Ending the year marking

On the last day of term my students had a deadline. My 39 students had to each write a 2000 word essay. I'm not sure why the deadline was so late. I think it was a combination of two things; one is, that I wanted them to have time to incorporate feedback on their presentations, which they gave earlier in the month. And the other may have been that in the olden days, week 1 was the first week of term, but this academic year, it wasn't. And I had made a bit of a dog's breakfast of my timetabling request. That may have had something to do with it. But either way, I started the holidays with a big pile of marking. I had more or less managed to finish the other two that had come in before, but there was no rest for the wicked; I had to plough on without respite.

I made a start in the week I was still in the UK, but I didn't manage to even get halfway. And with all things looming in the new term, I knew I couldn't wait until the University would open again. So after I came back from the Netherlands I set to work. I had rather go for a walk and work on the house, but I didn't feel like I had a choice! So my walks were never longer than an hour, and progress on the house went slow. But slowly yet steadily the list of essays still to mark got smaller. I bailed out of all underground trips planned and kept my head down. I think this is how the new term will look: all work and no play!