The week without Chris

After my stats exam last Monday, there was a party at a bar near campus. I stopped by for about 10 minutes to say good-bye and didn't even get a drink. I don't know, it makes me sad that I can't kick back and celebrate with the other 20-30 somethings at the K school, but it also is simply the state of my life - I had to rush back to give Chris a kid break, so he could get ready for his trip to Miami, and then I had to finish writing a paper. It actually felt ok, but because we weren't able to honor and celebrate my finishing, everything became a blur.

Last week was incredible. On Tuesday, after getting the kids to preschool/co-op, I had to rush to the library to finish writing my paper for my MIT class. I then went to a grading meeting for the class I'm teaching. I learned so much from teaching this class and it has confirmed how much I really do want to go into academia. Our amazing BokCenter (teaching training/support center at Hahvad) staffperson-Lisa passed around a TF submitted paper. We all read it and then passed "ballots" with the grade we would give it. One TF suggested an A or an A+. The rest were in the B range, and I was the only one that said a "C." Interestingly, it was b/c of the horribly unclear writing. That is one part of academia that I am not looking forward to. I was won over to a higher grade (and the A grader to a slightly lower grade) b/c the student had addressed all of the points in the paper.

During the meeting I got a few phone calls. The first one was from Chris. A friend from co-op who had promised to pick up Kalian afterwards - didn't! Crisis. Fortunately, one of the parents working at co-op took her home with him. Phew. But in the middle of our meeting, I got another call - "Can Kalian eat peanut butter?" Do I need to explain to everyone in the room what my phone calls are about? It was essential to me but were they annoying to everyone else?

Then, I rushed back home to get the car - that was my other dilemma - I would be at the meeting longer than 2 hours for the car meter, so I ended up just leaving the car at home. Ah, the shlepping dance - such a challenge for parents - so much time eaten up by the back and forth. I got over to pick up Kalian a few minutes late - guilt! Other student parents watching her - poor thing - she was soooo sad that Lisa hadn't picked her up - she adores her, and her caregivers hadn't known that she was potty trained and thought she was kidding when she said "peepee poopoo" - her words for having to go #2, so she finally went in her pants. Ah, more guilt that I hadn't warned him. Oh, well. Then, rushed over to pick up Liam. We had a nice afternoon, but as soon as they were in bed, I had to get going on grading papers. Each paper took over an hour to grade - b/c I also had to evaluate their photo essay along with their project.

It was so amazing that one student had really been influenced by documenting the security guards organizing - yahoo - it felt so great to have an impact. Funny, after giving that one practice paper a "C" - I wanted to give a lot of my students "A's" - was it b/c I knew them and understood their projects already? Or was it b/c I emphasized clear writing during the semester and that was a major criteria for me?

Wednesday, back to co-op/preschool and more grading to get the senior's grades in by the deadline. But that afternoon, I took Liam and Kalian to the art store - Liam had really been getting into these special waxy crayons that he likes drawing with, and then I thought I'd drive them over to a park, so Liam could ride his bike. Easier said then done. It was rush hour, and it took me 45 minutes to drive just halfway across Cambridge, but we ended up having a fabulous evening at a big park - with lots of trails, fields, meadows, playgrounds, etc. and had a picnic dinner there. Liam could ride his bike at will and after doing "track and field" in his sports class that week, was fascinated by being on a real track. When we got home, the kids asked if they could have movie night and I said, but you already had "park night." It was so great to have nice warm evenings again which we never get in the Bay Area. It was so great to start spending that kind of time with the kids, too. That night, I jumped back into grading papers all night.

Thursday, we had another glorious day, so after dropping Liam off at preschool, Kalian and I walked down to the Cambridge Common park for her to play a bit. We then headed over to the Kennedy school for our last mid-career women's event - it was actually only the second one I had been able to attend since they are usually during dinner time, when I would need to spend time with the kids, but the organizers had gone out of their way this time (thanx to some of our speaking up) to schedule it at a more convenient kid time. It would have been tough to be there with both kids, but just having Kalian there was so easy! She was a dear and she got doted on by lots of the women. After socializing, we went around the room and talked about our intentions, among other things. I made a comment about being in that same room during my first math class last summer and feeling so intimidatd by all of the men there who had so much quant experience and when I was asked what mine was, I said "teaching my kids their numbers by counting diapers." The women got a kick out of that, but after a woman mentioned during our sharing that she thought we were all being self-indulgent for just talking about our own lives rather than public service, I really pondered her comment. Was I? But I ended up talking about how being in a political movement for social justice for two decades - that the first part at least, was dominated by a male attitude that did not allow time out for family/self, and that I thought this was a problem. I then mentioned how choosing my next step - Berkeley - that I was influenced by the family friendly attitude there while still having very Marxist professors - oops, I thought afterwards, I hadn't meant to be that "out" and had meant to say something about the department being committed to making academia relavent to addressing public problems. When I shared my "oops" with a close political ally, she said that she also was trying to address the comment about the indulgence by also sharing her life's commitment to social justice. Then, I learned that the woman who had dissed us all for non-public service/indulgence had, herself, worked as a corporate consultant for years, even Enron and was just now getting into liberal-ly non-profit volunteerist work - uh, yeah, like we're being self-indulgent - somehow it made me feel vindicated and less schizo and guilty about this year, which has been utterly fabulous.

Well, after picking Liam up from preschool, we stopped by Darwin's to get snacks, and I ended up picking up dinner, which we ultimately ate back at the Cambridge Common Park - we were there all afternoon/early evening - the kids had a blast, and I once again avoided cooking dinner. I was also glad when Chris was not able to get bumped and came home in time to put the kids to bed - while I furiously tried to finish my grading...