Radio Silence

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Finally, the day comes for me to break radio silence. My last post was on February 5, titled “Are you okay?” and for a while, the answer was mostly no. I know I haven’t gotten that answer back to yes. Maybe it still is mostly no. But I recognize that it isn’t helping me to avoid doing things, like writing here, that just plain give me a sense of satisfaction.

It’s also hard to address an absence. Yes, if you are a friend of mine, I would be glad to hear from you. On the other hand, I don’t want you to worry. I’m not drowning, and I don’t need a rescue. Honestly, lately, I’ve been a not-so-great friend, I’ve been doing far from my best job at keeping in touch with people that I care about. That, too, is a symptom; one that I need to work on changing.

I think these depressive funks we all get into tell us that we do need to change something. Or several somethings. Having been through a year of big changes, it is hard to face more, and it is also hard to figure out what exactly to do. Some problems take time to solve. Some problems you cannot solve, you can only run away from them.

How do I get started doing things? I know to break big tasks into smaller tasks and do one small step at a time. I know the coping strategy of setting a timer for 5, 15 or 30 minutes and getting serious for that small amount of time. The harder it is, the smaller the time period you pick. I still feel myself dragging my feet, sitting and web browsing rather than typing, opening up computer code, scheduling tasks, unpacking, cleaning, chore-doing, etc. Sometimes I can even drag my feet on going to bed.

I’m looking at this post, and I’m not satisfied with it. And you know what? Satisfied or no, it’s complete. I’m about to hit publish, and I hope I can take some satisfaction from that.

Are you okay?

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Yes. No. Yes. I learned a long time ago that when you don’t know the answer to that question, the answer is no. No, I’m not not okay in a way that requires you to do anything about it. But I’m not okay in the sense that I feel far from all right.

I dealt with my students today. I thought I was pretty light on them, all things considered. The first registered his protest but managed to be polite about it. The second, treated much more leniently, cursed at me. We were done at that point. He can talk to my department chair about it. I don’t have to take that from him. I don’t have to take that from anyone. And if he goes in with that to the chair, I’d be willing to bet that he’s going to land in more trouble than he was bargaining for.

Of course, little does he know that I consulted my chair every step of the way through this, from when I first saw it, to deciding what to do about it. I didn’t bother to tell him that.

Dealing with people is hard. Feeling their emotions (especially when they are being blasted at you) is hard. Having to make unpopular decisions is hard.

It’s also my job. To determine what grade a student earned. To determine when something looks fishy and requires a sanction. It doesn’t matter how much integrity or fairness is brought to that process; someone’s going to get angry at you for an outcome that they don’t like. Angry at me.

On the most part, I think I can deal with this, but lately, it’s been too much. Over and over. At something I used to feel like I was good at. And maybe I still am, but I no longer have my reputation preceeding me. The default expectation for female is often pushover, and when it isn’t, that quickly flips to rhymes-with-witch. If, especially as a young woman, you aren’t being called a certain name on occasion, you are probably being far too easy. Or you have a lot more finesse in dealing with people than I do.

It doesn’t feel good. Not one bit. Part of me wishes I could cry about it, but that’s not coming up and out of me. I just … don’t feel okay. No, there’s nothing you can do about it. I don’t need you to help. I don’t need rescuing. I just need to do my best to push through the rest of today, and then to get through tomorrow, and then get through the next day. I know that things come together, then things fall apart. That’s the natural cycle of being. Persevere through this stage, and things will get better again. They’ll get worse again after that, but no sense in worrying about that now. I have enough worries at the moment.

Cutting Corners

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I was grading papers and computer code earlier today. When students’ code doesn’t agree with mine, I wonder why. When it looks nothing like the pseudocode in our book, I wonder where it came from. First hit, Wikipedia. There’s the same code with a few names changed to disguise it.

I’m clear in course policies that copying code is against the rules. It’s printed on every assignment that involves code. Do not copy code. It’s in the syllabus, noting that the minimum sanction will be a zero on the assignment.

On the flip side, you can go from the pseudocode in the book to actual code, and I’ve got no issue with that. That’s what the pseudocode in the book is for.

The first case was so blatant, that it’s pretty obvious what I need to do.

Then there’s the second case. This time the code from Wikipedia was modified to fit in an alternative environment, but it’s still pretty clearly the Wikipedia code, and certainly not the pseudocode from our book.

I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. No, I don’t want to forbid students from looking at internet resources, I think you can learn a lot of valuable things that way. But, if you are assigned to code something we learned about in class, I expect your main resource to be either materials from class or from the book, not copying and pasting something off the internet.

It never occurred to me that I would have to spell that out. Maybe I need to spell that out.

I see an ugly situation in my future. I know I can handle it. But this year has been such a year of handling and struggling. Part of me just wants to hide.

