The Whine thread.

[WarpGirl]

I know I'm a lucky girl. A week in the hospital and all I get is, "you've got migranes and none of our highly sophisticated meds aren't helping." Yeah I know that. So I suffer I'm thinking Botox injection in the back of the neck. Gotta call my pain doctor tomorrow. Maybe he'll give me a bagle.

[Aquarius]

Okay, I can relate to Aquarius because at least the hormones are usually what trigger me too, though thankfully much less often. I'm glad the Trex works better for me than it does for you. I could see why you'd consider tryng Botox.

I can't relate to yours, WG. Literally, SWELLING? Are they even sure these are really migraines? They sound like seriously life-threatening brain events...

I always get my migraine pain on the left side of my head, and sometimes I get swelling, too, around the left eye. Not always, but a gal I used to work with pointed it out to me. She said she knew I'd had one sometime that day because of the swelling.

[WarpGirl]

My sister has occular migranes her eyes swell, and they also go really really dark. She has hazle eyes and either they were emerald green, or almost black. If they're black she can't drive because she's practically blind.

[Aikiweezie]

Gotta call my pain doctor tomorrow. Maybe he'll give me a bagle.

Do you know some secret pain relieving qualities in bagels that we don't????

[WarpGirl]

Um depends is it loaded with strawberry cream cheese? Seriously no. We joke about it because we're both ex NY'ers. Here in the Blue Ridge mountains there is no such thing as good pizza or bagles. So my doc and I like to mourn the absense of bagles in our lives. And pizza.

[Alelou]

I still can't believe the president is speaking at the college my husband and I went to. It seems kind of a shame to me, though, that students aren't allowed to go. (Or so I was told, anyhow.) Honestly, though, if that's true, what's the point of even talking then? Are you going Alelou?

No, I didn't go. Very few folks from the college got to go. But I did watch it on TV when I got home. I was actually very happy to escape campus before they shut all the roads down, and limited myself to enjoying the various supporters and protesters lining the route as I drove off. We're told that 60 HVCC students were invited, probably the ones taking those high-tech classes he was highlighting today.

Anyway, I watched it on local TV and he used the opportunity to lay out his jobs and education and research strategy, etc. etc. I'm sure the New York Times will have the transcript up if you didn't watch it. I have my students giving me ONE COMPLETE SENTENCE containing at least ONE QUOTE FROM THE SPEECH that is PROPERLY CITED IN MLA STYLE. Oh, the horror! My ambition is to make this so old hat for them that by the time they get to their research papers it won't be any trouble at all. Wish me luck on that.

I of course intended to just watch the speech itself and do my grading (there's plenty of it), but I couldn't resist the TV for the airport footage. There's something so cool about seeing Air Force One landing and taking off in your own backyard. I would never have even thought of doing that when we lived in the NYC area, not that the local stations would have even bothered to show it, but here it's a BIG DEAL.

Ah, well, back to work.

[Bether6074]

Yeah, isn't that plane supposed to be really HUGE? This is a big deal! It's the president and we're out here in booneyville...

Too bad I had to work. I'll have to read all about it, I guess.

Good luck with the grading. How is grammar and spelling these days with college youth anyhow?

[WarpGirl]

Anyway, I watched it on local TV and he used the opportunity to lay out his jobs and education and research strategy, etc. etc. I'm sure the New York Times will have the transcript up if you didn't watch it. I have my students giving me ONE COMPLETE SENTENCE containing at least ONE QUOTE FROM THE SPEECH that is PROPERLY CITED IN MLA STYLE. Oh, the horror! My ambition is to make this so old hat for them that by the time they get to their research papers it won't be any trouble at all. Wish me luck on that.

OMG! I just failed your class.

[Alelou]

I'm confident you would get it eventually, WG!

As far as grammar and spelling goes, Bether, it's about the same. Honestly, after teaching at a four-year-college, I was worried about community college, but for the most part the local high school graduates are just as capable as those at UNH were. Yay, Regents system.

I do have some LD (Learning Disabled) and ESL students struggling, and many more who just aren't ready to grow up and do the work on a regular basis. They think they're still in high school. And then there are the ones who never show up.

