In the last five minutes before the grading deadline falls, I shall

consider the unknowability of all other humans, for what they do as students is inexplicable to me, including

• attending class right until the very end, but nonetheless not turning in the one thing that will give them a passing grade
• not dropping the course even though they have long since stopped attending
• writing beautiful work--beautiful!--then disappearing, despite my plaintive entreaties to come back, come back--

and so on.

However, what I will not do in the last five minutes before the grading deadline is grade. Because I am finished.

Milestone.

The last few weeks of this particular semester hold a number of milestones for me. After this semester is over, I will no longer be a faculty leader. I will close up my Open Grievance Shop. (<< not a real thing, but it sure felt like it sometimes!). I will not have a giant lecture to prepare for, nor any presentations to give at conferences small or large. And soon, soon, the grading will be over.

the last meeting was like this, sort of.

Today, I attended my last meeting of the Discussion Team. At this meeting, which I've attended for the last four years--the first two years of the four, I co-chaired it--we discussed (none dare call it negotiated!) salary and working conditions issues for the faculty. The very last meeting, as in never again. 

In honor of this last meeting, I did the following:

(last night) Baked a cake and ate a slice at eleven p.m. 

(this morning) Met with a student | Identified another way that Canvas's sneaky ways have wrought havoc upon my carefully designed end-of-the-semester collaborative project | Ate an artisan (so they say) breakfast sandwich from Starbucks.

 
[THE LAST MEETING]

(after the meeting:) Sat with my colleague in the sun and debriefed | Went back to my office to think about this and that, related to my end-of-the-semester exit plan | Went home | On my way home, stopped at Target and bought a small, many-pocketed backpack for this summer's travels |  Ate some barbeque potato chips. Also a sliver of cake. As you do | And so forth.

Actually, it's sort of shocking how few ceremonies there are to mark the ending of stuff like this. But I am marking it, and how. (--by preparing to grade, at the moment, actually.) And I am feeling pretty good about it, both the having done it and the end of it. 

(balloons  |  parade  |  confetti  |  speeches  |  certificates/plaques | the very, very end.)

Exhale.

It was great, and now it's done.  The Publication Boot Camp, that is. I left the building today and felt light light light.

This morning when I left the house, this is what I saw:

What a beautiful world.

To fail.

At the ends of the semesters is a good time to contemplate failure. Or possibly success. Definitely all the gradations of accomplishment and/or the lack thereof in between.

I am contemplating how many ways I failed my students, while also noting that they did just about as well as they do, as a group, when I feel like I'm trying my very hardest. As a for instance.

I am feeling the creaky structure of my course while also noting that the improvements I made this semester over last, in terms of design, actually seem to have helped.


I am begging, bargaining, and pleading with my students to give me their work already, despite the fact that I made policies to say I wouldn't.

There are a few radiant moments in there. Shining moments, where not only was the writer's work splendid but the writer realized why it was splendid, and articulated it for him/herself. And I got to listen in. That's a recompense.

Well, in the end, all there is to say is: that's a semester, folks. Except for the incompletes I gave to students who would not not not give up their damned final portfolios to me. I just couldn't bear to fail them. And for that, there will be many a future e-mail to pay, alas.

Sometimes, everything is okay.

Like today, for instance.

Knowing that there was a race against the clock, printer-wise, and that while there was a good faith promise to get a printed magazine delivered by 4:30 p.m., there was on the other hand every chance in the world that things could go awry, I was unable to sleep last night, which meant that I was behind, just a little, in all my appointments, etc. today.

Yet after all--after the fouled-up print job and the promises, after the not-enough-sleep and the ten-minutes-behind day--after all this, the book was delivered a half an hour early, it was exquisite, and the reading--the whole event--was just splendid.

Here's what the internet said about it:

And just in case you want to check it out--you can go here to see the whole digital edition, and here to see the pdf of the print edition. If you want yr own book, you can come to my hall at the SLCC to pick it up for yourself. It's a beauty.

(It's possible that I am filled with love for humankind at the moment. Just saying.)

September yada yada yada the darkest part of the year.

OR: The Year in Pictures, la troisième partie.

