Crunch time here at U of D — for paper grading, for “administrative” tasks (like, figuring out where I left that last set of quizzes on the dangling modifier) — name it.

I’m in hell.

Which reminds me… Looking back on some of my last dozen or so posts, I’ve noticed errors in spelling, grammar, mechanics, punctuation (not to mention huge lapses in logic) — all products, no doubt, of my having just spent the last 3 days reading 50 some odd error-laden student essays. Talk about your evil feedback loops: the very people you set out to cure infect you with their comma splices and confusing shifts in verb tense.

I feel like Father Karras in The Exorcist at the moment he realizes Regan’s demon’s about to overtake him. Or like Colin Powell, relaxing with a cup of coffee and a poppy seed bagel, reading over the latest poll numbers coming out of Kuwait…