Another Damned Notorious Writing Group Week 1: It could have been worse

At least, I think it could have been worse. Part of the problem is that this is not week 1 at school for me, but week 4, and I have gotten stacks of essays from all four of my classes already. Yeah, I know, I am the one scheduling and so on, but really, if you need the comp students to do 4 essays in a semester, you don't really have that much leeway for scheduling since stuff is going to be constantly coming in. Plus I have stacks and stacks of quizzes and homeworks I need to at least check off that they did them (these are the other classes) which is also kinda weighing on me right now.

On the happier side, my Fruit Studies class is doing all the reading, brings their books and loves to talk, so that class is such a joy compared to the last time I taught it. And the stripey class just got an average of zero on their first quiz and I pointed out that getting a zero on the midterm would probably be A Bad Thing, so I'm hoping that this lesson has now been learned.

Anyway, Floyd the article. I worked on Floyd last weekend and Monday, and then was buried by grading all week. I always feel so harried and behind on it and have anxious students wondering how soon they will get material back. But! They are only part of my job. And i need to make sure I make time for my article writing and my job search applying. (Applicating? whatever.) So my goal is, even more importantly than cleaning up the middle sections, to look at my schedule and my semester assignment schedule and give some priority time to revising. As part of that, I promise to write first thing tomorrow morning,  as soon as my coffee has kicked in, and then do my planning.

(I am most willing to do unpleasant or stressful stuff first thing in the morning --- my "sweet spot" for energy and alertness. But so far this semester I have missed only one 6 am MWF yoga dvd session, and I really don't want to give that up. But there's not really time afterwards to do anything besides shower and go to teach, and I won't do anything so unpleasant as exercise at any other time of the day. Get it over with and off the plate, you know. Will have to ponder this.)

I looked on the MLA Job List and it was like lancing a boil: painful but great afterwards. I haven't had the urge to look at it again or do any applicating since. I mean, I printed out anything that looked remotely possible and put it in my big binder organized by due date, so I know when the apps are going to start coming due. It's just strange to me how I had to *know,* like I was worried there would not be any jobs at all on the JIL and once I reassured myself I could stop compulsively checking to see if it was up. I'm weird, I know.

I am so tired. Later I will tell you about The Scooped Article That Totally Was Not, and the Potential Exciting Crazy Thing I accidentally discovered about my author. Now, though, I'm going to bed. ZZZZZZ.