20211022.0430

The day fast approaches again
When a grading period reaches an end
And the students will sit for a test that they chose
And as to results--who knows?
How many students will puzzle it out
Figure out what the text is about
That confronts them in days, I cannot yet say
But soon enough will; it's soon exam day

20210924.0430

The first span finds and end today
And for a time, the students play
While I will toil this next day
And the one that follows
I must see if they've passed the test
I put to them; I may not rest
Until it's done at school's behest
Perhaps it'll be tomorrow

20190504.0430

A song sung often before has started again
The whining refrain beginning in one voice
Plaintive, nasal, grating on the ears
And there will soon be other voices added
Striving for unison
But being just far enough off for dissonance they will claim not to hear
I have laid down the baton
But still the singing sounds out
Comes the call
Can I have extra credit?
And the response
You had the chance throughout the course.
Maybe I can redo an assignment
I scored low on?
That option is not available at this time.
But I need this class to graduate.
The response follows John Cage and Alphonse Allais.
How can it be otherwise?
Anything else but adds to a painful cacophony
And there is enough such noise in the world already.

20181109.0430

As I write this, I've finished the first round of grading I get to do in the present teaching session. I am working to remind myself that it is an issue of "get to do" rather than "have to do." Teaching is a side-job for me, one I ply to make extra money--not because I have to have it to make a living or because I am in a position to be able to make a living at it. I have long since lost that possibility, although adjusting my mind to that loss and getting it right in my heart is taking far longer. It is, in effect, a luxury, albeit a strange one; it allows me to indulge habits developed through more than a decade and to accrue some direct benefit to myself through doing so.
Were I able to do this and only this, reliably from session to session and year to year, I might do so. Were I able to do it at the rates I currently do, consistently across terms, I probably would. But I know from long experience and from watching many, many others that I cannot count on continued work in this line of endeavor. I cannot be sure I'll have a job every eight or sixteen weeks, and I am not in a position where I can stake myself on that risk. The reward was never enough to justify it, really; I had simply convinced myself that it was as a way to help myself feel better about such privations as I experienced--and as I asked my loved ones to endure.
So it is that I keep teaching part-time, that I am allowed the chance to put to their direct use those skills I developed in the pursuit of being a knowledge-worker and proselytizer of the secular soul of spoken and written English. I know that I may not be offered the opportunity in the next cycle--indeed, I may never be offered it again. Yet for all the complaints I have about the matter, some of which have some substantiation to them, I tend to enjoy the work more than I lament it. Some of the students seem actually to open up to my view, and I appreciate the trust they place in me. Others introduce me to ideas I've not seen; they have them, I know, but they do not always share them, and I value those who do.
Some still show me the light of knowledge and understanding brightening within them, which vision is a dear thing to me. It is a thing I get to see in my beloved Ms. 8, and I love it in her, but I have seen it longer among the students in my classroom. It is a warm and comforting light, something I crave again and again. And so I work to be grateful to have the opportunity to have it shine upon me once more--and to get paid to kindle and bask in it.

20170218.0813

I am glad there's fog outside,
For it gives a excuse to hide
Away from things, remain inside,
And turn my attention to grading.
The students' work has come to me,
And so I must go and see
What they have offered as a plea
For my kind and gentle grading.
I have not gotten very far
In the task; it feels like tar
Into which I've sunk my car,
But I'll continue the grading.

20161214.0558

So it is that my semester's done,
Although it seems that it had just begun,
And I with students had been having fun.
Exams are graded. Grades are posted, too,
So for the term, there's nothing left to do,
And I must wonder, now the term is through,
What tasks await for me to turn my hand.
What new thing that must I understand
Is waiting as I, free to walk the land,
Proceed upon my way away from class.
I am, it happens, glad to see them pass
Who sat under my tutelage and sass,
At least in the main. I wish them well,
Though I know not the stories they will tell.

