Perpetual Motion

It's about this time every year that I start feeling just completely overwhelmed.  That's not such a good thing so early in the year, is it?  Since this happens every year, I know I'll get through it, but until I get a handle on everything that needs to be done, I just feel like a hamster on a wheel - running, running, never getting any where.

Yesterday was my "official" start of the spring 9HealthFair season.  For the next five Saturdays, I'll be teaching phlebotomy to nursing students.  We have 75 new nursing students taking the class and another 30 or so coming to the refreshers.  I do this every year and have an amazing team to help me with the classes.  In twelve hours of class time split up over a two day period, the students go from "theoretically" knowing how to draw blood to completing 25 sticks.  It is not physically difficult for me to teach, I can do it in my sleep at this point, but it is absolutely, 100% emotionally draining.  Thank God I have my Amanda and Jessica and Jennifer to help me out - I couldn't do it without them.

Yesterday's class of 25 students went suspiciously well, and that bothers me.  We only had one crier, but no fainters, or egotists, or just plain lousy sticks.  Why should it bother me that it went so well?  It means that the "crazy" class is still out there.  Crazy can come in many forms, but we always have one class with at least one crazy.  Since we didn't get the crazy class out of the way yesterday, that means that it can happen in any of the next five weeks.  Pray for me.

In addition to 9HealthFair season starting on Saturday, my classes ended Thursday, which means I have to complete all of my grading by noon tomorrow.  Everything is done except for reading their papers.  Forty-six of them.  Can you tell I'm stalling?  What has happened to the ability to research, comprehend, and integrate information into a cohesive paper?  It's a lost art, I tell you.  Absolutely lost and I'm not sure we can get it back.

AND...my new classes start tomorrow.  Three completely different classes that need to be set up in the LMS (learning management system); three syllabi that need to be updated/revised; three sets of lectures/labs that need to be polished.  By 8:30 tomorrow morning when class starts.

So, to recap:

• Five more weeks of phlebotomy classes for nursing students (completely separate from my regular classes)
• Forty-six papers to read/grade
• Final grades must be calculated once said papers are graded
• Three different classes need to be set up and ready to go in about thirteen hours
• The Walking Dead starts in eleven minutes

Who needs to sleep?  I took a nap today anyway.  Because when the going gets overwhelming, the overwhelmee takes a nap.