Still Alive, But Buried

I want to post very quickly since I am almost literally buried under a mountain of grading. I have very often wanted to stop and blog about what has been going on (too much) and how I am handling it (okay), but that would mean taking time that I don't have. There were a couple minor melt-downs in the last month where I was stuck in traffic, swearing at myself for forgetting something important, and probably scaring other drivers while I tried to reevaluate my life choices. The upside is that my big teaching seminar went pretty well, and I have learned a lot. I also feel like my students are doing well with their work (except for another plagiarism case - seriously?!). What worries me now is that I had anticipated spending this week gearing up for my conference next week, but I am currently stuck under the aforesaid mountain of grading. This is mostly (*mostly) my own fault - time management skills were not exactly my strong suit this month. At some point in the hopefully not to distant future (like this week), I am planning on updating you on my American Lit class since I have a lot of fun stuff to say about it. In the meantime, I wanted to share an email I recently received from a well-meaning adviser, encouraging me to push ahead with my dissertation work by offering some tips for doing so. My sarcastic response, which probably startled my family who stood nearby, was "you want me to push forward on my work? Hire me a TA damn it!" Granted I got this email on my phone while I was madly rushing through an airport, jet-lagged, behind on work because of *life* and definitely close to one of the aforementioned melt-downs. Nevertheless, I am feeling much better about my own work and its current status despite the lack of time I have to work on it. I will definitely be blogging about that in the near future - so stay tuned for a much more sane litambitions in the coming weeks.