Day 361

Missed reporting yesterday. Sorry about that, but sometimes life has to come first. And I’m sure it won’t be the last time I’ll miss a day. A year is a long time.

My son (see one of the earlier blogs – couple of days ago) was back and it was his last day before leaving to go back to California and the Army life again. So my wife and I had dinner out with our daughter, him, and a young couple I just met. Not completely – the wife in the couple and our daughter were friends (and are again now) when my wife and I first got married some sixteen or so years ago. She and her mom used to live across the road from us, also in the country (but not here). Nice young guy, beautiful daughter (Isabella – like the queen!). So we did dinner at a really special place here that has been in business for some 80 years. Sinatra used to go there, along with a bunch of other celebrities. Quaint, great atmosphere, pretty good food, great service, lots of privacy (you can actually talk to the others at the table – what a quaint idea) and not terribly expensive. Okay, reasonable. Sort of.

Our daughter is still here for a few days, but the boy is now back in California. And tomorrow I have a faculty meeting I have to drop everything else to attend. I’ve done what feels like a hundred (okay, maybe a couple of dozen or so) and absolutely hate them. Always the same thing, over and over, and another four hours of my life I’ll never get back again. Classes don’t start until Monday, and they have to get these meetings on the record, I guess. I’d rather spend the time reworking syllabuses.

Daughter is sick – a cold, and son didn’t want to stay in the guesthouse where she would be sleeping, so he slept in the living room last night, in one of the leather chairs. No problem, except I skipped breakfast because I didn’t want to wake him, so I didn’t eat until noon. Really thin ham sandwiches on thin bread. Couple of them. I like to heat ham on the griddle until it gets a little crispy. Makes a better sandwich to me and there is no added butter or whatever, so shouldn’t make any difference – at least I wouldn’t think so.

Dinner was homemade soup and some vegetarian foccocia bread, and it was pretty good. It was onions, celery, Brussels sprouts (I really, really hate them), carrots, and spinach, well blended (the secret to its success. I can’t do Brussels sprouts any other way. Yuck.). A little no-fat milk and some cheese and it was pretty good overall.

It’s cold here – really cold. Okay, really cold to me. Not upper New York state or Chicago cold, but bad for us. We are usually in the 60’s now, and it was in the 40’s all day. Due to be in the low 20’s or a little lower tonight, and only in the low 30’s tomorrow. And we have another four or five days of this – unusual for us. So we have been sort of huddled up here most of the day. I spent much of it working on new syllabuses and some writing, and the others ran some errands. The girl slept a lot, which was probably a great idea. Nothing works as well for me as simply sleeping when I’m sick.

About to be really busy again. I guess by now you know I teach for a living – a statement that is almost an oxymoron (the teaching/making a living part). College professors – of all people – are, to me, one of the most financially abused groups of employees in this country, and yet almost no one knows about it. I’ve been part-time and full-time, and the pay varies from the sort-of-adequate to the unbelievable. Adjuncts – part time professors with at least a masters degree – nationwide generally make less than $25,000 a year while teaching some of the country’s best and brightest at many of our country’s finest universities and colleges. And while there are some benefits – summers off (with absolutely no pay, by the way), and the biggie - knowing you really are making a difference, the negatives are pretty powerful. Poor pay, little to no insurance, virtually no control over classes and their times/days, and long hours. Lots of us spend many hours each day outside the classroom grading papers, meeting with students, handling email and other correspondence, or simply doing the assorted busy work many institutions require that often makes little or no sense. Many teach far beyond what is considered a full load anywhere and they do it at two and sometimes three universities/colleges, just to make ends meet.

Wow. Sorry to ramble, but that’s why I try to write as much as I can between and around semesters. If you do it right and really dedicate yourself to actually reaching students, it can be a bit mind numbing by semester’s end. And yet I love it. I really, really do. And I have many repeat students and even some – God help/God bless them – who decide to change majors and teach. It is a great profession – it's just is a bit of a disgrace how institutions take advantage of so many who give teaching their all. And it’s full of incredible people who care. A lot.

What I was trying to say is that classes starting again will involve some serious re-thinking on my part. I have always been a no breakfast, skip lunch often, eat dinner with the wife sort of guy. Dumb – I know it now. So I have to find a way to eat breakfast every day, lunch every day, and dinner as light as I can manage. And nothing after seven (thought I’d forgot, didn’t you?). The last is a hard one. The M&M’s, remember? And sometimes Blue Bell Ice cream (damn the pralines and cream and homemade vanilla and their low mumbling while I’m trying to write/grade/read./watch TV, or whatever).

Getting late. See you tomorrow.

-Average Joe
Somewhere, USA