Update

Okay, so fuck Margery Kempe (no offense, girl. I love ya. I'm just not gonna read ya tonight...)

Here's what's been going on at Chez Medieval Woman and Chez Medieval Woman's Office. I have had a very problematic student to deal with - it's now happily over and he's gone. But, god - was that sucker hard to eject from my class!

He's missed 8 classes (the equivalent of 4 weeks) and I told him that I'd forgive the first absence because I thought he hadn't enrolled for the course on the first day (turns out he had, so that was a freebie). After absence 5, I informed him that he could have only one more without getting dropped from the class (his participation grade was already in the can, but there's a point at which I stop deducting from the participation grade and just drop them from the course. At this point in the semester, it would show up on his record as an F). So, on Monday (when I handed back exams) I notced he wasn't there (because he has carrot read hair, he's HUGE, and he didn't pick up his exam). Get back to the office and notice that this is his 7th absence, so sayonara little dude! Then I look at the sign up sheet for that day and I realize that someone has signed his name to it, but it's in a totally different handwriting - and I have all my past sign up sheets (for just such an occasion) to compare it to. So, I begin to cuss up a blue hellcloud and send him a tart email saying that:

1) He's out on his keister for absences
2) He (and his accomplice) are in violation of the academic integrity policy.

What followed was several days of progressively more and more frantic and desperate (even subtlely threatening depending on how you read them) emails from said schmuck. There was the usual rhetoric of:

PLEADING: "But I honestly thought that this was only my 6th absence (as if even that's okay)! I misread your email!"
Answer*: "Not my problem. It was very clear and thorough - I left no room for doubt or interpretation on your part. I have a Ph.D. in English. I'm pretty good at this. Here, let me forward to it you again..."

INCREDULITY: "I know I've missed a few classes, but 7?? Could I have missed a sign up sheet or something??"
Answer: "I really don't know if you missed one or not. And it's not my problem. It's called responsibility. Look it up."

GUILT: "I really need this class. I was picking up a check from my mom so I could pay my tuition. If I don't take this course, I won't be able to stay in school and I won't have any health insurance!"
Answer: "Still not my problem. Our discussion is over. You can contact the Dean and meet with her if you like."

THREATENING(?): "I will be talking to the Dean and I have a few things to say to her. I'm not the kind of person who will just sit by and let something like this happen to me without doing something active about it."
Answer (composed but not sent): "Bite me, Jackass."

*All answers represent a combination of what was sent and what was felt when composing. My actual responses contained slightly less snark than demonstrated here. But not much...

You'll notice that in all of this correspondence he never answered the whole question of who signed his name to the attendance sheet. He admitted being absent, but glossed over that. In one of my answers to him (I think it was to INCREDULITY) I expressed my skepticism that he didn't know this was his 7th absence because it seemed to me that he did know this was critical and asked someone to sign his name thinking I wouldn't catch it. He wrote back protesting that he had no idea who had done it, it wasn't at his request, but he did have "friends" in the class who knew how important this semester was for him. I wrote back:

"It seems to me that your friends have a better sense of your absences than you do then, because they happened to sign you up on the exact day when your absence would have meant a failing grade. Why did they not intervene on your behalf earlier?"

Anyway, and so it goes.

I call the Dean of Students, tell her the story and that I'm dropping him. I tell her I don't buy his song and dance. She agrees and then pulls up his record and tells me that he was put on academic suspension last year at another school for the same thing and that there were some "alcohol-related aggressive incidents" that caused his expulsion.

Um. Yeah.

I'm not sure that she was supposed to tell me that, but I'm glad she did. He was writing to her and complaining about me (I have it in for him; he thinks I have it in for all men because I'm teaching a feminist class, yada yada...). But then he says that he's decided that he's still going to be attending class until we get this "sorted out" because he's not going to *allow* me to fail him. The Dean, of course, tells him that he can't attend class, he's no longer enrolled. She didn't seem to think he would be a problem for me (oh, yeah. And his mom called the Dean, too).

But I was feeling kind of uneasy. Well, really uneasy. Thoughts of Virginia Tech started dancing like big, scary, sugar plums in my head. He was just so pushy and always assuming that I would back down. And he kept referring to me as "Mrs. Medieval Woman," which drives me crazy. I was worried that he'd come to class and try to engage me in something face to face (he'd been asking when I'm in my office other than office hours because he had a class at that time but he still wanted to discuss this in person).

So, today I got one of my colleagues to walk me to class. She was my "muscle" and was there in case he was sitting in the classroom, I could tell him to leave and then call security if he acted badly.

