I polished off all the grading on a quiz, an exam, and a lab so far today, but I’ve got a few more things I have to finish to be caught up. I was wondering why I was feeling so overwhelmed with work this weekend and then I remembered … in a normal year, in a normal Fall term, we have a fall break in mid-October, and so most years ’round about now, I’d be getting a 4-day weekend which I always have used to get a bit ahead of the work piling up. This year we’re on an accelerated schedule, starting the semester a week early, skipping any breaks, and rushing ahead to finish the semester at Thanksgiving. I think my rhythm is off.
Argh. Now back to the grading.
I could never handle academia. Too much homework. I like to keep the work separate from everything else. I work to live I don’t live to work.
When I was teaching, my school changed from a late quarter calendar to an early quarter calendar. Took a while to get used to the new timing.
Never had a break this early in the year. Veteran’s Day is the beginning. Taught ever grade K-12 and university (UCLA) and college was the easiest (my dad was a biology professor, so I know how much work you do–too much). Now teaching h.s. Independent Study. 50+ subjects to plan for and grade. I feel your pain. Really.
Fall break? October in my college district has been without respite since Columbus Day was dropped from our holiday calendar. For some reason, we haven’t gotten around to relabeling it and putting it back in place. However, the powers that be finally got around to doing something about spring break, which was slavishly linked to the week before Easter, making it the most floating of holidays. The lame excuse for observing a religious holiday at our public institution was “We have to match the practice of local elementary schools because so many of our students and staff members have children in those schools.” Nuts. That hasn’t been true in decades, since local schools are all over the map in observance of spring break. In the future, spring break will be anchored in the middle of March. Hurray! Now to get Not-Having-Been-Discovered-Yet Day added to the calendar in October.
We git out autumn break, thank goodness. Everything else would have meant murder, I think. Of course, if the powers that be manage to enable the remote access to the school servers I’ll have a shitton of work to do that I couldn’t do so far because school wouldn’t open for me Sunday night…