The first batch of grading is still underway. I sometimes leave the house to grade, settling in at a coffeeshop, where the distractions don't really involve me. No dogs to let out, no floors to clean, no husbands to chat with. Just (sometimes good, sometimes bad) music and (sometimes good, sometimes bad) papers, a warm drink, and my optimism.
When I began teaching in 2000, I had a really difficult time figuring out how to determine grades. Now I use a 1,000 point scale, and all work has a maximum point value towards that perfect 1,000. I'm a writer, people, not a mathlete! My boss at the time gave me the tiny calculator pictured. I have a cheat sheet on the back that lets me know how many points out of, say, 15, make a "B". I've been using this calculator for almost ten years.
I came home from the coffeeshop on Monday and tore my tote bag and purse apart looking for it. I was nearly brought to tears over its loss. I called the coffeeshop, and what do you know? Two hours after I left there, it was waiting for me on a table. I had to laugh. Here I was, acting like I'd left my laptop or
I'm just a sentimental goofball, I guess. Do you have something like the little orange calculator? Pretty worthless, but devastating if you lost it? Tell me about it, will you?
Some things are simply perfect and cannot be improved upon. Your orange calculator. My ugly black umbrella that I got in London the only time went to England. It folds up and does not turn inside out no matter how hard the wind blows. It’s looking pretty ratty now, but it is still simply perfect.
Oh I have this wonderful beanie. I got it at a big 5 in Las Vegas a little over 4 years ago when I first started dating my husband. It fits so well and goes with all my coats. I have never been able to find a duplicate (it is very elusive in that way). Once in target I took it in the clothes area (not the dressing room) and forgot to put it back on. We went to 3 other stores and back to get our car from an oil change when I realized it was gone. I started bawling. ( I blame it on being very prego) My husband tried to calm me down but, you know it was ‘my beanie’. So we trekked thru all 3 stores and finally back to Target where it sat perched on a clothes rack all lonesome for me. I know I could find another hat or knit one just as good but it’s just to special!
I have a short-sleeved linen-like blazer that’s so old… its shoulders are faded (from black) from years of fluorescent light. I can’t bring myself to give it away because it’s just so me – my uniform, as it were.
I have that same calculator in red but the latch that holds the flip cover broke so I just removed the cover. It lives in my knitting notions case and I love it!
I have an old HP-12C that I bought in the 80’s! I used it for real estate sales and it can calculate anything! It’s quirk is you enter your first number, then the second THEN you push the add, subtract, multiply or divide button. It saves 2 steps that way. 4+4=8 OR 4 4 +
So now I can’t use a regular calculator at all! I’d be lost alright!
Reading Brenda Ueland, decided to look up Elsa Krauch, and came across your blog — first result in the search engine, I believe. What a lovely place this is.
I’ve been looking into doing an MFA in creative writing, but am schooled out at 44, happy to be out of debt, and thinking there must be some other way to be more fruitful with my writing . . .
Something like the orange calculator. Hmmm. Let’s see. My tattered and taped, barely- attached address book of 27 years? But while that’s something I couldn’t live without, it’s also something I’ve been meaning to replace for over a decade . . . .
Hey, I HAD that same calculator for many years. It got stepped on when one of the cats knocked it to the floor. Memories of all the sums…all the bank statements balanced…budgets calculated…