Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Spring Break!

Sorry for the radio silence around these parts, but I’ve been busy getting my spring break on.

A brief look at what this has actually meant, in practice:
Thursday

As of 4.30 p.m., I’m on spring break! Whoo!

As my first act as One Who Is on Break, I spend 40 minutes running around filing paperwork for the most egregious case of plagiarism I’ve yet seen. Then I jump in my car and drive 35 minutes to the second meeting of my early modern reading group (which I’m totally loving, by the way). Then I come home, pour myself a drink, and all but pass out from exhaustion.

Friday

In theory, this is the day that I run a ton of errands and clean my apartment from top to bottom. In reality? I do a single load of laundry, take my car in for an oil/filter change and a tire rotation, and then join my friend Evey and her long-distance husband for a bunch of drinks and a big fish fry.

Saturday

Fight the spring break crowds at the usually empty regional airport for an early flight to Quaint Smallish City.

Grade all 16 papers from Class No. 1 (a personal record: I’m not a particularly efficient grader, so I usually top out at 10 or 11 per day).

Sunday

Grade all 26 midterms from Class No. 2.

Monday

Grade 14 papers for Class No. 3. File mid-semester grades for first two classes just past the theoretical deadline. (RU requires us to file grades at both midterm and at the end of the semester, which I can see the utility of--but why the spring deadline is at the beginning of spring break rather than at the end is beyond me.)

Tuesday

Grade remaining 4 papers for Class No. 3 and file mid-semester grades for that class.
And now I’m DONE with all my teaching-related obligations for nearly six full days.

If I can just keep up this level of productivity, I can totally get that book review written; revise my new chapter so that it’s good enough to send to Advisor; fix up my article on Neglected Author; transcribe that (unrelated) manuscript by Neglected Author for a new article, and--and--!

Well, okay. So I probably can’t get all that stuff done. But I bet I can get 2.5 of those four things done, and even completing two--whilst catching up on my sleep and DVD watching and magazine reading--would make me a happy Flavia indeed.

5 comments:

Horace said...

God, even your post had momentum. May you hit 2.5 or even 3 items (although I totally think catching up on magazine reading is just as important--I've got 2 Atlantics and four New Yorkers waiting for my flight to London in a couple of weeks).

Sisyphus said...

Here's hoping you get lots of stuff done! Or that you find some magic elves to do it for you. But I agree with Horace (and the trips I take are the only time I catch up on the journals I follow in my field).

Don't forget to eat somewhere nice and do some window shopping at a store you like; store up pleasantness for the rest of the semester.

Margaret said...

I agree with Horace about the momentum thing. But it also makes me a bit sad for you, and for us: Why are the words "productive" and "spring break" used together at all?! Just once I would like to have an UNPRODUCTIVE spring break and be totally okay with that!!

RageyOne said...

Go Flavia! You are workin' it girlie! Here's to productivity and a bit of fun!

Unknown said...

Dear God, woman! You're productivity astounds me and makes me pea green with envy at the same time. I'm totally impressed and now I'm going to channel your mojo to go grade!