Inevitable

Each semester I have one class that is my "unfavorite." This time, the dislike I feel is far greater than usual. For a really stupid reason, I agreed to teach a section of freshman composition at 7 a.m. My dean passed out spring term schedules at a department meeting I neglected to attend, and when I found mine in my mailbox the next day, I felt that I couldn't complain as I had intentionally missed the meeting. I didn't want to compound the bad karma, so I decided to suck it up and teach at that early hour.

The class wasn't a punishment. I happily teach at 8 a.m., but this semester the college abolished that start time, which means classes now begin either at 7 or 8:30. Connie moved what would have been my 8 a.m. class to 7 a.m., probably because I have never complained about the 7 a.m. class I always teach during one of the summer's short semesters. Getting up at 4:30 is fine for five short weeks, 20 class meetings total. But during a 15-week semester, it's hell. I have to reset the alarm every evening because my Monday/Wednesday schedule doesn't require leaving the house as early. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and can't remember if the next morning is a Tuesday or Thursday, which means I must get out of bed to confirm the day and correct alarm time. I leave the house in the pitch dark, hoping I don't miss a stair and crack my head open on the front sidewalk, and then get to play "Near Miss" with the drunks who are still on the road.

But I am a professional, so my attitude is the same for the 7 o'clock group as it is for my later classes. I don't bitch about the time, just get down to business. Although I am awake and fully functioning, many of the students are not. Two distinct personalities comprise the class: the mature, responsible folks who registered for a 7 a.m. class because that time fits their schedule, and then everyone else who was "forced" to take it because no other section remained open. In this last group, I have the lifelong procrastinators, the slackers, the oversleepers. I passed back a quiz today: 9 students earned As; two not-so-bright hardworkers got Cs; the other half of the class made Ds and Fs. The line of demarcation is clear.

Now I am not about to start complaining that malcontents are walking in late. I don't allow students to disrupt the rest of us with their tardiness, so they are in class on time but resentful. And I'm not going to whine that they are sleeping either. They get one polite warning after the class they slept through [I'm not a fan of public humiliation]; then I just mark them absent and eventually withdraw them for "nonattendance." I guess my dislike for this group is the high number of students with crappy attitudes. Every class has a handful of poor performers. But I am a really good teacher, usually maintain everyone's attention with interesting and meaningful material [no small-group bullshit or in-class busy work], and the handful of slackers who do register for a class with me either get peer pressured into becoming at least decent students or withdraw.

Fifty percent of this 7 a.m. class, however, doesn't want to learn. I am trying to ignore their presence, their palpable dislike for everything we do, their sad attempts to look awake while they zone out, for the other half of the room includes people who have their notebooks open before I arrive and are attempting to become better writers. But I am finding it hard to keep my focus on the good students. I am used to enthusiastic people concerned about the course content [or at least their good grades], so half a class of malcontents who shrug indifferently at yet another D or F is really getting on my nerves. There is an unspoken tension in the room between those who are "too cool for school," who look on disdainfully at anyone who bothers to take notes, for example, and everyone else.

I'm really at a loss as to what I should do. I imagine that as the weather warms, they will drop like flies, preferring a trip to the beach or an extra hour in bed to their complete boredom in my class. I am used to finishing with most of the students who start the semester, but this group of losers can't withdraw soon enough, no matter what lousy retention numbers I have at the end of April.

Today officially marks the halfway point, the end of week 7 in 14 weeks of instruction. I have 14 more energy-sucking mornings before I never have to see this particular sea of faces again. When I spot these students as individuals in the hallway, I will regret that the good ones didn't have the typical Professor Lightbulb experience that is my reputation. I will ignore the glares from the slackers who have had to re-register for the same course because they failed their first attempt with me.

Damn, I wish I hadn't missed that department meeting so that I could have wailed to Connie that there was just no way I could teach at 7 a.m. during a long semester!

The Return of the Bugs

I drove to Leu Gardens today, not expecting to find much to shoot for the photoblog. Taking the camera out and not finding any insects, my subject of choice, has become very depressing. Plus, I feel some pressure to perform as the photoblog has several loyal viewers [unlike this word blog which no one but Elizabeth reads]. We had record lows in the 30s earlier in the week, so I assumed the cold had wiped out the few slow and tattered insects that had lived through the winter. I started down at the lake, hoping to find an interesting bird willing to pose, but the reeds and beach were empty.

