Close, but no cigar

Well, I fucked up. I woke up at 4:54, realized I would be paralytically tired, and reset the alarm for its usual time. I tried to hustle through my morning routine to get to campus somewhat early anyway--and failed at that, too. I was extremely fortunate that I only had to advise one student (and help a colleague with another), so I did spend most of the time in Advisement marking my own student assignments, but I did not get to mark a thing during the first section of 102--and even without taking time for that, I ended up only having 5 minutes with them at the end of class to discuss the story. So I did the whole pre-paper stuff with the later section, then turned them loose to discuss--and at the last minute of the class period, I was still entering marks before returning the assignments. So that class didn't get to discuss the story with me at all, only in their groups--and I wonder how much they got wrong as a consequence.

Note to self: next time I teach 102, try to find a way to do all the pre-paper stuff either more quickly or in a class in which we're not discussing any of the literature. The latter would be better--but then I think we'd have to start drafting essays in class. That might not be altogether a bad thing, but it still means I'd have to steal a day from something somewhere else: the perennial problem of why it doesn't really work to rob Peter to pay Paul, in terms of time for discussion and work on essays.

I have to go through my backpack and sort out everything I flung in there as I was packing up to leave, including the assignments for students who weren't in class today (and therefore whose assignments I didn't have to mark, thank god).

Oh, yeah: And I forgot to have them sign up for their conferences. That's going to come back to bite me in the ass, for sure. I'm already thinking about how to make sure that students who are not in class on Wednesday to turn in an essay on time but who turn their essays in late can sign up for an appointment.

I keep thinking of the moment in G.I. Jane when, after a mission goes sideways, the Master Chief groans, "What a goat fuck." Today wasn't actually that horrible, but I do seem to smell a bit of goat...

One good thing about doing the pre-essay run-through today, though: in each class I had a student volunteer demonstrate how to log in to the Portal, access Blackboard, and access the link to submit an essay to Turnitin--and in so doing, I realized I never changed the due dates for the Turnitin links when I had to tear the schedule apart. That was the first thing I crossed off my list when I got back to the office.

No: second. The first thing I did was to put readers on the door for two students who--for whatever (stupid) reason--still didn't have their readers. I didn't quite snap heads off, but it was a near thing.

Mostly, however, I've been responding to the revised outline for Nature in Lit. I had said I'd weigh in on it, oh, about a year ago, and never did, but the colleague who created/updated the outline sent it around, and I took a look. She did an excellent job; the only thing I had to contribute was a few additional suggestions for the bibliography--and I ended up trolling through all sorts of stuff looking for the most important bits to add. Anyone who's really up to speed on ecocrit would surely point out glaring omissions from the past five years or so (or even longer), but as it was, I felt a bit bad about proposing as many additional titles as I did. Even at that, I was half tempted to suggest about a dozen more, but I had to restrain myself. Anyone who wants to teach the course will surely be exploring on his or her own--and has (I hope) enough sense to look at some of the big works about ecocriticism...

It has been nice, however, to know that I don't actually need to mark anything tonight--or indeed tomorrow morning, unless I want to. What I have in hand right now is pretty minimal and not crucial to return; the main reason to mark anything tomorrow will be to have my feet completely clear for the onslaught of essays that I'll receive tomorrow and next Wednesday.

Along those lines, nice moment this evening: a student from the SF class came to me for help with the focus of his essay. I'm not entirely sure that he soaked in what I was suggesting, but he seemed at least reassured (or maybe he simply wanted me to think he was so he could escape). Mostly, I'm just delighted he came to see me--and that I could record the appointment in my seminar hours. (Woot! Woot!)

But shifting gears to the "I want to get out of the office" gear, I need to make sure I have printouts of a few things that I need to photocopy, and at least a vague sense of a triage list for tomorrow, either before the 11:30 meeting of our departmental curriculum committee or after class. I will be taking work home over the weekend again--mostly with the intention to work on Monday--so I need to have a clear sense of what to prioritize and how.

Once I've got that done, you can take your Crayolas and color me gone.

I'm so screwed...

