The Wall: Redux

I'm hitting the wall pretty early tonight. I still have eight papers to evaluate before tomorrow's classes; I'm doing the most cursory possible feedback, but since they've not finalized the papers yet, I can't blow off the job entirely, much as I'd like to. And I have another four to evaluate for the Native American Lit class; I collected them today. The young man didn't have his second version, so he's just going to put it all on the final version. OK, I guess. I just don't have it in me to lecture him about not following the process, not being fair to the other students, yada-yada-yada. Do it; don't do it. I can't give a shit.

I did, however, feel stressed almost to the point of tears heading to class. Part of the distress and anxiety arose from talking over the problem faculty we're facing (the one full-time train-wreck I observed, plus three adjuncts who really need to be dismissed, if we can just get sufficient evidence against them in line). Part of it arose from just seeing all the fucking P&B shit facing me--and knowing I have a week, essentially, in which to get it done and out of my hair, all the while trying to find time to grade papers and actually teach, of all things.

I was deeply tempted to offer to my students that we not watch the movie today (the beginning of Skins), that we just ditch the next two classes--but I opted to show them part of the movie, and they decided they'd like to see the rest of it. More, if they weren't going to watch the movie, they wanted to conference with me about final papers, while I was hoping I could have the class time to work on other stuff, not hold their dainty little hands. But really, there are only five of them; even if I do some conferencing, it won't be terrible. It's just that doing any evaluation of student work takes a hell of a lot of brain, and my brain energy is running on fumes.

A great disappointment today: A student in the earlier 102, the one I tried very hard to keep as his work had been improving, turned in his second version yesterday, smiling and telling me he'd managed to write more pages this time around. Actually, he hadn't: he'd plagiarized more pages. I've been bending over backward to give him breaks, and he does this. Well, he may just have blown his chances for passing: I need to talk to him, and among other things, I need to remind him that he still has not submitted his second paper--and it may now simply be too late. I don't want to get in the position of doing anything he can take to Bruce as a legitimate grievance, but I also don't want to cut him even a hair of slack any more--and I'll tell him so.

But what I'm happy about--and it is odd that there is anything to be happy about in this situation--is that I'm not angry, my nose is not in the least out of joint; I'm not sitting here gritting my teeth and thinking he's a fucking little ingrate. I'm just sorry that he's fucked himself over like this, and I'm not going to try to rescue him. Truly: ah well. Too bad, but there you go.

I will say, it was easy to find the plagiarism, which is good. I have a feeling that at least two other students got some ideas from the web that they're not acknowledging, but I spent a little too much time trying to track it down, and I finally gave up. I just didn't want to put any more time into the quest. As it was, I didn't get much done this morning, not only because I let myself sleep in (which I knew I'd regret) but also because I spent some time going over P&B business in advance of today's meeting. That meant I was better prepared for the meeting than I usually am, but it also meant that many fewer papers got marked today.

And now that the wall is upon me, I need to be realistic about what I can get graded tomorrow--and when. I'm not sure yet whether I'll get up at 5 a.m. in order to try to get everything marked before Advisement, or whether to be late to Advisement, knowing I'd have to make up the time. I'm already going to have to make up a bunch of time on Thursday (because of conflicts with departmental assessment meetings), which means I also have to figure out when I'm going to read and comment on the papers for Native American Lit.

I also thought of the thing I've been leaving off my to-do list: I have to place my book orders. This is difficult, as I have absolutely no clue what books to order for Mystery and Detective Fiction. Well, I may be working on that after the semester ends, around all the scheduling stuff. Or I may not order books for that class at all: I may just have students check them out of libraries or buy el-cheapo copies at whatever bookstore. I'll have to look into prices for the books, in any event....

Ach, whatever. I'm tired and I am insanely hungry (how can this be? I ate lunch...). So I need to begin the mental segue from work mode into wind-down. I postponed the dinner/work session with Paul that was supposed to be tomorrow: I just can't do it this week (and certainly can't be ready for any work with him at the moment). I have to de-knot myself somehow, pretty quickly, but I can't decompress so rapidly that I get the mental equivalent of the bends. It all starts with food (and often ends with food, too, in my universe).