And at 9:48 PM on Thursday Night, After a Final Winter Session Class and a Bout of Scoring 132 MLK Essays by Middle School Youth (a Contest), I Finally Ate

Yep, it was a banana for me. Granted, I did eat a bowl of Cheerios (I think they were a bit stale) at 6 a.m. and I found dinner mints near where I worked all day and devoured three of them. This is all to say, "The banana was delicious, the 30-hour winter session course no longer requires me in front of the screen of 20 grad students completing action research proposals, and now I simply need to grade all the materials flying into my inbox.

But first, it's time for MLK essays. A room of teachers would be able to select the top 4 pieces of writing in approximately 20-minutes. A room full of academics belabors the process for six house, painfully discussing each and the merits and drawbacks of them all. This is my 9th year of scoring...I couldn't do them when I served on the Rank & Tenure committee because we met at the same time. With this noted, each year, I put the 4 essays I think should be given awards to the side. Then, I watch as a room full of adults spend 360 minutes talking, talking, talking, talking, and talking to always come forward with the 4 essays I pitched in the first ten minutes of the meeting. It's all good. I multitask, as those of us who are used to 100s of kids each day and all their writing (in KY, it was all their portfolio writing) you learn how to read fast, apply rubrics quickly, and narrow it down to the award-wining talent. Now, if we had to grade each essay with feedback like teachers do, that would be a whole other story. Then I could see six hours spent on all the writing. 

And that banana was so good. Flavorful. Perfect. Delicious. But I slept awful because I kept waking up hungry and it was too cold to walk downstairs to make a Dagwood sandwich. 

I seriously was happy dancing while eating the banana in celebration that the winter session was over. As far as I know, I'll never have to teach during the holidays like that again. Of course, I now have to pick up the summer session after the data is collected, but at least it's warm then and I have my front porch and sunlight. 

I really can't believe those three weeks are finally over. Phew. It's too much.