Amazing

I am perpetually astounded by how much I can find to do, and how endless the potential tasks are. It's only my second day back in the classroom, and already I could easily stay here in the office, doing productive work, until well into the night. I could review the readings I've assigned to students for the next few days; double-check some upcoming handouts, revise them if necessary, proof and print them if they're good to go; review materials prior to next Tuesday's initial P&B meeting; combine syllabi into one master document for easy at-home reference ("what do I need to be ready with today? Can I cancel class?") ; organize grade records and student info from previous semesters; clean out and organize my office bookshelves; send readings that need to be photocopied for future assignments off to the copy center...

And that's just the stuff that springs immediately to mind, having to do with work here on campus. I also need to work on the paper I'll be presenting in a few weeks at a conference in Montana, and would like to work on the book proposal for the student edition of a Le Guin novel that I'd like to put together...

... that list goes on beyond zebra, too.

What have I done? I taught my classes (natch); finished the work I was doing for Bruce (which did turn out to be easy, once I took it a piece at a time--or at least it was easy if I did it correctly); met with a student (yes, they're already coming to me with questions and problems--a good sign); sent a letter to a student who got an incomplete last semester and hasn't been seen or heard from since (she's a potential A student, so I'm giving her every chance to come through on that, instead of getting the C she actually earned); made photocopies that I ran low on for the Short Story class, and now, wrote in this blog.

What I will do next is re-read the story my students will be discussing tomorrow (I probably won't be able to keep that up all semester, but it's always good when the material is fresh in my head), and then head off for dinner with Paul.

And we all know what tomorrow is, right, Scarlett?