Second to last

Last week, I got hit with a CFS flare.  A bad one.  I'm recovering, now, but I had to cancel office hours Thursday and come home to go to bed. 

I probably should have spent all of Wednesday in bed, but I'm just too stupid-stubborn--there was writing to be done.

No, I didn't get it done.  I got a few words added, but brain fog makes functioning, much less braining, really hard.  I should have just gone to bed.  It might not have gotten so bad if I had.  Or at least I should have moved to my recliner, laptop, keyboard, and all.

Thursday, I picked up the practical proposal paper.  The fourth paper of five papers (plus a blogging assignment).  The last ones I will likely ever grade.  I am wistful about this, but also glad. 

I truly enjoy reading papers and offering feedback on what went wrong, how to fix it, and how to not do it again in the future.  I don't enjoy not being allowed to do more than mark that there IS a mistake, much less what mistake they've made, in grammar, structure, or punctuation.  I don't enjoy deciding what grade to put on a paper, either. 

And then, I introduced the last full paper the class will write.  Like always, I use this final paper as an unofficial final exam (that they're allowed to revise if they earn under 90%.  And some do, not because the paper's bad, but because they somehow missed out on doing some part of citing the sources). 

I am not a low-energy teacher.  Even when I have none to spare. 

So, Thursday, I spent half of it teaching, and the other half in bed.  And never managed to get my brain working well enough to finish the last little bit of Detritus before I picked up the paper, or get any of the drafts I picked up graded. 

This coming week is going to be busy grading the second to last paper, and teaching the source credibility guidelines and citation guidelines for the last paper.  The next week will be Thanksgiving Break.  The following week is when paper 5 is due. 

But that's future workloads.  Right now, I need to grade the second to last paper instead of worrying about the last one coming in.