Folks ask me how the semester is going and I have two very different answers.
Great:
If they are asking about my classes, my grading load (so far), and my students, my semester has been amazing.
My students have done their homework. Some have learned what I was trying to get them to incorporate, while some appear know it but don’t do it consistently.
I’m caught up on my grading even though I was out of town for two days.
I learned what other syllabi on campus look like and have found a standard to examine my work against. (Yes, I will be working on my syllabi presentation–absolutely.)
The graduate class I was so stressed out about has been a relative breeze. Of course, that could be because I expected it to whip me every single hour of every single day and really I’m only spending about six hours a week preparing for it–not including the intense reading I did for it this summer.
My freshmen seem to be responding positively to the assignments that I created which are attempting to scaffold work carefully.
My sophomores are reading and learning to examine the context of their readings. We’re going to be working on theme and genre some this week. Hope that goes as well.
Overwhelming:
I have an R&R that I don’t have the texts for. Our library may be able to order them and I need to make that a priority, but I have not. (Email right after this. Promise!) Update: Short email sent to the right person.
I am supposed to be finishing the dissertation for the publisher. Yeah. Not. Haven’t looked at it since May. It’s due soon. Really need to get that done. Did line up two readers. Need to find an editor.
There are no other articles/chapters/books in the pipeline besides these two and I am stalling on them. That is not good for my future or my success.
I have an iBook grant project that I have worked on, but nowhere near as much as I should have so far. I keep thinking that I just need a couple of days to work on it and I can make significant progress (which is probably true), but every day I plan to work, something else comes up.
Am I setting myself up to fail? That’s not usually my style. But it certainly seems that procrastination or life or something is between me and good times for my research and writing.