i am energized. i have written a lot in the last few days, and it feels good. i’ve given good (i hope) feedback to my peers, sketched out or jotted down ideas for a few different essays, and written a couple long blog posts. i have lots of momentum, it seems, lots of enthusiasm just in general. simultaneously, i am avoiding grading my students’ essays.

the thought of grading stops me cold. i’m not doing these other things to avoid grading (which has been the case in the past), but because i am genuinely inspired, stimulated by them. grading and leaving feedback (for my students comp papers, at least) fills me with the opposite feeling. i don’t want to do it, and i haven’t wanted to do it for quite a while. my turnaround time on major student work gets longer and longer. and this is not okay. i believe that my direct, detailed feedback on their written work is the most crucial element of the class, and i believe that teaching this class is, objectively and undeniably, the most important thing i do. i actually love teaching it, i really enjoy being a teacher and i think that what i teach is really valuable. it makes me feel good, like i’m doing something important and positive.

and yet, i am only becoming more and more reluctant to engage with what i myself characterize as the most important element of that teaching, while i become more and more engaged by things that don’t help my students at all, things that only benefit me and maybe a few others in our useless quests to develop our own voices that we’ll use to say shit that other people have said before and better, uncover our own derivative, shallow, dumb fucking truths. it’s like i only want to do the fun part of teaching, and not the crucial, valuable grinding work that will actually make a difference. i can tell myself that this is nothing to fret too much over, that i’m just adjusting to balancing being a student with being a teacher, which is probably true, and that everyone hates grading, that it’s the worst part of the job and everyone puts it off (which is definitely true), but is it also an excuse? who am i? do i even want to be a teacher? do i want to teach, or just perform? do i care about anyone besides myself? am i the person i think i am? was i ever genuinely that person, or did i just not think i could be different? was i just picking the most noble of the options i thought were available to me?