Add to my mistakes: looking myself up on RateMyProfessor. Never got any feedback from Texas A&M. But the complainers are out from my new school. I give too much work and it is *so* hard. I don’t help enough in class, and I have a good teaching philosophy, but I just don’t use it.

Note to self: don’t look at that stuff. Haters gonna hate. Your job is to teach, and to ask hard questions. If you are only asking easy questions, something is wrong with what you are doing.

But another part of my job is to motivate students to want to try and do well. I wish I knew what I could do better at that. On that, I thought this was a good article. Rethinking Positive Thinking.

Painful truth

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Dear Students,

I know I upset one of you today, and goodness knows whether I will upset more of you tomorrow when I actually hand back homework.

The student I talked to today worked very hard and felt he got robbed on his score. Unfortunately, he just got the math wrong. Scores in general were lower than I would have liked them to be. I know I caught some students out — they were not thinking that 2 weeks to do homework means 2 weeks of homework to be done. I know others got caught thinking that if a few problems were easy then they all would be easy.

I don’t know if I’m harder or more conscientious than other instructors. I do know that I believe that all of you can master this material and get it right. I know that I am going to push you to get to that level.

If I tell you that you got something right when you really didn’t, I am leading you into complacency when you are capable of doing more and doing better. I would rather have you angry with me and have you figure out how to make a stronger, better effort to get things right and understand why you are right than have you satisfied with your grade and mediocre at solving problems.

Would you rather believe a pleasant lie or know a painful truth? I have always lived on the side of painful truths. Today feels like one.

Honestly? I want you to like me. I want you to enjoy my class. I want you to learn a lot. I want you to grow. I know that all those things go together. If you hate me, and you hate my class, learning a lot and growing are less likely to occur. But if I have to give you a false sense of the merit of your work to make you like me, that won’t work either.

So, if you get this homework back and you need to be angry with me, I encourage you to be angry with me. Anger at me that keeps you motivated and working is better than anger at yourself that is paralyzing and makes you think, “Why should I even try? Why should I even bother?” Or worse, fall into inaction because of those thoughts.

I am a grown woman, with a strong soul. I can handle your anger.

That said, I hope that I can bring honesty and encouragement and grace and motivation to you. I hope that I can be someone who helps you to believe in yourself. I hope that I can hold you to high standards, and motivate you to hold yourself to high standards and help you see that you are capable of meeting them. Even when the work is far, far from easy.

That’s what I want for you. That’s what I want for me. That’s what I want for this class, and every other class that I teach.

With sincerity, and encouragement, and even, yes, with love,

Dr. Jinx

Discouragements

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The last thing you want when starting a new job is to run into trouble straight out of the starting gate.

My grad class is now down to 2 students. I had 4 last quarter. Both of the students who dropped either are struggling with prerequisites and the material, or struggling with study skills and study habits (or possibly both). I don’t think anythings gone off the rails this quarter; the opposite in fact.

For background see

Instead of having me lecture and them sit passively (since I can’t stop them from being passive), I am having them read the sections and hand in an outline before we cover the section in class. The outline is worth 2 points. You did it is 2 points, you sorta did it is 1 point, and you didn’t bother is 0 points. I discovered quickly that “outline” is a foreign concept. If you are outlining a section that is broken down into subsections with differently colored bold faced headers, then, it seems obvious to me that every subsection must be summarized by at least one sentence. And, if there’s a major formula, theorem, or method of doing things in there, that should definitely get a mention as well. Last, they should put any questions or points of confusion in their outlines. I review these before class and make sure I’m ready to answer their questions.

I’m sure computer science isn’t happy about this. Of course, after they blew off my request to talk about the course over the break and complained to my department chair instead, I am also not so happy with them.

I wonder how this will all figure into the tenure equation in a few years. Meanwhile, I am trying to remind myself to bring my honor to my work. It doesn’t have to be my best work ever, but it has to be an honorable effort. To try not to work too hard, since part of the reason for coming here is to have more of a life. And to enjoy what I can, each day and each week. Our lives are time, and we don’t get redos on the past. In the worst case, I get to look for another job eventually, and there’s a good chance I could get one of those tech jobs I’m supposedly training this group for on the west side, and earn 2x what I am here for doing it. That would not be the end of the world.

I love teaching. I want to do it well. Universe, please help me out here.

Meanwhile, I will remember a favorite quote, “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.” (Mary Anne Radmacher) I will try again tomorrow.

Do I really want to go hiking in freezing rain?

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Freezing rain was expected today. I didn’t sleep well last night. It would have been so easy to text one of my hiking buddies, saying I’m not feeling well.

I got out the door. I picked up the fellow hikers from my town. The drive was cold and wet, and I wondered what I was getting into at the rest stop when it was cold and rainy, and I retreated into the car to warm up again.

