A typical finals week tableau: a room full of students tap-tapping on laptop keyboards while I sit up front grading another class's papers. Today it's my Honors students, a group I've come to love because of their obvious enthusiasm for learning and the way they challenge each other to improve while supporting each other with encouragement and granola bars. Today that support takes the form of a chorus of "God bless you!" every time someone sneezes, which happens more often than you might expect. Coded sneezes conveying vital information? Unlikely.
I blame the sneezing on the usual end-of-semester exhaustion along with weather that's stuck on cold, wet, and windy. At some point last night the wind blew open my front door, which must have disturbed my sleep because I had to get up to investigate and then couldn't get back to sleep for quite some time, so now my brain feels befogged. I encounter a sentence that I doesn't seem right and I can't immediately determine whether the problem is in the paper or in my head. I mean, who's to say literate can't be used as a verb? (The dictionary, that's who.)
It would be a shame if I were to fall asleep in front of the class while my students are working so hard, so I've got to keep my fingers flying across the keyboard even if I'm incapable of forming coherent thoughts. I keep reminding myself how terrific my classes have been this semester and how much I respect and appreciate this group of students, but the ill wind that blew in last night sapped my energy so I have trouble focusing on the positive. Would anybody care if I decided to retire, effective immediately? Sure, I'd be broke within a week, but at least I wouldn't have to try to figure out what literate is doing masquerading as a verb.
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