Angst, insomnia, and grad-school flashbacks

Lately I've had the feeling that I've accidentally slipped back in time to my grad-school days: working long hours in front of a campus computer, coming back to campus to work all day Saturday, forgetting to eat meals and then filling in with whatever junk I can lay my hands on, all for the sake of meeting artificial academic deadlines. This time, though, it's not a class assignment but a publishing project eating up all my daylight hours, and it's even more complicated because this project requires me to engage in the type of assignment I most hated in grad school: group work.

I've mentioned before that I'm editing a collection of essays on using comedy in various teaching contexts, and in many ways it's been a hurry-up-and-wait situation: long stretches of waiting for the next stage in the process to begin followed by sudden flurries of frantic activity. I have no control over when these demands and deadlines will arise, but fortunately I've been able to complete the bulk of the work during breaks from teaching.

Not this time. Here I am teaching four classes in the busiest part of the semester while also attending ridiculously long Faculty Council meetings, and I suddenly have to juggle the needs of various editors and something like 37 contributors. (I could tell you the exact number but I'm too tired to look it up right now.) 

I find great joy in working with fellow academics on a topic so dear to my heart, but apparently I'm not the only one in this situation struggling to meet demands. While most contributors have done their part of the project quickly and without a fuss, others require more hand-holding (often over tech issues I don't know how to solve), and a few haven't responded at all. Here I sit facing a firm deadline and all I want to do is send an excuse saying the dog ate my contributors.

Given the difficulties I'm facing, I could emulate my students and ask for an extension, but anyone who knows me will find this option laughable. Missing a deadline makes me physically ill, even if it's not my fault. I see before me a week full of work, anguish, and insomnia, and I keep returning to the mantra that kept me going back in grad school: Someday this will all be over. 

But first, I've got some work to do.