timna

I hurt my baby

took all the air out of him. regretted it the minute I jokingly said something. should have known that he was nervous and this was the worst thing I could have said.

I've cried. he's still hurt and trying to figure out how/why that happened.

I'm just still kicking myself.

ok, I'm having fun grading with the new toy from school (a tablet pc)

who knew I was just waiting to get back to red marker and scrawling all over the essays? I can still use the rubric at the end and highlight the relevant parts, but I have definitely messed around this evening,

only one plagiarist (that I know of). wonder if it isn't obvious on her computer that hyperlinks were still embedded and led me directly to her source?  not to mention the variety of language levels in the different paragraphs. sigh.

grading

7 more papers to grade tonight in ws. later: 20 annotated bibliographies. 20 final papers. 20 finals.

11 portfolios to grade in comp. later: in-class essays and the final paper.

13 essays in contemp. later: 13 finals.

nothing to complain about. really. so why am I not finished with the ones I have to do today?

yes, of course, it snowed during the baseball game

isn't that the way it's supposed to be here?

ben t. did fine with umpiring. I came back and saw the final inning.

too much to read

I just keep meandering through sites about the election.

via BitchPhD, the article on Feminist Awakening might be part of the Women's Studies final.

and while I used to read this and then Andrew Sullivan, I simply do not have the patience for Sullivan's anti-Clinton day after day commentary. I've read him for years, usually disagreeing, but listening to what I found to be thoughtful conservatism. I teach better when I can hear many viewpoints. lately, I've just been switching channels. more Shakes, less Andrew.  of course, Shakes linked to Elizabeth Edwards and I follow.

not getting much grading done though.

it was too cold to watch my baby umpire his first game

so I'm at Caribou grading instead. I watched the first half inning. he'll be fine.

no snow today

yea.

yesterday we cleared the garage and loaded the van to take it to the village collection point. we also looked for a small gas grill. maybe today we'll get one.

must grade today. playing with my new notebook computer. it doesn't want to stay horizontal -- keeps jumping to vertical screeen.

the kids are working on the end of the year stuff.

that's about all.

all these college brochures and letters

the creepiest college letter told almond joy that "there is life after ### our street adress" like living at home was coming to an end, but this college would provide her with the next address. ewww.

last night there was a letter from one of the Ivies telling her that they think she'd fit right in. they were also suggesting that their financial aid would make it possible: less than 10% of her parents' income would be demanded for the family contribution (this is about half of what most indicators suggest we'd be expected to pay). but they have a 7 or 8% acceptance rate and I just don't want her to become one of their statistics: if they inflate the numbers of applicants, their acceptance rate stays beautifully low. am I being cynical?

I believe she's right up there with the best of them. she's a little less certain. her ACT's aren't perfect (and now she has a classmate who ace'd them), but they are so very high. she's taking the SAT soon and is devoting more time to practice tests and being nervous than I think is helpful. her grades are good, but not perfect. she's done so much, but she's down on herself for not getting "leadership" positions.

she's not having fun.

I wish I knew better how to help. after those summer programs made it seem like yes, you're right in there with those scores, and I encouraged her to apply, I wish someone would be saying, yes, come, join us.

Snow, the book, not the weather

yes, we're haunted. should get another inch or two tonight. I'm doing lah-lah-lah and moving on with life.

good discussion on the book Snow last night. started with a huge map of Turkey and the area -- after reading Persepolis, it almost seemed like familiar territory. one of the students is leaving for an archeological dig in Turkey in a few weeks. I talked about travel in Armenia (if you've read Snow, think of the bus ride in the first chapter -- terror on wheels).

then we moved on to a map of the people. I'm going to scan it for next week's online class since the connecting lines are going to get more complicated as we go. but this format of meeting once in the beginning of the book and then going online for a week, looks good for this text. then we meet again, but it's the last class and we'll have many presentations and barely have time to summarize. I trust this class to work through it online.

it's a great class. only 13 people (out of 16 who started). honors folks. really willing and interested in reading and learning. a pleasure!

should I encourage her to quit? it's ok at some point to walk away?

if almond joy doesn't get any of the three page-editor positions that she wants, but gets shunted off to something she really doesn't want and didn't indicate any interest in?

one guy, who is up for  editor-in-chief or the ed/comm pages is just plain mean to her. she's managed to work with him, but if he says he doesn't want to work with her, she's the one that doesn't get ed/comm? they wouldn't offer him this alternate, not-very-important-or-interesting position because, well, he wouldn't take it. he'd make a big fuss. we'll see how the students work this out.

she's blue these days even after going back to swimming. not confident about anything: school, AP tests, SAT tests, summer plans. I just want something to go very right for her, soon.

other news: the contemporary world lit folks have not taken the quiz on Snow which could mean a very dull class tonight if they haven't done the reading. 5 took it, 2 got 100. it's 10 questions and half are T/F and they get two tries. ok, it's not quite as easy as that sounds because they don't know which answers were incorrect. but still, it does not bode well for class.

and broken around here: the Rav 4 barely made it home from work yesterday (we think it's the timing belt, about $500 if we're lucky), the air-conditioning in the van is not working again (3rd time in 35,000 miles). the stove -- well, it has only on and off which makes cooking tricky. the gas grill has given up -- but we bought it very, very used 10 years ago, so it's about time. note, however, that in each of these categories, not one, but two things need to be fixed, making it challenging to improvise.

soon I'll get a summer salary. that will probably help.