But he wasn't and I haven't heard from him since! So, it's all resolved and I feel much better. I told my class that signing someone else's name to the sheet was a crime punishable by death and they were duly chastened. Eyes big as saucers. It was beautiful.

Sorry that was SUCH a long narrative! It's really been on my mind the past few days and I'm so glad it's all over.

Where's Medieval Woman??

...in her office reading Margery Kempe and hiding from trick-or-treaters.

So pathetic.

I have things to blog, but I need to make it through one more class prep before I can.

Boo.

R.B.O.F. - Random Bits of Fluff

1) Okay - Julian kind of rocked today. I take all the credit, of course. I did seriously revamp my years' old notes and it seems to have put the spark of life into that stale, old lecture. Can we keep the momentum going?? Hmmmmm....

2) I'm endeavoring to eat healthier because.....because....because I need to lose weight! OKAY. There. I've said it...trauma..... Anyway, my doc and I are working together on it. I'm so ashamed of my eating habits - and I have to keep track of them so that she can advise me better nutritionally. So, I'll write something down and then qualify it to the hilt. It looks something like this:

Day One:

12 Coke Zeros (but they're sugar-free, and that's good, right?)
Salad with blue cheese dressing (but it's *homemade* blue cheese dressing! No preservatives! And I only use a dollop....a big dollop, but only one dollop...)
Bag of popcorn (late night munchies - does it count after midnight? Am I like a Mogwai* in this respect??)

*and we all know that "with Mogwai, comes great responsibility."

Sigh.

3) I'm on a search committee this year and I need to start reading the applications before we get 90 of them and I can't ever read them all before the First Vetting. I am excited about seeing what other applications look like, which will leave me feeling either pretty darn good about where I fit in last year or in the fetal position under the conference room table thanking the gods that I actually, barely managed to get a job...

4) I just freaked out on a phone solicitor. I'm not proud of this because I know they're all highschool and college kids trying to earn beer money. But I hate it when you pick up (my caller ID works only sporadically and TD's number shows up with the same tag as the sales calls) and you say "Hello??" five times while the automatic dialing thing relays the call to the human. And then you hear people talking in the background and finally you hear the person saying, "Um, is this...uh...Midweevil Oman?" GRRRRR! So, this time the human was apparently talking to his pals in the background and wasn't expecting his quarry to pick up and not immediately hang up the phone in disgust. I actually heard someone say, "Dude, so, what're we doin' tonight???"

Then I snapped and screamed into the phone - "If you're going to call and annoy someone, at least answer the goddam phone right away, JEEZUS!" (*slam!*) Of course, this impotent bit of raging will have no effect whatsoever on how many of these things I get. I need to get on that "Do Not Call List" thingy...

Coming up for air...

....(*gasp!*)......(*splash, splish, splash*).....(*cough, cough....gag...*).....

Medieval Woman slowly struggles to the surface of the dark, oily water called: GRADING!

These exams are chained to my feet like cement blocks - I can't shake them, I don't even seem to make a dent in them! And I'm teaching Julian of Norwich tomorrow which continues to be a struggle for me - the students just *hate* her brand of mysticism and I can't help feeling like it's because I'm not teaching it well enough. Has anyone else had this experience with Julian?

On top of everything else, I'm totally exhausted - I can't seem to get enough sleep! So much crap to do and the lovely momentum I'd built up on my article has now petered out because I have to teach and grade (whine, whine...).

Cat Update:

Furball #2 is fine, though her pride is a tad bruised. She got 2 teeth removed and her kidney function is perfect, thank the gods. However, she got so worked up that she gave herself a stress-induced bout of cystitus (spelling?) which basically read as a bad UTI and now seems to have cleared up after another trip to the vet today. I'll keep her on antibiotics for another week and by then she'll really try to kill me in my sleep...at the moment, her furry, beknighted, slightly rotund form is draped sullenly on the fainting couch.

2 Years and Still Going Strong...

Today is The Dutchman's and my second wedding anniversary. He's been here this weekend (although sadly, never for long enough) and it's been so wonderful to have him here.

I've talked a lot on my blog in the past few months about my endeavors to keep the long distance thing from becoming too much of a problem. Many of you have offered bits of advice on how you kept your own stuff going - even if the relationships didn't work out in the end...I really truly appreciate that, by the way! We've settled into a nice routine of talking several times a day - usually on Skype, which is free and easy. TD has an account with them so he can call my land-line from his Skype phone. That seems to work for us - even just talking for a couple of minutes is good.

