Turning up the metaphoric heat (to match the temperatures outside)

Today is my second day home from vacation. I spent all of yesterday and a chunk of today doing life maintenance (which needed a lot of doing--and still needs more--given my long absence), but today I did manage to get to some work. I mostly was scanning documents for the 101s, essays I hope to use in place of (or in addition to) things I used two years ago, but I also checked enrollment numbers (which have not moved at all for my courses). That's discouraging; so is the amount of just tracking through that needs to be done: making sure each part of every assignment is available on Blackboard for the 101s and making sure all handouts and essay assignments and Turnitin links are there for all three classes (assuming they run).

One frustration: I dropped by campus yesterday, enthusiastically looking for the special edition of the handbook that I ordered for the 101s so I could start working on the schedule--and the shipping department of the publisher had sent me the regular edition. Argh. I don't mind having an extra copy of the regular edition, mind you, but I really, truly need that special edition. Without that, I can't really put together the assignment schedule, and without the assignment schedule, I don't know how many points to give to various assignments, as I don't know how many there will be.

I repeat: argh. But oh well.

But I really do want to get churning hot on that work. I'm getting increasingly anxious about the lack of progress and the brevity of time remaining before classes start. And tomorrow is a day when I'll be a student all day: if all goes as planned, I'll be in yoga class, tango class, and fiddle lesson, from about 11 a.m. to about 5 p.m. That puts me home about 7--unless I opt to have dinner in the City--but in any event, I know I will get nothing done on my semester prep tomorrow. Yikes and likewise zoiks.

Right now, however, I have to close up shop and leave the house so my cleaning lady can come in and make things relatively presentable (though the cat sitter obviously vacuumed between the last time the cleaner came and when I got home, as the rugs were remarkably free of cat hair). Not quite sure what I'm going to do with myself, but whatever it is, it will involve going out in the 95 degree heat of this afternoon. Quite a shock to the system after being in the Pacific Northwest for ten days. I'm not sure I can crank up the heat on the work to really match that level, but it's a worthy aim.

Now: computer off, printer covered, and more perhaps on Sunday. The posts are going to be relatively frequent from now until December at least (in case you were jonesing for my maunderings). More soon.