Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Who wins a snowball fight between a leopard and a shark?

And now it's time to dig myself out of a different type of blizzard: student papers. Some colleges have barely begun the semester but this week I'm responding to drafts in two classes, moderating an online discussion in another, and commenting on homework assignments in the fourth, not to mention the exam I'm giving on Friday. (Already!) 

Not to mention long meetings. Not to mention preparing classes. Not to mention having an actual life. So yeah, I'm kind of snowed under and desperate to find a shovel.

Today as my film class finished watching the madcap antics of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, I saw myself on the silver screen. That's me in the jail scene, surrounded by easily distracted people assaulting me with a torrent of words and demanding answers right now, except instead of actual people, they're student papers. I promise to spill the beans if someone will just shut up and open a window! I've got to get out of here and get those wandering leopards under control.

Or that's me in my American Lit Survey class, bobbing on an open boat with the correspondent, the cook, the captain, and the oiler, except there's not enough room in this little boat for all those student papers and no matter how hard I paddle, I never get closer to shore. And who sent the sharks? Surely there's a life-saving station out there somewhere!

So I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, I guess, but whether I'm snowed under or stuck in a jail cell full of screwballs or bobbing in a boat amidst sharks, there's only one way out: better get reading. 

(If I toss the sharks to the leopards, do you think they'll stop bothering me?) 

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