Thought: I really enjoy seeing dust motes swirling in sunlight. They make air more real, somehow, givei it a sense (aether-ial) of air as more than empty space, as a substance (which, of course, molecularly, it is). Also, they’re pretty. But I don’t enjoy the thought that all those dust motes are going to settle on things and make the dirty and me sneezy.
Luckily, I’m not in my house right now. I’m in Dawson’s Row administering two makeup exams, so this particular dust is not mine to clean and I can simply appreciate its beauty.
While here I’ve finished up the last of my grading – the only thing left, academically, is to calculate my 381 students’ final grades. Which calculations I will not be posting on Collab for my students to see. Collab, our collaborative learning site, allows you to create a gradebook and put different assignments in there. If you release the gradebook to students, they can see what they got on each assignment. Sounds good, right? Except that Collab doesn’t accept letter grades, so you have to put in something on a percentage scale for each one. Since I normally convert letter grades to a 13-point scale when I’m calculating final grades, I decided for my Shakespeare class to tell Collab that each grade had a five-point spread (i.e., anything between 97.5 and 100 is an A+, anything between 92.5 and 97.4 is an A, etc.). That let me arrive at the appropriate final grades, but it vastly confused my students, who are used to seeing different grade thresholds. So I’m never doing that again.
Meanwhile, I’ve been whittling down the things left to do. I had my last day at work yesterday, and Kristin left yesterday morning, both of which events made me a little teary. I’m going to miss my friends, and I’m going to miss the familiarity of life here. I’ve spent, all told, nine years of my adult life in Charlottesville. That’s a lot of years! In fact, given that I date my adult life from age 18, it’s the vast majority of my adult life. Although I have never fallen in love with Charlottesville, I like it very much, and I love being comfortable in the place. I know where things are, I know shortcuts, I am familiar with which shops and which neighborhoods and which bars I like. (In the case of bars, not many. One of Charlottesville’s few failings.) I know that I’ll get the chance to establish that familiarity elsewhere, but it definitely is an uprooting at this point – I was thinking yesterday about how apt that metaphor is. I do feel a bit like a plant that has created a little ecosystem for itself. Plus the connection with the metaphor of families as trees resonates as well.
But that’s the way change is – it’s both good and bad, both exciting and disturbing, both progressive and destructive. I’m making the quintessential adult change: beginning to create a new family in a new place, and pursuing a career at the same time.
In more mundane topics, things still left to do: buy new blinds to replace the one Ernest broke with his insistent midnight window leaping; clean the house; make various phone calls; then cancel my phone; do laundry; pack suitcases. All manageable, right? All manageable. They came and took away my bulk trash this morning, which felt simultaneously good and bad. I liked some of the things I threw away! But they were broken. Which is why I had to throw them away. Maybe I haven’t come as far on the Things front as I thought.
Luckily, I’m not in my house right now. I’m in Dawson’s Row administering two makeup exams, so this particular dust is not mine to clean and I can simply appreciate its beauty.
While here I’ve finished up the last of my grading – the only thing left, academically, is to calculate my 381 students’ final grades. Which calculations I will not be posting on Collab for my students to see. Collab, our collaborative learning site, allows you to create a gradebook and put different assignments in there. If you release the gradebook to students, they can see what they got on each assignment. Sounds good, right? Except that Collab doesn’t accept letter grades, so you have to put in something on a percentage scale for each one. Since I normally convert letter grades to a 13-point scale when I’m calculating final grades, I decided for my Shakespeare class to tell Collab that each grade had a five-point spread (i.e., anything between 97.5 and 100 is an A+, anything between 92.5 and 97.4 is an A, etc.). That let me arrive at the appropriate final grades, but it vastly confused my students, who are used to seeing different grade thresholds. So I’m never doing that again.
Meanwhile, I’ve been whittling down the things left to do. I had my last day at work yesterday, and Kristin left yesterday morning, both of which events made me a little teary. I’m going to miss my friends, and I’m going to miss the familiarity of life here. I’ve spent, all told, nine years of my adult life in Charlottesville. That’s a lot of years! In fact, given that I date my adult life from age 18, it’s the vast majority of my adult life. Although I have never fallen in love with Charlottesville, I like it very much, and I love being comfortable in the place. I know where things are, I know shortcuts, I am familiar with which shops and which neighborhoods and which bars I like. (In the case of bars, not many. One of Charlottesville’s few failings.) I know that I’ll get the chance to establish that familiarity elsewhere, but it definitely is an uprooting at this point – I was thinking yesterday about how apt that metaphor is. I do feel a bit like a plant that has created a little ecosystem for itself. Plus the connection with the metaphor of families as trees resonates as well.
But that’s the way change is – it’s both good and bad, both exciting and disturbing, both progressive and destructive. I’m making the quintessential adult change: beginning to create a new family in a new place, and pursuing a career at the same time.
In more mundane topics, things still left to do: buy new blinds to replace the one Ernest broke with his insistent midnight window leaping; clean the house; make various phone calls; then cancel my phone; do laundry; pack suitcases. All manageable, right? All manageable. They came and took away my bulk trash this morning, which felt simultaneously good and bad. I liked some of the things I threw away! But they were broken. Which is why I had to throw them away. Maybe I haven’t come as far on the Things front as I thought.
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