All right so this is how my day went, follow me if you will. First I get up early like 10:00 a.m., yeah i know what you are saying but i went to bed very late get off my back. I met Lily down at the gate to our campus, because she is going to take me to the store. You might remember that a few weeks Lily took me out to dinner with her cousins, so as a way of repay that I decided I would have the last official backyard BBQ of the season. First two small problems no backyard no grill. I can do without both I have a gas cook top in my kitchen so I can make it work. So then I thought what goes best with burgers and don't say cheese and Big Red Smokies (I know they do but this isn't a Dan J. BBQ where all we serve is meat). Well I thought potato salad and cole slaw and of course deviled eggs, I think I might have mentioned this plan before. So today we walk down the street to get to the supermarket when we arrive it is closed for remodeling. No problem we just walk back down the street past our school and up the road another 20 minutes to get to the next supermarket. We walk around and don't actually buy anything but find want I need to make all the stuff and we made a list. This was pretty much the only part of my day that didn't feel like I was running my head into a wall. So as you know Freshman classes start tomorrow, and of course I still haven't been given any insight into how I am supposed to teach them. I got my books and I know it's supposed to be English and that is it. The guy who is my boss, Mr. Wong is so busy *cough* yeah right *cough* that he can't return my phone calls or when I finally corner him in his office he has to leave for class in two minutes, but he promised me he would meet with me today.
So after the store I went up to building 5 which is the international studies building, you have seen it, to look for Mr. Wong. I called him of course and nobody answered, I get tot he fifth floor and the door to the floor is closed and locked so I can't even go stakeout his office. At this point I am pissed, I just spent the last two days working on a syllabus for each class, and I can't finalize it yet because I haven't got any final details. What do they expect grade wise? Does this school have a grading scale? When is the last day of classes? Is there an exam week? Do I make up the exam or is there a standardized one? Do you guys have any clue what is going on? I don't want to be mean but this school is a third of the size of Wright State in student population easily. How do I know you might ask, they have 6 buildings for teaching, they take a 2 hour lunch break everyday from classes and all classes end by 8 so they teach from 8 to 8 but only 10 hours. Each class is 1.5 hours plus a 10 minute break and then another 10 minute break in between classes so that is 1 hour 50 minutes per class. So at most 5 classes a day, for any one student. I know for a fact student don't go all day everyday, I see the same guys on the courts everyday at 4. They had to divide my class of 150 students into two periods because they don't have a room to fit all of them. I understand that this is a specialty university that is why the population is small, but you had an extra three weeks to get prepared for Freshman classes. I guess I shouldn't complain at least I have my schedule, Luke as of last check today still doesn't have his Freshman schedule so he didn't even know if he had to teach tomorrow. Maybe because I am behind the scenes here I see a lot of the problems, but it seems like WSU with 3 times the students at least 3 times the courses and 3 times the classrooms to organize their logistics are pretty good. Enough venting I need to save some more for later. So I end up sitting in Lily's office pissed off and depressed I have two classes tomorrow and I can't even hand them a syllabus to tell them what is going on. So Lily calls Vanessa who apparently is know my "semi-boos" cause Mr.Wong is too busy to see if we can get some stuff figured out. My biggest concern is that for my writing class I was given four books and I wasn't told which to use and how many to use. So Vanessa shows up and I explain this to her. Her reply was, "You use 1 book a semester, I told you this when I gave them to you." To which I responded then why did you give me FOUR that is two years worth of material what am I supposed to do with that. Oh sorry, maybe if you come back next year you will already have the book. Or if I don't the next teacher won't have a book to teach from, more on that in a second. So I'm like OK this is getting better, well I need to amend my syllabus so I get Vanessa to open the 5th floor for me so I can go to the English Teacher's office, basically a computer lab. When I get there I sit down and start working on my syllabus for that class and Vanessa walks over and tells me oh by the way don't use book 1 just start at book 2. Each lesson should be taught over two weeks, one class a week. Well there are 10 lessons and 14 weeks, you do the math. Oh we just do the first 7 lessons and don't worry about the rest, the students can study them independently later if they want, jeez that's swell of you guys. So at this point I am just frustrated cause I have to basically rewrite half of my syllabus, because I was also told that the grade of the class is dependent on a final exam administered by the school, I have nothing to do with it. So I have to remove the whole section on homework and grading, and rewrite the exam and class schedule part.
