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Bug is Officially a Senior in High School. His last year in high school started this morning…. The other day, he remarked, “School has gone so fast – all my school, all 12 years – I can’t believe it’s almost over.”

He’s evidently forgotten he’s going to college….(come hell or high water!)

Even though I have spent the last 12 years fighting the educational system, or figuring out ways to help him learn, or, or, or….all of which can be a really really REALLY time consuming, drag-out affair, I agree with him.

It’s sad, too.

And while I feel sad, because I know he’s growing up and will soon be an adult, the thought of this next year scares the bejeezus out of me.

Will we get all his transition goals crammed in time? Will he be able to keep his grades up, between chemistry and statistics and French III? Will we have all the college applications and stuff organized so that nothing gets left out?

It’s SO hard for kids like him to get into college in the first place, and I think his essays have been fairly thoughtful. However, they all talk about his Asperger’s, since it has pretty much determined the structure of his life. Sometimes you read that it’s not good to talk about your disability when filling out college applications. I am not sure of that. It’s not like they wouldn’t know he had issues, if they met him. The poor SAT scores have to be explained and/or justified somehow, and he’s not writing about those, but it would at least supply the Why when they decide to hang on to his app, or trash it.

Colleges want to accept students who will succeed. If a student like Bug, who in Kindergarten could not talk more than 1 or 2 words at a time, can attain and keep a 3.56 GPA in high school, can play the trumpet on an advanced level, can keep a positive attitude no matter what gets thrown at him, I would say that student could succeed. In fact, he’s probably the best role model any college could ask for.

But that’s me, I’m biased.

Oh, I forgot. He’s on student council this year.

In the meantime, he’s excited about his senior year – so excited to get started, that he stood for a half hour in 90 degree heat waiting for the bus this morning.

GO BUG. You are AWESOME.

I had heard back a couple of weeks ago that the city of Camden’s budget was such that they’d have to close their three libraries.

However, our local “news” chose not to tell the public that their problem has been solved – Camden County is taking over.

It doesn’t mean that employees won’t be laid off, but at least they will be there for the people who need them.

Sorry to bore you with college mumbo jumbo, but that has been my life for the last three months and I don’t expect it to end for several more. (sigh)

Usually when we do the large group college tours, the colleges all emphasize how you’ll “NEVER have a TA” or you’ll “ALWAYS have a professor for your teacher!” We families of college professors know this is bogus. So, being the instigator I am, I wait until they say “XX% of all our faculty are professors” or something like that, and then one of the first questions I ask is “What percentage of those professors are full time tenured or tenure track?” They hate me. And the parents look at me with “huh?” expressions on their faces. But you can bet they go home and look it up.

I think this is the best article on the problem with adjunct professors that I’ve ever read. It’s a shame it’s associated with Forbes. But definitely something to pass on to anyone you know looking for a college.

This casualization of the academic labor force has not helped higher education. Naturally it is traumatic for the faculty members involved who, even when they work at several campuses, as many adjuncts do, average about $12,000 a year from their teaching and must sometimes rely on food stamps. Some, it is true, are skilled professionals like lawyers or engineers who teach courses in their field as a hobby or civic engagement, but many are well-trained Ph.D.s who do want regular academic positions and got blindsided by a poor job market.

I don’t know that it was the “poor job market” that did it. I think it was more of a “new mindset” on how to “save money”.

These men and women are perfectly good teachers, by all indications as capable as their tenured and tenure-track peers, but they cannot devote as much time and attention to their students. As they scurry from one temporary job to the next, these freeway flyers, as they are called, can rarely do research or even stay current in their fields. Many lack offices or access to university computers, making it hard to maintain contact with their students outside class. In addition, because they do not know from one semester to the next what courses they will teach–or even if they will teach–and are often hired at the last minute, they have little time to prepare their courses. Their students suffer as well; several studies have shown that they graduate at a lower rate than those taught by traditional professors.

The precarious nature of their employment undercuts the integrity of the education these faculty members offer. Because course evaluations often determine whether someone will be rehired, teachers on contingent appointments can and do lose their jobs if they offend their students by challenging their preconceived ideas or giving them non-inflated grades. Unlike their tenured and tenure-track colleagues, part-time and temporary instructors must teach haunted by the fear that tackling a controversial subject or flunking a football player might land them on the street. They have, in short, no academic freedom.

I have never heard that “Freeway Flyer” term – however, when we were at a certain state university (out of this state) last weekend, the tour guide said how “wonderful! it was to have adjuncts!” They’re a “special” type of professor, brought in because they’re “experts!” She even got to take a class by a “real live wedding planner!”

GAK. I am SO not going to spend our tuition money at that university. You’ll hear about that one when I organize my photos a bit more.

In Bug’s college search, I have run across websites where the ideal of HYP is such that, if you don’t go to one of them, you are Nothing. Just Nothing. It’s actually pretty sick, because on one in particular, kids post daily screaming “What are my chances?” and desperate to belong to the IN club – those who are accepted to “PRESTIGIOUS” colleges.

According to Forbes, HYP is no more….

