Absence makes the writing grow worse.

Hi again, all. I am beyond overwhelmed this fall, and the blog has been low on the totem pole. I have had several days the past few weeks when I've felt like jumping up and down and whining like a kid, because I don't want to do all that I must do.

The college success course I'm teaching has occupied my time to an extent I didn't think possible for a 2-hour credit. In trying to emulate our college-success guru by scheduling too many projects, I've ignored my basic need for survival. So one of my personal projects this weekend is to revisit the class schedule, already revised once, to see if I can revise it again. I've also been struggling with my confidence in teaching it, and one might say I'm struggling with my confidence in general. I am also shocked at some of the behavior I see in those classes, but that's another rant.

I have two classes' worth of library projects and two stacks of composition essays to grade, and another stack of learning support essays comes in next week. Luckily, this upcoming Tuesday there's no class; it's called discipline development day. Faculty are supposed to meet and discuss exciting curricular and legislative business of various stripes. I may go for one meeting of a committee I'm supposedly on, but after that I'm Audi.

My memoir class goes okay; I'm getting some surprisingly good writing out of it, but it's also a lot of work. It ain't no leisurely adult-ed class. We have oral reports, two shorter out-of-class papers, and a 30-page project.

I'm still tutoring and foresee giving that up come the beginning of '09.

Since I suffer from occasional (lately, more frequent) anxiety, the feeling is that my life has spun out of control and I'm never going to get it back. And since control (or the illusion of control) is important to me, you can imagine how much that freaks me out. So everything I must do becomes equally important, even when I know not everything has to be done perfectly. And I can't stop thinking about everything I have to do. It feels like a big wave constantly rolling over me. The way I'm feeling now, it'll keep rolling over me until December.

The clincher is that I know this is all out of proportion. I know it doesn't matter one whit if I can't complete 30 pages for the memoir class, yet it feels like a moral failing if I admit that. I know I don't have to grade all the library projects this weekend, yet something in me won't let me rest unless I do.

So of course, this makes me worthless as a fiance, and not much fun at dinner. In the fight-or-flight battle, I'm flight. I just want to walk (run) away for a day from all I've committed myself to. Even two.

More when the mood has improved.