When I was an undergrad I remember having difficulty scheduling time to shower, much less to do all of the reading and writing for all of my classes.  Then things calmed down and I forgot what that was like. Then when I started graduate school I remembered again. Then grad school calmed down and I forgot again.

And now, because I took on extra teaching hours for a few weeks, I am teaching so many hours a week that I barely have time to prepare my lessons, much less eat/sleep/shower. I am not kidding. It's a good thing my man is all the way in Hong Kong! Like a PC perilously close to crashing, I am running in safety mode.  Last week I taught the Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and the Odyssey– none of which I had read in their entirety, much less taught, until very recently. This week it's been the Odyssey, the Canterbury Tales, and a lecture, with slides, on Greek Art.  When a student complained the other day about the amount of reading they have to balance with going on trips to the ballet and Burgundy, you can imagine how wryly I smiled.  I never imaged, when I was in college, that my professors were as overloaded as I was.

Next week it's the Ramayana and Shakespeare's Sonnets.  And then, finally, finally, my teaching schedule will revert to usual, I can go back to eating (cooking even!), sleeping (more than 6 hours a night!) and showering (might even wash my hair!).  And next year, if I teach this class again, the prep will already be done, and I'll breeze through on my notes from this year. But next year is so far away…