Come quickly, summer of little responsibility!

My semester is finally over. I submitted my last grades today. And within 2 hours I got my first email from a student wanting to know why she got one grade instead of another. I hate that. I don't just hand out grades. I average together their scores on everything and get a number. Then a grading scale tells me what letter that number corresponds to. Normally, it's someone who failed to realize that missing 10+ classes would affect his/her grade. But not this time, no. Because this particular school uses a plus/minus grading scale. So this one was wondering why she got an A- instead of an A. (The top of the scale starts with A, so there's no A+. It just goes: A, A-, B+, B, B-, etc. on down to the F).

In some respects, I like the plus/minus scale. But in others, I hate it. Personally, I think that if we had used it at the college I attended, I would have hated it. I don't like the fact that you could technically earn all A's during your college career, but not have a 4.0, because an A- earns you a 3.7 instead (or something like that). So in some respects, yes, I get this student's frustration because maybe she was trying to make it through college with a 4.0. But on the other hand, why passive-aggresively email me and suggest that somehow, I miscalculated or incorrectly entered it? ("I was wondering if perhaps there was a mistake in my grade, and was wondering why I got an A- instead of an A.) Yeah, there was a mistake in the grade: You got a B on one paper. Grr.

I'm not really mad at the student. I'm mad at the grading scale. And life in general because I cannot ever seem to get through a single semester when I don't have a someone crying foul over a grade that he/she earned.

This is one of the many reasons I have determined this semester that although I do like teaching, it's not what I want to do forever. So, Library Science it is. I'll just keep trying stuff until something fits. Sooner or later, right? I guess when all is said and done, I can always consider a career in retail. [please note the sarcasm]

I'm not really saying anything in this post, so enjoy the nothingness.

The school year is almost over. Two of my three schools are done for the summer, and the last one finishes up next week. I'm looking forward to summertime. Less stress, more time with the hubby who is not going away for 3 months. Yay!

I will be back at KMart, though. It looks like my first day will be the 22nd of May. I'll probably stick around in to the fall, too, as I won't be teaching as much as I was this semester. 2 sections of composition and 1 FYE course at one university, and then my open learning courses at the other. Shouldn't be too bad, especially if my boss is able to put me on morning filling like she said she wants to. I can't say I'm super excited to work in retail again, but I am looking forward to seeing my KMart peeps again. They're good people.

I've made a life decision, and this time, I'm sticking with it. MLIS. That's where I'm going. I'm working on my apps this summer so I can get them top-notch, and then I'll apply this fall for the next year's admission. So this time next year will [hopefully] find me preparing to go back to school. I'm applying to three schools: University of Indiana Bloomington, University of Washington Seattle, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Keep the fingers crossed for me. I need to nail my GRE and personal statements. My grades are good, my recommendations will be good. So if anything's going to keep my out, it will be my first standardized test score since the GRE, and my inability to express what I want out of potential career in Library Science.

Prayers and good wishes come the fall. As for now, I'm going to enjoy my brief break from the madness of teaching college composition.

Once again, This is why Twitter SUCKS. (But Josh Groban RULES!)

Roads diverged in a yellow wood

So it's been a while. In my defense, it's been crazy busy in the world of freshmen composition. Teaching 5 sections of writing means a lot of planning and even more grading. But one of the semesters ends this week, and the other two are in the home stretch of final writing assignments and projects, so there's not a lot to be done on my end at this very second. There certainly will be in the next few weeks, though, when I start getting all of the papers to grade. Joy.

The hubby and I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. A lot of thinking about whether we're ready to start expanding our family. Read: Holly is thinking about having kids. GASP.

I know, I know; those of you who have known me for a while may well be shocked by that statement from the girl who proclaimed for most of her life that she never wanted kids. It's not that I dislike children, I actually think children are amazing little people; rather, it's that I've always felt like I don't have the temperment to be a mother. Truthfully, I feel like I'm too selfish of a person to give up so many things that I LOVE for kids. I'm afraid that eventually, I'll regret or resent having to sacrifice things for those little bundles of joy It's a tough argument to have with yourself because it's one of those things you never really understand until you become a parent. Will the selfishness go away?

I have friends with new children who assure me that it will. But most of those friends are people that have always, always, always known that they wanted to be parents. I'm not like that. There's a lot that I want to do, a lot I want to experience, that would be interrupted by kids, and it would be unfair to them, because they wouldn't have all of me, 100%.

I have a feeling that any of my motherly friends that read this will offer advice and reassurance. Thoughts about how it doesn't feel like you're "giving up" anything, or that you don't have to "lose yourself" to become a mother. But that's not really what this is about.

