Slightly more organized chaos...

This morning I opted to let myself sleep instead of yanking myself out of bed to be in the office at my usual time. In the short term, that may have been a minor error, but in the long term, I know taking care of my sleep is more important than work. Not that I don't still go sleep-deprived most of the time (me and almost every other U.S.-American), but when I can let myself get at least a little caught up, it's good to do.

However, that means I didn't make as much progress as I'd have liked in clearing up the chaos in the office. I foolishly told myself I could do that after P&B today--but I'd blissfully forgotten that I actually had some P&B business I had to tend to, including setting up a couple of observations. Between taking care of those little bits and orts and making sure other bits and orts were nailed down (setting up seminar hours appointments for students who can't see me, making a clean copy of the conference sign-up sheet, and so on), I neither got a chance to finish organizing nor managed to get any marking of homework for the SF class done. (I joked in class today that I'm putting together a very large collection of homework, but I feel it needs a better curator. They didn't get the humor.)

So, tomorrow is going to be, um, interesting. I have to be in to advisement early, to make up an hour that I missed last Monday (because--in the theme of today's post--I opted to sleep in a bit, which made me late), so I can't count on getting any organization done before I toddle over there. And then I'll be dealing with 101 students doing peer review of their essays and, well, whatever else needs to happen in the 101s.

I've lost track of what handouts I want them to have and what I've already given them. I will say that I didn't get some handouts to them as early in the process as I'd have liked (including, to be honest, the essay assignment). I truly do feel that I lost my brain somewhere at the end of the summer and have been trying to muddle along without one ever since.

The conversation in SF was good. The sometimes snotty student wasn't there, so another student stepped into that role. He's also very bright, somewhat resistant, and feels that he understands everything better than anyone, including me. (He might be right on that, given that my skull is filled with oatmeal, not brain.) But it was fun to manage a debate between him and another student, to acknowledge when an argument was well-made but also to challenge the argument. A lot of students were missing today. I don't blame them for not wanting to be in that classroom on a hot and humid day like today, but I am a little concerned that some of them may be dropping away. I've already apparently lost the student I had pegged as the best of the bunch, as I mentioned before. I hate when that happens.

In any event, we finished Frankenstein and now get to turn our attention to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (And let me remark--possibly repeat--how delightful it is that the Blade Runner sequel is coming out soon, a lovely instance of synchronicity.) I'll be curious to see what they make of it (and how they feel about the fact that the last three things we read have never been made into movies).

But now, I want to get out of here so I have time to practice fiddle before it gets late enough that I am not willing to torture the neighbors with the sound of it. And tomorrow is ... well, you know the rest.