When he arrived on Friday, we hadn't seen each other in a month. That pretty much sucks canal water. I've never gone that long without seeing him since we met in 2001. I wanted to curl up in a ball and just put myself in his pocket - does that sound weird? Imagine how a cat sometimes flops their entire bulk into you (usually spilling your wine in the process) and almost wants to meld with you atomically so it can get attention. That was me. Throughout this process of long-distance marriaging we've never experienced any awkwardness or the "who are you, stranger?" problem that I've heard some couples have. That's good because I was worried. Fortunately, for the rest of the semester at least we won't be going that long without seeing each other again.

So, this weekend has been awesome - I've done next to no work (and I have to plan my fucking class for tomorrow!!!) - we went out for dinner with friends last night and today has just been spent puttering around, eating junk food, preparing for tonight's special anniversary dinner (which will consist of grilled fillet mignon, oven roasted potatoes, salad with homemade blue cheese dressing, tons of dessert and champagne). We've had a lot of good talks, too. TD is now fully excited and committed to getting the position at Awesome Neighboring U. I think he really believes that the opportunity for his own career here (to say nothing of our life together) is actually pretty damn stellar. We've discussed staying in my rental bungalow for another year after he moves here so we can pay off more debt and save up a nice fat down payment on a house. We'll also be able to decide where we want to live (here in Dream Academy City or 40 minutes away in Cute Town next to Awesome Neighoring U?). We've talked about having babies next year.

Things are really good - and we're trying to forget that all of this is contingent upon his getting a job offer there. But I just feel like it'll happen - this cosmic little assurance of some sort.

Yes, it's finally autumn...

...and it's not because the leaves are turning and there's a crispness in the air. It's autumn in MedievalWomanland because I gave my first test today. Almost all of them took the entire time - I even had to rip the blue books out of a couple of students' hands! There little eyes were so rimmed with fear and worry...

Why? I have no idea. I give such fluffy tests - seriously, if you do the reading and pay attention in class, you'll ace the test. I mean, isn't that sort of what we're supposed to be testing them on? Um, the material? For some reason they still think there's a hidden formula or alchemical equation that they need to find in order to pass - is it just my exams? Do you all meet with this reaction? I tell them that I want analysis and synthesize rather than regurgitation and they begin to tremble with foreboding. What gives?

I've already had FOUR students email to tell me they feel (to quote one) "icky" about how they did on the test. Icky? That sounds like a particularly annoying yearly visit to the doctor. But I digress. They are all protesting that they studied really hard and they want me to know that they studied hard...hmmm.

I feel like I wasn't this manic as an undergraduate - and since I'm just far enough away from my undergraduate years to have them placed somewhere on that fuzzy horizon of my memory, I'm not sure if this recollection is correct. But it doesn't feel (in an atavistic racial memory sort of way) like I was this manic about fluffy tests in undergrad.

In totally unrelated news: apparently Furball #2's bloodwork was a-okay because I didn't hear from the vet today - yee-ha! Dodged another bullet. It reminds me of that "No Gnews is Good Gnews with Gary Gnu" from the Great Space Coaster, tha awesome show of the 80s.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who remembers that...

Poor Furball #2!

Okay - I took F#2 to the vet's today for her semi-annual bloodwork and urine-fest. Her teeth have a lot of tartar and need to be cleaned (she's 9) - and one of her little teeth needs to be removed! She has a lesion (which the vet called a "cat cavity") on her gum and apparently the tooth is bad and needs to come out. El Vet said this was a totally normal and standard procedure. I will take her in at the butt crack of dawn on Monday morning and she'll be sedated, they'll clean her teeth and take the bad one out. She'll be done by 3. She's lost a little weight lately (and could still stand to lose more) and I'm wondering if it isn't because her little tooth was bothering her?

I'm freaking out about this a bit (b/c I'm genetically a freak) - I'm worried that she has an infection and that it will get into her blood and cause her remaining kidney to fail. I'm worried that she might not handle the sedation well. I'm worried that a piece of a Russian satellite will fall from the sky and land on her.

So, for all you blogging cat lovers out there (and I'm sure there must be one or two!) - tell me that all of this is normal and totally okay!? Tomorrow her blood work will be back and we'll know more then - and I'll be starting her on antibiotics on Friday in prep for the Monday procedure. And the vet (you know, the one with the advanced degree in veterinary medicine) wasn't concerned about anything untoward. She was just like, "yeah she needs to come in to get her teeth cleaned and yank that one..."

So, it'll be all right, yes?