What a week!

And it's only Tuesday! yeesh.

I think (hope, fervently hope) that I've now gotten through the worst of the semester/term here. I had a big deadline that I was trying to meet (met it, just barely), and then there's the catching up on everything that didn't get done while the big time crunch was on. But things are slowly and steadily returning to, um, "normal", at least work-wise.

But here's what I've been dealing with, in a nutshell, over the past few days:
* Research collaborators flaking out at the most inopportune times.

* Issues with several students: failing students, flaky students, students with way too much other stuff going on in their lives. This always seems to happen during weeks when I just don't have time to deal with it.

* Colleagues continuing to behave bizarrely (again, at the most inopportune times).

* A truly frightening backlog of grading.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that I'm starting new units in both of my classes? Boy, what a great idea that was.

On the bright side, there's the potential for some really great things to start happening on the research front. There are some interesting opportunities that I'm exploring, and in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of the past few days, I actually got some inspiration for some little projects I can do in the very near future. (Does that make up for the lack of sleep? Well, probably not.) It's funny, but some of my best ideas come during my busiest and most hectic periods. Why is that?