Exhausted

I had to leave part way through today's P&B meeting. I was falling asleep--and since apparently I can't sleep at night, I thought I'd take the opportunity to get some sleep when my body was demanding it. I came to the office and curled up in our arm-chair with my feet on another chair: I'm short enough that I can get pretty horizontal that way, and I utterly konked out. Fortunately I knew I'd wake up when William returned to the office after P&B; otherwise I'd likely have slept through my class.

And I'm glad I went to the class. They seem like a surprisingly lively and intelligent bunch. There was some serious confusion over idea logs (as always), but we had a great conversation, lots of good input. One student came to me after class to ask if I thought it would be too much for him to take my class and Early American Lit from one of my more demanding colleagues. I asked about the rest of his schedule--and honestly, I think he'd drown. I told him so, but he told me that he was so interested in the class after this first meeting that he didn't want to drop it. I think he's going to see me during my office hour on Thursday; I'll be interested to see what he decides. Another student--not originally from the U.S.--was worried that she didn't know the historical background at all and wondered if she'd be able to really participate in the class, given her lack of knowledge. I encouraged her to do a little research into the history of Native Americans, just so she has a sense of the big picture, but I did tell her that she'd surely learn a fair bit just by being in class.

I realized that I've set up the first two weeks pretty much exclusively on historical background: traditional narratives (mostly creation stories), stuff about the Ghost Dance, the overview of Native cultures and literatures in Paula Gunn Allen's "The Sacred Hoop" (an essay extracted from the book), chapters from Vine Deloria's God Is Red about the difference between Native and Euro-American views of space, place, spirituality and religion.... We won't really get into the literature per se until the third week of classes. But I do think the contextualizing is important. We'll see if it helps the students.

Two other interesting student encounters. On my way to Native American Lit, I saw a young man dashing to class--and he cheerfully smiled and yelled "Hello, Professor!" It was last-semester's Would Be Wonder Student. I was surprised that he was so cheerful and friendly: he didn't follow through on the withdrawal form that I signed for him, so I had to give him a UW, which is the same as an F in terms of GPA. He wrote me an anguished e-mail about that, wondering why he got the UW, and I was pretty blunt in my reply, telling him that he had just learned an important lesson in follow-through. I was sure, based on that exchange, that he'd loathe me forevermore, but apparently not. Or he's good at social fakery. But I choose to believe he's learned a lesson and does not blame me for it: that speaks more highly of him.

The other encounter was via e-mail. I got a very well-written and gracious e-mail from a student who was AWOL from one of the 102 sections yesterday. Turns out that the hurricane wiped out his family's finances, and he was worried about not being able to buy his textbooks, not wanting to come to class unprepared (apparently Paul was very clear that I am a hard-ass but will work with students who reach out). I wrote back to tell him that the reader is free, and that the other books can be had cheap--that I'd even be willing to loan him one of my copies of the handbook. He was thrilled--and apparently surprised. Hey, if he can write that well, I want him in the class, and I'll do what it takes to keep him there.

Now, however, I am beyond exhausted. I meant to get groceries yesterday (the larder is bare, after my being away for 10 days), but I opted to do other, sadder chores instead. But today, I really do need to get some food--especially healthy food. Eating anything that makes sense is almost as difficult as sleeping, but it's even more difficult when there's nothing appealing in the house. I've decided to bail on tomorrow morning's assessment meeting and on my stint in Advisement (again). If I can sleep late, I will. If I can't, I'll come in and continue to try to get organized. I still feel like my own private hurricane flew through my work area and left everything scrambled, and I can't go on like that for long without losing what's left of my mind. There's Thursday morning, too, but I think I'm going to need both days to begin to feel like I'm getting a handle on this part of my life. It does feel good to lose myself in work as much as I can--and that will be all the easier when I feel I'm making forward progress of some kind.

But now, food. Then--please God--sleep. And tomorrow is that other day we keep hearing about.