I have come back to tell you, if nothing else, that I have survived. I made it through my very first week of five classes' worth of grading. Those of you who are seasoned champs at the 5/5 load are laughing into your sugar-free Red Bull at me, but I don't mind. Before this semester, I maxed out at four classes, usually three, though I will say that the 3/3 Comp load had course caps of 28. Twenty-eight is a lot of Compies in one section.
Anyway, I made it through the first major weekend, and week, and weekend, of grading. Did you know that there are two major philosophies on grading, the first being Do all that shit at once and the second being Stagger that shit? I fall squarely into the first camp, because I would rather have my life be on fire for seven days than I would my life become a smoldering ash pile, but you have to find what works for you. What will always work for you, however, is to daydream about building a time machine and going back to the fall of 2004, when you were just some dopey grad student sitting at a wobbly desk you'd made yourself, bemoaning the single stack of twenty-five essays in front of you, and punching that girl in the face. Hard.
It was a glorious weekend, that last weekend. On Friday, the humidity suddenly evaporated, and we opened all the windows in the house. I vacuumed out carcasses from the window sills, and the curtains fluttered in the breeze, and we could hear the football games on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Most delightful was the breeze that came through the kitchen's sliding screen door, a big gust of pine scent and fresh air. I had been motivated weeks earlier to peek into the Murder Shed at the edge of our property, and in the gloom, beyond the eight golf clubs and two sets of crutches and various shelving the previous tenants thoughtfully left for us, I thought I spied a sliding screen door. I put on a hat, and running shoes and socks, and I pulled some long sleeves down over my wrists, and then I pushed aside the kudzu and braved the shed and came out dragging what was most definitely, if not a sad, screen door that would fit our patio door. I threw it on the grass, and no fewer than ten roaches came streaming out of it, and I chased them around the yard with Bad for Environment Roach Killer, and then when the coast was clear I cleaned up the door and went to Lowe's not once but twice for new hardware, and whoa is this part of the story getting long. Anyway. The weather was beautiful and we sat outside, on the patio our awesome neighbors have dubbed The Tiki Lounge, and drank beer and admired the door.
It was tough to start the grading party last weekend, is what I am trying to say.
But then the cloud rolled back overhead, and we had to close up the house again early last week, and the weather was--is--hot and muggy, so I sat in my office and grumbled my way through all the work, which explains why I haven't been here in a while. But hallelujah, blog, the papers have been returned. I have some other projects to complete in this brief interim, some poems underway (oh man have I learned a lot about horseshoe crabs) and new books to read, and Jeano and I are scheming a build-our-own writing residency for summer 2012. And hopefully, one day soon, the summer will really and truly end in Georgia and I can sit back and admire that refurbished screen door again, maybe while enjoying a beer, and you can drop by and I'll tell you all about the adventure of the screen door and how much money I saved us!
It's true. I have turned into Cliff after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment