A short pause to write here before I begin working on final examinations for Visual Communications—68 people in the course. The worst part about teaching (and this comment no doubt echoes through history) is grading. One learns that, like taking distasteful medicine, it’s best to get it over and out of the way quickly.
I have a particularly difficult time with grading. I feel sorry for people and tend to give higher grades than they really deserve. This is unfair to them—it gives them false hopes about their progress and abilities—and unfair to those who have worked hard. Most people who do poorly are not dumb, but lack discipline.
Rick at Promersberger Co. called me again last week to see how teaching was going, and to “remember to keep us in mid-June after your contract with Moorhead State runs out—you’re not going to continue your ‘noble’ teaching are you?” That’s the perception of the industry—teaching college students is noble but not very logical for professionals who should be “out in the field making some real money.” Nevertheless, I feel I’d like to return for more study and that makes teaching the most logical choice. Why go on for more school? Well, I feel drive to DO something during this short time on earth we are all given—don’t just let life slip away from you, but take control, act, move, set a goal, a challenge. To just get married and put in your time and let life slip by seems all too gray for me. But is more education the answer? Well, it’s a challenge for me—at least right now. And I enjoy learning.
Each person must find meaning somewhere in his life—a direction, a devotion, a place to put energies. For some it’s God, the afterlife—but no matter how much I listen to them, I still can’t find it in me to believe that this life on earth should be lived solely to the glory and praise of the Lord. Whether there really is a God we don’t know—we rely on faith. How he wants us to live in this world we don’t know—we rely on writings of humans supposedly inspired by him and, of course, what “inspiration” you listen to depends on what religion you believe in).
—March 1, 1986, Moorhead.
OtD 