20161213.0609

Today's another testing day.
I'll get it done, but I'll not play
Afterwards; I must away
Because the work continues.
I'm not done when the grading's done.
While my students go have fun,
I must my enjoyment shun
Because the work continues.
Often, I look for a path
That leads me out from school-time wrath,
But at such thoughts the world laughs
Because the work continues.

20161212.0556

As the term draws to its end,
And I must myself defend
From the comments students send
About the grading,
I know they will sit for tests,
And I know that mine are best.
Indeed, it almost gives me zest
About the grading.
A bit more paperwork still calls
Upon me to walk the halls
So that I do not further stall
About the grading,
And I will turn to the task,
And I will do as I'm asked,
Though I will get no small sass
About the grading.

20161205.0551

Now, as my teaching time draws to a close,
At least for now, I wonder what each knows
Who sat in classes taught of verse and prose
That were assigned to me across the days
That soon are ending. I wonder if the plays
I talked about with them, or the forays
Into the writings of the world, or pages
That have proceeded from their pens for ages
As it seems now, as on the grading rages,
Have been of good effect for those I've taught.
I wonder if I have done as I've ought,
Or if, instead, my efforts are for naught.
The kind of work I do may not yield fruit,
And its harvest comes often late, to boot.

20161115.0610

There is nothing special for today.
My daughter, school-bound, is going to play
With the friends she's made; my wife away
To work will go as she will daily do.
I will remain at home, where I'll wade through
Pages writ by students, scholars, too,
Marking what needs marked and reading on
Until the pages are all past me, gone
To where such things ultimately belong.
Afterward, I know not what will be;
Quiet time alone's a rarity,
Something seldom coming down to me,
Although I know that others fare far worse;
I know that I am only lightly cursed.

20161024.0601

Things to do today:
Wake up
Caffeinate
Write
Caffeinate
See them off
Caffeinate
Eat
Drive
Caffeinate
Vote
Caffeinate
Grade
Teach
Teach
Meet
Eat
Caffeinate
Read
Teach
Drive
Teach
Drive
Caffeinate?
Eat
Write?
Sleep

It is an A-Z day
Not an E-Z day
And I have to wonder
If Æ, Ð, Þ, Ƿ, and Ȝ will factor in, as well.

20161023.1324

It is a quiet day
Made more quiet by the task
Of grading
I am making enough comments
On student work
I have no others to spare.

20161010.0605

Although it is a holiday,
One honoring a lie,
I am still at work today;
It's easy to see why.
I have papers to assess
And writing still to do.
I took the weekend off; a mess
Upon my desk soon grew.
Awaiting me are readings yet
In print and on the screen;
I must turn to them to get
Done all that I mean
To do to move to other things
That I might celebrate.
At least today, if a bell rings,
I know I am not late.

20161004.0609

There are a few things that I have to do
Today if I am going to be paid;
I need the money that I will earn through
My efforts: making lesson, marking grade.
I'll have to read; I'll have to write. And then
I'll read some more. The work is never done;
One stack of papers just gets marked 'bout when
Another comes, and from the grading one
Or two points into lessons go to aid
The students as they move ahead and learn--
Those who want more than a simple grade
That they see helps their potential to earn.
Of such students, there are all too few;
It is for them, though, I do what I do.

20160925.0827

A stack of first-year papers
Waits for my attention;
Review of written capers
Of which some deserve mention
And new assignments' writing
Are my tasks for the day.
In one, my sometimes biting
Commentaries I allay
In the hopes of more
Good work done by students
To see. In all truth, for
The other are intents
The same; I want to see
My pupils all succeed.

