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.