The Reason I Teach

And I believe this down to the very core of my weary, weary little soul......

Only the educated are free.
Epictetus

Final Papers, Willie Nelson, and Disaster Films (Yeah, NOW You're Curious....)

I can almost see it. I can almost reach it. I feel like those people in disaster movies who are almost out of the cave in/crash site. The cold, pale light of dawn is starting to filter through the gloom, and I begin to think I might survive.....

Of course, isn't this usually about the point in the film that things get really stupid?

No, no, I won't be a pessimist. Really....

You'll have to excuse the more-than-normal giddiness. I've just put the almost-final touches on the last of the big papers. I have a final left and a final refining of this paper and then, ladies and gentlemen, I'M FREAKIN' DONE!!!

(Willie Nelson just came on the radio...."On the Road Again". How appropriate. Everybody sing along.)

I've been up way past midnight for about three weeks in a row, and I have no reserves left. I almost had at least two wrecks on the way to work in the past two weeks, and I'm grateful that God was looking out for me even when I wasn't. I'm past grouchy, past incoherent, past simply burning the candle at both ends; I'm up to having nothing left to give.

It's okay now, though. I feel as though someone should come wrap me in one of those emergency blankets, hand me a cup of hot beverage, and start asking me questions about how it all started....

Yeah, it's clearly time to go to bed now.

More blogs later. Aren't you looking forward to more of THIS crap? Why do you read me again? (Insane laughter fades as she limps off toward a shower as hot as the pitiful little water heater can provide...)

Update

It seems I'm back to the once-a-week posting schedule. It's a shame. There are lots of things I want to write about, but I'm never near a computer when the thoughts are floating through my random mind....

Life has hit critical mass, and I'm flailing madly. Papers are due, both the ones I have to write and the ones I have to grade, so I can only steal moments I ought to be sleeping to do anything that I want to do. I hate this time of the year. Even when I sit down to eat, I feel guilty about it. That's not right.

Oh well, only a few more weary days and then.....

For now, it's time to go to BED, at least for a few hours.

New Pen

For months now, every time a new Levenger catalog has come, I've leafed through the pages and drooled as usual over the lovely tools I can't afford. One thing in particular caught my eyes more than all the others, though, the Plumpster pen. The swirls of blue and caramel remind me of pictures taken of the Earth from high altitude, all seas and desert sands swirling and mingling. Time after time, I've looked at it, longed for it, and sighed. After winning third place in our local poetry contest and being named STAR teacher, I decided to treat myself to something nifty, so I added to my debt and got one.

It's gorgeous. Sometimes I just take it out of my purse and hold it in my hand just to look at it. The pictures really don't do the resin of the barrel justice. Even though the nib is a little wider than I like (it's marked fine, but it's really not), it's beautifully responsive. I got ink called Skies of Blue to run in it to match the colors, and I love the total effect. Sometimes, happiness is a new pen, I guess.

Pierced Ears

So stress is making me do spur of the moment things again. I went shopping Saturday, and since I was in the mall getting some cards for upcoming birthdays/Mother's Day, etc., I swung by the accessories shop and had the second set of piercings in my ears redone. Just like that. Bam, snap, bottom on the chair, studs in the ears, no flinching. This lack of inhibition and forethought does not bode well for what's to come in the next few weeks of my life. When I get like this, all things become possible....

I've had this set of holes since my sophomore summer of college. I got them in Costa Rica, where it seemed every woman I saw had at least three sets of piercings per ear. I actually felt gauche with only one set of holes. I had a lot of little pairs of studs I like to wear, I was in a foreign country, I was stressed about the loss of somebody back home who was close to me, I was in the mall with a friend, and bam, snap, bottom on the chair, studs in the ears, no flinching, I had new piercings when I came back from Costa Rica that summer. I liked them then, and I still do.

There's no need to worry that I am about to launch into a manic body art phase in which I suddenly become one who will set off metal detectors. Two sets of studs in the ears is enough. It's bothered me for some time that the second set had closed up; one side had been pierced just a little too high, and it never did heal up properly. The girl at the store fixed that when she did this set, so I'm even now.

I almost feel like I got something back by having these put back in. That may be the most absurd sentence of all the absurd sentences I've ever typed. Pierced ears are hardly daring. Somehow though, I feel a little bit of that tico summer return, and right now, with all the stress that's crushing me on every side, I need a little of that confidence. I only wish I could actually get on a plane and lose myself in the multicolored shadows of San Jose or La Fortuna's cloud forest. Maybe the earrings can pierce the veil of memory enough so I can get by on that alone.

I Miss My Friends

I never see my friends any more. It's like our lives ate us. As I'm typing this, I am actually stealing time that should be devoted to sleep to do it. I'm so completely exhausted that I can literally sleep standing up given enough stillness and relative silence. Sitting at my desk to try to get grading done is a nightmare; rarely am I let alone long enough to have that problem though....

I feel as though I've barely left my classroom during the past month, and although the light of school's end is beginning to glow dimly on the horizon, I can't tell if it's really bringing relief or if it's just deceptive faerie fire yet.

Even the friends I used to be able to talk to at school I hardly see anymore. It's hard to imagine that we can be in such close proximity and have so little contact, but everybody is just trying to survive research papers and test preparations with as much grace and sanity as can be salvaged.

I'm going to try to go to bed now. I'm sick again, and the medicines (bronchitis battalion, standard edition) are keeping me awake despite the general fatigue. If tomorrow weren't Friday, I think I'd have to cry.