"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."

And my day just gets more and more tragic, or comical, as the case may be. When we last left our hero, he was grading response papers. Grading was going veerrrryy slowly. So I graded one response paper and e-mailed it back to the student with my comments using Microsoft Word's "Insert Comments" feature. She e-mailed me back and said "I don't see any comments." So I said, "Oh, must have been the fact that I sent it to her in Microsoft Works format" (she had sent it in Works format originally). So I sent it to her in Word format. Again she wrote me, "Sorry, I still don't see the comments." Strange, I thought. I told her I would bring her a hard copy. I opened up the file to print it. No comments! Aargh! When I saved in Works format it must have deleted them, so when I saved it in Word format again nothing changed. Angrily, I rewrote the comments from memory, but I was furious enough with myself to comment on three other papers in a burst of energy.

Then there was the flowchart. I was using FreeMind to draw a flowchart about the U.S.-Japan trade deficit. Aargh, aargh, aargh. Printing it was a disaster since it was so large. I tried to print it out in sections and tape them together, but the margins were all messed up and I had to use a paper cutter to get them to match and it was still messed up, etc. etc. etc.

Then there was discusssion section itself today, in which I was totally disorganized and flustered and stuttering over my own words, etc. etc. etc. As usual, I talked too much and listened too little. *Sigh* my students were indulgent with me and were all very nice, but I can't shake the feeling that I let them down today...well, evaluations will be next week so I guess I'll see how I really did.

And now I'm staring down the 20-page literature review monster on fascism, which I'm getting very nervous about since it's just a week away form being due and I've barely started. Ugh...it's going to be a mediocre, mediocre job.

I haven't felt like I've really needed a hug for a long time, but I really, really could use one right about now...