Squeeked it through

My doctor was, miraculously, running on time, so I not only got to campus in time to attend the department meeting and represent P&B in the "open P&B meeting" few minutes, I got the mechanics review copies of the papers marked for my students in today's class--with time to spare for lunch. Then I marked their articles and returned all the work I had in hand, periodically answering questions as they worked on mechanics review.

I showed them the Taylor Mali "poem," "The the Impotence of Proofreading," and at least a few of them were amused. They all started out working, but pretty quickly they shifted over to just hanging out chatting while I finished up the work I had to return to them. I love that about them: they truly enjoy each other. I'll miss them.

I still have a little work that needs to be marked and returned, but so little I hardly even notice it. Now it's all about waiting for the final papers to come in and doing the final number crunch.

It felt like we'd never get to this point. I feel like one of those agonized marathon "runners" who barely staggers over the finish line, agony etched in every liniment. But I am going to get over the finish line--and I'm not really in that much agony: I'm just ridiculously tired.

I'm also once again searching among students, former and current, for a cat sitter. It's always worked out well for me when I can find a student who wants to get away from her home life for a while and have a little taste of solo living. I've approached the Timid Intellectual, and the very charismatic, energetic young woman from Mystery and Detective last year (who refers to herself--jokingly--as my favorite student). If I don't get a yes from either of them, I'll open the field to the students in the Poetry class. I don't think there's anyone in either of the 101s that I'd feel comfortable offering the gig to: it's a fair amount of responsibility. But I'm glad to have a relatively large pool of young women who might jump at the chance. (I prefer to tap the female students, too. I've used young men in the past with great success, but the cats are more comfortable with women, generally speaking.)

All of which has nothing whatever to do with teaching: it's just on my mind.

In fact, there isn't anything having to do with teaching that's on my mind right now. My brain is doing the intellectual equivalent of producing white noise--and that's just fine for a Thursday evening.

So, until Monday, oh my faithful readers.