plod on, dear Capricorn

My debit card problems have been resolved, although I had to call again this morning to talk to the fraud investigator because she missed the last charge. She told me that the person in Spain had made a counterfeit card (with my number and different information), so that there was no way that the merchant could have known that it wasn’t right. Scary. Now I just need to wait for my new card.

I have lots of students trying to make appointments before their next essay is due on Thursday. I saw three students last week during my regular office hours, I have two appointments today and two more regular office hours this week. I’m going to take it as a good thing, since they must think I will be able to help them. As Paddy pointed out to me, if they thought I was useless, they wouldn’t bother.

not the best week

Not the best week, I must say. The midterm for the class I’m TAing was last Thursday and I had to have them all graded by Tuesday. No fun. Then they didn’t do that well, so I felt bad, but then I scared them to death during discussion section talking about it (so much so that they actually seemed relieved when I handed their papers back and they’d gotten Cs). Then when I get home, I discover why I couldn’t take out forty dollars this afternoon when I went to get lunch. Someone in Barcelona used my ATM card number to buy $550 worth of of cosmetics and perfume. My bank is refunding the money, but its going to take a few days and then a few more after that to get a new bank card. So that sucks.

Tuesday I had a long presentation on mon petit ami Lacan. Freakin’ 65 page article! I think it went well (excellent may have been the professor’s word), but I’m exhausted.

Lastly, the fires in San Diego have stressed me out a bit. I guess it actually got surprisingly close to my mother’s house and my brother had to be evacuated out of Camp Pendleton this afternoon. Although apparently it is fine now and headed in a different direction. Scary, just the same.

I luckily was able to drop the little class of horrors for a reading seminar on a French psychoanalyst guy. It is like a normal seminar, but no paper and half the credits. I’m not fond of psychoanalysis, but whatever, I can read. With it, my other two classes and some ghost units for teaching, I have just enough for the quarter. Going from being a receptionist back to being a grad student has been a bit exhausting. But in a good way, maybe like the way that athletic people enjoy going back to the gym. Maybe.

TAing has been funny–I had a girl come to my office yesterday to register for discussion section and she told me that she was so glad I was letting her in because otherwise she couldn’t drop the class on American Government that she hadn’t been going to and the one lecture she went to was the most boring thing she had ever listened to in her life. I don’t know that she breathed through her entire story, she was that relieved. I told her at least she now knows what she isn’t interested in and that’s a start.