Stepping out of my comfort zone

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: The lasagna was a hit! Greg had three large portions. Mona and I had two and I'm not sure how much Dan had, but he said he really loved it. Yeah!

UPDATE: When I told Dan about my plans to cater to his vegetarian tendencies he gave me a big thumbs down. He wants meat sauce in his lasagna, so I decided to use Pioneer Woman's lasagna recipe and cut the amount of meat in half. Dan even helped in the preparation and it appears to have turned out great, but we won't know until tonight when Greg and Mona taste it. I made sure to buy those two bottles of wine when I went to the grocery store so hopefully that will help when it comes time to review my cooking efforts.

We're having Greg and Mona over tonight for dinner and when searching for something new to cook, or more accurately something NOT Mexican to cook, I visited some of my favorite blogs. I checked out Pioneer Woman and she had a terrific lasagna recipe and I thought lasagna would be a good main dish, but when looking at her pictures of preparation of the lasagna I was struck by how much meat was in the lasagna. Now don't get me wrong, I love a meaty lasagna, but I'm not cooking just for me. Dan, who is usually a very good sport when it comes to eating meals I prepare with meat, prefers non-meat dishes, so I just couldn't subject him to that much meat. I remembered reading on Lisa Paige's blog "pampered with paige" that she and her husband Stu (who is a vegetarian) tried a crock pot vegetable lasagna and she kept raving about it. Not in just one posting but several postings. I figured that if she kept thinking about it and posting about it, it must be good. When I found her original posting of the vegetable lasagna she provided a link to a blog called A Year of CrockPotting.



It doesn't look all that appetizing, actually a little bit runny, but I think I'm going to try it. I figure I'll ply them with a few bottles of wine first so that the rather unattractive appearance won't be noticed as much. Wish me luck because the only thing I really know how to cook is Mexican, but I just can't subject them to another Mexican meal.

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On a very different subject, but clearly another example of being outside one's comfort zone, I had an encounter with a student that broke my heart yesterday. He is Japanese and he has been in our country as an exchange student for 3 years. He has a very thick Japanese accent and speaks very broken English, which means that he is EXTREMELY hard to understand. He's also a bit of an odd duck. He always arrives to class 5 minutes late. He always enters the door at the front of the class, quickly shuffling in front of me as I've already started lecture, arriving at an available desk he clumsily settles in. My typical response to this behavior pattern is to say something to the student, but there was something about this one that caused me to hesitate and say nothing. I simply put up with it, but my curiosity was peaked. I immediately found out his name and started tracking his progress. It became immediately apparent that he was doing none of the assignments and none of the quizzes and exams. I don't babysit students, so if they don't do the work I don't seek them out and act like their mother. They are adults, they can make their choices and they can deal with the consequences of their choices and I treated this student no differently.

Two weeks ago he came to my office to discuss his grade, or should I say lack of a grade. When I asked him why he hadn't done any of the work, he responded that he was afraid of the computer. All of my evaluative work is done on line, therefore one needs a good relationship with ones computer to do well in my class. I wasn't sure if I had understood him correctly and so I worked very hard to understand exactly the nature of his problem. It turns out that it is not the computer per se that is the problem, it is going on line. He has a phobia. I told him that I would need some documentation of this, which he produced the next day.

He handed me a release of confidentiality form and I immediately contacted his therapist. She told me that he has paranoid ideations associated with going on line and that he has an anxiety disorder and he is currently on medication. My initial thought was "no s**t Sherlock" as each time I met with him he would be shaking and sweating, wringing his hands, and his eyes looked like a deer in headlights. Keep in mind that we are already 3/4 of the way through the semester. The Japanese student told me that he has to pass this class or he won't be able to go home. I wasn't sure if this was for cultural reasons (the whole shame thing with that culture) or academic reasons. But I was too exhausted trying to understand him at this point, so I printed up all the quizzes he missed and all the writing assignments that he missed and sent him on his way. A week ago he showed up with 11 of the quizzes completed. I graded them and he failed every one. It was clearly apparent that he was not going to be able to get caught up and pass the class. So I contacted my chair and asked if I could withdraw him even if he didn't consent to the withdrawal. My thinking was that it would be better for him to withdraw and therefore not have his GPA affected, rather than keep him in and surely fail the class. I recieved full support from my chair and the associate dean of the department.

He showed up at my office yesterday, agitated as usual. I proceeded to gently outline his two choices, stay in the class and fail or withdraw for mental health reasons. He immediately broke down sobbing. Sobbing did not help our already difficult communication. I was able to ascertain that if he failed this class or withdrew from this class that he would be sent home to Japan and he said he could not go home because his family and friends would be so ashamed. I thought, CRAP! I am the person that stands between him staying or going. I, of course, immediately wiped this thought from my mind as I'm not the one responsible for his predicament. If he had just come to me at the beginning of the semester, I could have directed him to a class that doesn't use the internet. But what's the use of sobbing over spilt suchi? (I know this is a highly inappropriate joke, but something had to pull me out of my irrational guilt and begin working the problem). I was able to find out the name of his student advisor in the International Students office. I called James and James informed me that he has been failing classes for the past two semesters and this was his last chance. He was only taking one class and that class was mine. He knew going in that it was a do or die situation and the patient is currently flatlining. The bottom line is because he will be withdrawn or failed that he will be deported. I tried as best I could to put on my therapist hat to help him come to terms with this horrible outcome, but who knows how much help it actually was. It was the most heartbreaking situation that I've ever had to deal with and I've had to deal with some pretty hard luck and tragic student situations. I sent him to talk with James so that James could begin to help him accept the reality of the situation and I plan on following up with his therapist when I return from Thanksgiving break. It was so very sad.