Totalisation

I seem to have entered a period of general disconnection from the real world, my days nowadays being filled to the brim with schoolwork. Lesson plans, comprehensions, essays and grades form the vocabulary of my days, and I'm sorry to say that my red pen has outstripped my pencil as the implement that I'm seen most frequently with nowadays. Add to this the fact that my parents are educationalists, and the people I hang out with these days are teaching next door in the junior college, and you have what Joel has aptly termed a totalising experience.

After church today, on the road homeward, when my brother was talking about scholarships and possible majors, I suddenly realised that I had no more stomach for this kind of discussion. At this time, when the future is supposed to stretch ahead gloriously into the unknown, I find my days narrowing and narrowing until it's only a matter of how many scripts I can finish marking, how many people will still owe me homework the next day, and how long I can keep talking before I lose my voice.

I had not intended for it to become like this. I daresay it's only because it's not only approaching the end of the term, but also because it's approaching the end of my tenure, and I want to hand over a clean sheet. So I find myself obliged to work double-time to neaten everything up. But only a few days ago I was still busy being impressed by the calibre of conversation I was getting out of my classes. Teachers should never work themselves into a situation in which the paperwork becomes more crucial than the people who produce it, but as the week ended, it felt like I was sliding inexorably into this state.

And so it was with considerable relief that I finally finished two batches of marking on Friday, and, bringing with me a pile of essays to mark over the weekend, left school with the usual gang for another TGiF outing. Made a return last night to the Yard, and lingered over two and a half pints apiece watching the conversation meander across our consciousnesses. This is the situation, I think, when you're working; you work hard all week so that you can steal a few hours back from your responsibilities to get together with friends who are not your colleagues, and these outings become a bulwark of normal life that keeps you from drifting away and drowning in the seas of professional obligations.

But this island of normalcy, this vital reference point from which you can accurately take bearings on the situation you are in, is more like a sandbank that shifts and erodes and reforms, and sometimes it is swamped by the surrounding waters. And lately, with work encroaching on all sides, I find myself losing my sense of perspective. Grades, papers, parties, walks across university campuses, the trappings of a life to come that I get through my people who are already doing it - all these don't strike me nowadays with their customary exoticism and interest. Over these weeks, I've neglected to keep in contact with my people overseas, and I hadn't really noticed the slow unravelling of contacts, how our experiences have slowly and imperceptibly drifted apart. But the dates have rolled on regardless, and now I realise that it's almost May, and my people will be returning soon - and who exactly will these people be, after almost yet another year of experiences that have diverged?

I begin to worry, then, that our stories have become so different that they can't be communicated to each other.