The Last Push

            This is the time of desperation, when students who have been teetering all semester give one last-ditch effort to make it. Unlike the movies and books, these last-ditch efforts aren’t successful most of the time.  I wish they were more often, but I think it’s a matter of panicking. The rush and desperation to get it done, with adrenaline and caffeine coursing through them, allows for far too many mistakes.

            Writing has ever been a discipline where the devil is in the details. Not only can one word make a difference, most of the time one word is all the difference.

            And I’m not the devil; I’m just the messenger.

            Shakespearean jobs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

F3 Lost Hope

            The creature that fed on my memories, a bastellus, the lich boasted, finished feeding on me again. Each night was worse than the one before, and now I was down to almost no magic. All of the advanced learning was gone. Only the most basic lessons from Windy remained. I wouldn't surrender those memories, though. I couldn't.

Genre Dancing

            What’s in a genre? I could go Shakespearean with the rose thing, but this really is a serious question. How are they defined? Where do the lines blur? There has been a rash of genre combinations and crossovers lately. Whole new sections have risen in bookstores, claiming space from other genres. Other genres subdivide like cells undergoing meiosis.

Romance spawns off Dark Romance, or is it Paranormal Romance? Still others lump those in with Urban Fantasy, itself an offshoot of Fantasy, but now there is Epic Fantasy, which was originally simply Fantasy. And then Contemporary Fantasy. Does that include Urban Fantasy? Are the related?

            Where’s a Venn diagram of book genres when you need one?

            And let’s not get started on the young adult versions of all of these.

            Is it any wonder that trying to pick a genre to submit to an agent can become a headache?

A Busy November Done

            Even without the pressure of NaNoWriMo, Novembers are always busy for me. They are the month when my students’ big projects are due, and I have to grade them. Add into that my soon-to-be traditional foray to Boston for Crime Bake, and it becomes downright hectic.

            Oh, yeah, and Thanksgiving.

            But it’s over and done, now, and I feel like I’m on a nice, gentle downhill slope to the end of the semester.

            Time to get in some agent prep to submit the book.

F3 Surrendering Memories

            I didn't know what happened with the first two nightmares, but I knew on the third morning I woke up. The shadowy thing still stood over me, its finger-like tendril still embedded in my face as its head, which barely had a shape, sported what could only be called an evil smile in its open maw. On that morning, I realized it had stolen some of my memories.

Break Time

            The Thanksgiving Holiday marks the last break I will get this semester. It’s been rough, and I desperately need the time to recoup. I’ve been saying it all semester, and it’s still true. The semesters are getting tougher on me.

            Despite technological advancements, grading still takes too long. Students don’t understand, or worse, dismiss the instruction I give them, never bothering to read the feedback I give.

            Every teacher I see responds with the same weary sigh when asked “How’s it going?”

            Those sighs keep getting longer.

            So I will take this break as an opportunity to recharge sorely worn-out batteries, and to give thanks for the students who care.

Major Grading: Done!

            The final project has been graded. All that remains are a few short assignments and to give the students the opportunity to rewrite. It’s the last hurrah. I’m on the home stretch. I can use the Thanksgiving Break to really take a break.

F3 Rina's Rose

            Rina and I had shared blankets for a week, much to the relief of everyone else. Windy ended my lessons a little early each night, allowing more time for me and Rina. Markun gave us his blessing, though regretted he had no beer to make it official. Alistair smiled and made sure Rina and I spent the night's watch together, where we could talk and share before heading off to our blankets.

            I had never been happier in my life.

Dante's Gate

            “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” is one of the famous translations of the gate into Dante’s Hell. And I can’t help but think of teaching when it comes to this line. I see new teachers on the campus, I hear about people wanting to get a degree so they can teach, and I want to warn them away. I want them to know what I struggle with and see that the system as a whole is not improving. I want to tell them of my doubts about continuing on, about the types of students they will encounter, about an ever-shrinking job market with fewer and fewer opportunities to advance.

            I feel like a doomsayer and even a traitor. Teachers are supposed to always laud their profession. They are to throw themselves tirelessly, even thanklessly, into the profession because it is noble and for the benefit of society as whole, and it is worth any cost so long as we reach just one student.

            But there are practical considerations such as when teachers live below the poverty line, or when they put in their required hours but must also spend two to three times that—unpaid—in grading student work.

            Am I wrong to want to give warnings about the realities besetting this profession?

Attitude Towards Learning

            I don’t understand not wanting to learn. I just don’t. It baffles me. I can understand not having time to learn. I can’t understand choosing what to learn and when, but I can’t understand not wanting to learn at all. I don’t consider myself a super genius, but I like to think I’m a smart guy, and I have yet to truly shy away from any subject.

            On my own I have learned computer hardware, computer software, and a smattering of programming. I have learned how to repair cars, diagnose mechanical problems, and become proficient with common tools and disciplines to repair things around the house.

            I have learned chemistry, physics, astronomy, and geology, fascinated with the wonders that make up the universe.

            All of these are outside of my main interests of history and literature, but still I learn them because it’s interesting.

            My best friends are scientists and lawyers, and I pick their brains every chance I get. I don’t’ always understand the jargon, but the concepts are fascinating all the same. To think that the specific geometry of DNA has significance is awesome. To understand how an entire body of laws can hinge on one key phrase amazes. To see the complexities of what we take for granted every day on the news unfold in front of my eyes makes me smile.

            I love to learn.

            So I don’t understand students who don’t care about subjects. I don’t understand those who think that anything that they are not specifically interested in does not matter.

            What am I missing?