Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Today vs. Yesterday

Yesterday was very productive for me. I wrote a total of 5 pages, reorganized a rather large section of my current chapter, and graded 3 papers. Today has not been so productive, at least not in terms of my dissertation. I began the day much earlier than usual, at 6:00 am, as I had to be on campus by 8:30 to give my final. That means the entire family had to be up and out the door by 8:00, no easy task, I tell you. As I have blogged recently, C is wonderful on many levels; he is not, however, wonderful about getting up in the morning. I could set 3 alarm clocks, and he would somehow manage to sleep through every single one of them. Me, I'm the type of person who wakes up 5 minutes before the alarm goes off. In fact, when we still lived in Southwest College Town and C had to be out of the house by 6:45 to make his 8:00 class (he had a 50 minute commute), I always awoke to his alarm and then woke him up. Getting C out of bed most mornings takes a good 10 minutes. But I digress. . . We were all up, dressed, fed, and out the door by 8:15, a small miracle because since we've moved to CU Land we're seem to be perpetually 5 minutes late.

Now that I'm nearing the end of the day, I can reflect on what I've accomplished.
  • given an exam, following CU's fairly strict rules (including filling out lots of paperwork, which no one warned me about)
  • graded 6 8-page papers, several quizzes, and 2 response papers
  • graded 1 exam from a course I taught at Southwest College Town this summer (the student received an incomplete due to illness, and has only just made up the final) and emailed the grade to the appropriate person
  • returned books to the library
  • outlined the next large section of my current chapter, which means I should be able to write this entire section tomorrow
And for the rest of the day, I'm going to pick Wild Man up at school, and we're going to the mall. Why am I subjecting myself to this torture so close to Christmas? Well, C has a meeting on campus until 5:15 today, which means there is little point in going home as we'd have to turn around to get him after being home for less than 30 minutes, and there isn't much else to do with Wild Man on this side of town considering it is 28 degrees outside. So the mall it is!

3 comments:

thursdaynext.21 said...

I used to nanny for a woman during her second pregnancy. I would arrive at 730am, let myself into the house, find her oldest child watching cartoons, dress him and leave by 8am. Jonathan's dad got him to breakfast and then to the tv, while his mom was showering/sleeping/laying in. I would get little J dressed and out the door by 8am, so that his mom could have quiet time. This meant thinking up all random sorts of places you could take a 3 year old at 8am. Believe it or not, along with the library and mcdonalds indoor playground, we also would bide time until 9am, when the bookstore would open. Then we'd go chill in the kids section for a few hours. I always ended up buying a book (guilt), but it was much more enjoyable, and less mall-y, than just walking around. And Little J liked the carpet, chairs, and lack of little people that the library had.

thursdaynext.21 said...

I left that comment to suggest that you should try barnes and noble. Also in the realm of shopping, have you found the store Cotton Ginny?

M said...

The equivalent of Barnes and Noble here in CU Land is not a good idea for us, as they have a huge Thomas the Tank Engine display that kids can play with. Wild Man loves it, and he is well behaved until it is time to leave. Every flipping time he throws a temper tantrum, no matter how many times I warn him. So we avoid that place like the plague! I appreciate the suggestion though. :)

And Wild Man actually decided he wanted to meet Santa, so the mall trip was a success. There were so many Christmas displays to look at that he didn't seem to mind at all.