Marie O'Keefe Vorobely

My dad just called. Grandma died last night.

I met Grandma when I was just a little girl, 2 or 3 years old. She lived in the apartment complex opposite ours. She had other grandchildren - her sons' kids - and we all used to play together. I remember that she used to have the flavored ice cream cones - the cake cones that were brown, pink, or green. She wasn't biologically related to us, of course, but that never made her any less family.

Her first marriage was abusive, and with the help of her parish priest, she escaped and divorced. I can only imagine how bad the marriage must have been for a Catholic priest to actually condone divorce. She was a tough lady with a sparkle about her... my mom always referred to her as a leprechaun. The last true memory I have of her is from 1999 when I took her to a Dervish concert (Irish music) in Pittsburgh. She practically danced in her seat the whole time. She wasn't even five feet tall, but her spirit was huge.

That sparkle has been extinguished for many years now. Alzheimers took her mind and spirit long before her body died, but I still feel incredibly sad to know she's really gone. And her husband Sam will be devastated. I don't know how he's going to keep going without her. Their friends have slowly disappeared, unable to cope with Marie's slide. Grandma was always the social butterfly, and Sam was the cranky old man with the heart of gold.

I'm worried about how that heart's going to hold up through this.

But wherever Grandma is now, it has to be a better place than the one she'd been trapped in for the last eight years. So I'm going to picture her in her gingham square dancing dress with the fluffy petticoats and that impish grin and twinkling eyes.

I hope you're dancing with all the handsome young men. I hope they can keep up with you.

What I've been doing instead of blogging

Now, hopefully, I'll get this picture thing right the first try... here goes.

This is the belated xmas/valentine's present for my G'ma-in-law:



Note my teeny tiny desk and the resulting mess. Also note the brand new MacBook! Now, knitting lace is kind of nifty because it looks all soft and squishy (and far smaller than desired) when fresh off the needles. To change this, you have to soak it and then stretch it flat and pin it in the desired position like this:



I have more pictures to post, but I'll stop momentarily to test the process.

Snow Day!

****But first... HAPPY 23rd Birthday, Kar-baby! Enjoy the Big Day in the Big Apple!****

Now back to our regularly scheduled posting...

College was cancelled today because of massive amounts of snow! Yay! (To both news items - snow for skiing and a day without classes... what more could a tired adjunct in Vermont want?)

Of course, I still haven't gotten a passport picture taken, though I did pick up the form, and it's all filled out and ready to go. My errand time has been sucked up the last week or so by the Craft Night event I organized for this past Monday. I had to make flyers and get the student women to put them up, send out campus-wide emails, make a 4 foot by 6 foot banner to hang in the theater lobby, shop for supplies, harrass the staff and faculty women for additional supplies and money, and ultimately show up for two hours to help people learn knitting basics.

The event was really fun though - people who had to leave early seemed very sad about it. Students painted unfinished wooden picture frames and door hangers (the flat rectangular type that has a round hole for hanging from a doorknob), while others learned to crochet or knit. And now I have a list of ten names of people who want to start up a stitch'n'bitch group on campus. My next project...

So I am going to enjoy my snow day. I'm going to knit and read and play on the computer and not worry about anything school related.

Yes, I know it's just a comic strip

I read For Better or For Worse most days. Recently, at Christmas, one character rushed back into the house to save his just finished manuscript. So, obviously, the earliest he could have sent it out would have been a few days after Christmas.

Last week he gets a full book contract in the mail. RIGHT. He sends a manuscript, unsolicited, to a publisher, over the holidays... and they get back to him with a full contract in a matter of weeks? On what planet? Things can't work that differently in Canada. I won't get into the point that the book is supposed to be coming out in the fall...

Yes, I know it's a comic strip. Yes, I know that the creator is trying to tie up all storylines by the fall. Yes, I know that people should not be relying on comics for accurate representation or information.

But it still bugs me.

The Next Wave

The tail end of the flood of marriages is passing. We've been to a dozen or so weddings in the past 5 years. Our friends (and we) were all slow starters, relatively speaking. The first of my friends to get married was a Dartmouth classmate who married his childhood sweetheart in 2002 on labor day weekend. Five minutes later, two other dear ol' Dartmouth friends married each other. Since then, many more friends - college and otherwise - have gotten hitched. The last of my inner circle who wants to get married is doing so in Denver this May.

So now the next phase begins. The divorces.

