A dark little secret: I like to grade tests!

The prof had a pile of final exams to grade, and asked me if I would "pretty please" help him with the task -- he still had a backlog of homeworks to grade. And so we spend the morning at the dining room table, listening to Bach's Christmas Oratorio, grading away. I do actually LIKE to grade papers (up to a point -- bad handwriting and lousy grammar do get to me after a while!).

I had the smoothest red ballpoint pen in my hand, and, oooh -- it did such a fine job when I found a glaring mistake and got to cross out incorrect answers -- I found myself marking them up with glee! Yup, the dirty little secret is out: there's a part of me that does enjoy the occasional session with the RED PEN.

But then, ugh, there were bills to be paid, and the checkbook to be balanced, and that was not nearly as much fun -- perhaps I should have used a different color...