Fast post

It's after 8; I'm still in the office, and I need to be back early tomorrow, partly to get work done, partly to do a 10 a.m. observation.

I still need to re-read the assigned pages for both electives tomorrow and to mark all the homework for the M&D class--and I need to get the papers marked for the 101 for Wednesday.

As for the 101, disastrous. The best and brightest student was not there. The Guinea Pig was not there. Mr. Bewildered showed up 35 minutes late--too late to engage in the peer review. One student was there who has turned in 2 assignments all semester to date, neither being an article we'd read to discuss. He did have his paper, but I can only imagine that it's, shall we say, inadequate, as I have no evidence that he read anything he was required to include. So the whole peer review thing was sort of deadly.

I had them read the information from SUNY about what a good revision should demonstrate; then I asked them what they could actually do in order to, say, foreground relevant material, or create a clear logic. As Cathy would say, all I heard was crickets. No clue. What might you have to add? Might you have to delete anything? Would you maybe have to move things around? ("Uh... Uh ... Uh...") They finally had a few ideas, but holy god.

And I am even more certain than I was before that several students in the SF class are plagiarizing: simply reading summaries of the works online and not actually reading the books at all. I don't know whether to go in and rant at them tomorrow or not. I reckon I'll play it by ear--but man, I was pretty fierce in telling Paul what I'd like to say to them.

I told Paul I felt frantic today--and then I remembered what he's dealing with. In comparison, my little bit of fluffed feathers is absolutely insignificant. Still, I probably will have to bail on either the department meeting or P&B--or both--in order to be fully ready for tomorrow's classes. I don't know how much reading I can do tonight, or at least how much I can do with any real attention and intelligence.

I'm completely manic, wired, feeling wild-eyed and like my hair is on fire--but the alarm is going to go off pretty fucking early tomorrow (for me anyway), so I need to get home and get wound down somehow. Anyone have a big cast-iron frying pan handy, so you could just knock me upside the head?