"Define 'Interesting.'"

I posted something on Facebook about how panic-stricken I am about the online Nature in Lit, referencing the repeated comment in the old TV series Farscape, the hero, John Crichton saying, "We're so screwed!" One of my FB friends added a comment of a similarly wonderful quotation from Firefly: the hero, Mal, asks the ship's engineer to define interesting, and the response is, "...Oh God, Oh God, we're all going to die?"

Well, it's not quite that dire, but I am going to be in a right tizzy for the next bunch of days.

The problem, you see, is that once again, I used most of my available mental acumen to handle more scheduling SNAFUs, from about 11 to about 3. I have a feeling that, if I hadn't pretty much sprinted for my office at that point, more problems surely would have arisen--and I'm reasonably sure there will be another maelstrom of problems to resolve tomorrow (albeit a slightly smaller maelstrom, or so one hopes). ("One" meaning me.)

However, I did nail down a few little bits that were buzzing around my ears like so many no-see-ums: remembering to schedule the Library class for the section of 101 that I actually will be teaching (which I had to do twice, as I completely screwed up when the class meets in the first request); letting Advisement know when I'll be putting in my time with them; letting the Bookstore know about the class that has dropped off my schedule; letting Distance Ed know ditto.

Each of those tasks, however minor and easily taken care of, did require a moment of time and a smidgen of energy--both of which are in diminishing supply.

Oh, and speaking of that calculus of how much time and energy I'm expending versus how much I have: yesterday I sent a rather snarky email to the students who had not collected their essays from last semester, even though they really, truly wanted my comments and really, truly wanted those comments sufficiently to agree to come to my office to retrieve the essays. Not one of them did. I pointed out to them that I had put some energy and effort into doing that work for them, so it was just a trifle annoying that they couldn't be bothered to get the result. One--young Mr. Street Smart--immediately replied by email, letting me know he'd pick his up today and saying that I deserved better from my students. I thanked him for that. I've not heard from anyone else, but I have heard some faint rustling on the other side of the door, which seems to indicate that at least one or two students have now retrieved their work.

In any event, after I finished with Cathy, I came up here and figured I could at least start getting stuff ready to copy for my FTF classes. In order to figure out what I needed to copy, I had to go through an enormous stack of handouts I was shoving to one side last semester, telling myself I'd sort and file it "later." I did plow through that stack--but just now, I remembered that there is another, larger stack in the bookshelf across the room from my desk. I reckon that's what I'll tackle tomorrow. And I hope to begin with the photocopying tomorrow as well.

I also noodled around a bit with Blackboard stuff for the 101 and SF--but I realized it was more important to get the first week's handouts ready to roll. And all of that--getting handouts ready to be printed, sorting through old handouts to see what I already have, making sure the Blackboard stuff for the FTF classes is in order--sort of needs to be cleared out of my hair and from around my ankles before I can do what I really need to do, which is to work on the online Nature in Lit.

I have no idea when I'm going to get that done. I can't think that far down the road.

In fact, at the moment, I sort of can't think period. I think I've hit the wall, rebounded, hit it again, rebounded, and hit it one more time. I will print out the syllabus for the 101 and check the schedule one more time: I keep trying to adjust it to give myself a little room for canceling a class or turning it over to a sub somewhere around spring break--but I'm not sure I like the solution I came up with. It's a lead-pipe cinch that I won't be able to make any sense of it tonight, so ... tomorrow.

(Out of curiosity, I just looked up "lead pipe cinch." Here's what Dictionary.com had to say: "This colloquial expression is of disputed origin. It may allude to the cinch that tightly holds a horse's saddle in place, which can make it easier for the rider to succeed in a race; or it may allude to a cinch in plumbing, in which a lead pipe is fastened with a band of steel to another pipe or a fixture, making a very secure joint." The saddle thing doesn't make sense to me (why would a saddle cinch be lead, or a pipe??), so we'll go with the latter. Sometimes, people who guess the etymology of colloquial expressions aren't thinking very far, it seems.)

That's it. When things devolve to the point that I'm looking up useless shit on Google, it's clearly time to stop blogging and do something less demanding with my brain. Like ... the intellectual equivalent of white noise. I think I can do that.