Clearing the decks (not!)

I like to start a new semester with a clean desk, a clean house, and a clear inbox, but spring semester starts Monday and so far I'm batting .300.

After a veritable festival of deleting and responding, I have nearly emptied my inbox for the first time since December. My house, on the other hand, looks as if it has been hosting the annual Dust, Dirt, & Clutter Congress, and my desk looks as if a row of filing cabinets exploded on it. There's a big pile of stuff from last semester that needs to be filed and forgotten, a pile of books I borrowed from a colleague to use for my J-term class, a pile of assessment data that has somehow failed to assemble itself into a spreadsheet, a pile of information about our two job searches and the visiting author coming in March, a pile of unread submissions for the literary magazine, a pile of spring semester syllabi, and a pile of miscellaneous stuff that requires some sort of action or response but I'm too exhausted to figure out what--and on Monday there will be another pile: the final portfolios from my J-term humor writing students. Yes: I get to start the new semester with 250 pages of student writing on my desk! At least it's good student writing. If I had to start the semester with 250 pages of freshman writing on my desk, I believe I'd run away.

I can't get into the office this weekend because the whole building is closed for floor-waxing (and won't my colleagues who went on the cruise be surprised when they get back and realize that they can't get in their offices!), so the desk piles will still be waiting for me on Monday, along with all the new things that will start piling up on it right away. Today I'll clean house. I'd rather clear the decks and start the new semester with all the detritus of the previous semester neatly whisked away, but if that's not possible, the least I can do is dust.