Yankee in a Red State

The ramblings of an expatriate New Yorker in the South ~ formerly known as The Kudzu Kronikles ~

Sundays in Seffner

posted by: willothwisp at 13:56 | link | comments (3) |

Miscellaneous

I got up at 6 a.m. after a bad night of sleep.

I read my email.  My mother is selling my childhood home and purchasing a new home with my sister, brother in law, niece and nephew. More on this later.

I have students demanding grades before the end of of classes or even finals week.  Da noive!

I have students begging for A's (which really ticks me off - if you did not write at A level, you're not going to get an A!!).

I have a life y'know, and 80 students.  Be patient already!!

BUT

My husband cleaned the kitchen and did the windows and then cooked breakfast for me. (No, you may not borrow him.)

We went to Costco and laughed at people and dreamed of a pergola off the back of the house where the sun from the west could be somewhat tamed..

I gave the mechanic five hundred dollars as partial ransom for my Saturn.   I was assured that "she's got another fifty thousand miles on her."

I went to Borders and cashed in my gift card husband gave me for Christmas.  I purchased Kerouac's "Dharma Bums" which I have never read and a paperback edition of Hillary Clinton's Living History and a set of three little Moleskine blank journals.  Brown paper cover, unlined, plain paper.  Just the right size for my purse and not so large that they are daunting.  They will hold this summer's poems.

posted by: willothwisp at 20:09 | link | comments (3) |
ramblings and rants, the academe, auto repair

Bright House Dims

After 24 hours of waiting, I am once again linked back up with the world through cyberspace.

It seems that once a month, about the end of the month, my internet connection fails.  I will be happily writing an email and go to send it and pffft.  Nothing.  One look at my modem tells me the news is bad.  I go to the phone.  No service.  Television:  aha!  Cable is working.  Thank God for small favors.

When I first moved here, I duly signed up for cable television service through the local provider which was Time-Warner.  Before a month was out, Time-Warner was purchased by Bright House.  No big deal, I figured.  When we bought our house three years later we added Bright House's internet service.  About six months later we were offered the chance to bundle the two services with Bright House's new telephone service.  Since we were allowed to keep our original telephone number from Verizon, I figured "whattadeal!  One bill will pay for 3 of my most essential services!"  (I will go without lights before I lose my cable TV.)

Things were OK for a few years then I noticed that our service would blip out during heavy rainstorms.  It only lasted maybe a half hour to an hour at most.  Then, about six months ago, the outages started to become more frequent.  Sometimes our service would go out in the middle of the afternoon and not be restored until after 6 p.m.   Our calls to the support staff would be answered with "well, it is an outage in your area and we will send someone to look at it tomorrow."  If it weren't for the fact that one of our neighbors works for Bright House I am sure they would have taken their sweet time but usually we would have service restored that evening.

It isn't so much that I lose internet and cable, but when the system goes down we also lose our telephone service.  If not for cell phones we would, frankly, be screwed.  And there have been a few times that our cell phones were not working (because silly me sometimes forgets to pay the bill) and we have had to drive up to the corner Walgreens to call in our service problems.

Lately, however, the new trick is for Bright House to drop our service mid-morning, just about the time I am sitting down at my desk to do some work.  For those of you not familiar with teaching college, we have the ability to access our students' work online through a wonderful invention (or horrible depending on who you ask) called Blackboard.  I can download papers, use MSWord to do grammar and spelling checks, add comments, and grades, and then upload them again to each student's account.  I can keep my gradebook up to date on Blackboard as well as communicate with my classes as a whole or with individual students.  On the days I am not teaching, I am usually here at home working diligently.  I only wish it logged the number of hours I spend.  Actually, I think it does, but I haven't found out how to access that data.  Nonetheless, when my internet goes, I am stuck.  Yes, I can go to campus and sit in my office and do the same thing but as I mentioned in a previous post, I am currently without a vehicle unless I get up at 5 a.m. and drive hubby to work.

