Cooked!

I just had to kvetch at Paul for a few minutes: I've spent the day reviewing promotion applications, reviewing student writing, reviewing other P&B members' revised letters in support of applications, and I just fucking cannot evaluate anyone's anything anymore. Stick a fork in me; I'm done.

Over the weekend I got the observations written up--finally. Yesterday and today, I went through the promotion applications for my two mentees, so those are done--finally. I looked at another one to do at least a little more of the P&B business that's been taking a back seat all semester long--and I'll look at whatever else I can tomorrow. It feels good to get things crossed off the enormous "to do" list (flambe), but I have that horrible sense that I'm forgetting something crucial.

One huge relief: I realized that the deadline for the paper I've been working on is actually January 31, not December. I can't let it recede too far into the background: the publication will publish the article in English, but I need to provide the abstract and key terms in both English and Spanish. Therefore, I have to be certain my excellent and praise-worthy translator has sufficient time to do the translation without feeling crunched for time himself.

Keeping the pressure on, however, I do want to get a start on the adjunct schedules this week, and really, the only time I have is Thursday morning. But I'd like to have more time than that, so the question becomes, do I ditch college-wide Assessment yet again (I've been away more than I've been there) so I can buy some time tomorrow? I do have a question for the dean of that area (a question arising from our departmental Assessment meeting), but I may have to track her down outside of the meeting anyway. I don't know: I'll wait to decide tomorrow.

And the Chancellor's Award application? Oh, I don't know. Later.

Classes today were fine. All the students who remain in the short-story class got their proposals approved, and we still had time for a reasonable class discussion of the story they read last week. We'll discuss one more story on Wednesday; then I'll collect their final papers on Monday, do the little end-of-semester "post-mortem," and that'll be that. Most of the students in the 102 didn't want much if any help from me: they showed up; I handed back their last journals; I had them work with each other for a bit and ask me any questions, and then I said, "If you'll be better served by taking off to work on your paper on your own, or to do your math homework, or whatever, go ahead and split." Their papers are due on Wednesday--as in, two days from now; then they do final self-evaluations for next Monday, and then that's all over but the shouting. One would think they'd want my help, but when I told them they could split, most did. A few stayed, and I was somewhat cranky with one of them: he's trying, bless his heart, but trying to explain things to him is rather like talking to a box of cotton. I keep telling him his problem is that his sentences are not clear, but really, what I know, and what Paul says not only to me but to his students, is that unclear sentences are evidence of unclear thinking. And that's the real issue. This kid wants a B, but he doesn't have a B brain, I'm sorry to say. He'll get a C because of his efforts--assuming he can pull his paper together at all.

Well, well, what's a girl to do.

Head for home, I think, is the answer. I'm going to shovel things around a little, so I have an idea what's in front of me for tomorrow, and then I'm going to shuffle off, not quite to Buffalo, though if I thought I could get away with the escape, even that might be a desirable destination. The winter break can't come soon enough--or last long enough. Can't I just be off until next fall?