(That's a little Farscape reference, for those of you who know Farscape.)

Despite the fact that I did a pretty good whack of assignment marking over the weekend (actually, more on Sunday than yesterday), I'm still woefully behind where I "should" be--especially as I've completely hit the wall and am incapable of marking another thing tonight. I haven't quite finished with the assignments from the earlier section of 102, and I haven't started at all on the assignments for the later one. I wouldn't be so concerned, but my experience in Advisement so far this semester has been that I actually do a fair amount of advising, and can't count on three hours of uninterrupted time in which to get my other work done. However, having bailed on last Wednesday, I don't feel I can bail again tomorrow--but I really, truly, honestly do have to have all the assignments ready to return to students tomorrow, as they are about to embark on their essays.

I think this means I have to set a super-early alarm (well, super-early for me), and get a good whack in before I go to Advisement--and even at that, I'm almost certainly going to be marking assignments during both classes, and returning them to students in the later section of 102 at the end of class, rather than the beginning.

I do not have any idea at all how I am this far behind this early in the semester--and that doesn't even touch on all the committee crapola that I need to tend to and have so far on back burners, I'm likely to forget all about it until I smell the smoke.

It would help if I could sleep, but this is becoming a vicious cycle: I am anxious, so I can't sleep, so I'm more anxious, and here we go 'round the prickly pear.

Ah, whatever. Somehow it all comes out in the end.

The SF class was pretty good today. I did have to start with some of the basics about essay writing: handout after handout after handout ("This one is about what your introductory paragraph should contain and where your thesis goes, as well as what a thesis is. This one is about how to properly integrate and cite sources. This one is about "static" errors. This one is about ..." and I don't even remember, but there were four of them.) I sat down at the computer to show them how to format an essay correctly. (A number of them will still get it wrong--but several of the brighter students asked good questions, which made me feel it wasn't a pointless exercise.) And the discussion about Androids was wonderful: we could have gone on a lot longer. It was one of those class sessions when I had to stop them when they were still eager to talk. That's both frustrating (I want them to have every opportunity to talk things out) and terrific (leave 'em wanting more!).

I was a bit saddened to be met at the door prior to class by two students--one of them potentially very good--with withdrawal slips. I should be happy (two fewer papers to grade: woo-hoo!!), but they're not the students I would like to lose. I suspect, however, that I've lost, or will lose about another five--some of whom I'd be glad to shed from the class.

The Truculent Plagiarist contacted me by e-mail earlier today to ask if we could meet. I was all set to set up an appointment, but after class he told me he'd gotten some help from the student in class whose number he'd collected the first day. I hope the help really did help, though I confess I'm not sure it will have been sufficient. However, it's also possible TTP will get more out of how a classmate explains things--assuming the classmate truly understands him- or herself--than out of how I would.

And they all can revise. So, well, I've done what I can, I think.

I realize that, as I think about the week, and weeks, immediately ahead of me, I feel more of that anxiety: I'm going to have all these essays to grade--getting them from the SF students on Thursday and from both 102s next Wednesday (though I have to remind myself that I'm not going to get as many as I might have feared, as students are already going AWOL--or actually withdrawing); I have to remember to set up Oryx and Crake for the SF students, while collecting their essays and showing the start of Blade Runner. I have to work on a PowerPoint presentation for seminar hours, on my online Nature in Lit (as I need to show substantial progress in order to earn the remainder of my stipend--and get the course up and running for spring, assuming all the approvals are in order), on reviewing the strategic plan (all 42 turgid pages of it), on god knows what else.

Being me, of course, I'm already feeling stressed out about the fact that, in November, I will have to observe Cathy's class at 8:30 in the morning. Normally I wouldn't volunteer for that "honor," but of those of us who can observe someone going up for full professor, two teach at that time, and one would have to schlep in from New Jersey--and he's a night owl, like me. I fell on my sword about it, but truly, the idea of having to be here at 8:30--which means being up at 5:30 at the latest, if not at 5--makes me feel sick. Even though it's almost two months from now.

