Screwed myself over--again

Sometimes I am almost painfully aware of how I repeat myself in these blog posts. I didn't push as hard as I needed to over the weekend, and yes, I'm going to pay for it tomorrow and Wednesday, as I feared I might. It's an open question whether I'll be able to get the essays for Wednesday marked tomorrow; I only need to mark four, but I don't have much space between appointments, unless people don't show up. I cringingly asked Cathy whether I can skip P&B tomorrow. I didn't mind when Bruce ran the ship, but Cathy is more of a stern task master (and has much more of the Catholic school work ethic, which may be even more grim and unforgiving than the Protestant work ethic--and neither of which is at all close to my work ethic, which essentially says, "Nah, fuck it: I don't have to do that. I'll do this instead," even when "this" is reading a dopey mystery). I haven't heard back from her yet about that; if I haven't heard by the time I come to campus in the morning, I'll ask her face to face (if I can find her in her office).

But even with that time, I'll be hard pressed. And I'll be very hard pressed on Wednesday to get through sixteen essays for Thursday. I can, if necessary, do some of them on Thursday morning (for the students whose appointments are after about 3), but I'm just going to have to blast, with every available minute over the next two days and into Thursday.

And it's already 9:15, and I just finished grading the last of the essays for tomorrow--and that's after an unexpected hour of freedom because my two afternoon appointments today both were rescheduled.

Very strange, though: The first several hours I was at the computer, I didn't seem to make any real progress I don't know for sure what was going on there, but it worried me enough that I started setting a timer as I'd begin each essay: 25 minutes, working on the typical two an hour rhythm and allowing myself a few minutes to finish up one and do all the dopey formatting on the next. I found that usually I was wrapping up at the 25 minute mark--so, again, I'm not sure why I got so little done between 12:30 and almost 4 (if memory serves). If that same rhythm holds in terms of the essays to be marked for Thursday, I'll need eight hours--minus time for bio-breaks of various sorts. And I don't have eight hours on Wednesday. I have about three, around my various appointments with students and class. I have five, adding two hours on Thursday before my first scheduled appointment. I don't know where the other three are going to come from, but it looks like I'll be canceling Wednesday PT.

I realize, too, that my generosity to the Nature in Lit students is coming back to bite me to a certain extent: I saw a student this afternoon (20 minutes gone), and I have two students coming in on Wednesday (another 40 minutes gone). There are also a few students from the 102s who may yet sign up for conferences--but I also realized that two students submitted their essays so late that I won't have to mark them (and in fact, one I can't mark, as she never uploaded her essay to Turnitin, despite an emailed reminder).

Well, whatever. I've been sitting so long, I'm almost unable to stand up (this is one way that working at home is better: I get up and move more often)--so I'd better haul my butt out of this chair, waddle to the car (more sitting), and get home (with any luck, some lying down).