Back to the blogging board

Sorry for the extended absence. December and June are always difficult for teachers.

I managed to get myself truly behind the paper-grading 8-ball (no, not the 8-ball that grades papers, silly) this year when I decided to write The Adventures of Adelbert A. Kendall. That would be my great-great-grandfather--who'd have thought I could write 6600 words about a man about whom there are no books, no scholarly papers--just a newspaper article here and an Internet paragraph there. Plus a dischronologized account by my grandmother, God rest her. Writing these 6600 words (plus all the research involved, plus footnotes) took hours and hours, during which time my better half lovingly watched the kids. I've seen a lot of payoff already, but I'm not sure I'd do it again--and that's the paper-grading problem.

Having completed the biography around the 10th or 15th, I was able to attack the grades (including the major project I'd assigned) well in front of today's deadline. But then, last night, we watched A Christmas Carol (starring Patrick Stewart) with the kids and three guests. The guests stayed until 10, because I knew I didn't have to go to work until 8 AM (instead of the usual 7:25). But that night, Oob got up three times, including one 90-minute marathon, and Leena threw up twice. And, for extra bonus points, my better half got sick, too.

Now, this 2:30-PM-on-12/21/07 grade deadline is a H-A-R-D deadline. I mean, they have maybe half-an-hour's wiggle room built in. But there was no way I could leave the prime minister in charge--she could barely make it from the bed to the bathroom.

So I went to work and brought five out of six kids, all but the now-passively-sick-and-excited-because-she-gets-to-wear-PJ's-and-watch-movies Leena. I grabbed the (heavy) box of still-ungraded papers, and home we went. I then stuffed videos in the kids faces, sometimes using two televisions at once, took care of my wife, made meals, and graded like a maniac. My wife arose from her stupor (arose figuratively; she stayed in bed) in just enough time to prove that she is, indeed, my better half by volunteering to help me grade the projects. We finished at 1 PM, at which point I took the 7-month-old Oob to work with me, and I got the grades in by 2:15. (Oob wanted to play with the electrical cords. I eventually unplugged them and just let him play, looking at him every five seconds to ensure that they hadn't encircled his throat.)

I guess this is why you don't leave grading papers until the last day--which would be why one doesn't write 6600-word biographies of ancestors during the month of December.

Frustration

It's so frustrating to have an ancestor whom you're 99% sure was in the local newspapers 100+ years ago . . . and to have all of the newspapers gone, destroyed, never to be unearthed . . .

It reminds me of Aaron Rice, whom we know is from Litchfield, CT, but can't records of . . . or our ancestors in Woodford, Vermont, where the court building with all the records burned down . . . or of the Obuses, who chose Obus as their last name more or less at random so that no one could track them down as Jews . . . or even the family questions I should have asked my Aunt Toni on her deathbed, almost two decades ago . . . but I didn't know the right questions yet . . .

The death of information is a terrible thing . . .

Fascinating presidential poll

Just studied this national poll a bit. Especially outstanding:

1) I posted a while back on Hillary Clinton's negatives. This poll records them: 50% of adults hold an unfavorable opinion of her. How in the world can she get elected president if the general election hasn't even started and her unfavorable rating is already 50%?

2) Huckabee is now #2 nationally among Republicans. Last poll, he was in 5th place. Talk about meteoric--I can't recall the like. Bizarre election.

3) Huckabee has a 17-point spread between his "favorable" and "unfavorable" ratings (33% and 16% respectively).

4) Perhaps most importantly, Huckabee is still unknown by 33% of the electorate. If they, as they learn about him, mirror the electorate who have heard of him, his rise will only continue.

OK, back to teaching . . .