My brother is so classy it's breathtaking, isn't it?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving from My Family to Yours
Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here in Maine, especially this kid, who, when we went to see New Moon last night, pulled a beer out from his coat pocket and cracked it just as the lights were about to dim.
My brother is so classy it's breathtaking, isn't it?
My brother is so classy it's breathtaking, isn't it?
Friday, November 20, 2009
Edward 4-Eva
Yesterday in my creative writing class we were discussing character development, so we closed class with a prompt where students selected scraps of paper from an envelope. Written on those scraps of paper were various random (sometimes odd-ball) items (a set of moldy dentures, a blow-up doll, red stilettos, a sticker that says HELLO! MY NAME IS: AWESOME!, etc.) and the students were then asked to brainstorm for several minutes about the type of person who might be likely to own each of those items before expanding those ideas into a full-on character.
"Who the hell owns a milk jug in the shape of a breast?" one of my students asked, flapping her scraps of paper in the air.
"My brother," I said.
On the other side of the room one of my other students was bent over his notebook and muttering to himself. Whatever he'd gotten on his scraps of paper was causing him a considerable amount of stress. Finally he just gave up and threw his arms in the air. "You know who would own this?" he asked. "TWILIGHT NERDS, that's who. TWILIGHT NERDS!"
Simultaneously, three girls in the room--and, yeah, I was one of them--whipped around and said, "HEY! WATCH IT!"
And then we all smiled and nodded at each other, pleased with our synchronized chorus and the fact that we were going to be having a very, very, very good weekend.
"Who the hell owns a milk jug in the shape of a breast?" one of my students asked, flapping her scraps of paper in the air.
"My brother," I said.
On the other side of the room one of my other students was bent over his notebook and muttering to himself. Whatever he'd gotten on his scraps of paper was causing him a considerable amount of stress. Finally he just gave up and threw his arms in the air. "You know who would own this?" he asked. "TWILIGHT NERDS, that's who. TWILIGHT NERDS!"
Simultaneously, three girls in the room--and, yeah, I was one of them--whipped around and said, "HEY! WATCH IT!"
And then we all smiled and nodded at each other, pleased with our synchronized chorus and the fact that we were going to be having a very, very, very good weekend.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Rot
Let me tell you about maggots.
Maggots are gross. Maggots are foul. Maggots are things that crawl around my grandfather's kitchen because he has stopped cleaning. The man can get up, shuffle across the living room, put a porno in the VCR, and then shuffle back to his easy chair to do God knows what in, but he doesn't feel capable of going into the kitchen to run a rag across the counter. And so? Maggots.
And, sure, good old George Edward can summon maggots like no one's business, but his oldest granddaughter--and, yeah, that's me--also knows how to bring them about, apparently.
Remember when I told you about the fruit flies? Remember when I blamed them on that night Emily came over and we got drunk and very seriously discussed over fifty rounds of bellinis the boringness of this season's Project Runway contestants? Remember how I said I left all the food out and then the next morning--poof!--the fruit flies had arrived in my apartment, which was now their own miniature Boca Raton? Yeah, well, they were probably there for a while, just out of my view.
Tonight I bent down to grab a book out of my school bag--a multi-compartment green croc number--and I reeled backward after breathing in the air around the bag. It was rank. It was rotten. It was everything bad in the world.
"What the hell?" I said.
Abbey, who was sitting a few feet away, looked up at me and blinked. Duh, she said.
I reached into the bag--a mistake!--and rooted around in the front section I don't really use. At the bottom, my fingers sunk into sponge. Dark, fragrant sponge. I yanked the bag open and held it up to the light. And there it was: a completely rotted banana tucked deep into the folds of my bag. It was studded with maggots--mostly dead, but some not completely.
I reacted the way most people would if they'd just gone ahead and stuck their finger into a nest of maggots and moldy banana: I shrieked and tossed that bag. A cloud of fruit flies fluttered out from it.
Immediately, Abbey lost her mind. The flies had hightailed it to the nearest surface--which happened to be the mirrored doors that close my washer and dryer off from the rest of the apartment--and Abbey lunged at the doors. When the flies scattered farther up, she pinned her ears back and chattered at them before leaping up far enough to pin a few under her paw.
