The Death March
The last week or two has been a death march - plans of daily reading and viewing took second place to marking and second marking, and I've been trying to finish for ages. But the late essays had issues that needed checking - although they weren't in the end all problems after all - and there were some waifs and strays of late hand ins which we awaited more in hope than anticipation. It's the sort of period that for every two you mark, another one is found to take their place.
And then you start moving the pile from work, to home, to the coffee bar, to home, to work, to the pub, to home, to the cinema, hoping you'll find that stray twenty minutes before you realise you need Google to mark with.
The end stays out of reach.
Today I think I did it - the horror essay from January, the two last first year problems. And there was a new lecture to deliver today. Is that it?
I have lost two Saturdays and two or three other days to sleep - perhaps a sign of running on empty, perhaps a result of too many 2.30 bedtimes, too many, let's mark just one mores...
And just around the corner, study leave, but am I ready for that? It that not sprinting onto a motorway?
I had a grand plan of getting the Gold Megarider, and spending a week on buses, dropping in on local towns. But I have a year-end interview. And I need to see a PhD student in London. And Easter buggers the buses. I need four days of the seven to make it worthwhile. Can it be done?
And then the realisation of the two long term extensions, the essays due in April...
The death march never ends...
And then you start moving the pile from work, to home, to the coffee bar, to home, to work, to the pub, to home, to the cinema, hoping you'll find that stray twenty minutes before you realise you need Google to mark with.
The end stays out of reach.
Today I think I did it - the horror essay from January, the two last first year problems. And there was a new lecture to deliver today. Is that it?
I have lost two Saturdays and two or three other days to sleep - perhaps a sign of running on empty, perhaps a result of too many 2.30 bedtimes, too many, let's mark just one mores...
And just around the corner, study leave, but am I ready for that? It that not sprinting onto a motorway?
I had a grand plan of getting the Gold Megarider, and spending a week on buses, dropping in on local towns. But I have a year-end interview. And I need to see a PhD student in London. And Easter buggers the buses. I need four days of the seven to make it worthwhile. Can it be done?
And then the realisation of the two long term extensions, the essays due in April...
The death march never ends...