Week 12 slump

I'm not sure if it is always week 12, but there is a point in every semester when I can see the end, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get there. I am at that point right now. Academically, this semester is probably the easiest since I've been in grad school. No lit courses, no heavy theory courses, just a workshop, an internship, and practicum. I have two short essays (one on my internship experience and one on my teaching philosophy) and two portfolios (a poetry portfolio for my workshop and a teaching portfolio to go with my philosphy essay), but no research papers or annotated bibliographies. This feels nice. Yet I can't get myself motivated to do it. The internship essay is due Saturday. I have a feeling I can crank out a good one Friday night, but I'd like myself better if I spent a few days on it. The other stuff is going to have to wait until after Thanksgiving, when hopefully the good home cooking and four days off will refresh my brain enough to get motivated.

The thing that is really dragging me down is teaching. I spent three hours yesterday trying to decide what to teach today. I feel like it is too late in the semester to start anything new (I only have 8 actual class sessions left, and four of them are dedicated to a movie and an in-class essay about the movie) so I decided that today I will explain the final portfolio to them, and the rest of my class time will be spent workshopping their revisions. Is this cheating? Because I now have no other class prep to do for the rest of the semester. Just grading. I feel like I'm short changing my students. Then again, they're probably getting short-changed anyway since I'm cranky and exhausted most days. Well, next semester will be better, right?

Today is going to be a very long, exhausting day, but I'm looking forward to it. After I teach, I will be conferencing with my students for a couple hours, then there's a round table about PhD programs (with the always enthusiastic and insightful Mary B), and after that, I'm driving an hour out into the country to help another prof's wife work her horses. I cannot even describe how excited about that I am. I used to ride when I was a kid and have been dying to start doing it again. I hate traditional exercise (treadmills, spin classes, no thank you) and riding is a great workout. Maybe doing something physical and mindless will kick-start my brain.

After today, I plan to spend the rest of the week on that internship essay and some submissions--there's a contest deadline Friday and hopefully I can put some regular submissions in the mail on Saturday. I've gotten rejection letters from everyone I sent to over the summer, so I'm getting nervous about not having anything (except my chapbook) out there. Makes me feel like I'm not putting out the effort that I should be.