A Conglomeration

I'm pretty stressed out this morning, and the last thing that I should be doing is playing around in my journal.   In the past week at school we've gotten three or four different messages about what exactly we are supposed to have completed in the ways of student grades and comments for the end of the quarter (last Friday) and parent conferences (tomorrow night), and the computer system has not been accomodating.  I have to meet something like 25 parents tomorrow night, and another 25 next week, and I can't get my comments to print.  And I am SO far behind on my grading that the reports won't be up-to-date anyway. Nevertheless, I'm going to take a little time to record the past 24 hours, just for the sake of doing it:

Yesterday morning, early: What exactly did I do?  I have no recollection whatsoever. 

Yesterday morning, later: I taught a government class about executive branch bureaucracy (!) and a world history class about the decline of the Han and Gupta Empires.  Today: on to the Romans for that class.

Lunch: a long meeting with one of our pastors and the outgoing chair of the adult education committee.  I think that's because it's turning out that I'm the incoming chair.  Maybe someone else will want that role.  I'm great with the ideas but terrible at keeping track of the paper.

Late afternoon:  oversaw three periods of tests.  One of my most talented eighth graders wrote that the early European explorers gave up on America and never came back.  She came to see me later, giddy over her mistake.  I discovered that several of my ninth graders, despite a few days on the end of the Roman Empire, never understood the definition of the words "reform" or "decline."  I'm not clear on why they didn't ask until the middle of the test.

Evening: my own graduate class on Spiritual Autobiography, cut short because the professor is ill.  We are reading Flannery O'Connor now.  Flannery O'Connor is all about understanding that we are all of us the misfits in need of redemption, despite our continual self-righteous assurances to ourselves that we are not.  Incredible stories, but the gruesomeness  never ends.

Used my surprise gift of evening free time to eat dinner, watch a little tv with my daughter, and grade some government papers about the election.  I'm about to finish those off now. 

In the meantime, a look back to the Greeks (in the cemetery where I walk):

The rugs came back from the cleaners yesterday and the dog pooped on the dining room floor this morning.  I'm not so inclined to roll the rugs back out.  Despite my best efforts, we will never approach the elegance of a Doric temple around here.