Brief brain break

I'm finding it very difficult to evaluate what I'm reading in student proposals, so I'm taking a brain break. I hope I can get back to the marking for a while longer tonight; even though I plan on getting in early again tomorrow, I have a lot to get done for tomorrow's classes.

As I'm evaluating the 102 proposals for their grades (which is getting my head out of the short story proposals), I realize I approved a few in some haste: I really should have asked the students to take at least one more step in their thinking before saying "yes, you're good to go." However, it's not too late for me to direct them into a clearer focus; I'm just making comments on the "approved" proposals, either specifying the change that is required or saying "see me." Sometimes the problems are just too hard to explain in pen in the margins.

I also wish I'd done what I did with today's class, and slapped grades on them at the time. True, this moment to read more carefully is pointing out to me where I need to give a little more guidance, but on the other hand, this is taking a fuck of a lot of time. The returning student I have in the T/Th 102 said today that he can see a decided difference in me from last semester: I seem much more stressed. So that sense of having not enough time is leading to galloping anxiety. I just need to breathe through it, and keep pushing forward, and know that I'll get there, one way or another.

I also decided to attend the meeting this morning, the one I was going to blow off. I'm glad I did, in terms of what happened in the meeting (I'm becoming a sort of institutional memory for that committee, and a general translator from our language into Assessment-Edu-speak)--but again, that contributes to the sense of time crunch.

And I don't want to even hope that I might get a breather after the current batch of assignments is out of my hair. For one thing, I know I'm going to be getting a bunch more reading journals from all three classes this week; for another, there's still a mountain of stuff that I've been sitting on since early November that I've yet to complete. I don't want to continue the self-tantalization of thinking I'll get a break that doesn't materialize. I'd rather just accept that I will not, in fact, be able to relax at all this term, not for a second, and that I'll still be relatively busy over the "break." I don't know when to hope for a chance to lie about drooling and blithering--unless I have a complete breakdown, which is unlikely. But I do know it will happen eventually, as long as I keep the pressure on for a while longer.

But I don't want this to sound more horrific than it actually is. I do give myself breaks: they're small but significant. For instance, I will be leaving here at 6:45 to meet Paul for dinner: that's a lovely thing to look forward to. I'm finished in Advisement at 4:15 tomorrow, which means I have a little extra time in the office....

But now, a colleague needs me to jump her car, so off I go to do that.