So I remind myself of two things. 1) It's one morning out of my semester--and I often have to get up that early, if not earlier, to get to the airport when I'm heading out west, so it's not as if it will kill me (though the whiny little girl part of me says, "Yeah, but traveling is fun..."). 2) The planet could be hit by an asteroid between now and then, which would render the observation moot (my way of reminding myself that we do not know what the future holds, so getting anxious about anything at all in the future is ridiculous).

 All that being said, if I'm not going to get any more work done tonight and have to be up extra early tomorrow, I'd better call it a night and get home so I have at least a vague chance of getting enough sleep. I'm sure I will report on how that goes, as well as on how the assignment marking goes, in the blog post of tomorrow.

Barring the arrival of that asteroid, of course.

Who'd a thunk it.

The Truculent Plagiarist from the SF class kinda pissed me off in class today--but he sorta made up for it after class. I started class by stating that I needed to give the "don't plagiarize" speech. I explained that as faculty we can tell when someone is cheating on purpose: I may not be able to tell this B student from that B student, but if either one suddenly starts writing A++ papers or papers that sound like they came from a grad student, I'll know. He tried to argue that I couldn't possibly tell on a first assignment (which was his argument about his plagiarized statement of self-defined goal), and I said, "I've been teaching longer than most of you have been alive, and I've been a grad student. I know what even the top top top undergraduate student can produce and how it's different from what a grad student or professor produces." I also talked about "accidental" plagiarism, and how dangerous it can be. At the end of class, I returned homework, and The Truculent Plagiarist was one of three students who had plagiarized homework. (One of them wasn't in class today, but they all got--or will get--variations on the form letter.) He hung around after class, and wanted to argue with me about it.

Me: "I will not talk to you until after the weekend. What does the first sentence of the letter say?"
TTP: "'Read this letter carefully and consider what I say here over the weekend before you contact me."
Me: "Right. So I won't talk to you until after the weekend."
TTP: "But I read the letter."
Me: "And I won't talk to you about it until after the weekend."

But then...
TTP: "But I need to talk to you about the paper, 'cause I don't know what to do."
Me: "Ah! That, we can talk about."

He asked if his grade could recover from the plagiarized homework. I explained that the answer is in the letter--but I went ahead and told him yes, it can. We started to talk about the essay, but he had a class coming up, so I told him he should contact me to set up a time when we can meet.

If he really does want help with the essay, and if he actually follows through and contacts me for an appointment, I'll be happy to work with him. I'll be surprised, I have to admit, but happy. Still, the fact that he even thought to ask for help about the paper--and didn't simply blow a gasket about the plagiarism and storm off, either to complain to Bruce and Cathy or to disappear (or withdraw) is somewhat encouraging. I'm not holding my breath about his ability to do what he needs to do to pass the class, but if he will at least try his best, I will revise my judgment about him.

The rest of the class discussion was great. We got into a rabbit trail conversation that went rambling through the underbrush about how an android is different from a robot is different from a humanoid is different from a cyborg... but once I got us back on track, some pretty esoteric ideas were coming up. I brought up the idea of the singularity, for instance--and we discussed that this idea of whether something humans build can be truly considered a separate living entity. I'm blanking now on the idea brought up by one student, an idea that nailed a motif in SF generally, but it was cool to be able to say, "Yes: that's an idea we see over and over in SF."

I think the class is developing some interesting chemistry, and I'm very happy that some of the more silent students have started joining the conversation, asking good questions, raising important issues. That's always a good sign. I think this particular novel is grabbing their attention pretty well--and there are fewer confusions about it than I remember from the last time I taught the course.

Of course, there are still far too many bodies in the room: I'm rather dreading collecting that first essay. One student officially withdrew today; he'd enrolled late, missed a few classes, came in already behind and instantly became overwhelmed, not surprisingly. He was smart to withdraw. Another three or four students should withdraw, as they've missed some classes and are falling behind. But that still leaves me with about 27 students, which is about 7 too many. I suppose it's a good thing, though, that I wouldn't want to have to pick who else "should" go: most of them are hanging on well enough that I'd feel bad if they gave up. What would be best for me versus what would be best for the students....

