The journey ... of marking exam papers

IT IS GREAT!!! When I received them from the admin staff I would really love to go straight home, hide myself for a week to mark them! I really can't wait to dig in and see how well the students have done. However, on that day I still have preparation to do in Uni and hence I didn't get home until late in the evening. Nevetheless, after dinner, I jumped into marking. My happiness was not long lived. When I marked the first few scripts I was mortifyingly depressed!!! Well, as you can guess, they didn't do too well... but then suddenly, I encountered one script that I awarded an A.. the feeling was superb! I thought:" Finally! Someone paid attention in my lectures!". Well, this one script gave me enough will power to continue. When I get to the number 15th script, I start to count how many were left. I began to fidget.. impatient to get it done. I noticed that I started to count down how many I still yet to mark. For some bizzare reasons, I kept hoping that after each script I marked, it will reduce by 2 folds. Ha.. obviously it doesn't work that way, but it didn't stop me from counting the remaining scripts everytime I finished one. Pathetic! However, I also observed that once I got to the half way mark, I got a dose of "feel good" marking spirit. On the last 3.. I laughed out loud! Well, I definately like the experience and love to do it again. You must think that I am crazy.. perhaps I am! HA HA HA HA HA HA