365: So Grateful for Days like These

Today was pretty much perfect. I went to the post office this morning and found three packages waiting for me! Score!!!

One package was my birthday gift from my dad and stepmom--a Timbuk2 messenger bag!!! Yes! Now I can walk and bike to school when we move down to Chico with getting annoyed at straps sliding off my shoulders or worrying about my stuff getting all wet or ruined! Thanks papa bear & Gail!

My second package was some Old Navy stuff I ordered with a birthday gift card from my sister & a credit I got from something I had to return that my mom got me for my birthday! Yay new clothes!!! Thanks mom and sister and BIL!

The third package was more amazing love from one of my Juniata girls and her awesome family. More donations for Africa! Thanks Mandy, Brian, Tom & Math Ruthie!!!

Next I got to my office and there was a note slipped under my door from a student I had last semester. It said all sorts of nice things and totally gave me a pep in my step all day. Thanks Esther!

Finally, someone stuck little encouraging post-it notes all around the bottom floor of Butte Hall today. They were so cute and definitely made me smile. They were intended for other students in the midst of stress about finals I'm sure but I didn't mind partaking in the love fest too!

Pretty much my life is charmed and amazing.

365: Empowerment Rally

I was invited to speak at an Empowerment Rally organized by a class on campus. It was a communications class that focused on gender & communication, taught by someone I've never met, and organized by students that I've never met. I have no idea how they picked me. They contacted me a couple weeks ago and asked if I'd be one of their three speakers and if I could give a 15 minute presentation on body image. Sounded like it could be fun so why not?

It turned out to be a cool class project and was a lot of fun. They raised $500 during the week for our Safe Place program which does education and outreach around sexual and domestic violence on campus.

My talk focused on loving your body TODAY and not feeding into social & media messages telling you that you're not good enough the way you are. I think it went over pretty well with the students, and I know it went over very well with their instructor because she asked me to speak at a conference she organizes in the fall! All in all, an awesome empowering day!

365: So Excited!!!

Tonight's Gambia party went well! Ange and I are super pumped for this trip! Only 36 more days til departure!!!

365: Don'tchawanna Fanta?

We're having our first official pre-departure meeting/party for the students going on the Gambia trip. We went out shopping today to get stuff for chicken yassa and when we were in the ethnic food aisle Ange spied these orange Fantas imported from Mexico! What would a Gambian dinner party be without orange Fanta?!?! We decided we'd roll them in the driveway and dirt tomorrow to make them look "more authentic." Can't wait to get these students PUMPED UP for this trip!!!

365: Working It

My big teaching goal this semester was to amp up my community health class. At the end of last semester my students told me my lectures were boring and they never read the book because they felt I told them all they needed to know. Not this semester. Lots of activities, lots more moving around and doing things and less explaining what's in the book. Today they had to go out and guerrilla interview people. Which left me with a big, empty classroom. Ahhh, the quiet. For 30 minutes anyway.

365: When You Least Expect It...

...a student pleasantly surprises you.

Last semester one of my students asked for recommendation letter for a scholarship at the last minute due to another professor dropping the ball. She was a great student so I said sure. I wrote a nice letter for her and sent her a copy after I submitted it so she'd have a heads up. I didn't hear anything back from her but I figured it was the end of the semester and she just got overwhelmed with school and work stuff. I didn't really think much about it.

Today I was sitting in my office working on some stuff and my student appeared in my doorway holding a card. She apologized for not coming by sooner and said she really appreciated my last minute effort on her behalf. We had a nice chat and then she was off to class.

I have the best students :)

365: Community Assets

I love when my students go all out on their projects--no matter how "small" or how few points it's worth. Good stuff.

365: Recruit, Recruit, Recruit!

Today kicks off the first official day of recruiting for the Gambia trip. I was going to give a 5 minute pitch to my Community Health class...but they were so pumped about it that it turned into 30! Whoops! I already have 5 students who are "totally going." I just need to get them the application and have them turn in the deposit and we're already halfway to our minimum! Can't wait til we have the all the students signed up so we can start having meetings and getting to know each other!

365: And Costumes!!!

My community health students are doing their end of the semester group presentations. One of today's groups was doing environmental health issues and their priority focus was pesticide related health. To my immense surprise and joy they came prepared in full safety gear and did their presentation dressed just like this. They had so much enthusiasm and were very knowledgeable about their topic. I just love them. It was the perfect way to head into Thanksgiving break!

365: Skateboard Parking Only

Well that's not something you see everyday. And by "you" I mean the 98% of my friends that live outside of California. Cause we this shit all day everyday. I have students who regularly bring their skateboards to class. Oh California!

365: One of the things I love about teaching

Whenever I do a class activity I tell myself students if they finish before everyone else does they can feel free to decorate the rest of the page as they see fit. I tell them I love jokes and pictures. This student wrote a joke and even folded the bottom of her paper to cover the answer! I love it. Usually the "extras" are better than what they were supposed to be doing in the first place! In fact I love student doodles so much, I think I'm going to start a whole photo album dedicated to them :)

My new favorite dumb email from a student

I received this email today:

From: Lame Student [iamlame@ithoughtthisschoolhadbetterstudents.edu]
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 12:07 AM
To: Briggs, Lindsay
Subject: Dear Instructor

Dear Lindsay,

There is a girl in the class who knew about Kubrics book "A Clockwork Orange" and I thought it might make an interesting essay because of all the alludes to sex/ sexual violence. I was going to get the book from her and she gave me her email but I was stupid enough to forget it. Do you know her email? Her name is Megan, she has pink hair.

