I had the thought the other day of what if everyone in the world got every wish they wanted? I'm sure that thought has been done as a story somewhere, but for me it was something that made me pause for a few minutes to think about. And what happens when wishes collide? Say, for example, I wished that I could make beautiful chain maille jewelry with gold and silver but someone else wished to have all the gold and silver in the world in their house? Would the force that grants the wishes, grant both? And what would happen if it did or didn't? Then it occurred to me that people being people, there would be wishes of death, or hurt, or other terrible things to one another. So, I guess it is a good thing that our every wish doesn't come true. That launched me into a train of thought of why we are so evil to one another but I came up with no answers to that.
It is spring break this week, and it's nice to be off of school for a little bit. I love my English Lit class, but I'm not so thrilled with my grant writing class. I'm not sure if it is the teacher or the material, but I'm finding it difficult to embrace the class. We had to find a service learning site (I chose Lakeview Community Library) and work up a full proposal for them. The teacher of the class is ok, but seems a little smug in her knowledge and standing. I have no doubt she is very knowledgeable about her chosen field and has supported herself for the past 15 years doing grant writing. But, she is the type of person who has too many irons in the fire and doesn't do any of them particularly well. For instance, even though we are half way through the semester and have handed in several assignments, we have only gotten ONE grade back. One. She keeps moving deadlines and due dates because she can't get her critique copy back to her students in time for them to revise and hand in. This is after she has lectured us numerous times about getting OUR work in on time because in grant writing, there is no late work. On my organizational profile, she highlighted the word combination "there is" and in the comments told me to "get my thesaurus out". That I was not creative in my wording. Later, in the SAME document, highlighted a paragraph and told me, again in the comments, that my language was "too formal, stuffy, intellectual, and awkward" and that I should "use plain, every day language". WTH? Both of these comments in the same document. Her major complaint was the word "facilitates". As in the following sentence: "Lakeview Community Library facilitates the use of teen volunteers for the summer reading program". So, now I'm so paranoid about my writing that I'm having a terrible time coming up with the writing for my assignments.
The other thing that is a bit irritating is that she has a very smug and condescending demeanor towards her students. I can live with that as long as she follows her own advice, but she doesn't. After giving us a lecture for 15 mins about late work, moves a deadline to her convenience because she has four proposals she needs to write for her clients this week. Let's see, I'm paying exactly $1,254.00 bucks in tuition and another $100 in books to take this class, which, ironically makes her MY employee, and we are put on a back burner with no real guidance or presentation of information regarding how to do our homework. Which then comes back with conflicting comments about using to plain of language or to intellectual language. If I had wanted to waste that much money on a crappy class where I'm going to get insulted and conflicting messages, I would have taken one that wouldn't really have any bearing on my major.
One the other side is my Eng Lit class. When I declared my major, the Associate Chair said to me, "you have to take an old, dead guy class". I laughed at the description, but he was right. I had been dreading this class because I'm not entirely confident about my level of Shakespeare "love". So, I took a survey class that has a potpourri of writers. At the beginning of the semester, the teacher asked the class why we were in this particular class. I said that I was a bit intimidated by a whole semester of Shakespeare and that this class would be better for me. He looked at me and said the Shakespeare class was easier. He also teaches the Shakespeare class, so he would know. But, I stuck with it and we are now reading Shakey over the spring break. Midsummer Nightmare on Elm Street or something like that. Seriously, I can never remember the title of that play. I need to get crackin' on finishing it too. But, I think I'm doing well, and contrary to my grant writing class, the Eng Lit prof gets our graded stuff back to us the very next class. It's nice to know where you stand in the semester versus the wait to the end of the semester and hope the teacher has taken her meds and grades like she is supposed to and not like a bipolar maniac tired of grading papers.
I have finally fully recovered. I realized the other day that I have so much more energy now and can do normal things without being sick. I stopped coughing around mid-February, and the sinus infection has finally abated too. Two months of sick and wasted time. I still can't believe it took two courses of antibiotics and prednisone to get things under control. But, I am so much better and thankful for it.
I will enjoy the rest of spring break even though the wind chill was below 0 at points today, and hwy 57 southbound was snow covered and slippery with the snow we got yesterday blowing around. There was even a car in the ditch. That is very un-spring like behavior if you ask me. I have several feet of snow in my yard yet, so hopefully I won't have to cut the grass for many, many weeks yet. I wish that it would stay neat and manicured all summer long. That would be an ok wish, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment