The day got shot full of them. I played hooky yesterday to get caught up on paper grading and got in a good whack at it, but I needed to do the same today--and it didn't happen. I don't know what happened at home this morning that got me here later than I intended (OK, well, I did reset the alarm but even beyond that, it took me way more than my usual time to get from bed to office). Then on top of whatever happened there, I had to talk to Bruce about that student complaint, which took longer than I anticipated, and then in the office I kept uncovering things I had to take care of, and then a colleague dropped by with a work question and we got chatting--which was great; it was a blast talking with her, but that ate up a bunch more time... and so it went.
Bottom line: I had planned to hang out with another friend tomorrow after work, but I've had to ask for a reschedule: I'm going to have to get in early and still will need to use every second of the afternoon that I can grab after I finish teaching my one class and observing a colleague. I'd even cancel my scheduled private dance lesson at 7:30, except A) I know by then I'll have hit a serious wall anyway, won't be working productively any more, and B) with any luck at all, I'll manage to finish before I hit the wall, or at least get close enough that I can polish off the last few papers during my office hour on Thursday.
Speaking of that office hour, one of my students in Native American Lit sent me an e-mail today asking when he could come by with his withdrawal slip--and I'm going to do everything I can to talk him out of it. He's a real asset to the class: good readings, intelligent comments, personable. He may need to withdraw for reasons having nothing to do with the class itself, which I fully understand, but I hope to hell I can persuade him to stay--for his own benefit and for the benefit of the rest of the class. Without him, we're down to six students. Fortunately, they're six great students, but still. Even one more would be a boon.
Two of the young women from that class stayed after to ask my advice about what degrees they should strive for, what makes sense in terms of majors and further degrees. I love when they feel they can talk to me about that kind of thing: mentoring these young people is one of my favorite parts of my job. Any work I can do one-on-one with the better minds--or even the more dedicated students--is manna.
Today's 102 went fine. The students did pretty well with the poetry, and the joking around and getting silly is building in that bunch. I always take that as a good sign: they're relaxing and getting comfortable with me and with each other. They're better at poetry analysis than they think they are, when they work at it. Pretty cool. I loved when one of the students who has struggled to this point asked if she could keep her reading journals so she could start working on her paper: she wanted her notes to refer to. Absolutely! I'm thrilled she's already getting going with the writing, and delighted she's finding the reading journal valuable to her process. That's the point, after all.
So, that was the day. Now, I'm going to eat a little dinner before I head off to dance class. I can feel the wall looming, so it's unlikely that I'll get even one more paper graded with what's left of tonight, but hope springs eternal. Daylight savings time is helpful: the fact that it's still fully light out tends to keep my energy from flagging completely. Please heaven, that will help me grind through all I need to do tomorrow, too.
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