In our completely non-scientific observations, we've noticed that the more people spend on the actual wedding party, the shorter their marriages seem to last. (We figure we're sitting pretty, having only spent $75, plus tea and dessert at the local coffee shop.)

Two friends who married on Long Island in the summer of 2003 (and whose wedding probably cost at least 1000 times what ours did) have recently filed for divorce. Two more friends who married "down the shore" in New Jersey in the summer of 2004 have a disaster brewing - both of them liked the idea of being married more than they liked each other. I can only hope they do the right thing and call it quits before the karmic debt skyrockets.

The only positive aspect of this is that the divorce wave is hitting before the baby wave did.

Of course, I hope I'm not speaking too soon...

Messin' with the colors

Decided I needed a new color scheme to go with the new photo. (Last photo has been up for 4 years... time for a change.)

Let me know if the colors look weird on your monitor. They're nice and mellow - kind of faded - on mine.

The Runaround

I'm back up and running, but unfortunately, some people are keeping me running around in circles. Bastards. Must be a conspiracy.

Today marks my second round of attempting to get a new passport photo taken so I can renew my (thankfully) expired passport in time for our trip in May. My expired passport features a picture taken when I was in college - 20 years old, wearing a plaid shirt and sporting slightly crooked bangs. I am truly delighted to be free of it. However. Last week I tried to get my picture taken at no less than three area drug stores (who advertise passport photo services) only to find that two of them had broken equipment and the other wouldn't be set up until next week.

Yesterday I received a generic mailing from the US Postal Services about local post offices that were now set up to take passport photos and handle the entire application or renewal process. On my way home from running errands, I stopped in at the nearest one.

Surprise! Despite the information on the mailer (and on the USPS website), that particular location won't be set up for passport services for at least another week. Grrrr.

The woman behind the counter assured me that another location near me (not really in my path, but only about 15 miles out of my way) was already set up. So I'll give it one more shot this afternoon. I guess.

This is not helping with my nightmares in which I arrive at the airport only to remember that I never renewed my passport and they won't let me leave the country. Not good dreams. :shudder shudder:

Computers and Viruses

Fortunately, while I have both in common, they are not otherwise connected.

The new computer came in on Tuesday - beautiful, shiny, fully functional - but I felt so crappy I didn't get it set up until Thursday. Tuesday started out with stomach cramps and a general feeling of grogginess. Wednesday shifted to fever and shakes. Thursday more of the same. Friday better but still shaky. Haven't been up long enough today to know if I'm feeling significantly better or not.

Meh. I seem to get sick at least once a term - usually right at the beginning. At least this time I have web access at home and a new computer that can handle all sorts of nifty features I was previously lacking. For instance... being able to post to the blog.

Earmarked

You know when you have money coming, extra money that you weren't really planning on having? Well, why is it that the money seems to get spent before it ever comes into your hand? Sometimes, several times over.

Jay calculates that we'll be getting about $1500 back in taxes this year... hopefully enough to supplement the traveling money my dad already gave us for the England trip in May.

Because of the additional class, I have two credits more than past terms, meaning I'll make about an extra $1600... which I have just spent on a new computer. Granted, I really needed the new computer, because it would have cost me about as much to complete all the upgrades to my current iBook, yet left me with a way too small screen... So. Educational discount plus 3 months same as cash... new iMac notebook is on its sweet journey to me. Mwah ha ha ha ha.

But really. There is no such thing as "extra" money. Not on this side of the middle class.

Bah

Apparently my aging computer (a 1999 iBook with a 2002 software upgrade) isn't compatible with the changes to Blogger, so I'm only able to post from work for now.

Enjoyed a visit from my younger sister (the one in NYC) this weekend and now I'm scrambling to get ready for classes starting Wednesday. Cobbling together a syllabus in two days for a course I've never taught - and which is taught very differently by all the instructors who do teach it - is proving to be quite interesting.

With interesting being a euphemism for other, more colorful words, of course.

Good news

We finally hooked up the web access at home, so I might actually return to more regular posting.

Then again... my teaching schedule for the spring term just got turned upside down. One section of the class I've been teaching is probably going to be cancelled due to low enrollment. Good news side is that I have been offered 2 sections of a higher level course, but that means scrambling to put together a new course (admittedly one with a very established curriculum) and grading about 50 student papers for each assignment instead of the 35 I had last term.

We shall see.

