Thursday, 3 November 2022

The Red Font Supersedes the Red Ink

 The good news is this anxiety is dissipating. It's not entirely gone, but my guts feel substantially less like a washing machine agitator than they did a month ago. I guess the stressors that triggered the anxiety are improving; this is a great help. I used a semicolon in place of a conjunction there for tone. Guess what? There is a chance I will be teaching this technique tomorrow. I'm on my second practicum placement and tomorrow I have two double periods, both of which I plan to use for writing techniques. For relaxed or conversational tone, or for strengthening the sentence when the comma is struggling, get out that semicolon; it's a regular cure-all (and hey look, there's another one!). 

Cliched, I know, but things have changed since I was a student. Today, I found myself assessing and reporting work I'd set via an online program, rather than the old hand-in-the-book method, during which a teacher would write in red ink (and if you were unlucky, you'd cop a batshit crazy nun who'd erroneously put a conjunction over your appropriately placed comma, and then scream like a startled banshee when challenged - but I'm not bitter about this). However, in keeping with tradition, I used a red font to make my comments on the work.

Also, I was required to attend bus duty this afternoon. This was quite an informal affair compared to what I remember. Students casually interacted whilst the teacher called out the route of whatever bus had pulled up. A far cry from my bus line, which entailed standing in line on a blistering hot day, waiting to be dismissed by this scruffy harridan whose countenance bore a photographic resemblance to that of a constipated gargoyle. We would stand soldier-like, bored and in increasing discomfort, which one day prompted the kid behind me to scowl sotto voce, 'Let us go, you ugly old shit!'. It was my great concern today that a kid would refer to me in this manner, disgruntled at having to wait for dismissal.

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