It's hard enough trying to teach classes when I'm wide awake--teaching in my sleep is darned near impossible. Nevertheless I keep trying to do it, tossing and turning in bed at night while my mind races to resolve all the issues arising over the next couple of weeks.
It's a tough part of the semester anyway, with all four classes turning in drafts or papers this week, one class preparing for an exam, all of this week's drafts being revised for resubmission next week, and the usual daily class preps. But then everything got way more complicated when my nephew scheduled his wedding for next Thursday and my family decided that it would be nice to celebrate my Dad's 88th birthday next Friday since we'll all be together anyway, and now I have a long drive to North Carolina and a whole lot of fun activities interrupting my already busy week.
So this week I need to respond to a pile of papers and prep next week's classes, including online activities for the two days I'll miss, but then I also need to prep classes for the Monday after I return from North Carolina since I won't want to do all that class prep on the road regardless of who's driving. It feels like three weeks of work being compressed into a few days--days already busy with papers demanding responses--and all that compressed work keeps contorting in my brain all night long.
This morning I took steps, trying to do all the things that can possibly be done before the papers start flooding in. I set up online activities for two classes. I wrote a study guide, wrote most of an exam, got all my ducks in a row for classes for the rest of this week. And now I need to start responding to student drafts, because I've scheduled one-on-one conferences with my first-year writing students for the next four days.
And what about outside of class? I need to buy a dress for the wedding (but all the local stores I usually rely on have closed!), find wedding and birthday gifts, catch up on some mowing--and oh yeah, the guy who's replacing our front porch slab is slated to demolish the old one next Monday and pour the new one on Tuesday. If I do any sleep-walking that night, I'd better not wander out to the front porch.
All this fuss is leading up to what ought to be a delightful series of events, the whole family together for the first time in years, but I won't get to enjoy the fun until I move all the obstacles out of the way first--and if I can't find a way to do it while I'm awake, my subconscious is happy to take over at night.
Good thing I don't need to be mentally alert to read student drafts. (As if!)
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