Long Days Ahead

Do you ever have those times where you think to yourself that if you can just make it to the end of x amount of days, that everything will be ok, but yet you don't know how you will make it to the end of x amount of days and get everything done that needs to be done? I'm in one of those places. The days shall be long; the amount of work enormous; the amount of stress, in particular contexts, through the roof. But if I can make it to Feb. 2, just one short week from today.....

Between now and then I have to:

1. Do recommendations for approx 3 students
2. Do two different letters to membership of my society
3. Help with hosting one more campus visit
4. Update syllabi for two of my three classes
5. Grade 25 short (2-page) papers
6. Grade 15 portfolios (approx. 10-20 pages each)
7. Finish comments on two essays from my grad class last semester (I know, I know: it was a tactical error not to complete that before the holidays, but I didn't have time)
8. Submit approximately a gajillion forms for new courses and program changes to get them started in the curriculum process
9. Try to stay above the fray in Big Political Mess, while at the same time doing what is best for my department and those pesky students, which seem to have been forgotten in all of this
10. Do the catalog copy for our major, which is mostly done, but small revisions must be made and submitted
11. Finish my research for Most Embarrassing Conference Paper Ever, which I will have to deliver in less than one month's time

And I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting or leaving off because they're not major things. But if I can make it to Feb. 2, all of the above will be finished. Well, or at least 7 or 8 of the above 11 items will be finished.

Ok, time for me to get myself ready and pack myself up for the long day ahead of me and get myself to campus.