I'M DONE! Submitted grades for seven classes. Making the deadline really was not bad this semester, considering that's four more classes than I have ever taught, and the computer crash in March. Now I can focus on re-installing everything on that machine, testing DSL, upgrading Lotus Notes, being able to print from the network again. (It was really hard to finish up the grades without being able to print lists of students, the grading spreadsheets, etc. I hope I didn't make too many mistakes, the students are sure to email me if I have [or even if I have not]).

I plan to do some reflecting on the semester, too, some of it here. Some early thoughts, my day class definitely was impacted by my being spread thin this semester. Some of the students were out-of-control (socially) and I was too busy to make changes in my methods, on-the-fly, during the course.

Overall, students viewed the class very favorably, but I didn't think it was a very good experience. I think there were three students in the class who agreed, and who wound up with "B" when in a different environment they may have received B+ or higher, perhaps even A.

Five of the remaining six classes went really well, and a couple were excellent, in my opinion, sorry it's not humble. The sixth course wasn't a true course, it was an independent study that the undergraduate teaching assistants take to get three credits for being TA. I decided to change this to a one per week seminar next semester, since it went OK with minimal meetings, but I think there should be more TA discussions and accountability, and that would help to make the TAs more uniformly excellent. (Many of the TAs didn't like the idea, and some won't be returning next semester for that reason [others are graduating, or have other conflicts], but having new students is OK with me.)

I had my smallest online class this semester, and I really liked the size (16). It supported the idea that if there is to be group work, small groups (2 to 4 students) really work best. I may try out that size in my on campus classes too. This semester I had groups of 5-7, and that may have been another reason for the off-task socializing in class.

Anyway, speaking of accountability, the school budget votes were yesterday. My Castleton district's passed, no suprise or controversy there. In Samsonville, another no surprise, the budget went down to defeat by a huge margin. That is my taxation without representation district, but it looks like the community didn't need my vote to be heard! (Such fun to have time to comment on the paper's story.)

Last time I tried to use the new blogger interface, my post went to never never land. So, I am trying again, but either there is something wrong, or it is significantly less user friendly than that last version. I don't have time to figure out how to make a link, so I'll just put the URL here and fix it later. It seems like a step backwards.

Here are some more photos of Campus Clean Up Day. I am sort of in two of them. I'm the one raking in the background of both 35 and 36...(and I'm not the young blonde)

Update: I fixed it. There definitely was something wrong. It looks nothing like what I was getting when I logged on last week. The interface is pretty nice looking. We'll see.

Another story about a creep abusing a dog.

Decided not to wait until grades are done. I want to be ready to plant the garden on that happy day. So I called IBM, and they will be here with to install a new hard drive on Monday.

Now that classes (not grading) are over, I have been able to take a few minutes to take care of some other pending things. The technical stuff was all irritating, if predictable and as a result, routine.

I think the XP machine needs a new hard drive. I haven't been using it that much, since my schedule has been too hectic to waste time reinstalling only to wind up with data loss again, but I wanted a faster internet experience yesterday (to answer all those emails from students begging for special treatment, and extensions, and faster turn around on grades, and As). I discovered that it now won't boot, and it is worse than last time. So that is project one, after grades are done.

Then, I got an extension on my free month of DSL, since I have not had time to test it (plus the XP is in no condition, and the 98 machine needs to have space made on the hard drive). So that is project two, after grades are done. Then, during bill paying, I discover that Verizon has already been charging me - and $5 more than the deal was pitched to be if I do take the service! More time wasted on voice mail, and email, and hold.

The school budget votes are soon, so I researched whether I qualify for an absentee ballot in Samsonville. I am registered to vote in Castleton, but since I pay taxes in two districts, I can't see why I would not be permitted to vote on the school board and budget in both places. Well, after wading through the State Ed documents, I think the answer is, I can only vote where I have been a legal resident for 30 days, and I cannot be considered a resident of two places.

How annoying. I can understand the government elections being limited - I should not receive double representation in the Congress or two votes for president, but I don't see how that applies to the school. I believe preventing me from voting for the school district stuff amounts to taxation without representation.

Now, maybe just the pleasure of having two houses should be privilege enough...but the truth is my two fairly humble abodes do not add up in size or value to the majority of McMansions -- even the less grand ones -- that I see in subdivisions everywhere, and that are the minimum expectation for a lot of young couples.

After that frustration...I snuck outside and did some yardwork. The weather doesn't care about crashed hard drives, or exhorbitant phone bills, or unrepresentative school policy, or even grade obsessed (but effort challenged) students. When I came back in, I ordered my seeds and seedlings.

