A Week in the Life: Thursday

Woke up at 4:30 again this morning. Finally figured out why: so used to getting up at 5:30, brain hasn't adjusted to the time change (fall back). Funny. I was worried that Thing Two would be the one waking up at 4 or 4:30.

Unsuccessful in my attempt to go back to sleep. Also notice that Hubby is missing. [He's been having a lot of trouble sleeping too, lately, so when it's bad, he goes to the "guest" bedroom downstairs aka the unfinished playroom we stuck a bed in.] Just as I'm making up my mind to go get him up, I hear him come up the stairs.

Everyone's up and out of bed before 6:00 am. I'll have to remember this when the Things are teenagers and I can't get them up before noon.

6:45 am: Everyone's been fed, so I vacuum the living room. I hate the carpeting. It's brown, it never smells clean even after it's been shampooed, and it's a dust trap. Bleh.

7:00 am: Time for Sesame Street. Thing Two wants me to sit with him, so I do until I'm able to sneak away to get dressed. No dice. He's right there in the bedroom doorway: "Mama. Mama. Elmo." (pointing down the hall). So cute I could just die.

7:45 am: We're out the door.

8:30 am: I'm on campus, doing last-minute prep for my ENG 102 class. Copying the PowerPoint lecture on conducting library/internet research (they like to have it right there during the lecture, so I'm trying to remember to do it ahead of time).

9:00-10:15 am: Assign the researched argument paper (#4). Go over it carefully, including the two worksheets that are due next week. Also give a PowerPoint on conducting library and internet research (some of which has been cribbed from handouts I used when I taught at Marquette). This is the part of the semester where things slow down just a bit. Although I collected paper #3 (22 from one class, 17 from the other) and I will be spending part of tomorrow and Sunday working through them, I won't be collecting this fourth paper until the end of the first week of December. (Though stupidly I think I'm also collecting assignments from the other classes that week two, so the second week in December's going to be fairly awful.) It's also usually their best paper of the semester, for several reasons:

• They've been practicing for the last 10 weeks.
• The assignments have been going up in complexity since the beginning.
• They get to choose what to write about (as long as it deals with some aspect of technology/society)
• They get 4 weeks to write the paper, and I have progress assignments along the way to ensure that they don't leave it go until the last possible minute
• They get a chance to conference one-on-one with me (and believe me, if I had more time, I'd do this more often because it seems to be the single most effective thing I can do. There just aren't enough hours in the semester to cancel classes and have individual meetings. 48 students x 10 minutes each= a full 8 hours. And some students need more than 10 minutes...)

Anyway, I always look forward to this paper. I usually learn new things, and if they've paid attention to me at all (or read the evaluation sheets they get back with each paper), the paper's usually the best one of the semester. *fingers crossed*

10:15-10:30 am: Meet with student.

10:30-12:00pm: Regular office hours. Spend much of the time going through the two-foot tall pile of books and papers on my desk (maintenance needs to prime and paint my window frame, for some reason. I've been in this office since 2004 and the frame has been brown and not at all bothersome. *shrug* Of course now I'm going to be stuck smelling paint fumes all afternoon.)

12:00-1:00 pm: Campus Collegium meeting. The reports take forever because a lot of stuff is going on, and we're also making some changes to our campus Constitution, so there's a lot of discussion about those, too. So we don't get to discuss furloughs, the furlough resolution, or anything else.

1:00-2:15 pm: ENG 102. Same as before.

2:15-3:00 pm: More sifting through my piles of books and papers. Putting away materials from before the midterm. Finding articles I printed out but didn't have time to read.
2:45 pm: Student comes in to talk to me about his grade in the lit course. He's failing (bombed the midterm). Tell him he's got to pull a B from here on out to shave a C. Tell him he's going to need help from me / from a tutor to be able to do it. He's willing to try.

3:00 - 3:25 pm: Start this blog. 

3:30 - 4:00 pm: Update grading rubric, print + copy.

Picked up the kids at 4:15 pm and came home. Tonight is going to be a catch-as-catch can night. I'm tired, the boy is cranky and clingy, and nobody's hungry. Did the dishes, at least.


6:20 pm Hubby arrives home. We're all sacked out on the couch, watching Monsters Inc. Boy is cuddled up against me with his blankie. Early jammy night for us. 


7:00 pm: We're all in the kitchen. Thing Two is eating a banana and cereal, and Hubby is prepping the chili for the slow cooker. Thing One is coloring. No more work for the night except housework: putting away laundry, straightening the place up.


Good night.