Homeschooling Graduation

This week we have received three invitations to high school graduations. All are from very close friends, three of my five closest aside from my hubby, and are for their eldest sons who are the same age as my eldest son. All three boys are valedictorians of their classes.

My son isn’t graduating until August. He will graduate with 5.5 years of math, 7 years of English, 7 years of social science, 4 years of science… He’s done a lot.

He won’t be valedictorian and he won’t be graduating in May though.

It’s hard, sometimes, when life doesn’t look like your friends’ lives.

But he has a 3.6 average and he’ll have a total of 31 credits when he finishes. Texas requires 24 credits. He will also be a college junior because he will have taken 23 college classes.

But he’s not valedictorian and he didn’t graduate this week.

Class is over.

80% of my miniterm students made As or Bs. That’s good. The class was smaller than usual, so my grading load was considerably lightened. I could require more papers if the class were always this small!

I enjoyed teaching it.

One student whom I expected to make a low grade ended with a B. That was good, too. Surprising, because of the completeness of the D before the last set of grades were averaged in, but good.

11 pm

and I haven’t graded the research papers yet. I really need to get cracking on those. Or go to bed and get up early.

Interesting Parents’ Night at M’s Church

93% Guys/90% Girls who attend that church believe in God
67% Guys/50% Girls expect to remain faithful

13% Guys/25% Girls have had sex

67% Guys/50% Girls say that people in their circle drink alcohol regularly

13% Guys/20% Girls say that they have abused prescription drugs

10% of both say they have done illicit drugs

53% Guys/50% Girls think it is is very important to marry someone who is a virgin

47% Guys/40% Girls say their family rarely or never prays together

26% Guys/25% Girls say they don’t remember the last time their family prayed together

That’s stats from their church. Wish I’d taken notes after all.

It was, as R said, painful. Of course, we left and had a big fight about all kinds of things.

Behind on Grading

So I got research papers in yesterday and gave a quiz. Today I gave another quiz and got homework questions in. So I have all those things to grade because I didn’t grade anything yesterday.

However, I have now graded everything, including the works cited, except for the research papers. That’s going to require my reading them. Yuck. I don’t want to do that.

So I got on facebook and checked the CFPs.

Another Interview!

I made it to the finals for the job at CC4. I don’t know what they pay, maybe I should look that up.

But about half their students go on to four year schools, so that’s more than at either CC I’ve taught at before.

For 2002, the starting salary is $41,888. The max starting salary is $69,720. So an average, in 2002, was $55,000 for the calendar year.

For 2007, calendar year, the average salary is $66,000 and for the academic year it is $49,000. There is a small disparity between men and women’s salaries. But that is true at most colleges, regardless of whether or not they’re federally regulated. It’s partially because we women tend to take time off and to move around with our spouse more.

So it is possible that CC4 pays more than CC3. I don’t know for sure, though, because I did not see a faculty pay schedule that the college put out.

I’d like $55K or more. But I’ll take $49. That’s double what I’m making teaching a total of six classes. Plus I wouldn’t have to pay my insurance, so I would actually bring more money home.

Update: I finally found last year’s schedule. They have a big difference between 9-month and 12-month salaries.

I have never seen a 12-month salary before. Usually it is 9- and 10-month. The very lowest of the low on 9-month is $34,131.

Now, since I have four years of full-time experience and twelve years of part-time experience, and I have a PhD, I think I should be closer to the F12 beginning number, which is $43,469. But I would like to think that they count experience, which should pull me up at least four steps.

CC1 changed their rules so that the most you can start with, working in their system, is Step 7. So, if that were true for CC4, the 9-month salary is $48,954.

On the 12-month salary schedule, that is $65,272. That’d be AMAZING, in terms of what I was expecting to get. So I doubt that is what would happen.

However, I’m open to it. I’m very open to it.

CC1’s schedule says my starting salary, for a 10-month salary, would be $58,358. That’s actually more than I thought. Maybe I want that CC3 job after all. (They have the same pay schedule.)

But it’s comparing apples to oranges, because 10-month is not 9- or 12-month.

CC1’s 12-month schedule doesn’t really apply to faculty. It’s for counselors and people in the Learning Resource Center. But the 12-month is $64,050.

Okay, I found the nine month and their schedule is higher pay than CC4’s. For nine months faculty, with an earned doctorate and six or more years of experience, they pay $50,023. (Compared to CC4’s apparent $48,954.)

However, CC4 might give full credit for the teaching load, which would bring their salary up to $52,989.

