I looked at my 'to do' list today. When I recovered, I did the sensible thing and applied for two weeks leave. I was thinking about three but that would take me very close to the start of semester, leaving no time to fix all the last minute glitches before the students return. And there always are last minute glitches. Especially with first semester. Might as well make it easy on myself and sort those out before the next round of difficulties begin*.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who goes catatonic when faced with big lists. Of course, all I have to do is break them down and work out priorities. Sounds easy, doesn't it? And it is—as long as I don't want any time to do my own stuff.

Well, bugger that!

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* For the first time in (I have no idea how many) years, I won't be giving the welcoming lecture to new students. Although I do rather enjoy meeting them all, it's a relief in a way. Something always goes wrong. But it's never the same problem, so you can't prepare. However, my experiences pale next to that of a friend at another institution for whom everything went disastrously wrong at the same time. And then she forgot she was wearing a radio mike. So the first words of the first lecture to the first years were "Oh, fuck!" That set the tone for the rest of semester.