The semester is winding down. I am looking forward to my week off prior to teaching the Maymester. I don't know why they call it the Maymester since most of it is in June.

The student culture at BRCC is really frustrating. I have students who just stop showing up to class. They don't withdraw. They just stop showing up. Of course, this means they will earn an F in class. I cannot imagine why someone would do this to their record. The only thing I can think of is to keep financial aid. But if your GPA drops below a certain grade, you lose your financial aid anyway. I think the students don't think in terms of the long run. They think in terms of "the now." It also coincides with high absenteeism in the class. I have tried to compensate for high absenteeism by taking points off final grades for each absence. That has failed miserably. Half my students are losing letter grades because of their absences. In addition, students come to class on speech days without their speeches. It is not uncommon for some students to be unprepared three class days in a row, thereby losing three letter grades on their speeches. I have tried to compensate for that by giving bonus points to students who come to see me with their outlines before the speeches are due. Of course, only the A students and some of the high B students show up for that. It is a frustrating culture to teach. Now that I am looking over the final grades for the students (all but final exams), I'm just depressed.

In other news, I watched Susperia the other day, which is a 70s horror movie by a guy named Dario Argento. It is considered to be a classic. It is the first part of a trilogy called "Three Mothers" 30 years in the making. I have the second part from Netflix sitting at home. According to Rolling Stone, part three will be released this summer amidst all the big budget summer movies. The film is very strange and -very- 70s. The special effects are not very good, but the setting is very vivid. I'm not that into horror films, but this one was fun to watch.

Willow is graduating this month. I'm excited for her, but I'm dreading the trip. Moving her out of the dorm is going to be a big pain in the ass. She's decided she will stay with us for the summer and go to California after we return from our annual beach house stay in Florida in August. It will be nice to have her around for some borrowed time.

My life is consumed by grading right now. These are the days when I find the job at BRCC difficult. Usually it's a breeze, with low stress and low demands. Still it's less demanding than most other jobs, so I really shouldn't complain.

Some more threes:

Three movies I want to see:
1. Speed Racer
2. Mother of Tears
3. Indiana Jones

Three movies I've just seen:
1. Baby Mama
2. Iron Man
3. Deception

Three great speeches I heard this week:
1. Mechanical Exoskeletons (informative)
2. Littering (it was very well done)
3. Supporting NASA

Three gratitudes:
1. Power bars (for the protein and good taste)
2. Netflix
3. LSMSA

Gratitudes

After reading that last, somewhat bitchy post, I think I need a gratitude post to counterbalance my attitude.

Three Gratitudes:

1. I am grateful for chiropractors everywhere.
2. I am grateful for Special K Powerbars; they taste great and have 10 grams of protein.
3. I am grateful for my "good" students -- those who actually put forth the effort. There are many of them and I often forget about them in my culture shock.

Three movies I've just seen:

1. Deja Vu (At home on blu-ray)
2. Forbidden Kingdom (Very fun!)
3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Cute)

Three most recent links in my favorites:

1. Julia Sweeny's blog (on haitus since she's getting married)
2. An online stopwatch (good for timing speeches in class)
3. Test your brain's sex (I'm very masculine, believe it or not)

Wow. 6 weeks.

It's been six weeks since I've last blogged. That's a long gap. My new year's resolution, as of this moment, is to start blogging more regularly. Since I have a 3 hour gap in between classes -- wherein I spend my time dutifully pulling office hours -- I should be able to blog more frequently. I can hope, can't I?

So, I haven't really been thinking about much of anything lately to blog about so I will do my usual threes.

Last three movies I've seen:
1. Atonement (not as hot as I thought it would be)
2. Bucket List (I cried a little, I admit)
3. Aliens Vs. Predators 2 (sucked worse than I thought it would)

Last 3 songs I downloaded:
1. Chemicals Between Us -- Bush
2. MachineHead -- Bush
3. Speed Kills -- Bush

(I've been on a Bush kick lately; I'm not sure why)

News in the Household:
1. We finally got Willow's passport in the mail and we are excited about going to Ireland for Spring Break.
2. Shadda (aka The Blue Cat) is still pooping on Steve's chair.
3. The niece hasn't asked for money in at least a week.

Three YouTubes About Hillary
1. Hillary's Breakdown
2. Hillary's Breakdown according to John Stewart
3. Someone proposes to Hillary on the stump

Three Things I'm Grateful For:

1. My CD player in my car -- I'm listening to books on CD again. It's fun

2. Netflix -- I'm watching the Tudors with oh so sexy Johnathan Rhys Myers

3. My Cats -- They are so cute and cuddly.

Christmas blahs

It's the Christmas season and I have the "Holiday Blahs." As much as I love Christmas, I am ambivalent about it this year. Perhaps it's because I'm feeling rather broke, saving money for Ireland. The idea of shopping fills me with dread, however. I don't look forward to buying things. I can't stand shopping for my husband. He buys everything for himself, so there's nothing left for me to buy. And everything I buy for the niece, she never uses or she loses, so I'm unmotivated to spend much money on her. Not to mention that she ran our cellphone bill up to $250.00. No, I'm not inclined to spend a lot of money on her this Christmas.

