Mother’s Day has come and gone. Coffee refills and back rubs are no longer available on demand. A raised eyebrow will not get the dishwasher emptied, the dog fed, or the bed made. Time to get back to reality and my dissonant relationship with housework. I propose a twenty percent increase in the days devoted to the adoration of mothers? Do I have a second?

I’ve been working on the advanced placement tests (known as AP’s) at Notre Dame for the last two weeks, which has left me high and dry in the creativity department, not to mention the hindrance on my free time. It’s a rigorous job that does not accentuate my natural skill set. Labeling it as “a logistical nightmare” is too kind. Imagine the most onerous two week labor, conducted in a six by eight foot cell, no windows, or ventilation, just me and a thousand student packs (yes I exaggerate), waiting to be delivered. 

I spend a good portion of my day counting every single paper that passes through my hands, endless alphabetizing, and dousing the flames of combustible issues that spring up without warning. I have nightmares that someone mistakenly opens the wrong test packet, we run out of answer sheets, I can’t find a single flash drive on the entire campus, the keys to Immanuel Lutheran go missing, or we misplace a seating chart. It takes a team of dedicated people to make this all happen. And the weird thing is I don’t believe in what I’m doing. My beliefs are not congruent with the philosophy of AP’s (testing out of college courses while still in high school). I have to ask myself how is it that I am impregnated with AP’s every year when I’m not testily active?