# 1. Williams College
# 2. Princeton University
# 3. Amherst College
# 4. United States Military Academy
# 5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
# 6. Stanford University
# 7. Swarthmore College
# 8. Harvard University
# 9. Claremont McKenna College
# 10. Yale University
# 11. United States Air Force Academy
# 12. Wellesley College
# 13. Columbia University
# 14. Haverford College
# 15. Wesleyan University
# 16. Whitman College
# 17. Pomona College
# 18. Northwestern University
# 19. California Institute of Technology
# 20. University of Chicago

#8?????? Kinda creepy, huh? Then again, maybe it’s a “new beginning” for Harvard… Maybe they figured out what Prestige really meant. Unless they knew all along, and snowed people…?

OK, so this is Forbes. They actually used that “rate my xxx” website in their methodology…WTF? There are better websites where students reviews are much more detailed, and of course, just as immature as that Other rating site. Military academies really shouldn’t count since they come with strings, IMO.

Personally, I think they did it to beat the “other guy” – US News & World Report’s official list is due out in 2 days and 10 hours, or some such nonsense… Yes, kiddies, they have a countdown on their website….. And no, I won’t put the widget up.

Pretty sad. Then again, things sold under the guise of “prestige” sells magazines. Yep, they’re snowing you into lining their pockets with their “prestigious” lists.

The majority of students in America will NOT be going to one of these “prestigious” colleges. The majority of the money from parents and students pockets does NOT go into the coffers of these universities. Forbes also compiled a list of the “best buys” – the most for your buck.

1 United States Military Academy NY
2 United States Air Force Academy CO
3 United States Naval Academy MD
4 Cooper Union NY
5 United States Merchant Marine Academy NY
6 College of the Ozarks MO
7 Berea College KY
8 United States Coast Guard Academy CT
9 University of Florida FL
10 New College of Florida FL

There are 100 on that list, but I just copied the top 10 because I wanted you to see that the 6 out of the first 8 are FREE. And, as far as that goes, the 5 military academies really aren’t free if you end up in Afghanistan and DIE.

Only one of the top 100 is from PA, which we visited last summer. Not sure if Bug will go there, but I can tell you while it’s a decent school, it’s FAR from “prestigious” – when the wind blows, the scent of cow flop wafts across the campus….

Interesting to find out that the root of the word prestige comes from Middle French, and means conjuror’s trick or illusion….

How did that get to the definition of “standing or estimation in the eyes of people”???? “Commanding position in people’s minds”??????

Makes you wonder how much we’re all being snowed….

Vacation, college visits, band camp, oh my….

Is this cool or what?

Archaeologists have uncovered the site of Britain’s oldest house, the waterside home of nomad hunters dating back about 11,000 years.

The dwelling, which has lake views, a thatched roof and very original features, predates the country’s famous Stonehenge monument by around 6,000 years and was built at a time when Britain was still connected to continental Europe.

Teams from the University of York and the University of Manchester working at the site believe the circular shaped home was built in about 8,500 B.C. next to an ancient lake at Star Carr, near Scarborough, in northeastern England.

“This is a sensational discovery and tells us so much about the people who lived at this time,” Nicky Milner from the University of York said Wednesday. “From this excavation, we gain a vivid picture of how these people lived.”

It’s no wonder that Bug wants to be an archaeologist.

….and smack YOURSELVES, Obama and yer minions….. NO ONE should be treated this way, much less on the word of Faux News.

…the mishandling of the Sherrod affair only added to the sense of unhappiness held by many of Obama’s most ardent supporters. That’s obviously not a situation conducive to energizing voters and getting them out to the polls for the mid-term and beyond.

The White House’s problems were only compounded by compelling details that kept emerging about Sherrod’s past. Her father was killed by a Ku Klux Klan member in 1965. She herself was involved in the civil rights movement. She and her husband won $13 million as part of a larger settlement of a lawsuit by a group of black farmers who won a landmark discrimination suit against, wait for it, the USDA.

Then there was the little problem of the white farmer who was the subject of Sherrod’s story about the mixed feelings she had about helping him 24 years ago. The farmer and his wife both sung Sherrod’s praises on national TV.

The idea that the Baracky Horror Show heard this on Faux News and overreacted without checking the facts is just astounding to me. BO is not afraid of Faux. He LOVES Republicans, so he LOVES Faux. He’s not reaching across, he’s reaching around.

Come on, people, they think we’re stupid, they think we will actually say it’s OK for them to DO this crap! We DO have a choice, we DON’T have to follow like sheep over the frigging cliff. I’m sorry, but I’m not buying it. This is NOT supposed to be a Rethuglican presidency, and this reaching across crap needs to stop NOW.

It’s already degraded Shirley Sherrod enough, and now she gets to be the champion of Beck, Flush, and the other lug nuts on the other side. I wouldn’t blame her if she decides not to come back, not at all.

You other liberals/leftists/Democrats out there, you cannot truly think this is what our party stands for. DO you? So what do we DO about this??? SOMETHING has to be done. Rahm has to be out, maybe we need to bust on the DNC to find us a BETTER candidate for 2012?