Happy February First

I checked an incoming SPAM
about breast cancer
and ended up in an older post
from May 2005
where I was worried about my transmission--

the freaky part?
I almost forgot to check my transmission fluid today.
Someone takes care of me.

My students this quarter!
So many stories to tell:

x] One student lost a cousin on 9/11 in one of the towers. He wrote a paper on his anger at the middle east & his own cultural blindness. He got a 75% on the paper because it was actually pretty crappy writing and I told him to take it to the writing center. He did not. Of course he missed an entire week of class becase his grandmother died . . . I'd like to cut him a break, but he doesn't seem interested . . .

x] Another student, older, "non-traditional," is also battling grief this quarter. Just last October her sister was brutally murdered in a domestic dispute. The local authorities don't want to do anything about it because her sister had crack in her system. She "fell down some stairs" so hard that the blunt force to the back of her head pushed her brain off its stem and knocked her eyes out of their sockets . . .

I gotta go--will try to be back today with more shorts--