The first week of teaching 4 sections of Spanish 101 at Colledge went pretty much as expected. All of my classes are in different classrooms, albeit in the same building, but unfortunately not every room is created equal. My 1st class is a small amphitheater equipped with a table & a few chairs, a dry-erase board & an old-school tube TV mounted to the wall; my 2nd is a computer lab, with a raised lectern and a computer/projector setup with the tables turned towards the dry erase board; my 3rd was originally a small room with 9 rows of 3 sets of desks, no table, 1 chair, a lectern, a regular chalk board & a tube TV, and my last one is quite spacious, with plenty of desks & a table & chair & a lectern, but again with the chalk board & a tube TV. Each of my classes had a full roster of students, so that 3rd classroom had everyone feelin kinda claustrophobic. I asked my dept head, Miss Woman, to see if she could get me moved, as there were not enough desks for all of the students. She said she'd make some calls & the next day, she gave me another room. This one turned out to be another computer lab, but with the tables in a sort of U-shape, so the students have to turn to look at me and the few that have books have to hold them in their laps.
I am not sure who is deciding where to place these classes but I would love to ask them a lot of questions, starting with "WTF is wrong with you? Are you not able to count? Have you seen these rooms or even been to campus?"
But I digress.
The text we are using has an online component, which requires the student to use the Class Key included in their book & a Course Code, which I sent out in an email blast titled "Course Code" & as of yesterday, 15 students replied to that email with some variation on "I tried to get into the website but it say I need a course code. What is it?" Minus the punctuation & capitalization, I might add. It took a lot of effort not to reply with "Scroll down, stupid." But I am nice, right?
In class, I try to keep the tone light, and let the students know that due to my Math Phobia, I can understand that Spanish is not everyone's cup of tea. For the most part, they seem engaged, but lawd whoever said "There's no such thing as a stupid question" clearly never taught at Colledge. The one that sticks out most in my mind is when this one kid asked "How hard is this class?" I took a second and said "I really don't know how to answer that. It's a beginner course, you don't need to have taken Spanish before," and I continued with what I was saying. She interrupted again: "But how hard is it?" SIGH. I think I managed to re-iterate my previous statement in a reasonable manner. I'm just glad I didn't say what popped into my head....
With the 1st week out of the way, I started Monday feeling pretty OK about things, but as you will remember from my last post the money round here has been pretty tight, being that I'd been off work from Med Skool Glam for a bit & quit Ho-livier's, so I checked with the Dept Secretary to get the list of Pay Dates for adjuncts. After Miss Woman's assurances that since I was already in the system, there would be no delay in getting the first paycheck, I was shocked beyond all reason to be handed a piece of paper showing that the 1st check wouldn't be direct deposited until October 3rd, AKA 6 weeks after the beginning of classes. Miss Secretary sort of shrugged her shoulders about it & suggested that I call Miss Lady in Payroll about it. I went outside & gathered my thoughts & made the call. Miss Lady confirmed that this schedule was correct, and sort of tried be empathetic at first & said, "Yea it's hard," before passing the buck on to the state administration in Baton Rouge. When I said, "I wish someone had given me this information BEFORE I signed the contract, because honestly I would not have done it."
Her response? "So whatcha gonna do? You gonna keep teaching?"
All I could say before hanging up was, "I'll have to get back to you on that."
I held it together in front of the next 2 classes I had to teach & sort of kept it together when I went to Miss Boss Woman's office and questioned her about all of this. Like I sort of managed not to cry when I told her that I would be homeless by the time the 1st check came. She played it up like she had no idea the date would be that late (YEAH RIGHT), even going so far as to say "This is immoral! Asking people to work for six weeks without pay! I'm going to talk to the Dean about this, and see if we can at least get you an advance."
Mysteriously, the Dean had just left. She said she'd talk to him & call me today after 1PM, and I left campus somewhat mollified but still devastated. Almost choking on the feeling that I have made a gigantic mistake. Like I should have listened to that gut feeling that made me turn down this job in the first place. Wondering if I should go back to working at Ho-livier's on the weekends until October. Wondering how this old carcass of mine was gonna be able to do it.
Thanks once again to the magic of social media, a dear friend stepped in & offered to loan me the $ missing from my budget until October & I accepted. I am so grateful for it but still outraged and sad to be in this fucking position AGAIN. Incredulous that I'm having to re-apply for food stamps while I have two jobs & umpteen college degrees.
For now I'm just going to try to breathe deep and not get all overwhelmed. To be centered and figure out what the next step is. I know things will get better. They always do. Until then, I'll just keep looking at the world thru my beautiful Big Freedia glasses, to me they represent how much so many people love me & wish the best for me, even when I'm feeling all lonely and scared and irate and unable to be in public for fear of a meltdown.
I'm publishing this so I can look back later and be glad that I got through this fresh round of Colledge Fuckery. To remind myself not to get tricked again, and to let other hoes know not to get involved in this whole adjunct game unless you don't need the money.
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