After class, rather than marking student assignments, I worked on the Distance Education Equivalency form for Nature in Lit and sent a revised version to the VP for distance ed. I'm hoping to get her seal of approval on it ASAP, so I can take it through the rest of the steps knowing she'll append her signature with no quibbles. I haven't started working on the development course: the Blackboard space set aside for me to start actually creating the class the way I'll teach it. I will need to do that at some point in the not too distant future (in part because doing so is required for me to get the remainder of my stipend). I'd like to hold off until I know whether it's going to get approved in time for spring, but I really can't: not only do I have to have a good start on it to show the VP before we get much further down the road, if it does get approved for spring, I am going to want to have as much pulled together as possible, as soon as possible, so I'm not frantically trying to get it all up and ready over the winter break.

Now, however, I intend to engage in some noodling: something that feels like (at least marginally productive) work but that doesn't require too much thought nor become too absorbing, as I am meeting Scott for dinner and Atwood tonight. I'm looking forward to hearing his take on Oryx and Crake, and why he initially found it difficult to apprehend/comprehend. If a colleague whose smarts I trust and admire found the book challenging, I need to know why so I can help my students over the initial hurdles. I was stunned when he said that he was struggling with it, but that's informative: it reminds me that the reading I take for granted as super-easy, someone else may find a slog, and vice versa. Someone highly intelligent, too: I can't just dismiss the difficulty as "our students can't read."

Well, a lot of them can't, but that's a different issue.

In fact, continuing my reread of Oryx and Crake may be the perfect noodling activity. That or alphabetizing 102 assignments prior to marking them. Whatever. It's lovely to know that I'll be able to sleep as late as I like the next four mornings in a row. I will have to hunker down and do some serious marking in order to return assignments to all the classes next week--because all have essays due the class after I return their assignments--but I may also take some time this weekend to play around with a PowerPoint presentation about mentoring, which--maybe--we can get up on the campus website...?

That's something else to talk with Scott about. It'll be a fun dinner.

I am blessed beyond belief with magnificent colleagues: smart, fun, real... I may bitch about this place, and with good reason, but many of my colleagues are the bee's knees.
 

Is it over yet?

Lord love a duck, I am so tired and so far behind on work, I've already reached the point in the semester when I want to say, "OK, give me a few months' break and then let's start all over again." Or just, "I quit." I did not go to either the Assessment meeting or Advisement today: I was feeling physically pretty ragged, so I let myself sleep a little late and then just came to the office to try to chunk through some work.

I have no idea what I did with the time between when I arrived and when I had to leave for class. I know I was actively engaged in getting things done, but damned if I can remember what any of it was. Some was tying up the last of those raveled bits from the torn-apart schedule (getting a new conference sign up sheet ready--though I ended up having to reprint it something like four times, as I kept making mistakes; blocking off the seminar hours on the regular mentoring grid for the times when I'll be holding conferences; things like that), but somehow it seems like I must have fallen briefly into a worm-hole or something and lost an hour somewhere.

Despite how exhausted and whiny I feel (like a tired toddler), I have to say there were some bright moments today. Both 102s did a pretty good job with "Ile Forest"--and I was happy to get any discussion of it at all, as I felt that this was the time to talk about plagiarism. They got the plagiarism idea pretty well (which may or may not keep them from doing it), and they had lots to say about "Ile Forest," a lot of it very smart. I hope we have time next Wednesday to touch on it again, but I also have to show them how to access the Turnitin submissions through Blackboard and how to set up an essay in MSWord. (They can do all sorts of magic tricks with their phones, but they can't figure out how to change margins or spacing in a Word document.) We also have to talk about "Dance Me Outside," the last of the stories we'll discuss before they write their first essays.

And then we're really off to the races--despite three weeks in a row when those classes meet only once. I'll be very happy to get past the last of the scheduling weirdnesses and just clunk through the routine.

