Harmless Addiction Number 2

     My second harmless addiction is teaching. I love it! I love working with my students. I love contriving new ways to help them learn. I'm not too crazy about the grading portion of my job, but once I get started, I find that I have a difficult time stopping.

     I love telling my students everything I know about what I teach (reading comprehension and writing skills). I especially love when my students take the initiative to look up information on their own. I tell them that "knowledge (really) is power." I tell them to research any information if they are confused about any topic or skill they have read about in their textbooks. I even tell them to look up information just for the sake of knowing more about a certain skill or concept.

     Like most harmless addictions, this one does not come without its problems. Toward the end of the semester, I find that I have less patience with students who have putzed around all semester only to discover that if they don't get the work turned in by the deadline, they will fail. Then, a student or two will ask for an extension. I deny extensions because, at the beginning of the semester, all the students get a course schedule that lists all the due dates for the required homework and project assignments, as well as dates for tests and presentations. Really, there is no excuse for not getting the work done in my class. I even have a deadline for all work (required and extra credit) that is included on the course schedule. I am reminded of the saying, "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail." I do not know who wrote that, but that is right on the money, and it's especially fitting for those students who are scrambling, at the last minute, to get their work turned in.

     Every semester, I start with an adamant rule: no test make-ups. However, because I'm a sucker for a sob story, I tend to give in and allow test make-ups if the student's reason for missing a test is because of circumstances beyond his or her control. A colleague of mine shared her idea regarding test make-ups: give each student a test make-up coupon at the beginning of the semester. The students can make-up only one test in the semester, and if they don't utilize the coupon at all, they can use it to re-do a test on which they scored poorly. Wow! That is a great idea! She told me that I could use her idea, so I think that is what I'm going to do next semester. Allowing test make-ups is very stressful for me because I have a lot of students and keeping track of who missed what test and when weighs heavily on me.

     I also allow students to turn in work late, but I deduct 20% from the grade of each assignment. On the first class day, I tell them that this is one discount that they do not want to take advantage of. For those students who wait until the end of the semester to turn in most of their work, I do have a deadline - usually about two weeks before the semester's end. These two rules work well for me.

     In a nutshell, teaching is not just a job for me; it is a passion. Yes, problems sometimes arise, but, for the most part, teaching is, and always will be, a career that I love.

Harmless Addiction Number 1 and 1a

I've come to the realization that I am addicted to Facebook. Fortunately, I know I'm not the only person to ever say, write, or think that. I consider it a harmless addiction because I am not on Facebook all of the time. So far, I frequent the site late at night. An addiction within this addiction is game-playing in Facebook. Yes, I am a frequent-farmer of such games as Farm Town (my all-time favorite), FarmVille, Island Paradise, My Vineyard, Island Life, CountryLife, and CountryLife lite (my 2nd/3rd favorites). I also play some of the non-farming games: Treasure Isle, FrontierVille, and Cafe World (Dang, that Zynga!).

The only problem I have with this addiction is that I'm not engaging in other hobbies: TV watching (which is a good thing, right?) and reading. Okay, I love to read, so when game-playing takes precedence over that, I know I have a problem. On Sunday nights, I plant long-growth crops in as many games as I can so that I don't spend every single night of the week playing these games. This way I can make time for other tasks: housecleaning, grading, lesson-planning, and yes, reading and watching a little television.

I feel so much better now that I've gotten that out of my head. I'd love to write more, but I have some farming to do . . . er, I mean reading . . . lol!!!