"Longest flight of my life"

That's quite a statement coming from Ann - who has been travelling all over the world for 20 years.

On Monday I took Mike and her to the Abu Dhabi airport where they boarded the only plane that connects the UAE to Chicago.  It's the flight I have desperately wanted to take since they started it two years ago.  Etihad is known for good service and on-demand entertainment (a huge plus when stuck on a plane for hours).  The problem is that their flight to Chicago takes off at 10:30 AM.  Get a good night of sleep and then get on a plane for a 15 hour 10 minute flight?

Ann said she looked at her watch 4 hours into the flight and thought, "This is never going to end..."

A 15 hour flight is insanely long but I am hoping I like it better when I take it in August.  First, I plan to stay up all night so I'll be plenty tired when I get on the plane and I will take Ambien.  If I'm lucky I'll sleep until we are over Iceland.

I booked my ticket tonight at the Etihad office.  I'll be flying out on August 3 and flying back to the UAE on September 4.

Still pretty giddy

I got up at 5 to take Ann and Mike to the airport and returned to teach my two classes.  I really like my classes.  Like I discovered two years ago there's something incredibly laid back about teaching summer school here.  Today I covered material and went over the syllabus.  I explained to the guys, "The final will be on Thursday, July 28 instead of the following week.  (The following week is the start of Ramadan.   Giving a final to someone who has had no sleep, water or food is not nice.)  BUT, if I find massive cheating I reserve the right to give a second final."

"But what if we all do really well on the final!?!" came the plaintiff cries.  

I replied, "I have been teaching this course for three years.  I know what scores to expect.  If this class does miraculously better you will get a second final and, trust me, I will make it really hard.  Also, I will have multiple versions of the final and assigned seating."

"Sir, why would you do this?"

"Because I have learned a lot in my time here.  I know how much you all want to help each other.  I know cheating is a game to you and it is my job to keep you from doing it."

It may be only day two but since I've had most of these students before they know I am serious about this.  I'm not a hard grader; I just can't stand the cheaters.

Bordering on giddy

Today was with the first day of summer school and I was smiling for ear to ear as I drove to campus.  Then I realized, "Wow, dude, you are strange."

As first days go today went well.

******
Last week I had student come to me to say she had an incomplete from last semester and needed to take the final.  I gave her a make-up exam and went searching for her earlier grades.  I couldn't find her.  I double checked.  I tripled checked.  I assumed I must be reading this wrong because of insomnia.

Today I finally gave up and went to the registrar's office and confessed, "I'm sorry I have no record of this student ever being in my class."  The guy looked up her record and said, "She wasn't in your class.  She in another section.  She came to you because you're the coordinator for the management classes."

I laughed, "No, I'm not..."

For the past two years I've had good coordinators (in other words they turned all the work over to me and I did it - which is what I wanted as a control freak).  My goal when I came here was to avoid anything with a title.  It's finally unavoidable.

*****
Perhaps another reason that I was borderline giddy is that I thought I'd be teaching for six weeks and giving my final in the seventh week.  Instead I'll be giving my final at the end of the fifth week.  Given a few days off for religious/school holidays that means 20 days of teaching and 3 days of exams.

Life is good... bordering on giddy.

Camel milk

I have heard so many horror stories about milk from a camel that I was honestly scared to try it.  My new Emirati friend who goes to school at Iowa State brought me a bottle of camel milk.  I tried it with a glass of grapefruit juice next to it to kill the taste if needed.

It tasted like soy milk.  I'm not a fan of any milk but the students trying scare me was completely unfounded.  I'm happy I tried it but just like with cow's milk, I won't be buying any anytime soon.

Life returns to normal

This is my week off yet I've been at the office every day.  I am finally getting some sleep.  The most remarkable event of the past week:  With 200 students I had only 4 e-mails about grades.  That's shockingly low.  I guess they know I've been here awhile so the pleas of "Sir, plees halp me!" would fall on dear ears.

Also, I flunked more students in this semester than I have in my previous 5 semesters combined.  So I've become a badass and I'm not getting complaints.  It doesn't get much better than this.

I do feel sad (not bad) for a student who first came to the 7 years ago.  She needs one class to graduate and on each of the quizzes she scored between 25 and 30% - which is the score of someone who didn't even read the question but randomly guessed at the multiple choice.  With a final grade of 40% I couldn't give the bump to 60% and a D.  She is/was distraught but the distress came only at the end of the semester - not after failing every quiz, midterm, etc.  I had the same happen more than once in the US and there are at least two people in the US who don't have college degrees because I failed them in their last class.

OK, badass credentials secure.  With that surge of testosterone I feel the need to go shoot something (we have a new shooting range that I haven't visited) or buy a ridiculously large SUV.

