2022 Monday — Unlocking . . .

I don’t know if I am learning new tricks, but after unraveling about 8 or 9 inches of knitted material Sunday evening, and then restarting at the very beginning, I sat looking at this mess. I’m not sure how this happened or what I did.

So I carefully took the loop off each peg and slowly unraveled (or is that “unknit”) to just beyond this mistake.

Then I carefully placed each loop back on the pegs of the loom; quite a struggle with some loops as the yarn separated into strings. Ugh!

Whether I am learning or not (knot?), I am developing (or stretching) my patience. I do believe that is a virtue I grew while I was teaching for 30 years community college students the basics of writing quality compositions.

My classes were not electives, so students thought of them as “necessary evil” and entered the semester reluctantly, believing they didn’t need the class (or the skill). As I encountered belligerent and obstinate students, I learned to count my way to 10 and sometimes to spell my way to 100 before responding to a sassy or a rude student.

My patience grew and so did the loyalty of these difficult students. The rewards were much more than just an enlarged ability to exercise patience (see last paragraph for something a former student has just written to me).

But this evening I am unlocking my reserve of patience and believing “there’s a pony in here somewhere.” And if you caught the pony allusion— hooray for you! If you didn’t, you might need to throw that phrase into a search engine.

Knitting on California’s Central Coast,
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi too!

From a former student —

From: Helena M
To: Writing Professor
Subject: Thank you!

Hello Carol:
I hope you have been well. I took your ENG 50 in Spring 2018. I was awarded my Associates from Norco College this Summer.
I wanted to let you know that of all my classes yours was the most challenging, but I later realized it was also the class that helped me the most! After taking your class, I got A's on every single paper/essay that I have written. I remember being upset about spending $200 on the books for your class, but they helped me so much in my other classes. Every time I had to write an essay I went back to that book and it helped me get A's on my assignments.
I just wanted to thank you for helping me become a better student!