That sinking feeling/that better feeling

That sinking feeling when one realizes somehow one has not marked (or even seen printouts of) four essays for the class one is about to teach in an hour.

That better feeling when one manages--by severely truncating the amount of commenting--to get through somewhere between eight and ten essays marked in 75 minutes, so everything could be returned to students on time.

Another sinking feeling: when one begins to think one might be being snowed by a student one likes very much (one of the veterans: he's had just one too many things going on, so either his life is really an utter train wreck right now--which is possible--or he's putting one over).

A slightly different feeling--mild annoyance perhaps?--when one has frantically marked two student essays only to have the students decide to withdraw from the class. (Or the student didn't show up for class, in another case or two.)

Well, there it is: the sink and bob to the surface of life in the (apparently flooded, given the metaphor) trenches.

I kept meaning to post to the blog as I was trying--mostly unsuccessfully--to grind through marking essays this weekend. I did a very good stint yesterday, but Friday and Saturday, I ended up feeling almost woozy with fatigue and in desperate need of a nap. The napping was great, but it did cut into the grading time.

But I got 'em done. I still have a smallish mountain of stuff to whack through and get back to students ASAP--and I'm going to collect the first essay from the SF students tomorrow (o frabjous day!), so as is typical for this time of semester, the work is pretty much constant high waves interspersed with the occasional tsunami.

I also spent some time this weekend completely redoing the assignment schedule for the 101s. I realized that I'd only allowed two weeks between the final version of the first essay and the first version of the second essay, which is insane, not only for the students but for me. I grant, it did give us a nice amount of time to do a ton of reading for the final essay, but I decided I should even things out a little.

The added bonus cherry on top is that in doing so, I also managed to avoid having to grade a mountain of essays over my birthday weekend. Who's just so smart?

And I figured out a much easier way to explain the correct use of apostrophes in possessives than the lesson I used to give. I recognize that language and rules of punctuation change over time, but it was interesting that the students said, "I've never seen that before. I mean, I've seen it used, but no one ever taught it before." Yeah, well, now you know: singular possessive = 's; plural possessive--if the possessive is formed by adding an -s (or -es, or changing y to -ies) ending = s'; plural possessive when the word itself changes (thanks to the holdovers from old English) = 's. Who knew? (I did. And most of my colleagues. But I may be the only one who's bugged enough by it to teach it.)

And I'm kinda too tired to say much more tonight. I have to be in Advisement at 9:30 tomorrow morning, making up time that I gave up to conferences. So, I'd better stagger off home--and leave the office to the workers who are coming in to fix the alarm system...