The Tally So Far...

Tonight is going to be my grading marathon. So far I have graded seven essays. The tally is running:
-Two are completely plagiarized: one was a copy and past job from Sparknotes and the other was copied from various message board posts.
-Two are written in an overly informal conversational tone. Lots of "I mean," "it's like," and "it's like crazy."
-One was just meh.
-Two were well thought-out. Those were from my two best students, so I think that might have been the highlight of the night.

To make this more enjoyable, I'm going to pour myself a nice big glass of red wine and pop in some "Flight of the Conchords." We'll see where that takes me.

An Ode to My Pitiful Willpower

Oh McDonald's, why do you torture me so? I resisted you for so long which is easy when I do not eat meat and you serve crappy fast food hamburgers. But your fries are always so warm, so salty, so crisp. I rediscovered how soothing a chocolate shake can be after a night of karaoke...that made for a bad year. Plus, let's not forget every March when you tempt me back with your Shamrock shake.

And now here we are again, in this epic battle. It is midnight and I am alone in my home office, struggling to write a paper on a book I have minimal interest in and was written 200 years prior to my time period of interest. And you call me. You have hot coffee. Lattes even, and you know I like my lattes even if they come from you. But what is really getting me is something so delicious, so insanely unhealthy, that it should be illegal. I speak, of course, of cinnamon melts.

Cinnamon melts! The mere thought of cinnamon melts makes my mouth water and my head ache. It was a year ago when my first cinnamon melt was brought to me by my mother, complete with a coffee. I was writing another paper on another novel not in my area of study and was stressed. Then I tasted that cinnamon melt and I was done. It was so warm, so gooey, so...cinnamony.

Now I am being enticed by that same delicious cinnamon melt, that same warm coffee. Will this be my finest hour? Do I have the willpower to say no to this health-damaging food? Can I stay here and focus on doing more with this paper than just copying down quotes for "later"?

No, of course not. I'm already looking for my keys.

Here I Am! With a Mermaid!

I have been completely absent from the blog world for a week now. Blame it on grad school. The last couple of weeks of the semester are here and I suddenly realized I have final papers to write. You would think after all these years I would be more prepared...but, nope.

So I will be MIA for the next two or so weeks. But I thought I would leave you with one jaw-dropping question from a student.

I never thought in a million years that I would hear this question again:
"Are mermaids real?"

Yes, this is the second time a student has asked this question. I think the first person who asked me was in his/her late 20s or early 30s. This student that just asked is 23.

Is there some sort of mermaids-are-real propaganda going on I don't know about? Because if not...I mean, come on!

Good News!

I finally got some really exciting news today-I received a teaching assistantship! Woohoo!

It has been a long time in the making as this is my last semester of course work, but paid tuition? I'll take it.

I am very, very happy and it feels great to know that I didn't get lost in our giant department. Now instead of years of adjunct work on my CV, I can put this on there as well and that just seems nice and official.

Just wanted to revel some more in my excitement, so please excuse the self-indulgence of this post.