Monday, October 13, 2008

Oh Dear God, What Did I Do?

I have 800 pages of essays coming in tomorrow morning, with any luck (10 pages + 3 pg. author's notes for my juniors, 5 pages + 3 page authors' notes for freshmen plus another 5 for each group (avg. 1.8 pages/group member, ish).

Multiply that by 80 students (45 juniors, 35 freshmen).

I think we get something in the vicinity of 800.

And it all has to be graded before the end of the grading period, which happens on Friday, I think.

What was I thinking?

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On the plus side, my left elbow is back to normal (the right one never left normal, baby!) - it pops a few times per day when I extend it, and last week it popped a little too loud, and all of a sudden my arm hurt whenever I came anywhere close to a full elbow extension (note: if I pushed through that, and got to where I maxed out the joint's range of motion, it was fine... until I wanted to move it again). But that's better now.

My left elbow, you see, is my clipboard-holdin' elbow. The hand with which I hold my clipboard is attached to this elbow. Then I write with my right hand. It makes sense if you think about it.


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In other news, my cricket infestation has largely stopped due to the massive amounts of cold heading this way over the next several months.

In weirder news, most of the crickets that I've found for the last several weeks have only had one leg.

And there are some huge spiders. Huge!

The spiders aren't weird. They mostly just eat things (like crickets, I imagine, and possibly also my left-overs, though I've yet to see any evidence of this) and fight in my shower, which is fine except for the times when I am taking a shower.

Then it is slightly less fine. Because I am not a fan of being naked near arachnids.

Note to spiders: Wait until I am done, guys! Then you can cannibalize each other all you want. Just don't make a mess, stay quiet, and remember to flush and we will be cool.

Note to myself: Stop having everything be due at once! You are very silly!

Note to the state of Nebraska: I miss you something fierce. Come back?

Note to the state of denial: you and I are gettin' too close, lately. I think we should see other people.


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Finally, obligatory piracy/copyright infringement):










(Click for full-size)

This comic sums up my current dilemma with education quite well. More to come on that later.

For now, it is time to sleep. We start standardized testing tomorrow (for the district's school improvement plan, I think). I'll need all of my energy to keep from stabbing myself with a #2 pencil.