Okay, so somewhere between $48K and $53K a year for 9-month salary at CC4. That’s not too bad. (Though I’d love the higher numbers, of course.)

Minor Depression

I’ve been dealing with very erratic moods and depression the last two or three days. I don’t know what is up but I really don’t like it.

California

I’m heading to California in June. I’m not sure when I am going or how long I am staying. I wish R was here so we could talk about it. Think I’ll email him so I’ll remember.

It’s supposed to be a great conference. I can stay in a dorm. It’s cheaper. But you have to share the bathroom. Do you have to share the bedroom? And do you have to share the bathroom with men? I’m thinking you probably do and I’m not too up on that.

The hotels aren’t too bad, though. Not like NO and Boston. I’ll need to talk to R about that too.

I really need to get it in gear and get stuff done. Instead I am sitting in my chair staring at the world. This new diet is not too much fun.

The Land of the Free

because of the brave.

God, please be with the families of those men and women who have fallen in the battle to protect our nation. Give them hope and comfort, especially today.

Memorial Project Members Quit

Two Memorial Project Commission members quit over the Project’s bad behavior

Two Pennsylvanian’s quit the Flight 93 Memorial Commission last
week
, protesting Park Service plans to condemn five crash-site
properties that it never negotiated for in good faith. Consider the case of
the Lambert family, who have been on their land for three
generations:

“It’s absolutely a surprise. I’m shocked by it. I’m
disappointed by it,” said Tim Lambert, who owns nearly 164 acres that his
grandfather bought in the 1930s. The park service plans to condemn two
parcels totaling about five acres – land, he said, he had always intended to
donate for the memorial.

“To the best of my knowledge and my lawyer, absolutely no negotiations have
taken place with the park service where we’ve sat down and discussed this,”
Lambert said.

Lambert said he had mainly dealt with the Families of Flight 93 and said
he’s provided the group all the information it’s asked for, including an
appraisal.

They are condemning land that he was trying to GIVE
to them, just because he had the gall to expect the Park Service to actually
do its part.

Project members have embraced the “absolute moral authority”
conceit

How dare anyone not rush to give these grieving 9/11 family members whatever
they want? Didn’t they hear Maureen Dowd’s proclamationLouis Nacke, told the press:

That land has been paid for with
40 lives … the donation box is an insult to that cost.

When
Svonavec insisted that the Park Service follow its own legally required
procedures for assessing property values (procedures that, as it happens,
take into account current property values, not just pre-crash property
values), White accused Svonavec of trying to profit from the blood of his
cousin:

“I think Svonavec believes his land, because it has the
blood of my cousin and 39 other people, it’s worth more,” he
said.

Using the flag of victim-hood to defend Paul Murdoch’s terrorist
memorial mosque

Project members use the same trick to deflect criticism of the giant
Islamic-shaped crescent that is now being built on the crash-site. When
people point out the hidden terrorist memorializing features-things that no
one knew about when the Crescent of Embrace design was chosen-like the Mecca
-orientation
of the giant crescent, or the 44 glass
blocks
emplaced along the flight path, Project members not only deny
these easy to verify facts, but they pretend that they are being accused of
intending to honor the terrorists:

“That’s an absolute,
unequivocal fabrication that is being portrayed as fact,” said Edward Felt’s brother, Gordon Felt [about the 44 blocks
claim].

He says he is insulted people would believe he would participate in anything
that honored his brother’s killers.

In The Church of Liberalism, Ann Coulter slammed the media for
granting the Jersey Girls an “absolute moral authority” card, not
questioning the Girls’ practice of blaming the Bush
administration
instead of al Qaeda for their husband’s deaths on 9/11.
The Jersey Girls were bad enough, but nowhere is the flag of victim-hood
being used to cover up more bad behavior than at the Memorial Project.

Active cover-up of an ongoing Islamic supremacist plot

Like the Jersey Girls, the Memorial Project gives Islam a pass for 9/11.
Project members might not have known about the Mecca-orientation of the
Crescent of Embrace, but they DID know that it was a giant Islamic-shaped
crescent. Now they are doing far worse. Now they DO know that the giant
crescent points almost exactly at Mecca, and are consistently misleading the
press about it.

Their own Muslim consultant told them not to worry about the Mecca-oriented
crescent, claiming
that it can’t be seen as a mihrab (the Mecca-direction indicator
around which every mosque is built) unless it points EXACTLY at Mecca (a
claim that was contradicted
earlier this month by Saudi religious authorities).