20160918.0714

The time has come again
When I must sit long
Poring over papers
Parsing out the songs
The students seek to sing
Of their lives, of their past
Pushing through the hours
That doing so will last

20160718.0822

Work continues
As ever it must
I have students
For whom to prepare
Things to learn
And for whom
I have things to grade
And there is other work
As well
That seems to need to be done again
Which vexes

20160505.0654

Administering exams is concluded for me now; all I have left to do is to grade the exams, return them to the students, submit grades, pick up one bag from my desk, and return my key, and all is done for one job. (I turned in my key for another job yesterday.) Although the paperwork will not go through for a couple of days, I will be effectively unemployed at that point--so, tomorrow, more or less. And at this point, despite having dozens of job applications out, I have few if any prospects. One job interview awaits, and only the one--and I cannot trust that I will be awarded the job, despite being qualified to do it and willing to do the work. (I do intend to take in more freelance work once I relocate, but I more or less have to wait until the relocation; uprooting in the middle of jobs does not suggest itself as a good idea, either for contractor/client relations or for the actual quality of work to be done.) I am a diligent worker and skilled in many areas--including learning new information and skills. I would be a good employee. Just make it so I can support my family.

It is also Cinco de Mayo, something my family and I mark. We do not do so extravagantly, to be sure; I tend to push against being overly celebratory in any event, and my personal connection to the holiday is somewhat tenuous. But my wife and daughter have it in their heritage, and if they decide to celebrate it (albeit in only small ways, given circumstances), I can hardly refuse them. And I have to wonder if there is not something emblematic in my getting more or less done with the work I have been doing these past years on this day, one that commemorates an unlikely victory. Part of me wants to hope so--but another part of me worries that if it is so, I am more the French than the Mexican in the event. Such worries usually pop up when I consider the applicability of metaphor and adage to my life; I may be given lemons, but what sugar is provided that I may make lemonade? And perhaps things have purpose, but the purpose may well be to serve as an admonitory example to others.

The view is not the most optimistic, I know. And I know I should be more grateful for the many good things that are in my life and the many good people who are in it. I know things could be far, far worse than they are. But I feel sometimes as if I am asked to fawn over them and act as though things are good enough. They are not. They need to be better, and I am trying to make them better through work, and no work presents itself. Nor am I in a position to be able to strike out and try to make things work outside of regular work; I flatly cannot afford the price of failure, for I am not the one who would have to pay the bulk of it. My daughter would (and the Mrs. and I were in reasonably good shape when we started getting out of the way of having her, thank you very much; we were pulling in six figures or damned close to it, with five figures in the bank). If I am not entirely happy with things, I think I have some reason for it.

20160504.0542

May the Fourth be with you, always, but especially on this day, this Jedi Day, with the horrible pun that, as I think on it, relies on the idea of speech impediments (Is that the current term? I do not wish to undercut those who experience such situations by using the wrong terms for them.) being funny. So I suppose that after some years of marking the occasion, I really ought to stop making the joke. And, really, it is a hackneyed pun at this point; I should be doing better.

Less bad-jokingly, today marks the sixth anniversary of my posting in this webspace; I have commented about the date in such regard before, and more than once. Matters largely continue as I have attested in previous years. At present, I face administering exams and grading them, and I have travel plans that commence shortly after I wrap things up where I am, so I have to get things done quick, fast, and in a hurry--while still doing things right. And I am facing a loss of employment with no certain prospects, although I doubt I will receive a call while I am at the International Congress on Medieval Studies saying that I have had my contract suddenly renewed. Not this time.

Work continues even so, however. I recently pushed through a series of short definitions in response to a series of freelance orders. Each paid only a little, but I can dash off fifty words in a scant few minutes, and lots of small things combine into larger ones quickly. I am looking at taking on additional other freelance work, although how I will work out the timing will be interesting, given the travel plans in the next week and the move to come shortly thereafter. The Texas Hill Country calls, and I must answer, despite the opprobrium cast upon the area and its indwellers by a great many. Perhaps once I have arrived there, I will be able to spend a bit of time attending to one writing concern or another. With luck, I will be able to write enough, and well enough, to be able to bring in some money for my family from it once again. I have appreciated the past weeks of less strain on my person, but the concomitantly greater strain on my finances has been less welcome...

20160503.0856

Two of the exams are given
Two more remain
Grading will follow
And follow
And follow
And follow
And some will not be pleased
And others will know
They deserve what happens
And still others will find
That one
Little
Thing
That brings them up
They will be happy, I think.