Novel Readings

My “Things To Do” list for today:

• Prepare notes on Alice Munro, “The Found Boat” for tomorrow morning
• Prepare notes on Bleak House (up to Chapter 36) for tomorrow afternoon (still some work to do here, but class isn’t until 1:30…)
• Review Reading Responses and Reading Journals from two classes
• Write as many as possible of seven six five reference letters (needed a.s.a.p.)
• Grade as many as possible of a batch of papers on Jane Eyre
• Comment on a Ph.D. thesis prospectus (needed a.s.a.p.)
• Comment on an undergraduate paper proposal (needed a.s.a.p.)
• Comment on two draft SSHRC proposals (needed a.s.a.p.)
• Review a paper resubmitted by a dissatisfied customer student
• Prepare notes on departmental hiring priorities for a committee meeting tomorrow (I’m thinking mental notes are good enough here)
• Prepare notes on how best to use money that may be donated for graduate scholarships
• Pick up important groceries and prescriptions
• Attend parent-teacher interview
• Collect children from after-school program trip to Natural History Museum
• Dinner: cook, feed to children, eat (sitting down if possible)
• Oversee homework, eke out some ‘quality time,’ do bedtime reading and cuddles
• Read some of book for review (now past deadline)
• Fold laundry, empty dishwasher
• Feel guilty about items left undone from this list while watching U.S. election coverage on TV
• Call it quits for the day (but not before staying up until 1:20 a.m. to watch Obama’s victory speech!)

Maybe going public like this will help me stay on task! (11/5: Also, this list is an interesting historiographical example, in that it records the completely mundane nature of this day from an individual perspective, even as it acknowledges its glancing intersection with ‘world-historical’ events.)