"Oh, Shit!" moment number 2,837 (or so)

Got to the 102 class today--and I didn't have any of the handouts: not for the different version of the logs that they'll use for the novel (including plot summary of the designated chapters), not for the glossary assignment, not the sample glossary. I got back to the office to find them sitting smugly on top of the radiator, underneath an inter-office envelope that I'd tossed in that direction to deal with later. Shit, shit, shit.

But the students were pretty cool about it. I told them to download the stuff from the faculty home page (I just checked: they assignment sheet and log form are both there--whew). I'll bring in the sample log--and the other stuff too (what the hell; I have it, after all)--to class on Thursday. The assignment sheets will be too late to be very useful, but at least the model glossary should help.

I will be fascinated to see how they do with the first reading. They were a little boggled by the density of information in the first few pages that we read, but I reassured them that most of the time they'll just read; they'll only have to work at that level of detail when they feel confused or unclear. And yes, we'll go over it all in class.

Two students didn't have their papers but should have them for me tomorrow. One student--the one who missed the first paper altogether, but who is great with the in-class stuff--showed up at the office after my classes, paper in hand. We talked for a bit: she said that she feels embarrassed about the paper, so I talked to her about A) silencing the inner critic and B) looking at writing as a process. The first version of anything is crap. It was a nice little talk, and she felt greatly reassured when she left. And I'm glad not to have lost her. Her grade for the semester may be dreadful, because of that missing first paper, but I think she stands to learn a lot.

One very smart student withdrew today. I had a feeling she would: she's missed a lot of class because things in her family are falling apart. She says she'd like to take the class from me next semester, and I'd welcome that. Lots of potential in that young woman.

The Mystery class was fine, nothing much to report. However, two students came to me at the end of class to admit that they never uploaded their papers to TurnItIn. I thought everyone had--but I was just looking at the list of students who actually have TurnItIn accounts. Those two young men do not. Ahem. Well, late penalty for them. And one student didn't turn in the printed copy. He was supposed to drop it on my office door by 7:15; it's almost 8:30 and no sign of it. We'll see if it's there tomorrow morning. If not, I'll have to decide what to do. One student annoyed the crap out of me by saying that he'd submitted his rough draft--and he handed me the paper he really meant to submit. I'm not so sure I buy it--but I'll look at the "real" one anyway. I won't mark a hell of a lot, though, since I already marked the one he handed in initially.

And chances are, I won't get the papers back to them on Thursday, much as I'd like to. I got all but five done (I think; I haven't checked the tally in a while), but now I'm going to be up to my antlers in the 102 papers. I had hoped to get a start on those tonight, but instead, I spent the time after class getting fully prepared for tomorrow's class. (After today's "oh shit" debacle, I'm jumpy about doing it again.)

So, the stories are all copied to distribute. I have an exercise in mind for when we run dry in discussing the chapters from Long, Dark Tea-Time.... In fact, the exercise I have in mind may well become their third stories. If it works as I'm hoping, it will.

So, the decks are cleared for me to hit the ground running on those 102 papers tomorrow. I've let the good folks on the Assessment committee know I won't be there, ditto the folks in Advisement. So tomorrow, I will get here as quickly as I can possibly manage, and will sit at my desk and grind until I have to go sub the class for my colleague and then teach my own class. Then, if I haven't made sufficient progress, I'll grind some more after class.

The time for grading papers on Thursday has gotten bollixed up--but in a good way, I suppose. First, I sub for my colleague at 10. Then, I was going to have an individual training session in our online teaching platform, but I canceled that--in part because the departmental tech folks are going to do our own little workshop but more because presentation of Chancellor's Awards will take place at the General Faculty meeting on Thursday. And I want my damned medallion. It's silly to take this seriously at all: I know how little competition there is for the thing and how easy it is to clear the hurdles (essentially, getting nominated and putting together the application are the only real possible sticking points). But it sure as hell looks good on the CV: "Recipient of 2013 Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching."

It's time to stop for the night. As it is, I'm going to have a hard time powering down quickly enough to get a decent night's sleep before tomorrow's early alarm. I have to try not to think too far down the pike: I know I'm going to have to take work home this weekend (dammit), but that's not anything I can do anything about now. I can't do another lick of work that requires any brain cells at all. Including re-reading this post. Warts and all: up it goes.