the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

I cannot often honestly say that my day is great. It's rarely bad, but “great” is rare. Today, however, I was having a great day, despite the fact that my primary job for the day was grading papers.

I know, right?! And no...I wasn't on anything. I was just happy and focused and getting stuff done.

I'd gotten my first pile of final papers—from my seniors—earlier this week, and had started with the one student who had requested content feedback before he had to deliver his speech on the same subject on Thursday. His paper was abominable. It was just...well. As I read, I typed thoughtful comments into the email I would send him. After I finished his introductory paragraph, I paused to type in my observations that he seemed to have no single focus. Was he planning to take a stand on issues of character (as it pertains to leadership), or was he going to argue for the necessity of military coverups, or what? It wasn't clear. Further—and I didn't write this, but—none of the sentences in the “paragraph” had any apparent connection to any of the others. It was like he'd thrown a bunch of observations about the text he was discussing into a bucket, sloshed it around a bit, then dumped it on the paper.

I was baffled by this point, but I kept reading. He went into a completely unrelated bit, then dropped a quote from some “research” source into the middle of it. This quote was, needless to say, stating the obvious about something that didn't need arguing in the first place and didn't have any relevance to what he was talking about at the moment. So I went back to the email and wrote that I was at the end of page two (of an 8-page paper), and still didn't have any idea what he was on about, which in my experience is a strong indication that he didn't, either.

This is where any teacher begins to feel as though the paper is the student's way of giving them and the class the finger. This reminds me of an amusing and unattributed meme I've seen circulating on the interwebz over the years:

Student: I don’t understand why my grade was so low. How did I do on the research paper?

Professor: Actually, you didn’t turn in a research paper. You submitted a large, awkward, random assemblage of sentences. If fact, the sentences you apparently kidnapped in the dead of night and forced into this violent and arbitrary plan of yours dearly seemed to be placed on the pages against their will. Reading your paper was like watching unfamiliar, uncomfortable people interact at a cocktail party that no one wanted to attend in the first place. You didn’t submit a research paper. You submitted a hostage situation.

I stopped reading at this point and wrote to the student that his paper was “dangerously incoherent,” and that he needed to do the following things to do better on his speech:

1. Find a claim to make. Just one.

2. Think of two good reasons that he believes his claim is true.

3. Do research in which he actually investigates his arguments and finds worthwhile, necessary, and nuanced support for them.

Then I sent off the email. That was Wednesday, around noon. Thursday morning, he came into class and sat smirking at me (he's one of those young men who tend to have a perpetual smile). I was giving the class a few comments before the speeches began, and I saw him. I stopped and smiled and said, “Good morning, Auzzy. How are you?”

HIM: I'm just thinking about that email you sent me.

ME: Did you go back and look over your paper? Did you see what I was talking about?

HIM: Some of it. For the rest, I think you just didn't like my opinion.

ME: Auzzy...I still don't know what your opinion is.

He did slightly better on the speech, but he seems to have a coherence problem in general, at least when it comes to literature and...ideas. Anyway, I was afraid that this student, who I hadn't thought was in danger of failing, might have at least dropped his grade into the D range. I offered him the chance to rewrite, and he took it.

OK. Now...another student—Guz—had flubbed his mid-term paper and turned it in four days late, which by English department policy meant that he got no credit for it. This is kinda hard on your class average, as you might imagine. He came in a couple of weeks later and asked if he could rewrite the paper or something. I told him no, but if he worked with me and really applied himself on the last paper, I'd adjust his grade as necessary to make sure he passed my class. He thought this was a good deal.

I was not in a fantastic mood yesterday evening, having just read the disjointed drivel and pages of story summary that another student had turned in under the auspices of “research” and “argument,” so imagine my surprise when I read Guz's paper and...it was not only coherent and well-researched, but interesting and well supported and...one page shorter than the minimum length but still! It was an A paper except for that.

So this morning, our grade and attendance software finally came back online and I was able to enter these students' grades. Auzzy had only dropped his grade to a C- (and I'll normally curve most grades by two or three points, depending on my end perception of the fairness and difficulty of the assignments throughout the semester, as well as my overall assessment of the student's skills, attitude, and effort), so I sent him an email letting him know that a rewrite wasn't necessary, after all. And Guz...I got to write to him to let him know that he had more than met the conditions of our agreement, and I would reward him as promised. I got to make his day, which always feels good. :)

The other student whose paper had frightened me didn't drop his grade too much, either. This all makes me very happy indeed, because we have tons of extra paperwork for any student whose grade is C- or below.

So yeah. I was in a great mood this morning. Everything else—stuff related to my other duties—was working out for me, too. It just felt like everything was going right.

Then, around 10am, I was talking with two colleagues in my office when I reached for a pen or I twisted slightly or...I don't know. I know only that I got a stabbing twinge in my back that I haven't felt since two summers ago. I ignored it and kept talking, then the twinge spasmed.

Oh yeah. I remember this. :/ I don't know what the official name of the problem is, but I call it out-of-nowhere back spasms. Within a couple of minutes, I could barely breathe without stabbing pain.

In case you've never had this problem, there is nothing short of drugs or being knocked unconscious you can do when you get these. There is no position you can assume that makes the spasms stop, although you try. My god, do you try. Stretching is worthless; if anything, they exacerbate the problem.

Jane and Fred were, of course, a bit disturbed and not sure what to do. Fred finally called the clinic and had them bring a wheelchair—to my office, y'all—to take me to the doctors in the cadet clinic across the street from the academic building. After I was wheeled in, Katie went to fetch a nurse, who asked me if I'd tried to get an appointment with my primary care manager.* I said no, and frankly, it wasn't a great idea to send me there because I could barely move. I kinda needed help now.

* My PCM is my assigned doctor who works in the clinic about three miles away.

He spoke with a doctor on duty and they made time for me, bless them. Because I've had this problem before, it was a simple matter to bring up my records, find the medications that did the trick last time, and give me some of them. Which they essentially did. The doc tried a little acupressure (which in my experience doesn't do anything for this particular problem), then was kind enough to offer me a shot for pain and a shot of Valium to take the edge off before he sent me home (with muscle relaxants and pain meds). Then Kiedrick—another colleague who just arrived two days ago—drove me home.

I'm better now, but drugged enough to keep the spasms under control. I'm still in a good mood, even though the day didn't work out as I'd planned.

Also? I have some amazing colleagues.

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