Then we arrived and it was not raining, not in the Frenchman’s Coulee (a coulee is a ravine, this one near the Columbia river). I found a geocache. We hiked up a wall of the ravine, onto the rib, and it starts to snow, big, fluffly flakes, and I find a second geocache.

Hiking up the rim, looking down into the coulee.

Hiking up the rim, looking down into the coulee.

Despite my worries, I am warm enough in my rain pants and long undies. We hike the rib, come back down to the road, return to our cars, then drive and hike out to the water fall, where I get to find a third geocache. Good hunting today!

View down to the snowy road from the rib trail.

View down to the snowy road from the rib trail.

The waterfall.

The waterfall.

On the way home, I get a driving lesson for inclement weather, continued as we took an alternate route through freezing rain and slush to pick up a missing cell phone. I should be more confident driving in wintry conditions after this.

Sometimes I don’t want to be bothered, and I think something will be uncomfortable, or maybe not that fun, but on the flip side, if I don’t go try new things I don’t get to see new things.

I’m glad I got myself out the door this morning.

Dogs and responsibilities and consequences

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I’ve been thinking about dogs today. About their owners/keepers. About my Dad.

I think the guy with the dog that ran into my fellow hiker, and who then was reluctant-at-best to leash the dog after she got injured is now removed from the hiking group. I think that’s just. He didn’t come back to help us carry her down. While I’m not a fan of leaving dogs in cars in Texas in the summertime, we aren’t in Texas. It was a cold day; carrying a person down the trail is a hard job even for a sizeable group of people, and the dog could have been left in the car.

That makes me think of my father and the dogs in his life. He had a lady friend with a Boston terrier. I think he liked her better than the dog, but maybe it was a toss up. The Boston had a rough childhood with older dogs that beat up on him, and his attitude toward the rest of the canine world was, “it’s me or you, and I’m getting my licks in first.” He’d attack any other dog without provocation.

Dad would still let him off leash. I know Dad paid several ~$500 vet bills because of “accidents”. He still couldn’t bear to keep the Boston on a leash.

Later, he had another friend with another two dogs, and Dad loved these dogs too, taking them for walks, and again, he couldn’t bear to keep them on a leash. Until one day one of them ran out into traffic, was hit by a car and killed. Dad was sorry, but sorry in the sense of saying so, not in the sense of doing something about it.

I loved my Dad, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t always respect my Dad or like my Dad. To this day, thinking about this makes me feel sick in my stomach. And sad, deeply sad, because I just don’t understand it.

Sad, too, because I realize that one of his legacies is that I have never had a man in my life who has had my back. When the going got tough, I took care of it. I took care of us. Or I took care of me. I shut up and dealt. I didn’t like it, but after all, in my world growing up, men are never responsible for anything. They may be “sorry”, but they aren’t sorry. If I don’t toe the line, if I complain, if I insist then I nag, and I become a harridan like my mother. Since that’s the last thing in the world I want to do, I put up with a hell of a lot of shit.

A hell of a lot of shit.

I wonder if there were good men in my life, and I didn’t recognize them at the time. Or if I picked the best of what I had available to me (after college, never exactly a glut of suitors).

I wonder if I’ll ever find someone again. If I do if I’ll find myself again putting up with a hell of a lot of shit. Whether I will tell it to take a hike. Whether I have finally changed enough that if I let him in my life, that it will be better. If I will ever again find anyone at all.

I try not to focus on loneliness. On feeling unloved. None of that gets you anywhere but a pity party. Focus on the love you want to give, not the love you want to get. It works better that way. But days, some days, today, all of this tastes like ashes, and I want what I wanted, what I still want, and I know I will never get it, and I will have to make do.

And tomorrow I will wake up and make do better than anyone has ever made do before. But tonight, tonight, I am sad for all that was, and for all that is, and for all that will not be.

Wilderness Rescue

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One way to go about having adventures is to just go out and do things. I like to hike. It’s safer to hike with others. Sometimes the best way to learn about the local area is to go with others who know what they are doing. http://meetup.com is one online resource for finding people with similar interests, and it helped me find the group I hike with.

Yesterday, I was out with my hiking group. I think we were about 15 hikers, headed out on a canyon/ridge hike of 4+ miles and back the same. It was snowy and icy in spots, so all hikers were required to have ice traction like YakTrax or similar products.

We also had two dogs, one large one small. The large dog was not under good control, and slammed into a small woman’s calf. Her calf started cramping badly and wouldn’t quit. We thought she’d be able to hike down the trail, although slowly. Several people, including the leader of our group, stayed with her.

Some of us went ahead to see the view, obscured by fog, and to tell the dog’s owner to get the dog on a leash. Even after the accident and several requests he was reluctant to comply!

