The wedding

 My older daughter got married last weekend.  Because of Covid, it was an outdoor ceremony, with only immediate family present. I encouraged them to wait another year--so Covid would be over, and also, why rush a wedding, but they were insistent on now.  We are not a family who considers divorce an option.  If you make a promise and sign a contract, you stick with it, no matter what. If you fall out of love, too bad. You made a promise.  If your spouse is not helpful or kind, too bad.  You made a promise.  So...I tend to want to put off such a binding promise.  I'd feel better if they'd been together a few more years before committing for the next 50+ years, but it's done.  I'm glad she was at least older (30) and had some time to experience life on her own and with different partners.

I got to officiate the wedding, which was held at an apple orchard.  Unfortunately for us, it was 42 degrees.  We didn't wear our coats for the ceremony and pictures, so it was a brutally cold day.  Mark walked Dej "down the aisle", which is something he's always looked forward to.  She wore my grandmother's broach, so grandma was kind of there with us.

It was a very short ceremony, with advice from each of the parents on how to maintain a long, happy marriage, since the four parents have over 50 years (combined) of successful marriage under our belts.  I read a short blessing, and they exchanged rings and read their own vows to each other.

They rented the outdoor pavilion (also cold), with a separate picnic table for each side of the family, which allowed us to remain distant.  Dej made some of her delicious waffles, dipped them in chocolate, and she had raspberries and whipped cream (all vegan, of course!).  I made caramel apple cupcakes, and they also had warm apple cider.  We had lots of delicious food to celebrate with!

I'm so eager to see the photos, which are not yet back!  There are a few that the photographer posted as a sneak peak, but I'm stalking the site for the remainder of the photos.

I'm really proud that they had the exact wedding they wanted, where they wanted it, and did things their own way.  It would have been equally small and simple without Covid.  They are focused on saving their money for a house, rather than dumping thousands of dollars for one day.  Their marriage and life together is so much more important that the wedding, and I'm really glad that they know that.  Dej chose a very non-traditional, but absolutely perfect, red dress, which was very much reflective of her.

I fell behind a bit on my grading but have worked hard this week to get caught up again.  As much as I love and will miss teaching, the idea of having a job where: 1) I'm actually paid for the work I do instead of working summers, holidays, weekends, and most evenings for free, 2) I'm paid fairly for my work, instead of being grossly under compensated while dozens of admin/bureaucrats who generate no revenue and work an easy 40 hours are paid several times what I am, and 3) Having weekends, holidays and actual real days off, really appeals to me.  

The university system is broken and getting more so by the day.  The students certainly aren't getting their money's worth in education, and this makes me feel really bad for them.  Adjuncts are not appropriately compensated.  There are still far too many very low-quality faculty members who are focused more on being published than educating students.  Covid may be the final blow to the quickly failing system.  I hope whatever replaces the system, when it fails, gives the students a quality, affordable education, compensates the teachers (revenue generators) appropriately, and does not simply redistribute wealth to a handful of administrators.

It has been a difficult time to watch what my younger daughter is going through, with one frustration after another and very little help coming from the college, as email after email is ignored.  The majority of her teachers have simply dialed it in, with a complete lack of organization and quality in the materials that they just dumped online with minimal effort.  I donated my entire summer, working full time to create quality materials for remote learning, but I was not paid. We are constantly given the horrible choice of choosing to give our students a quality education at our own peril (hundreds of unpaid labor hours and lost family time) or screw our students over by spending almost no time but having a life and not donating the majority of our time to a university that doesn't offer any compensation or job security in return.  We're paid the same whether we're great teachers or awful teachers. Many of my colleagues, understandably, chose themselves over their students. It's really frustrating to be the parent paying for a sub par education and less-than-professional curriculum and instruction.  I desperately wish there was an alternative.