Oh, Gawd

I'm starting this post at 8:38 p.m. I just finished writing up the sabbatical support letters, which I swore to myself  I would finish today. I'd have finished earlier, but I accidentally wrote over the first one I did (moron): it was a gorgeous letter, and I'd spent a lot of time getting it just right. Fuck. The reconstruction is not as elegant but gets the same points across--and may actually be better for not being so elegant. Whatever. They're done.

And for the first time in a very long time--certainly for the first time this semester--I have to take work home with me to finish up tomorrow. It looks like an impressive stack, but it really isn't so much: it's just the little bits and orts I've gathered from the Fiction Writing students and haven't returned to them yet. I still don't have one revision report, although I have the story, and I have bugger-all nothing from two students (including the Brit and my perennially late/lazy student from both Mystery and Nature in Lit). And their next stories are due on Wednesday, which is fine, except we've gotten to the part of the semester when I cannot count on having time during Advisement to do anything: it's mobbed, as students frantically try to figure out what they're going to take in the spring.

I was very late getting there today (and I don't know why, as I got up at the usual time and didn't do much beyond the normal getting ready), and I was in such a rush to get there that I left my reading glasses behind. There was a day, not too long ago, when that wouldn't have been a problem--and in fact, I could see things well enough to do my job, but it was not as comfortable as it is with the glasses. God, I hate that--but I steadfastly refuse to turn into an old biddy who wears her glasses on a chain around her neck (or loses them in her hair-do).

Well, whatever.

Class was OK today. We didn't do a whole lot, but they seemed engaged enough. I did ask them what they got out of working on my stories with me, and their answers reveal that the work is of some benefit to them but not so much that I think "Oh, perfect: this is what I'll do from here on." Not that I'll have so many days in which I have to figure out how to keep them amused: we basically have workshops, then a week, then more workshops, then a week--and that's it, since we don't meet at all Thanksgiving week.

Hang on to the safety bar and scream indeed. In fact, even the "holiday" tomorrow doesn't feel like much of a holiday, as I have a fair amount of life maintenance to do plus the assignment marking: I feel very much as if I'm being chased down a chute with a cattle prod. But a lot of what electrifies the prod is work that I'll have to turn my attention to on Wednesday or later, as it isn't anything I can take home with me. Thank god.

There is probably more that I could say about today, but I'm too tired and addled (and hungry) to figure out what. I'll leave it at that for tonight. No post tomorrow, but I'll be back on Wednesday.