Things that are wrong with me

No, I'm not asking for suggestions, thanks.

I already have a few specifics in mind.

One, my hand! Owie! All the knitting has left my right hand and arm sore. Either an inflamed muscle or tendon or something, I'm thinking. The pain goes right from the base of my ring and pinky fingers to the underside of my elbow. Massage only makes it worse, but frozen cranberries (we're out of peas) feel really really good. In any case, I'm forcing myself to take a knitting hiatus until the pain stops. (Or mostly stops... whatever.)

Second, Farscape. People whose opinions I respect say this is a great show. We've just finished the 4th episode and are still waiting for the greatness to appear. Does the beginning just suck? Does it get better? Should I keep watching, or is this all there is?

Here's what underwhelms me:

It's a neat concept and the visual delivery is excellent.

But the writing! Ack! I mean, I've had beatings that were more subtle. If I want to be smacked around by moralizing lessons delivered with the finesse of a falling piano, I would go to church. Jay and I were both sitting there, rolling our eyes, yelling "We GET IT ALREADY" at the TV. Not a good sign. I don't know whether it's the writing, or the editing that's so poor, but we agreed that the episodes could be trimmed by about 20% without losing any meaning.

And LORD, I can tell the creators were muppeteers, because anything involving the muppet characters is extremely well done. Anything involving live actors clunks. Not that there aren't good lines, but they get lost in the dragging pace of delivery. It's as if they decided, if expressing an idea once is good, then expressing it four times would be even better.

So.

Any fans out there have opinions on whether the series resolves these problems as it progresses, or should we give up now and move on?

iPod Love

Jay got me a 2G nano for christmas and our neighbor filled it up for me - need to weed out some of it, but found a few new favorites. The Be Good Tanyas - love them love them love them. Something about the combination of their voices and the lyrics and everything. Makes me very happy.

Also got Hayseed Dixie's hillbilly tribute to AC/DC - hilarious. Ryan Adams - whom I'd never heard of, but who I'm really enjoying. Bunch of Gillian Welch and some Steve Earle. A few good Beck songs - a few I'm going to delete as soon as possible. (I tend to either love Beck's songs or hate them - not much middle ground.) Old 97's seem pretty good, as do the Jayhawks and Jim Miller & Buffalo Country. I'll have to keep listening... kind of got hung up on the Be Good Tanyas.

Good to have friends with connections.

Not so politely stolen from Devan

This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished, and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.


1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer


And, you know, a few more of them sound really familiar, but I can't remember if I've actually read them or not. Might have. Might not have. There's a few on the list that I haven't marked as read that I would like to get to at some point, but I just don't read a lot of science fiction these days... more into fantasy, mystery, history.

I think I loved a lot of these books - as I was reading them. Some I've read over and over because they gave me what I needed at the time. Some of them I now loathe ( :coughThomasCovenantcough: ) and some I would still pick up and read again if someone ( :coughbastardexcough: ) hadn't stolen my copy ( :coughEnder's Gamecough: ).

I suppose that's my way of saying that I read all of these before the time I decided that finishing books that suck wasn't a good use of my time, that if I had hated them, I wouldn't have read them in the first place, but that I can't remember which of them I loved enough to indicate that either.

Yeah.

Happy Holiday (or not) of Choice

Jay and I are celebrating this year by not going anywhere for the holidays. We're staying home, sleeping in, not driving or flying or waiting in lines. Yay! What a great xmas present to ourselves, I say.

I've been finishing up the holiday knitting - done 2 hats, 1 lace scarf, 1 pair gloves, three ski bands - just one more hat to finish up, one set of gloves that needs the bezillion ends woven in, and I will be ready to ship out the packages. What, you say? By the time I send them it will already be AFTER xmas? Well, of course, silly. I'm sending NEW YEARS presents. Duh. (They might get there by then...)

I also have to finish the tail end of a queen-sized afghan that I've been working on since September, but I've decided that we'll give that to the recipients when we see them Jan 5th or so...

But after THAT is done? No knitting for anyone outside the house (ie: anyone not me or Jay) until Spring. Yeah baby. 'Bout time I got to keep some of the fruits of my labor. (I have a few things, but I realized that most of the knitting I've done in the last year has made its way out the door. Usually before I remember to take a picture of it, too.)

First on the in-house list? Another hat for Jay - something warmer and washable than the one he has now. Second? 1 chunky scarf for me, 1 lacy scarf for me. Finish pair of socks started in November...

