December 15, 2018 Diary
Woof. I’m up at 6:50, awakened by the dog. A little earlier than I’d like on a Saturday, but our old, incontinent dog is in charge of the schedule. Try to ignore her and the day will begin by cleaning up a mess. I was hoping to sleep longer because I know I will be up late. Our youngest daughter is flying home from school for the holiday break and I am picking her up. Her flight gets into Indianapolis at midnight, so I’m going to be up well past 1 AM before we get home. Maybe I can get a nap in later so I don’t doze off on the drive home.
It’s actually a bit of weird day for us. Our other, older, daughter is also flying in. She is due in at 5:40 pm so we need to make two airport runs. B will take the first one. I get the night shift. We contemplated going down together and going in to Indy for dinner, then returning to the airport, but we decided Indy doesn’t have enough to offer to keep us amused for that long. No point in all of us being exhausted tomorrow.
I make a mug of tea and settle in to read for a bit. Turn on some English soccer around 8 and watch that while eating some French toast (a favorite weekend breakfast, filling and unhealthy, just like I like it). The soccer is not so competitive so I turn it off after eating. I have a fair amount of work to do today, so I get dressed and head into the office. It’s the end of the term and I have a stack of grading for a class I teach. If I can get it done today I will have time for the other work that is piled up on my desk. The academic life is pretty nice most of the time but it gets crowded during the run-up to Christmas, when the semester is ending and other work needs to get finished. It’s hard to even think about shopping and other holiday preparations when work is more hectic than usual.
Get to the office a little past ten. Grade, grade, grade. I work pretty fast on this because I don’t need to write long comments since few if any students will retrieve these, even though I tell them they can. If one of them reaches out, I’ll beef up my comments later on. I taught myself not to agonize over grades—the difference between a C+ and a B- is rarely significant in terms of final grade so I don’t worry too much about that kind of difference. My students have diverged: some have nailed their final essays; others, to put it mildly, have not. I’m not sure what that pattern says about my teaching. Some of the students, I can tell, have run out of gas and are just getting something in because it’s required. I can sympathize with them. I also have one longer paper to read for a student completing an independent study. It’s improved over the draft, and, well, it better have. This one has gotten to the point of earning a respectable grade, though it’s far from stellar. I think he was just too busy to put in the work necessary to get a top grade.
At 2 PM I realize that two of the papers I need to grade were missing. Assuming they were in my other office (I have two), I hiked down there. (By hike, I mean take a five minute walk.) They were not in that office. It seems I did not print them off after they had been submitted by email—more evidence of my increasingly scattered modus operandi. Need to fix that.
I returned to the main office, printed the papers, and graded them, finishing around 2:45. I was hungry but wanted to exercise first. Headed to the gym. Annoyingly, my workout clothes, which I pay for and which supposedly get washed every night (also paid for), were stuck in the wash. I grabbed some of my old stuff but I didn’t have a way to wash this set if I got sweaty, so I figured I would just do a little lifting and stretching. I could do some cardio at home later.
Home at 3:30. Dog had peed on her bed so I had to head out to Target to get her a replacement. Big mistake, two Saturdays before Christmas. The place was mobbed. S texted me and asked for contact lens solution while I was at the store (she was on a layover at the time). It took me ten minutes to find the kind she wanted. I also grabbed more Christmas lights because my plan is to make our house visible from a satellite. I get lucky on the way out: a register opened and what was a ten-deep line turned into a two-person wait. Small favors.
Head home. Now it’s after 5. I relax but figure it’s too late for nap or that cardio I promised myself. Around 6 I clean up a few things around the house in preparation for our daughters’ arrival. I watch some football, a dull game. I read for a while: A Michael Connelly novel—always entertaining. Eat some snacks. I never got lunch so the plan is to eat two dinners. Not really, but a healthy snack for now. Read some more and surf TV. Eventually, I heat up a frozen salmon burger. It’s good. Clean up kitchen, listening to an audio book, another mystery. I have to keep the print and audio plot lines straight! I like the audio books to make the time pass when doing routine tasks, such as dish washing. Not really feeling a ride to and from the airport tonight, but no choice.
B returns with S at 9:30. I chat with S for a few minutes. It’s good to see her. Around ten I get ready to drive down to the airport, heading out at 10:15. I bring a Diet Pepsi for caffeine purposes, a snack, and a bottle of water, all in the hopes of keeping me alert. I listen to more of the audio book to keep awake. It helps. The drive is rainy but here’s not too much traffic and I don’t feel too tired. I get to the airport at 11:35 and stop in the cell phone lot/gas station to stretch my legs and use the bathroom (the Diet Pepsi makes this necessary). M’s flight is a little early (hooray—my one nightmare was a delayed arrival.) Good to see her too. The drive back fine but I am definitely tired. M and I catch up for a while which helps keep me awake. She was up late studying for her final exam that morning so she is tired too, and eventually she quiets down, closing in on sleep. The rain stops and the driving is clear. We’re home at 1:30. Let the dog out briefly (the dog is my daily bookend) and off to bed. Sleep comes quickly….