The shoulds

I should be sorting through the folder for ENG102GD (tomorrow's 11 a.m. class) to pull out the assignments that were turned in on Monday and at least get them organized if not start in on the marking. Or, barring that, I should do the same for ENG265, or for today's 101 and 102 classes. Or, I should start making some of the photocopies of the poems I'll be teaching in 265 in the last weeks of the semester. But I. Just. Won't.

I have become the total absent-minded professor. I just exchanged several e-mails with a student about the assignments for 265--only to see, prominently noted in the subject line of her messages to me, that she is in Monday's 102 class. Poor thing; she must be utterly bewildered. I have tried to straighten everything out, but then I sent a message to her and forgot to attach the attachments. (I know we all do that on occasions, but this poor young woman is confused enough.) What the hell is wrong with my brains?

And I am utterly unhappy with how I taught 102 yesterday; today went infinitely better. I gave the right handouts in the right order and explained things much more clearly and fully today. I also made up a little lecture in 101, right on the spot, about the stages of the writing process (drawing in part on an illustration in that style guide I reviewed a bit ago, which clarifies the iterative process of writing). It worked so well, I did it in today's 102. So I'll do it in tomorrow's 102, but I feel all geenchy that the 102s are not in sync in terms of handouts and lessons taught. Argle-bargle-yagh.

Deep, cleansing breath.

So, I've written off my brains for tonight. They are clearly barely functional, so I'm not even going to try to accomplish anything. Instead, I will eat a little dinner; I'll read more of PrairyErth, then go to dance class, then go home and (I hope) fall quickly into bed and a profound slumber. The fantasy is that I'll wake up tomorrow with a shiny newly refurbished brain. And I'll tackle the chaos of papers and handouts (what's been given out, what hasn't, what I should give out when and why) when that sparkling tuned-up brain has been installed.

I think of the Geoffrey Rush character in Shakespeare in Love, saying that things will work out, they always do. How? It's a mystery. But they will. And things work better with sleep.