Reasons to let someone else do the driving

Speed. My friend is not the fastest or most aggressive driver I've ridden with, thankfully. But he drives faster than I do. Of course, I'm fairly certain that both of my grandmothers drive faster than I do.

Entertainment. Give a man a five-hour energy drink and he is now properly prepared to talk for the next five hours. I ended up holding my school book rather than reading it. No regrets. 

Friendship. Spend thirteen hours locked in a steel box with someone (especially someone hyped up on energy drinks) and you'll get to know them better. This increased knowledge may make you like them less, but your knowledge will still have deepened. (Just to clarify, I don't like B any less. We know each other better and I suspect we're better friends because of it.)

All in all, it was a successful Michigan trip. I'm back in Milwaukee, blogging instead of reading. Seriously, the biggest problem I have with Belinda right now is that the book is sooooo looooong. And considering some of the other things I've had to read this semester, that's not really a problem. I should bake for my 8 o'clock class tonight, but I'm tempted to put it off until Thursday. That's because I'm a procrastinator.

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Three weeks ago someone told me that I needed to wake up and realize that I would never have spring break again, not a real one. Spring break is for normal students, not grad students teaching two sections of rhet-comp. They were right. But breaks are good for people; they are good for their brains.

Marquette, being a good Jesuit institution, releases its students for Easter break - a lovely five day weekend. Normally, I would have made a mad dash for Michigan, leaving jumbles of books and papers in my wake. This time I tried to be an adult. There are only a few weeks left in the semester and I have a lot of work to do.

So I am still in Milwaukee. I've spent the last few days reading books, taking notes, grading, and trying to draft a couple scholarly papers. It's been a productive time, but now I'm tired. Tomorrow morning I will rise early, jump in a friend's car, and make the drive to Michigan. Less than twenty-four hours after getting to MI, we'll be heading back to Milwaukee.

The same person who told me I couldn't have spring break has now informed me that this quick trip is crazy. He's not shy about sharing his opinions. But I know what he means. It doesn't make fiscal sense to spend so much time driving to be away for so short of a time.

In my circle of friends, I am the odd one out - the one who isn't in some kind of therapy. You could probably make a solid argument that I should be in therapy too. We're all under continual pressure and stressed about teaching, learning, the constant demands from all sides.  I'm not trying to claim any kind of superiority. One of them asked me the other day how I was dealing with everything without resorting to any kind of therapy. I gave them a standard response, "I don't have time for therapy!"

We chuckled and moved on, a solid deflection on my part. They didn't really want to know. They just wanted the assurance that I felt the stress too, that there wasn't anything wrong with them. I could have told them I pray a lot. They wouldn't have wanted to hear that either. Grad school isn't about answers. A lot of the time we pretend it is, but all we're really looking for is agreement.

I agree with my friend that this trip to Michigan is extremely short. I would have liked to take a longer one, especially since it was my last chance until the end of the semester. I can't agree that brevity devalues this trip down to worthlessness. Life involves balance. I need to balance my academics with my job. Also, neither of those things should be allowed to consume me.

There are two men outside my window talking about how to score girls and steal tires. I need a break from this city.

I'm going to take thirty hours and go to Michigan. I'll remind myself that there are trees beyond the cement and that there are people who care about answers.

The best lies use the truth. This is one of those deceptive weekends that tells you there's nothing you need to do. True, I don't have any assignments due this week. True, I only have three days of school and then a lovely, long Easter break during which to be productive. But this weekend is lying to me. There are only six weeks left before finals. I have a lot of work to do.

Fortunately, it's snowing. Snow's presence makes it easier to resist the call of the beach. Not that the frozen great lake doesn't have appeal - it does. A couple of weeks ago I drove by the lake and it had frozen into a glowing swirl of turquoise-green.

Yesterday I was out with a couple of friends and we drove by the lake. One of them exclaimed, "That's the first time I've seen it!" She's been in Milwaukee for the same length of time that I have and lives a block from my apartment. The lake is less than three miles away. I wasn't able to resist it for that long.

With that in mind, I need to work now. Growing up, my mother (Hi Mum!) referred to the idea of delayed gratification - being able to deny what I want now for what the future holds. Shockingly, I am very bad at this. Even now I can't decide if writing this blog post is something I should be doing, or something I am doing instead of what I should be doing. Maybe I can break down that binary and claim that it is both.

Six weeks until the end of the semester. 

I saw friends last week. Real ones. Barakel ones. Not that I am friendless in Wisconsin. There are several people who I see on a regular basis and whose company I enjoy. But there's something special about Barakel friends. Or maybe they're just amazing people who I happened to meet at Barakel.

Spring break flew past far too quickly. I did get most of my papers graded, but am not quite finished judging my students. (Only two more to go!) I did, for the first time, give an 'F' grade to a paper. It doesn't feel good, but there was no possible way to justify a passing grade.

Presenting on post-colonial theory today. My lucky classmates get to endure me condensing forty years of scholarship into an hour. With slides!

Spring break needs to happen soon.

People are tense. Students are whiny. One of the TAs in the office next to mine stopped by yesterday to congratulate me on keeping my calm with my student who launched into a list of complaints about his first paper grade and kept insisting that I had discouraged him so much that I made him give up. It was nice to hear from an outside perspective that I handled it fairly well. I wish students would take personal responsibility for their own actions and grades.

People are tired. Tired people are complaining people. It feels hypocritical to complain about other people complaining.

Today is the birthday of both Toby and Zeke. Spring break needs to arrive so I can go home and celebrate. With cake.

Crushing their souls . . .

I handed back their papers this morning. My second class has never been more subdued. I wanted to tell them that it wasn't the end of the world, but I don't think they would have believed me. I wouldn't believe me.

I turned in a paper on Monday that is the worst paper I've written in a long time. I still want an A. All my professorial advice won't cheer me when it is not.

So I didn't tell them it wasn't the end of the world. It's something we each have to discover on our own. And then rediscover in the future.

A Grading Reflection

I'm nearing the end of my first pile of papers from this semester. My students displayed varying levels of ability - I almost said intelligence, but decided that wasn't quite fair. Because really, to me, writing is an indicator of intelligence. But these kids might not know that yet.

I'll be sorry to give the papers back. It signifies a change in our relationship. I'm no longer "Miss Hendrickson who knocked over a chair that one time and forces us to read news articles about mackerel fishing in Iceland." I become "Miss Hendrickson who gave me a bad grade and is ruining my GPA (and therefore my life) and who must hate me."

Students, I don't hate you. It's because I care about your success that I wrote that "D" on your paper. Six years down the road you're going to need to be able to write a coherent sentence and if you can't, there are worse consequences that a lowered GPA. Someday you'll need to be able to express the thinking you've done about an issue. If you can't, your solution - no matter how good it may be - will be passed over in favor of one more clearly articulated. This is to help you.

Papers. Almost done grading. Also, I'm writing a paper that will itself be graded. Then I'll have to read my own advice.