Hope Doesn't Really Float

I'm not really sure what "Hope Floats" means, in spite of the fact that I've paid attention to the key lines in the movie -- whenever I'm unfortunate enough to encounter it on bad Saturday reruns, anyway.

Okay, so I have a few more leads on jobs. The hold up, now, is my lack of letters of rec. Eric is doing one for me. Jack's is "in the mail." DJ's is beautiful and ready. Ellen's is also beautiful and ready. I have to go out to pick up the one from Eric on Friday and I'll get my transcript from NIU -- and, by the way, I found out that with a retake on the GRE, my GPA could actually get me into the program at NIU for a PhD -- and we all know how very badly I want one ... [INSERT DRIPPING SARCASTIC TONE, HERE].

On a fun note -- even with my left eye still impaired (with the prism which is correcting my double vision), I was able to take a twisted coat hanger and retrieve Jeff's car keys off the floor of his car at Harner's, today. Yeah! I was just so damned impressed with myself. I can still do stuff :)

My mother talked me into buying a whole bunch of clothes from QVC, today. I ordered 4 pairs of capris, 3 short sets (tops & shorts), and a square-necked top. So, since I really didn't have tops to match the capris I ordered, on the way home from Harner's, I ducked into Fashion Bug and bought 5 tops. I figure the day's shopping set me back $250.00 -- but I have plenty of clothes, now, for teaching this summer.

I had an idea for the summer course I wanted to get down really fast -- I got the job based on the "idea" of getting the students to create their own electronic portfolios. This has NEVER been tried with high school students -- especially a bunch of kids who failed Sophomore English and got forced into summer school because of language barriers (ESL, primarily). It may be absolutely impossible, but I really think I can pull it off. Eric offered to help me create a template like the Webography zip drive we used in 104. I think this could work for individual portfolios, but once my mind spins a little more, I think I could turn this into a small group project that would produce more viable portfolios. I have to sleep on this a few more nights.

In the mean time, I have to get lesson plans going. I am going to have these kids for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 5 weeks. That's basically 100 1-hour lessons. Fuck me. It takes me a while to plan each 1-hour lesson. I really, really, have my work cut out for me, but it's nowhere near as much as these poor kids have to handle. They are going to get about 2 hours of homework per night. These are kids who can't hardly read and they are going to have to read 2 novels, a dozen short stories, a play, some non-fiction, and will have to write 2 long papers -- all in 5 weeks!

This is going to really suck for them. I guess that's what they get for not pulling it together during the school year. Bye-bye summer. I mean, high schools only get about 9 weeks off for summer -- they get two weeks before the class starts and two weeks after. I am really going to have to figure out how to motivate them -- oh wait -- that's what grades are for. If they fail this ... they have to repeat their entire Sophomore year. Um, I may not be as altruistic as some people -- no way is this motivation. I guess I'm a cynic after all.