I wasn't in a good mood when I took off to run errands. Something I thought was safely arranged (and in good fashion) seemed to be unraveling. Pile it on top of the usual Finals Week stress (grading, exams, more grading, who-sets-meetings-for-Finals-Week?? and did I mention grading?) and I was wondering just when what's left of my patience would evaporate.

The danger signals were there. The cashier's computer wasn't working well, so it would barely register my loyalty card. It wouldn't tell her what my change ought to be, and I learned long ago that the art of counting back change is pretty much unknown to those under age 40.

But when she glanced up apologetically and said she knew she had trouble with this (and didn't resent that I was doing the in-head math at the same time), some of my patience came back.

And when she told me she was making an effort to get better at doing some math in her head, my mood changed for the better. We talked for a minute or so more and she told me she'd found herself frustrated at her lack of skill with in-head math. It seemed to be a good skill to know, she explained. I agreed and walked away with a smile.

Imagine: Someone who wants to learn something not because it's on the test or someone is telling her to, but simply because she wants to know it.

I feel a bit more optimistic just now.

To my future students:
An assignment of a short paper does NOT mean you can check your brain at the door or try to hand me mush and hope I'll think it's chocolate. Please make a note of this.

Penshark

Q. Define the phrase "Didn't mean to get up on my soapbox."

A. "I really did mean to get on my soapbox, but since you seem to object, I'll offer an answer that's just a little more meaningful than 'just kidding.'"

Please define the following two words: suspend, quit.

Then please tell me which one Rick Santorum really did today. (Hint: The words are NOT interchangeable.)

Yours in crankiness,
Penshark

Thanks for coming back to the nest near my house. Now could you please believe me when I tell you that I just walk up the driveway to get in the car and that I'll go away quickly?

The human next door

Dear Student Who Has Missed Class,
When you're asking what might have been discussed in the class you missed, I would strongly suggest you not word your question as "did I miss anything?" I hear that question as "...since you normally don't do anything worth hearing," which doesn't make me want to be very helpful. A simple shift to "what did I miss?" would keep your question from producing Cranky Professor Disease.

Sincerely,
Penshark

Let's review. I didn't really want this particular chore -- I was drafted for it. It is affecting, negatively, several things I really do want to be doing. My usual ability to keep several balls in the air at the same time seems to have deserted me; I've been dropping them on my head a lot lately.

And within a few days, I get messages from two people one step reserved from the chore pushing the "where are we with this?" question.

I promise I won't snarl -- it's counterproductive and the fallout is likely to hit innocent bystanders. But I won't promise it'll be easy to stay civil.

EDIT: I lasted four days. But I had to break that promise and snarl.

"Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance. Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already discovered the truth. Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us. For then only may we seek it, lovingly and tranquilly, if there be no bold presumption that it is already discovered and possessed."
-- St. Augustine, quoted by John DeGioia, president of Georgetown University

"You prefer to keep your politics to yourself," observed a friend who has a very different preference.

Yep. And that friend has more reason to know than many. Awhile back, he made me co-admin of a Facebook group on a subject that could be political ... but could easily also not be. The original rules, partly on my request, barred political postings. He got pushback from a couple of other members and I offered to resign as co-admin and let him open the group to politics. He declined; the group remains a politics-free zone.

My own Facebook and Twitter postings are also politics free. I've killed a couple of my own postings before they went up when I suddenly realized they would probably open an ugly argument. I've walked away from things that tempted me to comment.

Even in face-to-face conversation, I'll rarely jump into politics as a topic. If someone else goes there, I'll listen, but say little.

Why? My official version is that I have friends on both ends of the political spectrum who would not play nice with each other when the topic is politics. (Some would, but I've seen others lose their grace over that subject.) If you want that kind of arguing, both Facebook and Twitter offer places for it; I don't choose to host another one.

The conversation that led to the comment above produced a couple more reasons. I was a working journalist for almost 15 years. I've discovered that if people know your opinion on a contentious subject, they read your stories looking for the slant they're sure you've put there. Even if you've worked very hard to keep out the slant, they'll "find" it. I'd like my work to get a fair read, not one colored by the assumption that I'm selling a point of view. (Trust me -- if I am, I'll make sure you know that.)

I'm now a college professor. As I've told people, if I put my own opinion on the table early, I get at least half the class giving me back my opinion. (That's particularly true if it's a class of freshmen.) I already know what I think; what I want to hear is what they think. And what I never want to hear is a student claiming he/she has to parrot my views to do well on an exam. I won't say I never soapbox -- the First Amendment is, not surprisingly, a passion -- but I'll warn students that I'm on the soapbox and I tend to do it for issues, not people.

But the biggest reason I keep out of political conversations is that we've mostly lost the ability to have political "conversations." They become arguments. Or monologues. Or reasons to wonder why this person you like is suddenly insulting you by supporting the candidate you hate.

I would dearly love, for example, to approach friends and ask them to tell me what people see in one of the major party candidates for president. It's an honest question -- I watch this person's progress and I can't see qualities that could ever lead me to vote for him. But people are voting for him, and I'd love to understand why.

It says a lot about the times that many of my listeners would hear that question as snarky, even if I tried very hard to keep it as simply a question.

Another sign of the times: In a different conversation, a different friend wondered out loud why people don't bring facts to their political arguments. I reminded him that today, people on either end of the political spectrum often have two competing sets of facts. We've lost the trusted moderators who might be able to provide a definitive set of facts. (In many cases, we've also lost the willingness to assume good faith on the part of someone who disagrees with us.)

Once upon a time, I could talk politics with people who were on a different side of many issues. Most times, we'd understand that minds might not change. But we'd walk away with a better understanding of how the other person saw the world.

I don't see much of that any more. And I miss it.

Yes, gang, you at least partly convinced me. (And thank you for that.) I did actually go look at the requirements of the Major Cancer Center's request for survivor stories. But they want about 100 words and the "Hum the words" entry is four times that long. And I know -- it is possible to edit. But the last few days haven't been the type that would encourage enough brainpower to do a decent edit. So for now, I don't.