I was busy standing very still and hating myself. I had let a banana rot in my bag. I had been carrying maggots around with me everywhere I went for God knows how long. When I got into my car in the morning? Maggots. When I set my bag down in the corner of the office? Maggots. When I stepped into my creative writing class ready to discuss metaphor? Maggots. Maggots and rot everywhere I went.
What kind of girl was I becoming? A girl who lets rot descend on her life, that's who.
While Abbey continued her tactical assault on the fruit flies, I took everything out of the bag and sprayed it down with cleanser and scrubbed-scrubbed-scrubbed. I set out new dishes of balsamic vinegar. I got so disgusted at myself and at the bag that I opened the door to my patio and tossed it outside. The door hadn't been open more than five seconds, but in those five seconds Abbey had decided to abandon her plan to stalk and kill the flies that had been coughed out of the bag, and she shot through the open door. She wedged herself between slats on the deck and she stared out into the night, out into the dark, and she raised her nose to smell the cold in the air. I bent to get her and hugged her against my chest, and for a minute we stood out on the porch, next to a recently de-wormed bag, and we listened to absolutely nothing.
Let's not lie: Symbolically, this does not bode well.
Maggots are gross. Maggots are foul. Maggots are things that crawl around my grandfather's kitchen because he has stopped cleaning. The man can get up, shuffle across the living room, put a porno in the VCR, and then shuffle back to his easy chair to do God knows what in, but he doesn't feel capable of going into the kitchen to run a rag across the counter. And so? Maggots.
And, sure, good old George Edward can summon maggots like no one's business, but his oldest granddaughter--and, yeah, that's me--also knows how to bring them about, apparently.
Remember when I told you about the fruit flies? Remember when I blamed them on that night Emily came over and we got drunk and very seriously discussed over fifty rounds of bellinis the boringness of this season's Project Runway contestants? Remember how I said I left all the food out and then the next morning--poof!--the fruit flies had arrived in my apartment, which was now their own miniature Boca Raton? Yeah, well, they were probably there for a while, just out of my view.
Tonight I bent down to grab a book out of my school bag--a multi-compartment green croc number--and I reeled backward after breathing in the air around the bag. It was rank. It was rotten. It was everything bad in the world.
"What the hell?" I said.
Abbey, who was sitting a few feet away, looked up at me and blinked. Duh, she said.
I reached into the bag--a mistake!--and rooted around in the front section I don't really use. At the bottom, my fingers sunk into sponge. Dark, fragrant sponge. I yanked the bag open and held it up to the light. And there it was: a completely rotted banana tucked deep into the folds of my bag. It was studded with maggots--mostly dead, but some not completely.
I reacted the way most people would if they'd just gone ahead and stuck their finger into a nest of maggots and moldy banana: I shrieked and tossed that bag. A cloud of fruit flies fluttered out from it.
Immediately, Abbey lost her mind. The flies had hightailed it to the nearest surface--which happened to be the mirrored doors that close my washer and dryer off from the rest of the apartment--and Abbey lunged at the doors. When the flies scattered farther up, she pinned her ears back and chattered at them before leaping up far enough to pin a few under her paw.
I was busy standing very still and hating myself. I had let a banana rot in my bag. I had been carrying maggots around with me everywhere I went for God knows how long. When I got into my car in the morning? Maggots. When I set my bag down in the corner of the office? Maggots. When I stepped into my creative writing class ready to discuss metaphor? Maggots. Maggots and rot everywhere I went.
What kind of girl was I becoming? A girl who lets rot descend on her life, that's who.
While Abbey continued her tactical assault on the fruit flies, I took everything out of the bag and sprayed it down with cleanser and scrubbed-scrubbed-scrubbed. I set out new dishes of balsamic vinegar. I got so disgusted at myself and at the bag that I opened the door to my patio and tossed it outside. The door hadn't been open more than five seconds, but in those five seconds Abbey had decided to abandon her plan to stalk and kill the flies that had been coughed out of the bag, and she shot through the open door. She wedged herself between slats on the deck and she stared out into the night, out into the dark, and she raised her nose to smell the cold in the air. I bent to get her and hugged her against my chest, and for a minute we stood out on the porch, next to a recently de-wormed bag, and we listened to absolutely nothing.
Let's not lie: Symbolically, this does not bode well.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Fruit, Not Fire
It's hard to think of what to say these days. I'm in the middle of something ugly, I know that, and it's hard for me to think in full thoughts. If I tried to write about what was going on lately, I wouldn't even know where to start. Each day seems to be pieced together out of random happenings that have no link, no common thread, like these:
1.
