Yikes, Allyson. I'm extremely sorry for the jackassyness you are experiencing.

I'm all insomnia-y. Last year on this day Grace had surgery to get her trache. Sometimes I still feel like a failure, even though she is doing so much better these days. She had an appointment out at UCLA today and she was just so adorable and happy (even though she and her team were over 45 minutes late which gives ME palpitations).

I'm jobsearching, since I'm in a place where I think I could be canned at any moment.

This was on Craigslist.

I'm appalled.

[link]

I know people who get $300+ for helping kids with college app essays. I'm not surprised by that. (And I shouldn't talk, as I might be teaching a weeklong seminar to 15 kids about how to write college app essays and making very good money doing it).

Teaching a kid how to write an essay, and writing the essay? So different.

And seriously? People can't write an essay? It's SHORT. it's your OPINION. The hell?

Woof.

Man, did I ever pull a disappearing act last night. This is what I get for being a Greedy Gus with the BBQ-- I paid and paid hard.

Thanks guys, for the compliments on my beautiful girl. And Hec, I know-- isn't that yard just stereotypically South Florida? It's actually the side yard between the house I grew up in, which you can't see, and our neighbors'. I desperately wanted to bring both kids to SF, but the logistics behind it were only just this side of nightmarish, what with the fact that I'm also ostensibly there for a professional conference. And lest anyone think I don't think as highly of my boy, Nate's gorgeous thing too, he's just a twelve year old boy and I have to practically nail him down to take a picture where he's not making a face. At any rate, I've promised them a west coast trip in the next year and I think they're going to seriously hold me to it. Besides, they're getting to an age where they're a lot of fun to travel with.

Oh, and speaking of conference, I got my moderator duties and am giggling wildly-- partially, because it has the potential to be an... interesting workshop.

Workshop: The Romance of Alternative Lifestyles

I just hope the rightwing nutbars don't show up to protest every damned thing-- wonder if I should bring a fire extinguisher?

And seriously? People can't write an essay? It's SHORT. it's your OPINION. The hell?

Seriously, they can't, Allyson. Sad, but true. Did you see the story some months back about the little kid who had won Hannah Montana tickets for the essay she wrote about her father who allegedly died in Iraq-- turned out it was total bullshit, her father wasn't even a vet, IIRC, and it was the mother who had written the essay, saying "We never said this was a true story... We do essays all the time. My daughter does essays at school all the time. It never did say it had to be true..."

So yeah, an essay writing course doesn't seem that absurd, actually.

Essay-writing course could be supremely valuable, and worth every penny -- I wish I'd had that when I was applying to colleges all these many years ago, and I was more than average in my writing then, IIRC.

I was shocked beyond belief when I heard that a well-intentioned friend was writing all the essays that her sister owed for a night course. Especially because said friend is a teacher who should damn well know better. In fact, I'm still in shock, and it's years later.

Teaching a kid how to write an essay, and writing the essay? So different.

Seriously.

When I was in high school, we had a family friend who was a high school English teacher and helped all the kids with their essays. I was having some 16-year-old snit and wouldn't start them until the last minute, and finally ground something out that was what I thought colleges wanted to hear (a strategy that had served me well through high school!). It must have been my mother who read it and was like, yeah no. This doesn't reflect you at all, and you need to talk to Margaret. So of course I had a huge melt-down, finally worked with her a couple of days before the deadline, and came up with stuff that worked.

I advise my students on writing personal statements all the time, I see it as part of my job.

I'm appalled.

Yeah, me too. I had a student turn in a paper last semester that I'm pretty sure came from one of those mills, but I couldn't peg it as plagiarism for sure, just a highly derivative essay cribbed from a bunch of random sources (yes, I did track down most of the sources so I could verify just *how* derivative it was) and not entirely written to the prompt. IN the end I gave him the benefit of the doubt and gave it a C.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Kat!!

Happy Birthday Kat!