Late and tired

I woke up this morning at 3:55, finally unable to ignore the fact that I was starting to build a migraine. Took Excedrin (drug of choice in that instance) and hoped to fall back to sleep, but nope, brains had already hopped on the hamster wheel and wouldn't get off. What to say to students in class, what assignments to prep, how to present X, do Y, be sure to remember Z and Q. Then, in addition to that one, brains got on another hamster wheel: for the promo folder I need to remember this and this and this and...

And at a little after 5, I gave up and got up. The headache was lurking but I'd caught it early enough that it never fully developed--though the "hangover" part still was going on. But in the early morning dark, I finally read the preface and intro a conference colleague had sent me for the book project he's working on: we've been on some ecocrit/sci-fi panels together, so he wanted my feedback. It pretty much amounted to "Geez, this is really good and boy did you give me a long list of stuff to find at the library"--but I did see a connection between Dune and Le Guin's Always Coming Home (don't worry if you have no clue about either 0f them). So hooray, I crossed something off my to-do list other than "mark assignments, mark more assignments, keep marking assignments." I also did some corrections to a reading list for a revised course description (just editorial stuff but gratifying). Signed up for the Methods and Materials committee (no, I'm not insane: I'll just be listening to other people's presentations; I don't have to do anything other than be there with something approaching a brain). I want to find out when Literary Theory meets, too: I'm trying to find ways to get scholarship back in the mix, even with the insanity of what I do to myself at Nassau.

And classes went well, I think, despite the post-migraine, post-insomnia lack of smooth and coherent brain function. (The migraine hangover feels like the synapses don't quite line up correctly, so things take longer to process and there are odd gaps.) I told my students I might be a little slow and incomprehensible, but once I got going, I just got daffy. I made bad jokes (some students even found a few of them funny, go figure) and generally put on a show. All to explain their first formal essay assignment. And just going over the assignment and what I look for and how they need to think about it took the entire class period. The RB section is the most fun so far: I have to haul them out of the chandeliers on occasion, but I'd far rather that than having to reach for my cattle prod.

However, a student did bring to my attention that in my concern to get the "Tuesday is a Monday so we only meet on Thursday" stuff clear, I completely left off the reading that I intended to assign. It's on the M/W (section MB) syllabus but didn't make it onto the T/Th syllabi. That wouldn't be a problem, except that it is one of three essays they can use for their papers. Enormous oops. On the other hand, this has given me an opportunity to test the brang-spanking new NCC student e-mail system. I sent out group e-mails to both T/Th sections and told them that if they do the reading, it'll count as extra credit. (I'm usually adverse to extra credit, but ... well, I'll talk about that some other time.) It'll be interesting to see how many get the e-mail and do the work. To increase the odds that at least a few will read the essay, I may also send the message to their personal e-mail addresses (which I collect on their attendence cards).

In any event, I didn't bring any work home tonight. There was a concert on campus this evening in honor of my dear friend Denise, who died last September at age 38. Prior to the concert, I went to dinner with Kristin--who was part of the "clover leaf" of friends with Denise and me. It was pretty sad--especially as the last piece was a taped version in which Denise read Stevie Smith's "Not Waving But Drowning" (hearing her voice was wonderful but painful)--but I'm glad we went. I did cancel the ride tomorrow and instead intend to go back to the office to work for a while. I'll try to go in on Monday, too. I'll have to bring work home in between, as I've gotten myself into such an enormous hole, but I really do work better in the office than at home.

I cannot believe my eyes are still open so... end of post.