The seven-minute post

I have to be out of here in seven minutes. Actually, I should already be out of here--I have to get to PT--but I was trying to figure out the mess on my desk so I can approach it with some sense of where things are tomorrow, and I have a bunch of stuff I needed to get organized for the 102. I will have some time before class to do the required photocopying, but if I didn't know what I had where, that task, which should only take about 10 minutes max, would take four times as long.

And then there was the lure of conversation with Paul, which is always delightful.

The students in the SF class are sort of falling down on the job in terms of coming to class prepared, but the conversation can still be OK. (It's better when more of them have done the reading.) I'm in the process of doing some tap-dancing since I can't find a sub for the Thursday when I have to head upstate--and the students will be right at a crucial point in reading Left Hand of Darkness. I've made the executive decision that I will not try to head upstate after class, arriving at my hotel after midnight; somehow the students and I will have to muddle along. But along those lines, I did ask them to bring their books to class on the day when their next essay is due; they don't have to start reading yet, but if they have the books, we can get started in class. It's bumpy, but...it's what I can do.

In the good news department, I did get all the essays graded and back to them. I still have a stack of homework to mark for them (and more that I collected today), but I think I can get at least most of that knocked off before class on Thursday.

I have all sorts of little things tangling my feet--writing up the observation, conducting another, writing a promised letter of recommendation, "diversity" training (in case we ever get to hire anyone new), blah blah blah--but the essays for the 101 students will also be arriving tomorrow; they're due by midnight, so I won't be able to do anything with them tomorrow anyway, and probably won't do anything with them until Sunday, knowing me. But I'm trying to get things cleared away--and that includes getting back to the Nature in Lit class, which I haven't checked since I've been back from the break.

And I am now ... out of time. In haste...