What have I done to myself??

I don't know what I've done to deserve this, but my students are submitting their essays. It's early yet to tell with the students from today's 101--they have until midnight--but all but one student submitted from the M/W 101. Granted, that's "only" 15 students, but still.

The grading count looks like this:

Monday: nine essays (I was counting a student from the 102 who has asked for a second appointment with me).

Tuesday: Four essays. (Whew!)

Wednesday: Nine, maybe ten.

Thursday (drum roll, please): Fourteen. Four-fucking-teen! It is possible that two of those students may not submit, but ... ayayay.

Well, obviously I just have to get a huge lead on the essays so I can be working on the Thursday batch well before Wednesday.

As for right now, I'm not sure how I'm managing to put together anything other than word salad at the moment. I've been crunched all day--and I have realized that doing the "mechanics" checklists after I finish marking and doing them on the computer actually takes way too much time. I realized a few minutes ago--long after the office was closed (thus making the copiers inaccessible)--that I don't have copies of the mechanics sheet for the 101s, and if I'm going to mark those as I read and provide revision feedback, I rather need copies to take home with me. Current plan: make a trip to campus tomorrow, just to make the copies. Yeah, I could print a bunch in the office, but it's been beaten into us how expensive the toner is for the printers--the copier costs are bad enough--so I don't like to take advantage.

Back to today: the conferences mostly went well--and although I didn't great that one student with a withdrawal slip, I did give him one as we talked. He'll withdraw. Wise move. One student keeps describing himself as a "hot mess"--and if the idea of "hot" there is a reference to things boiling over or otherwise being out of control because of actual temperature, it applies. He's certainly a mess. (His excuse? "I haven't made the transition from summer yet." "Dude, it's October. Get with the program.") He had nothing he needed--and he has a tendency not to retain anything, not to focus, so I'm not so sure he'll be any less a mess as the semester goes along. One student--the daughter of the mother-daughter duo--came in to talk about her notes. She said I kept telling her she was summarizing when she wasn't, but when we looked at the notes, well, golly gee, what do you know: she actually was summarizing when I said she was. Really, she just didn't have an idea how to do the notes and was unhappy with the low marks--but I think she gets it now. She did confess to suffering from a lot of anxiety (it really is an epidemic; I am not being sarcastic)--and that surprised me, as she seems very clear, strong, tough, and unflappable in class. However, I will bring the Breath-Body-Mind stuff into that class when we resume class meetings; it will be interesting to see how it goes with them.

And I was pleasantly surprised that the vast majority of students were there in today's class (unlike the usual "Where is everyone? Oh, right: an essay is due" routine)--and only two didn't have essays with them. There was a little misunderstanding about the process of peer review, but they finally got into it--and then we had the usual hoola-boola around my desk as students asked what they needed to submit, what I still have unmarked (almost everything), blah blah. I posted the "No class: conferences" notice, got back to the office, finished the mechanics review sheets for the 102 and sent them, did the P&B minutes, and put a conference schedule outside the door, in case anyone who was absent decides to turn up and sign up for a conference. I had hoped to get the appointments with the 101 students all logged in to the Writing Center software, but that just ain't gonna happen tonight. I'll use that busy-work as a break in the grading from time to time.

And now, my back is killing me from sitting at the damned computer all day, and I'm exhausted and hungry and tomorrow, glory be, is another day. I expect I'll be posting over the weekend as I struggle with the grading. You all get to hear me moan and complain, you lucky dogs.