Too Busy to Breathe - aka October

I don't think April should get all the blame. April is a notorious month in academia, a month when faculty, students, administrators, and staff are all at a full run from April Fool's Day until that day you realize it isn't even April anymore and you're heading into finals (for staff it usually ends there, for students it ends with the completion of finals, and for faculty grading finals and administrators handling grade challenges it goes for at least another week). We avoid making plans for April, knowing we'll be already too busy running from awards banquet to student research conference to committee meeting, and hold it up as that month - ugh, April, ...you know.

To take some of the shame away from April, I'm going to put my hand in October's back and push it forward from the line, so it can stumble out where we can all see it for the sneaky bastard it is. How about you, October?!

Midterms, when studying and grading are compounded with midterm grades being entered, meaning twice the frantic work from faculty but also for students and advisors a serious rethinking of the schedule, right in the middle of the term. For freshmen, this can be terrifying - it's when they have to face their first big seeming-failure. (Despite advisors' firm statements that this is normal, it's what you do in college, freshmen struggle to see dropping a class as anything but a white flag). This is when classes start to ramp up, too; when the intro stuff starts to accumulate into an expectation that you're really getting it, which will rapidly turn into projects and big papers, not that you would know it on October 1 that any of this is on the horizon. Oh, dastardly October, you start off as the beginning of the term, just a few weeks in, all innocent with your unassuming readings and low-stakes assignments, and before you're over, students are freaking out about what the final project is going to be because now there are only a few weeks in November to get it researched and drafted or they'll be working straight through Thanksgiving again. But this is also the time for fall carnivals, homecoming, greek life and honor society philanthropy projects. There is something every weekend. It's a riot of campus life. It's exhausting.

This is adorable.

I will not be making it.

Because time.

OMG, October: you are

killing me with your cuteness

that there is no time for.

This is often when conference abstracts are due for faculty attending spring conferences, when grant proposals are due, when committee work gets crazy (so many forms!). At most schools, where students register semester by semester for classes, this is the time for spring registration, so students and advisors meet in person and over email figuring out the logistics of scheduling: 360 section D on MWF at 2 or 420 section B at that time and 360 D on TR at 9 right before a long lab on the other side of campus? At my school, where we plan in the fall for a spring registration that covers the whole next year, chairs and anyone helping them are figuring out two semesters worth of faculty schedules, trying to please everyone and probably pleasing no one, with this person insisting on a split schedule (classes every day) and that one asking for all TR classes but none of them back-to-back (this is logistically impossible on a day with 90-minute classes). Because just being in October isn't enough, is it? With all the weekend craziness and all the weekday work. We need to spend it with an eye on what we'll be doing the rest of the year as well? Oh, and yes, I'm totally fine having to have my spring book order sent in right now, too.

October tries to offer, in its defense, fall break. Yes, there is, for some schools, fall break. But don't let the word "break" throw you off. We know what you're up to with your fall break, October. It's, like, 2 class days off, so students leave a day early, making the day before break starts pretty much useless for accomplishing anything in class because even the ones who are present are only so in body - their minds are already packed up and out the door. Too many faculty assign work due the next Monday that will take all of break to accomplish, so some students get squat for rest, and too many faculty have a ton of grading to catch up on (midterm grades are due on the day we're back from break, or maybe the next). We also try to take advantage of a day or two at home to catch up on laundry and/or house projects and/or cleaning, because if you don't get that closet cleaned out now it won't get another chance until January.

I don't even know what people with kids do in October, when you have to add to this all the Halloween stuff. I made a fall wreath last week. Because I was going to get that fall wreath made if it killed me. If I had to figure out Halloween costumes on top of that I would probably go off the deep end. We'll probably put a few Halloween decorations out and bulk-buy some candy the day of Halloween, because we do really enjoy the kids coming around to trick-or-treat. But it will be a resin jack-o-lantern with a plug-in light bulb, because while we'd love to carve a pumpkin, we did that last year and I have yet to do anything with all the pumpkin we froze afterwards. So, October, what do you have to say for yourself?

I'm writing this in the morning while doing laundry and packing for a conference. I will now go gulp down some breakfast and race to school. I don't have time to chastise you further. Get back in line, October. And try to keep your shenanigans to a minimum in the future.