I'm also pretty pleasantly surprised, so far, with the notes from the SF class. Some are just as crappy as they've been, but some are turning around, getting much better. I did use the language I discovered for the SF class with one of the 102s; I forgot with the other, but I have to remember to harp on it. I don't remember what I said about that last night, but here's what I came up with:

Art exists to make us feel or think more deeply, to raise questions or issues. Non-verbal art more often works with feelings, instead of ideas/issues, but verbal art--literature in particular--exists to raise questions, to make us think about concerns in our lives, as well as to feel something. The work of literature probably won't answer the question in any clear way (or even at all), but you can use evidence in the work to make a case for what the author wanted us to consider about the question or concern. The role of notes is to help us uncover the question or concern being raised by the work--and to help us figure out how the work addresses that question or concern.

(I just copied that into the Reading Notes instructions handout. Next semester, I'll have to figure out where to put it, or how to word it more succinctly, or both.)

I did expound on that some yesterday with the SF students, and I told them that I would only mark improvements: if they're doing the same thing, they won't get feedback (except the comment I'll put on their notes that says their marks will continue to go down unless their work improves: what's getting the equivalent now of a C-/D+ will eventually slip to an F...). But given the ways the notes I've seen so far have improved (mostly), I think they're starting to get the hang of them.

Of course, the Truculent Cheater did plagiarize his second homework, as well as his first. I fully expect he'll try to argue with me about it (which I won't do)--and he may go to Bruce or Cathy to complain about me. Whatever: I've got him dead to rights--and I hope to hell he decides I am prejudiced against him and drops the class.

Meanwhile, the student who was in my fiction writing class a while back is knocking everything out of the park. It turns out she earned her B.A. and wants to become a professor. I'm not sure why she's taking the class, whether perhaps it fulfills a requirement she may need to apply to a grad program, or whether she just wanted to take it for her own edification, but I'm thrilled to bits to have her in the class. I'm going to call her Rose in Bloom, because she's gone from being a sweet rosebud to full blossom.

One weird little frustration about that class, though: on the roster are two Vincents, two Michaels, and two Ryans--and I'm having a hell of a hard time getting which one is who sorted out. (I also tend to confuse one of the Vincents with one of the Ryans.) An advantage to when the attrition starts is that I'll have fewer names to remember (not to mention fewer assignments to mark).

Speaking of assignments to mark: I "should" keep marking tonight, but I know when I've hit the wall, and I've slammed into it so hard I'm almost literally reeling. I'm going to trundle off to my car--and hope that I get here on the dot of 10, and that doing so gives me sufficient time to mark all the remaining assignments so I can return them tomorrow. I have an enormous bolus of assignments to mark for the 102s, which is what I'll be doing over the weekend. I have to get my feet clear of all this, because I'm going to be hit with the first round of essays soon--and god alone knows how I'll get all those marked in time for the conferences, even with the additional time I've allowed myself.

I'm hoping I have enough conference times for everyone. Unfortunately, not only do I have a meeting of the Strategic Planning committee during my conference week, I now have a subcommittee meeting prior to that overall committee meeting. There's a huge swath of unavailable time slots as a consequence--so I may end up having to get pretty creative about when I can meet with students. One way or another, I'll figure out a way to meet with them all, even if it's on the phone.

But that's all a worry for another time. Tonight, I'm stick-a-fork-in-me done.

Barely a post at all

I'm just doing a quick check in, to keep all my readers enthralled. I have to fly out of here with William in about five minutes, so we can meet Paul and get on the train for our dinner in the city.

Quick notes:

1) The student who was shocked at the fact that there was an assignment the second day of the SF class submitted a plagiarized self-evaluation (I know, boggles the mind) as well as plagiarized homework. I didn't find enough specific material to "prove" he plagiarized the "statement of self-defined goal," but I did find enough to prove he plagiarized his first homework. I forgot to copy it, however, so I didn't return it to him today, with the letter I've adapted from Paul. I'll see if the homework I collected today was plagiarized.

2) My desk is littered with things to do to keep tying up the raveled edges from the schedule change. To be continued.

3) I had a great idea for how to convey what analysis is--or I thought it was great, until I ran it past the head of Advisement and then Paul: both were positive but revealed flaws in the idea. Back to the drawing board.