I am wearing a holiday sweatshirt today to try to get into the mood. I am also going to start going through my Christmas sock collection. Maybe that will help.

My three gratitudes for the day are
1. I am grateful for our fireplace. I love having a warm fire on these chilly nights.
2. I am grateful for my current housecleaning company. They are reliable even if they are expensive. (White liberal guilt aside....)
3. I am grateful to the person who fixed the printer at work today -- it broke down; it was so frustrating.

Random Musings

I think I only gained perhaps 2 pounds over Thanksgiving, but that is 2 pounds too many. I need to be careful in the upcoming weeks, especially as the holidays draw near.

The only movie I've seen recently is Beowulf. I saw it in the 3d version, which was interesting. I'd love to see a "making of" movie to see how they generated some of the stunts.

My 3 gratitudes:
1. I am grateful for the YMCA's track. They keep the temperature at a constant 68, which is perfect for walking. Not too cold and not too hot.
2. I am grateful for the cold weather. I so hate the heat.
3. I am grateful for crystal light drink mix packets. I seem to be living on them ever since the surgery. Sometimes I miss soda, but crystal light more than makes up for it.

On blogging and other Misc.-ish type thoughts

It seems that this semester my blogging has dropped dramatically from last semester. Most likely, it's because I no longer have a stretch of FOUR HOURS in a row for office hours. I miss blogging and I think I am going to make a commitment to becoming more active once again. I keep checking my widgit and site meter stats, but how can I expect people to surf if I don't provide fresh content with any sort of regularity.

But, such is my boring life.

When I was an undergraduate, my friends called me "Apocalyptic Laura" because EVERYTHING was a crisis. I was constantly in crisis mode and my life was filled with drama. I don't know if it's age, drugs, or Steve's influence, but my life is calm and steady now. I suspect it's all three, actually. But a steady, drama-free life doesn't leave me much to blog about.

I finally finished reading _Breach of Faith_ (by Jed Horne) for the One Book One Community dialogues that are going on. The man is an amazing writer. His ability to evoke images is impressive. One of the librarians here said in regard to the BRCC book club discussion of the book that most people found the first part of the book compelling but they didn't like the second part. The second part is where he gets political. Not in a ranting sort of way, but in a narrative style that shows how Kathleen Blanco was set up by the Bush administration again and again. And he's pretty even-handed in depicting the various political fiascos that were responsible for the Katrina fiasco.

I was supposed to facilitate a community dialogue about the book last night at the Intercultural Center at LSU, but hardly anyone showed up. I expect that the dialogues on Katrina and race will be standing room only, though. (The discussion questions can be downloaded from here.) I'm looking forward to the discussion in Baker in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, class is calling, so I'm off.

But first, three gratitudes:

1. I am grateful for the great staff at BRCC. The library staff gave a wonderful presentation for my class and the library scavenger hunt that Patsy Kay Turner (my office mate) and I wrote. Also a staffer from facility services was helpful above and beyond the call of duty today regarding my office key. People are so nice here.
2. I am grateful that I have a better teaching schedule this semester and I hope I'm as lucky next semester.
3. I am grateful that people still come by my blog even though I'm not really blogging.

Threes

Last three movies I saw from Netflix:

1. B13 -- a futuristic gangster pic made by Luc Besson. The fight and chase scenes were incredible. I highly recommend it.

2. Perfume: The story of a murderer -- Alan Rickman and Dustin Hoffman were excellent in this very bizarre pic.

3. Mysterious Skin -- The story of two boys who were molested by their baseball coach and the impact it had on their lives. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was wonderful as a teenage male prostitute.

Three disappointing bits of news heard over the past two weeks:

1. D&D 4.0. *Sigh*

2. BRCC travel money does not cover international travel.

3. My paycheck stub. Very disappointing.


Three things I need to do this weekend:

1. Finish _Breach of Faith_ so that I can facilitate the discussion on it on Thursday night for the One Book, One Community dialogue.

2. Laundry. Again. I really hate doing laundry.

3. I'm sure there's something else, I just can't think of it.


Three Gratitudes:

1. I am grateful for 3 day holiday weekends.

2. I am grateful that the niece is coming home this weekend for what she calls "extended" (i.e., the extended weekends that they get kicked out of the dorms and forced to visit their parents).

3. D&D on Saturday.