So what does Project Supervisor Joanne Hanley say when asked
about the Mecca-orientation claim?

The only thing that orients
the memorial is the crash site.

They are actively and knowingly
covering up clear evidence of an ongoing al Qaeda sympathizing plot. Bad
behavior indeed.

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Tour of Boston

I don’t think I mentioned before, but I am on the 13th floor. And it’s labeled the 13th floor.

I took the trolley tour today from 11 to 4. It’s a two hour tour. I got on at Copley Park, which is where my hotel is, where Trinity Church is (which I toured yesterday), and where the Hancock building is, the tallest building in Boston. Within my hotel room is a photograph that manages to get both part of Trinity and part of Hancock, even though they are across the street from each other.

We went by the Mary Baker Eddy library/complex. They have a world globe you can walk inside. I thought of Grama Rill when I went there.

I got off to see Paul Revere’s house. It has been rebuilt, as parts of it were destroyed in a fire and when they rebuilt, they were trying to put it back to its original looks. It was originally built to replace the parish house for Cotton Mather. But the Mathers bought other land and built there. Paul Revere bought it before he was famous and/or rich, in 1770 and lived in it with his wives and his sixteen children until he sold it in 1800. There was a silversmith there today showing off how to make a spoon. It was amazing. Takes lots of time. And the man doing it is a master silversmith who still makes silverware by hand.

After that I walked around the corner to a little restaurant that could seat, at most, thirty people. It had signs outside saying it had been voted North End’s best neighborhood restaurant. That’s what I was looking for. So I went in. I was the only customer, which was a bit scary. No social proof that it was a good place to be. And the menu was fairly limited. Lots of wines, not a lot of beers. I had tap water.

I ordered the penne with meatballs. It was about the only thing on the menu that I thought I would really enjoy.

The waitress brought me a bucket of bread. Good to eat, but tough. My jaw was tired of chewing when I gave up. She also brought me a carafe of water and was good to refill my water regularly.

Another group came in who were walking the freedom trail. Then three girlfriends. Then another couple. It was about half full when I left.

I was reading my Kindle, so the waitress asked about it. We talked about the kindle and using it to replace books. One thing people have said to me a lot is, “Don’t you miss holding books?” I enjoy talking about it and showing it off.

My meal was penne and meatballs. When they brought it in, it came in parchment. She brought out a knife and fork to cut it open and peel it out.

Then I went to see Christ Church, which is called Old North Church. It’s the oldest church in Boston. It was built in 1713. The church has a crypt with 1100 bodies in it. Mostly British soldiers killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

There they told us how wrong Longfellow’s poem was. Newman and another guy hung the lights up. William Daws and Revere rode.

Then I got back on the trolley tour. I got off at Old State House, which is right near where the Boston Massacre took place. Most of it was burnt in one of Boston’s fires. So, it’s not really as old as they say it is. But it’s the oldest standing government building in the United States. I don’t remember when it was built.

Did you know that the subway in Boston is the fourth oldest in the world? Only the subways in London, Glasgow, and Budapest are older. Amazing. I didn’t know that.

Saw the relief honoring the 54th, the company the movie Glory is about. The actor they got looks very much like the actual Colonel.

I didn’t walk the Freedom Trail. It’s 2.5 miles, which is a nice walk and fairly easy, except that I only brought high heels. Not interested in going hiking in those, since the little I did yesterday and today got my feet cut up. (In different places, since I had two pairs of shoes, but still. Ouch.)

Ron asked if I’ve even gone to my conference. I have. Twice. I’m going again tonight and to two meetings in the morning. There just wasn’t much that I was interested in here and I didn’t want to stress myself out going to things that weren’t interesting.

So I’m going to what I think are the best panels and that’s all. (I’d have gone to more if there had been more that caught my attention. One of the ones I went to I was only interested in one of the discussions.)

Hotel Beds: This One and Others

It’s a nice hotel, but actually the one we stayed at in Albuquerque is fancier.

Linda said I would love the bed and I was hoping for the Atlanta hotel bed experience, but it’s just a regular bed.

When we get rich, I want to get the Atlanta bed. Maybe we could splurge for an anniversary present one of these days.

Boston!

I am enjoying being in Boston.

I slept twelve hours last night. I was exhausted. Zonked entirely. I went to sleep around 12:30 Thursday night/Friday morning and got up at 5:15. That’s not too terrible, but I was already shorting myself on sleep the two nights before. I think I made up for it.

