it’s saturday. only 5 more weeks (six if you count the last week of grading and them coming to me at the last minute with all the papers they missed) of that godforsaken college course i am teaching. i’ve pretty much decided from now on, they are doing all the work, not me. that’s how it should be anyway. i’ve read that if you are working harder than they are, you’re not doing a good job. that makes sense. they should be actively engaged. but my new form of actively engaged is “get out a sheet of paper, write these questions on it, then go here or there, to find the information.” i’m no longer spending inordinate amounts of time preparing and creating all kinds of beautiful worksheets, organizers, etc. most of the time, no one uses them, saves them, or comes to class anyway. and for $145 every two weeks as an adjunct, it’s JUST NOT WORTH IT.

ok. enough of that crapass job talk.

i’m still getting things in order in my other librs. what a complete mess that last person left for me. i’m talking that the books on the shelves aren’t even in order. not just a few here and there, but it’s become clear to me, that in the non-fiction section, he/she never bothered to go past the first three numbers when shelving. as in, all 796 books are shoved in together. none of them are in the right order. same with poetry. same with pretty much every section in non-fiction that is heavily used. it’s clear that the libr before me was responsible for the mess, since it’s so widespread and typically, i don’t have kids pulling out all those books and throwing them back on the shelves. AND i have over 1,000 items overdue. yes. that’s right. stuff dating back to 2003. all this means that this person (and others before he/she) never did a full inventory and never bothered to delete books that were obviously lost. i hope i get to do summer school in that bldg, so i can clean it up. we shall see. but now, my school isn’t in poor standing anymore, so i may not have seniority and may get bumped. just more money lost, that was promised to me.

anyway. just so you know what i’m up against. but my paycheck is serviceable, at last. not what it should be exactly, but i’m in the same boat as everyone else, and the union is working on that. hopefully i’ll get retroactive (ah ha ha ha) when they finally settle it all. i did get my prob letter, finally. i was approved by the bd. so that’s all settled now. between that and my perm certif., i feel much relief. i also noticed since i was approved, they added in my sick and pers. time that i had accrued when i was here before. that was way cool, and i wasn’t expecting it. so a little bonus.

i have a date tomorrow with some guy. we talked on the phone last night for over an hour. very very easy to talk to and he just looked normal in his photo. he’s in his 50’s and a widower. adult kids. cats. loves music. we’ll see. i know better than to really care at all. i keep trying.

tonight i am going to a m–mber’s r–ading, which i mentioned before. i guess i will be reading my poem. they will announce the winner at the end, and i guess there’s an audience fav prize as well. what will be nice, is they’ve put together a book of everyone’s poems, so that will be nice to have. many of the people who have submitted work, are very accomplished. i don’t expect anything, but it will be a nice night, i hope.

of course, we know how i can’t stand the posturing and ego bullshit of these events, but sometimes it’s not too bad. i’ll bring my camera and try to take some photos. i’ve been taking photos, but haven’t bothered to upload anything in quite awhile.

getting my hair done in a little bit. sunny out today. those two things should make me feel better.

peace.