It’s dark in here. I’ve been grading essays ever since Monday night. Okay, that’s a lie, sort of. By the time I got home Monday evening around 6:30 p.m. with my sleigh full of final exam papers, I was too exhausted to do anything but eat and sit. The grading of essays began in earnest Tuesday morning and that’s where I’ve been at ever since: in the Examination Grading Cave (not to be confused with the Grading Curve, which I never speak of, let alone use. Nasty business.)
I can only imagine how tired y’all must have been. I saw a lot cramped hands (and a few cramped faces too, I admit) and a lot of bleary, red eyes looking up the gymnasium ceiling as if hoping it would rain and the exam would be cancelled.
The exam process for me, as a teacher, is always pretty grueling. Not just physically (I don’t know how waitresses and cashiers do it, standing on their feet all day!), but the worrying, the fear, the hope…and that’s just how I feel for you when you’re writing. I’m always torn between two emotions—there’s the relief that it’s over, that you’re getting to move on to something else, that I’m getting to move on to something else, and there’s also the wistfulness that I feel that it’s over. I watch you all, knowing more or less what most of you have been through in the past four months. I know that some of you have had personal tragedy and difficulty, deaths in families, and sickness for yourself. Some of you even had a hard time just making it to the exam, but I hope you’re glad that you did. I know I am.
Anyway, the grading is going well. I’ll hold off on giving any hints as to how it’s going, except to say that there have been very, very few disappointments so far.
I must get back to work. Just wanted to say hi.
Till next time.
Gerard
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