As I was heading back to the gardens proper, I caught a flash of silver. A lacewing, perhaps? I walked over to investigate and realized that it was a dragonfly, from the look of her [the coloring indicates a female Eastern pondhawk], a newly emerged one. She had pristine wings—not a single tattered edge—and acted as if this body were a foreign language she didn't yet understand. She stayed close to the ground, making frequent stops in the cut grass. A mockingbird had his eye on her, but I shooed him away, and with the new lens [a 300 mm] got a few very nice close ups. The lake edges have been dragonfly free for quite some time, so her presence must mean that spring is indeed near.

I spied a skipper butterfly in the "home demonstration" garden and then went in pursuit of a fat bumble bee. That's when I learned that my camera battery had died [this new lens, with image stabilization, sucks down a battery much more quickly than I'm used to], so I headed home. But at least the bugs are returning!

It's Not All Bad

The last five posts, all dealing with Yo-Yo's diagnosis with Fanconi syndrome, have been pretty depressing, but it's not all bad. Both basenjis are still full of energy and beauty, as evidenced by two photos out in the yard this week:

Yo-Yo in her hot red-leather collar, a Christmas present

Handsome Bug in his spiffy new collar

Fanconi Syndrome, Part 5

Yo-Yo and I are now comfortably in the routine of the protocol for treating Fanconi syndrome. But the disease and life-saving supplements that she must take come at a price—polydipsia [i. e., sucking down water as a sinkhole would] and polyuria [i. e., flooding urine the way the broken levees spilled Mississippi River into New Orleans]. The protocol notes that "urine volume, glucose and PH all contribute to potential 'urgency' and 'leaky incontinence.'" According to an article in JAVMA, the protocol "supplementation ... may exacerbate" the polydipsia and polyuria. Yo-Yo had been drinking and peeing slightly more before her diagnosis, but I believed environmental factors—such as the emotional upset and hard play with our foster boy Java and the long, hot summer—had been the cause, so I hardly noticed the difference. Now that the vet has confirmed Fanconi syndrome, however, I cannot help hearing her gulping water from her bowl and scratching more frequently at the door. And then there were the "accidents" I started finding when I got home from work.

Yo-Yo tries as hard as she can. When I am home, she comes up and lays her chin on my thigh or paws the door and we go right outside. We have developed new habits, like a pee break in the backyard before breakfast to avoid her dancing impatiently at the door as I'm trying to lace my shoes for her morning walk. I've added an additional "out" right before I leave for work. And no matter how cutely she's snuggled on the couch, I wake her up right before bed for one more trip into the yard so that we can sleep through the night. But during the eight or so hours I am at work, she cannot manage to "hold it."

Initially, Elizabeth suggested crating her [something I haven't done since she was a puppy], but the idea of her suffering in a wet crate [there's just too much urine for her to hold] was unacceptable—that was punishing her for getting sick. Coming home to a pee-soaked carpet that required half a roll of paper towels to dry was not acceptable either—plus I had to remember where the latest accident was so that I didn't step on the still-damp spot. Basenji folks suggest installing a doggie door, and I do have a fenced backyard. The only problem is that although I can trust Yo-Yo to have free access outside during my absence, I cannot trust Bug, who would climb over or dig under the chain link, get loose, and either bite a child or be hit by a car. I considered confining Yo-Yo to a specific portion of the house, but she can be what Elizabeth calls a "revenji," and I would pay in eaten furniture or some other expensive destruction.

The solution that I finally chose might be weird but seems to work well enough. A real plus is that I have hardwood floors. The dogs do not have the run of the whole house while I am at work, just the front part, covered by two large area rugs. I repositioned the furniture so that at least three sides of each carpet are free. Now, every day before I leave, I roll up the rugs. Then I put down two extra-large "wee-wee" pads by the front door, Yo-Yo's preferred place for accidents. [The message, of course, is "I was ready to go out, but you weren't here with the leash!"] The first day I tried this, Yo-Yo peed on the sofa, perhaps to indicate her displeasure at the change [or the cold floor under her delicate paws]. The next couple of days, she peed by the pads, sometimes half on them, half off. Eventually, however, she got the idea and now hits them with 98 percent accuracy. If a little spills off the pad, I wipe it up with Windex. One or two paper towels sure beats half a roll and constantly damp carpeting.

I don't know how this disease will play out, but I have made a commitment to deal with each new problem as it occurs—as well as documenting it here.