My kitchen is covered in flies--fruit, not fire or anything else interesting. They arrived one morning after my friend Emily and I had another Martini Sleepover. We got drunk on raspberry bellinis. We stayed up late watching Project Runway and talking about ex-boyfriends who got fat. I didn't clean up any of our sticky cups or empty champagne bottles or bowls of apple crisp. When we woke up the next morning, there were flies bring their luggage into the kitchen, setting up house in the caps still sweet with vodka, the glasses still red with raspberries. They haven't left since. I've tried different things to kill them. I've tried to kill them by clapping them between my hands--I'm surprisingly good at this, and it's surprisingly satisfying to see the crooked wings flat against my palms--but that's slow-going, and they're reproducing faster than I can kill them. I've put out saucers of sweet-smelling soap, hoping they'll get stuck in the thick liquid. I've chased them down with a bottle of hairspray, releasing long streams that make them slow and dopey, but not dead.
2.
I drove the two hours down to Boston on Monday night to get Josh. He'd been in France, teaching English and missing America, and he came home because he couldn't stand it anymore. He'd taken to buying beer and standing on the urine-soaked corner the bums gathered on. He'd been eating a lot of French hotdogs and drinking a lot of cheap wine. He couldn't find a second job that would bolster his meager finances--after all, a guy doesn't make too much teaching English to fifteen year old French girls who use their English to ask, "Can you take us home with you?"--and he was sick of being stuck in the middle of nowhere, his only friend an Irish guy who'd knocked up a French girl and was thus stuck in France with his own bunch of students.
So he came home. And as I rode the escalator down to the International Arrivals section of Logan Airport, I felt like I was in the opening scene of Love Actually. I scanned the crowds of people tugging suitcases through the gate, and on the other side of the room I saw Josh, the boy who, when I dream of him, arrives as Conan O'Brien ("Seriously, that kid looks just like Conan!" Emily's brother said after we'd all had martinis at the darkest basement bar in all of Portland, the best place to carry on illicit love affairs), and I started running toward him. We hugged.
"I love America!" he said.
For the next few days, I'd spend my time trying to entertain him. I handed him the pack of sex flashcards Diana had sent me. "These are stupid," he said, but when he got to MISSIONARY POSITION he laughed and turned the card toward me. On the front a man in a tuxedo was leaning close to a woman with close-set curls. The caption said Let's start with the missionary position and go from there. He also liked FELLATIO (After fellatio, he was putty in my hands!) and CUNNILINGUS (You may have heard about me--I specialize in cunnilingus).
The next day I handed him The Pop-Up Book of Sex, another gift from Diana, and he said, "This is ridiculous," but then he spent the next fifteen minutes using the tabs to rock the pop-up characters back in forth in different sexual situations. His favorite was the spread of pages that explained the Mile High Club. He made the male passenger's hips batter the stewardess, who was wearing fishnet stockings and too-red lipstick, over and over and over and over. "Ha," he said.
"When was the last time I told you how much I love America?" he asked.
"Five minutes ago," I said.
"Well, it's time again. I love America. I love it a lot."
I made him omelets. I brought him beer. I poured him wine. He did his laundry and watched French television and soccer. We got drunk and watched So You Think You Can Dance, and I tried to explain to him that this was the second time that SYTYCD had a contestant who looks like a boy from my past. This season, every time Legacy steps onto stage my head feels like it's going to fall off because he reminds me so much of this boy it's overwhelming.
"What do you think of his partner?" I asked. "Do you think she's pretty cute? Would you do her?"
"Does she have a pulse?" Josh asked.
Later, he downloaded the new Bone Thugs song and played it over and over and over. He played it on our way to the Chinese restaurant, on the way to Freeport, where he wanted to buy new pants, and on our way to Portland.
"How much do you love this song?" he asked.
I liked it okay, so I told him so.
"Will you listen to it after I leave?" he asked. "Will you listen to it every five minutes? Hey, Jess, have I told you about America and how I love it?"
We got into debates about everything. Josh was argumentative ("I'm not argumentative!" he insisted. "I'M NOT!") and he wanted to debate the word "nice" I used to describe him when he asked me to list his good qualities. He wanted to debate formal grammar instruction.