I see little babies, with their baby-powder smell and big, innocent smiles and I want one. I really, really do. I want to hold that little darling in my arms and wait for the day he/she first utters "Mommy." I want to bandage their skinned knees, bake them cookies on the weekend, read to them at night, teach them to ride a bike, dance in the kitchen with a toddler in my arms to a made-up song I'm humming, knowing that nothing in the world could be more important than moments like those.

I want to be like my Mom. I want to tell them made-up stories about Mickey Mouse when they can't sleep, sing them made-up songs about their lives, hold them when they come home from school crying because some bully picked on them, assure them that everything will be okay. I want that. I really do.

But then there's the logic side of my brain that says. No. You don't want that. How could you want to bring a life into this world, knowing what a mess it is? What if you leave your children in a world that worse than the one you're in now? Can you live with that? What about all of the orphaned or abandoned children in the world, wishing and needing a Mom? How selfish is it to want one that's made from me, when there a millions of kids without love and happiness in their lives?

What about traveling? I wouldn't feel right dumping my kids off on one of the Grandmas, and taking off for 2 weeks to see Europe like I've always wanted to do. That's a non-negotiable goal for my life. I will go to Europe. I will visit Ireland, and Britain, and Spain, and Italy, and Austria, and Germany, and Denmark, and a dozen other places in between. Small children not only would hinder the things I want to do there, but they also wouldn't enjoy the trip to its fullest advantage. I'm not willing to give this up. And I don't want to do it when I'm 50. I want to do it in the next 5-7 years.

And what about school? I'm planning on moving away in the next 18 months, to pursue another degree. I don't want to have kids so far away from my Mom. I need my Mom. I want my Mom around. I don't want to have a baby, and then move thousands of miles away, where my parents and in laws can't see their grandbabies grow up and lose their teeth, go to kindergarden, graduate from high school. I know once we move away from Quincy, we won't move back. The only job for my husband in the area is the one he's got now, and once he leaves, he won't want to go back. And there's not a lot for me here, either. Not in the field I'm choosing. So who knows where I'll be in 4 years.

I'm a point in my life where the path hasn't forked. It's branched into a dozen different paths, all offering some things I want, and delaying or removing others. I'm at war with all of these different desires, some whose pull is so much stronger than others. If I take one path, will I be able to go back to this point, and choose another one? What if it alters so much that I lose something?

There are a hundred different cliches about life. Life isn't fair. Life is an adventure. Life's a bitch and then you die. Life is what you make it.

Life is a map. With a thousand different places to start and a thousand ways to get to a thousand different places. Sooner or later, I'll have to choose a direction, or face ending up in a cornfield. (I live in Illinois, what can I say?)

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Water, water everywhere/Nor any drop to drink.

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I'm struggling right now to choose between pursuing a PhD in English (so I can teach literature) or pursuing an MLIS (to become a librarian). Let's pro/con, shall we? Perhaps this will give me some perspective.

PhD:
The one thing that this can claim heavily in its favor is my desire to teach. I've discovered this semester that I truly enjoy teaching literature. Am I really good at it? Probably not the best. Yet. But that's what PhD programs are for. I like having discussions about books and topics, I like learning from my students when they see things I don't, I like exposing them to writers or books or ideas they might never have encountered. I like hearing, "This is my favorite class," from a math major; and "Is it okay if my paper is too long? I'm going to have too much fun writing this paper." Both of which actually happened this semester. From two students who say they don't like English classes and don't like writing.

The drawback to this is that the market for jobs is abysmal and has been for about 15-20 years. The recession certainly didn't help any, either. Basically, if I do get a PhD, I have about 10% chance of getting a full-time, tenure-track position in the first few years. So essentially, I'd be putting in 3-4 years of hard work to be right back in the same position I am now for at least the first few years of the job search. I don't want to put in the money and time to even apply for programs unless I'm 100% sure this is what I want to do. (Plus, to have a better chance of success after finishing the degree, I'd have to go to one of the top schools in the country. I'm honestly don't know if I'm smart enough to get into them, much less succeed in them.--And that's not being modest. It's a simple fact.)

MLIS:
When I was going in to my junior year at undergrad, this is what I wanted to do. I knew it. I got a job working in the school's library. I applied to one of the top schools in the country. I didn't get in. So I went on to a Master's program in English, figuring I would just apply to MLIS programs after finishing my English degree. Well, I got burned out. I wanted to take time off. And my time off has got me into some serious thinking. It made me think that maybe I wanted to do something else. Am I still interested? Absolutely. I'm intrigued by digital libraries, and reference services. I'd want to work in an educational library. And, if I did, chances are I'd still be able to teach English at least every now and then. Plus, this job market is better. Oh-so-much better. There's a lot of people going in to the field now, but there's a lot of new, innovative job opportunities for someone with this degree. Especially if you specialize in digital libraries.

