Light and Momentary

Grading ate my brain. And my peace of mind too.

One of the frustrations you hear frequently from people in higher ed is that grading writing is hard. I love so many things about my job, but grading writing is not one of them, not at all. This semester I thought I'd try something new. I thought I'd offer my students optional formative feedback over the course of the semester for an assignment due in December. Everybody would need to turn in the intro and bibliography to get the ball rolling, but then they'd have total freedom to decide how much of my input they wanted on the remaining four elements of the assignment.

Yesterday I spent hours grading that first batch of optional submissions. I got a lot done, but it took more of a toll on me than I expected. I came home as crabby as all get-out and I still haven't quite recovered. I didn't have a long list of things to do today, but hardly any of them are done. Lesson learned for the future: spending a big chunk of the day immersed in student writing necessitates some recovery time afterward.

The next batch of optional submissions is due on Friday. I need a better strategy. In the shower this morning I figured out the rubric I will use next time -- maybe that will help? This is the first time I've offered formative feedback and there's a tricky balance between telling them succinctly to rephrase and showing them directly how they could make the writing tighter and clearer. The latter, obviously, can be a giant time suck. 

Huh, I wonder which choice predicts a happier day tomorrow: moaning on the internet about the job I am lucky and usually delighted to have, or getting my sorry self to bed? Any tips on grading student writing in a way that is both helpful to them and efficient for me would be most welcome.

Verb. sap.

Dear Internet,

It turns out that poking a spaghetti squash a couple of times with a fork is not actually enough to keep it from exploding in the microwave.

Yours stickily,

JMG

All thumbs

This morning I saw my liver for the first time. After I got those weird numbers back, family practice referred me to a gastroenterologist. (That is the longest word I have ever typed with my thumbs.) He ordered a bunch of tests, so many that the phlebotomist offered me some juice after she was done drawing all the required vials of blood, and an abdominal ultrasound.

The ultrasound was today. I was a little nervous about it. The only person in my extended family who also has a cardiac arrhythmia has a polycystic liver, and I've been wondering if we might share those genes. The waiting room was teeming with people today. I listened to them checking in and I thought again about what an enormous blessing good health is, how easy it is to take it for granted. The tech called me back and took a whole slew of pictures. It's easier to decipher fetus parts than liver parts, I must say. Afterward I said, "I know you can't say much, but did you see any signs of pending implosion?" In her expert opinion, I look perfectly normal. We'll see if the radiologist agrees, but I think her willingness to express an opinion is a good sign.

I spent the rest of the day feeling grateful-- for my faintly sore muscles after Sunday's Pilates class, for capable hands and for a pleasant run. Then the cold I thought might be lurking attacked. I'm not seriously complaining, but the timing is funny. Health! Strength! Happiness! Thank you, God! ...snot ...fatigue ...ear weirdness... Grateful in all things, right?

My Body Back

"I just wanted my body back." When I worked with breastfeeding moms I used to hear them say that regularly after they'd weaned their little ones. 

It's been a long time since I had my body to myself. I first nursed a child during the first Clinton administration. I just stopped.

I used to write a lot about breastfeeding: why I nursed my children past infancy, why I nursed them in public places including church, why I loathe those lampshade-apron things that women hide under. It's been awhile I posted about nursing one of my actual children, in part because we're pretty far out in the tail of the distribution at this point. At this point, actually, we're into what most people consider freaky-deaky territory. Even my La Leche League friends, while they might vociferously defend my decision to nurse for this long, mostly found that their children weaned younger than mine.

I've been more hesitant to write about my personal experiences in recent years because it turns out that the years from preschool to junior high last approximately 37 seconds. You blink a time or two and the boy who was deliberating over a weaning present (and then telling the clerk at the register why this particular Lego set was in the cart) is doing calculus. A kid might not want his classmates stumbling across the story of his weaning party. And, too, strangers on the internet get stupid-crazy (or should that be crazy-stupid? whatever the term is for lots of both all at the same time) when they talk about breastfeeding. Having experienced long-term nursing as tender and affectionate and also kind of annoying and clearly temporary and normal for our family, I find it so bizarre to imagine random strangers certain that they can see into my secret heart and determine that I am personally unfulfilled (no) or channeling unmet sexual needs (really??) or failing to permit my children to grow up (see above re: calculus) or whatever pseudo-wisdom they might dispense.

So why am I putting it on the internet that I nursed my children for 201 consecutive months?

Because I will miss the magic. Nursing was an effortless way for me to get it exactly right: to soothe and settle, nourish and nurture. I could nuke the pinkeye pathogens without irritating sensitive little eyes. I could stave off dehydration in a small person who couldn't keep anything else down. I could help to build the brain that would later do the heavy lifting in calculus class. And I could read a book at the same time (except during the conjunctivitis smiting, which required an accurate aim).

Nine years ago I compared nursing to a Swiss Army knife. I have many tools in my toolbox these days, and I have learned a lot about using them well. I will miss my Swiss Army knife all the same.

I have posted more than once about the ways that nursing has brought home to me the goodness of post-Incarnation life in the body. I have written about its reminders that our bodies are not our own, its daily nudges to offer my body and blood (albeit fashioned into a more appetizing substance) eucharistically. For almost 17 years, nursing has challenged me to be more generous than I'm naturally inclined to be.

On the feast of the guardian angels Stella nursed for just a couple of minutes at bedtime. "There's not much milk, Mama," she said. "I'm going to be done." In the moment I didn't know it was a permanent kind of done, but the timing is perfect, I think. Those months of nursing will mean she is less vulnerable to infectious disease and more emotionally resilient in childhood. They may mean she is less likely to develop schizophrenia as a young adult, alcoholism in her 30s, or multiple sclerosis in middle age. They may even mean that when she is an old woman, long after I am dead, she is less vulnerable to heart disease. Like her guardian angel, they will offer her silent and invisible protection for years to come. I am watching her step away from me and towards her future and I am pulling so hard for her: Be safe, sweetheart. Be well. Be loved.

I remember, vaguely, how overwhelming it was to share my body in the early days. Leaking milk into nursing pads. Living life in two-hour blocks, because my first baby nursed every two hours like clockwork. I thought I would be sad when I stopped nursing because I was pretty sure I was going to fail wretchedly at it. I didn't know I would be sad (only a little sad, friends) to stop nursing because it had been such a success. I am thinking back on the 26-year-old me, hunched over an uncooperative Alex in the NICU, and wishing I could tell her it would work out beautifully. I wonder if my future self will look back at the 43-year-old me, the one who is a little wistful and a little uncertain about her ability to guide these growing kids safely to adulthood, to smile and say it will all turn out just fine.