Near The Finish Line

Been so tired this week. I've been reading papers practically non-stop when I'm not in my classes.  None of it is really new: I have long known that I will have no life for much of May or December every year.  However,  I feel more tired than in years past.  Maybe it's just because I'm getting older.  Or it could be the long, cold, dreary winter and almost non-existent spring we've had.


But I feel something else is happening:  This fatigue I'm feeling is the kind that comes when you're near the end of something and you're hoping that you have enough left in the tank, so to speak, to get you there.

The Homestretch, If Not a Homecoming

Now it's the last week of the semester. Two of my classes had their final exams; one more will have theirs tomorrow.  And now I have a new pile of essays that will grow.  Somehow, they'll all get read and the students will get their grades.  A few of them will graduate at the end of this week; another few will transfer to other schools; a few more will drop out or leave temporarily and a whole bunch more will be back next semester.

The ones who are graduating, or leaving in one way or another, I envy somewhat.  Some, I know, have uncertain futures:  The job market isn't too promising for them, at least right now.  Eventually, they'll find their way.  I think of myself when I graduated.  This year is one of those "milestone" anniversaries.  My college is having a reunion: I was tempted, for a moment, to go to it.  But then I realized that any desire I had to attend was motivated by the same thing that would motivate most of my classmates to talk to me, if they were so inclined:  curiosity.  I'm not talking about the scientific kind; rather, I'm thinking of possibly-salacious desire to find out information that confirms the suspicions, fears and fantasies that someone has about someone else.  Really, why else would some of them want to see me after not seeing me since we graduated?

Plus, my undergraduate years were by far the unhappiest ones of my life.  My high-school years were pretty bad, but somehow I felt the burden of expectations that I would be, or pretend to be, someone I wasn't in order to "fit in."  

After my experiences, I wonder how some of my students will or won't change in the next five, ten or twenty years.  How many of their changes will come by choice, and how many will be borne of necessity?  And how many will have been coerced?    And how many of them will realize that how much the directions of their lives are determined by a couple of or a few moments--or, more precisely, the decisions and choices they make in those moments?

Whatever the answers are, they're coming more quickly than most students--or people generally--realize.

Bikeless Blues

Today was one of  those drop-dead gorgeous days when I wanted to be on my bike.  Tomorrow I go to the gynecologist again.  Please, Dr. Ronica, say yes.  Tell me it's OK to get back on the bike.  


And what was I doing today?  Giving an exam, grading more papers...You get the idea.  Just like yesterday, except that today had sunshine and warm weather that I couldn't enjoy.


Yesterday it was chilly and rainy until the evening.  Then, a warm breeze swept through the darkened sky and seemed to break up the clouds.  I purposely got off the subway a stop earlier than I usually do just so I could walk a bit more.  


Tonight I was talking to another prof who's been teaching about as long as I've been.  We concurred that this indeed has been a stressful semester. "Usually, I feel burnt out during the last week or two of the semester.  But this time, I felt that way about five weeks before it ended." The difference between me and him, I said, is that I think I started to feel spent, used up or whatever you want to call it even earlier than that.  I realize now that we came to drag ourselves through significant parts of this semester for essentially the same reasons:  our workload and class sizes increased, we're getting older and the atmosphere in the college and department is not a happy one.  And I think that the negative energy in there wore on me even more than it did before mainly because I noticed it more.  Actually, I didn't notice it so much as I felt as if I no longer had a filter against it, as I seem not to have some of the other filters I used to have.  Whether that's a consequence of my operation or anything related to it, I don't know.

You Know It's Late In The Semester When...

So...Today was one of those utterly gorgeous spring days that had just a hint of summer in its warmth and sunshine.  I rode to and from work; as I was leaving, one of my students cheered me on from the window of her boyfriend's car.  Now, if she thinks that's going to get her an A... ;-)


In one of my classes, it seemed that about half of the students hadn't even begun to read A Doll's House, which I assigned last week.  I asked them why they hadn't read; they said things like, "I started to read it, but I just couldn't get into it."  All right, I can understand that, I said.  But where did you start to have trouble?, I asked.


Some of them couldn't answer.  One student yelled, "We should read the play out loud in class."  I knew what they were trying to do:  spare themselves the trouble of reading it.  But I humored them and asked for volunteers to read aloud.  Turns out, a number of students didn't even bring in their books.


I know, it's late in the semester, the weather is gorgeous and people's hormones are pumping and clothes are shedding. Under such circumstances, I can understand why some students would rather be almost anywhere but a classroom and doing almost anything else besides discussing a play.  Still, I couldn't believe how much passive-aggressive behavior I was seeing in one room.  


At least the class I taught after that one was better:  They actually read the play and were actively participating in the discussion.  

After that first class, I found myself thinking about Thomas Wolfe's description of teaching in a diploma mill.  It was in You Can't Go Home Again, a book whose high point was its title.  All right, I remember that there was a none-too-favorable description of the job or the college.  


It's been a long time since I read the book and, frankly, I've never had any desire to read it again, not even to look for the passage I've mentioned.  As I recall, that novel and the others Wolfe wrote were longer than War and Peace or Les Miserables and said about a tenth as much.  Some prof of mine assigned them--in what course, I forget.  Maybe I should find copies of those books and, the next time a student complains about how much work they're getting, I could show them a copy of one of Wolfe's books.  "I could've assigned this!," I could tell them.  What good that would do, I don't know.


Oh well.

Fine But Tired

The papers are piling up. The days are getting shorter. And the weather forecast is for combinations of rain, sleet and snow until ntil tomorrow afternoon. This can only mean the end of the semester and the beginning of winter are coming. So is Christmas. And I haven't done a thing about it. Oh, no!: A male pattern of mine won't change, at least not this year: Most likely, I'll shop and mail my cards at the last minute. At least I'm not doing that out of procrastination: I have so little time and my body is still catching up to my surgery. Everything feels fine, but I'm tired.