Learning to say "no"

I fucked myself over by not saying "no" to people I love this weekend. I ended up spending way, way, way too long on the phone on Sunday--with people I love--and consequently missed several hours' worth of work getting done, and today those missed hours were sorely missed. I barely got the 102 assignments marked to get back to them, which means I did not--as I intended--get started on the SF assignments until after I got back from class. I just finished, and it's almost 8:30 p.m.

I also have a shitload of little messy bits that I have to get tucked away for the 102s tomorrow morning, so I have them ready to roll before I head to Advisement on Wednesday morning, all stemming from the spanner that got thrown into my assignment schedule by the presidential debates.

OK, not entirely from that: I also realized today that I was creating assignments out of the old handbook, which of course made no sense in terms of the pagination and information in the new one. That one I can't blame on the debates, as that's been in the schedule from the beginning: I just didn't realize it until I started to review the assignment for today and thought, "Wait, that's not right..."

Absent-minded professor creates own problems, wants to shake herself silly....

There are still a few little bits I need to take care of tonight before I go, and if I were smart, I'd say "no" to Paul and William, or at least "no, for right now." We're having dinner in the City tomorrow evening, which means I have to blast out of here way earlier than usual--and we'll be riding the train in together, so I won't be getting any work done on the train. When will I get the assignments marked for the 102s? Maybe not until Monday, when class has been canceled. If they don't get those assignments back right away, no harm, no foul--but it would be awfully nice to feel like I'm at least on the curve instead of trailing miles behind it.

But sitting here bitching about how overwhelmed I am and how tired I am and how little I'm getting done addresses none of those problems in any substantial way, so this is going to be a short post, folks. I need to get out of here so I can hit the ground at a full gallop tomorrow, the minute I arrive on campus.

Ah, Christ, I hope this calms down soon.