Brief Update

Thankfully, The Abyss will not be back in my classroom ever again. The methodology of the process is mostly kept secret from me, and that's fine. Except for the fact that I'll never know if she got help. I'm 99% sure she didn't get help, and that she won't. Because she isn't forced into counseling in order to stay enrolled. That would be illegal.

I found out the name of the professor who had had The Abyss in this particular class before, this past summer, when she got a D. I wanted to email the woman and see if I could meet with her, to find out if she had come to the same conclusions I did about The Abyss. But the part of me that takes blame anywhere I can get it was too reluctant to contact her. My fear was that she would say "Oh, no, not at all! She was as normal as pumpkin pie in my class." So I decided to put that idea on hold.

Yesterday, as I went upstairs to see the department head, I stopped at the women's bathroom first. There was one other person in the bathroom. She came out of the stall. It was that professor. She and I have said hi once or twice, nothing more. We don't run into each other. Before I could say a word, she burst out with "Hey! You and I had the same psycho in class!" About 80% of my stress left the building. Because of this very self-serving thing: I had confirmation that I wasn't psycho for thinking this student was psycho. I was somehow freed of my self-imposed sentence.

For a few minutes, she and I were both in the department head's office. She wanted to offer to go to bat to the dean if needed. Also, she actually had kept one of The Abyss's papers from her summer class, and went and got it, and showed it to the dept. head. It was gibberish, just like the ones I'd gotten. More relief. (This professor had given The Abyss "a charity D." I don't do that. I flunk them.)

And yes, I find it troublesome that when this is about a student whose head is filled with lava and who is phenomenally unhappy, I'm all about self-preservation.

My department head was very, very supportive. In a job that screams with hideousness in many ways, he is a bright spot. Why? Because he has already walked through the fire of having taught high school (also known as the Poofy Engorged Spleen of Hell) for many years, and has been threatened by parents, had his house and car damaged by students, and been left twisting in the wind by the administration. He is no beginner.

And now I must insist that this problem go away, and that the weekend be devoted only to activities that supply oversized barrels of fun and/or relaxation, for me and for the visitors to this blog. What will you indulge in? I will start with happy hour tonight. And then perhaps later a ridiculous inebriated scene where I try to construct a toothpaste sculpture. Not that I've ever done that.