Balminess

Spring semester: day thirty-six

Well.

I can now safely say that the vast majority of my weekend, more than anything else, was spent sleeping. My eye, which bothered me big time until Sunday night at the least, kept me tired and achy enough to sleep for long hours almost every day I was off, only being awake long enough in the interim times to take care of my household and student-related tasks like cleaning, cooking, laundry, grading, and creating lesson plans for this week. Once more, I did not do my taxes -- again, a failure on my part, but not one without reason.

My eye is fine now, by the way, and has been since at least yesterday morning. Whatever was "infecting" it and was giving me pinkeye-like symptoms is now gone, and I have my normal eye back again. It's still a tad blurry, but even that is rapidly fading by the day. I'm just glad that it's no longer burning, itching, aching, and watering all the time -- a little blurriness I can handle, as I got used to that after the pineapple incident six months ago (until my eyesight finally returned to complete normality around Christmas or so). Whatever caused the "infection" remains a mystery, though I'm leaning more towards allergies coupled with a new scratch that needed to heal.

Over the weekend, despite my massive amounts of sleeping, I did get a fair amount of things done -- I graded everything I had to grade, I did all of the laundry (as well as washed/packed all of my clothes for the Omaha trip, which I have to wash and then put directly into my suitcase out of the dryer so no cat hair/dander gets on them and makes Mama sick when I visit), I cooked a few meals, I paid all of the bills I have now -- officially cutting my bank account's balance in half -- and I wrote up all of my lesson plans for the week so that I know exactly what I'm going to cover in class and how I will do it.

Tomorrow is the "midterm date" for the semester -- midterm grading opened up for all of us instructors/professors yesterday. As I'm collecting work from students this week which will count towards that midterm grade, I cannot calculate midterm grades for everyone until those assignments are graded and tallied. I collect another set of papers tonight (011), a second set tomorrow (210), and another bunch of journals on Thursday (102). Until that stuff's graded, I don't have set-in-stone scores for anyone in my classes. Again, midterms are meaningless anyway, and all students can drop a class anytime until April 4, so again, it's just busywork we have to do as professors -- as much of the work we do every semester is anyway.

We've changed our break travel plans slightly; Daisy is planning to come down on Monday night now (the 17th), taking that night off of work, so that we can get a little more time together. We'll either go back up that night or in the morning on Tuesday, spend a few days there in Omaha, and then come back Thursday night in the overnight hours (as she has work on Friday night, and would have to get back up there on Friday morning. As I have the time off regardless, I'll be happy to do whatever she wants to do or can do -- I'll be doing most, if not all, of my grading and other class-related work (like midterm posting) before I head up to Omaha anyway, as I don't want it hanging over my head in case something happens. I've always been that kind of work before play person anyhow, and these next two weeks are no exception to that rule. If I can time everything right, all I will have to do once I return from Omaha will be my taxes and, unless I do them beforehand (and I must do them soon), and the paying of whatever bills come in while I'm gone. As I get paid again in three days, this shouldn't be a problem.

I sent an email yesterday to the insurance guy in HR, telling him that I'd send the forms over today via campus mail, as I can't submit them electronically (and have to send the life insurance beneficiary form over there anyhow). I've listed Daisy as that beneficiary, for obvious reasons (such as, y'know, I'm marrying the woman) but I have to have a witness sign it with me before I can send it. That can basically be anyone, I suppose, though I'll have a higher-up in the department around when I do it -- possibly the department administrator, the director, or the director's wife (whoever is around). I received a reply from the HR guy telling me that was fine, and that we'd still get everything in before the cutoff date (whatever that would be).

So yes, I have lots of little things to do over the next few days. This morning, as per the usual on Tuesdays now, I have to put gas in the car. Luckily, I won't freeze this time, because the weather has been gorgeous over the past several days -- yesterday, it reached 79 outside. It's almost 50 degrees outside right now as I type this. Today is the first day in a long time where I'll be able to leave the house without wearing multiple layers -- just a light jacket. This is downright balmy, summer-like weather after the single-digit temperatures, crazy-low wind chill, and snowstorms of the past several weeks. Perhaps this means that we'll actually get a spring this year, instead of four months of winter, a week of temperatures in the 60s, and then 90-105 every day until late September. My furnace has been turned off for three days straight now, saving me who knows how much money on my next electric bill. It's wonderful.

It's also a sure sign that spring is coming when I kill my first spider in the house, which I did yesterday afternoon. It wasn't a recluse, but one of those little black furry spiders. Maggie was chasing it, and I paid attention to her, shooed it away, and stomped it. I'm hoping the recluse were all killed by the super-cold snaps we've had off and on all winter long.

As always, today is my long day on two different campuses. Last night I went to bed around 7PM and got up this morning at about 5:15 or so, giving me enough sleep and rest to get through my day without any issues. The much nicer weather will help with that as well -- because it was warm and has remained warm, my allergies aren't even bothering me this morning. As I don't have any grading to do this afternoon before my evening class, I plan to take the 2DS with me to keep me occupied. I have, of course, already beaten Pokemon X, but there's still some post-game stuff to do in the game itself. Mainly, though, I just want to relax and hang out with my friends and colleagues, as it'll be the last time I get to do so until at least the 25th (due to Spring Break being next week).

As for other things? Eh. I'll have to go shopping Thursday afternoon when I get done teaching, more than likely, as I'll need to pick up the essentials by then, but there's not a whole lot else on the docket this week aside from wrapping up everything as neatly as I can as my students and I coast into Spring Break. Even my 011 night class tonight should be fairly short, as I'm doing little more than collecting papers and giving them their next assignment, telling them how to do it, and will be talking briefly about midterms/midterm grading and upcoming reading assignments/chapter coverage in the books for when we get back. My 102 classes this week will be the longest ones, as we're covering different argumentative tactics and logical fallacies (since there are a ton of those to go through one by one). My 210s tomorrow night won't even have an incredibly long class, as we're covering their final large assignment and I'm showing them examples/giving them tactics on how to go about doing it. They also have over a month to work on said assignment, spread out in two chunks and two different peer-review and editing days to help lessen confusion and to address any issues involved with it.

I'm actually excited to plow through this week and get it over with, so that I can have the time off to spend with Daisy and her parents and the time off to sleep and relax somewhere other than this house and/or state for once. We don't have a ton of plans for when I'm in Omaha -- I have to find a jacket for the wedding if possible, and Daisy and Mama want us to eat at a Chinese place they both love, but really, that's about all. I'd imagine the two of us will have a "date night" of sorts, as we usually do, but I don't really think anything else is planned. In packing for that trip, I packed clothing for both warm and cold weather -- because weather forecasts can and do change, of course, over any given week -- so there's pants and shorts, short-sleeve and long-sleeve shirts, socks and sandals, etc. It's always a bit cooler, if not a lot colder, in Omaha than it is here anyway. The differences in weather patterns between here and there are crazy sometimes, so I want to be prepared for any eventuality.

On that note, I'm going to ready myself to leave the house for the day, which translates to "I'm going to drink the majority of a pot of coffee, comb/brush my hair and brush my teeth, and get dressed."