Remember What . . .

. . . the Door Mouse Said . . . !

At the end of this very long day, I want to dance and scream, I want to stand outside in the warm summer-like night so the breeze can tickle through the strands of my long hair, I want to giggle and laugh and then lie down to nap. I want to step out to the upstairs deck and toss papers in the wind. Somewhere someone is doing the Hokey Pokey or the Electric Slide. I'm feeling absolutely crazy and fun. I have no desire to be serious nor professional. Is this spring fever? . . . having arrived with the increasing temperature? High here today was 82 degrees F. I haven't had a thing to make me high, but I'm feeling 10 feet tall . . . "Go Tell Alice . . . ".

So let me explain the photos, if I can focus for long enough to do so. The top left photo is what I saw as I stepped from my car early this morning at the campus. I stood there breathing in the view, looking southward at the city where I have spent my life. Maybe that's where runaway-itis and this seasonal fever bit me. A couple of students watched me and my camera; they tried not to step into my frame and smiled as they headed off to math or sociology or economics or anatomy.

I walked from the parking lot into the pulse of the campus. Unlocked my office door, loaded my shoulder-bag with the tools for the day--Scantron tests, comma quizzes, bonus questions, and a bowlful of candy to sweeten a possible bitter moment. Several hours later I strolled back to my glassed-in cage with scored Scantrons, quizzes of written comma rules, and very few bonus questions completed because most couldn't be bothered with the hour of time to watch a video that just might change their life.

Inside my office a little while later a commotion was coming from outside. I let comma quizzes fall to the floor and stood to look out the door. The math professor had his students standing in a large circle in the amphitheater playing a game. A game--like dodge ball or what were those circle games we played in grade school? The prof would drop something in the middle of the circle, step aside, read something; then a student or two would ran faster than the wind to get the prize. I never figured-out what they were doing while watching behind the tinted-glass door of my office, but I thought about the possibilities of bringing a writing class outside to stand in a circle to chase commas or apostrophes or exclamation points. I'd try it if it would spark their curiosity for language or reading or writing.

Later I stood outside slightly to the left of my office and captured the construction that I have neglected to show you since before Christmas. I noticed the scaffolding on the building and thought much about the scaffolding that college is in a student's life as he or she prepares for a professional life. Too many of my students want that life without the preparation--at least that's what the results on most of their quizzes revealed. hiss! sigh! moan! Then I stepped further into the parking lot so we could all behold the building. Amazing what it is about to contain.

Back in my office I wandered through Blipfoto for a breath of fresh air and was amused and delighted that Nina and Lesley both thought yesterday's thin little book was appealing. I wished I could mail them a copy. The Least You Should Know about English -- has very little instruction, but what's there is so good, so clear, so comprehendible. Equally valuable, it displays examples which make the instruction so understandable. Then exercises to build grammar and punctuation muscles with all the answers in the back of the book. Without much effort I captured my collection of volumes of those books. I caged them inside my little camera so that you could see them again.

This evening all faculty were given invitations (that did not include the option to decline) to attend the monthly Board of Trustees Meeting. We were told significant major decisions were being made there this evening as the college district's chancellor has put "on hold" the construction of a future building on our campus. The officials at our campus are less than pleased. So in large numbers we went. What we found, though, was an angry mob of construction workers, some union and some not, trying to convince the college board to believe and vote for their side and hire one kind or the other to do all future construction.

After 2 hours and the long parade of construction workers and employers at the mic explaining the benefits of hiring one or the other, we took a break. I gathered my papers that I had sat there quietly grading and walked out into the night through the warm air and hundreds of cars parked in the lot. Drove home through Norco's streets that boast "rural living in a city atmosphere" -- past the corralled horses and cooped chickens. Then crossed the borderline to my city to homes without horses to yards manicured and curbed and illumined with solar lights.

Then my house . . . where the automatic garage door crawled upward and I backed my car in as I always do; before I stepped out, the door was down again. I made my way into the house. Without a drop to drink, I'm intoxicated with being home and with the two who are here waiting for me.

How's that for a Tuesday at the end of winter? Whew!
Good night from a very warm intoxicating Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun) (and Bob dog), aka Carol

P.S. I wonder if my students know what the door mouse said.

P.P.S. Honest, I am going to tell about the gift that arrived in the mail yesterday from Deb! Check in later for that.