The Halfway Mark

This is turning out to be a particularly brutal week. It's only Wednesday, and I already feel like I've put in two full weeks of work in three days.

A quick recap:

Monday was the End-of-the-Year Celebration for the Transfer Achievement Program. I managed to squeeze this in during my lunch break.

Tuesday was the Humanities Division Scholarship Tea. I presented one of the honorable mention recipients for the Creative Writing Award, and I got to present the biggie, the English Scholarship.

Wednesday was the day I promised to take my lunch hour to conduct student evaluations for a colleague. It was also the day of the Interclub Council Awards, but since I didn't get nominated for the "Advisor of the Year" Award again this year, I didn't see any point in going. The students in the club I advise can never seem to get their act together to nominate themselves for "Club of the Year," and no one ever seems to recall that I'm their advisor. Sigh.

Here's what is yet to come:

Tomorrow is the annual luncheon honoring retirees. It's a barbecue, and luckily this year, it falls during the time I'm free for lunch. That's not often the case.

Friday is the Men and Women of Distinction Banquet. I am serving once again as co-emcee for the event, and I'm presenting one of the men during the ceremony. I have to be at rehearsal at noon since I wasn't able to participate last year and now have no idea how the new venue is set up. The banquet doesn't start until 6 p.m., so I'm either going to nap in my office or go to a movie that afternoon during my break.

Saturday is a retirement party at a local restaurant for an instructor who has been working at our college longer than I've been alive. He officially retired in December but has been teaching part-time for us this semester. He's moving after the semester ends, and we're honoring his 46 (!) years of teaching with a dinner in his honor.

Did I neglect to mention that I still have classes to teach while all of this is going on? In fact, three of the classes (both sections of freshman comp and my American literature class) have submitted rough drafts that I have to read and return this week. The two developmental writing classes have individual conferences this week, so I've been spending four hours at a time sitting down with students and trying to help them get their last essay ready to be handed it.

All of this would be fine if I didn't get up at Insane O'Clock each morning to go to work. I should be going to bed at Stupid O'Clock in order to get enough sleep, but I can never seem to manage it. (Thanks to the Stephanie Miller Show for the time names.)

I have a feeling that, on Saturday night, I'm going to come home and collapse face first onto the rug in the living room. I'm just hoping that I wake up in time to come back to work on Monday. I don't know when I'm expected to do my laundry or go grocery shopping, and the newspapers are beginning to pile up. Before this week is done, this apartment may look like the interior of Grey Gardens. All I'll need is a few dozen cats and maybe a raccoon or two.