The Pissed Off Professor

Reading and grading papers is a bit like what I imagine peeling back my skin would cause—if the peeling back of my skin didn’t kill me—it would hurt a lot, but it would heighten my perceptions.

After a long grading session, many of the idiosyncrasies (good and bad) embedded in what I read remain in my head influencing my awareness of words. The most common result is my being super-sensitive to meaning. After reading 50+ papers that contain vague thoughts like,

Everyone’s life is hard, but sadly, Angelou’s was harder than most.

The world is a cruel place, and everyone knows it.

We are all unique people.

you can understand how I can’t help but analyze everything for real meaning.

Well, it’s post-midterm conference week for me, so much of my last few days has been spent frantically grading midterm exams, a pre-essay analytical assignment, and my students’ reading journals.

I would normally spread this amount of grading over two or three weeks’ time, but to be as productive as possible during my conferences, I’ve done it all in about four days.

You can call me Sponge Shawn Drained Brain.

Recently, I’ve reconnected with a childhood friend via e-mail, and we’ve been discussing a variety of life and grammar issues, and given my skinned condition, I am now on a mission to wrap my head around three words: tall, grande, and venti based on our last e-versation. (Hey—I think I just coined a new term!)

It’s not these three words in general that I care about; it’s their being used to describe sizes at a business I frequent.

What is the word tall French for? Skinny model?

I get the grande and venti references, but tall? (Okay, I don’t really get the point of calling a medium a grande, but I can live with it.)

Do you remember working those “which of these things doesn’t belong” puzzles as a child? I’ve fallen into one of those, and I can’t get out.

I know TALL doesn’t belong, but my beverage of choice is a TALL, and TALL isn’t like grande or venti, so am I wrong if I order a TALL? If I order a petite, will I be understood?

This is the reason I love words. When you give yourself to them, they are frighteningly powerful little things.

But, they can be venti confusing.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 10:35 am and is filed under College, English, Illustration, Students, Teaching, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.