I Am Buried in Grading…

but I don’t want to do it, so I keep finding means of procrastination. I have all of the papers sorted, and I already know what their grades are for the most part. I simply have to write out grade sheets explaining their grades, what they did well, and what they could improve on for next time.

The problem that I am running into is that one of my classes is so fantastic that I think all of them deserve As or Bs. How do you explain to a faculty who is used to seeing multiple students fail this class that your particular mix of students is talented? There are at least ten students in my five o’clock class who could step into a classroom tomorrow with little or no difficulty. They’d, of course, have the usual getting used to teaching blips, but for the most part, if I had a child in school, I would want any one of them to be my kid’s teacher! My other class is just as smart, and just as talented, but in more subtle ways. However, I am still fairly certain that there will be mostly As and Bs in that class, too. Essentially, these two groups of students have done everything I have asked with excellence, and in most cases they have done more. Well, if anyone doubts their awesomeness, I can just show them their genre presentations or text-sets, and I have a feeling that their text-sets may be the deciding factor for several of their grades.

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Last Saturday, Bec and I completed the last training run for the Indy-Mini. The race was 9.3 miles long or 15K, and we both finished right at 2 hours. She walked and I ran. It must be nice to have such long legs that you can walk as fast as a short, fat kid can run! I don’t begrudge her the fantastic time. She was moving! And, I am so proud of her.

I am proud of myself, too. I learned that I can run a 10:30 for a mile. In fact, I can run that speed for two miles. What it ends up getting me, though, is a very slow last couple of miles, as in 13:30 slow. My goal for the 13.1 mile race is to keep my mile splits for the first half right at 12:30, then I can work a little harder for the last six miles, trying to get negative splits for them. We’ll see if it will work. I may end up walking! 🙂 Slowly. Not as fast as Rebecca.

I am still trying to decide about this marathon thing. I feel good running, but I was pretty sore after the run on Saturday. Can I do 26.2 miles, almost three times what I did Saturday? Both Sarah and Kathy have said they are considering running at the same time as I am. Kathy may run the half-marathon, and Sarah, I hope, is resigned for the whole shoot and match. I am still trying to decide between these two races: The Indianapolis Marathon, The Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. The first one falls at a better time as far as long training runs go because of school, but the second one looks like a more fun course and would allow me an extra month of training. I am so torn between the two. Can anyone offer any words of wisdom or advice?

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Next weekend, I get to play disc golf with Ed. He ordered us some discs off of Ebay. We won a set of ten for something like $50. It’s a good thing they are on the way, because my dog decided to chew my purple disc yesterday afternoon. She shredded one edge of it, but it took her a bit longer than she shreds a regular Frisbee. I consider that a bonus. She now has a new toy, and I am getting new discs. It’s a win, win situation.

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I am thankful for outlets.