The last day

It's the last day of school before my eight week vacation. I'm done grading papers and all I have left to do is clean the room. Fortunately I have a student worker who has to do whatever I tell him to so I'm going to make him move things around and carry heavy stuff.

For my Contemporary Composition class their final project was to write a short story about anything they want. We've spent all semester talking about story structure and character development so for many of them this was an easy project.

When I told them to torture their characters they were really listening. We've got rape and violence and really sad families all over these stories. I'm hoping to God they aren't based on truth.

One problem I keep encountering is the tendency to write as much as six pages of story in ONE paragraph. And since there are a few language issues and some grammar problems, a few of these one paragraph wonders are a giant headache to read. But plotwise, the kids did a really great job. Two of them could even go on to write for real I think.

Except this one girl whose entire paper was the plot to Cellular. Who on earth would pick that movie to plagiarize? I guess she thought it was so terrible I wouldn't have seen it. Oh, no, young bucky. I've seen lots of bad movies.

I liked Phone Booth, for the record. But not Cellular.

Anyway, Dell still won't give me my power cord so 1) Although I love the computer I will NEVER buy one from Dell ever again and 2) I can't work on my screenplay until I get the problem fixed and since I'm going on vacation it's going to make me very, very angry very soon.

I'll be gone on a trip this weekend. I hope for all our sakes the power cord is waiting for me when I get back.