SEPTEMBER.

We had a last Labor Day hurrah in Idaho. Hurrah!

Huzzah!

Tiger RIP.

OCTOBER.

Ain't nothing but a beach thing. Hermosa Beach.

Possibly the raison d'etre for the L.A. Project: finding the Bartlett Motel, where my family stayed for six weeks when we moved there. I was fourteen. This motel had no swimming pool. We told the time by daytime game shows, sitcoms, and soaps, and we were damn good at it. Lomita holla!

NOVEMBER.

Risked the Continental Divide and also Rock Springs, WY, where many a better man's (and woman's) dreams have gone to die, to visit our friends George and Maureen in Clark. 'Twas swell.

I am thankful for my sisters and brother (sister E here, representing).

I am thankful for my aunts and uncles (darling Aunt Sal, also representing).

I am thankful for my whole family in all its nooks, crannies, and permutations, actually.

DECEMBER.

Events of all stripes--dutiful (finishing the semester, grading, fretting about grading), infelicitous (the sick), felicitous (I won an XBox!), and festive (tree, present-buying and -making, craftacular)--all culminated in the arrival home of this young man:

and we just couldn't be happier for him to hang up his suit and stick around for awhile.

Tomorrow: the Best of 2009. As promised.

A minute to spare . . .

I got my last grade turned in at 11:59 p.m. Ha.

Notes on "last grades":

a. it was really only my last possible grade, since there are students I am still (still!) hounding for last assignments. I can't stand it when they were good students and then something . . . whatever! happens, and there's no portfolio or whatnot. I can't stand it!

b. Microsoft Outlook ate a comment, a lovely, long, thoughtful comment, that I wrote for a student writer because it thought it needed to log off. I have some choice words for Microsoft Outlook, but since my lovely aunt may occasionally read this blog, I will just say: I have some choice words for you, Microsoft Outlook, so you better stay out of my way or else cough up that comment you ate.

c. I must reconstruct the above comment, plus write some more for a few more students. But hey, the grades are in! And they're high!

d. High grades = character flaw on part of teacher? Discuss.

e. All my grading bones and muscles are achy and tight.

Open Letter to End of the Semester Evaluation of Students:

End of the Semester Evaluation of Students, you loom over every interesting, writerly, inventive idea I have to make writing pleasurable or compelling. You and your rheumy eyes, your hacking cough, your irritating standards.

I hate you, End of the Semester Evaluation of Students. You make me feel weak. When you are near--and when are you NOT near, E.o.t.S.E.o.S.?--you fill me with self-doubt. You are nothing but a self-fulfilling monologue: "They cannot write. They cannot write. No one will believe that this is writing. Think of what the Others will say when they know that you said this student could write! This student cannot write. None of your students can really write." Really, you could be an endless loop of yourself. You, perhaps more than any other Presence in my professional life, End of the Semester Evaluation of Students, conjure up a factory, in which my teaching is just another (sing it with me now) brick in the wall.

End of the Semester Evaluation of Students, why don't you just do all the grading yourself and leave me out of it? The way you go on, it seems like that's what you'd rather, anyway. In any case, I am now officially giving you the cold shoulder. When I think of my students and their writing, I will think of the funny or beautiful things they wrote--intentional or not--and how words always wiggle and do acrobatics, instead of staying under control the way you pretend they do and can, if I had only taught the students how to write rather than how not to write, which is what I apparently do, according to you, End of the Semester Evaluation of Students. Well, how about this: I gave a bunch of high grades! So chew on that, old man, Mr. Professor of They Can't Write, Ph.D. No matter what you say, I'm the one pushing the A button to signify all the writing they can or can't do.

And now? The semester is over. I hope you're going somewhere gloomy for vacation, because you really wouldn't enjoy a lovely location, where people don't care about the writing they can't do, just as in the rest of their lives they only worry about their writing maybe eight percent of the time. Unlike me, being loomed over by you.

Stop the looming. I quit you, End of the Semester Evaluation of Students: I quit you I quit you I quit you! So stop bothering me.

Sincerely,

Professor H.T. Megastore