An odd semester

I have been teaching a long time and this year was nothing like I would have predicted:  In the fall I had a great schedule (no morning classes, two days on women's campus/two days on mens).  It really doesn't get any better than that.  Yet, my work with internships made it the semester from hell - easily the worst semester since my first semester when I was woefully unprepared for the cheating.

This semester I thought would be hell because I had an 8AM class... six classes... 240 students (about 60 more than normal)... and I discovered that I pretty much couldn't write on any boards in most of my classes.  I had to fundamentally change the way I teach.  I'm an old dog and this was a new trick.

So I thought this would be a horrible semester... but it wasn't.  Teaching women is much easier than teaching guys and I learned this semester that 6 classes of women is much easier than 5 of mixed classes.  I did learn how to teach without writing and the scores did not go down by much so it obviously works.

If it weren't for a month without sleep to end the semester this would have been a great semester.

Twenty-four hours ago I never thought I'd be done by now.  Last night I took an allergy drug that gave me a solid 8 hours of sleep.  I got more done today than I have in the past week combined.

The bottom line is that I am done.  Yippee!

Just shoot me now

All things considered, finals week has been going pretty well.  I have a lot of grading to do in the next 48 hours but all the testing is done and there were no major problems.

The accumulated lack of sleep, however, continues to take its toll.  Today I basically accused a friend of stealing from me.  I immediately realized that was crazy and apologized but he is justifiably hurt that I could even say such a thing.  "I am not myself; you know that!" I implored.  I am so not myself.

Ugh.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  In 48 - 72 hours I will be done with a week off before summer school.  I will get through this.  I just hope I get through this and still have some people willing to talk to me.

Sleepus interruptus

Sleeplessness is torture.  I have never had a 4 week period with less sleep than I have in the past 4 weeks and the effects mental and physical.  Last night I was asleep by 11 thanks to Ambien, no caffeine all day and exhaustion.  At 11:45 I received a call from a colleague panicking about the exam we were giving at 6PM tonight. 

I got up, made all the changes she requested and - thanks to Ambien - I have absolutely no memory of doing it.  When I proofed it this morning I found only one error, which is pretty amazing considering that one time on Ambien I thought it was a good idea to turn my couches towards the walls.

I have become extremely irritable and I am constantly on the verge of tears.  

On Monday, I am 100% done.  One way or the other I am DONE.  

Wow.  Just typing that and knowing what all I have to do between now and then brought me back to the verge of tears.

The blog is a luxury for the times when I have a few more active brain cells.  I have had a lot I have wanted to write about but it's just not going to happen.  

Apparently gays and blacks like to pay too much to their phone companies

I support federally funded political campaigns.  Both Republicans and Democrats go hat-in-hand to large corporate donors and, well, that's paid off for AT&T.  Their proposed merger with T-Mobile is bad - really bad - for the consumer.  The result will be a virtual duopoly between AT&T and Verizon and the loser will be the rest of America.

Imagine if AT&T had never been broken up.  I can't fathom what cell phones and the internet would be like if AT&T had maintained a monopoly.  We'd probably still have this:

Sadly, the years of competition are coming to an end.

The title of this post comes from the story in the Politico that the NAACP and GLAAD (gay-rights group) have both come out in favor of the merger.  They both said it had nothing to do with the donations they've received from AT&T over the years.

Of course not!

Graduation 2011

Fall 2008 - my first semester teaching here - was ugly.  Between the cheating and the male students' inability to be quiet in class I questioned if I had made the right decision to move here.

There were a few students from that very first class who made it all worthwhile.  And now they are graduating:

 As I came to know Leon I said, "Your face is not what I picture when I think of a 'Leon.'"

"I know, sir," he replied, "it's a common name for a black guy in the US, right?"

Abdelrahman and Admed were also part of the first semester.  Abdelrahman is a 100% aviation geek.  Having worked at airports for four years I have never met anyone with a greater knowledge and interest in all things flying.  His major?  Accounting.  I keep telling him to pursue his dream and go into aviation but he wants to play it safe... and given the economic climate I don't blame him.

Noticeably absent were the students who made my life hell.  Either they chose not to attend or maybe they flunked out somewhere between then and now.  Either way, the group I did get to see is a group I will miss.

Also in this picture - first person kneeling on the left - is the guy who wrote "bin Laden is a hero" and tagged me in the picture.  He keeps promising that we'll talk about it someday but I am not holding my breath.

