Watching 1984

Last night my husband and I attended the play 1984. The company performing it was small (half a dozen people), with minimalistic stage setting. Orwell would roll over in his grave if he had heard some of the changes they made. As elegant as his language always was, to hear them F--ing and Sh--ing and C--k S--king would have filled him with horror. Or disgust. Probably disgust. The movie version, with John Hurt and Richard Burton, was SO much better. It didn't try for juvenile humor the way the play version did. But the house was packed with hundreds of college students who had doubtless been forced to attend it in order to earn extra credit. I'm rather sorry I asked my students to attend if they could. I saw one of them there, so I assume that a few of them attended.

Yesterday was one heck of a long day. I hadn't gotten to bed until after 1:30 a.m. because I was grading essays. Then my beloved hubbie snorted and snored and kept me from sleeping. I got up a bit before 6 a.m., having slept maybe two hours, off and on. He drove us to the college and spent part of his day playing golf while I taught and graded more essays. Happily, I finished in time to return all of them to the students in each class.

Now I'm getting emails and phone calls (one woke me up this morning at 8:50 a.m., after I hadn't gotten home until nearly midnight from the play) from students saying they aren't getting the graded work I'm sending them. So I'm resending it. That takes a lot of time away from working with the new stuff. Teaching online is not teaching two classes of fifteen students each. It is separately and individually teaching thirty students. That would not have occurred to me prior to this experience. There is still one student who has not chimed in at all. He has yet to contact me, despite my repeated emails to him. I guess I'll just go into the online gradebook and fill his column up with zeroes.

I am really, really tired. The last thing in the world I want to do today (another beautiful sunny day) is to stay inside. However, I have little choice. Work must be done.

So--off to do it. Dr. S.