"Wasted" effort, almost certainly

So, I'm here, snowbound at home, and there isn't much I can do about the scheduling stuff from here--indeed, there isn't much I can do about any of it anyway: all the numbers seem to be moving pretty erratically (up, down, not at all). So, I've spent the last bunch of hours working on the online Nature in Lit, even though it's all but certain it won't run. Dammit. Enrollment went down the last two days, which obviously isn't what I'm hoping for.

Still, it's kept me amused. It also has revealed places where I don't know what I'm doing and can't seem to figure it out just by clicking around. If it looks like the thing will run after all, I'll make a point of going to one of the open help sessions the wonderful folks in Distance Education are holding at the end of next week. If by that time it's become clear the sucker won't run, I'll use the time doing other productive things instead.

What I really should do--and might well do tomorrow--is proof the syllabi and so on for the courses I know I'm going to teach: at least one section of 101 and the SF class. Just by chance, as I was looking for something else entirely today, I saw a few errors on the SF syllabus; I'm quite sure more are lurking, waiting to be discovered. And I actually have a bit of work to do on the 101s in terms of what's up on Blackboard. I've replaced a reading or two, and I need to make sure the Turnitin submissions are re-created (those can't be edited but need to be created new each term--for reasons that almost make sense to me).

Now, however, it's getting quite dark, and my mind is beginning to resist doing anything more challenging than reading a popcorn "thriller" and metaphorically eating bon-bons. I'd actually eat bon-bons if I had any in the house, but fortunately I don't--and since we won't be dug out of today's snow until some time tomorrow, I amn't going out to get any. It would be terrific exercise--and in some ways fun--to go out walking in the wind and snow, but ... nah. I'm too lazy. Loafing about is in order, and will commence very shortly.