Nothing much

I graded a few papers on the train on my way into the City last evening, heading for what may be the world's greatest party (an annual event hosted by the husband of one of my friends from the old days at the Met). The first paper, I automatically started marking stuff--not much, but I caught myself and sternly told myself to stop. I will allow myself a "better" in the margin (when that happens) or something equally brief and to the point, but that's it. However, I find that not marking makes it harder for me to remember what I thought as I read, so I end up having to read once, then skim again at least one more time, sometimes several, in order to mark the rubric sheet and remember why I'm thinking "C" or whatever. (I also find I check the grade I gave on the first version--and sometimes wish I'd given that one a lower mark so I could give some credit for the attempt at revising while still reflecting the actual quality of the paper.) Even with the re-skimming, however, the process is still infinitely faster than my usual (even my usual for revisions), so I'll stick to my guns about it. Especially because I didn't touch any papers today, except to load them back in the tote bag to return to campus with me tomorrow. Instead I wanted to get my feet clear--and since I was in the neighborhood of the mall anyway, tried to get some Christmas shopping out of the way so I wouldn't be worrying about that--and ended up walking around in a daze. (Malls. shudder.) I haven't quite recovered. So early to bed and early to rise for me. In fact, I blissfully forgot until just this minute that I'll be getting proposals from the 229 students tomorrow; that's going to gobble up time I hadn't planned for when I blew off grading today. So I'll see how quickly I can churn through those and then get back to the 101 revisions before the 101 final papers come in. Paper jam! Like when the photocopy machine has chewed up several sheets of paper and is hopelessly out of order....

OK, so REALLY early to bed.