A Series of (Un)fortunate Events

I do believe this week has been the most eventful one of my life. Of course, given that I am saying this during the same week, you must realize that my perspective is a bit clouded. After some time, maybe I will modify my opinion and move it down to the top ten eventful weeks in my life. Even so, it has been one FULL week. So buckle your seatbelts and prepare for a monstrous-lengthy post.

Monday. I discovered I had made a dreadful error with my grading system, which I keep on a Palm Pilot. For some reason I had thought I was being clever and wise by going into a backup utility for my grades and starting to run it. This utility started to ask me if I wanted to replace various files. I said "Yes" to a couple of them, then started to get suspicious. I thought to myself, "Maybe I shouldn't be doing this," so I stopped. Thank God (I mean this sincerely) that I did. I found out I had erased all of my grade categories, and all of the names of the assignments. I had stopped short of erasing student names and actual grades. If I had erased both of them, I would have been left with the unpleasant task of having to tell the powers that be at school that I had erased all of the student grades for the whole year, with basically no way to recover them (other than asking students, "Hey, you still have all your homework assignments I returned? Can I have them back?" Tests and quizzes I generally keep after letting students see them, but everything else gets returned). As it was, I had to reconstruct the names of all the assignments, re-enter them, and begin the process of re-entering or checking off all students grades. This comes out to about 1500 grades. I am not done yet. I also have loads of test correcting to do, as I gave four classes a test with an essay question and half a dozen short answer questions. Correcting 100 plus of these takes time.

Tired of reading yet? I'm just getting started!

Tuesday. I finally decide to see about interviewing for the theater advisorship position at school. The teacher who used to do it now has other commitments, so there's an opening. I thought I might want to do it awhile ago, then heard the dates set for the productions conflict with professional shows I hope to do. When that happened I thought I was out, but then the principal told me the production dates are flexible. So on Tuesday, during my prep period, I went to let an administrator know I wanted to interview. I was told he was already over in another building interviewing candidates, so I should go over. I did, and was told to wait right there to be interviewed! I did, and was interviewed by the principal and two assistant principals. Big guns, in other words. The next period the principal came by and told me I had been given the job! So now I have a new responsibility, and a chance to enlarge my borders. (There, how's that for a literary allusion? And I haven't even read the book! Unless you count the original source the book is based upon...) As theater advisor, I am basically in charge of everything, though I can delegate as needed: choosing plays, overseeing set design, costumes, props, programs, casting, directing, you name it. We'll be doing two major productions this year, and possibly something more minor.

The president of the theater organization was eager to meet his new advisor, so I met with him after school that same day. And the theater group was putting on a smallish program that evening as part of a fund raising week, so I dutifully attended it (It was sparsely attended. I'll have to attempt to raise enthusiasm/awareness on campus for theater.)

Wednesday. Dodgeball night! This week has been kind of a school spirit type week. During it various fundraising activities were planned to raise money for Katrina victims. One of these was a dodgeball tournament. For thirty bucks, any team of six could sign up. So I organized a faculty team, mostly from our department. Then I made sure to boast to all of my students about how our team was going to dominate and all that, and how they should sign up to take us on, or at least come and see it. Several of my students were on various teams, and a few came to see us. (Actually, several were there, but I have no idea whether they really came to see us. Quite possibly not.) Our team all wore green soccer pinneys over our shirts, conveniently provided by the JV soccer coach, who was on our team and teaches in my department. He also had on long socks, the soccer kind, and gave me a pair to wear, which I pulled up almost to my knees. I think we made quite the sight. In the first round our opponent never showed, so we got a bye. We faced off against a pretty good team in the second round, and got crushed in the first game. Fortunately for us it was a best of three match. We came storming back and won the next two games, to knock off our foe. The victory was sweeter given the fact that they seemed a little cocky (their team name was "We'll probably win." Ours was the "Social Studs.") The next round was the semi-finals, and we were matched against a team with some basketball jocks (one of them has already committed to Boston College for hoops, to give you an idea of the caliber of his athleticism). We beat them in the first game, and were looking good. But they came back to win the next two, and knocked us off. However, the defeat was a noble one. They eventually won the whole thing, so it wasn't hard losing to them.

Also Wednesday. I get an email from my thesis director from grad school, who is also the editor of a hugely prestigious, world renowned, historical journal. To make a long story short, he had previously encouraged me to submit part of my thesis as an article for this journal, as the diary I used for my thesis is one of a kind, and basically really cool. (Even the suggestion was a huge honor for me, and something I was quite excited about. I don't know of any grad students at my college--most, if not all of whom are much smarter than me--who have ever gotten published in this journal. Generally historians with real academic clout--not to mention Ph. D's--get published, but not little people like me.) However, this summer someone published a book with a few selections from the diary I worked with, and it appeared that I had been scooped, which meant the article idea was dead. But I sent my prof the selections of the book from the diary to see if there was still a chance of my getting something published.

Wednesday's email was his response. In it he said he thought there was still an opening, and suggested I put together an article submission for the journal. He continued to say how he was jealous that I had found the diary first, as he and a partner of his might have published it as a book. He continued on to say how he hoped I was still thinking of trying to get the whole thing published, and recommended a publisher I should try first, but only after I get the article published! I'm laughing at the idea even as I write. I mean, me, an author of an academic book? God must have a sense of humor, as I am acutely aware of my intellectual limitations, and do not especially consider myself the academic, book writing type. Yet who knows, it might happen. And if not at least I'll be able to tell my grandkids someday that I might have written a book and been world famous. Or something like that. So in my spare time, besides my school and theater responsibilities, I may be doing some more academic writing. (In reality, the book writing, if it happens, will have to wait till summers, methinks.) Crazy.

Tired yet? The most exciting is yet to come!

Thursday. I have an announcement to make: I've been shopping for a condominium in the general area where I teach. On Thursday I heard that the offer I had made had been accepted by the seller. Yup, you read that right. I'm buying a place of my own. So it looks like I'll be moving a lot closer to school quite soon. October 31 is the closing date. It's a two bedroom, fairly spacious condo in decent condition, and in a decent neighborhood. Not like the condo that I looked at awhile back in a shady part of town, and the next day someone was murdered at that same complex! To the contrary, it's in a quieter part. I'm really happy/excited to be moving to a place that is so much closer to school. It's only three miles from work, and about ten minutes. And it has quick access to the highway too, so getting places fast is quite easy. Needless to say, all of the stuff involved in buying a place will add to my already busy schedule.

Friday. School assembly day. Guess what the assembly was? Something of real academic value, forsooth (Andrea, I hope you're proud of my word usage)! It was two rock bands who performed their stuff. Both of them quite loud. One of the guys is semi-famous. He name is Bleu, and he has a song on the Spiderman soundtrack. I guess that qualifies him solidly for bonafide worldliness. As teachers we have to supervise the assembly, so I was subjected to about forty minutes of heart pounding music, some of which was laced with obscenities (and we expect students to use appropriate language in school?)

To top it all off, I watched most of the Red Sox loss to the White Sox. But thankfully my devastation is not nearly as bad as it was two years ago against the Y*%^&$#. Now that our boys have won the WS, the pain just isn't as sharp. Thankfully.

And that concludes the espistle, detailing my week full of both unfortunate and fortunate events. Lemony Snicket!