"YOU ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!" I told him. "WHY ARE YOU BEING LIKE THIS?!"
"THIS IS WHAT I AM LIKE! YOU JUST DON'T KNOW ME!" he said.
"You're right," I said. "Sure, yeah, absolutely. That's it. I don't know you at all. I haven't been your friend for NINE YEARS."
Josh tried to love Abbey. It looked promising at first. He walked through the door on Monday night, let her smell his hand, and then he scooped her up. She let him kiss and hug her, and when he let her down she threaded through his legs. After that, though, things got rough. There was hissing. There was growling. There was swatting.
"This kitten is a bitch," Josh said. "I hate her. She's cute. Why doesn't she like me?"
And the thing is, I don't know.
3.
My mother, my brother, and my brother's girlfriend are coming to Maine for Thanksgiving. I'm throwing the celebration. This makes my brother pleased and excited. He's been promised lots of Freeport outlet shopping on Black Friday, and he's been promised unlimited lobster rolls.
Today I texted him--you don't ever call my brother because he's bad about both answering the phone when he sees it's someone other than his girlfriend, and he's equally bad about returning phone calls that were placed by anyone other than his girlfriend--and I asked him if he wouldn't mind so much going to the liquor store and bringing me a whole bunch of New York state wines when he comes.
Sure, he texted back. I'll do that. So, what's new? How's the man situation?
Ish, I said. Well, I mean, I don't know. I've been on a few dates with one guy. He's nice. He's a singer.
Woah boy, my brother said. My gaydar just went off. And does he love Will and Grace too?
Very helpful, I said.
1.
My kitchen is covered in flies--fruit, not fire or anything else interesting. They arrived one morning after my friend Emily and I had another Martini Sleepover. We got drunk on raspberry bellinis. We stayed up late watching Project Runway and talking about ex-boyfriends who got fat. I didn't clean up any of our sticky cups or empty champagne bottles or bowls of apple crisp. When we woke up the next morning, there were flies bring their luggage into the kitchen, setting up house in the caps still sweet with vodka, the glasses still red with raspberries. They haven't left since. I've tried different things to kill them. I've tried to kill them by clapping them between my hands--I'm surprisingly good at this, and it's surprisingly satisfying to see the crooked wings flat against my palms--but that's slow-going, and they're reproducing faster than I can kill them. I've put out saucers of sweet-smelling soap, hoping they'll get stuck in the thick liquid. I've chased them down with a bottle of hairspray, releasing long streams that make them slow and dopey, but not dead.
2.
I drove the two hours down to Boston on Monday night to get Josh. He'd been in France, teaching English and missing America, and he came home because he couldn't stand it anymore. He'd taken to buying beer and standing on the urine-soaked corner the bums gathered on. He'd been eating a lot of French hotdogs and drinking a lot of cheap wine. He couldn't find a second job that would bolster his meager finances--after all, a guy doesn't make too much teaching English to fifteen year old French girls who use their English to ask, "Can you take us home with you?"--and he was sick of being stuck in the middle of nowhere, his only friend an Irish guy who'd knocked up a French girl and was thus stuck in France with his own bunch of students.
So he came home. And as I rode the escalator down to the International Arrivals section of Logan Airport, I felt like I was in the opening scene of Love Actually. I scanned the crowds of people tugging suitcases through the gate, and on the other side of the room I saw Josh, the boy who, when I dream of him, arrives as Conan O'Brien ("Seriously, that kid looks just like Conan!" Emily's brother said after we'd all had martinis at the darkest basement bar in all of Portland, the best place to carry on illicit love affairs), and I started running toward him. We hugged.
"I love America!" he said.
For the next few days, I'd spend my time trying to entertain him. I handed him the pack of sex flashcards Diana had sent me. "These are stupid," he said, but when he got to MISSIONARY POSITION he laughed and turned the card toward me. On the front a man in a tuxedo was leaning close to a woman with close-set curls. The caption said Let's start with the missionary position and go from there. He also liked FELLATIO (After fellatio, he was putty in my hands!) and CUNNILINGUS (You may have heard about me--I specialize in cunnilingus).
The next day I handed him The Pop-Up Book of Sex, another gift from Diana, and he said, "This is ridiculous," but then he spent the next fifteen minutes using the tabs to rock the pop-up characters back in forth in different sexual situations. His favorite was the spread of pages that explained the Mile High Club. He made the male passenger's hips batter the stewardess, who was wearing fishnet stockings and too-red lipstick, over and over and over and over. "Ha," he said.