4) I hate it when I finally find the language that may convey what I'm trying to get at after about six assignments have gone by--but I think I finally figured out how to explain what notes need to contain. Stay tuned.

I have no fucking clue how I'm going to manage tomorrow. I'm supposed to go to an Assessment meeting, which I'll have to leave early to get to Advisement, and I have a shit-load of assignments to mark, none of which I'll be able to get done before tomorrow's classes... and god only knows what else is lurking on my desk.

But that's tomorrow. Now, I'm going out for steak and booze with the boys.

Learning to say "no"

I fucked myself over by not saying "no" to people I love this weekend. I ended up spending way, way, way too long on the phone on Sunday--with people I love--and consequently missed several hours' worth of work getting done, and today those missed hours were sorely missed. I barely got the 102 assignments marked to get back to them, which means I did not--as I intended--get started on the SF assignments until after I got back from class. I just finished, and it's almost 8:30 p.m.

I also have a shitload of little messy bits that I have to get tucked away for the 102s tomorrow morning, so I have them ready to roll before I head to Advisement on Wednesday morning, all stemming from the spanner that got thrown into my assignment schedule by the presidential debates.

OK, not entirely from that: I also realized today that I was creating assignments out of the old handbook, which of course made no sense in terms of the pagination and information in the new one. That one I can't blame on the debates, as that's been in the schedule from the beginning: I just didn't realize it until I started to review the assignment for today and thought, "Wait, that's not right..."

Absent-minded professor creates own problems, wants to shake herself silly....

There are still a few little bits I need to take care of tonight before I go, and if I were smart, I'd say "no" to Paul and William, or at least "no, for right now." We're having dinner in the City tomorrow evening, which means I have to blast out of here way earlier than usual--and we'll be riding the train in together, so I won't be getting any work done on the train. When will I get the assignments marked for the 102s? Maybe not until Monday, when class has been canceled. If they don't get those assignments back right away, no harm, no foul--but it would be awfully nice to feel like I'm at least on the curve instead of trailing miles behind it.

But sitting here bitching about how overwhelmed I am and how tired I am and how little I'm getting done addresses none of those problems in any substantial way, so this is going to be a short post, folks. I need to get out of here so I can hit the ground at a full gallop tomorrow, the minute I arrive on campus.

Ah, Christ, I hope this calms down soon.

Great, huge, honking spanner in the works...

So, I was checking e-mail before starting to draft the various e-mails I had to write today--and suddenly I see a message from on high letting us know that, because of the security in the area surrounding the presidential debates that will be held at Hofstra on Sept. 26, any classes that meet Monday and some other day of the week would be canceled; the only classes that will meet are those that meet one day a week only, on Monday.

So, in addition to the cancellations because of the Jewish holidays, which was already making my schedule difficult, now I have another class canceled--and it was the class just before the students have to write their first essays, the class in which we'd discuss the last of the possible readings to use for the essay.

There could be a case made that it's permissible to let them flounder around with the story on their own and write about it without having discussed it--but I just don't feel I can do that with a 102 class. A lit elective, maybe, but not a 102.

Therefore, with my stomach doing more flips than a Simone Biles floor routine, I ripped apart the schedule and reconstructed it.

The down sides: 1) The students will be starting to read and discuss the poetry while they're still finishing their papers on the short stories. 2) The reading schedule for The Left Hand of Darkness has been severely truncated, ferociously truncated, and a lot of the students who are still hanging on at that point will lose their grip on the speeding train and fall by the wayside. 3) I have less time to conference with them for their final papers. 4) Rescheduling the time I miss in Advisement will be a lot tougher and require more days--because for all but one of the conferencing periods, I'll have more days dedicated to conferencing.

The up sides: 1) For all but one of the conferencing periods, I'll have more days dedicated to conferencing. 2) For all the conference periods except the last, the conferences are being held Monday through Thursday, instead of (confusingly for the students) starting on a Thursday and carrying over into the next week. 3) I have more time between when I receive their essays and when I have to have them ready to return--for all but the last essay, when I'm counting on the fact that I'll have a lot fewer essays to mark.