Reality will sink in for most of them, hopefully before the holes they're digging are too large.

[WarpGirl]

Oh Alelou, my punctuational, and grammatical abilities are nonexistant for one reason... Sheer panic!!!! I'm so anxious to get the information for a report correct, or a story out that I totally and completely blank out at mechanics. Really I cannot concentrate on technical stuff and still get out what I need to say. Be it scholastically or in fiction. I'm not kidding I have very real panic attacks. Now if only they'd make a anti-anxiety drug that doesn't make it worse, or give me all sorts of reasons to go to the ER.

[Bether6074]

I never actually knew or understood the specific rules of grammar. I just had some instincts about what sounded right or wrong, but didn't always know what to do to fix it. I've always been lucky enough to be a natural speller, but that's kind of the same way for me. If it looks weird then it's probably wrong.

[WarpGirl]

Yeah well I'm considered the best speller in my immediate family. THAT IS SCARY! As anyone who has read the first chapters of my fic will say, and probably loudly. I guess I'm just lucky that I agree, I get scared at that thought. But actual punctuation is even worse.

My head goes, "I'm trying to find perfect words here, and you also want the stupid commas in the right place?"

See? Sheer panic! Thank God for editors and Betas. My grandmother once told me that one of her favorite authors had an interview and said, "The last thing I worry about is spelling and grammar. I have the hard part making up the story, the characters, and finding the words. That's why I pay the editor."

I always found that rather comforting. And yes I'm sure dear Alelou that your educator's heart disagrees strongly, so do I. But I'd rather say let someone else handle it than panic.

[Alelou]

Actually, I would tend to agree that by the time you get to college, you simply have to find other strategies to deal with your rotten spelling and grammar. You might be able to fix a few bad habits, but if you really haven't absorbed the rules of the English language by then, you probably never will.

So you need to build in extra time to get things edited, or be prepared to take your lumps in your grades because of it. Unfortunately, poor mechanics will reduce most graders' impressions of the overall quality of a piece, even one that is otherwise brilliant. And you should be graded off to some extent if you hand in unpolished final work.

(Sorry if I sound harsh. Sometimes I feel like my main job right now is teaching people that they have to be grown-ups now and take responsibility for their own brains.)

[WarpGirl]

Hey if that's you being harsh, I wish you taught some of my English classes. I lucked out with one professor English professor though, he didn't get mad at my technical mistakes. I did too well in Shakespere for him to care. I was willing to read out loud and get into character.

[Aquarius]

Actually, I would tend to agree that by the time you get to college, you simply have to find other strategies to deal with your rotten spelling and grammar. You might be able to fix a few bad habits, but if you really haven't absorbed the rules of the English language by then, you probably never will.

So you need to build in extra time to get things edited, or be prepared to take your lumps in your grades because of it. Unfortunately, poor mechanics will reduce most graders' impressions of the overall quality of a piece, even one that is otherwise brilliant. And you should be graded off to some extent if you hand in unpolished final work.

(Sorry if I sound harsh. Sometimes I feel like my main job right now is teaching people that they have to be grown-ups now and take responsibility for their own brains.)

I don't know that I agree that one would "never" learn the rules of English past a certain age. If the desire to learn them is strong enough and if the student in question took care to apply what they learned, I think it could be done. Problem is, unless you're dealing with someone who's just discovered the joy of writing, most people don't have that desire, so yeah, they won't be bothered to learn it.

I do, however, agree with you about the grades. Attention to detail is so important. I'm not the perfect little grammar nazi--far from!--but I at least understand that the rules of English exist not to bore or inconvenience me (as I recall many in my high school English classes believing), but rather to help me to communicate effectively, so yeah, even the little things like where to put that comma matter, so while I'll never be perfect, I'm always striving to make myself better at it. Punctuation is so important, because choosing the right words is only half the job; the reader needs to know how they're supposed to be grouped together, how the writer meant for them to flow. One lousy comma in the wrong space can change the meaning of what you were trying to say.

Unfortunately, even in college, you get a healthy portion of people who feel, "I'm never gonna use this so who cares."