Painful grading - a slice of a teacher's life

My wrist hurts, but I’m happy.

My wrist hurts because I have carpal tunnel syndrome or some sort of repetitive stress injury; basically, I write too much.

But I’m happy because I have been writing on student papers. My college freshmen turned in the drafts of their first formal essay. I’m about a third of the way through them and I have been writing all over the papers. I scribbled in the margin when a paragraph lost focus. I circled details and questioned their necessity in moving the narrative forward. I made my confusion known when important details were missing.

I am also gathering my thoughts for class on Friday, when I hand these drafts back. Most students will look at their papers, covered in my pencil scribbles, and panic, thinking they have to start all over. But, the thing is, I’m happy despite my wrist pain because this is a great group of drafts. Sure, they all have revisions to consider, but most everyone is working from a solid beginning. I am very impressed.

Friday’s class will focus on organization and paragraph focus. And, hopefully, they’ll see exactly what I mean with all that writing. This should be a much less painful project for them, than it has been for me.

Short slice this week. Did I mention my wrist hurts?

Check out all the Slice of Life posts at Two Writing Teachers.

visit at a railroad crossing (Fiction Friday, a day late)

She heard the bells before she crested the hill to see the arms lowering, blocking access across the railroad tracks. She sighed and looked at the clock, wanting to be home now. She thought briefly about turning around and going the long way but decided that, while the movement might feel good, it would take just as long to drive around as it would for the train to pass. So, at the bottom of the hill, she turned off the engine and picked up her phone to send a text and let her daughter know she was running late.

She was surprised when she heard the passenger door open, but not startled. He sat down and closed the door.

“Don’t worry, she doesn’t even notice you’re not there. She’s texting her friend trying to find out what that boy she likes was saying about her in the cafeteria. Sad thing is, he wasn’t saying anything about her. Didn’t seem to notice her at all. Her friend is trying to say that in a way that makes her feel good.”

“Oh. What? How do you know? Who are you?”

“Be nice to everybody, for he could be anybody.”
          "Father Barton."
          "I always liked him. And he always was, even when he didn't know."

“So, what’s today? Why now?”

“Today is Wednesday. Just an ordinary Wednesday.”

When he sat down in the car, she noticed his beard, the sort of beard her brother always wished he could grow, but couldn’t. His would stay patchy and ragged, but this beard was full and neat.

“Why didn’t you speed up when you heard the bells? You might have made it through.” He looked straight ahead as he talked, the way drivers do who are not in movies. She hated the way directors forgot their characters where supposed to be driving a car and let them take their eyes off the road for long stretches, until she added in a crash scene to the story line, knowing that had he really been driving downtown he would have hit something or someone by now.

“You know why,” she answered.

“Yeah, just the thought of it is gruesome. Still, lots of people take the chance. I’m glad you didn’t. Gives us a chance to catch up.”

“How are they?”

He paused, the slightest smile on his lips. “In love. It’s so beautiful to see. He waited there for her, you know. He watched her with such a look on his face. I went to him often so I could feel it too. Many times, he reached down to stroke her hair or touch her hand. She felt him. It’s why she refused treatment. She didn’t want to keep him waiting. They miss you all, but, well, they are together and that’s a better place to be. I rarely get to see such love. They’ve given me a gift.”

She smiled. She cried. “And you have given me one.”

She looked up when she heard the bells ringing to signal safe passage. By the time she turned her head to the passenger seat, he was already closing the door behind him, though she hadn’t noticed him getting up to go. She started the engine and drove the rest of the way home.

making the cut

Slice of Life

I was nervous coming home yesterday. The director of the middle school play was due to post the list of names of those who made it past the first audition process. My sixth-grader auditioned.

This was the first time she’s ever had to compete for a spot in anything. The soccer league takes everyone who signs up, the school band welcomes all who commit to practicing, and last year’s chorus was open to anyone who could get to rehearsals before school once a week. When she participated in a community theater group, everyone got some sort of part to play; no one was turned away.

But the directors made it clear at the information night that not every name on the sign-up sheet would appear on the cast list. And, since Anya is only in sixth grade (the school goes up to eighth), I figured her chances were fairly slim.

So, driving down our street, I steeled myself for a sad greeting; I practiced comforting lines designed to boost her self-esteem. When I got home and heard from her sister that Anya had already left to walk the neighbor’s dog, I assumed she was looking for a little canine comfort.

Boy, I should have more faith. She made it to the list, though there were plenty that didn’t.

I am thrilled for my girl; excited by this opportunity to build her self-confidence and explore her creative side further. I was also happy to see the empathy she showed for those who didn’t make it, and hear about the comfort both my girls tried to extend to friends who had been left out. Made me remember that she would have made it through, had this been a disappointing day.

I know that speech I practiced will be used sooner or later. We’re all left off the list for something. But I’m happy I can file away my words of comfort and use congratulations instead.

kindness

I set my alarm to go off at 8:45 this morning, the time my university had announced it would observe a moment of silence. I wasn’t on campus today, but I wanted to participate.

