How's this for bad time management?

[robinturner]

It's ten a.m., I have to teach in half an hour and I'm propping my eyes open because I was marking papers at three o'clock this morning. This is a serious case of bad time management, given that I had a whole weekend to do my marking. But Saturday was filled with computer stuff - I decided that I couldn't work without Linux in the office, so spent the day installing and configuring a new system: Mandrake 8.1, Star Office 6.0 beta, Netscape 6.2 etc. Time-consuming but kind of enjoyable if you're that kind of geeky person.

On Sunday I did some marking then went into my normal Sunday couch-potato mode, planning to stop lazing around and watching TV around nine o'clock to finish marking. However, at nine Arizona Dream came on. I'd never seen this film but had always been curious about it because I love Goran Bregovitch's film score. Three hours of weirdness later, it's midnight and I'm finally about to settle down to marking when my significant other decides it's time to talk. This is the kind of thing that women in long-term relationships regard as essential maintenance work, and under no circumstances may you say something like "Well, I'd love to talk, how about tomorrow." This is like telling your mechanic that tuning the engine can wait until your next visit; it will be greeted by apparent acceptance and a blast of coldness sufficient to give you an idea of what the bottom end of the Kelvin scale must be like.

Anyway, to avoid more bad time management, I should log off and get ready for class ...

Comments

[asteriskhere.livejournal.com]

Oo weirdness...I am listening to Goran Bregovic as I read this (er, write this) but you know, i was listening to him as I read your journal entry! Odd. His is only one of many songs by many different artists I am shuffling through right now, so that makes it even more of a coincidence that it was playing right at this time.
I love his music. Especially his soundtrack to the movie Underground.

See ya around

Not a very good example for your students

[cibetky.livejournal.com]

I wonder, do your students know about your livejournal? I'm a student myself - it would be a great fun if I could read my own educators' weakpoints. :-)

[chippiex.livejournal.com]

How was the talk?

Re: Not a very good example for your students

[solri.livejournal.com]

They don't need to read about my weaknesses, I tell them! Actually, I mentioned this story in class in the morning (while apologising for not having done all the marking I'd promised). They found it pretty amusing, but interestingly they seemed vaguely surprised that I should be apologising for nit doing something I'd promised to do. Is this abnormal for lecturers or what?

[solri.livejournal.com]

Long but productive, I suppose. One of the claimed male/female sociolinguistic differences I find valid is this idea that women place great importance on relationship-maintenance through talking about relationships, while men on the whole don't. As a man I have to be careful not to forestall this along typical male lines, e.g.

Woman: We never go out.
Man: OK, let's go out.

This does not work.

Re: Not a very good example for your students

[cibetky.livejournal.com]

I don't now, but I think teachers are supposed to be perfect.
My own teachers have never told us, students, about their private life in such a great detail.

Re: Not a very good example for your students

[solri.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say that was great detail. I mean if I gave students a blow by blow account of my entire weekend, I'd be getting off topic, to put it mildly, but I find in general students respond well to a bit of personal comment/disclosure.

[kristian.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. that is so true.

Re:

[chippiex.livejournal.com]

You sound like a typical guy. But a good guy. I suggest a weekly date night for fun AND talk. That way you won't get the unplanned, untimely talks plus if the example you provided applies to you, it covers that too.

[solri.livejournal.com]

I used to be classed as androgynous, but I seem to get more laddish as the years go by. Nice to be one of the good guys, though.

"Fun AND talk" - you mean they can go together? [Just kidding]

I do like the idea of a weekly date night, though. The problem is finding a time in our crowded schedules when neither of us is busy, exhausted or watching Seinfeld.