It's true what they say about the second trimester

I've decided to come clean. Here it is, folks: I'm pregnant, and due in June.

To be precise, I'm just over 12 weeks pregnant--which means that I'm at the end of the first/beginning of the second trimester. Judging from how I feel, I'd say that it's the latter. For, on Sunday, lo and behold, I got a few things done.

If, for some reason, you've read my comments on the Another Damned Notorious Writing Group check-ins, you may have noticed that I was...hm, not...happily productive? Maybe a little pissed-off and bitter sounding? Struggling to do even 1 hour a week of work on my writing? Well, now you know why. No--I was not pissed off and bitter about the pregnancy; on the contrary. But I was exhausted. All the time. And in the last 2-3 days, by virtue of the sudden contrast in energy level, I'm starting to appreciate just how exhausted I was. (Perhaps this also accounts for the total near-lapse in blogging this semester, but given what a lame blogger I am at the best of times, I'm not convinced.)

So it was a rough semester: 4 classes/4 preps, plus taking Greek, chairing a major governance committee, and running the Honors program--which grew enormously this year and last (it now has twice as many students as it did two or three years ago), and struggling through the crushing fatigue of starting to grow a person. Basically, for the last seven weeks, I had almost enough energy to do the absolute minimum that I needed to do every day to get by--which means that this week, I'm trying to catch up on lots and lots of loose ends.

All this by way of explanation, not complaint. TM and I are delighted, apprehensive, and hopeful (it's still early yet; miscarriage is always a possibility). I've been lucky to have only a little nausea and a weird aversion to cooked greens and tomatoes, which is totally unlike me, and 10 days ago we had our first ultrasound. It was amazing--way cooler than I expected--to see the little thingum in there, all person-shaped, kicking its feet and waving its fin-hands around. The heart was beating, and it even has a head!

(Yes, I know how that sounds, but I don't think that I was really convinced that I was growing a baby until I actually saw it. I spent the first 8 weeks or so half-convinced that I had psychosomatically given myself pregnancy symptoms and somehow stopped menstruating through sheer force of will. Oh, and the positive pregnancy tests? Clearly I was manufacturing pregnancy hormones through, um, the power of suggestion? I don't know. I didn't say it was rational.)

Anyway, that's all. The semester is almost over. I'm a little nervous about telling everyone about this whole thing, since of course it's not a sure thing until the baby's born. But I figured you all ought to know.

Grand and glorious plans

So, in my strangely refreshed state, I have lots of Schemes for the Day. Things I want to Do. For I actually don't have too much homework (of the prep/grading variety), and so maybe I could get some of the other stuff accomplished?

Id est:

1. Read thoroughly enjoyable chapter for first-year seminar.
2. Read less interesting chapters for comp.
3. Figure out an activity for Monday's comp to replace the fun-but-useless activity that I usually do on that day. (I already have an idea, I just have to get a few things together for it.)
   
4. Finish writing my colloquium talk (so, so close).
5. Yoga.
6. Work on promotion binder (requires going to office, alas, but mostly just involves photocopying and printing).
7. Vacuum.
8. Greek homework.
9. Read article for upper-level seminar.
10. Grade first-year seminar journals.
11. Finish laundry.
    

Hm. Well, now I'm depressed. That's a lot of...stuff, and more on the prep end than I expected. Realistically, though, most of these items shouldn't take me very long, so the depression is fleeting.

You know what's really depressing? Picking up three different batches of papers on Monday. Why did I do that to myself? This isn't the first time this semester, either. Normally I'm pretty good at staggering grading, but this semester I clearly did nothing to synchronize my syllabi. We also have Big On-Campus Events Monday and Tuesday nights (the Monday night event having been organized by Me), so the week promises to be pretty hectic.

Well. Fine. Most of the stuff on that list isn't so bad, and some of it will even be fun. Time to think cheerful thoughts! It's a beautiful day (for sitting inside working)! I am still in my bathrobe! Consider the pleasure of checking things off! Yay! Go go go!

10 hours

That's how long I slept last night. I feel better today than I've felt all week.

And have I really not blogged in almost a month? Sorry about that. But what can I say, aside from work work work work work?

