I did it

I am frankly kind of amazed at what I got done yesterday. Perhaps I am still just shaking off my summer laziness and not quite into the faster schedule for fall.

But, I taught a full day of classes (including lab). Then I graded the labs I collected (class of 24). then I went home and practiced piano for a bit, then washed my hair. Then I made the salad (corn and bean salad; the longest part was chopping up an entire jicama into small enough dice that even my poor teeth can manage them) for tonight's AAUW salad supper. Then I fixed myself another one of those cabbage pancake things for dinner on the grounds that it was as fast as anything I could make, and I might as well keep eating healthfully. Then, after dinner, I decided to buckle down and grade the first-papers (this is a summary-and-critique of a challenging, but v. famous, paper in conservation) from one class - about 20 people (And yes, two did not hand them in, and I feel no qualms about having entered big 0s in the online gradebook for them - one is one of the people who does not seem to take the class seriously; the other is my serial non-attender).

They were not as hard as I feared. With stuff like this I worry that either I'll have to wade through super-opinionated stuff that either disagrees violently, or worse, disagrees violently for somewhat ill-formed reasons. And they were better written than I hoped, though a number of the students did remark they had been through a colleague's class before where he "forced" them to do this and graded hard.

I didn't grade particularly hard or particularly detailed, but then, this was the first paper, and it's a notoriously difficult paper (in terms of background knowledge - several individuals are referenced that I had to look up the first time I read it).

But yeah. I got them done. I told the students "Don't expect them back before Tuesday" but maybe I will just hand them back now, that I've already entered the grades. I feel better for having these done.

I also finished piano practice (well, I only got in 50 minutes yesterday, but I guess that's okay)

I even found the time to watch a few minutes of "Inside Out" (which was re-running on some channel) and crochet most of the second leg of the smol robot. So. I guess I just need to get back into the habit of juggling the fifteen things I normally do. (Which makes me wonder if maybe I SHOULD say yes to teaching next summer; it might help keep me on my game)

Also, some better news: my dad seems to be over the "O2 saturation" problem he was having, probably because he's building his upper body strength back up. And his alertness is better (this was a big concern of mine; my mom reported he wasn't always "alert" which of course put me in worry mode: could he actually have had a stroke and they are keeping it from me on the grounds of "we don't want you to worry*" but maybe it was just the oxygen. And I also remembered  this morning: he was sedated for that day and night he was intubated, and sedation can mess with you badly for a while after you're done with it, so maybe that's part of it, too)

(*There is precedent for this; I did not learn of a cousin's suicide until WEEKS later - in fact, there was a point where I could have wound up saying something unfortunate to a family member of his because I did not know - because it was exam week and my mother said "I didn't think it was a very nice thing for you to have to think about while writing and grading exams" and well, yes, there was nothing I could have done and knowing might not have helped....still, it has made me wonder in the intervening years if other facts are being kept from me to be revealed at a time when I have "relaxed"  a bit. I get that it was done in a spirit of kindness but it really didn't help me.)

So anyway.

I am debating just staying home after lunch today (No faculty meeting; my chair is in China this week because of the new partnership thing) and relaxing - or taking the needed stuff for writing *next week's* exam home with me and working on it there.

Tomorrow is just biostats and I give an exam in my other class, and then I have to decide:

- do I go to Sherman tomorrow afternoon, or take the exams that I have* home and grade them right away, and plan to go Saturday?

(*Several people are going to be absent because of reasons - field trips in other classes - so they will take it first thing on Monday. Which means I *can't* hand them back before Wednesday. But then again: next week is going to be BUSY, with no evenings really open until Friday)

It will depend greatly on the weather - if it's pouring hard I won't go because I hate driving in heavy rain. I want to go, though I don't HAVE to go (could get what I need for next week here).

I still have to think about the CWF salad, though. I would like to do fruit salad for a change but I am not sure I will have ample time for all the cutting-up of fruit it would require, and some fruits (like melons) would have to be left out (I am allergic to melon now). Not sure I want to do bean-and-corn again right away.

Other option would be to make a dessert of some kind. Or a bread. Or maybe make a bread and get a cheese tray....that might work. (I want SOMETHING that will serve me as a main dish in case all the other salads contain things I am allergic to.)

Other option would be to do that "hot chicken salad" my mom used to make and sub something in for the celery (another allergen). That....might actually be a good idea. (We used to use water chestnuts in my family after the celery allergy was detected....)

Next week is going to be busy though:

Monday is bell choir and CWF
Tuesday I feed the college youth group (though that's going to be simple: I just need to cook up a bunch of taco meat, get some beans, and get a couple boxes of ice cream bars for the dessert; we decided to do tacos and my co-worker in this is going to do all the veggies-requiring-chopping stuff.). Wednesday is Elders' and Board Meeting and for once I managed to work it so it's a short lab that day, so hopefully I get home a tiny bit early.....

So yeah, by Thursday, I will be happy to only have piano....