Great view when it's not so cloudy!

Great view when it’s not so cloudy!

When we got back to the group that stayed behind with the injured woman, we found she couldn’t walk because her leg was hurting so badly. It’s odd how things happen like that, but they do. Something seemingly minor happens and the next thing you know there’s a situation to be dealt with.

Here’s why I want to hike with a group, especially a group better prepared and more knowledgeable than I am. Someone had a portable cloth stretcher (as well as a first aid kit, warmers, etc.) We got her on it, grateful she was small, and with a subset of the group helping carry, we headed down the icy trail.

It took a few readjustments, and our patient, who was not exerting herself was getting very cold. We got some of the insta-warmers on her, and wrapped her in as many down jackets (including mine) as we could.

Icy trails. This is why we require ice traction on hikes. I had YakTrax.

Icy trails. This is why we require ice traction on hikes. I had YakTrax.

We had to switch people from lifting on one side to another, and switch people from carrying to resting to carrying again. I was willing to do more carrying, but ended up doing more resting. I could grip a lot longer with my right than with my left, but even so, I could only do so much before asking to be swapped. I think one of our strong guys was having some back issues after it was all over, and I wish he’d let us know so we could do more swapping around to help with that. I suspect some others might have done the same. Heck, I wanted to do the same, but I have limits.

We were glad when we finally got far enough down to find search and rescue and emergency personnel coming up for us. They we re glad our group was large and could help carry. Their plastic stretcher/backboard was a lot easier to carry than the cloth one was. There were still a lot of stops and starts, as people had to rest and change sides.

I was sorry someone got hurt, but, at the same time, I was glad to be there for the adventure. It was hard work; I am sore today, and I didn’t do all that much. I was glad to be able to contribute to the rescue even if just a little.

Dear Dad, Take 2

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Dear Dad,

I don’t have a letter I need to write you this week. No weaseling, no considering “maybe a postcard, because I’m so busy.” I just don’t have to get that done. Yet here one is.

We haven’t been able to talk over the phone in years. With your dementia and your hearing problems it was an exercise in frustration. That’s why I started sending you a letter (or a postcard) every week instead.

Why is it, then, that I felt a pang of loss walking home that I would never call you up and ask your advice again? Or hear you tell me about the weather and whatever was going on in your life, then have you ask me if I was okay (“Fine Dad”) and then you’d hang up?

I really haven’t been mourning, at least not beyond having a hard time maintaining my focus. Yet right now, there it is, in the middle of my chest, and I don’t know what to do with it.

Aside to write about it. Right here.

Mom died when I was so much younger. Was I 28 years old then? It seems a lifetime ago. There was so much unresolved in my relationship with her. I struggled with her death for months and months, letting go of my unspoken dream of talking her around somehow, having her become a parent instead of an alcoholic. Almost every interaction she and I had over the course of years was fraught with angst, anger and anxiety. In the years before her death there weren’t many of those as I sought to protect myself. I wanted to make her better, and when she died, I had to let go of that dream. It was so, so hard.

With you, I resolved all that. Let it go, on the most part, realized that it was my choice of who I wanted to be with you in our relationship. And I was that, imperfectly, but altogether doing a pretty good job of it.

I think you got off easy compared to Mom. Your crimes were crimes of omission, unlike her active malice an dysfunction. It was easier for you to evade blame with that shrug of your shoulders and the “I didn’t know.” And apologies without action, far after the fact. It was your job to know. It was your responsibility to know. Although I forgive you; although I forgave you years ago, that burden rests on you nevertheless. It makes me sad, thinking about it.

I’m at peace with that. There is, there was no way for me to fix it. Maybe that’s what makes this easier than with Mom. Or maybe grief is waiting around the corner to come after me. I don’t know. I think there will be many corners for me to turn in these next months, and I will see as it happens.

I’m thinking about you, Dad.

I love you, Dad.

I miss you, Dad.

Snow

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It was snowing when I walked to the grocery store. Little tiny powdered sugar flakes. They had accumulated about a cm deep (maybe less) when I went outside at dusk, just to see.

Snow always seems like a tiny miracle. Even when it is inconvenient. Even when I have to clean it up. Little tiny white pieces floating down from the sky.

Snow flakes on a fence (actually from December).

Snow flakes on a fence (actually from December).

Earlier in the day, I went on a hike to a frozen waterfall. It is strange to me that water freezes in the shape of its motion. Or is it that some small part freezes, and then the gradual buildup of more ice around it ends up looking like the fall itself? How does that first bit manage to cling to anything in such a swiftly moving current?

A frozen waterfall.

A frozen waterfall.

There are wonders all around us. We just have to open our eyes to see them. I see some, and I also ask how many it is that I miss?

Perhaps it is enough to see the ones I see.