It's Been a Knockout Week
This week has had rather too much content. Monday night I gave my final and had to tell one of my students he was failing. This was hard for me to do even after he had handed in work blatantly plagiarized from his classmates. I made allowances for his poor work all semester because he is not a native speaker and has trouble with English, but I could not make allowances for plagiarism. Wednesday night, for my sins, I went to a speed-dating event--had 11 "dates" in the space of about two hours, each one about 6 1/2 to 7 minutes. After the first four conversations, the guys started to blur. It wasn't an unpleasant experience but a little grueling. Then there were some other things on Thursday and Friday that were difficult.
The weekend has been better, so far. Last night I went to the theater with my sister and today we, that is, my sister, my dad, my brother, and I, went to Coney Island and sat out on the boardwalk and looked at the ocean and ate hot dogs and fries. It was a good day, although I am tired now from being in the sun and the journey there and back on public transportation with my wheelchair-bound brother (he had a stroke two years ago) and my somewhat-rickety-on-his-legs 84-year-old father. (At one point, as we were walking the one very long block from the bus to the boardwalk, my father, who was leaning on my arm as he walked, said to my brother in his wheelchair [being wheeled by my sister], "Hey [brother's name], why don't you get out of there and let me sit down for awhile?" Since my brother can neither walk nor talk, this was funny only in a rather mordant way. But my brother does seem to like the ribbing.)
Sometimes my sister and I just look at each other and say, how did this all happen?
Then there are moments when things don't seem so bad. Like today, when we took my brother back to the nursing home where he lives, and my sister was showing me a communication book the speech therapist had made for him. My sister asked my brother to point to a word, on a page where about four words were written, that described how he felt. He pointed to the word "happy." "You feel happy?" she asked, somewhat skeptically. He nodded and shrugged, smiling in a way that was both wise-guyish and sweet.
The weekend has been better, so far. Last night I went to the theater with my sister and today we, that is, my sister, my dad, my brother, and I, went to Coney Island and sat out on the boardwalk and looked at the ocean and ate hot dogs and fries. It was a good day, although I am tired now from being in the sun and the journey there and back on public transportation with my wheelchair-bound brother (he had a stroke two years ago) and my somewhat-rickety-on-his-legs 84-year-old father. (At one point, as we were walking the one very long block from the bus to the boardwalk, my father, who was leaning on my arm as he walked, said to my brother in his wheelchair [being wheeled by my sister], "Hey [brother's name], why don't you get out of there and let me sit down for awhile?" Since my brother can neither walk nor talk, this was funny only in a rather mordant way. But my brother does seem to like the ribbing.)
Sometimes my sister and I just look at each other and say, how did this all happen?
Then there are moments when things don't seem so bad. Like today, when we took my brother back to the nursing home where he lives, and my sister was showing me a communication book the speech therapist had made for him. My sister asked my brother to point to a word, on a page where about four words were written, that described how he felt. He pointed to the word "happy." "You feel happy?" she asked, somewhat skeptically. He nodded and shrugged, smiling in a way that was both wise-guyish and sweet.
posted by Sarah Sometimes at 10:11 PM
3 Comments:
Sounds like a sweet day.
communication boards are the best. Sounds like a nice--but difficult physically--day.
This week has had rather too much content.
That line says it all. And I know what those weeks feel like.
Great post!
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