Back in the saddle again

It's strange how normal it feels to be back at work, buried under mounds of stuff to do. That sounds paradoxical but actually isn't: after my time away, I'd expect to feel a little more disconnected from the patterns here, but it seems they are powerful enough to reassert themselves instantaneously. I was having anxiety attacks on the plane last night, thinking of all I have to do--and it is a ton--but now that I'm back on campus, it's just "Oh, right, this again." All I can do is to keep chipping away at it, doing as much as I can, when I can.

Both classes today went well. The colleague who subbed the short-story class was nice enough to write a little note describing what had happened and saying they are a great class (I agree). They liked her, too, and enjoyed that she tended to say, "I'm hip with that." Apparently they did a fine job of finding the "coming of age" aspects of the Lorrie Moore story they'd read--and they did the same again with the story we read for today, Tess Gallagher's "The Lover of Horses." Many of them seem poised to do their papers on this theme, which is fine by me. I need to warn them that the next few stories are not in that same theme--in fact, I'm not entirely sure what to say about any of them thematically. The Le Guin story they're reading for Wednesday is about a woman and her son-in-law adjusting to their new relationship in the wake of her daughter's/his wife's death and his gradual movement into a new romantic relationship. The other two stories are way out on other limbs, but I assigned them simply because they are interesting. I told the students to read them but pointed out that strictly speaking, they don't need to do their journals on those two: they have 22 journals assigned for 20% of their grade, so I'm counting each journal as 1%. The additional journals get factored into that 20%, essentially functioning as extra credit. Reminding the students of that may have been a mistake (they're unlikely to read if they don't have to journal), but I want them to focus primarily on their proposals and final papers. If the last two stories take a pass, oh well. I will be sorry if they don't read John Crowley's "Gone," which conveys a lovely idea at the end, but again, oh well.

I didn't get feedback from the 102 about their library session, but I forgot to ask: I'll try to remember on Wednesday. Only two of the students wanted time in class to go over their proposals before turning them in: everyone else wanted my feedback, then time in class. Fair enough. We had a pretty good class discussion--and a few of them have already finished the book, which is great. Everyone is supposed to finish it this week, and for once, I think the majority will actually finish as scheduled. I've started marking their proposals, and typically, so far I'm not seeing many with a working or workable thesis. In fact, at least one has a thesis that is actually the exact opposite of what the novel suggests--which does rather make one wonder what the student has been understanding out of what she's read. But they're getting there: I insist on the proposals because I'd rather they have their train-wrecks now instead of derailing utterly at the end, when it's too late to salvage anything.

One of the students from that class dropped by a minute ago to give me the printout of the critical source for her proposal, which she'd not had in class today. She also wanted to talk about her attendance, to see if she's in grade trouble yet. Technically, yes, she is, but I tend to forgive a little for the students who are still hanging on, fighting the good fight, at this end of the term. But the nice thing is that she said she is having her first real college experience: my class made her buy a printer, a laptop computer, a thumb drive--and significantly improve her writing and thinking. She says she will be happy no matter what happens, even if she fails, because she is learning, understanding now more than she ever has what is going to be expected of her as she moves forward. I don't think she was blowing smoke, either: I think she genuinely feels that way. Isn't that lovely?

I am now, however, paralytically tired. My body has no clue what time zone it's in (I've been in three in the past ten days) but it knows it hasn't gotten enough sleep the last three nights, so it's starting to scream at me. I "should" try to burn through some more work tonight, but we all know I start sentences like that to explain all the reasons why I won't. My evening office hour will be over by the time I finish this post, and then I'm off to start the glide toward bed and sleep--early, please heaven, and deep, if not for as long as my body might prefer.