I'm not Dead!!

I'm alive, although just barely.
I have spent this alternatively cloudy/sunny day inside doing such things as: grading, making tacos, taking a bath, drinking a ginger tea/whiskey/lemon/honey concoction, surfing the interwebs, etc. Now I am trying to collect myself into a semblance of what one might call a "person" so I can go out into the world and interact with others. It's touch and go at this point...
and I have more grading to do...

...and Done!

I submitted my grades this morning. Let the flurry of student emails reading "D??" begin. Sigh.
And so begin my ambitious summer plans. So far I've dusted under the bed and the dressers and mopped one-fourth of the bedroom. I wiped down the door and door frame. I subtracted all the transactions from our checking account. I'm listening to the new KRCL. I'm trying to get rid of T-shirts I haven't worn in the last year. Why does that seem so hard? I'm also looking for new storage options for my shoes. It's probably time to mop another part of the bedroom (trying to clean the floor without moving the bed into the hallway, which would involve taking it apart. Just not worth it). I may dust the dresser, but then I have to go swim in order to recover from my weekend which involved standing in one place for 5-ish hours and running 10 miles (half up hill!). And my arm hurts.
Watched "Juno" finally. Loved it!

Another Long Weekend

Another three-day weekend glimmers on the horizon. To be filled with: kids to watch, Son's Birthday Party, excessive amounts of grading, fiction contest to judge, "Pride and Prejudice" to watch, what else? I'm sure there will be food and drink as well. Melting of the snow, I hope, perhaps an outdoor run. Right now I'm freezing, so that doesn't seem likely.
Today I plan to go work out, have a few meetings, go to the Dollar Store for goodies (for Son's party), buy Son a birthday gift, maybe do some grading. I swear, I've read so much student prose lately (summaries, Vista posts, drafts of stories, rhetorical analyses) that I don't think I would recognize a good idea or well written sentence if one ran up and attacked me with a blunt object. Not that I want to be attacked with a blunt object. It's just...
Time to face the real world. Which means sitting on the couch drinking tea for at least another half an hour.
Happy President's Day weekend! I'll be remembering how, 7 years ago, we spent the weekend in the hospital watching TV, letting people bring us food all day, trying to forget that I had staples in my abdomen. Aah! The good old days.

Blogging instead of...

I feel a little guilty for all the blogging I've been doing. Not because it's a waste of time, it isn't, but because of all the other things I should be doing, but don't do. Instead I blog.
So, I blog instead of

1. Writing something else: a novel, a short story, a poem, a letter, an email
2. Reading
3. Grading
4. Sleeping
5. Exercising
6. Cooking
7. Baking (don't chocolate chip cookies sound good?)
8. Cuddling Son to sleep
   
9. Watching videos from TED (my new worst habit)
10. Writing limericks about all the things I should be doing. Like "There once was a teacher of writing..."

Go ahead. Finish that one. I dare ya.

Memo from Course Assessment

As some of you know, I (and some of you!) was lucky enough to participate in a course assessment in the past few days. Yes, it stretched out longer than expected with some of us bringing papers home to finish up. (But not until we'd self-medicated with vodka, watched some TV, slept a little, etc).
Here are some highlights from student prose that remind me of why teaching is often an (unintentionally) funny business.

• "Throughout time, students have always brought guns to school"
• "As I was in a situation where a drunken man holding a butterfly knife began to be irritated and angry"
• "all of which makes a paper sound like a symphony"
• "somewhat glib goes by many different names"
• "I would like to end here so that you may reflect"

I also learned that I should keep my big mouth shut and just nod and agree (I've learned this several times, but it hasn't taken yet!).

Also: I don't like reading student papers. Also: the smell of magic marker lingers on the papers and gives me a huge f*ing headache. I would like to convey more lessons I gleaned from this experience, but that may take some more vodka.

I will end here, so that you may reflect.