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September 22, 2005
life gets in the way
the title's actually a quote from my student lauren, who used it--and only it--to explain why i hadn't seen her for a few days & still haven't seen all of the work she's been out there working on. i understood. i recognized the look on her face, & i'd seen it often enough in the mirror.
i volleyed that same quote back at her class today, explaining why i hadn't gotten their papers back to them yet (or at least the ones i'm actually willing to grade. the ones who haven't told me whether or not they can see the comments on the trial run i did for them? no love = no papers. they might think i'm kidding, but i'm not). first there were library quests to gather exam materials (i have a whole crate of things to read sitting like an unwanted guest in one of the chairs at the dining room table), then there were exam meetings (wherein a very nice member of my committee loaded me down with a whole other pile of books that i promised i wouldn't lose), & then there was life, which got in the way.
it's also in the way of my exam-reading process, which is why there haven't been any new posts to that effect in a few days. i was reading. and then i wasn't. i can see the future now: reading happens in terrific spurts and doesn't for long lulls. i can't help it. there are students, and there is life.
a good friend's mother died yesterday. her death was unexpected, my friend was unprepared; twenty-some people had plans this weekend involving all kinds of travel and my friend, who has way more to worry about at the moment than other people's logistics. my friend is shining like she always does through all the roughness this presents--and i'm sure in so many ways it hasn't hit her yet, and i'm trying not to think about it too deeply so it doesn't hit me either; i'd hardly even met her mother, but i'm awfully damn attached to mine! i've spent a lot of time on IM with her over the last few days. her husband's been in thailand on business (flying home from thailand right away still takes days) and she's minding two toddlers and an infant; any words i can throw her way are better than silence and spit-up and more silence and the beginning ripples of implication.
i can't fix anything that's wrong here, but i can micro-manage logistics for travelers & their weekend plans, so that's what i've been doing. on an academic relevance-scale, it's not a bump, not a blip, & certainly not a worthwhile excuse. but it's life. and it's real. and it matters. and it's not only in the way, it is the way. sometimes school makes us forget that. i hate that it takes something being this wrong to force a little occasional remembering.
Posted by ttobryan at September 22, 2005 08:45 PM