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Call me Crazy
OK, so call me crazy, but I am committing to another week of AP reading this summer. Despite a week of kvetching about the brain drain, the monitoring of my reading and how it makes me feel like an inadequate scorer, and the lousy packaged eggs and bad salads, I am sending in my acceptance for another AP reading. I was convinced that I'd been rejected, tossed into the pile of never to be asked again readers since it was close to the end of January and letters usually go out late December. Even though L had not received hers either (and she is now an elevated table leader), I imagined that my table leader of last summer had Xd me off the A list.
And then today the letter comes in the mail inviting me yet again to sunny seedy Daytona for a week in the fast lane of English assembly line work. Confirming with L that hers had arrived too, I decided yup, why not torture myself for a week of paid labor. Half the fun (well truth be told the only fun) is having L as my roommate, trading stories and rushing to catch happy hours at our favorite eatery. Since it will be our third year as roomies, we have the drill down. We now bring our own wine for evening happy hours in the room since a good liquor store within walking distance of the hotel is not to be found, and the first arrival (L since she has to go a day earlier as a leader) manages to swing a few wine glasses from the hotel bar.
Aside from the social activity of hanging and triumphing with a pal, the AP reading is a test of my endurance. For 7 days, 8 hours a day, I report to a convention hall and sit in a room with tons of English teachers and professors from high schools to universities. We are trained to score thousands upon thousands of English language AP essay exams (all that were taken for the year). We read in silence and don't move except when there are breaks (or bladders can't wait). Then, uniformly, we rise and stretch, rise and have a snack and do laps around the building to break the monotony, rise and eat lunch, and rise and leave for the day. It is interminable and for the first few days I believe I cannot do this; I am not meant to have any type of routine. But then, in zenlike subservience, I surrender to the process and become another cog in the ap machinery.
I had meant to tell you that I got my letter a few days ago. As is the
tradition, I declined. I don't know how you do it.
