May 18, 2023

Daily Diary, Day 989: At least I’m not grading, I found myself saying as I looked at all the things I had left to accomplish today!

I loved my career as a community college professor, loved teaching US and Women’s history, loved giving my students the chance to write family history papers that not only helped make history alive for them, but also made the chore of reading those papers much less onerous. But, I never liked grading. And since I taught 5 classes a semester, with 45 students each, at least during the first essay, this meant I was grading 225 in-class exams in a short period. And trying to write comments on them to help them improve.

So, when I have a busy day that seems just a trifle overwhelming, I say to myself, “At least I am not grading,” and this does, indeed, provide perspective.

So, I’ve swept and dusted, done my first 30 minute walk, created an ad for the audiobook edition of the Caelestis Series boxed set (which is only $4.99 on Chirp, Nook, and Spotify, and for some reason only $3.99 on Apple, down from usual price of $15.99) and got it started going on Bookbub. My hope is that people will see this a good way to get caught up with the series before reading the new book, Tides of Acerba.

Now I am waiting for a phone call, then I will need to prepare lunch to eat during my noon zoom meeting, so that I will have some time to write and get in my second 30 minute walk before my scheduled 4 o’clock phone meeting. This is with my oldest friend…the topic being the new substack she is going to start (which I am very excited about and you will hear a lot more about this once she gets it going.)

Ok, person supposed to be calling is now very late, so I am going to go ahead and post this. More flowers from walk yesterday. I know I've done this bush before, but I still can't get over the blooms.