Yep, really, totally screwed

Enrollment in the Nature in Lit dropped briefly back down to eleven, but overnight, four more students registered, so now it's at 15. (I picked up a few more in the 101, lost one and gained another in SF, so that's holding steady.)

And I spent a little bit of time yesterday working on the online course materials, plus some time today (though not as much as I'd hoped or expected)--and I've managed to get one and a half weeks further along than I was when I last was on the site. At this rate, I'll have the course finished about the time the semester finishes--if then.

Of course, as I was complaining a few posts ago, part of what I was doing was going back through all the stuff that I sort of tossed together in order to get the course approved--most of which has changed at least a little if not radically. I had to keep combing through to make sure I hadn't missed anything (a process that seems set to continue for some time). Today, a lot of time was spent checking how I had things set up in terms of how students will submit their work, making sure I had the parameters I want for everything--and that everything was in the right order so I can find what I need to without scrambling once the course is officially open and running. Which will be ... day after tomorrow.

Fucking panic in the streets!

However, I did realize today that--although I am absolutely compulsive about finding images to include for each week (even when there isn't really anything specific to illustrate)--I am going to be a lot less detailed in my "lectures": the text I write to help situate students in the readings. I confess that I ended up adding to and reworking some of what I'd already done on that stuff, too, for the historical pieces--but I've gotten to the point in the semester when things are arranged thematically, not chronologically, and when the students are more likely to understand the basic framework of what they're reading.

I have been noticing that most nature writing requires a certain grasp of cultural history and a modicum of science: one needs to know who Linnaeus was, for instance, and what is meant by morphology. I'm trying to remember to gloss some of that for students--as I remember (or see an annotation in my copy of the textbook that says "gloss")--but I expect they will be baffled by things I don't expect. Their bafflement often baffles me: "You really, seriously don't know this?" Often, they really, seriously don't, which makes one wonder what on earth they have been taught.

Shifting gears: tomorrow, I really do need to set the timer so I'll periodically get my ass out of the chair. I have to do a little walking tomorrow for some life maintenance, but one spell of walking isn't enough to counteract hours upon hours of sitting. As soon as I started this post, I became aware that my knees and butt ache from being in one position too long.

So, on that note, I'm going to sign off and get up. Here's hoping for an amazing spurt of productivity tomorrow.