I haven't written for the past week because I've been incredibly swamped with everything I've had to do, and I haven't had the energy to physically sit here any longer than I have to in order to get things done.
Here's a short recap of the past week or so:
1. This Tuesday/Thursday, being-on-campus-for-twelve-hours shit is going to get really old, really fucking fast.
2. It snowed like hell on Friday.
I'm making neither of these things up, obviously -- when I woke up on Friday morning, it was cold and rainy (as the weather had predicted). It later turned over to a sleety rain as the temperatures got even colder, which surprised me enough as it was, and then -- by around 1PM or so -- it was snow. All snow. Big, wet, fluffy snowflakes. I just stood in my living room and stared at it, like a deer caught in headlights. I went back to my Man Cave to tell people in Wichita about it -- people who, until about an hour later when it was snowing there, didn't believe me. I went out to my balcony and took a picture of it.
It continued to snow for most of the afternoon and into the early evening hours. Before it was done, it was actually sticking to the ground and the cars despite the fact that the ground was not yet frozen -- that's how hard it was coming down and how quickly it was piling up. By mid-afternoon, everything but the roads were covered, and there was half an inch in the grass. Measurably half an inch, mind you. By dark it had melted off of everything but the cars. On Saturday morning I still had some snow on the back half of my car. I didn't have to go anywhere, though. Saturday afternoon, it was nearly 70 again, so the snow was short-lived. But, for having no snow whatsoever in the forecast? Yeah, the weather people out here have no real clue what they're doing.
My Tuesday/Thursday classes (and work schedule on those days) is going to be less than pleasant. Last Thursday, I collected papers from my 101 students, so I had the ability to sit down and grade those for a few hours. The West campus people gave me a small, 8x10' corner office over there with three desks and (as of then, non-working) computers attached to them, and it's a nice enclosed space where I don't have to worry about being bothered or disturbed by the coming and going of staff and students. I used my electronic cigarette most of the day and powered through my students' papers one-by-one, spending as much time as I needed to spend on them...only to find that once I was done, I still had four hours before my night class would even start.
This looks like it's going to be a running theme every time I'm on West campus for the remainder of the semester, and I now dread these days instead of look forward to them. While I can get a lot done on West campus -- such as making lesson plans for my students and grading through papers -- there's only so much I can do there if I don't have my books for my other classes, and I don't have access to my computer here at home. Once I reach that limit and I've finished what I can do, that's it -- I'm stuck. I can't leap forward into the lesson plans for later in the semester, because if I do, I won't have anything to do on subsequent Tuesdays and Thursdays when I'm stuck over there for hours upon hours.
Today, for example, I really won't have a lot to grade -- I have three or four late papers for my 011 class to go through, and I'll have about the same for rewrites on Thursday, but other than that, I don't have much else to do the entire time I'm stuck over there. I've charged up my mp3 player with all of my podcasts on it and I'm bringing that with me, but that's about all I have. I'd bring my DS, but I don't have any use for it to keep me entertained over there -- I've already beaten Pokemon Black 2 numerous times, and have nothing more that will entertain me with that game. I don't have a 2DS or 3DS, so I can't get X/Y, as I've mentioned before. I don't yet have a tablet or anything like that which I could stream movies through via Amazon Prime, and of my two laptops, one is at my main office and the other needs a new OS before I can use it again. When I'm stuck there it's all about keeping occupied and entertained, because it feels like I'm in prison for the eight hours between my classes. Most people only work eight hours per day. I can't even nap in that office -- in the afternoon, I share it with one of the math professors who teaches an evening class over there, leaving no more private space for me after around 4PM.
As for my evening 210 class itself, I had about six of them missing on Thursday night, including the one or two students I've taught before. Most of them seem to be non-traditional students -- they're either coming to class straight from work or straight from their other classes on West or main campus. Many have jobs, families, and young children. Many are at least in their mid-20s, if not mid-40s and mid-50s. All of them seemed scared when I told them that their final two projects in the class would be ten and fifteen pages, respectively.
I can't help that, by the way -- it's just how those assignments work in an eight-week class. Even in a normal sixteen-week class, they'd only have two weeks to do each of those assignments. This isn't a normal comp class where all the students get a month to work on each paper. No, this is a more advanced course with more advanced work, and because of that everything is scaled up, even timeframes. It's a business writing class, so it's a microcosm of a business environment.
"These folks aren't going to last," I told the Director yesterday morning in his office. "Some of them will, yes, but most of them? They're going to get through the first three fast-and-easy assignments, and then when we get to the bigger, longer, and more complex ones? They're going to start disappearing."
