still not "back"

I thought I was doing better, I really did. But I'm not quite there yet; small things still throw me, I still get hung up on certain things and can't just sigh and let them go.

The latest: I agreed to do an arranged class, yes? Because there are only two people who need it this semester? And scheduling a time when both can meet with me (so I am not teaching THE SAME THING twice in a week) is kind of an ongoing nightmare.

Well, I get an e-mail late in the day yesterday (after I'd already left in order to prepare for CWF meeting and everything): big problem. One of the students - call her Jameela - is an International student. But. She must be enrolled 9 credit hours to keep her visa. Okay, well and good. But as it turns out: apparently those credit hours canNOT be arranged classes so either Jameela will need MORE coursework, will need to go to another university with a bigger graduate program, or will need to leave the country.

So yeah. I am trying to tell myself this is something for people above my pay grade to work out - and my chair is trying to see what can be done - but I really don't want to have to do a bunch more administrative work to try to make this a sham-regular-class (which apparently is one solution, though I also suspect there are people in the admin who will not sign off on a "real" class with a mere two students in it. (nevermind that I am getting zero load for this or my OTHER arranged class; I am essentially involved 21 hours a week and am getting paid for the equivalent of 12, because of how load works here)

And yes, I understand why the whole "can't be arranged classes" thing, it's surely because some unscrupulous universities would set up do-nothing classes to keep getting that sweet, sweet International Student money. Or that some of the alleged "illegal immigrants" were actually visa over-stayers (one of the stats I read about people here "undocumented" suggested that most of them are actually people who just....didn't go home....after their visa expired). And yes, perhaps one out of a million people who came in that way might be a detriment to our nation.

But I can vouch from having had Jameela in class for two years, and having worked closely with her, she would not. (She is not even from the ethnic group the name I have assumed for her would suggest). And anyway? Her plans are to get her degree and go back home and work there.

As much of a rule-follower as I am, this is one of those cases where I just pull on my hair and want to scream "LOOK AT HER, LET HER DO THIS, YOUR RULE IS STUPID IN THIS CASE"

But yeah, this has thrown me. My plans for this morning after a quick brush-up of the material for the two, 75-minute lectures I teach today was to finish my post-tenure review packet but I guess that won't happen this morning.

One thing I've noticed with the ongoing grief is that  my tendency to get derailed by some small unpleasant thing - which has always been a thing for me - has turned into a tendency to get TOTALLY derailed. It's like I have less bandwidth.

I also have a few bills I MUST pay this week (traditional style - send in a check kind, though I think I really need to set up more things with autopay, I also drag my feet on that because some places, like my city water department, I don't trust not to have crooks in it) and other things to attend to but it's like I forget things if they're not right in front of me. And my house is a mess. And, and, and....

****

Edited to add (about 1 pm, FINALLY home for lunch):

The student came to my office practically in tears between my classes. ("practically in tears" is not like her) Asked me if I'd heard what they were telling her. I said yes, that my chair was working on it and we'd figure something out. (I didn't know that for sure but I really hoped we could). I said I'd sign a statement saying the class was fundamentally face to face if that was what it took (turns out, it did).

Went off to my next class.

Got out - one student did stop me after class and tell me "I'm a concurrent student and in class today alone you covered more stuff and I learned more stuff than in several weeks at high school, thank you" so I guess that's good?

Found my chair. Normally I tend to be somewhat avoidant of issues where I have to approach something, but I knew "Jameela" was depending on me, so.

She said she was working on it but I needed to have a set time to meet, and the other student was meeting with another professor at the moment (and Jameela was there too).

So I tracked them down. Finally set a time (3-4 pm Tuesdays, plus some outside stats-package tutoring). Jameela went to get the forms. I signed the forms just before going home for lunch and hopefully it is solved.

My chair did remark, as she signed off "This IS a face-to-face class, it clearly says it is in the catalog, I don't see why we're having to do this" so I am wondering if the infamous tendency for some in our admin to waaaaaaay overinterpret dicta has come back.

At any rate: "Jameela" was happy and while I'm not WILD about having every Tuesday afternoon at 3 committed, at least now I know, and at least it means that I can schedule around it. (Like: I can come home for lunch now on Tuesday, and probably get a little piano practice in).

I'm trying to feel triumphant that I was able to fix a snafu for a student but I don't feel as happy about it as I might because it's frankly something that should not have been an issue in the first place.

And I'm still tired. I ran to Pruett's to get more milk and wound up buying a thing of spring mix salad because weirdly, I craved salad, and maybe I"m not getting some nutrient I need? I don't know. Or maybe it's just January....


Also saw some guy (via a QT) on twitter snarking about "will the free-college proposal include (a large state school outside of the East Coast) or is it just for actual schools" and yeah, that's partly why I'm tired. Because I don't teach at an "actual school," according to some of those dudes (the school being snarked on was more prestigious than mine) but yet I spend time scurrying around trying to fix problems I didn't create (and the students didn't create).

And yeah, I get that this is a "mean girls" issue and I should not care.

I had the revelation the other day, thinking about the whole "I never fit in, people always laughed at me" thing - I have a couple gigglers in one class, and it's the whole Other Major problem all over again, I fear (I had trouble with this before, back around 2015 or so).

But this time, I asked myself: why do you care?

Why did you care? Why did it bother you so much that the popular girls mocked you and excluded you?

And I kind of flail around and go "I want to fit in"

"But what is 'fitting in'? Is it being like them? Why did they 'fit in'?"

"Because no one laughed at them, at least not to their faces or at least not in my hearing"

"Why didn't anyone laugh at them?"

"Because they were the Queen Bees. Because....because they probably would have marked for ostracization anyone who did"

"But why did you want to be like them? They were terrible people. They were mean. They made fun of the disabled kids and the couple of immigrant kids. They made fun of the kids who had less money"

"But they FIT IN"

"But would you want to fit in if it meant being like them?"

And yes, that's the crux of the issue: No, no I do not. What I WANTED as a kid was to be liked and not teased, but I wanted to be liked and not teased because I was me, and not because I presented some mean false front.

And again, I wonder at it: why WERE they the Queen Bees? Well, some of them WERE richer than other kids (or at least had fancier clothes and cooler toys) but.....I don't understand the Economy of Cool well enough to be able to pinpoint what made them the ones who were the arbiters of what was cool and what was not, to the point where they could turn people against their friends by inviting them to sit at their table but "No, the people you are friends with now aren't cool enough, drop them"

It's probably some dumb Emperor's New Clothes thing, but I still don't understand WHY, more than 35 years later.  In my world the kind and smart and talented people would be the popular ones. Or popularity wouldn't matter, and there'd be peer pressure on the bullyish people NOT to be that way. But instead, we got what we got, and it doesn't really make that much sense...