"When was the last time I told you how much I love America?" he asked.
"Five minutes ago," I said.
"Well, it's time again. I love America. I love it a lot."
I made him omelets. I brought him beer. I poured him wine. He did his laundry and watched French television and soccer. We got drunk and watched So You Think You Can Dance, and I tried to explain to him that this was the second time that SYTYCD had a contestant who looks like a boy from my past. This season, every time Legacy steps onto stage my head feels like it's going to fall off because he reminds me so much of this boy it's overwhelming.
"What do you think of his partner?" I asked. "Do you think she's pretty cute? Would you do her?"
"Does she have a pulse?" Josh asked.
Later, he downloaded the new Bone Thugs song and played it over and over and over. He played it on our way to the Chinese restaurant, on the way to Freeport, where he wanted to buy new pants, and on our way to Portland.
"How much do you love this song?" he asked.
I liked it okay, so I told him so.
"Will you listen to it after I leave?" he asked. "Will you listen to it every five minutes? Hey, Jess, have I told you about America and how I love it?"
We got into debates about everything. Josh was argumentative ("I'm not argumentative!" he insisted. "I'M NOT!") and he wanted to debate the word "nice" I used to describe him when he asked me to list his good qualities. He wanted to debate formal grammar instruction.
"YOU ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!" I told him. "WHY ARE YOU BEING LIKE THIS?!"
"THIS IS WHAT I AM LIKE! YOU JUST DON'T KNOW ME!" he said.
"You're right," I said. "Sure, yeah, absolutely. That's it. I don't know you at all. I haven't been your friend for NINE YEARS."
Josh tried to love Abbey. It looked promising at first. He walked through the door on Monday night, let her smell his hand, and then he scooped her up. She let him kiss and hug her, and when he let her down she threaded through his legs. After that, though, things got rough. There was hissing. There was growling. There was swatting.
"This kitten is a bitch," Josh said. "I hate her. She's cute. Why doesn't she like me?"
And the thing is, I don't know.
3.
My mother, my brother, and my brother's girlfriend are coming to Maine for Thanksgiving. I'm throwing the celebration. This makes my brother pleased and excited. He's been promised lots of Freeport outlet shopping on Black Friday, and he's been promised unlimited lobster rolls.
Today I texted him--you don't ever call my brother because he's bad about both answering the phone when he sees it's someone other than his girlfriend, and he's equally bad about returning phone calls that were placed by anyone other than his girlfriend--and I asked him if he wouldn't mind so much going to the liquor store and bringing me a whole bunch of New York state wines when he comes.
Sure, he texted back. I'll do that. So, what's new? How's the man situation?
Ish, I said. Well, I mean, I don't know. I've been on a few dates with one guy. He's nice. He's a singer.
Woah boy, my brother said. My gaydar just went off. And does he love Will and Grace too?
Very helpful, I said.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
I Want to Be Taylor Swift When I Grow Up
Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes
If they put that song on iTunes, I'd buy it in a hot second.
If they put that song on iTunes, I'd buy it in a hot second.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
A Conversation with One of My Favorite Creative Writing Students
Me: Keep going. It's good to challenge yourself in this way. Writing poetry in form is a whole new experience for you, but it's a good one.
Student: Ohhhhhhh.
Me: Ohhhhh what?
Student: I can already feel this sestina making me a better person.
Me: Damn right you can.
Student: Ohhhhhhh.
Me: Ohhhhh what?
Student: I can already feel this sestina making me a better person.
Me: Damn right you can.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Sleepless
Still no sleep.
I haven't slept right in two weeks now. Either I go to bed and stare at the ceiling all night--because I can't shut my head up (You're a bad teacher! Your students aren't learning anything! This semester is rotten! No one will ever love you! You're ugly! You're a bad kisser! You're a snob! You're mean!)--or I manage to fall asleep but dream that I'm awake and can't fall asleep.
I am so exhausted.
I haven't slept right in two weeks now. Either I go to bed and stare at the ceiling all night--because I can't shut my head up (You're a bad teacher! Your students aren't learning anything! This semester is rotten! No one will ever love you! You're ugly! You're a bad kisser! You're a snob! You're mean!)--or I manage to fall asleep but dream that I'm awake and can't fall asleep.
