Entry 2: In Which I Suddenly Realize It's Almost February

So the new semester starts tomorrow. Since I am no longer taking classes, this is not as traumatic an event as it used to be, but it does mean my T.A. duties kick back in. T.A.ing takes up about twenty hours every week. On the plus side, it tends to be a nice distraction from all the thesis-related stuff. On the minus side, well, it takes up about twenty hours. As busy as I have been the last two weeks, things are about to get much, much busier.

My duties as a T.A. include six hours a week teaching labs (which I absolutely love), a few hours a week in meetings and office hours (which tend to be mildly annoying), and an open-ended amount of time grading papers (which is the most screamingly, mind-numbingly, neuron-destroyingly, hideously, excruciatingly dull thing I've ever had to do) (well, with the exception of proctoring a three-hour exam last semester, which I will thankfully not have to do again this time around) (I hope). I've never really decided whether the fun of teaching labs quite makes up for the agony of grading papers. But I intend to fully enjoy the first two weeks of the semester, before the first batch of papers is due.

So yesterday I sat down to my usual pre-semester ritual of filling in my day-planner with all my classes, meetings, etc. Actually, I had very little to fill in, since I don't yet know what days I'm teaching or when the T.A. meetings will be (I know, it's ridiculous, but these assignments are never sorted out until midway through the first week. At least this year I know what I'm teaching, just not when.). So all I could put down was a few upcoming meetings, school holidays, and the graduation deadlines. Ahh, the deadlines....

But before I could do this, I had to buy a new day-planner. Because, apparently, sometime during the last few weeks it became 2007, meaning that my pretty little '06 day-planner is, well, no longer useful. And you would not believe how hard it was to find a new day-planner! I wound up going to five different stores. Most places were sold out of calendars long ago. Evidently, most people plan far enough ahead to buy their calendars in December, or at the very latest, the first week of January. A few places had some left, but they were remarkably ugly. We're talking fluorescent colours, gaudy stripes, etc. And since I carry my day-planner with me all over campus, I want it to be at least marginally pleasant to look at.

In the end, I found one at FranklinCovey in an inoffensive sort of beige colour. Not exactly pretty, but decent. I went through it and filled in everything I could. Even though that wasn't much, I felt better for having done it. It's a familiar little ritual that has kicked off every semester since I first started college mmffmm years ago. When I closed the calendar I felt as though I were ready for anything. Anything at all.