February 15, 2006

• February: The Shortest but Sweetest of Months

  Only two weeks this time? A mere fortnight– I’m improving.

  
  

   

  
  

  Valentine’s Day has passed again, and ’twas a good day overall. I gave my beloved wife flowers, twice– a mixed bouquet at her office, and a single red rose when she got home. Since I had the day off, I thought it would be special to buy flowers and deliver them myself. Now, while my presence was a pleasant surprise, the response to the flowers was underwhelming. I learned that this day on the calendar is one wherein it’s especially nice to have flowers professionally delivered to your desk, and pay attention to the exact kind your female S.O. requests when she gives you explicit hints, i.e. e-mails a link with a photo to you. I hope she doesn’t exact bodily harm upon me for writing this here, but I want it as a reminder to myself as well as all other well-meaning but not adept-listening men out there.

  
  

   

  
  

  Any disappointment there was tempered by visits from another one of her best friends,

  
  
  

  who was all too happy to come out of The Disney Store and join his cousins at both office and home (she has quite the collection). We also had dinner from the Olive Garden… I say from, not at, because she was not feeling well; so we decided to carry-out instead, but it was still a magnificent meal.

  
  

   

  
  

  And, in other news yesterday, I got my grading done! The first set, anyway. After I had completed my office-delivery mission, I was concerned that I would not have the time to finish. I knew Amy (my cooperating teacher, who’s coordinating this project) would be coming by after school to pick them up. I knew she’d be there possibly as early as 4:10, so I had to leave the library by 4:00, and I didn’t arrive there until 12:45. I had 36 papers still to grade, and I thought it’d take up to four hours, but I got it done, amazingly enough, in three. That’s a rate of 12 per hour, when I had started out, with the first-period class, averaging less than eight per hour. Naturally, as with any task, the more you do it, the faster you get; but pressed for time as I was, I’m sure I didn’t give those last 36 essays the same level of attention, individually, as I had the prior 100+. There’s also the matter that I was tired when trying to do some, late at night after kids go to bed… The bottom line is, if this is indicative of how grading, or any assessment of students’ writing, will typically be, I can never meet the ideal of giving each student equal quantity, and quality, of attention. I sense that most teachers who fail likely do so because they are fueled by idealism, but their job is severely constrained by realism. Those who cannot find some happy medium– maybe “manageable” would be a better adjective than “happy,” because I don’t think anyone who ever wants to do his or her best is truly “happy” with compromising– are doomed to stress themselves out, and eventually give up.

  
  

   

  
  

  Anyhow, I did finish, got home, and then Amy didn’t show until about 5:00, right after I had left to take my daughter’s friend home. She left behind another set of essays, not hers, but another teacher’s. There’s only 48 of these, but I have to turn them around in less than a week– she’ll be picking them up Monday evening. We shall see…

  
  

   

  
  

  Speaking of my daughter, I wanted to share with the Xanga world my most exciting news of last fall, surpassing even the student teaching. I officially became a father on September 27, 2005, when we visited court and the judge granted my petition for stepparent adoption. Dora was born back in 1992, when Maria was only 17 years old; her biological father disappeared soon after. He became, well, not a good person some time after her birth, and Maria didn’t want him in Dora’s life. He had one last chance when she was three, and made a host of promises he didn’t keep. He was never heard from again after that. The court mandates that “diligent efforts” be made to locate the other biological parent in a stepparent adoption case, and we did try all we could; but there’s no record of him anywhere. So, upon the judge’s order, she became Dora O’Quinn and I am now the proud father of a 13-year-old daughter. She is proud to bear the same name as both her parents, whereas her three, much younger half-siblings retain their father’s, Maria’s ex-husband, last name. Though I love Corin (8) and Jonah and Caleb (twins, almost 7) as if they were my own, they will always be my stepchildren. But for Dora, I am, and shall always be, Dad.

  
  

   

  
  

   

  • 1:30 pm
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