Well, that was scary

I was all set to tap-dance out of here on the happy wings of the fact that Bruce has released me from duty for tomorrow (he didn't come in today, so we were trying to handle things over the phone)--and when I checked my e-mail I saw that I made a huge, horrible, utter fuck-up with a very unhappy FT faculty member, creating major confusion over whether we could turn one of her courses into an adjunct course. There is a solution, so my colleague is not going ballistic, as I feared she might, but I really did screw up big time, and I feel like shit about it. I simply didn't read her e-mail carefully enough and don't know how things work in terms of people teaching outside the department as part of their course loads. I should have realized that she didn't need a separate contract for a non-English-department course that was on her FT schedule (I didn't when I was going to teach MDC), but, well, I was juggling a few too many things and wanted to get her squared away in too much of a hurry. Mea maxima culpa.

There is good news however: I checked e-mail again, and although there is still a possible problem, she's being very gracious about it and I think will be fine with the solution. Even better news, since Bruce did spring me from duty for tomorrow, if there's any further fall-out from the mess I created, he'll be the one in the hazmat suit, cleaning it up. I feel rotten leaving him with my mess--but then, I sorted out some of his messes, so I guess we're even.

Other good news: all of my course materials have been copied for the first week or two of classes. Also, I have everything set up on Blackboard (the online platform) for 101 and Mystery, and enough set up for the SF class to get the semester started. I'd love to get the paper assignments for SF hammered out before Monday. It may be overly optimistic to think I might work on class stuff tomorrow--I may be lying on the sofa fighting a decompression headache--but if I could, that would be sweet. Even if not, I don't have anything on my calendar for Friday during the day, or Sunday, or Monday. (I have activities in mind for Saturday, but they're for fun, not work.)

Mostly, I hope I can let go of quite a bit of residual anxiety: once I get flurried, it takes a long time for the mental and emotional silt to settle. Breathing is helpful, I find. So is doing mindless silly stuff. In fact, a jigsaw puzzle may be called for.

Isn't that an enviable place to be? Trying to figure out what will be the most relaxing form of mind-candy? And here I am, in exactly that place.

Life in the trenches isn't so bad sometimes.