Day One of the Semester a Success (I suppose)

Though I will say this: I need to get better on the time management tip, so as to take advantage of being done with teaching so early on the days that I got reassigned time. If I "reassign" the time from my classroom to my office, that seems kind of lame. At any rate, here's what I accomplished today:

• Updated my website
• Came up with 14 online discussion-board prompts for my upper-div. class
• Held first class with my freshmen (who seem like a good group and very sweet and wet behind the ears)
• Emailed VSC re: letter
• Emailed grad school administrative person re: getting new letters sent to include in my file
• Did some work for my quasi-admin position
• Checked to make sure all materials requested to be put on electronic reserve have in fact been put there (and they have - yippee!)
• Chatted for a long while with new colleague, on whose search committee I served last year.
  

It's so weird how easy it is to get back in the swing of things. Not that I think anybody should have to be back in the swing as early as Aug. 21st, because I don't. But apparently I am.

So the plan for the rest of my day is to go to the gym, cook something yummy for dinner, and go to bed early (I hope) so as not to have the misery that I had in waking this morning (because I'm WAY off schedule).

Oh, and rather than do an individual post in response to the Potter comment thread, let me just say right here:

Why do I think that Luna and Harry are an odd, and yet destined, couple?
1. The only thing that Harry and Ginny really have in common is Quidditch and Ginny's family. To me, this is a relationship of convenience more than a true meeting of souls/hearts/minds.
2. On the other hand, Luna, too, has a dead mother, can see the thestrals, knows what it is to be awkward and an outsider. (Some might argue that Harry is Mr. Popularity, but I would argue that he's stigmatized by his scar and what happened to him, and that there are a number of periods where he is ostracized by his peers.)
3. J.K. Rowling has said that Luna and Neville definitely are not a love match because ultimately all they have in common is that they're kind of losers in the Hogwarts world. Given the way that the last book was all about pairing people off, and given that Luna and Neville both continue to increase in their importance as the books go on, it would strike me as odd that she just intends for each of them to be lonely and alone forever.
4. Remember that Neville took Ginny to the Ball in Goblet of Fire. Also think about how being with somebody like Ginny could potentially serve to bring Neville out of his shell and make him more awesome and confident. Just think about it.
5. I think it would be creepy for Harry to end up with Ginny because it's like a weird oedipal thing in which Harry is going after the one girl at the school that is like his mom (long red hair, really powerful witch, popular, etc.).