When the alarm went off, I was standing in a parking lot. I stopped for a few minutes and thought about the people who went to work eleven years ago on a lovely September morning, just like today, looking forward to a day of collaboration with colleagues, a day of creativity, but found something so very different, so very wrong.  And I thought of those men and women who walked into the chaos, hoping to save strangers. I said a little prayer of thanks for all the wonderful people in my life, and a prayer asking for courage and strength if I ever found myself in a dangerous situation. Then I got in my car and went about my day.

It’s mid-afternoon now; I’ve completed all my errands, checked off much from my “to do” list, and now have welcomed my girls home from school. Despite the heavy sadness we all feel on this day, I can look back and see a lot of joy, and pride in my fellow citizens. There was the truck driver who made space for me to drive out of that parking lot, the cashier who looked me in the eye with a smile and some friendly chatter, the young man who held the door for me even though I was several paces behind. Were people kinder today? Or did I simply notice it more?

Amidst all the Facebook posts urging us never to forget, The Institute for Humane Education shared a photo with the tag line “Be Kind to Everything that Lives.” Yes, that is how I want to remember.

Thank you to all who showed kindness today. You are my heroes.

More weekly Slice of Life posts can be found on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

SoL: First Day of School

Part of Slice of Life, hosted by Two Writing Teachers

I start school tomorrow and I’m not ready.

That’s not hyperbole. I am not ready. I have three classes scheduled, and I am, in fact, ready for two of them – two sections of College Writing I. There are gaps in the schedule on my syllabus, but I have the big picture, and all the necessary information, due dates for the major projects, and a solid plan for my first several weeks.

That third class, the ESL writing preparation class, is not so well organized. This is the first time I am teaching this course and I was really excited to get it. I started planning back in June.  Then life hit, and I worked on all my classes only sporadically.

I pulled it together and got the writing classes worked out. That was a bit easier, since I had past semesters to work from. I keep notes as each semester goes along about what worked, what ideas I might want to try, what projects proved most difficult and might need more or different scaffolding. So, I had a good starting point.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m ready for the first day of class. I’m ready for the first few weeks of class. I just don’t have the same solid big picture for this course. My syllabus doesn’t yet have all the required language (and so, clearly, it’s not yet printed).

My distracted summer has made my fist day jitters worse. But I still have that same feeling of excitement; ready to meet a new group of students, looking forward to this year’s film and lecture series on campus, anxious to see how some new ideas will work out. 

And, I’m really looking forward to getting back into a regular routine. I’m really looking forward to being too busy to be sad.

And for my last day of summer vacation, with my daughters already off to school and my husband out the door early, I’m waiting on some friends to go walking with me, then to chat over coffee before I delve into my final day of preparation. With that sort of beginning, I know I’ll be ready in the morning.

Spiritual Atheism – lost comfort

I went to church on Sunday with my family. It was the two-year anniversary of my father’s death and the mass was being offered in his memory. During the intentions, they listed those who had been buried from the church in the past month, including my mother. I went to mass in part out of familial obligation; but also, since my mother’s funeral, I have been thinking about how comforting the mass was. I knew all the songs, I was familiar with the readings, I prayed and knew all the words.

So, it really was with high expectations of finding that same sort of comfort that I went to mass this week. It had been a tough weekend, missing both of my parents, and I needed some tradition to hold onto.

I didn’t get it.

The church I grew up in was closed by the archdiocese several years ago. The congregation joined with a smaller church that was actually closer to my parents’ house. This new church is completely different from the great, cathedral-like structure I was used to. The new church is 1970s architecture; a church in the round. And, the traditions are different: they hold hands during the “Our Father,” the choir is on the alter rather than in a loft at the back (the ceilings are not high enough for a choir loft), they keep their hymnals on a table by the door rather than in the pews, so I didn’t get one.

All of these cosmetic differences remind me that this is not the congregation of my youth, but still, they are surface differences that I could cope with.

What took my sense of comfort away were the changes in the mass itself. Words have changed; the places where you sit and kneel and stand have changed.  The part that most upset me was, preparing for the Eucharist, when the priest used to say:

Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.

But now, instead of saying “for you and for all” he said, “for you and for many”.

Oh my, not all? This felt so limiting, so exclusionary.

Now granted, I was (and am) an emotional mess. Still, I went to church for comfort and left feeling unwanted. You can say I’m over-reacting; I say I am simply reacting. This was my reaction.

My sister, who does attend church regularly (or at least did when my father was alive), has been complaining about the changes in the mass for a long time. My father complained before that. I listened, but their complaints meant little to me at the time. I have been to mass a few times since the changes took place, but they didn’t truly register; I wasn’t fully invested in the mass the way I was this weekend. Now I understand why they were so upset.

I won’t claim that the Church made a mistake with these changes. I have to assume that they had their reasons, and their intentions were good. I won’t presume to suggest I know better than they what is good for the church. Certainly, I do not. But, I will say that these changes were bad for me. They took away the comfort I was seeking. And now, I am a bit lost.