Starting the Downward Spiral

This is how Loo Loo Bell felt about the fall brunch yesterday.

Her fat little mug reminds me of Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon.

Source

Today I caught up on the new Homeland episodes. Just as good as ever. I have to wear the headphones if I watch it while G's around because it pisses him off so much. He doesn't understand how it could possibly be "entertaining" for me. I wouldn't describe it that way, but dang it is a great story line and great acting. That's all I'm sayin.

I'm starting to wind down. Rephrase: I've been winding down for some time. My battery is now flashing the red sign to signify LOW POWER. The good news is that I don't have any papers this week, and I don't really have to teach because my classes are doing in-class workshops.

The bad news is that I have a Virginia Woolf midterm.

But the good news is I'm enjoying all my class readings right now. Reading Virginia Woolf - anything by her - does not seem like homework. While it's not easy, it's beautiful, and artistic, and deeply meaningful. Over the past few weeks she has become one of my favorite authors of all time. The midterm questions aren't released until tomorrow, and I only have 24 hours to submit my essay answers electronically, but I know her material pretty well, so I'm not dying of stress. For once!

Reading Adventures of Huck Finn is an entirely different experience when, (1) you're an adult reader, and (2) you're studying it as part of the American canon. Still love it. Still think it's hilarious. Wrote a paper on it last week. We're now moving out of the slave narratives and into more popular (?), widely recognizable (?), easier to understand (?) American lit, which makes the reading easier. Easier is not to be confused with "easy" but still.

Turns out that grading for other professors in addition to my own classes makes for a heavy work load.

Turns out when I don't have the weekend to catch up, I get unbelievably behind.

At least my additional workshops are coming to an end for the semester. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I look at the calendar. There are many, many events behind me, and not all that many ahead of me! Just a few weeks until fall break and then the rapid downward spiral to finals. Then sleeping upon sleeping. Waking only to bake Christmas cookies and feed Loo Loo Bell. It's coming.