Last Week of Break

Do you hear that sound? The mellifluous laugh of the procrastination fairy as she dances through my office? Rearranging priorities like knick-knacks on a shelf? Oh, watch her swirl in her tiered skirts (unhemmed) and beaded bodice (half-finished).

Since I'll be in town an extra day this week, there was no longer an excuse for me to avoid planning a meeting that I'm leading on Monday afternoon. I'm secretly hoping that the person I emailed won't get back to me, returning this task to low priority.

I've checked: I own the right type of transparencies for my printer at home, so I can finish my slides any time I want to. (Because my city is not hip enough to have a 24-hour OfficeMax.) Instead of doing real work on new and interesting things, I've also started writing up some details of a construction that I'll be talking about. Last time I talked about such things, people asked me about the details, so I'm thinking of putting more of an explanation on my web page. Probably a waste of time because if you knew what you were doing, you'd realize that it was fairly trivial. If you weren't so up on things, then I'd have to give many pages of preliminaries to bring you up to speed -- at which point it would become obvious that it's fairly trivial.

And since I'm coming home half a day early, I'll have a chance to plan my spring classes over the weekend. Of course my schedule won't be official until Monday (10 January), so I'm justified in this procrastination. The first day of classes is Wednesday (12 January). While my sections are pretty full (26/32, 32/32, 32/32, and 25/30), some other sections of these courses are fairly empty (there are some 13/32 and a 8/30 that I see on the computer schedule). There are enough low-enrollment sections that if they're cancelled, the entire schedule may need to be redone. So I'm reluctant to put in too much time planning the details beyond the first day or two. Of course if the other sections don't get cancelled and some people get to teach 8 or 13 students in a course where I have 25+, I will secretly seethe all semester about the way that the University handles registration.

Oh, look, the procrastination fairy seems to have brought some friends! What do I see but the stylish black costume of the sarcasm fairy and their friend the bad mood fairy! It's a fucking party! Maybe I'll buy a cake and we'll have a grand time!