Not only am I without internet and telephone and sometimes television, but lately the outages have been lasting longer and longer.  Last month we were without services for 36 hours.  Calls to Support do nothing.  They'll send a tech.  The tech comes over and checks everything and last month they gave us a new modem and I thought everything was cool until yesterday when the same thing happened.  I think we got a tech quickly because we made such a stink last time that they probably didn't want to hear my husband threatening to call the local television "On Your Side" reporter who deals with consumer complaints.

I think someone was watching over us this month because just about the time I was about to go completely ballistic, husband walked in with a door-hanger offer to get the same services from Verizon, who just brought fiber optic services to our neighborhood at half the price.  Needless to say, Bright House is getting dropped like a hot potato.  Now some of you may say I have no patience but I haven't told you the story from last year of how the technician who was sent to our house to perform some outside cable work (because our TV channels were very ghosty).  Let's just say that two weeks of complaining finally got our problem (exposed cable where kids could trip over it, tools and trash left on our lawn and an uprooted rose bush) resolved.  Nor have I told you of the nightmare my brother in law experienced when he switched to Bright House after he got fed up with bad satellite television.

All of our problems netted us apologies and $20 credits toward our bill as a panacea but considering the inconvenience I had hoped for something a little more substantial.  What, exactly, I am not sure.  At the very least I would expect an improvement in service but no.

So goodbye Bright House, hello Verizon FIOS at half the cost.  I am spoiled on high-speed internet and high-definition television.  I admit it.   I am an unabashed television addict (but I am  a cynic so I don't buy half of what they tell me) and popular culture vulture.  I am also a hard worker who keeps to a fairly rigid grading and reading schedule during the semesters and when I don't have my internet I am like a big baby without her pacifier.

Would I recommend Bright House?  Not!!!  Maybe for cable TV but not the "bundled" package.  Customer Service has been pleasant enough and tech support have always been helpful.  But for the cost (the "bundle" of television, telephone and internet) of almost $200/month (which includes unlimited long distance) is a little steep when we have as many outages as Bright House has been experiencing.  Also, Verizon does not rely on a modem for the telephone (VOIP) so if service is dropped (for instance a cable is cut) we will not lose telephone service which is good because summertimes without employment usually means that I suspend the cell phone for a few months because I can't afford it.  All I can say is that I am very disappointed and embarrassed for recommending them to my brother in law who had nothing but trouble from day one with them.  I have not lost credibility with him, but BH has, as they have with us.  I hope Verizon gives them a good kick in the ass.  BH has been the only game in town for much too long and apparently got where they just don't give a damn. 

