I take it back.

Over the weekend I told several people that this week shouldn't be too bad. I take it back. I just realized I have a lot to get done for Wednesday at 11--and virtually no time to do it in, not and do my job in terms of adjunct scheduling. I passed by the office today and saw Bruce hard at work on the scheduling; I'm hoping like mad there isn't much left for me to do--or that maybe I can do it on Thursday instead of tomorrow (which would free up a ton of time). I canceled my physical therapy appointment for tomorrow morning; the receptionist asked me if everything is OK. I said, "My life is blowing up, but my body is fine." Continuing cat crisis and, and, and... I don't even know what all. No time, no brain, too much to do.

I did finish the freelance editing job for my colleague--but now she wants to sit down and go over it. I told her Thursday--by which time things really should be better; I should be down to crunching the numbers, not reading/marking any more papers (or only a few) (or I hope). And I finally took a look at the promotion applications I'm mentoring and responded about those. I have some bits of leftover homework for the 102s that I will, by God, get done tonight--but I'm going to take it home (need to be home to care for the cat). I had hoped to go do dance tomorrow, but that's looking unlikely, unless a miracle occurs.

The students in the Short Story class really did not want to do the wrap-up, talk about what they got out of the semester, what worked. They confirmed my hunch that in the future, I need to give more specific topics for the paper assignments: even though they will need to learn how to develop their own topics eventually, it seems they're not ready for it yet. Fair enough. They generally said that the idea logs were helpful. Most of them had at least one story they'd liked. A few legitimately felt they got something good out of the experience. A few gave a nice goodbye at the end (including two who thanked me for making them stick it out, not quit). Only two want comments on their papers (sweet). I'm glad as many crossed the finish line as did--and I see a number of "mercy D" grades coming.

No clue what the 102s will be like tomorrow. It will be interesting.

But now I have to figure out what to take home--finding that balance between what I'd like to get done and what's realistic to expect I'll actually do. And I have to go home.

More tomorrow.