So, the schedule has been revised--and I'm praying like mad that I haven't done something inutterably bone-headed in the process, as I did it on a Thursday evening, which is not, generally speaking, when I'm at my intellectual peak. But it's done and copied and ready to hand out to students. So, well, whew. My stomach can stop the gymnastics routines.

Prior to all that furor, I helped out with another seminar hours workshop (no probs), then I had a meeting with the VP in charge of distance education. As I suspected would be the case, she mostly told me things I already know--or things I may ignore. But there was some interesting information, and some sense of what the current buzz is about. Apparently, the big deal this semester is to try to get faculty to include more videos: not just things already existing (YouTube videos, movies, whatever), but videos created by the professor and the students. I actually don't mind in the least figuring out how to make a little video of myself as a welcome to the students; I may even take her suggestion and create a video of myself showing them how I have the class organized on Blackboard. (Even if they can use Blackboard, they may need a little guidance in figuring out where to find each little widget for my particular course.) And I don't mind at all asking them to make little videos--if I can think of something pedagogically worthwhile for them to use videos to accomplish.

But the real meat of the meeting was to light fire under me about getting the paperwork rolling. I don't have very much time to get all the signatures collected and the thing approved for presentation to the College-Wide Curriculum Committee. Yikes and likewise zoiks! I josh, but I'm seriously in a bit of a flop sweat about this.

And I was so busy with revamping the schedule for the 102s (which necessitated some e-mails to let others know about the change in my schedule), and with writing all the e-mails that arose out of the meeting about the distance ed thing, and with I don't know what the fuck all else, I did not mark a single assignment for the 102s--and I have quite a handful to mark.

So, here we are: end of the first full week of classes, and I already have to take work home to do over the weekend. This does not bode well for how the rest of the semester is going to shake out.

Today's SF class was a little bumpy, too. The student who indicated his disengagement from the first class showed up today but then I caught him on his cell phone. "But it's work-related!" he said. I ended up wrestling with him about that, the missing work, the rules--trying to just get him to accept that he'd fucked up and should leave--but I realized he had a point, which is that a lot of the other students had their phones out. Two of them had the book on their phones. (Note to self: absolutely, categorically forbid this in the future. It gets too confusing trying to sort out who is legitimately on the phone and who isn't.) I finally agreed to let the kid stay this time, but Judas Priest, I wish he'd go. He had the work, at least, so maybe he'll turn out to be OK, but we ended up with 10 minutes to talk with the class as a whole about the end of Frankenstein: nowhere near enough time. I had wanted to introduce them to Androids, too, but didn't have time.

I did, however, ask them to think about whether they'd have what they'd need for an essay from the notes they have. A bunch of them very confidently--and erroneously--said yes, and I said, "I think a bunch of you are fooling yourselves, because I have to tell you, all I see in your notes is summary." So then--given the lack of time--I just went right to the heart of it. "What are the deep questions or issues that Shelley addresses in the novel? She never answers a question or resolves an issue, but we need to figure out what she might be asking." Virtually every face in the room looked like I'd just hit it with a brick. They finally came up with some things, but I need to remind them--again, and again, and again--that 1) they are working to find those deeper questions and ideas and 2) summarizing will not get them there.

 A bit discouraging--but the discussion in their groups was lively.

Essentially, right at this particular moment, it feels like every careful plan I've made has turned to unmitigated chaos. I don't know why I'm surprised: since all the things that blew up in my life from October 2012 through January 2013, I've been saying that the main lesson I learned is that we have virtually no control over anything. None. Zero. Zip. Here I am, experiencing how completely impossible it is to maintain control over almost anything. I don't like feeling this level of chaos, especially this early in the semester, but all I can do is figure out what I can let go of and run like crazy not to fall any further behind (like the White Queen in Alice through the Looking Glass).

On which note, I'm going to stagger off campus and try to figure out how to let go of today so I can spend tomorrow taking a nice, big, deep breath--and then try to take a clear look at all the pearls all over the floor to see if I can get at least some of them threaded back up again.

I can't even think about it tomorrow--or I'll try not to. I'll think about it in another tomorrow after that.