cannot afford to lose our self-respect. That's how citizens become subjects become slaves.

Well, we’re alive.

Odysseus, the imp, the pixie, and I are all safe. Yes, we live in the general area hit by the ginormous tornado, but luckily aren't anywhere close to ground zero. As you've probably heard on the news, there's a six mile swath through the middle of Joplin that's been destroyed, including one of our two spectacular hospitals.

We're incredibly lucky. Unlike some of our friends, we still have a house, a car, and electricity. We didn't take any damage, and we have enough extra to be able to help somewhat. The only thing we lack is internet, phone, and television. Other than that, we're good.

Amazing talent

An electric string quartet that rocks harder than many metal bands...and it's not Apocalyptica. If you want to see true awesomeness, check out their cover of "Kashmir" in the sidebar--it's embed feature has been disabled.

Skip to about 1:13 or so for the music. They're frankly amazing.

Hallelujah!

Spring semester is finally over—I have three weeks or so until Summer 11 classes start (yes, I'm teaching a summer class again). Grading is done, and all I have to do is input the grades into our university database (yes, I've had to do that myself for the past three years—the registrar's office doesn't do that anymore. Maybe they could help us cut costs by firing a few of their freed-up individuals…).

I do have one gripe, though. My summer class has been full since the first week of April. And I've gotten about five e-mails in the last two weeks from students within the last two weeks, telling me that they really need that class, and would I please let them in?

Umm…no. At last check, I had a seat or two still open in my fall session. And I really can't let my summer session get overloaded: we have eight weeks, and still will be doing four papers as well as two blogs per week. I literally cannot keep up with the grading if I accept more than 25 students for that class, especially since I'll be squeezing that grading into naptimes and bedtimes.

The last e-mail, though, really irked me. Said individual marked it urgent. Sorry, sweetie—poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. You may think you're a special snowflake that deserves special treatment, but I don't happen to agree.

Of course, I can't word it like that without getting into trouble.

F#ck you, AT&T

Didja know that AT&T as putting a bandwidth usage cap on their users? Yup, if you download more than 500MB/day (150 GB/month), you pay $10 more per 50 GB used. It would have been nice to be notified, don't you think? First we heard of it was reading about it on a few different news services after the cap went into effect.

Um...I work online, so does my husband, and we don't have any television services, so we watch TV online. We bypass the 2 GB/day mark that some satellite services set on their country customers.

Needless to say, we are no longer customers of AT&T. We've dumped their internet, their phone, and we don't use our cell phones, so we're dumping those, too. We're switching to Cable One for everything.

Update: Odysseus checked my math--we'd actually have 5 GB/day allowance. We'd still wind up going over on most days.

You might be a gun nut if...

...you change your guns at Easter and Labor Day, but your shoes are always black.

Another symptom

I recently read about people organizing to be on the streets in NYC to try to help prevent a serial killer from targeting his victims of choice—prostitutes—rather than waiting on the police to solve the crime.

I am of two minds on this issue:

I think it demonstrates one of the finer traits of our culture in this nation that strangers are willing and eager to organize to protect those who are most in danger. It shows just how much the death of one affects us all, whether or not we are a preferred target of a madman. (I'm also glad to see that people are thinking of their own safety, as well as that of others, in a more proactive way than just waiting on someone else to save them.)

On the other hand, it demonstrates a dangerous lack of trust in our society's justice system.

I may not trust the judicial system, but I like to think I have reason not to—not only did my home county not prosecute my abuser, they refused to even investigate him because he was a pillar of the community that would never do that to any child, much less his own. Personally, I like cops as individuals—but hate the institution because there is no justice in it much of the time.

If naïve, idealistic, young people, most of whom haven't had a traumatic experience with the justice system ignoring the evil happening to them, don't trust the cops and judges to do what they're supposed to do to find bad guys and put them away…we're on the verge of something horrible.

We have got to put our foot down. And if our judges don't want to take responsibility and if they want to keep letting these people loose, then you know what, you're going to have more vigilante going on. You're going to have a lot of problems in this community and in this world if they keep letting these guys out. It's not getting better.—Judy Cornett

Think about the repercussions of how the average citizen would read "put[ting] our foot down." Do you think you could simply watch, be present and obvious about watching, call the cops and be a witness? Do you think it will matter? Or do you think that, since the madman is likely to get paroled and released in fifteen years (or less, depending on overcrowding), you'd be more likely to do something about it yourself?

Once the majority lose trust in the institution—whatever that institution may be—it collapses. If that happens to be our legal system…

You can blame my husband for this...

I sometimes get weird songs stuck in my head. Sometimes all it takes to get them unstuck is to listen to them. So, here's the one stuck this morning:

I’m not the POTUS.

I can afford to take the time to sleep on big decisions. Had I been in the hot seat, the instant I'd heard that bin Laden had been found, I'd have given the go order. I wouldn't have taken sixteen hours to sleep on the info.

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad the fucker's dead, and I'm glad it was a kill order. I'll give the nitwit in the White House that much. That said, I don't think it was justice, any more than ASM826 did. Justice would have been reprisal killings of 30,000 Muslim civilians in Afghanistan—3,000 every day for ten days.

I also don't think it's going to change anything. Radical camel fellators still hate us (some hate us worse, now), still want to harm us, and are still planning to harm us. Some of them think that we're lying about bin Laden's death. They're not going to believe officially released photos (those can be faked, you know)—it would be more likely to create belief if we had a body to show. Unfortunately, he's already been buried at sea (hopefully in a bacon shroud) to avoid the construction of shrines to the martyr on his gravesite. Don't get me wrong, I think the sea burial is probably the best idea, but it should have been postponed for at least a year.

We should all take a deep breath of relief that there's one less sick, psychopathic bastard planning to kill innocents in the world. What we shouldn't be doing is celebrating in the streets, or visiting Ground Zero in a sick sort of victory lap. That's what radical fundamentalist camel fellators do every time a major attack on American civilians is carried out successfully.