Finished marking

I love teaching - I love the preparation, I love the classes and I love seeing how my students have grown. Except that means I have to mark.

An aside: Do we mark papers? or Do we grade papers? My natural speech pattern pulls the word 'mark' out whenever I talk about this activity. But a number of my friends talk about being busy grading papers. Perhaps it is like the Canadian way of saying "my child is in Grade 5" while the Americans say "My child is in the fifth grade"

Back to the point.

I actually enjoy marking/grading. I like seeing what my students have created and how they have progressed through the semester. And in some ways it is an ego trip - do I see myself and my teachings in their materials?

But...... there is always a but......... it takes soooooooooo long - of course if I didn't save a lot of it to the end of the course that may make the load a little lighter!

This morning I completed marking the papers from all of my winter semester`s courses. And I submitted my grades.

Now to clean up the office, get ready for the next set of courses that start on May 5 - and the cycle continues