Can’t talk, busy

Last semester, I found myself running around like the cliched chicken, but without the sweet release of death to look forward to. So, I vowed, this semester I would be prepared.
Ha.
I had it all planned – oral presentations throughout the term, rather than all at once at the end; staggered due dates to ensure smaller heaps of essays to correct; class reading schedules so we’re all on the same page (pun intended), etc. I was a veritable goddess of anticipatory scheduling.
You can tell I’m tired. I’m using words like ‘anticipatory’ with no veiled undertones. Sigh.
Of course, orals get postponed because students get the flu, or the plague, or whatever, or simply decide that their mid-term chem test is waaaaay more important than Mordecai Richler’s contribution to the literary face of Montreal; essays are late or rescheduled because everyone’s (and I mean everyone’s) computer eats documents randomly and no one’s printer works; and books arrive three friggin’ weeks late at the bookstore.
Needless to say (so I’ll say it), I am once again facing the end of the semester with trepidation. Or I would be if I could remember what ‘trepidation’ meant, along with the other few thousand words that have abandoned me of late. This morning I told a class that Sebastian “beat the shit out of” Sir Toby in Twelfth Night. While true, still not the eloquent professorial note one wants to strike with students.
And now, let’s face it, I’m just babbling.
The good news is that all my colleagues seem to wandering the halls with the same frightened deer look, so I am not alone in my trepidation, whatever that means.
Four weeks from now, it will all be behind me (save the heaps of essays), and I’ll be able to think about my summer course – which, since it’s only three weeks long, will be over before the panic can begin.