Puppy Post: De Shelster

Normaliter zijn er maar drie redenen waarom ik op zaterdag ochtend om zes uur al achter mijn bureau zit. Een: Het is commencement day, ik word over twee uur in vol ornaat in het theater verwacht, en moet nog even controleren wat mijn plek in de "marching order" is. Twee: het is de week voor commencement en er moeten gewoon twintig papers nagekeken worden. En drie: Het is lenter/zomer/herfst, en ik wil een flink eind hardlopen voordat het te warm is. Het is, zoals u wel weet, nog lang geen commencement, of finals week, en aangezien het midden in winter is, is er ook geen reden om op allerlei godsonmogelijke tijden te sporten. Nee, de reden waarom ik vandaag zo ontzettend vroeg wakker ben ligt momenteel op mijn voeten te slapen: Shelby. Of "the shelster" zoals de jongens haar noemen

Shelby is een typisch geval. Zoe trouwens ook, maar daarover later meer. Shelby is aan de ene kant nergens bang voor, is vriendjes met alles en iedereen, en kan zichzelf prima vermaken. Waar haar zus een typische asielhond is in dat ze het liefst 24/7 geknuffeld wil worden, is Shelby het andere typische asiel geval omdat ze het eigenlijk allemaal prima zelf kan. Niet dat ze niet het liefst met aandacht omringd wordt, maar het hoeft niet. Maar aan de andere kant schrikt Shelby van de meest vreemde dingen. Dingen zoals mannen met petten op. Zaklantaarns (aan en uit). Gefluit. Dingen waardoor wij ons afvragen wat er in hemelsnaam met haar is gebeurd voordat ze bij ons kwam. En soms schrikt ze van dingen die ze eerder heel normaal vond, zoals haar Bob the Builder pop. Of haar eigen staart waarmee zichzelf slaat. Of mama die met luide stem tekeer gaat over de belachelijke (non-)acties van het Amerikaanse congres. Dat laatste, daar kan Zoe trouwens ook niet tegen. Stemverheffingen, verhitte discussies, luide gesprekken, de honden verdwijnen werkelijk onmiddelijk onder ons bed. Het maakt niet uit of manlief en ik elkaar het huis uitvechten, we het juist roerend eens zijn over de achterlijkheid van iets, of ik een Hamlet-achtige monoloog aan het uitvoeren ben over de Amerikaanse politiek, Zoe en Shelby vinden het maar doodeng.

En sinds vanochtend is Shelby dus ook bang van noodweer. Het stormt hier al weken af en aan, maar de laatste twee dagen heeft het ononophoudelijk geregend, gedonderd, gebliksemd, en gewaaid. Normaal trekt Shelby zich daar niks van aan, en dartelt met wapperende oren door alle modder die ze maar kan vinden in de achtertuin. Haar zus is degene die werkelijk niks van nattigheid moet hebben, en met opgetrokken neus heel snel door het natte gras huppelt, haar behoefte doet, en dan als een speer naar binnen wil. Nu. Nu! Maar goed, vanochtend, toen het weer eens aan het rommelen was, voelde ik het bed opeens trillen. 

"Ben jij dat?" vroeg ik aan manlief.

"Nee, het is Shelby."

"Shelby?"
Ik voeld op de vloer, en zeker, daar lag Shelby, tegen een van de poten van ons bed aan. Elke keer als er een donderslag door het huis galmde, begon ze te trillen.

Nu zijn wij hele slechte puppy ouders in dat wij 's ochtends de honden altijd eventjes op bed laten. En alhoewel het nog erg vroeg was, konden we het niet over ons hart verkrijgen om Shelby op de vloer bang te laten zijn. En dus deden we wat je vast nooit moet doen: we namen haar op bed. Voor de goede orde lieten we Zoe ook maar op ons voeteneinde klimmen, want sja, ook bij honden geldt gelijke monniken, gelijke kappen, niet waar? En toen hadden we een trillende hond op bed. Een hond die zo trilde dat ons hele matras, dat nota bene een tempurpedic is, en dus helemaal niet kan trillen, meedeinde. 

Nu staat er vast in alle hondenboeken die we niet gelezen hebben dat als een hond bang, je haar moet negeren om het niet te stimuleren. Ook dat hebben we niet gedaan. We hebben Shelby zo goed en kwaad als het ging in een van onze dekens gezwachteld, en haar sussend toegesproken. En het trillen werd minder. Maar bij elke donderslag kromp het arme beestje in een. En dus, terwijl Zoe lekker lag te snurken aan het einde van het bed, bewogen manlief en ik ons tussen waken en slapen. En na een half uur trillend geprobeerd hebben weer in slaap te komen, heb ik het op gegeven. 

