Well, I guess the whole class scedule bugaboo will be ok after all.

The college reps on the base want everything to work out, and the kids don't give a damn about the unconventional way it's going down, so I'm sure it'll all come out smooth as shit.

How did all this happen? Basically, the new guy who is running the Political Science department talked to me several months ago about teaching for them again. The last classes I had for them went down about a year ago. I had one class on the main campus that lasted about 16 weeks, a conventional semester, and another on base that lasted 8 weeks. The 8 week ones are concentrated, containing the same number of contact hours as a 16 week class, but lasting half the time. It was a class in constitutional law, which is always a blast to teach. Lots of interesting topics and heated class discussions.

The top twerps on the main campus across the highway were looking for a new guy to head up the department back then, wanting to hire some new PhD in the field so they could get some graduate classes started. This local campus is still playing catch up and trying to establish itself, trying to keep from having it's funding killed by the real main campus in Stevenville. When they found a contender, they brought this little twerp into my class in the last week of that 8 week semester, while I was giving final exams, and auditioned him in front of my students. Next thing I know this guy is being given all the old classes I used to teach and they didn't need my services any more. That was a year ago. Imagine my surprise when this guy calls me and asks me what classes I want to teach and when. I was totally taken aback.

He'd found that he needed someone to teach a few extra classes, and the old guy who used to schedule them sent him my way. I taught a mini term a few weeks back, between the regular semesters, and then the regular 8 week semester began last week, on the 29th. According to the talk I'd had months earlier (and I wrote this stuff down so I know what he told me), this 8 weeks I'd be teaching a class on State and Local Government, and the next 8 weeks, August to October, I'd teach a class on the Executive Branch. It was clear cut, so I told the CTC folks when I'd be available to teach for them, and they set up the rest of my schedule to fit everything together. A week or so before the semester began, I found out that the TSU class would be prorated. I'd get less money to teach it due to low enrollment, but I was willing to go along with that just to have a little extra money coming in.

So, I started the semester thinking all was well. Normal stuff; classes every day from 11:30 to 12:30, 12:30 to 1:30, and then evening classes for CTC from 4:45 to 7pm and 7:30 to 10pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and a class for TSU from 4:45 to 7pm on Mondays and Wednesdays. Because of the holiday on Monday for memorial Day, The semester began on Tuesday. I'm about 20 minutes into my 4:45 CTC class, the first half of US History, talkin' about Columbus or somethin' like that, when the TSU rep on Ft. Hood comes knockin' at the door with a big smile on his face, tellin' me that I've got a class I'm supposed to be in in another room.

I'm totally shocked. I tell my folks to take a break and I go down there and sure enough, there's 4 students there waiting on me (4 of the 6 that are enrolled). I take down everyone's name and email and head back to the other class. The TSU rep is takin' it in stride. He just wants the class taught, and doesn't really care how I do it. He starts tellin' me that I can turn it into an online class or somethin'. I'm too pissed off and stunned to think, so I go back to my other class and sink myself into the comfort of familiar things; the Age of Exploration, the Black Death, the rise of the Nation State, and all that sort of crap. I'm thinkin', how the hell could this happen? How the hell could I have let this happen? Did I assume things that were false, or was there some sort of miscommunication? The main campus across the road is clueless about it all, and the TSU rep couldn't care a less, so I have to make up a way for this all to work out.

Later I find out that since there are only 6 students in each class, the college is going to re categorize them as Independent Study courses. That's to say, a graduate style course where students do work on their own and write papers for their grades. I've done a few of those classes, and they are always fun. Apparently there's a state rule about classes with fewer than so many students in them being unaccredited unless they are set them up this way. It's cool with me, but they still expect me to teach them as conventional classes. Well, that isn't going to happen. One will be taught that way, but the conflicted one is gonna mostly be online. I'll have them email me 4 short papers on topics in the chapters and one 10 to 15 page research paper. They'll study review materials in the chapters they read, and I'll set up times for them to take their midterm and final exams. If the fools on the main campus stay clueless, we'll all slide through this like pros.

of course, it could all blow up in my face at any moment, so I'll have no excuse to be bored this 8 weeks. Paydays should be rockin' though, and there's a few good gun shows comin' up.

On a lighter note, I went to the Great Wall Cafe today for lunch after my classes got out at 1:30, and took more pictures with the Razor of sinfully good Chinese food. Don't want you to get away without feeling a few pangs.



That's two dinner orders for lunch. A huge pile of shrimp fried rice on the right, with plump shrimpy goodness throughout, and General Tso's chicken on the left, with no broccoli thank you very much. There will be no green food to distract me from my mission. I eat about half of it, or maybe a third of it for lunch, and then take the rest home for dinner or lunch another day. It travels well. Hell, I may get up early Wednesday and have it for breakfast.

Anyway, I hope all your weeeks are less complicated than mine, and all your plans work out for ya. Cheers.