So I finally get all this done and I'm like hello I need to make about 1000 copies, you guys got a copy machine. First they tell me just use the printer, hahaha good joke. No just use the printer, I need to make 1000 copies the printer will explode. Oh well how about you just make 2 or 3 copies and post one in the room and pass the other 2 around so students can copy them by hand. Are you serious, copy the syllabus by hand, so in week 13 the student can come up to me and say he shouldn't be failing cause he missed 12 classes, cause the syllabus has no attendance policy on it.That's when he whips out his hand copied one in Chinese no less and says it is not on there. Plus that defeats the whole purpose of a syllabus if each student doesn't get one of their own. They need a hard copy. I was told other American teachers in the past had done this, thanks a lot buddy your half hearted effort is no causing me headaches. So then I proceed to ask them if they even know what a copy machine is and if there is even one on campus. They know and the only one on campus i can us is the one in the mobile phone/Kinko's store down the street where I have to pay 15 cents a copy, GREAT.
So grumbling to myself I head down to the copy store, now the next part I take full responsibility for but I also want to point out my state of mind at the time. So earlier when I was revising my syllabus I was doing some cut and pasting and I forgot to change the title on the new syllabus, So I had a freshman and sophomore Oral syllabus both labeled as the Sophomore syllabus. So when I printed them I looked at the one already printed and I said oh I already printed the Sophomore one need to print the Freshman one again, except I had already printed the Freshman one. I of course discovered this at the copy store, so I have two copies of the Freshman Oral syllabus with the wrong title. At least I had the writing syllabus right. So I just made 100 copies(it is a 2 page syllabus so 200 sheets) because those are my bigger classes, all my oral had been 30 to a class so I was playing it safe and figured I could make more if I had to. So after the copy store went horribly wrong I was running late to meet River who was going to show mere the buildings were I have to teach class on Thursday because whenever I asked anybody else where they were, they had no idea. River by the way Chinese English teacher, and very cool. So on the way to these classes he tells me we are both teaching the same writing class he is taking half and I am taking the other half because the class is 150 students. So I have 3 writing classes with 75 students each do the math, I need more syllabi. Plus I also need to make at least 125 to 150 of a 3 page syllabus for my Freshman oral class and then 36 copies of a 2 page syllabus for my Sophomore Oral class. So that's 547 more copies plus I still have to pay for the 200 hundred I got today do the math I don't want to. I can just imagine some of my history professors, Dr. Lockhart, if Wright State told him he had to make syllabi at his own expense.That would be a funny conversation. So I have two classes in 8 hours and no syllabus for them, awesome.
Getting back to the book thing for my freshman oral class. When I went to ask for a book they told me they didn't have one. OK no problem just order one off of Amazon right, I'll probably have to pay for that too. No, instead they said they were just going to ask a student if I could borrow their copy for each class. So then my options are take a students textbook and never return it and make them share with a friend. Or I can borrow a book at the beginning of class and return it at he end of class. So I have no book to lesson plan from each week, awesome. I am seriously thinking of just bringing in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Hemingway, that I borrowed from Finn, and just reading that to the students till I finish it and then just starting over again.
Oh China you win again!
*****Editor's note***** Josh left out the whole stupid episode involved with downloading the drivers for the printer that was left in his room. And how after he finally got him the printer was out of ink and unable to actually feed paper to itself so It is a piece of junk, and how he then threw out of the 7th story window. Plus he added the 2nd part of his big video so check it out those of you who have been on the edge of your seat with anticipation. i guarantee after watching this one you will want to go back and watch them both all over again.
