Last weekend, I finished grading my SCC lit class, which leaves me with just three courses for the next three weeks. And then I’ll get a whole week off before my summer courses start. (My goal, in addition to finishing my three courses successfully, is to prep my June course well enough that I can actually take that week off from work.)
The end of the SCC lit class could have gone better. One struggling student cheated on both her last paper and the final. Another, who needed an A+ on every remaining assignment to pass, skipped assignments, turned in a research paper without any research in it, and then turned in an incomplete final AFTER I’d turned in the grades.
(Did he tell me he needed another day? Of course not. That would entail communicating with me.)
My comedy students’ final is soon, so I need to write my routine, since I’m the MC.
A beloved colleague brought my attention to a temporary fix the DOE might have for people like me, who paid an incredible amount of money to the “wrong” plans. So I’m filing for that. Do they want ink signatures from UCD to prove I have worked there all this time? They do. Is the website confusing, because it says I’m not eligible since I, like everyone else, is in automatic Covid deferment, but then also have a paragraph about how I should ignore the giant warning on every singe page about that, since they’re the ones who deferred me? Yes.
I tried Jupiter Rising, but didn’t like it. Tried Invincible. Might like it. Tried Hacks with Jean Smart. Fucking loved it. Started Ted Lasso. Will binge more soon. Couldn’t quite get through Army of the Dead last night. Started and finished this season of Shrill, which is awesome. Watched Jason Alexander et al in The Sisters Rosensweig via Zoom and The ABCS of Love via the Sacramento French Film Festival.
I’m mourning Paul Mooney and Charles Grodin.
My upper division students are struggling, because I’m making them write a grown up argument (one in which the thesis is actually debatable (for reasonable people) and defendable, and one that works to inform and persuade its intended audience, and one that fully and fairly engages with counter-argument).
You’d be surprised how many draft theses are unconstitutional, EVEN AFTER I SAID IN THE VIDEO ABOUT THIS THAT THEY SHOULD NOT MAKE UNCONSTITUTIONAL ARGUMENTS.
I spent 9 straight hours giving feedback on drafts on Thursday. Then, I tried to join some high school friends for a Zoom reunion, but I felt so sick with exhaustion that I had to go lie down.
The most stressful thing this week, though, was another visit with my TMJ dentist.
I told his assistant that I wanted to talk about getting a lower night guard and/or a dental device for mild apnea (since the dentist is convinced my tongue is in the wrong place when I sleep). The dentist was dismissive of anyone who’s vouched for lower guards. (“Well, I guess your friends have made literally thousands of upper night guards like I have, right?”) But he agreed to let me have a lower one and “run [my] own little experiment.”
But, I said. If you think I need that apnea dental device, shouldn’t I get that and not use any type of guard?
We came to consensus on trying that first. I have to do a sleep study for insurance to approve it.
Then he brought up all the other things he wants to do: the frenectomy, sawing down some of the protruding bones in my mouth, braces, etc.
I said I’d like to go in stages since I have other doctors who want to do things to my body that are also extreme.
We left that conversation with him knowing nothing more about me, but with me knowing about all of his surgeries. Sigh.
He said to get the sleep study done and then we’d do a scan for the device.
When I was alone again with the assistant, who had been in the room the whole time, he tried to schedule me for a scan for a lower night guard.
“That’s not where we landed,” I explained. “We need to schedule a scan.”
“For braces?”
No.
Once I got him to realize we were trying for the apnea device, he wanted to get the device going right away.
“Don’t I have to get the sleep study first?”
“I don’t think so. They’ll want to study you with it in.”
“But the doctor said I needed the study before insurance would authorize the device.”
“Oh, yeah. That makes sense.”
He scheduled me for a scan next week, saying we can do the scan without authorization, but I don’t trust him, so I’m calling tomorrow to talk to someone who can parse conversations better.
Overall, though, it was a good week.
My son and I celebrated the end of his first year in grad school with a sushi feast.
A beloved friend got me an amazing gift:
And I am celebrating that, as of last night, it’s no longer been a year and seven months since I’ve had sex with another person.
Yay vaccines!
