I keep looking around for the trick but at the moment I have only one assignment to grade this weekend, and of the nine class sessions I have next week (three classes are twice a week and one is three times), students are doing presentations for two of them, one is canceled because some of the students will be at a national conference, and for two others I have visiting speakers. One, still other, is the point of the class where the steering committee comes in for feedback from the first year and capstone classes, which will meet together.
The last third of any semester is a bit bonkers. You figure out that you still have more material to cover than is possible in twice the time you have left. The student presentations are coming up and in the spring there is a national Undergraduate Research Week, during which our own Student Research Conference is held and many of our students will be traveling to present at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. I also have students who are going to a ceramics demonstration in Iowa next week, and they will miss a class session in addition to those listed above.
And then there are the visiting speakers who are candidates for positions next year. I will give over one period next week to that endeavor, which is absolutely worth "losing" the day to if is gets us the ideal colleague, another full-time art historian.
And it is spring. And the orange flower beds are in bloom. Follow me below the virtual knot garden for more.
My favourite season in college was always the spring. I do like the fall for other reasons (like Halloween), but when it starts to get warm and people spill out of the buildings, shed their outer cocoons (a.k.a. long pants and shoes; the coats were abandoned when the average temperature went above freezing), you end up with a whole new atmosphere. There are games out of doors, going from one building to another, in the case of "Humans vs. Zombies," or just stretching from one tree to the next or between the trees. I have variously seen cricket and quidditch (played without broom-riding, unfortunately), chess and tug-of-war. Students read and doze under trees, practice juggling and swordfighting, and cartwheel and handstand their way between buildings. Hammocks are strung between trees as are ropes for tightrope walking. Classes meet outside and music ensembles practice out of doors, hopefully far enough away from buildings that they don't disrupt other classes.
Some students respond to the spring with severe senioritis (even if they are not seniors), and others race through things to get out for the summer. But the depressing slog that the first half of the semester has been, when the dark falls annoyingly early and classrooms are either freezing or overheated to the point that everyone, including the instructor, have difficulty staying awake, is over. Generally things seem brighter, and it is easier to get things done, for the most part. My undergraduate college was planted so all the plants bloomed in the spring, and there are a lot of spring-blooming flowers here as well, including a bluebell dell in a forest of redbuds. The pear trees will start to flower very soon, and then come the irises, showing white and purple like the college colours.
This is also the time of class projects coming due. In two weeks my students will have installed the cases for their museum class (one in the museum/visitors' center and a second in the science building), and will be getting ready to present their research in front of their displays in the final class periods. My interdisciplinary students will be wrapping up and getting ready to submit their final proposals for their majors, listing the classes they plan to take and presenting a justification and personal statement for their individualized program. Both those classes are in good shape because I had very loose and flexible schedules laid out in my syllabi, adjustable ones that would allow me to take a day and discuss projects, take time out to proofread written assignments, or other activities that may not have been carefully pre-planned from January.
In my lower level art history class, by contrast, there is material we have to cover that leads into a second half of a two-semester survey, so to a great extent we are racing to get through the material. I can go quickly through it, and focus on some material and not other, but I still have to provide a framework that covers the full chronological and technological span assigned to the class. So the fact I am way behind is indeed a problem. I have three weeks to cover about 600 years of art and history. I am thus cutting anything other than the major works that allow us to discuss the intersection of religion, political and military power, and aesthetic choice. Because I have got to focus so carefully, these lectures this late in the semester are probably more organized, perhaps clearer, than those I have given earlier in the year. Just like my students, I am unfortunately just as, if not more, effective when forced into a shorter time frame than I want or feel I need to get something done.
Of course I have procrastinated enthusiastically on one of the two reports I am having to write this weekend (the other I seem to have never heard anything about!), and now I am paying for it. It is gorgeous outside. I went to the hardware store this morning and bought a new outdoor hose, mint, sage, and tomato plants, a watering can, and various bits and bobs for spring house repairs. I planted the plants, pulled weeds and misplaced grasses, and have generally been productive today. Notice that I haven't yet even opened the file I have to work on and that I should theoretically have done by the end of the day tomorrow, as Monday I have a visiting speaker who leaves early Tuesday, then the whole day on Tuesday is devoted to undergraduate research presentations at the university-wide conference, and another visitor (actually a pair of them) comes in by train Tuesday evening. They speak on Wednesday, and Thursday they leave and I have a full day, including meeting with a candidate for one of our other positions and going to dinner with a small group of faculty that evening. We have another candidate coming in on Sunday, so I am hoping that Friday and Saturday of next week I can catch up on the sleep I will be lacking once Monday starts.
How is your spring? are you caught up on grading these days? On time with your lessons? And even more importantly, are your lilacs in full bloom? Your tulips? Or are you still on daffodils and dandelions? Or snowdrops and crocuses?