So I've been here in the office since noon. It's now after 3, and so far I've made some copies of assignments (and updated some for this semester and next), completed the attendance census (an administrative chore), sent out an e-mail to 101MB (M/W section) to test the NCC student e-mail, put papers in stacks in priority order (and put one class's stack in order by students' last names). Seems like there must be some other stuff I've forgotten, but the point is, I've spent three hours clearing my feet and haven't set pen to assignment. I think it's some genetic trait: I just don't know how long anything will take. (The joke is that I think everything takes half an hour. How long to make a cup of coffee? Half an hour. How long to climb Mt. Everest? Half an hour.) Consequently I think, "Oh, I have time for that, it's only going to take..." and next thing I know, someone has to send out the St. Bernard dogs to find me under the avalanche.
I do have a little bit of an excuse today, however: once again, not enough sleep (and very interrupted sleep at that--storms of dreams). I am wired up, but the lack of sleep makes it difficult for me to focus enough even to read homework, never mind figure out how to mark it.
So, I'm doing the Scarlett O'Hara thing again: "I'll think about that tomorrow, when I'm stronger. After all, tomorrow is another day." I am going to take the enormous pile of stuff home with me (and hope it doesn't spontaneously combust), but what I need more than anything is to somehow knock myself out for a serious nap. I expect tomorrow I'll be useless (it's usually a day or two after I go on a sleep-deprivation binge that I feel it), so I'm not going to pretend I'll do anything. Sunday, though.... And I will come back to the office on Monday and take advantage of the classless day.
God, I'm starting to bore myself with this refrain. What's the contemporary equivalent of a broken record? (Though vinyl is coming back, so maybe the simile will make sense again.) As I write this I realize how tedious I must sound to my nonacademic friends--and even many of the ones in academia--when I'm in the throes of the semester. Paul calls our existence bulimic, and it's an apt analogy. When we're working, we're buried in it, absolutely consumed by it--and then we get periods when nothing requires urgent attention, so we pretty much turn into sea cucumbers (you know, wash with the tide, ingest at one end, excrete at the other, that's it). And I front-load the semesters, so generally in the last month of the term I have a little respite before the deluge of final papers. I have at least given up putting together a complicated final grade accounting and giving that to students along with their graded final papers on the last day of class. I'll do the accounting thing for anyone who asks, as I will actually comment on a paper for anyone who asks, but without the specific request, I'll just read the final papers, compute grades, and turn 'em in. Basta. Genug. Can't remember the French. Enough.
That feels like it's millennia from now (though the last few weeks of the semester suddenly seem to ramp up to warp speed). But it is some solace to remind myself that the breathers will come from time to time.
So, I'm going to pack up, head home, and, well, remember to breathe.
By the way, I think David Quammen wrote one of his funny and fascinating essays about sea cucumbers. I'll have to check. And if you haven't ever read his essay about crows, find it. It's great.
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