Wintry Mix

My grades for the online classes I've been teaching are due at noon.  Happily, I've already turned them in. As I watched winter weather advisories being issued yesterday, I thought, let me get these grades done, while I still have power and internet access.  And so I did.

This morning, looking out my window, I think I'm seeing rain, not the sleet or freezing rain that was forecast.  I have power and internet.  I am not unhappy that I turned in grades.  On the contrary, I'm amazed I was able to get it all done.  A week ago, I looked at my gradebooks and wanted to cry.  So much grading still to do--and now it's done!

Let me stress that I don't have control over the curriculum.  I plug in dates, I do grading, I shepherd the students through the assignments that course designers have created.  I don't have the power to say that a certain class has so many assignments that it should be offered in a session that only meets for 6 weeks.

One of my classes has only been meeting since late October, and that class has so many assignments.  They aren't complicated or long, but they take time, time for students to do them and time for me to grade them. Even if I only have to click a few places, it takes time.  For example, students have to turn in a response sheet for using the online tutoring.  It should be an easy grade, but for each submission, I have to click on the submission and "grade" it, meaning I enter a number, the same number, for the grade, and then I click "publish."  It takes longer than you would think.

But I'm done--hurrah!  And the campus is closed because of the potential wintry weather.  I'll still have to go to class by way of Zoom, but somehow that feels like it requires less of me.  I'm not going for a walk this morning--too much danger of ice and slipping.

So, the whole morning opens up.  My plan is to make some poetry submissions to literary journals that close for submissions on Dec. 31.  That won't take long--I don't want to spend much in submission fees, so there aren't many journals left that take submissions without a fee or for the same amount that postage and printing would take.  I'll do some laundry.  I'll do some writing.  I'll turn some turkey bones into soup.

It will be the perfect day!