Fill in the Blank

I could be grading personal narratives right now. Or pre-planning for next week, short one that it is. But I don't feel particularly up to it right now.

I've already spent most of today grading half of 1st period's narratives, making out a vocabulary test for 4th, (I create my own tests rather than cheat with ExamViewer. I'm either unorthodox or just plain wacky. Maybe both), fixing my cart, dropping off papers in my respective rooms, and oh yeah, teaching. Thought I'd left something out in there.

Teachers know what I mean when I say I'm at the end of my rope. A thirty-year veteran last week chilled me with the admonition that in all her time, she still hasn't gotten past the struggles with academics and classroom management. She still has weeks when the bad days vastly outnumber the good.

I wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that. I'd wager she said that to help me feel better, to reassure me that I wasn't alone in what I had been feeling. Instead, it led to the opposite end. Thirty years. A third of a century into your profession, and you can still feel like a greenhorn in your classroom? Oy vey.

I don't know. Maybe I'm getting pessimistic in my old age. Heh. A college friend told me recently that my new glasses (I have thicker, darker, more pronounced frames now) gave me the stereotypical look of a cynical, world-weary college professor. It's been a long time since anybody mistook me for an 18-year old freshman, that's for sure. I've never been one to agree that clothes make the man, that your appearance defines the kind of person you are. Still, freshman vs. professor is a world of difference.

Or maybe it's not how old you look, but how old you feel. The past few days, I have been bothered by a nagging pain under my left armpit. I feel it whenever I raise my arm to grab something or touch it with my palm. I suspect it's a swollen lymph node. May need to get that checked out if it doesn't go away. I've also experienced minor pain in my lower back. Not constant or anything, but all it takes is for me to turn or arch my back a certain way, and it catches. Some bedrest this weekend should help that. Or maybe I should reconsider bending over to grab my tote bucket of textbooks.

I talk like this, and it seems ridiculous. I'm 23 years old, still very much in the prime of life. These pains are quibbles compared to another dear friend and fellow teacher I know who missed last week due to a serious problem with her nervous system. My 7th grade English teacher (who prophesied my future) worked her way through a bout with lupus that eventually claimed her life, but she didn't let it stop her. Oh, she had several sick days, for sure, but she kept coming back for as long as she could.

I suppose I'm just trying to follow my own advice. I tell it to my students as often as I can. Write to express yourselves. Even if you're drawing a creative blank, just start writing. You never know what might spill out of that pencil, pen, or keyboard that could spark you back on track again. Even if it's pure garbage, it's better than sitting there doing nothing. At least you can say you're trying to work through it.

Maybe I'm hopeful that this blog will spark a bout of creativity. Or at least give me the motivation I need to finish reading my students' papers. Then again, you'd think report cards on the horizon would be all the motivation I need. There we go with that whole assessment thing again.

So I'm drawing a blank. And I'm writing. What, I don't know. How, I have no idea. But it's something to do. A way to fill in the blank.