Weiner-gate

I don't understand politicians.  How can anyone with as much on the line as a congressman be thinking with his, umm, Johnson.  Conservative, family values Senator Vitter of Louisana likes the prostitutes.  A Senator from Nevada (also of the family values claims) had his parents attempt to buy off the husband of his lover.  Mark Foley had an anti-gay voting record while asking male pages on Facebook, "So what are you wearing?"

Such impropriety is hardly partisan, as the slowly erecting growing story of Congressman Weiner proves.  And I don't think any politician of the past decade can top the chutzpah of John Edwards.  His wife is dying of cancer and he's planning a wedding with the woman carrying his child while planning a run for the White House???

There is one politician who fell to a sex scandal in recent years that I genuinely feel sorry for:  Mark Sanford.  He was an up-and-coming Republican governor with Presidential aspirations.  He was not a guy who couldn't keep his zipper up; he sincerely fell in love with a woman who was not his wife.  Before publicly confessing he told his wife and even had (what had to be terribly awkward) conversations with his father-in-law.

Somehow Mark Sanford seems like a much more ethical guy than the rest of the lot.

A fool and his money?

I do want more Coke mugs... but not so bad that I would pay $50 for one!

This ebay listing offers one of the mugs I like for $50 + $6 shipping.  Remember, these used to sell for $.88.  I wish the seller luck.  It costs virtually nothing to put an ad up on ebay and all it takes is one desperate Coke collector with deeper pockets than me.

Meanwhile, another is offering a set of three of the mugs with a price (including shipping) of $20.

The top seller may look like a fool for trying to sell for such a high price... and the odds are good he'll get no takers... but all it it takes is one person with money and impatience.

Broken mugs

Behind popcorn, my favorite items from home are my Coke mugs.  It's been a bad year for the mugs.  Two had a tragic, shattering death like this one.  Four more have developed cracks.  I've been trolling ebay and finding the right ones are hard.  And scalpers are asking $10 each (Wal-mart used to sell them for 88 cents.)  I hope I can replace them before I come back here in September.

Engine fire

Imagine you are on a plane.  You book a seat on the wing.  The flight takes off late in the evening.  Less than an hour into the flight there is an explosion and the engine right out your window is in flames.

That's what happened for a friend of mine returning from Canada three nights ago.  She made it back to the UAE safely and I had a chance to talk to her today.  The good news?  She slept through the scary part.  She didn't hear (or feel) the explosion.  She woke up shortly after and the person next to her was terrified beyond wits end - he saw the flames shooting out of the engine - but by the time Doris woke up the plane had descended and headed for the nearest airport.

She also learned that this is the reason why the trans-Atlantic trips go over Greenland/Iceland:  Two engine planes can fly safely on one engine for 90 minutes.  To fly directly over the Atlantic would put them out of reach of an airport in an emergency.

I actually found this very reassuring.

A sign of the times

Last week Kaplan, my former employer, laid off almost 800 teachers across the country.  A friend of mine was in the group.  She e-mailed:

"I met two students at the unemployment office yesterday.  Last week I entered their final grades and yesterday we helped each other fill out the unemployment forms.

In a tough economy education is usually counter-cyclical - meaning as the economy goes in the tank more people see a need to return to college.  Why enrollment is down so much at Kaplan is a mystery to me.  The commercials are much better than they were when *I* worked there!  I hope my friends enjoy a break on unemployment and that things pick back up and they are hired back before it hurts financially.

I will make it up to you

McGyver returned with a couple of guys to buff my floor.

 He also repainted my ladder to cover all of the paint stains.  He fixed a few other mistakes and did his best to put my pug back together.

He didn't charge me anything for this and I knew offering money would be somewhat of an insult.

Now I feel guilty for yelling at him.  Salem (McGyvor) is one of the greatest people I have met.  He and his crew screwed up but they didn't deserve to be yelled at.  They get treated badly by almost everyone in this world and didn't need more from me.

Political thought of the day

Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin both running?  It's becoming easier to picture Mitt Romney walking up to the podium at next summer's convention and saying, "I accept your nomination..."

Update:  No, I don't really think she'll run.  She's too much like Trump but to the degree that the nut-cases coalesce around Palin and Bachman it takes away energy from upstarts like Herman Cain and removes all the oxygen in the room for Pawlenty.  (Why?  The reasonable/establishment Republicans will be scared of Palin/Bachman/Cain.  They will concentrate on whoever won't sink the ship in the general election.  Increasingly, that looks more like Romney.)

Anyhow, I love the start of this race...

Sleep!

Oddly, it took a paint job I'm not happy about to get me to sleep.  In the past 24 hours I have had 8 hours of sleep.  That is more than twice I've had in any 24 hour period in three weeks.  Yippee!

