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It's noon on Friday and I'm still grading these seventeen papers (each four-to-five pages long). What is wrong with me??

So, there's a bit of an [anthrax scare] in NC. Freaky that this Florida man was in Durham, where I live, when he got sick. And since I've been sick this past week with cold symptoms, I was in a bit of a panic last night. The news coverage, as always, was apocalyptic, and even when the actual report claimed there was no ascertainable evidence that this case of anthrax was an intentional terrorist attack or even that anyone else had anything to fear, the news people gave out so little information about anthrax to dispel individual fears. So many people around campus have colds and pneumonia now, too. I'm sure there are a lot of very panicked people out there.

What concerns me is this quote:

Anthrax can cause pneumonia, and patients are treated with antibiotics. By the time the pulmonary form of the disease causes symptoms, however, it’s widely considered too late for successful treatment. There is also a vaccine to prevent the spread of the disease, but it is available only to the military now.

Coupled with an earlier detail about inhalation anthrax incubation times ranging from two to sixty days . . . I'm not convinced that we're all in the clear. One of my students, as a matter of fact, came down with "pneumonia" this past weekend, but went to the doctor early enough to prevent real danger. So, what's scary is that once anthrax causes symptoms, you're past the point of help? Very very scary.

And a strange thing is that my dad left me a voicemail message two nights ago telling me he was sending me antibiotics in case of anthrax warfare. I hadn't told him I was sick, either. (Whenever I tell him I have a cold, he always makes me feel like I'm such a lousy person for getting sick all the time and not remembering what kind of medicine to take. I've recently realized I don't have to call him to tell him I'm sick. He's a doctor, see, so I've been used to consulting him first about my sicknesses.)

Now I remember what it was I was thinking about writing. I realized yesterday yet again how hesitant I am in revealing anything about myself. I had a "progress" meeting with the director of graduate studies of my program. The current director happens to be the professor of one of the classes I'm taking this semester. So it's not like I was talking to a complete stranger. But even as I tried to tell her about my plans for graduate study and going to St. Louis next semester, I found myself holding back. Actually, I wouldn't even have noticed anything except she kept saying "we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to" or "you don't have to say if it troubles you too much." I guess I've just developed this really furtive speech pattern. Even as I'm trying to say something explicitly, it sounds like I'm saying it reluctantly, too. I attribute a lot of it to being closeted (about my sexuality). I need to work on just saying things outright and without hesitation. I mean, why hold back all the time?

Still sick. :(

Grading papers for a writing class is so laborious. I have to pay attention to all the details of my students' writings, not just the strength of the arguments (if there are any to begin with).

There are piles of papers and books all over the place now. I haven't been filing away the stuff I generate and refer to for a few weeks now. Library books are mixed in piles with my own books mixed in with other people's books. I'll never sort them all out.

At least my mom sent me yummy mooncakes.

Joe is so cute with his digital thermometer. I've been feverish the last couple of days, so he's taken out his trusty thermometer a few times to see how badly off I am. Sometimes it's great to be with a hypochondriac. Of course, he wants me to go to the hospital and all....

So annoying that this week in my classes we've been discussing some things I'm very interested in, but I'm so dizzy and feverish I can't concentrate very well in class! The discussion we had on Wuthering Heights was the best class discussion we've had in that particular class all semester. Today in another class we talked about critical race feminism and the law -- subjects that continue to intrigue me even as they are frustrating in their seeming inability to address crucial issues...

Hmmm....

There was a reason I got on-line to post something. But of course I've completely forgotten what it was. [Buffy] is back!

Blech. I'm coming down with a cold. A couple of days ago, I thought it was the return of my seasonal allergy symptoms and probably related to the change in weather (much drier air and cooler temperatures). I had been negligent about taking my meds, after all. But today, my throat started feeling funny and now there's no doubt I've some sort of cold infection. Time to imbibe ginger tea and echinacea extract.

Joe was so cute this morning. He walked into the room I was reading in with one of my shirts and asked if he could wear it to church. The shirt is one of these shimmery kind of things, and I laughed to think he wanted to go to church in it. But he was serious. And then I asked myself why I thought church always had to mean formal clothing.... because it doesn't. Joe eventually chose another of my shirts to wear because the first one he picked out needs shiny black pants -- though I have a pair, the legs are too short for Joe.

Grrr... I don't want to be sick. I just want to curl up in bed with a warm cup of ginger tea, but I have to read and grade student papers... and prepare for class tomorrow. I'm being observed by the assistant director of the writing program. It's part of the usual first-time teaching deal. Actually, the program is pretty good about creating a network of dialogue between teachers in the program. I need to get over my self-pitying attitude towards my teaching experience and make the most out of it for myself. At the very least, I know my students will be getting something out of the class, even if it's not all that I want them to learn about writing.

Teaching and learning are very intriguing things for me. I'm only now beginning to realize the importance of repetition and breaking down ideas, concepts, and skills into smaller parts. In some ways, I think it's like the idea of church-going (Joe is at church now). For those people who grow up going to church, the regularity of it all must have an incredible effect. And in some ways, I think we generally have a poor understanding of how things work little by little over time. The common metaphor is how water and wind can erode hard rock over long periods of time. But in the human scale of time (a lifetime), we can't easily see these things. Cancer research is another example. To test if something is carcinogenic, researchers gorge test subjects (usually mice) with insane amounts of the substance. The understanding is that ingestion of or exposure to large amounts of a substance has similar effects to continual ingestion of or exposure to that same substance in miniscule quantities over a long period of time. But is that necessarily the case? Who knows...