On April 27, I participated in the university's campus clean up day. I worked for three hours in the morning raking and bagging leaves and pine needles. Here are some pictures of the event. I'm not a member of the IT staff -- so I'm not in any of them, but, unless I'm way off (and I don't think I am), the group I was in raked up quite a few of the pictured bags in the 12th and 14th photos. I guess the afternoon crew had time to pose for pictures while they loaded the bags on a backhoe!

My (much edited!) letter to the editor, about this story, is in the current issue of Preservation. (Unfortunately, the letter is not online).

I wrote about the issue before, here.

Last week of classes!

Last night we saw Marisol, the final play of the season at the university. Afterwards, I thought if I had to choose one word to describe it, that word would be "shrill." The performances were strong, the set was excellent, the sound, music, lighting was great. It presented a lot to think about...was Marisol already dead the whole time? Was it a vision the future or the present full of symbolism? It did a good job of displaying the ever-present fear and grittiness of a dangerous, lonely urban landscape. On the other hand, the story was a nightmare. Many of the references to God were offensive, and it left me with a terrible headache - not a migraine exactly, but from tension, frustration and anxiety - one of the back-of-the-head, back-of-the-neck variety. It didn't help that the the theatre felt like it was about 150 degrees.

The audience was 95% students this time, and many were required to go for some class. They had to write a paper, and some were taking notes. I don't think it is a stretch to observe that many didn't care for the play, and that it also may have been "over the heads" of some. That's not intended as an insult, the play was confusing, and I think life experience helps with interpreting it. That's not to say I really "got" it, either. But I keep coming back to shrill. That sums it up.

Anyway, all in all, the theatre department's performances are impressive, and a bargain. After seeing all four shows this year, I am definitely going to get season's tickets next year.

Fountain Day has quieted down. Only four students (out of 39) showed up at class today.

Today is Fountain Day. The din is...deafening. (I know, that is redundant). I think I will have to cancel class.

I am finally caught up! It took my just over a month to recover from the computer crash. Just in time for the end of the semester deadlines...

Actually - I'm caught up for my classes. In terms of things I wanted to do (install and try out DSL, follow up on the Mimmie book) I am still behind. And, there are several tasks I still have to do to be at status quo with the Netvista - I did not reinstall much software.

But it still feels good to have all the student work evaluated.

And, the beautiful weather meant I just had to steal away and do some yardwork.

I'm fuming about this pending bill. (Thanks to ML). Some nitwits have introduced legislation in the assembly that would require dog owners to carry liability insurance. That is the most infuriating part of the proposal, but new orange tags that all dogs must wear proving they are insured is another provision. They have labeled this waste of time "Elijah's Law," for some little kid who was mauled by a Rottweiler. Now, I have all the sympathy in the world for his family, and no patience with people who have mean dogs, but I really dislike the recent years' obsession with plastering some victim's name on all these absurd pieces of legislation (except, that is, the Buster Bill, because it protects animals from abuse). {Is that logical? No...but don't you dare mess with animals.} I also dislike so-called dangerous breed bans. There are no dangerous breeds, just screwed up, good for nothing people.

Anyway, I greatly resent the idea that because some loser owns a mean dog that hurt a child, I have to carry insurance on my dogs, who are never allowed out of my sight, spend their lives in fenced yards, and when we go for a walk - they are always leashed. They are both licensed. They are actually not really child proof - oh, Rudy is good natured enough, but Sophie has too many of her own needs to have patience for kids. But they are not exactly kid maulers either, and they are never around little kids, dog-fearing types and dog haters unless Bob or I are around (actually, they are never around dog haters at all, because I wouldn't spend one minute of my time with such people). I am not going for one more legal scam (insurance), and my dogs are not wearing stupid orange tags. The dog warden can just try to seize them. Make my day.

Well - the bill was referred to committee. Hopefully, there it will stay. I tried to call up the email address for my two representatives - Castleton and Samsonville - and guess what? I went into hourglass never-never land. Of course! Wouldn't want constituent input or anything.

A few days ago, my niece went on a trip to Montreal with 4H, and on the last day, someone stole their van, with all the teens' and chaperone's luggage, etc. inside. She lost many CDs, some clothes, school notebooks, and a scarf that she was almost finished making; my mother recently taught her to knit and this was her first project. What mean, miserable person would rip off the Cornell Cooperative Extension and some kids, I wonder? It is sad for them to be taught a lesson in losing trust, on what should have been a fun experience, one of their first times traveling without family.

On a brighter note, a few weeks ago, a friend of mine in Minnesota asked me to send her a picture of a sign of Spring, as soon as I had one. Well - I've had all sorts of computer problems, a big work backlog, plus not much time to play with my camera, and Spring has been very slow in arriving. But, I have been looking. Last weekend, in Samsonville, I found a bulb coming up - but the camera wasn't handy. The season isn't quite as advanced in Castleton, but in the freezing cold temperatures of Monday, I ventured out to find something. I took a quick picture of some tiger lilies. It isn't a very nice picture, but that is all I could manage. Then, today, the weather is nicer and I saw that the lilac is starting to bud.