Last night McGyver's crew came to paint.  They arrived at 6:30 and his two guys went to work.  McGyver left for other projects.  I considered that a late start and I told McGyver, "I am willing to pay extra.  I really want a quality job."  He relayed the message to the guys.  He came back around 10.  At midnight they said, "Halas" (we're done).  There was paint all over the floor.  There was paint on the doorways.  

I went ballistic.  I pointed at all of the problems.  The four of us spent the next half hour cleaning and it was in decent shape by the time they left at 12:30.  I know they said, "Halas" because it was late and they wanted to go to bed -- but it wouldn't have been so late had they arrived at 4:30 as they said they would.

I was upset enough I knew I wouldn't sleep and I didn't.  I finally fell asleep around 3.  I woke up at 7 and took another look around.  I saw the guys had broke my Pug figurine and carefully tried to hide it.  I was furious.  I sent McGyver a text saying, "Tell your guys the broken dog makes me even more sad.  I am so sorry I hired you for this project."  

I knew I desperately needed more sleep so I took an Ambien and headed back to bed.  Ten minutes later my doorbell rang and it was McGyver.  I have no memory of our conversation; that's the effect of Ambien.  I do know I told him I took a sleeping pill so talking to me now is a waste of time.  I called a friend who speaks Arabic to translate why I was so angry and explain what a  sleeping pill was. McGyver's first language is neither English or Arabic - I'm not sure what it is - but he understands Arabic better than English.  Also, I told my friend, "Call me later and tell me about this because there's no chance I will remember any of it."  

I woke up at 1 and my world looks very different.  

At the very least, my hallway looks different.  Neither color turned out quite like I thought it would.  I can see a repainting in the future but I'm not sure I want to to do it anytime soon.

How is all of this good news?  The painting fiasco gave my mind something else to fixate on besides fears of disasters back home.  That (+Ambien) allowed to get the first real sleep in weeks.  

So here's the hallway:

The black was supposed to be charcoal.  The orange was supposed to be more caramel.  As it is I feel ready to throw a Halloween party.

Decisions

I have five days off between the end of the semester and the start of summer school.  I had planned to go somewhere because I have a new Etihad airline credit card and I want to break it in.  (Also, I got bonus miles by booking and flying soon.)  Ann is pushing Beirut.  Other options are back to Nepal or Sri Lanka.  I've pretty much ruled out Egypt.  Often airfares get jacked the closer you get to departure.  I pretty have to decide by Monday - two weeks before I'd be making the trip.

The alternative is to go nowhere and try to sleep.  Right now that looks like the best vacation ever.  Assuming, of course, I am able to sleep.  

Painting

McGyver's crew is here painting my hallway.

 An interior design friend helped me pick out the colors... it will be interesting to see the colors work.  The good thing here is that if I don't like it I can pretty easily have it changed.

The quality so far is not inspiring.  I have faith they will get this cleaned; they always do...

It could be worse

In the first two days of registering for summer school my two sections filled quickly:  30 males, 30 females.  I knew they would lift the ceiling and my class size would grow.  

I had no idea they'd lift the ceiling to 50.  And they both filled immediately and there's a waiting list on both campuses.  I don't think it's because I'm that popular.  I think it's because there is so little being offered.

On the boys side it might be something similar to popularity.  What would you call it if they all sign up for your class to avoid taking it with someone else?  

I will be happy to be back teaching both men and women, but 50 guys in one class?  And I will see them every day for five days a week?  I'm gonna wanna kill them.  A friend told me having a third child was exponentially harder than having two.  He said, "It's like there's some negative synergy.  They take turns distracting us so one is free to do bad things."  In teaching the shabab I've learned that just under 40 is the manageable number.  At 40 class is mayhem.  It is inevitable that I will scream at a class of 45 - which I've had 45-47 several times.  But 50?  Well, 50 is the undiscovered country. 

In my outlook on the world I always look for the ways things could be worse.  This time it is easy:  A friend back at Kaplan informed me that enrollment is down and teachers have been laid off.  One of my former colleagues had over 25 years seniority and was let go last Friday.  Twenty-five years of loyal, faithful service -  and still doing a good job as a teacher - and she got laid off.  Another with close to ten years was let go.  

A quick look at the financials for the Washington Post (parent company of Kaplan) reveals the reason for the layoffs:  Revenue in the past 3 months fell and profits vanished.  Rather than determining how to deliver a quality product it is not surprising that they have chosen spending cuts.  The short-sighted nature of many American businesses makes me sad.  

*****

Of course, June 1 will always be a hard day for me.  It's been 14 years since Doc's passing and there's not been a single day out of the past 5113 days that he hasn't been on my mind.  I really hope they allow poker in heaven.