It’s 10:40 Saturday morning and I do NOT feel like working today. Dammit.
Three more sets of busywork “reading response” papers are in from the English 102s. That’s a hundred and twenty-six papers to read! Actually, in each section three students are MIA (thank God). So that leaves “only” 108 mind-numbers to look at and assess.
They’re only worth 15 points and they don’t actually have to be read carefully: it’s just a matter of looking at them to judge whether our nimrods seem to have read the assigned chapters and tried to apply the principles therein to one of the included essays. Some students are so effing useless that unless you MAKE them read the assignments by demanding that they regurgitate the gist of what they’re supposed to read, they won’t do it.
Even then, sometimes they won’t. One guy obviously just looked at the chapter’s title, which appears in the syllabus, and made up a lot of vague bullshit.
Many students flat-out refuse to buy the textbooks for their college courses. And you can’t blame them: textbooks are horribly overpriced. When it comes to a required bullshit course like freshman comp, which most students highly resent being made to pay for, the textbooks are a frank rip-off. Sixty, eighty, a hundred bucks for a $20 trade paperback? GIVE. ME. A BREAK.
And forgodsake give the students a break.
For the magazine writing course, my colleague and I are trying to concoct a “virtual” workbook by finding websites that contain the same information as the pricey textbook. Really, it would be easier to do that for freshman comp, and I don’t understand why the colleges don’t assign a committee to identify a dozen websites with the instructional content and another couple dozen online essays and articles to examplify that content, and then let us point classmates in that direction.
Even if the students had to sign up for sites with paywalls, like The New York Times, it would be infinitely cheaper than having to fork over some enormous amount of money for a textbook you don’t want and will get rid of on the last day of class, to your significant financial disadvantage.
Ugh. I’ve been sitting here drinking coffee and cruising the Web for the past several hours. GOTTA either get to work or get off my duff, walk the dogs, and do some yardwork.
Yesterday I did manage to get several major chores done:
Cleaned up final (or next-to-final) copy for a client’s 275-page manuscript (single-spaced; that would be something over 500 pages if it were double-spaced the way it’s supposed to be…). Drafted a proposal for said client to send to publishers. Read about 60 stoont papers. Attacked the weeds in the quarter-acre yard and up the alley. Walked the dogs. Devised a yoga routine and tested it (not long enough yet…). Met with my son to discuss the proposed refinance; found him once again unhappy with the idea. Realized he may be right.
My father may have been right, too: mortgage instruments are designed to screw the customer, no matter how cheerily they are presented and no matter how “low” the interest. One might, just might be better served to live in cheap apartments or company housing throughout one’s adulthood, squirreling every penny into savings, and then buy the retirement residence in cash.
God, but the news stinks these days. One exception: Jordan is moved to blow ISIS out of existence.
About bloody time someone got off that dime. If the Jordanians succeed in extinguishing those lunatics, their pilot’s life will not have been lost in vain.
Unlike, we might add, the many lives we’ve thrown uselessly into that vortex.
There’s only one way to bring a stop to extremist attacks on Western targets and on (relatively) innocent locals, and that is to demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt that we will exterminate the perpetrators and anybody who happens to be standing nearby. That is what they understand and that is all they understand.
Sorry to sound harsh, but I grew up in Saudi Arabia. I can assure you, the only reason the Saudis ever pretended to be our “friends” was and is spelled O-I-L. In reality they hate Westerners, they hate Christians, they hate Jews, and they especially hate Americans. That was as obvious while my family was there as it it obvious today.
ISIS represents the worst threat to civilization — any civilization, not just the West’s — since Adolf Hitler. In fact, I would venture to suggest that ISIS is worse than the Nazis, because they have religion behind them, and religion rectifies just about anything. Like the Nazi, they would happily relieve the world of every Jew, every gay and lesbian, every mentally or physically disabled person, everyone they imagine is “immoral,” and everyone who fails to toe their political line. But to that list you can add vast numbers of other nationalities, races, faiths, and non-faiths.
These are people who would not hesitate to detonate a nuclear bomb in New York, London, Paris, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Tokyo, Singapore…you name it. Or to unleash chemical or biological weapons on hundreds of thousands of human beings. They would do so without compunction, because they believe God approves.
This is an enemy that truly does embody pure evil. If Americans, Europeans, and Asians do not clear the fog from their vision soon, we won’t have to worry about global warming much longer. There won’t be anybody left to release carbon into the atmosphere. At least, not from combustion sources much more impressive than a campfire.
Cripes. I suppose I’d better get up and get to work. Though under the circumstances there hardly seems any point in it.
Why does Dear Son have reservations about the refi? Is it the out of pocket costs OR does he expect to move soon? Just curious. I will predict that we will look back on these interest rates in the not too distant future and just shake our heads, wishing we had borrowed all we could. Just got an e-mail from a Bank I’ve done business with in the past …15 year ….2.875%…calls for a discount point, but the gal I deal with told me “that’s negotiable in your case”. I told the Dear Wife we should borrow $200K…and see what happens….I can put that money in utility and telephone stock today and get 5-6% return….But she will have none of it. The original note for the property I’m sitting in was for 13.75% + 2 points….and the guy was doing me a favor! Those days could come back, those memories are fresh in my mind.
I know home ownership has it’s drawbacks but I am a fan, as it is in a sense a forced savings. And I can tell you as a Realtor, I have witnessed the reward of “buy and hold” when an older client does sell their paid for home. I represented a dear gal once, who was divorced from a real creep who still occupied the property. I represented her well and as memory serves we got about $350K for the place…subtract the $20K mortgage and the $20K to sell and the net was like $310K. Then an obscure document from the divorce was presented and she received right around $275K….and he $35K…which proved to me there is justice. She was a pleasure to work with and was taking that money right to T.Rowe Price, which was a “stone’s throw” from my office, to put it to work. She and her new husband wanted to take the wife and I to dinner as a reward and to celebrate…BUT I declined. My point is she stuck it out and home ownership did work for her despite a bad marriage. Her patience was rewarded…
A series of alarms is going off. I’m not going to detail them here, but he quite rightly thinks he should talk to the credit union and at least one other institution before accepting the deal that has been offered.