By the way, don’t leave the curtains open in a hotel if you don’t know what time the sun comes up. I had to put a pillow over my head at 5 am because the sun was already shining. I had no trouble going back to sleep for another two hours though, so I guess it wasn’t terrible.

I went to a really good conference session last night and came away with all these ideas about things I should study. It was very interesting. All five panelists talked about newspaper poetry. And, believe it or not, it was closely related to the first chapter of my dissertation.

Maybe what I am most interested in is genre. Which I already knew. But how does that translate into papers in other places?

I did not review my paper today. But I need to in order to be ready for tomorrow. I’ll have to work on it today.

But I have four hours off today (because there wasn’t anything I wanted to hear) and I am going to go on a trolley tour of Boston. It’s a bit steep in price, $36, but it’s a two hour tour. (Why am I hearing the Gilligan’s Island theme song in my head?) If I see something I must get off for, I can get off, tour it, and then get back on the next trolley. And the trolleys run every 15 minutes. So that’s very nice.

I went to breakfast at Burger King.

It was cooler today. I’d have said about 68, but according to the net it is 57 degrees right now. So… I guess I like it a little cooler than I thought. But it was nice. It might rain today, though, so I’ll need to bring my umbrella. Those open air trolleys might not be too much fun in the rain. Maybe I should have brought my mustard coat. That would have been enough to cut the chill and to keep my important clothes dry. I’ll have to remember that next time.

Boston

I’m in Boston.

I agreed to be bumped from my flight, but apparently the two-too-many people they had on the flight didn’t show.

I took a cab to the hotel. $32.50 by the end. The taxi drove down Beacon St, which I vaguely recall as being important. Most of the drive seemed to be in tunnels.

I checked in, went to my room and left my stuff, and then went back down to check in to the conference.

There’s nothing I want to see until 5, so I went outside and walked around. I went to the farmer’s market. They have cherry pies. I bought a hot dog from a vendor– very good. I went on a tour of Trinity Church, which looks old and very majestic, but wasn’t built until 1877. In another hundred years it will be old, but now it is still young. After that I bought an Italian ice. It was good at the beginning, but not by the end. And I only had a little one, so it wasn’t that I was overdone on sugar.

I have a four-hour block tomorrow that I don’t want to attend anything, so I’m going to see about taking a trolley tour of Boston. I didn’t bring any walking shoes. All I have are high heels, so I don’t think I’ll be hiking the city.

I’m a bit hungry, but not enough to pay $14 for a sandwich and not enough to walk across the street and around the park to get to Burger King. I may go there tomorrow for breakfast though.

Very stressed.

I am very stressed.

I haven’t finished a paper that I thought would be very simple.

I have the interview tomorrow that I have to give a presentation on. It’s a presentation I haven’t given in ages, because I haven’t been teaching argument. Not nice.

I need to prepare a bibliography and a handout for the paper on Sunday.

I have grading to do. A quiz, 26 analysis questions, and an essay.

Busy bee. So what am I doing? I’m on my blog.

Funeral

I went to Dad’s Saturday, to give Chris a break. I picked the folks up at Grace’s recital and then took them home. Mom was nauseated from the chemo.

Dad and I went to Cafe Adobo for supper. I didn’t have a handicapped sticker, so Dad had to walk in. On the way out he said that about half the time he wished he were dead. Then he said if he didn’t get better it would switch to all the time.

It’s pretty depressing when your folks are sick/dying and wish they could die faster.

So today at church I was listening to the music and thought I should have that played at my funeral.

“Even through the tears”… something about continuing to serve God.

Of course, if I had a funeral, not many people would come. That would suck. So I hope I don’t have one soon.

Job Interview Info

Thankfully I called them back just now.

He had written down when my meeting was but hadn’t sent that information on to me.

So I have an interview, for 45 minutes, on Tuesday at 2:40.

It’s not far from R’s studio, though in a section I don’t usually go to. I guess I’ll head down there as soon as class is out and get there early and walk around.

Job Interview

I got a call today for a job interview at another college. That would be CC4, since I’ve used the other numbers for colleges I’ve taught at or had interviews at.

I called back and left a message saying I needed an afternoon meeting.

We’ll see what they say.

Another (minor) Kindle irritation

I just got my Kindle today. R had to go pick it up for me because UPS can’t find our house.

And I opened it about thirty minutes ago.

And it is now downloading a new update.

Er, couldn’t I use it before it decided I had to download?

Is the book I bought actually there? I don’t know. If it was in the middle of update, which it was, maybe it got beamed off into Neverneverland.

And, on another thought, do I really want Amazon to know what I read and when I read it?