A paraphrase of Henry Reed’s most famous
line came back to me today when the pile of marking seemed to threaten to
overwhelm, “Today, today we have marking of scripts”.
I have just looked it up to re-read “Naming
of Parts” and as an added bonus for my interest discovered a recording of Dylan
Thomas reciting the poem. His attempted common
accent for the gun demonstrator emphasised the fragility of his own and his
wayward emphasis added to the comedy of the piece. It is surely one of the best poems to come
out of World War II and, while I can stumble my way through many poems from
World War I, “Naming of Parts” is the only one of the later war that sticks in
my memory with complete lines resounding there.
At least the marking is done; only the
irritation of transferring the marks to the computer is left to do and then
probably putting those marks somewhere else as a stage in the pointlessly
endless pilgrimage of assessment leaving behind a litter of numerical offerings
like votive candles at various electronic shrines (and having just about the
same effectiveness) that the School on the Hill regards as
course, while I am preparing for my second
tutor marked assignment. As this one is
creative writing it should play to my strength while my two efforts as a result
of the Internet tutorial are now receiving comments from the rest of the tutor
group
Ah well, count the months; this all must
have a stop – and the week before the end of June is when I bow to my final
juvenile audience!
At the end of this month Toni starts his
“orientation” for his IT and I will have sent off my next assignment.
And tomorrow the rest of my classes sit yet
more examinations.
And it’s a full day! Just one damn thing after another!
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