I am so exhausted.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
What Kind of Semester It's Been
(1.)
I caught five plagiarizers in the last batch of essays I read. Five. One of the students, I guess somehow thinking I wouldn't notice that overnight his writing turned from what I would loosely describe as "bad" into something of witty, charming, and publishable quality, copied (WORD FOR WORD) several sections of a book into a blank Word document, slapped his name on it, and turned it in.
"I'm bad at acknowledging sources I've used," the student said. "I'm a bad paraphraser."
I narrowed my eyes. "Rule one," I said. "Don't copy and paste an entire book and hand it in with your name on top."
(2.)
You know it's bad when I call the Wily Republican and say, "Can I ask you a question?"
You know it's bad when that question is, "Did I ever teach you anything? Like, anything at all? Did I teach you anything about writing that will remain with you for the rest of your life? Did I in any small way help you?"
You know it's bad when he says, "Yes! Yes, of course!" and I say, "Okay. Fine. Thanks. That's all. I just needed to remind myself it's possible. Goodnight."
(3.)
This semester I've been utilizing electronic discussion boards an awful lot. And my students? They've been abusing them. Here's a sentence that represents the content they'll slap online:
i think my farther is won of the greatest people ever,,, i want to write a profilee on hym. im going to concentreat on dyfficultes he.
That makes my eyes want to bleed. That makes my brain turn to liquid and quiver near the edge of my skull, poised and ready to leak out my nose and ears.
Still, still, still I started the semester giving my students polite reminders about the professionalism of their prose--even the prose they are creating for online discussion boards.
"Treat this as seriously as you treat the essays," I said. (Of course, this motivational speech was flawed on my part; see also: #1.) When that didn't work, I sent out a stern e-mail reminding them that their grades--which were poor to say the least--were reflecting the level of attention they gave to the discussion board posts. And when that didn't work, I sat them down and had a Come to Jesus talk with them. And yet the two discussion boards I read this weekend showed absolutely no capitalization (which we learn in elementary school), no apostrophes (which we learn in middle school; which I re-taught in college), and no end punctuation (which we learn in elementary school).
I decided to try one more (one last) technique to get them to take this seriously. I enacted the "Automatic F Policy," which states that if a student's post features even one sentence without a capital letter at its beginning, one sentence that doesn't have end punctuation, one sentence that has a lowercase "I," that discussion board post is going to fail--no matter how good its ideas might be.
"Holy shit," one of my students said. "You're mean."
"You're right," I said. "I am mean. I am the meanest girl who ever lived."
(4.)
I want to save these kids.
I can't save these kids.
I can't even come close.
(5.)
Today in class I was talking about how to bring source material into an essay in an elegant and smooth manner. We were discussing quotation and summary and paraphrase, and I was reminding students that changing one or two words in an original source and passing it off as a paraphrase is actually plagiarism.
"Yeah, but how would you ever know that we'd done that?" one of my students asked.
"Because," I said, "I know what you guys are capable of. I know your styles. I know you how punctuate and structure sentences. When your style and structure and punctuation is suddenly completely different--and generally perfect--what do you think my first thought is?"
"And what's the penalty for plagiarizing in a paper?" this same student asked. Maybe he was weighing his options. Maybe he was wondering if he should take the chance, give it a go, see if I could really suss the plagiarism out, and if I did, well, then so be it, and he'd take the penalty, but only if it was something reasonable. And he wanted to check on it.
"You tell me," I said. "It's on your syllabus."
"YOU FAIL," another of the students (bright, sweet, kind) said. Her tone suggested that she was as tired of this line of discussion as I was.
"I fail the course?!" the first student asked, horrified.
"THE PAPER," the second student said. "YOU FAIL THE PAPER. WHICH, YOU KNOW, IS STILL BAD."
"Right," I said, "but if it were up to me, any student would fail the class if he turned something in that wasn't his own."
"That's totally harsh," the first student said.
"That's how it was when I was in school," I said. "I was in an English class with a kid who plagiarized, and he got hauled in front of a committee, then he got tossed out of school."
"And where did you go to school?" my student asked. "A community college?"
"No."
"Yeah, well, there you go," my student said. "Students at community college shouldn't be kicked out for plagiarism. I mean, it's only community college."