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend (even if that just means an extra day off work for you)!

Comment experiment

Trying to figure out the switch from Haloscan to the Blogger comment system...

No Tears Yet

I just finished the end of term reviews with my students. No one's started crying yet - at least not while in my office - so I'll count that as a minor triumph.

Today was hard for me - had to fail two students who just weren't demonstrating the skills they need to succeed in the college level course next term. I always feel bad because they're always in such denial about their abilities that the failure comes as a shock. Often they've already signed up for the next class in the spring, so failing this class means they have to rearrange everything.

Granted, I know that failing them now is actually kinder than sending them on to fail the next class over and over. (The class I teach has no effect on grad point average.) Also, it is their responsibility to make sure they do demonstrate the minimum skill level in order to pass. SO they don't have anyone to blame but themselves.

But I still feel like the bad guy.

Season Seven

NO! Captain Tightpants cannot be a villain.

Whatever were you thinking, Joss?

I'm so disoriented.

(Watching the end of Season 7 of Buffy this week...)

Hope this doesn't suck

I just switched over to the Googlized version of Blogger. I really hope I don't regret it.

Anyway... on to some actual content, eh?

Today is the last day my class will meet. Yay! The reason for the early end is that the remainder of the week will be taken up with individual portfolio reviews in which the student brings all the work they did over the semester, and we look to see if they've made actual progress. For some students, this will take maybe 5-10 minutes. For others? Half an hour.

For the best students, this is merely a confirmation that they're ready to move on to the college level courses - a brief review to remind them what they've accomplished during the term. For the students who will not be passing, it's a chance to see exactly what they need to improve in order to pass the next time.

For the students on the borderline, it's most important. Sometimes I'm not sure until the portfolio review if a particular student should pass the class. Generally, even if the student isn't quite performing to standard, if they've shown great improvement, thereby indicating an ability to learn from instruction, I'm likely to pass them.

It's the students who are clearly performing below standards, who haven't shown improvement, but who do not understand this, are the hardest to deal with in the reviews. They don't understand why they're not passing - and I can't understand whether it's because of the same dimness that renders their work substandard or whether it's the result of willful denial of reality. Either way, those are the conferences I dread the most.

Except perhaps the conferences with the students who are probably capable of passing the class, but who have decided that because of their obvious and superior talents, they don't actually need to DO all the work. Little shits. They knew the requirements from Day One, but somehow decided the rules didn't apply to them. These are the abusive types, who shovel attitude at me all term, who try to go over my head to the department chair to "test out" of the class without "actually having to pass". These are the ones I hate. Personally hate. I don't want to pass them, because they don't really deserve it unless I rely on psychic grading to know what they *could* have done. But I don't want to fail them, because then I'd have them in my class next term. I may have to meditate on the solution to those students... preferably with a large glass of wine in one hand.

/rant

Maybe because it's finally snowing

Or maybe because I'm in the home stretch on this fall's classes, or maybe it was that one of my favorite students brought me a sample bottle of his family's homemade Shiraz, but I'm feeling less bleh today than I have in a long while.

I've been seriously dreading coming to work lately. I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, that the students aren't even interested in learning, that another term of this will kill me, etcetera and so forth - bad mojo all around.

A couple things have helped me not want to get all AK-47 on this place.

I finally managed to drop by one of the staff people who teaches the same class I teach during a block of time when she wasn't crazy busy. One of the hardest things about teaching is that you're pretty much on your own - it's hard to know if you're "doing it right" until you get the students' work as proof of their understanding. What makes these remedial level courses harder, is that sometimes, no matter what we do, some of these students are never going to "get it", either from lack of interest, effort, or ability. I have to learn not to take that personally. One of the other things that my colleague told me, that I hadn't really thought about before is this: these students are not happy about having to take this class, even though it's more a gift than a punishment, and they've never learned to separate the class from the person teaching it. So all that angsty resentment they've been projecting at me is not about me. It's about the class.

Must remember that. Must remember that. Must try to remember that. Ommmmm...

The second thing is that I do have some really great students - students who put in the effort, who ask questions, who show huge leaps of improvement, who bring me bottles of wine... I just need to focus more on the great students and less on the cranky, resentful, unwilling-to-do-the-work students. I'm trying. But it ain't so easy as it sounds.

And in any case - 3 more class meetings, then individual portfolio reviews, and then DONE!!!