Now this is cheating, I'm sure there is this sign of Spring in supermarkets everywhere.

This is irritating. I want those creeps to fry.

I think I will need to catch up on the missed week of work during the break (April 2-8). The weather is beautiful today and the last thing I feel like doing is focus on evaluating student work...but this has been a very busy week and this is the first day I have been able to get to the backlog, so oh well, I have no choice. The computer is still working fine, but I have not bothered to reinstall everything. That's something that will have to wait until break, after I am caught up.

I taught my first graduate class last night, as a favor to a colleague who had to go out of town. It was great, and really makes me want to teach at that level.

My Netvista computer crashed on Monday. It was frozen when I went to use it in the morning and then it wouldn't boot. Nothing obvious was wrong when I ran diagnostics, but I didn't want to reformat/reinstall Windows XP because we have a lot of files on that machine. Were they backed up? Of course not.

I borrowed a Windows XP disk from someone (my recovery disk is on the hard drive, and it doesn't allow anything except diagnostics, or reformat/reinstall) and backed up/replaced registry files, then I managed to get the PC into safe mode. That was 3 am, late Tuesday/early Wednesday. The good news was, all the files were there. The bad news was it wasn't seeing the floppy drive or network, it couldn't get on the internet, or write to the CD drive.

After playing around the next day, I got the floppy drive back. However, I figured it would take about 5000 disks and the rest of my life to copy all the data. So, we went to Staples and got a zip drive. {An aside, it is a neat toy.} I installed that, and successfully copied the files.

Then I reformatted and reinstalled Windows. Everything worked, except for three things (audio, ethernet, sm bus). So, now I have the zip drive plugged into Old Faithful (the Aptiva) and I am downloading the drivers. It is a very (!)slow process over a dial-up connection. I can't believe it has taken me 4 days to get this far, and still I cannot use my cable modem.

I am using my dial-up connection to check email etc., but for my university Outlook account, access that way is slow and unreliable. So I am only responding to the most critical email. It will probably take me another week to catch up on all the work I have neglected.

All in the Timing (the play we saw on Saturday) was great, I think it was the best we've seen this season at the campus.

On Sunday we went to see The Passion of the Christ. It was a wonderful, powerful movie. Something I liked a lot was that it was subtitled, which was so appropriate. It was not at all anti-Semitic, I believe that controversy was generated by people who did not see the movie, or maybe they are anti-Christian/anti-Catholic, or perhaps just plain ignorant. It brought tears to my eyes twice. There were some very violent scenes, and for that reason I was hesitant to see it, but I just averted my eyes a few times. It was not gratuitous violence. My sister remarked that it made her want to read the Bible, something she had not done in quite a while, and it had that impact on me, too. Some have asked, for a non-Christian is it worthwhile to see? I am not sure; I think it may be of interest to someone who is of a different religion, but I am not sure whether atheists would appreciate it. I know some reviewers have praised it on technical grounds, but as it is very much a spiritual experience I am not sure whether it would be appealing to non-believers. Something to think about.

Since I worked so much last weekend, and my classes are in fairly good shape, I managed to fit in some reading for fun: I just finished Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride. No surprise here - a good read, as usual.

Tonight we are going to the third play of the season at the university.

Today, after it stopped pouring rain, I looked outside, and most of the snow and ice were gone, even in the fenced area of the yard, where it lasts the longest. The condition of the yard has been really bothering me -- it always does in the spring. Snow is predicted for tomorrow and Monday - so this was a window of opportunity. I love to do yardwork, but with two dogs, the yard really is disgusting after the winter. I keep up with it in good weather, but once it is freezing, there is snow cover and it is dark at 4 pm, I don't bother.

My annual Spring task is so awful, that a new vocabulary would have to be invented to describe it. I gave it a try last year. I am so relieved to be done, breaking my last year's earliest-ever record. I feel quite accomplished. Ha! Should I add the bullet to my CV? Seriously, Rudy is a good dog, and he deserves a nice yard (not that Sophie doesn't, but she cares less about such things. Rudy is very fastidious).

Anyway, as I worked on my words-are-inadequate-to-do-it-justice task, I was thinking, this might be a good punishment for Martha Stewart. She can come to my house annually each Spring, and apply her vast skills to making turd patrol a "good thing."

Yesterday, Preservation magazine arrived in the mail. I love Preservation, but the cover story really irritated me.

For the record, I oppose the new cement plant. My feelings come not because of the various environmental impacts regarding pollution that are being debated. I don't know whose science is best, and it doesn't matter to me. I oppose the plant because of something aesthetic: the impact on the view of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains from Frederick Church's Olana. (That view is what I use as the logo image on Gully Brook Press - both the actual photograph on the homepage, and the graphic I made from it for this journal). My reason agrees with the viewpoint of the Preservation writer, so why am I irritated?