"NO!" I said. "COLLEGE IS COLLEGE. You shouldn't be able to plagiarize just because you're in community college!"
"Should too," he said.
"Oh my God," I said. "I think I am going to have a stroke."
I caught five plagiarizers in the last batch of essays I read. Five. One of the students, I guess somehow thinking I wouldn't notice that overnight his writing turned from what I would loosely describe as "bad" into something of witty, charming, and publishable quality, copied (WORD FOR WORD) several sections of a book into a blank Word document, slapped his name on it, and turned it in.
"I'm bad at acknowledging sources I've used," the student said. "I'm a bad paraphraser."
I narrowed my eyes. "Rule one," I said. "Don't copy and paste an entire book and hand it in with your name on top."
(2.)
You know it's bad when I call the Wily Republican and say, "Can I ask you a question?"
You know it's bad when that question is, "Did I ever teach you anything? Like, anything at all? Did I teach you anything about writing that will remain with you for the rest of your life? Did I in any small way help you?"
You know it's bad when he says, "Yes! Yes, of course!" and I say, "Okay. Fine. Thanks. That's all. I just needed to remind myself it's possible. Goodnight."
(3.)
This semester I've been utilizing electronic discussion boards an awful lot. And my students? They've been abusing them. Here's a sentence that represents the content they'll slap online:
i think my farther is won of the greatest people ever,,, i want to write a profilee on hym. im going to concentreat on dyfficultes he.
That makes my eyes want to bleed. That makes my brain turn to liquid and quiver near the edge of my skull, poised and ready to leak out my nose and ears.
Still, still, still I started the semester giving my students polite reminders about the professionalism of their prose--even the prose they are creating for online discussion boards.
"Treat this as seriously as you treat the essays," I said. (Of course, this motivational speech was flawed on my part; see also: #1.) When that didn't work, I sent out a stern e-mail reminding them that their grades--which were poor to say the least--were reflecting the level of attention they gave to the discussion board posts. And when that didn't work, I sat them down and had a Come to Jesus talk with them. And yet the two discussion boards I read this weekend showed absolutely no capitalization (which we learn in elementary school), no apostrophes (which we learn in middle school; which I re-taught in college), and no end punctuation (which we learn in elementary school).
I decided to try one more (one last) technique to get them to take this seriously. I enacted the "Automatic F Policy," which states that if a student's post features even one sentence without a capital letter at its beginning, one sentence that doesn't have end punctuation, one sentence that has a lowercase "I," that discussion board post is going to fail--no matter how good its ideas might be.
"Holy shit," one of my students said. "You're mean."
"You're right," I said. "I am mean. I am the meanest girl who ever lived."
(4.)
I want to save these kids.
I can't save these kids.
I can't even come close.
(5.)
Today in class I was talking about how to bring source material into an essay in an elegant and smooth manner. We were discussing quotation and summary and paraphrase, and I was reminding students that changing one or two words in an original source and passing it off as a paraphrase is actually plagiarism.
"Yeah, but how would you ever know that we'd done that?" one of my students asked.
"Because," I said, "I know what you guys are capable of. I know your styles. I know you how punctuate and structure sentences. When your style and structure and punctuation is suddenly completely different--and generally perfect--what do you think my first thought is?"
"And what's the penalty for plagiarizing in a paper?" this same student asked. Maybe he was weighing his options. Maybe he was wondering if he should take the chance, give it a go, see if I could really suss the plagiarism out, and if I did, well, then so be it, and he'd take the penalty, but only if it was something reasonable. And he wanted to check on it.
"You tell me," I said. "It's on your syllabus."
"YOU FAIL," another of the students (bright, sweet, kind) said. Her tone suggested that she was as tired of this line of discussion as I was.
"I fail the course?!" the first student asked, horrified.
"THE PAPER," the second student said. "YOU FAIL THE PAPER. WHICH, YOU KNOW, IS STILL BAD."
"Right," I said, "but if it were up to me, any student would fail the class if he turned something in that wasn't his own."
"That's totally harsh," the first student said.
"That's how it was when I was in school," I said. "I was in an English class with a kid who plagiarized, and he got hauled in front of a committee, then he got tossed out of school."
"And where did you go to school?" my student asked. "A community college?"
"No."
"Yeah, well, there you go," my student said. "Students at community college shouldn't be kicked out for plagiarism. I mean, it's only community college."