"That tends to happen in eight-week classes," he replied. "You're in a tight spot here, trying to get a lot done in a very short amount of time."
"You should've seen how terrified they looked when I told them about the final two assignments being ten and fifteen pages."
"I would imagine that for some of them, it will mean a lot of very late nights."
As mentioned before, I expect about ten students, max, to remain in the class by the time we reach December. Any more than that would be too optimistic. With the amount of work they'll be doing between now and then, I'm hoping that the ones who can't do it or don't have time to do it will just drop the course -- it's going to be very, very time-consuming to grade through a stack of fifteen-page projects, especially at the same time I'm grading through papers for my other two classes. That's why I told Daisy that I need some book-ended days over Thanksgiving break to be able to sit down and actually spend hours upon hours going through all of my grading and getting it done -- the week after Thanksgiving, it's the last week of classes. I won't have time to finish it all otherwise. I'm already losing a ton of sleep as it is because I'm stuck over there on West campus for twenty-four hours a week. To put that into perspective, that's about the total of hours I sleep over the entirety of any given work week -- about six or so hours per night -- spent in one place, with only about half to 60% of those hours actually doing anything of consequence.
Yes, it is good for grading. Yes, it is good for lesson planning. But once I do those things? Yeah, they're done -- it's not like I can magically entertain myself or stay occupied.
It could be worse, though -- I got an email from the department upon waking up this morning that said the entire west side of main campus has had its heating shut off for at least the next week, as the physical plant is replacing/redoing much of the duct work, piping, etc. A good chunk of the GTAs and faculty either teach or take classes in those buildings, so it's going to be cold for them until everything gets fixed.
The perks of working at a university with a bunch of old buildings, I suppose. Right?
Sarcasm intended.
There's always a crew working on something on the West campus as well; there's never a shortage of something to do over there for them, it seems, even though the building and West campus itself is less than five years old (I believe it was completed during my first year of grad school).
As for my own heating, I've been running the furnace off and on -- that's sort of necessary when it's been snowing, you know -- but not any more than I absolutely need to. The furnace tends to be even more expensive to run than the air conditioner, especially if it's really cold outside. I turn it down really low at night or when I'm gone (to around 54, 56 or something like that) and turn it back up to 62-64ish when I'm awake and at home.
My bills are paid; I paid off everything I had over the weekend, which drops my cash reserves pretty low for the rest of the week. Luckily, I get paid on Friday, so I don't really have to worry about money for the time being. I'll probably have to do some shopping tomorrow night or Thursday night at the latest, though, which will cut into that a little more. I also have to pay the rent this weekend as well.
My lesson plans for today's classes are pretty simple -- in my 101 I'm handing back papers and am going over rewrites and a section in the book; simple stuff. In my 210 I'm collecting their first assignment and am covering the weekly plan for the rest of the semester as well as going over their second assignment, which will be due on Thursday.
I've not yet experienced a Wednesday this semester where I've had to work the night beforehand. That's what the problem is going to be with tomorrow. Tonight I'll come home (last week, luckily, I was home by 9:30 or so) and basically eat and go to bed, getting up again at 5AM to go in to teach tomorrow morning. I should be back home by around noon tomorrow, but the misery is that I can't just come home and go back to bed, no matter how tired I am -- I have to be able to stay awake as long as I can to be able to sleep all night tomorrow night and be well-rested for Thursday, where I do that shit all over again. I should be fine today; I went to bed before 7PM last night and slept until my alarm went off this morning at 5 -- but on Thursday I'm likely to be a zombie unless I go to bed at like, 5PM tomorrow night and can sleep through the entire night. I'm not sure that will be possible, no matter how tired I am. That also cuts out a lot of time I would otherwise spend with Daisy, as well.
I make as much time for decompression and for Daisy as I can, obviously, but it has become clear to me even at this early stage of that night course that I'm going to be really busy and exhausted most of the time. Add to that all of my normal weekly responsibilities and the looming deadline of my student loans' grace period ending this time next month unless I can do something else to defer them, and my mind is already shot and stressed. I'm burned out. I had to chain smoke and slug down coffee all day on Thursday just to be able to stay awake and not be too incredibly bored out of my skull once I had everything finished, but obviously I can't do that every day I'm there. One thing's for certain, though -- in the spring, when I'll go back to teach again (more than likely, anyhow; nothing's ever completely guaranteed) I'm either going to request all night classes or all day classes. I can't do both, not on the same day and not at a super-accelerated pace for the second half of the semester when all of the big assignments and work come in. I'm happy to teach whatever I can get, obviously, but I'd rather it not kill me or make me lose my marbles in the months leading up to the wedding.
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