I need an excuse. Well, I have an excuse, but it simply won't do, so I need a better one--more plausible. Somehow I don't believe my freshman composition students will be impressed if I confess that I haven't quite finished grading their midterms because I was too busy schmoozing and noshing.
Do young people these days even use the words schmoozing and noshing? And if they do, are they likely to believe that I'm the kind of person who shoves the grading aside in order to spend an entire day chatting randomly with colleagues while nibbling at the cheese tray and popping into my mouth the occasional olive?
Nevertheless, that's how I passed most of day. Today we held an open house for the Center for Teaching Excellence where I live and breathe and do my best work, so all day long we entertained faculty, staff, and administrators who dropped by for a schmooze and a nosh. The biggest crowd showed up around noon for lunch and the prize drawings, but we had a steady stream of visitors all day long, leaving me only a few brief disconnected moments to prepare for class. I can't grade papers while schmoozing and noshing, and by the time the open house closed its doors, I had to dash off to another long and complicated meeting, which left me too exhausted to remember to take any work home.
My freshpersons will expect their graded essays early tomorrow but I've read just over half of them. Can I possibly get up early enough to grade nine freshman essays before 9 a.m.? If not, I'll just have to fess up: Sorry, students. My dog ate your papers.
2 comments:
In my book, schmoozing and noshing will win out over grading papers every time.
My book says the same thing!
Post a Comment