"NO!" I said. "COLLEGE IS COLLEGE. You shouldn't be able to plagiarize just because you're in community college!"
"Should too," he said.
"Oh my God," I said. "I think I am going to have a stroke."
Friday, October 23, 2009
Damn You, Make Me Babies.Com!
So, the other day I was on Facebook, and over in my news feed an odd little picture popped up, and what it was was this: it was a picture of a baby that had been generated when my friend's picture had been combined with another friend's picture.
As soon as I saw that, I knew I had to have my own composite baby. Which meant I followed the link on that picture to the website that made it. Which meant I spent a good chunk of time uploading pictures of all the guys I know so I could plug those pictures in with mine.
In my defense, this was in the name of science. I wanted to know which of my friends (or exes or imaginary lovers) would produce the best looking child. Here are some of the results:
Reaction:Fair enough. I was wrong. If Ryan Miller and I do ever manage to fall in love--which we so should--our offspring wouldn't look as hideously long-faced as previously thought. I think I'd finally be able to tell Keith to suck it; after all, he was the person who said that if Ryan Miller and I ever had a baby, it would come out looking like the Scream mask.
Reaction: I have the feeling that Josh would never allow one of his children to dress up as a duck. I'm fairly certain that when Josh does have kids, he'll dress them up for Halloween as members of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.
Reaction: This one freaks me out. It is eerie in its accuracy. If someone else had combined these pictures and then shown me the result without telling me who the parents were, I'd be able to take one look at that and say, "Holy God, that's the Wily Republican's baby, isn't it? That's what the baby would look like if he and I had had kids?" That kid looks so much like him it's ridiculous.
Reaction: I saved the best (funniest? most disturbing?) for last. Keith and I? Yeah, Keith and I would've had fat, fat babies.
As soon as I saw that, I knew I had to have my own composite baby. Which meant I followed the link on that picture to the website that made it. Which meant I spent a good chunk of time uploading pictures of all the guys I know so I could plug those pictures in with mine.
In my defense, this was in the name of science. I wanted to know which of my friends (or exes or imaginary lovers) would produce the best looking child. Here are some of the results:
Reaction:Fair enough. I was wrong. If Ryan Miller and I do ever manage to fall in love--which we so should--our offspring wouldn't look as hideously long-faced as previously thought. I think I'd finally be able to tell Keith to suck it; after all, he was the person who said that if Ryan Miller and I ever had a baby, it would come out looking like the Scream mask.
Reaction: Sad. You can totally tell this girl is going to grow up to have a uni-brow. My genes and Ryan's genes should just never meet.
Reaction: Apparently New Boy and I (remember him? Oh, who could forget?) would have very rosy-cheeked babies. Rosy-cheeked babies that look like they might grow up to become Jonathan Tucker. I'm not against that.)
Reaction: Apparently New Boy and I (remember him? Oh, who could forget?) would have very rosy-cheeked babies. Rosy-cheeked babies that look like they might grow up to become Jonathan Tucker. I'm not against that.)
Reaction: Hey, look at that. If I'd ever had a baby with the Boy From Work, she would've been cute. And a fan of daisies, apparently.
Reaction: I have the feeling that Josh would never allow one of his children to dress up as a duck. I'm fairly certain that when Josh does have kids, he'll dress them up for Halloween as members of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.
Reaction: See that baby right there? That baby's got the look of a very precocious literary superstar. That's what happens when you combine the genes of a fiction writer and a poet.
Reaction: This one freaks me out. It is eerie in its accuracy. If someone else had combined these pictures and then shown me the result without telling me who the parents were, I'd be able to take one look at that and say, "Holy God, that's the Wily Republican's baby, isn't it? That's what the baby would look like if he and I had had kids?" That kid looks so much like him it's ridiculous.
Reaction: I saved the best (funniest? most disturbing?) for last. Keith and I? Yeah, Keith and I would've had fat, fat babies.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Another Pink Torpedo Wedding
At the beginning of the month I flew back to Buffalo just so the very next morning I could get in a car with the Pink Torpedoes and drive down to Pennsylvania for Anne's wedding. If you're keeping score, that two's Pink Torpedoes down and one more on the way (Steph's wedding is next summer). And if you're wondering what it looks like when a Pink Torpedo gets married, this is as good of an answer as any:
Created with flickr slideshow.
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