"Twilight is dope!"

12 July 2023: Really, really hard day today, work-wise. Had to take 30 minutes to watch a Parks and Rec just to to chill for a bit--like actual medicine or something. Picked this one, which has too many great lines to list. 

Whew...

9 June 2020: I sat here for 15 minutes trying to decide on a post title. We'll go with that silly bit of inelegance above. Things have been low-key crazy since Friday. Busy, too, with a thousand different--wildly different tasks. Yesterday, I managed it all with real skill and grace, until some really upsetting and discouraging emails last night. Today started out rough and stressful, but some really promising developments lifted my spirits and now, though I still feel a bit overwhelmed, I am not as discouraged and sad. (Have to keep it all vague...)

One other factor: Orientation for first-year students started this week, but thanks to COVID, it is very different. All one-on-one appointments, all via Zoom or over the phone. It's been going well, but I miss the normal way. Trying to focus on the good part, though: interacting with students excited to start Shepherd.

Forced distractions...

22 March 2016: Tuesday was a very busy/stressful day. On my way to trivia, I was thinking, "For the first time, I wish I could skip. I just don't have time for this." But I went anyway. And a couple of hours later, when the game was over (and no, we didn't win), I realized that for two hours, I hadn't felt stressed or overwhelmed. I had simply had fun. Yeah, I was still behind when I got home and had to stay up late that night and get up early this morning, but going to that game and taking that break was a good thing.

It's much too early in the summer...

...to feel this stressed. Seriously. Yesterday it was almost overwhelming. The problem is that I am trying to tackle a half dozen projects, all with several phases/steps. The solution, I realized last night, is to go back to my "Goals for the Week" lists. Most of my friends know I  make daily (and very detailed) to-do lists, but I tend to only break out the weekly lists over breaks and summers. So here we go!

So tired...

So posting has been especially light here lately, but I have pretty good reasons.

1) It's midterms week. A week from tomorrow (at 9:00 a.m.), I'll have to have graded 100 ENGL 204 exams (complete with essay section) and 20 ENGL 101 papers and submitted midterm grades for all of my students. Now you might be thinking, "That's okay--knock out that grading this weekend." Ordinarily, that would work just fine, but not this weekend, as you'll see.

2) It's AHWIR week, which is awesome, but oh-so-time-consuming. I've been on campus every day this week for at least 12 hours straight.

3) We've got this going on on Saturday, all day Saturday, and it really might do me in. Never thought I'd be worrying about things like tracking down a registration table, printing name tags, etc. at this late date.

4) My parents are visiting this weekend--not to see me, but to crash at my place so they can visit with little sister and her fiance (and meet his parents). It's always nice to see my parents, but man, this couldn't come at a worse time.

5) And then there's this lovely cherry on top of the big bowl of stress-sundae: I've got a very nasty cold. No, not the flu...just a cold. But really...when I felt it coming on Monday night, I said, "Really, God? This week?"

It's been fun. I get home, eat dinner, collapse, and then start it all over again the next day. The only light at the end of the tunnel? For the first time ever, Shepherd is giving us a two-day Fall Break, October 12 and 13. So if I can just make it to October 9, the day the grades are due, I'll be okay.

(No time to even think about the other things on the horizon: the two search committees I am chairing, my third-year review portfolio--due on October 15, a conference I've got in a few weeks...)

Nevertheless, I might--for mental health breaks--still manage to do some catch-up link dump postings in the coming days.