Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Spring Break--Having a Plan

This week is my spring break. The kids are in school, Hubby is gone on vacation, and so I have lots of hours in the house to myself. It. Is. Wonderful. But, unfortunately, I cannot just luxuriate in the silence or lie on the floor, staring at the ceiling in relaxed bliss. I can't even curl up on the couch with a book. No, I have stuff to get done, including two (out of three) batches of essays*, several sets of quizzes, and a chapter draft for the dissertation. Plus, there is all manner of housekeeping, gardening, and bill paying to which I should attend.

In order to get said stuff done, I figured I should have a plan, especially for the grading which I really want to ignore but cannot. Here is the basic plan that I came up with last Thursday:

Grading:
  • Sunday evening: grade all quizzes
  • Monday during the day: grade paper revisions 
  • Each day, M-F: grade five essays from batch one during the day, and grade two essays from batch two each evening after the kids go to bed
  • Sunday at the end of break: the remainder

PhD:
  • Do a lot each day


How has it been going, you ask? Well, it's Tuesday afternoon, and I have graded all of the quizzes but only two essays. Out of about 45 or 50. (Wow, typing those numbers just spooked me, big time.) And I wouldn't say I've done a lot for the PhD but rather a little, or maybe a medium amount.

What have I been doing instead of grading? Oh, I don't know--taking morning walks with the dog, cleaning out the pantry, tidying my environment, drinking tea, talking to the cat.

But unless I want to be totally screwed on Sunday, I better get busy with the grading. And if I want to have a decent chapter draft by Friday, I need to step up my game on that front, too.

I will happily accept any advice for how to milk this break for all its worth so that it seems both productive and vacation-like (rather than unproductive and not-so vacation-like).


*The third batch will just have to wait until next week.