posted by: willothwisp at 02:19 | link | comments (3) |
consumer rant

Carless in Tampa

I am virtually imprisoned in my own home. 
After five years of doing the bare minimum of upkeep on my ten-year-old Saturn, I just reached the point at which the old girl needs some serious surgery.  This started two weeks ago with a dead battery, which was replaced, and I headed jauntily down the road to points near and far for about four days.  Then I let the poor dear rest on a Sunday.  When I hopped in last Monday to go teach my 6-9 p.m. class, she was dead.  I knew immediately what it was.  It was the ten year old alternator.  So I borrowed Frank's Jeep which I hate driving and went off to teach class.  On Tuesday, the only day I have to get any errands done, I put in an online request with AAA and they came and whisked the Saturn off to my mechanic, Mr. Freeze, on Palm River Road.  (Dave and his crew are brilliant and they have never  treated me like a dumb woman.  Give them all your auto repair business!).
The downside of this is that she needs a timing chain, gears, water pump, etc.  But the engine block is still good and I can get another few years of life out of her, according to Dave.  I am going to fork over the money to have her brought back to life.  A lot of people ask me why.  I did consider getting a new used car but when I want to Brandon Auto Mall, I was frightened enough to go back into my hole for another six weeks.  I hate used car salesmen.  I hate them all.  They would rather see me barefoot and raggedy and begging on the street to make my car payment than listen to what I want.  It was the worst experience I have had since moving here. 
And then I started thinking of all the good times the Saturn and I have enjoyed.  There have been trips to the beach, sailing across the Skyway with the Gulf breezes blowing in and the sun gleaming off her forest green countenance, the trips to the other side of Pinellas County to go visit my friends and where she can sit in the shade under the ancient live oak in their front yard; hauling the teenager and his musical accoutrement; the trip to South Carolina.
There is also the certainty that when I need to drive the 20 minutes to campus, she will willingly oblige.  She will not charge me one iota of interest, nor will she demand a monthly chunk of my salary.  I got her from an e-Bay auction where she languished on a Saturn reseller's lot until I rescued her.  My previous '96 SL2 had been crashed into during my first year in Tampa and I owned a Volkswagen in the interim that caught fire and which I sold on e-Bay for four hundred dollars more than I paid for it.  Since I bought the Slattern as I affectionately call her I have not been disappointed.  Yes, she has the cranky 1.9 litre engine but she's a good girl and mostly reliable and she was even rear-ended a few weeks ago with nary a scratch on her shapely bumper.  Not a story worth relating, however, but put it down to a "no harm no foul" situation.  I was not about to freak out the poor teenager who did it because it was really not his fault - it was a combination of situations that conspired to delay me I am sure.  I hate it when the universe does that.
But for now I am stuck.  Unless I take Frank to work at six a.m. I am without vehicle and I cannot think of anything that is so earth-shattering that I MUST leave my house.  My students are finishing their projects and portfolios this week; I was going to show a film but they preferred the time off and I am done teaching them (and they are pretty much finished learning anything from me as can be seen by the record number of students who do NOT show up for classes the few weeks after spring break).  And yet I feel trapped.  And I can sense that the routine which I have established is already getting stale.  At least I can have a routine.  I prefer not to,as it makes life interesting for me but it rather upsets people who have established routines.
Before I wander too much further I will sign off for now.  I do have papers to grade (always with the papers to grade) and C-SPAN is getting interesting.  Ciao, bella!

posted by: willothwisp at 17:10 | link | comments (5) |
auto repair

Studentia

Many students ask me:  'how do I fail this course?"  I am always happy to provide an answer.  For those students who ask "how DID I fail this course?" the answers are usually the same:

Do not come to class.

Do not do any of the assigned work.

Spend the semester thinking up a really good excuse.

Avoid the professor at all costs.

Send a chickenshit email at the end of the semester wanting leniency.

Play on your laptop during lectures.

Wander over to the computer to check your email during lectures.

Be openly hostile.

After being absent for 1/3 of the classes, leave a nasty comment on the teacher evaluation, saying "we didn't do anything" all semester except "watch videos."

Show up stoned.

Show up drunk.

Show up half naked or in pajamas/underwear.

Refuse to take any instruction regarding grammar, spelling, format, etc.

Make sure you repeat the same mistakes on each research paper.

Do not ever, under any circumstances, participate in class discussion.  Allow your teacher to keep forgetting your name throughout the semester because you never said a word.  Eventually, the instructor will say "oh yes, that's so and so" because of the process of elimination.

I'm sure there are more but these are just a start.

 

 

posted by: willothwisp at 17:16 | link | comments (3) |

Peeking in.

Sumer is icumen in

As soon as this semester is over, I will have time to write but like my colleague (you know who you are), I am busy/hormonal/sleeping/not sleeping/grading, grading, grading..... blogs this week.

I gave them the next few classes to do work on their own.  This will give me a chance to attend to loose ends before the end of the semester.  Then conferences (again) and then portfolios ... figure out their attendance ... *counting on fingers* ... it all starts to add up.  Pardon the ellipses-speak but the ADHD knob seems to be turned up today.

This is my stream of consciousness.  I forgot that my blog is forgiving, as are my readers.  If I have any left.

Counting down:  four more weeks ... then the blog and the novel take center stage along with more poems.  There are always more poems.

posted by: willothwisp at 21:43 | link | comments (1) |

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