on the road

i decided to take my grading on the town tonight. currently sitting in the hyde park panera, taking advantage of their free wireless and happy with my choice of dinner - half a chipolte chicken sandwich and a bowl of vegetarian black bean soup. i may splurge and get something sweet before i leave. the main selling point for me - free refills of caffeine-free diet pepsi. helps keep me going while i grade. one thing i learned tonight - you don't sit outside of panera to take in the beautiful weather because that's where all the smokers congregate and all you'll get is lungs full of cancer. not that i'm bitter or anything.

speaking of grading, my students did not do well on my beowulf test. at all. maybe i should have gone with jenna's test and had them watch a buffy episode and compare it to the story of beowulf. will have to give it some more thought. not sure what i'm going to do - i've never curved a test before, but i'm thinking i might have to. or i might give them a second chance to do the essays, though the essays weren't the big problem. maybe allowing them to use their notes backfired - they figured it would be easy with notes, so they took no time to study. i don't know. still trying to get a handle on the class. truth is, i'm going to be making some changes next trimester. and i've already told tim i'd like to keep teaching brit lit next year if they need me. guess we'll have to see what happens.

i finally got around to contacting the pastoral council at VC and let them know about my desire to be ordained. as i typed up my journey so far, i realized this desire wasn't some lingering fragment of my past but a still burning call in my life. i'm not sure how that will play itself out, but i'm sensing a leading toward spiritual disciplines and i'm becoming more and more interested in spiritual direction, both as a discipline to practice and a way for me to minister. now i just wait to see what the PC says. it's exciting to see this long dormant passion beginning to be fanned into a flame once again.

don't want to spend too much time here - have to finish one more class of grading and get home in time for compline before i vegetate in front of the tv and watch my thursday night shows. but wanted to have fun typing this in public. i should try to do this at the cafe, but every time i think about it, they're closed. what i probably should do is get a router for my house so i can use my laptop anywhere around there. still not sure it's a necessity, though.

once more into the breech. here's hoping they're prettier than the other classes....
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tunes: public enemy - prophets of rage