Evening update

It's difficult to explain how crazy it's been round here; partly I just always feel off-kilter if I don't have quite a bit of quiet time at home, something that's been singularly lacking, and then of course it's the craziest time in the semester...

I finished up two non-school things today that have turned my apartment into a chaos of books and papers (a review and a late-stage supplement to someone else's interview for a literary journal); I got a much-needed haircut in the late morning; in the afternoon it became clear to me that pretty much the only thing I could do was take a nap (they are doing horrifyingly loud facade work outside my apartment, like right outside, but I closed all the windows and doors I could and then put the duvet very firmly over my head and gave myself over to sleep). I slept in a sort of paralysis for a couple of hours; it was probably the deepest sleep I've had for several weeks.

I had a good run this morning, and when I got home from swimming this evening I took an hour to finally tidy up the chaos - recycling all the printed-out drafts of things, stacking library books on shelves, getting rid of old magazines and mail and sorting out the huge detritus of triathlon training. (Triathlon and writing basically have the same effect on my apartment, they introduce significant disarray until things get so bad that a brief lull gives me the impetus to impose my will once more on the random chaos.)

Now I have an absolutely huge mound of student work that must be read tonight; these couple pieces of outside work, plus the usual extra talks and lectures one needs to attend at this time of year, have left me very much behind on marking assignments. But the (relative) tidiness of my surroundings persuades me that it is possible I will actually get everything done in the next week that I need to....