My so-called grading day, part 1.

America: things have come between me and my grading. Things like

• arrival of Scotland daughter
• intermittent and stubborn illness
• arrival of The Bride
• family gatherings
• the Wedding Fitting Ordeal
• flurries of last-minute purchases, to wit: more Mucinex; StaticGuard; mints; emergency luminizer; &c&c
• the gathering of sisters (and mom) for the night before festivities

and so forth.

Also, and not to be forgotten:

• the WEDDING. Which was glorious.

But now comes the reckoning, because grades are due, as in: there is an actual deadline, tomorrow night at midnight. Alas! the portfolios, as they say, will not grade themselves. And so I set to work.

Luckily, before most of the above ensued, I had

• initiated the ritual of the Preparation of the Rubrics, and
• organized the URLs.

Thank God. That meant that today I could just start reading and commenting.

DIGRESSION: Comments? Anyone? 

Two days ago, in a discussion with my son, I was moaning about the grading, and he said, predictably, 'Just give 'em all As.' And I said, also predictably, 'The thing is, I feel like I need to give comments.' And he said, 'Just say, Good job.' To which I am thinking, not a bad strategy, sonny. I'm thinking right now: three things you did right, three things you should keep working on, is my new comment template. We'll see how it goes.

RETURN TO POST: But before I could start reading and commenting, I had to wake up.

DIGRESSION: Last night, we had a lovely party at our house because my brother and sister-in-law are in town and they're not usually in town. So I made two kinds of soup--three, because I made two kinds of chowder plus one kind of green soup--and bought bread (Xref: still no oven) and cheese and cut up two pineapples and put pistachios in a bowl. And so forth. Other people brought fruit and snacks and more bread and desserts galore. It was a fine affair. We have loads of white flowers in square vases from the wedding, and we lit all the Christmas lights and my brother got out his guitar and my son his ukulele, and it was just lovely. But, as you may surmise, I did no grading yesterday. Also, this morning I had a we-had-a-party hangover. 

RETURN TO POST: So I lolled about in bed until my eyes felt sort of alert, and then I worked out, and then my sister came over to retrieve her purse that she left hanging on the bannister at the party last night. Then I bought some milk and made oatmeal. And ate it, while reading the paper, etc. 

Anyway, you can see that I got a late start. Then, because of all the wedding shenanigans of the week before, my laptop felt a strong urge to back itself up which slowed the internets down to approximately the speed of something super slow, which made clicking on URLs too annoying until the backing up was completed. So I did some laundry.

DIGRESSION. I know, this post is all about me procrastinating AGAIN. I KNOW. 

RETURN TO POST:  In the end--I am fast forwarding--I got all the group projects graded. In the end, I just have to grade the reflections tomorrow, then look at the totals, then cry about it, and then submit the final grades. In the end, it will have been worth it, after all.

DIGRESSION:

And will it have been worth it, after all, Will it have been worth while, After the slow internet and the snack breaks and the broken oven, After the laundry, after the pistachio shells, after the Facebook breaks— And this, and so much more?—

RETURN TO POST:  No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. I mean, I'm only human. In the end, there has to be an end, and I have to reach it, and submit my grades, and move on. Which will happen tomorrow, come hell or high water, where I will hear the mermaids sing each to each, &c &c, and on Wednesday, i.e., the day after grades are due, the oven installing man will come to my house. And then there will be a celebration that involves butter and sugar and no more portfolios for a month.

Please, shut up.

For the past couple of days, I've found myself monumentally bored with every possible thing I might have to say in a blog-shaped utterance called a "post." Here's what happened: I went back in the archives to find out when, exactly, our Great Mouse Invasion was (I didn't find it, so whatever date I put in that last post--totally made up).

First of all, this exercise made me very glad I have kept this blog--there is a record of my days there, and things I would never remember had I not written it. Second of all, I found a lot of things to like in the writing, which is a good feeling.

At least, it's a good feeling at first, because after that, and third of all, I felt an overwhelming, existential nausea overcome me. What is all the crap I fill my days with of late? Why are there no charming little essays, manifesti, letters to inanimate objects, whatever, that come to mind? Moreover, why is my life so crowded with obligations I can't seem to remember to take care of? And avoidance--why are my hours so powerfully controlled by my urge to avoid whatever it is that's at hand, needing to be done?

I know, it's insufferable. As Robert Lowell said, "I myself am hell." Not to mention, hell on other people.

So that--this absurd state of funk, for absolutely no good reason, really--that's why I haven't blogged for a couple of days. But now: I finished a draft of the paper my colleague and I are writing. I hung up all my clothes. I turned in my travel papers to be reimbursed. I don't know, the day looks brighter.

In the meantime, I have found another possible alternative career--ghost Twitterer.