(no subject)
May. 26th, 2009 01:57 pmEven though I am free from having to teach class now, I am not technically free, as I have to review all the student projects that got sent in at the end, which I hate. Why must they always wait till the last minute? It's so boring slogging through all the bad writing to find the places I have to tell them they could offer help to the writer on -- one person sent me the whole 440-page ms. she's working on (around 50 pages is the general limit I set so that they would get a chance to edit, but not have too much above the work they already have for class).
I had hoped to have a nice holiday weekend of at least some fun in amongst the toil, but there was not much of that to be had, mostly just toil. Dad and I went to all the family graves on Saturday and it took pretty much the whole day -- partly because there are so many of them, partly because he's walking so slowly and in so much pain these days, but mostly because I had to dig out all the vases from each site, as they'd all grown over with grass and dirt. There I was in the unusually hot sun for a May weekend, trying to find the spots with the vases with dad's bear knife, and then trying to dig and pull them out with my fingers. It was tedious, yo.
But every once in a while dad cracks me up. A few years ago we were driving over to southern Idaho and he launched into this rant about people who have flags flying all over their cars and why they feel they have to advertise their version of patriotism when it doesn't make them anymore patriotic than anyone else. Then Saturday he rather vigorously declined to buy a flag for my mom's parents' graves at the one cemetery they're in because he didn't believe he needed to spend that much money for "free" flags that aren't free because the Boy Scouts hit you up for a donation if you take one, and he didn't want to support an organization that way, and also, they discriminated against gays. This is my Republican, lifetime-NRA member, decorated WWII-veteran dad. Sometimes I really like him.
Anyways. On Sunday I went to see Star Trek again, and then toiled in the yard, which is so overgrown with weeds and bad stuff that I can't even see the good things, and then toiled all day yesterday as well. So now I'm behind on the student projects, still haven't made a dent in the yard, and am depressed about it. But not about the movie! This time, ( I was reminded of things I didn't mention the first time, and then also more confounded by stuff that confounded me the first time )
I had hoped to have a nice holiday weekend of at least some fun in amongst the toil, but there was not much of that to be had, mostly just toil. Dad and I went to all the family graves on Saturday and it took pretty much the whole day -- partly because there are so many of them, partly because he's walking so slowly and in so much pain these days, but mostly because I had to dig out all the vases from each site, as they'd all grown over with grass and dirt. There I was in the unusually hot sun for a May weekend, trying to find the spots with the vases with dad's bear knife, and then trying to dig and pull them out with my fingers. It was tedious, yo.
But every once in a while dad cracks me up. A few years ago we were driving over to southern Idaho and he launched into this rant about people who have flags flying all over their cars and why they feel they have to advertise their version of patriotism when it doesn't make them anymore patriotic than anyone else. Then Saturday he rather vigorously declined to buy a flag for my mom's parents' graves at the one cemetery they're in because he didn't believe he needed to spend that much money for "free" flags that aren't free because the Boy Scouts hit you up for a donation if you take one, and he didn't want to support an organization that way, and also, they discriminated against gays. This is my Republican, lifetime-NRA member, decorated WWII-veteran dad. Sometimes I really like him.
Anyways. On Sunday I went to see Star Trek again, and then toiled in the yard, which is so overgrown with weeds and bad stuff that I can't even see the good things, and then toiled all day yesterday as well. So now I'm behind on the student projects, still haven't made a dent in the yard, and am depressed about it. But not about the movie! This time, ( I was reminded of things I didn't mention the first time, and then also more confounded by stuff that confounded me the first time )