En daarom zit ik om zes uur 's ochtends achter mijn bureau met een hele grote kop thee. Met een slapende hond op mijn voeten. Zij wel. 

Shelby

Zoe en Shelby in de voortuin

Zoe

Italy’s Inconvenient Nap-time

Thanks, DixieChick for asking me to write a guest post! I’ve been meaning to get this off my chest and write about this on my blog, but I kept getting sidetracked. Luckily, Southern Tales is the perfect outlet for my rant! Living in Italy isn’t always paradise.

I like naps just as much as the next person. Actually, that’s a lie. I like naps WAY more than normal people. I like naps so much that my nickname is “Nappy.” True story. Clearly life doesn’t always allow time for a snooze, but when it does, things are good; I’m a happy camper if I can fit in a catnap.

So when I moved to Italy and heard they had a siesta-like approach to afternoons, I was over the moon. In Spain a siesta means, “nap,” and they take their siesta during the hottest part of the afternoon—between 2 and 4 pm, roughly. The concept is great: You eat lunch, finish running your errands, then go home to cool off and take a quick nap; you wake up just in time to start prepping dinner. I fell madly in love with Spain for being in sync with my nap schedule and couldn’t wait to have a built-in naptime every day in Italy.

On paper, Italy’s siesta is even better than Spain’s version. It’s called riposo in Italian, which means, “rest” in English, and it’s from about noon until aound 4 pm. Riposo is a four-hour break in the middle of the day—every day. Like I said, in theory, that sounds like a fantastic plan. In reality, it’s horrible, which says something coming from a die-hard napper.

During that four-hour timeframe almost everything closes. Is your car running low on gas and you need to fill up? Too bad, the gas stations are all closed*. Decide to take a “late” lunch or want a snack in the middle of the afternoon? Should’ve thought about eating before noon since almost all of the restaurants are closed and they don’t have fast food out here (not a bad thing, just not convenient when you’re driving around and you can hear your stomach growl over your car radio). Want to go shopping in the afternoon? Forget about it. Your errands, clothes, crafts, and groceries will just have to wait. Between the hours of 12 pm and 4 pm my little bustling city becomes a ghost town. Of course in the larger (touristy) cities, riposo goes practically unnoticed, but in rural Italy, it’s pretty routine.

Another quirky aspect of living in Italy is that on top of closing for a good chunk of the afternoon, each little Italian town usually closes one or two days a week. Almost everything is closed in my town on Wednesdays, but the town over is closed on Thursdays. Can you see where this can get a little frustrating? Oh, but it gets better…

There are exceptions to every rule since each business is in charge of their own hours. Here’s an example of a store around the corner from our house.

At first glance, it may seem confusing, so I’ll break it down for you in English:

Hours:

Monday: 11 am—2 pm; closed in the afternoon

Tuesday: 11 am—2 pm; 5 pm—10 pm

Wednesday: 11 am—2 pm; 5 pm—10 pm

Thursday: closed all day

Friday: 11 am—2 pm; 5 pm—10 pm

Saturday: 11 am—2 pm; 5 pm—10 pm

Sunday: closed all day

Long story short: riposo sounds like a wonderful idea, but I miss knowing that a business or restaurant will be open during “normal” business hours. We’ve been here for just over eight months and while Italy’s unique way-of-life still annoys me, I’m finally learning how to take a deep breath and just go with the flow. Luckily, the bar next to me is one of the few places that’s open all the time (except all day Sunday and Wednesday afternoons), so if I’m not taking a nap during riposo you’ll most likely find me becoming one with the Italians. I’ll be the loudmouth American drinking wine in the corner.

*Since we are here with military orders, we get gas ration cards that can only be used at certain gas stations. The gas pumps are open during riposo; however, we have to give our rations to an actual person, so we can’t fill up until they re-open. 

Tough love

This morning I found the following jewel in my email:

"I know I am going to get a zero, although I wanted to get my topic reviewed if possible. I will turn in a hard copy in class on Monday."

No signature, no reference to a specific class, this was it.

Fortunately for this particular student, I read a lot of Miss Marple mysteries when I was a kid, and that combined with my students' habits to assume I know every single one of them, their schedule, their life stories, as well as their personal idiosyncrasies ("you know I hate gmail!"), means that my power of induction are unsurpassed. Hence, based on his unique last name (which was actually part of his email address - excuse me while I pick myself off the floor), his reference to a class on Monday (which reduces the possible number of classes down to three), as well as his use of the phrase "my topic", made it very easy for me to determine that he was talking about the "write a paragraph about the topic you would like to research this semester" assignment that was due last week.

