If I have never recommended Sock Dreams to you all, let me do so now. When I was a freshman at Hendrix College, I was introduced to this amazing website by a gal who lived down the hall from me on the 3rd floor of Couch. Oh my goodness. Knee-high and thigh-high socks of every color and cozy material! Leg-warmers! And, as saved my life this past midwestern winter: STOCKINGS. I bought two pairs of cotton-lined wool tights last November and they have been my cold-weather staple. In addition I own I can't even tell you how many pairs of knee-high, over-the-knee, and ankle-high socks (favorite: my mustard cashmere!
!). A couple weeks ago I was looking at the website again in order to send my dear friend Megan a gift certificate for a belated birthday present; she has moved to Ohio from Austin to earn her PhD and I knew exactly what kind of a shock the winter was going to be for her! As I perused the site I found a couple of have-to-have items, as usually happens when I allow myself to "window shop" online, and I went ahead and splurged on a pair of mustard thigh-high socks and a pair of marled navy blue over-the-knee socks, as seen in my outfit today:
boots: via my mum
socks: Sock Dreams
shorts: JCrew outlet
shirt: American Apparel
necklace: via my mum
I am lovin' these socks. They are almost agonizingly comfortable. And let me tell you, it is not easy to find socks that will go this high on my curvy Latina legs and stay there! I love the color. There are itty bitty flecks of mustard and burgundy and cream and forest green amidst the lovely and unique shade of navy blue. I've been lounging around my apartment this morning writing short letters and sorting through the work that needs to be done this weekend versus this upcoming week.
These socks are delightful and accommodating--the opposite of one of my students this past week. Robert departed for Austin back around September 11. This was about the same time that I last saw one of my students, let's call her "N". N was gone for a week--the same week that many of my students were missing one day or so due to a cold that was going around. I assumed that N had had the misfortune of first having caught that cold and then secondly suffering from that cold's evolution into the flu. Then she missed a second week. Then a third.
"Has anyone seen N?" I asked. "I don't know whether the university would contact me or not if a student were hit by a bus or... you know, died..."
They assured me that sometimes they had seen her around campus. It became a kind of joke; "Guess what, Captain? I saw N today!" a student might say at the beginning of class. "I was going into my dorm and I saw her going out through the other door and I even almost spoke to her!"
N did not turn in a paper.
Then, one week after the papers had been due, at long last, I finally received an email from N. She said she had been sick some--and then admitted, point-blank, to having had been lazy. And this was her reason for missing a month--a month!--of Rhetoric. She asked if she might come to my office hours and turn in the paper that she "thought she had emailed" to me. I said that she was welcome to come to my office hours, and planned to recommend that she drop the class.
She did not come to my office hours. She sent me an email, claiming to have gotten lost. I mean, my office is pretty difficult to find. But if you were in that precarious position, wouldn't you have asked for directions from somebody?! I sent her an email and told her that she had missed at least 3 assignments that she could not make up, and that the highest grade I could offer her, if she turned it in THAT DAY, on her paper was a 30.
She waited two days to turn the paper in--via email--at which point it is simply a zero. What do I do with this girl? I am this close to just shooting her an email with the instructions on how to drop a class. Once I've averaged the mid-semester grades, we'll see if it would even be possible for her to pass the class--especially with continued absences? I have participation as 20% of my students' grades, so, good luck, N!
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