Friday poetry challenge: final hurdles

Today is the last day of classes so a colleague asked me, "How does it feel to have survived the Semester from Hell?"

I'm not sure how to answer that. For one thing, I wouldn't call this the Semester from Hell. The Semester from Hell happened nine years ago when I was the inside candidate for a tenure-track position that attracted more than 100 applications, or maybe a few years later when I got stuck in the middle of a controversial campus issue and got beaten up by both sides. In both cases, I had to endure excruciating challenges in utter isolation.

Now I'll admit that this semester has been challenging. (Challenging? Ha! Teaching while undergoing cancer treatment is the most difficult thing I've ever done.) But on the other hand, I've had a lot of help: smaller-than-usual teaching load, terrific students, helpful colleagues, no committee work or administrative distractions, and lots of encouragement from wonderful people. Sartre may have said "Hell is other people," but he clearly didn't know the "other people" who have made my life so much less hellish this semester.

I'll go so far as to call this the Semester from Heck, okay? But I can't really say I've survived it--not yet. Not while I have a vast seething mass of student writing on my desk and more papers and exams coming in today and all next week, not to mention The Leaning Pile of Filing and the Eternal Necessity of Assessment. Maybe at this time next week we can talk about survival, but right now, I'm still working on jumping those final hurdles looming before my eyes:

Four more freshman comp drafts to read,
Then twenty-four literature papers.
Twelve essays today
On humor--hurray!
But let's not forget other capers:

Twenty-four final exams next week
In one class and twelve in another.
Then fourteen essays
From freshmen--hurray!
But that's not the end of all bother:

Assessment reports on two classes (sigh)
And then I can get really pumped,
Finally reaching the day
To turn grades in--hurray!
That high final hurdle's been jumped!

(Did I mention that my freshman comp students are turning in their final research papers on my birthday? I've never had a birthday gift quite like that before.)

Now it's your turn: verse in any form enumerating the hurdles staring you in the face.