coming apart at the seams

Ah, Christ, they're all falling down. There were a few more students in today's class, only one without a paper, but a lot of students were AWOL--and for both classes, I'm missing important portions of their submissions. I need to decide whether to be a dragon about it and refuse to accept anything at all or whether to grant a little mercy--albeit with a whopping grade penalty.

I also realized that one of the handouts didn't make the steps clear for students. I knew what it all meant, but they're still trying to understand the whole process of revision as one step and mechanics (editing) as another. So I've just reworked the "assignment" sheet for that portion of the process--which took a lot longer than it should have.

And I have a shit-load of marking to do. I'm pretty sure I'll be OK for tomorrow's class; I'm more worried about Thursday's, as I'm now meeting with some students Thursday morning to discuss revisions. Well, I'll see where I am at the end of the day tomorrow.

I feel phenomenally frazzled; that's one reason why tonight's post is going to be unusually brief. The other is that I have to leave very soon to meet Ed and Paul for dinner. But I do want to report that I ran into the Timid Intellectual today; she'd hoped to find me in my office, but I was on my way to class. She was very upset that she'd been rejected by the college she most wanted to get into--and I completely empathize. It's an awful feeling. But I told her that the other place where she applied may still accept her--and if she's absolutely set on the program that turned her down, she can meet with someone there to discuss what, if anything, she can do to make her application stronger so she can reapply next year. I wish I'd been able to talk to her longer; I truly want to help her find the intellectual home that is best for her--and I want to help her contextualize this painful rejection in a more positive light. But I couldn't do that in a 3-minute conversation on the sidewalk. I hope she can come to see me some other time so we can talk about it.

Argh, I'm out of time--as I still need to make some photocopies before I leave tonight. I guess the students aren't the only ones who are coming apart at the seams, but jesus, I do despair about the trend of this semester....

Well, more tomorrow. Hopefully more light and happiness, too.