Admittedly, I admire this student's desire to receive feedback. He obviously realizes that without proper feedback, he'll have no idea whether the topic he's about to work with for the next thirteen weeks is any good or not. Although realistically he would have found out next week when he needed to turn in six peer-reviewed articles on said topic, and he might have received a terse, "don't think this topic is do-able in this time frame" or a "great topic!" note on his work, I can understand his desire to be on top of his stuff.

So that leaves me with the $64,000 question: Why did said student not turn in his work on time? I looked at his topic, and the one-sentence topic could not have taken more than about a second of his precious time. Unless he was in the hospital or in prison, there is  no reason why he could have not sent this email a week earlier. Even if he was off campus remembering the death of his beloved guinnea pig Mr. Twinkles, or helping his best friend's cousin's girlfriend move across the state, WiFi is pretty much omnipresent, and thus the topic could have been sent, on time, with the click of a button.

Unless, of course, unless said student is not as academically inclined as he'd like me to believe.
Hm.
Now there's a thought.

So, after four-and-a-half-years of dealing with late work, dead guinneapigs, moving cousins, broken parole, tough judges, and mysterious illnesses, all of which have led to me losing sleep, losing time with my family, and spending way too much energy trying to fix students' problems or mistakes, this is my standard answer to such requests:

"Good morning (student name),

Thank you for your email. Although I appreciate you turning in a topic, I set deadlines so I have time to grade everyone's work. Work turned in after the deadline will thus not be graded.

Thank you,

Dr. D"

Yes, there's not a lot of carebear-stare-unicorns-rainbows-flowers-candy-land about that response, but you know what, it's midterms, I'm swamped, and you're a grown-up.
So just deal.

Pet Peeves

The semester is about two weeks old, and I've already collected a list of pet peeves. As I'm sure you love nothing more than reading about the things that bother, as my southern friends would say, "the tar" out of me, here they are:

1. The ultimate helicopter parent. When you're 22 years old, and you failed to register for classes in November, and also failed to notice a gigantic in-your-face-transcript hold on your account, please do not ask your mother to call the president's office to override said hold the day before classes start. And if you're that 22-year old's mother, please, for the sake of all academic advisers out there, do not pick up that phone. Why, you ask? Well, there are several reasons: 1) It makes your darling child look like a baby, 2) it teaches your lovely offspring absolutely nothing about this pesky little thing called personal responsibility, and 3) it puts several hours worth of work on people such as your child's adviser, the department chair, the dean, as well as the president. In other words, people who have a lot of other things on their mind, one of which is whether or not your child has acquired the necessary skills to graduate. Do you really, really want those people to call each other to discuss "the case with the student whose mom called the president's office"?
I didn't think so.

2. The total snowflake. The student who thinks their personal situation is so very, very special, they are not only allowed to miss every single class in the first two weeks of school because they "had financial aid issues to resolve", but that they're also entitled to a "personal meeting" with you, their instructor, to catch up on "everything they've missed". This student also firmly believes that by ending or starting the email with a capitalized compliment about how they're REALLY looking forward to your AWESOME class, they make up for the fact that they've effectively missed enough classes to lose one entire letter grade in the class.

3. The anxious over-achiever. Now, before I start in on this one, don't get me wrong, I love nothing more than dedicated students. Students who have read the material, done the homework, stop by your office with intelligent questions, and pay attention in class. But there's something about this type of student that drives me absolutely batty. The anxious overachiever will have called anywhere from two to five times the week before classes start to make sure they are enrolled in your class, that the book is available in the bookstore/on amazon/in the library, to make sure you know about their, legitimate or not, special needs, to confirm the class room and meeting time, or to just check in and make sure you know they're in your class and how much they're looking forward to it. Then during the first week of class, they will stop by your office every single day asking questions about the first homework assignment ("write down your goals for this class"), how they're supposed to turn it in (it's in the syllabus and has been discussed in class), how long it's supposed to be (ditto), when it's due again (ditto), and then turn the assignment in early (now, granted, there's nothing wrong with that, although it's a little eerie to hear it's because they're anxious about handing materials in in class). It's possible I'm slowly becoming an old curmudgeon, but next to helping said student shop for groceries and tucking them in at night, I'm pretty sure I've done all the hand holding that's humanly possible.

4. The eye-rolling back-row-hoggers. In short, the students who really, really don't want to be here. They only took the class because "it was the only elective that would fit their schedule", or they thought they were going to graduate, but realized they needed nine more credits, or they are just of the modest opinion that they have proven their worth somewhere halfway through their sophomore year, and should just handed that degree already. Every assignment makes them roll their eyes, sigh, or grumble about how much work this is. They've developed the annoying habit of shortening my last name to a ridiculous nickname, show up late, and use their phones to make sure their hair still looks good.

Only fifteen more weeks until the end of the semester, and I so help me God, I will turn every single one of these little darlings into my very favorite student: The Critical, Engaged Thinker.