A Day

So today:

In the office at 8:15 to start composition conferences. I only have two or three in the morning, but am also busy putting together the invitations for the big banquet I organize every fall, prepping for class (i.e. reading students' posts on the course website), and grading papers for upcoming conferences.

Class 11-12:15.

Home at 12:15 for a quick lunch with TM.

1:15-2:30: Ancient Greek class. We're moving sloooowly in there, which is a good thing, frankly. (And I have an A!)

2:30: Swing by the mailroom. Discover envelope from journal. Force myself to read it on the walk to my office. My article is rejected. It's a nice letter, but the criticisms are pretty strong, and I'm disappointed. Push disappointment aside as much as I can because I have appointments.

2:45-3:45: Four more conferences, one of which involves busting a plagiarist--one of my absolute least favorite things to do.

4:00-6:00: Run a board meeting for the charitable organization on whose board I serve as VP. The meetings usually go about an hour, but for unexpected reasons this one went two. It was a good meeting, but we have some issues to address, so sunshine and roses it was not.

6:15: Come home, finally, and check my email to find what should have been good news: A story I submitted this summer got accepted somewhere. However, it had recently been accepted somewhere else, first, and I had completely forgotten to notify the other journals to which I'd sent it (simultaneous submissions being perfectly okay in the fiction-writing world). So instead of rejoicing, I felt rotten for being discourteous and unprofessional, and wrote a deeply ashamed and apologetic email back to the journal.

In brief:
One rejection, one plagiarist, one embarrassment. These are small problems--not even problems, really, because I don't need to solve them; but they're blows, however small. I'm feeling, I confess, disheartened and uninspired.

Now it's 8:27 pm, and because of all the conferencing/administrating I haven't read for my 8:00 class or graded all the papers for the students coming to see me tomorrow. And tonight was the night I was supposed to get some work done for Another Damned Notorious Writing Group. (I suppose I could've skipped writing this post, but I sort of felt I had to.)

I want to crawl under the covers and either cry or sleep. Probably sleep. Alas.

This must be my fault

How many times this semester have I had this conversation?

Any student: "Can I come see you about [fillintheblank]?"

Me: "Of course. Why don't you stop by during my office hours?"

Student: "When are your office hours again?"

Me: "Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9 to 10."

Student pauses, thinks, finally says: "Okay! I'll come by on Wednesday." Scribbles a note in his/her calendar.

Me: "Uh, actually--oh, all right. I'll see you then." (I'm in my office anyway, after all, and who needs the confusion....)

One of the ways in which I suck

I'm pretty bad at answering emails. I get better during the school year, but only with my Field College account; my regular gmail languishes pretty badly year-round. It's not that I don't enjoy hearing from people--I just always put off writing back, and then (alas) I'm afraid that I lose interest in talking about myself. And then I feel guilty, and Too Much Time Has Passed, etc. etc. same old story.

And then there's the email account associated with this blog.

Hoo, I'm sorry, anyone who tried to contact me via that address since, oh, mid-July! Because apparently that was the last time I checked it. And as it happens, in addition to the MoveOn.org exhortations and messages from Al Gore & Co, I had some actual, real-life messages in there! Including some actual, real-life work-related stuff!

I'm sorry. Apparently, what I really need is Another Damned Notorious Answer Your Goddamn Email Group.

****

In other news, here's a picture of the travel diary that I made for my trip to Ireland this summer. Isn't it nice?

(On location at a pub in Limerick.)

Fully Dawsed

I have a cold. And this afternoon I took non-drowsy cold medicine.

Guess what, non-drowsy cold medicine! Your non-drowsy wiles don't work on me! Hell no! My body will foil your every effort to keep me awake!

In brief, I find myself fully zombified this afternoon. Trying to read the General Prologue to the CT. I was out midway through the Prioress.

Got up a while later to get something from the bathroom. Knocked over everything on the shelf. Replaced item on the shelf a moment later, knocking everything over again.

The main benefit of cold medicine? Not, as far as I can tell, clearing my sinuses (though my throat feels slightly better). Essentially it forces me to rest. I predict that I'll be retiring the guest room (my preferred sickbed) for video-watching and napping soon, perhaps with some very, very simple knitting (which I'll probably have to redo next week).

Fie!

(The semester has evened itself out a bit, though, and I'm no longer overwhelmed in the way that I was that first week. My classes are fine. Everything is fine except my NOSE!)