It’s a race to the end

There’s a week and a half until the end of the semester…will I make it? I’m giving myself a 50% chance of crawling across the finish line and then curling up into a soggy ball of tears, vs. a 50% chance of exploding before the end of the term and then raining down as smoldering cinders.

I could see this coming way back in August — it’s been a long decade — so I cleverly scheduled student presentations for the last bit of the term. I don’t have to do any class prep right now, even though I’ve got a lot of material lined up just because…because I can’t help myself, and am always tweaking things and making additions just in case I need it. For the same reason, I can’t leave well enough alone and every year I rewrite and change my classes despite having taught this stuff for about 30 years. Nothing is going to help. No matter what, I’m going to be clawing my eyes out and suppressing screams as every term comes to a close.

I really ought to retire, but I can’t, not ever. I guess I get to look forward to death.

The weird thing is that I like teaching. This would be a lot easier if I didn’t care.

Never mind me, I just have to scream into the uncaring void every once in a while.