Lame

I mean REALLY? You expect me to just figure it out. Ok, well I could figure it out because there is only one girl with pink hair in our class, but he could have just as easily looked at the roster and figured out who it was. Students are so helpless and ridiculous I can barely stand it.

Kids say the darndest things...

And by "kids" I mean college students. Ever since I started teaching I've had heard some of the lamest/funniest excuses in my life. I've also just read/heard the funniest statements ever. Here are some of the highlights (so far...I'm sure I'll have a ton more):

1. I got an email from a girl who said she had to rush her roommate to the hospital because she either had H1N1 or internal bleeding. To the best of my knowledge this student is neither a medical person nor does she have a MRI installed in her dorm room so how she thought internal bleeding is beyond me.

2. I had a student tell me that it was my fault that he didn't turn in his weekly journal because I usually remind them at the end of class on Thursday and I didn't the week before. Apparently the due date on the syllabus and on Oncourse did not cue him to action regarding the journal. Nor did the fact that they have to turn in a journal EVERY Tuesday and this was the FOURTH week of class. Clearly, still my fault.

3. I had a student who was angry about a paper grade I gave her last semester. When did she let me know? Not immediately after it posted. Not a week after it posted. Not when I emailed to say I was turning in final grades 48 hours later. She waits til 3 days after I turned in final grades. She did not like my explanation and demanded I meet her in person to discuss the grade. When I told her it would be impossible to meet in person as I was LEAVING FOR AFRICA in 5 days and I didn't have time to drive back to Bloomington to give her the same explanation I had given her via email (because apparently in person she would be soooo much more convincing that her paper wasn't crap and deserved better than a C), she told me that she was going to "report me to my superiors" because obviously I wasn't going to "give her the time of day." When I replied and cc'ed my "superior" and again explained that I had provided a detailed response for why she received a C on her paper and that I was going to Africa and I couldn't not meet with her face to face, but that if she continued to be unhappy she could speak to my superior who was conveniently copied on the email. My superior responded that the girl did not need to be rude to me and if she would like to have an explanation for her paper in person she would have to wait til I came back. A grade grievance wouldn't matter if it were then or a month later. We didn't hear from her again. Guess her idle threat plan did not pay off in the way she hoped.

4. "I would give this class 3.5 out of 4 stars because it was definitely more interesting than I thought it would be. Way to exceed my expectations!" Wow...didn't know that I was teaching Siskel or Ebert. But glad I could meet your needs and exceed your expectations. That was my goal.

5. "I think that for future classes I would suggest that a midterm test is given 4 weeks into the class. I know that sounds crazy coming from a student, but a midterm test has many advantages for students. First of all, it gives us an opportunity to get more points, which I feel like I did not have enough of those opportunities this semester, especially after missing two quizzes." Two words: point whore. Oh and a few more words: why is it my fault you missed two quizzes? Idiot.

These are some of my favs...I was going to add the 3some issue although I think that I adequately covered that in the last post.

Inside & Out: Evolution of Self

One of the more interesting things that happened personally while I was on the trip was that I again realized that I am old now, but yet, not that old. My dear snarky sisters have been reminding me that I'm older than dirt for about 10 years now, and recently I have begun to accept that. However on this trip I was put in a very interesting position socially that caused me to do some deeper introspection about myself.

On the trip I was considered staff/faculty. That means I'm supposed to be an older and wiser sage. (haha, right). I was clearly older than the students and have advanced farther in my life both personally and professionally. However, I was still different from my counterpart Emil because I am actually much closer in age to the students than I am to him. So I was stuck in this weird limbo area of being the "grown up" but yet "cool and hip enough" that the students still wanted to hang out with me on a more casual/friend level. Now it doesn't sound that ground-breaking but it was, at least to me. Before making decisions about situations I had to step back and remind myself "I am not a student" and take that under consideration before acting or reacting. In order to remain a neutral authority figure I had to make sure I didn't fall into any social group and that I could remain friendly with everyone. Even if I hadn't been in this specific situation it would have been hard because I tend to have the worst poker face ever. If people irritate me or I find something ridiculous it's very hard to not show that on my face.

I think the place where it came into play most was mediating between groups of students and trying to remain a neutral party as best as I could. In a group of 28 students there are bound to be cliques and personality clashes abound. As a faculty member I needed to make sure that the cliques and personality clashes did not boil over to the point that it interrupted the purpose and flow of the trip. Yet at the same time, I was friendly enough with many of the students that it was hard to remain a completely neutral party when it came to students acting annoying or ridiculous. If I wasn't as awesome and cool as I am then they wouldn't have spoken to me as much as they did and probably wouldn't have shared as much information with me as they did. I know this because there was lots of stuff that they told me that they didn't tell Emil who was also there, but in different position as me. I was both inside the "inner circle" as well as being on the "outside." Very much in limbo.

This year has been a very interesting one in terms of personal growth. I've done lots of "professional adult" things that I've never done before. I've enjoyed it all and I haven't felt resistant to it at all. But it has been really interesting for me to think about and reflect upon over a longer period of time. It's one of those funny growing up things that everyone deals with. I hope I can continue to do it with some grace and dignity and not totally make a fool out of myself while navigating through the life cycle.