A few weeks ago Bob and I were talking about another environmental controversy, that in some ways mirrors the tensions generated by the cement plant. In this case, it is the proposed construction of a big resort on a mountainside in Shandaken, Ulster County. We both lean toward being opposed to that project as well. However, I was reading aloud some letters to the editor in the local paper, and Bob commented, "I dislike the corporate opposition as much as a I dislike the corporate support for it," and that really hits the nail on the head for me. The big environmental groups, and outsider opponents to these projects alienate me every bit as much as the big business interests that are pushing for approval.

In the case of Preservation's article, I am not angry that the issue was covered, I believe the publicity is good. I am not against Preservation taking a position opposed to the plant. I think they should be against it. What bothers me is that the article is so slanted - it does not make any effort at all to cover the other side; it is as if the other side was solely the cement company, that no local person or town government official wanted the plant to be built, and that there would be no reason for support. This isn't exactly stated - but supporters are just ignored. I guess Preservation is proud to be elitist.

Yet here are just a few excerpts from other sources that detail the issue is a contentious one, with various and dearly-held beliefs on both sides:

"It is sometimes hard to remember what Columbia County looked like without the red and blue signs now spattered across the landscape, people?s front yards, windows, and storefronts." Joseph A. Brill, Chronogram, 2002.

"...drive through any community near Hudson and you'll see placards in dozens of front yards--red for those against the plant, blue for those in favor." Patrick Smith, Business Week online, July 1, 2002.

"Hundreds of supporters wearing bright blue T-shirts and opponents clad in dusty rose T-shirts, packed into the un-airconditioned gymnasium..." William Tuthill, the Business Review, June 20, 2001

"The petition signature, the bumper sticker, T-shirt or casual comment became shorthand for who you were and what you believed about all sorts of unrelated issues, as if the totality of a person's life could be summarized on a lawn sign. " Editorial from October 26, 2001 Independent.

"Travel any road in the county and you can see red STOP THE PLANT or blue SUPPORT THE PLANT signs on front lawns," Ralph Gardner, Cry them a river, New York Magazine.

The first story, from the Chronogram, is the best of the bunch - it is fair, balanced, covers the issue in appropriate and accessible detail. The Preservation writer could take a lesson from this piece.

On the other hand, I suppose I should be happy that Preservation decided ignoring the alternative viewpoints would be better than using a quote like this one (from Cry Them a River) that characterizes it this way:

"It's really sad," says a local antiques dealer. "Every dilapidated house has a blue sign in front of it. And every beautiful, well-maintained house has a red sign in front of it."

I believe it is ignorant to describe the two sides this way, but I think the perception may hit the nail on the head - Preservation always pays lip service to historic issues that celebrate the lower classes, folks who have been under-represented, and unfairly represented in the past. So how do you champion the romantic Hudson River School, wealthy darlings of the artsy set, without mentioning the less advantaged -- both from those times, and today? Better to hold a hanky over your nose and keep your pinky in the air and pretend to not notice. Ahem.

It was probably better to overlook this view (also from Cry Them a River):

One weekender sees the locals' support for the project as a failure of American public education. "I think we're generally better-educated and more sophisticated than the locals," he says, explaining why they can't see through St. Lawrence's P.R. offensive. "I don't want to discuss the intelligence of the locals; that's terrible. But look at the schools in Columbia County. They're awful.

Now there's a quote that really makes the blood of this here local boil!

Two observations; maybe I just see things in a different way (wouldn't be the only time), but...first, the media's reporting about California passing the bond issues by 2/3 majority as a surprise because not long ago the polls were showing low support strikes me as missing the point. To me it says, wake up. Media often is so biased and out of touch, and opinion polls are not very accurate.

Second, we watched the DVD Beijing Bicycle last night (it was very good). The sleeve of the DVD had a sticker with a brief description. It said something about "a 16 year-old-boy learning the value of sharing." Huh. Could've fooled me. I thought it was about a boy (finally!!) taking charge, growing up, becoming an adult.

On the subject of DVDs -- been too busy to watch very many, but we have seen Pirates of the Caribbean (which was great! And that's saying a lot, because it is not at all my type of movie...in fact - I'm sure Sean Penn was excellent in Mystic River (I didn't see it yet), but I was rooting for Johnny Depp) and Pirates of Penzance (umm...I love live musicals, but it was hard to sit through on DVD). Elephant Man we had already seen anyway, but the DVD was damaged and would only play half (a serious criticism of this mostly wonderful technology).

And we went to the movies to see 50 First Dates, which was kind of sad, but great.

Do you know, I completely forgot. Monday was the two year anniversary of this online journal!