I'm not going to like teaching

Last Thursday, the professor that I'm team-teaching the literature class with this semester handed me a small stack of "essays" from students--only about five actually. I've been looking at them on and off over the last several days. Surprisingly, they are all from our better students, the ones who actually read and participate in class discussion. He kept the rest of them. But I've learned something from this meager assignment: I hate grading papers, especially when I actually have to evaluate their points within their arguments. That requires thought--an activity which I generally only utilize while I'm blogging or searching for internet porn.
So I'm staring at this small stack (and it is very small), and I keep shuffling them to the bottom of the "To do" pile. The assignment is an asswhip to begin with--it's supposed to be a critical (or critical for an undergrad non-English major) analysis of the lyrics of the student's favorite song. It should attempt to answer questions of speaker, audience, imagery, theme, and other such generic things. My professor told me in essence what he wanted, but I was the one that actually laid out the assignment. And now I have so much regret. I wish I would have made them do a true/false or multiple choice type assignment--they're so much easier to grade.
First of all, most of these songs suck. Besides Evanessence, I don't recognize any of them. There's some Meatloaf, Joni Mitchell, Gary Allan, and James Blunt (who my wife tells is quite popular now). On top of that, I feel weird giving them all good grades despite the fact that they are fairly well-written. I guess I'm just used to having something to compare to--I like seeing the good and the bad in order to fully appreciate what I'm grading. But I only have the good. Though that's certainly up for debate. They're probably okay at best, nothing terribly insightful, but then again, this is a sophomore level course, so our expectations must be relative to the student.

I just can't bring myself to look at them again. They make me want to vomit.

Something else happened today that really had me laughing, though. As most of you are probably aware, I applied for numerous scholarships over the last several weeks, and I actually got two. One of them required letters of recommendation and a written statement of how my grad school work will influence my career, blah, blah, blah . . . all of that usual bullshit. The other one I got was NOT applied for. It seemed to be a gift from the gods of academia, and I honestly feel a little awkward accepting it. But it is money, so what do you do? So this second scholarship is for my service in a particular organization--an organization for which I don't recall doing much of anything with, unless of course my simple registration as a member was so momentous that there was no other candidate that could top it. That's the only thing I can assume. Like I said, I feel really weird about it. Needless to say, I laughed a lot about it and showed my friends who also laughed in amazement. But unless something happens, I anticipate accepting both awards at the Honors banquet in a couple of weeks. TGLJC knows I need the money.

In response to another blog, I would also like to identify some key terms in my life, though they are unlikely to be found (as defined below) in any proper dictionary:

• lurch: v. to hang about unnecessarily in order to get what you want, generally in an annoying manner; can be used in various forms as a noun, adjective, or verb; ex: Why are there always people lurching on us?
• asswhip: n. anything exceptionally tiresome; a bother; ex: Listening to people in a nearby booth talk about their relationship while you are eating lunch can be a real asswhip.
• beating: n. the feeling of defeat one feels when under constant strain or stress; ex: Trying to grade poorly-written essays can be a real beating.
• "two tears": n. condensed form of the saying "Two tears in a bucket . . . fuck it."; usually used when coming to terms with something negative or disappointing in life; expresses a sense of moving on regardless of the past
  
• shitbird: n. a derogatory reference made to poor or annoying drivers; ex: Why won't this fucking shitbird with the Arkansas plates get the fuck out of my way?
• fucknut: n. a derogatory reference made to a person (generally male) who is somehow causing distress or aggravation; when driving, it can be used synonomously with shitbird; ex: Look at this stupid fucking fucknut with the Arkansas plates!! Move, you bitch!!
• TGLJC: acronym for The Good Lord Jesus Christ; biblical character who makes us feel better about all of the sinning that we do; ex: Do you think TGLJC will forgive me for this constant stream of blasphemy?
• dill: n. a person that is stupid and useless; a tool; ex: That guy that always reads literary criticism before class and attempts to pass it off as his own is a fucking dill.

That's probably enough of an education for this evening. Make sure you guys are all prepared for the exam on Friday!!