killed

i can honestly say, sometimes during the slow month of may around the athletic department it is difficult to see any sort of measureable outcomes. i am a woman of measureable outcomes. i like to see the grade on my paper in red pen (even though my friend a sociology grad student said that it's bad for the psyche to see red on your work), i like to see my calves starting to appear after a few weeks of working out, i like to see a spreadsheet done. and, i like getting a paycheck in the mail.
but as far as teaching goes, sometimes it takes a long time to see if a student understood a concept, or if in fact all of your work has been in vain. sometimes, when no one's around, i wonder if i am doing anything worthwhile around here (which i feel is a question that everyone asks themselves at one point or another in their life). and sometimes, the day seems wasted because i get all of the administrative stuff done in about twenty minutes. that stuff is not difficult.
for the past three days, though, work has been fulfilling. my history of jazz student just left to take his final, and although he still doesn't like jazz at all he's actually remembering who john coltrane is and what instrument he played- a measureable outcome. also, my russian tennis player is able to write relatively complete sentences about the flu epidemic of 1918. outcome two. and, i was able to draw a really sweet diagram of a house that represented the function of ideology and the colonization process for my african american history student. i haven't erased it from the board. he understood. outcome three.
more than anything though, i managed to kill a purple dry-erase marker in the span of two days. that might be the most tangible result of my work in a long time.