Faith in the Unseen Fruit

I must be out of my mind.

With so few days left before the onslaught of school and without having cleared several of the bigger items on my summer t0-do list, I have taken on a massive project. What was I thinking?

Perhaps it was the need to help a friend in his time of crisis. Perhaps it was the need for a little academia to grease my own mental wheels before having to spout lessons about grammar and syntax. Perhaps it was insanity that prompted me to volunteer to proofread this 180-page doctoral thesis.

The title is daunting. I can see my pencil (no red pen between friends) quivering with uncertainty: Can I DO this? What if I read the first three sentences and none of it even sounds like my native English? What if my ADD kicks in and I can finish only a page each day because the precious puppy next door needs to be scratched and the laundry needs to be folded and the weeds in the flower beds need to be pulled???

I forge ahead. The first paragraph makes sense. I mark a comma error.

Paragraph two flows neatly. I suggest a different word in one sentence. . . .

An hour and a half later, I've absorbed 11 pages, marking, making suggestions. And I realize that my years in the classroom haven't dumbed me down as much as I thought.

More importantly, as I read about the Rise of Rhetoric in the Reformation Pulpit (you can thank me later for the paraphrasing of the title), I am inspired. In just a few weeks, students will warm the desks in my classroom, less than eager to learn why (and when) an infinitive should not be split, what symbols are developed in The Glass Menagerie, and why a clear thesis sentence is vital to an essay. They will learn these things to glean a grade acceptable to themselves, to their parents, to the colleges they want to enter. But they will learn. They will learn because I will teach them.

And someday, when someone volunteers to read THEIR doctoral theses, the unwitting editor will say just what I said: "Ahhhh. Good, clear, academic writing. How refreshing!"