Well, who knew.... Surprisingly all has gone with the establishing and preliminary tweaking of this blog, such that not a single hair on my head as been ripped out by the root. This is, indeed, astonishing. I expected dabbling with HTML codes to be more difficult than it's been, even if I can't profess to know too much more than the very basic rudiments needed to set up links and modify text. But considering my luck with all things technological, I am amazed that I haven't found myself abandoning this idea entirely.

And yet, I do this at a time when I should be marking my students' essays, which I should be returning by Tuesday. When I first started teaching, I actually almost enjoyed marking. Lord knows, I went at it methodically, and a kind of rapidity. Now, sadly, I dread the task of marking. Part of it is probably simple disenchantment with the task itself; after all, the worst part of any job is, inevitably, the paperwork (and extant bureaucratic entanglements). But I think the larger part of it is my own sense that the papers will be careless and even thoughtless, and so I approach the task with the anticipation of mediocrity, and the prospect of explaining, over and over, things I've already explained time and time before. It's the ever-alienating sense of marking as a kind of pre-determined or pre-destined exercise in personal futility. There are exceptions, of course, especially when individual students actually do take their work seriously, but I find such situations less and less common as time goes by. It feels all too often like trudging through a heavy Canadian snowstorm, wondering why oh why am I bothering with this.... I know, I know: I'm sure this sounds like the all-too-typical teacher's rant, and probably, when it comes down to dust, it is. The awareness, however, of one's typicality doesn't alleviate the sensation; if anything, it extends it. Oh well, at least in a few days it will all be over, as soon as I finish these essays and then the exams. Until then, there is Bushmills...... Mmmmmm Irish whiskey.......