Hee-dawgy!

I did it, amazingly enough, and managed to get the damned award application finished and submitted today, shortly after 5 p.m. I even had a chance to read it over one last time, found a few small errors, fixed them (reprinting the necessary pages), and feel relatively good about the result. Part of my ability to do this is that all three of the students I was supposed to meet with today canceled their appointments (well, actually, one was simply a no-show), which bought me almost two hours that I didn't think I was going to have. Last night, talking with Ed, I suddenly thought, "Oh shit! I forgot to include classroom observations!" Then this morning (yes, at 5 a.m.), I suddenly thought, "Oh shit! I forgot to add the rubrics I described!" Then this morning when I got to the office, I saw Paul's lovely, glowing letter of praise and support for my application--but, oh shit! He mentioned my conferencing with students in my comp sections--and yesterday that was a piece I'd decided not to get into. As it turned out, it was not difficult at all to add a bit about that, and to add the "conference guidelines" handout, as well as a few other handouts I also decided to include (with out the swearing involved). I'd been amazed and daunted--and also amused--by the size of Paul's application folder, but, well, gosh, turns out mine is pretty much the same size. Same size binder, anyway, though not quite as full.

I will be stunned and utterly humiliated if I don't get the damned thing now. But it's done. Thank god.

On a bit of a down side, one student did withdraw from Nature in Lit; he'd said he thought he needed to, and he didn't let me talk him out of it. Another has been AWOL all week (the one who was a no-show for both appointments this week). I left her a message on her voice mail, asking her to check in with me--but she's so shy, if she's feeling embarrassed about something, I'm not sure she'll have the courage to show up and talk to me about it. I hope I haven't lost her, though; she was starting to come out of her shell beautifully, and I'd hate for that to come to a halt.

And in Native American Lit, the Whiner was absent today--and sent me an e-mail with the subject line "Please Read." That got my hackles up a bit ("Don't I always? Have I ever not read one of your messages?") but more to the point, the message was a long, rambling sob-story about why she had to miss class. More Whining, and I'm utterly, thoroughly sick to god-damned death of it. My e-mail, however, was very compassionate: gee, I'm sorry about your difficulties; of course you need to take care of these problems; I understand you have no option but to miss class (blah blah blah)--BUT you're about to fail just on your absences alone. What do you want to do about that? Nice nice nice WHAM.

She's obviously not been doing the reading, and she hasn't done a lot of the writing, and even though it would reduce the class to three, I'd actually be somewhat relieved if she'd just go. If she stays, I hope she sheds the sad-sack, poor-persecuted-me routine, sucks it up, and does her work.

Back to Nature in Lit, I did talk to them about their missing papers (ahem). What do you want to do? If you're going to turn them in, you'd better do it soon or they're going to run up against your final papers. If you want me to cancel the assignment altogether, I can--but then the grade weight has to go somewhere else.... The three who were there looked sheepish and all promised papers next week. Uh-huh. I'm pretty confident I'll get the one from Wonder Student; the other two? Not so much.

But they are signing up for appointments with me, which I like very much.

Tonight I have one more chore I want to at least start, if I can concentrate well enough (proofreading the course selection form for spring 2013). Then water the plants and the week is done.

Oh, such bliss to have that application out from under my feet--literally!