LOTR and Grading

I am listening to the soundtrack to the Lord of the Rings as I grade...a million papers...forever and ever and ever and ever...

Its fun, because the music keeps me entertained, focused...and a little inspired. As if, with each pen stroke, I was on some epic journey...

*Music crescendoing in the background*
"Parallel Wording. Parallel Wording!!! For the sake of Gondor and the West, Parallel Wording!!!"

Yes, well. I am going quicker though. So that's good, right?

Congrats to the Dems

Congrats, I feel, are in order.

I will probably go to sleep without knowing *for sure* the fate of the Senate, but I will go ahead and offer my Congratulations for their hard fought win. It seems that my predictions were, well, not on the money this time around. Can't win 'em all.

They won, and we lost. Such is life.

You see...this was an important election. I don't think its sour grapes to say that I believe our country will be in a worse place tomorrow than it was today. No, I cannot deny that I believe that to be the truth.

But this election isn't the final election, whatever that might look like. It was one election. I have not spent much time ranting about it, because it didn't honestly bother me all that much. I suppose that is in part because I believe the sides have already been drawn, and our nation needs to decide if we are beyond saving or not. I don't believe there is a way to "solve" the current conflict, nor do I believe that there is a "way out", as if any one country encapsulated the current conflict.

You see...there is an ideological war being waged against the ideology of our civilization. We can choose to ignore it, but that won't make it go away. We can run from it...but that doesn't mean it won't come looking for us in the dark of the night.

And I think that reality will sink in...even if it costs us something in the present. And, when that reality DOES sink in...the party of action will be recalled to power, just as good old Winnie was called out of near retirement when the politics of appeasement were finally exposed for the brutal failure they are in the late 1930's.

And so...the Democrats control the House, and possibly the Senate.

Alright.

They won with promises of cures through the "Science" of Stem Cell research. They won with promises of "ending" the corruption of politics (this, coming from a party with leaders like Harry Reid, caught in a land scheme just last month...). They won with the promise of solving our international problems by getting us out of Iraq--that "Second Vietnam" they are so eager to denounce. Yes, they "won." And we lost.

They "won", after 4 elections in 6 years with a narrow margin. Not exactly a sweeping "Blue Wave", but who's keeping track?

Heh. I know, this sounds dramatic. Well, sometimes something as silly as politics is dramatic.

The Only Issue

This, posted at Rush's site, is a truly great article by a Democrat. Its, well, just right on.

Do your Civic Duty!

Vote!

I did.

Well, its probably too late to do anything about it if you haven't already...but if you didn't, just remember, you are doing your part to contribute to the Suicide of Thought and the Death of the West.

Yeah. They should make political ads with that tag line. Heh.

The Sanctity of Marriage

There are plenty of jokes that can, and I have no doubt, WILL be made about this.

But still...even as I prepare to make my own little jab ("If these two can't make it, what hope do the rest of us have!??!?!"), I have to reflect...this is the sad state that the sanctity of marriage has sunk to in our society.

It used to be...this would be the end--you'd be tossed out of society for being, well, just bad people. Today, its basically the reason Britney is in the news.

Sigh.

Whatever happens...

This makes me happy.

Blasted L.A.

I need some weather.

Real weather.

Rain, wind, thunder, lightening.

You know; weather!

WEATHER!!!!

But, no.

I live in L.A.

No weather for me.

Sigh.

The Magic Numbers

To say that this Fall has been busy would be a vast understatement.

Its been a refreshing change of pace--the last time I was this pressed for real work was during the last couple of weeks of my B.A., and I began to feel as if I was going to be totally out of practice if and when I finally managed to push on towards Graduate work, in some as-of-yet unspecified field of study (either history or philosophy...but who knows?)

Well, my fears were unfounded. Since the coffee slinging phase of life ended, I have been blessed with plenty of good, old-fashioned student-like work. Reading, reading, reading...the only thing missing is the writing, but I make up for that by leading session. That might as well be working on a paper, since without structure and forethought I will be dismally dull...but with some prep work, sessions are getting progressively better in every class (Funny story--today, I had such a good class that, as I walked out and preparred to jet down the 5 freeway to lead a session in Rancho Santa Margarita, when I got scolded by a site administrator for bringing my Roman Gladius to my class, I didn't even really care. That was a good class!)

Anyways...as I was saying--my fears, they were unfounded. Wow, were they unfounded.

Because, you see, I let a week pass by without grading a paper, as Sheri was out-of-town at a wedding...and boy, was that a mistake.

Now, with about a week and a half left in this Quarter...I have roughly 320 papers to grade.

Heh. Bring 'em on! Fortunately, about half of them are rewrites of papers I have already graded, so getting those graded shouldn't be a real headache. And it is encouraging to see some of the original mistakes corrected, and grades getting better. But even averaging 5 minutes per paper, I am looking at a total of about 1600 minutes of work in front of me, while reading G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. That works out to be roughly 26 hours and 40 minutes of work. So, really, just half a "regular" week's work. Not that bad, if I can actually grade a paper every 5 minutes.

Piece of cake.

Brilliant

Got this from Hugh Hewitt's blog. Its fantastic.