Grading Papers and Other Matters Academic

Exciting, huh? I'm not sure what the word is that accurately describes the tedium of grading one paper after another on forms of government, the beginnings of Christianity and Islam, and feudalism and manorialism . . . except that it applies also to the grading of papers on the Constitution and Jefferson and Hamilton, which is what I did last week.

This week I begin a graduate class of my own on Islam, with a visiting professor who comes to us via Georgetown, Oxford, and Chicago. I'm excited about it, but I'm also thinking about the tedium of his life as he grades our papers. We will think they are brilliant, but he won't. I know this from plenty of experience on the other side.

We had a fabulously energetic presentation on Judasim at church yesterday, made a by gentleman who is both a Reform rabbi and a professor of Judaic studies. Unfortunately, the ipod taping of same became, at the last minute, due to the unexpected abscence of someone who actually owns an ipod, ahem ~ my responsibility.

I wonder, if I ever acquire one, whether I will be able to work it.