Chewing My Leg Off to Escape...

I knew I might be hitting a wall when I woke up several times last night and went over what I should have said, what I should have emailed to the unsupportive dean, to the complaining student, to the full-time faculty member who stood me up for a meeting.
When work begins to infiltrate my sleep, it may be time to bail. I feel like I'm stuck though.
The University where I teach pays by contract. I get one pay check two weeks after the end of the 8-week session. My thought was that this would be a good way to save for college. Big checks that could be squirreled away for college. I'm not sure how much longer I can last.
Thanksgiving interrupted our class and things have been in turmoil. I've caught three students plagiarizing. The one immediately began to revise his ways. The other two, originally from Africa and with a bit of a language barrier, looked at me blankly. Yes, they submitted their essays to turnitin.com and it shows that 89% of the essay was not their work. Was there a problem with that? One went back and put 89% of his essay in quotation marks. Would that work? Not so much.
Then I had the student who sat through class with his arms folded across his chest and refused to join in any group activities. When I asked the students to evaluate their peer reviewers, he ended with the comment: "But what do I know? According to you, NOTHING." So now I'm afraid he's going to bring a gun into class and shoot us all down, especially me.
Last week, after class, about eight students waited for me to complain about the grades they'd gotten on their evaluative essays. Most of them had the same problem they had gone off topic. Rather than evaluating the articles, they ventured into their own lives. One student in particular (OCD) said, "I am very concerned about this class."
Now, I'm thinking, okay the class has jumped the shark. But I asked: "What do you mean exactly? That you're worried about your grade?"
"Well... yes," she said.
Oh, well. That's different. I explained again why she received the B rather than an A. Then yesterday, I had an email from the Dean and from a "Success Counselor" asking about her grades.
The grades are posted online. She can just click on it any time and see that she has 90% in class, which is an A. In this college, an A is an A, whether it's 99% or 90%. What about learning something? Does anyone care about that any more?
Meanwhile, I've spent the past three weeks working on a new training course that takes about five hours of work per week. I still have the final "exam" to take which is scheduled to take two and a half hours. I haven't even had time to think about grading finals for the other college where grades are due Monday.
I set up an appointment at the "University" with a full-time faculty member to discuss the plagiarism issue. I drove the 15 minutes to campus and she wasn't there. Knock, knock, knock. Nothing. I left a snarky note then found another faculty person to talk to about my frustrations. She told me another adjunct teacher had left, saying he couldn't put in the amount of hours they needed. His time was worth more.
I wonder now if my time is worth more. I know what the "University" is offering and it's my choice to accept it and shut up, or quit. I plan to avoid rash decisions while I am so stressed. I'm going to focus on getting all of my papers graded and giving a little speech in class tonight about the value of what they are learning. Then I may visit the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium because aquariums are supposed to lower the blood pressure, and I may need it.

Lowest High Point

If I'd only known that puking in the parking lot foreshadowed my week as a college teacher.
Picture a bustling community college campus. A brisk breeze whips between the buildings, as it does on every college in the United States, and there strides a woman, leaving behind an office building as she heads toward her classroom. She wears a brown wool coat with a shawl collar. A fuzzy pink scarf peeks out from the v in her coat. Her steps pause there, by the parking lot where a bed of dead, dried plants wave in the breeze. Her hand goes to her mouth and she bends over them, spewing orange juice and shredded wheat.
And that was Monday.
Yes, after 40 something years, I didn't make it to the bathroom to throw up. Embarrassing, yet slightly fascinating, apparently, since I keep telling everyone. I think I'm kind of intrigued by the idea that I assumed I could force myself to keep going, no matter how bad I felt.
But, as I said, that was only a foreshadow of the pain and misery to follow. That Wednesday in class, I had to tell two clean-cut boys that I couldn't see them passing class. The one boy, a tall, blond, paled and began to shake a little bit. "But I could have my third essay to you today." The essay was due on Monday and he hadn't even turned in a rough draft. "Sorry, I don't accept late work."
The other boy tried, his hair shaved close to his head, his smile appealing. "I have my rough draft and final draft right here." "But, you didn't turn in your rough draft. I have to see your process work."
I was feeling bad. Maybe I didn't have to be so strict. I pulled out my gradebook where I keep attendance. "Look," I told the blond boy, you haven't been to class since November 7. Today's December 3." The other boy hadn't been there since Nov. 11. I tried to put my guilt behind me. They needed to attend class and turn in assignments on time. It wasn't my fault.
I spent the next morning grading papers of students who had gotten their assignments in on time. I gently explained to one guy that when he used someone else's material exactly, it needed to be in quotation marks and credited. Otherwise, that's called plagiarism.
Then I went on to the next paper that had strange blue hyperlink's underlined. I clicked on one of the hyperlinks and went to a Wikipedia page. Not only had he copied and pasted the essay directly from Wikipedia, which isn't an acceptable source, but he had left the hyperlinks. This was definitely an insult to my intelligence. I just wanted to walk in front of a fast-moving bus by this point.
Today, I girded my loins and handed him back that paper. "What happened?" I asked.
"I was just really swamped," he said.
"I don't think that was the solution," I said.
He came to the front of the class and asked whether he could still pass the class. I let him check his grades on the computer. Not much chance, he decided.
I wonder what he'll tell his parents and his friends. Will I be the villain in the story?
I try to assure myself that this hasn't happened in other classes. Students have perservered and written their own work and succeeded. But the weight remains on my shoulders. Maybe puking in the parking lot was the highpoint of the week.