The con is that I'm unsure. What if I start doing it and hate it? Is that a chance I'll just have to take? Am I willing to essentially jump in blind? Have faith that it will be right?


I've always joked that I've never really "planned" out my life. I've never strategically set goals and made my way to them. I've somehow ended up where I need to be, when I need to be there. Some may call it luck. But I call it faith. I've always asked God to guide where I need to go, and so far, I haven't been led astray. So in addition to thinking about all of this, I've been praying. And many great opportunities have come my way, and most of them, for some reason or another, haven't worked out. But then this semester happened, where I'm teaching the equivalent of overload hours, and I'm loving half of my classes and hating the other half. So what's the lesson to be learned? Is this it? Am I here because this is where my life is meant to go? Or is this supposed to be the trial that leads me to the other path? I try to look, listen, feel what's happening around me, looking for that epiphany. But I feel like I've had an epiphany for each path I've considered. Does that mean I just need to pick one and run with it?

Questions, questions, questions. No answers. Not yet. But I'm waiting. I'm praying, I'm listening.

OMG, this is 2 much

Do any of my friends who read this use Twitter? Because I have to say, I don't get it. I went to the website recently, just to see what it was all about, and my only response: Are you people serious? Are we so me-obsessed that we think people actually want to read about what we're doing every second of every day? Let's not even go into the safety issues of informing the entire world when you're home alone, or not home at all, or when you've lost/broken your phone, where you are and who you're with at all times. That's inviting stalkers with the worst of intentions.

I don't know if I was looking at the wrong thing, but all it looked like to me what a list of complete strangers talking in unrecognizable acronyms about the STUPIDEST things EVER. I do not have a Twitter account. I do not "follow" anyone on Twitter. I'm rebelling against the "microblog" because I think it's about the dumbest thing technology has thrust into our social consciousness.

Top 10 reasons I will never Twitter (or is it tweet? Whatever.)
1. No one, I repeat, NO ONE has a life interesting enough to tweet about. And if they do, they're not wasting their time tweeting about it.
2. I like my privacy. When I draw the curtains in the middle of the day, I want the neighbors to have to use their imaginations and keen observation skills to be able to determine what's going on in my house. Tweeting: "just ate lunch, time for the afternoon delight" just makes it too easy. They'd get bored.
3. It is impossible to express my many varied and complex moods and mental states in less than 140 characters. I'm a complicated woman.
4. If I want to sound off on what a bitch or asshole someone is being, I want the satisfaction of watching their face twist in rage while I'm doing it. Twitter just takes all the fun out of it.
5. On the flip side of that, if everything in life is so awesome that I just have to tell SOMEONE, I'll call my mother. Or my best friend. Or my husband. Or one of my brothers. Or my dad. See a pattern?
6. I like to use full sentences, fully spelled words, and complex, interesting sentence structure. IDK, I'm crazy like that.
7. There are so many things going in my life right now, I'm lucky I have time to remember to do them all, much less provide a minute-by-minute play-by-play of who, what, when, and where.
8. Cyberstalking.
9. Cyberbullying. It's not so much that I'm fearful of this for myself, but rather, rebelling on principle.
10. I already have a cell phone, a blog, a facebook page, a myspace page, email, texting, and good old-fashioned mail. Isn't there enough ways to communicate without needing a site designed to reduce human communication to the barest, fastest form of mass communication with thousands (millions?) of people who don't give a damn? It completely strips the "commune" out of communication. We're not talking to each other anymore, we're talking to machines.

Snowtorious B.I.G.

My friends who remember the 90s will thoroughly enjoy the title reference.

Being a lifetime resident of the Midwest, I'm used to snow. Sometimes large amounts of it. In fact, my Grandpa was from WI, and I remember spending a white Easter at his house. So I pretty much LOVE winter weather and I LOVE snow. Was I prepared for the epic blitz of a blizzard that has been raging for the last 14 hours? Nope. Not at all. But does that lessen it's awesome? Hell to the no.

I'm planning on taking more pics tomorrow, but here's some preliminaries of what we've dubbed Snowtorious B.I.G.:

The view out into the street in front of our house.

The curly drift on the hood of Hubby's truck.

Along the side of the house, to our front porch.


Me, standing in one of the drifts in front of the house.