* Planned out my exam-week schedule. It turns out I give NO exams Monday, which is nice (I can either use it for catch-up grading, or catch-up exam writing - I have to do a new one this year, for the new class - or, if I'm really super on the ball, I could take the day off. Maybe).
I give an easy (machine graded, common across all sections of the gen-ed class) exam on Tuesday, but it's in the dreaded 11-1 slot (which means you either eat a late big breakfast, a late lunch, or just skip lunch). Then again - that will take about ten minutes to grade, and then I'm done for the rest of the day.
Wednesday, I take up the take-home exam (though I may get some early from the Diligent People) and hopefully can grade most of it before my (womp womp) second 11-1 exam (which is Ecology, and which will be heavily multiple-choice). The hardest one - Policy and Law - is Thursday at 8 am. I'm actually happy about that time slot; I can give the exam, scram home, and grade it sitting in my big chair instead of having to wait around before the exam or wait around for a second exam.
I have two of the review sheets made up already; if I am motivated this afternoon I will do the other two. (Yes, I do review sheets. It's expected now. Just another thing I didn't get as a student but I have the responsibility to do as a prof).
* I'm still thinking about a comment a student made back when I was in the middle of the rewrite and was stressed out and barely keeping it together. She commented, "Wow, I didn't know professors found classes stressful too." At the time I interpreted it as slightly snotty but that was probably colored by my mood at the time.
A possible different interpretation is this: "Maybe I really do project such an illusion of having it all together that they don't even realize how much this takes out of me." I thought about that at 9 this morning as I was frantically copying all the case-files needed for the policy-and-law class, after realizing (a) entrusting people with my originals was a bad idea and (b) anyway, both people on a team really need to have their own copy. I do a lot of things kind of at the last minute but people don't see that when I walk into class....
On the one hand, that's good: I'm not failing at being an adult after all. On the other hand: when I am really on the edge of losing it, I don't get as much sympathy. It does seem that people who seem to have it under control, you never think about what strain they might be under to KEEP it all under control.
* I put up the Christmas decorations (such as I have) in my office - plugged in my little tree that goes into the USB port to light up (it is fiber optic, but apparently the color-changing feature on it broke, and it's now just blue). And I have a tiny string of LED "rice lights" wrapped around my monitor. And I put up the window clings, which were a pain to do and I fear they might fall down at some point.
But I need that kind of thing. For one thing, it's a reminder of the good times in the past, and a reminder that there's more to life than just working. I have a bad habit lately of getting my head SO into my work....and I know I will regret that later (I already regret not having been more "social" in college and grad school, though even back then, the dating scene was kind of a cesspool already and it's hard to find someone in a hook-up culture when you're not a hook-up type of person). And I do kind of look at my yarn and fabric with regret and wish I felt freer to take time off during the week to work on those things.
At home, I do need to get out my Nativity set and some of the other soft-furnishings type decorations. But I also need to clean my living room a bit first.
* Still no word on whether I'm required Saturday. I am still hoping "no" because I really want some "fun time" and there will be no way, given a six-hour plus round trip, to work that in (even if I pass through a couple of towns marginally larger than mine)
If I'm not required, my plan is to go antiquing and maybe to the Ulta and the Jo-Ann's and get some lunch out and also do the grocery shopping needed for the turkey meatballs for AAUW next week (if I can't, I think I can get everything locally, but I'd rather go to the Kroger's if I can). Also I need to plan on my annual tradition of "buy a toy I would have wanted as a kid and donate it to Toys for Tots" - even if I'm a little tapped out right now, I still want to do that.
And try to get the new magazines, if they're out. The Christmas issues of the Brit-crafting magazines are the best. (I read somewhere that the UK does not have a "national holiday" like Bastille Day or our Independence Day, and so for them, Christmas takes the place. I don't know if that's really true or not (then again, they sort of nominally have Christianity as the state religion, whereas here, we have "separation" of some sort or other, so you get things like municipalities sometimes being asked not to decorate "so obviously Christmas" and the like.)
(Honestly? Next week would be a better time for me to go edit: between last week of classes and finals).
*I was just able to get in 30 minutes on the cross-country ski exerciser today (I had been doing 45 before the cold hit). I guess I'm getting better....maybe I just needed a little more time. I think I am going to take tomorrow as a rest day, or maybe do the dvd workout after I get home for the day (if I can do it without joggling ornaments off the tree - maybe by moving back in the room and doing it as far from the tree as I can).
Am also thinking ahead to over break - I am going to try to do 30 minutes of walking every day as long as the weather is okay. (My parents have a treadmill, but it balks at how long of a workout I like to do on it - I guess the motor is old and it's not been used much. And I might be heavier than what it's designed for, I don't know). I need to exercise more and eat less; I can tell I'm a bit paunchier than I was at my lightest adult weight and I need to reduce, and I need to try to STAY reduced. (But it's hard. I get hungry on a typical lo-cal lunch, and also: it's just hard when you have few sensual pleasures in life to say "Okay, I'm going to 100% give up sweets" and the like). And anyway, walking outside is probably mentally better for a person than staring at a wall as they walk.
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