Speedily

This time of year isn't just busy because of finals; it's also letter of recommendation season. To work in this field you need a graduate degree, which means we have lots and lots of students applying to grad school. This year I am writing for 30 of them.

That is a lot of letters of rec.

It's a lot of judgment, screen after screen after screen of judgment. Are this student's interpersonal skills excellent or merely good? Have I complained about this task before? I must have. I don't have time to search for old posts, though, because...

...one of the schools in my region changed its deadline to December 15, in the same year that a calendar quirk is pushing finals deeper into December than they've ever gone during my time here. If anyone on that admissions committee is reading my letter before next week, I will eat one of the manila envelopes sitting next to me. I will munch it up with my very own teeth, because that is ridiculous.

Even more ridiculous: the online application service they use is telling me I can't submit a letter on December 15 for a December 15 deadline; I have to submit it on December 14 instead. 

I didn't mean to push it down to the wire like this. It's been a crazy crazy day: meeting 9-10, final 10-12, search committee work until 1, final 1-3, late ravenous lunch at 3, loose ends until 4:30, and then a work dinner that lasted from 5:30 until 9. Nine o'clock, I ask you.

Then I came home to find a teary kid in need of some re-assembly. It wasn't enough to have one kid do something dumb this week, I guess. 

All day people were asking me what I was going to do over break and I could only tell them one thing: I'm going to take a nap. Maybe even two naps.