If you are a stu­dent, pay­ing for a course, please for the love of all that is holy in this world open the book. Open it at least once, even if just to look at the pic­tures. The pic­tures are bright & col­or­ful. Even if your instruc­tor is not. You paid for the book, open it.

And as a side note: what­ever you do, don’t tell your instruc­tor that “I had a cool party to go to so that’s why I missed class” or any­thing else along these lines. Instead read the book, go to class for lec­ture and pre­pare your­self. If you don’t show up because you’d rather party don’t tell your instruc­tor because I hate to break it to you she or he does NOT care. Unless they are invited to said party, keep it to your­self. It will make every­one happier.

Tech­no­rati Tags: book, col­lege, school, stu­dents, work

Hubby says D-man is like his mother. I think Hubby is just jeal­ous that I have so many back-up writ­ers to help me, because it’s not just D-man who has my back, but if I need it I can always get the elder chil­dren to bust out some mad writ­ing skills. They are my back-ups for blog­ging & when it comes to prep­ping my courses. If only Hubby had this type of help. I mean just look, the kid is even ready to answer any impor­tant calls as they come in on the old Crack­berry. It warms my heart.

Tech­no­rati Tags: baby, black­berry curve, blog­ging, crack­berry, fam­ily, school, work

Pic­ture Cour­tesy of Wikimedia-Commons User Túre­lio, Cre­ative Com­mons BY-SA 2.0-de

My first week back for lec­tures went well. Every class was full and every­one showed up the first day. I am pos­i­tive that’s a record, I mean every­one show­ing up the first day? I’ve never heard or seen of such a thing. Usu­ally the third week about 10 peo­ple mosey on in & explain they weren’t there for the first 2 weeks because, well, they weren’t there. No real expla­na­tion given, no “I was in a ditch on the side of road unable to get to your class. I swear this class means more than my life.” Which I know is true I mean how could a col­lege course not mean more than your life? As if your life, fam­ily, & friends are more impor­tant than know­ing the dif­fer­ences between Durkheim, Marx & Weber. It’s prac­ti­cal insan­ity to think those the­o­rists aren’t more impor­tant than your Mom.

Another amaz­ing feat of my first week was that I saved a student’s life or at least his vision, hear­ing & abil­ity to walk. On the first day I explain the dif­fer­ences between Incom­pletes, With­draw­ing & Drop­ping the course. I let the stu­dents know “If you just don’t like me, if lis­ten­ing to me speak, see­ing me ever again, or being around me makes you want to jab pen­cils in your eyes & ears while you jump out a first floor win­dow (which is more dan­ger­ous than it sounds, you can really hurt your ankle doing that) then you should drop the class.” Rea­son being stu­dents get their money back & won’t fail the course. Money matters.

How­ever, when a stu­dent in one of the classes actu­ally got up & walked across the room, cross­ing the entire room in front of every­one upon hear­ing my words, I knew I had saved my stu­dent. Just think if I hadn’t made that off-handed com­ment he might have really jabbed pen­cils in his eyes & ears while jump­ing out a first floor win­dow. BUT MY WORDS SAVED HIM. It’s almost like I’m the Mother Teresa of Academia.

Tech­no­rati Tags: col­lege, mother teresa, ph.d., school, teach­ing, work