Sunday, February 6, 2011

Like pulling off a band-aid, sloooooowly...

Sigh. Where have I been? Sadly, I missed my Friday writing schedule already, as well as skipped yoga that day (and the days since then). But my stomach/guts/general malaise has been a little iffy, lately, and I have had very low energy. I hope to somehow magically turn it around and get caught up enough that I can go back to my article. Soon, before I forget everything I have brainstormed about it lately.

I had a lot of assignments and then there was a nice weather weekend (not the recent one, yes, I know) and I alternated between working on the article, reading for fun, and just having a pleasant time outside. Got behind on the grading, which is never a good idea, like when the hero of the movie is chained in a cave and the water is pouring in ---- you don't want to wait until it is over your head to do something about it.

So I managed to find some Grading Mojo(tm) and pounded through an entire section of comp drafts (so, like, 28 or so?) on Wednesday and then spent the entire day (when not teaching) pounding through a bunch of in-class writings and then spent the entire day Friday (at school but not teaching) grading Stripey class assignments, and then I just couldn't bring myself to do anything at all on Saturday, except some sluggish and halfhearted laundry. It was like how they say binge-writing is bad for you because you burn out and then can't do any writing at all. Except I don't have that option, as I got Fruit Assignments and then the peer reviews and final drafts of the comp stuff and a set of Stripey quizzes and then I'm going to have to prep classes for the week now that all of them are moving into a new sequence.

If I were able to pound out an entire class-worth of one of these other assignments I'd be ok for this week, but I have been just so listless and pitiful today. And it's worse than ripping off a band-aid slowly; I have wasted hours anticipating ripping off the band-aid but not actually being able to force myself to do it. Just pull, dammit! Get it over with! Alas, I have spent a lot of time staring out the window with a half-graded assignment on my lap. If I had just chucked everything and done something fun, at least I'd have something fun to show for it. But really, I have only unpleasant memories to show for today, memories of time wasted not even in grading, but in pissing and whining about not wanting to grade (with a very little bit of grading thrown in).

Plus, I've been having some computer troubles and there's nothing more time-consuming or frustrating, in my experience, than searching the internet for advice for hours, finally understanding it and implementing the solution, only to find --- Oh Fuck! it doesn't work!

But, in happier news, I had some chips and salsa and now will put some music I like (music without words, as I can't grade and sing along to things at the same time) and I hope this will help me keep focused while I finish this stack o'crap. Or alternately, will soothe me while I painstakingly reorganize these already-organized piles.

3 comments:

SEK said...

But the bananas! No one ever wonders about muck-mouth, and yet, THERE IT IS!

Dr. Koshary said...

There are no band-aids in Fruit Studies. Rip the mothersucker off.

DO IT!!

Dr. Cynicism said...

Haha... great metaphor. And some days it feels like pulling one off, putting a new one on just to tear it slowly off again, and over and over.