A Day in the Life

A lot of times, people assume that a professor's professional work consists of that time that they spend in the classroom. You know the claim: that we work 6 hours a week or whatever, while we ramble about whatever our area of specialty is, and that otherwise we're off eating bon-bons and mowing our lawns and knitting and playing with our cats or something. So toward a goal of demystifying the life of the professor, I shall give you a play-by-play of my day:

7:00 AM: The alarm goes off. Motherfucker.
7:10 AM: Make coffee. Feed Man-Kitty. Mmmm, coffee.
7:15 AM: Set timer on stove so I'll be sure to get ready at a reasonable time. Turn on the today show, and drink coffee and then doze a bit. (I showered before bed last night, so as not to have to worry about that this morning.)
8:15 AM: What the fuck am I going to wear?
8:30 AM: Pack lunch, appease Man-Kitty with treats (meOOOWWWW, meOWWWW), grab bags, etc.
8:40 AM: Drive to campus, curse people who don't know how to drive.
9:00 AM: Power up computer, feel anxiety about the fact that I've not heard back about the final permission on my book, check email, etc.
9:25 AM: Teach class. First, comfort students and answer some questions about their paper proposals that will be coming due. Two students are supposed to give presentations, but only one is there. After 10 minutes, get on with the first presentation. The second student never shows. Return midterm exams. Lecture and lead discussion on the reading for the day.
10:45 AM: Head over to Administrative Gig Office in order to work over there. Chat with office admin. person, talk with "boss" (although there are no real bosses in academe), work for an hour on duties, chat with another office person whom I think is fabulous, work for another hour, say goodbye to "boss" on the way out.
1:15 PM: Lunch. Lunch is glorious.
1:30 PM: Email student who apparently had a major meltdown and that's why she didn't show up for her presentation. Attempt to console and offer solutions.
1:40 PM: Update CV for award thingie. Also work on revisions of cover letter thingie for same award thingie.
2:00 PM: Deal with Annoying Email Thing related to a registration issue with a student, which was very annoying mainly because I had thought this was resolved a month and a half ago (a) and because the only reason I'm in this situation is because I only allowed it to exist in the first place because I was trying to be a good department citizen and apparently no good deed goes unpunished.
2:20 PM: Work on conference abstract.
2:40 PM: Chat with a colleague.
3:00 PM: Department meeting, in which I participate periodically and when not participating I a) write notes back and forth with my dept. peeps and b) comment on a student's thesis.
4:30 PM: Fuck, that meeting took an hour longer than it needed to take. Email my chair in frustration about reply I received about 2 PM item, and then drive home, in which I have serious road rage at two vehicles piloted by idiots and buy wine.
5:00 PM: Talk to A. on the phone for two or so hours.

And now here we are. And I should grade, or work on the collection essay, or something. But I'm planning to drink some more wine and to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I will be on campus tomorrow from 10:30 AM to 7:30 PM. Yeah, this is a cushy job. Totally.