Part of it's my own fault. Procrastinated on the resumes enough that I had to get up at 3 this morning to finish grading them. I went to bed at 10, so I did get some sleep, but still. So started out tired.
Then when I handed them back, a student got so upset that she had to leave the room. She came back after 20 minutes or so, red-eyed, silently picked up her bag and left again. I felt like HUGE MEANY TEACHER. It was a little difficult to keep calmly teaching class. Good thing it was mostly a workshop day.
Okay for a while after that, but when I stepped outside, I nearly froze. You have to understand, it's been 100 degrees every day for the last couple. I was wearing a light sundress. I leave the building and it's starting to rain and no more that 50 degrees out. Meep. Luckily I had the cell phone with me and I called David and chattering with him kept me a little distracted from the goosebumps forming on my arms...
Eventually I got home. It was so good to be home. And then I checked e-mail. Not only was there a distressed e-mail from my student who was in shock over her grade (and I had to write back to her and tell her that no, I didn't think it was an unfair grade, and I wasn't going to change it), but there was a mail from Kev as well. I'm not going to go into it, especially because there's a really good chance I misinterpreted it. He's terrible at getting tone into e-mail. They tend to be really flat. But one interpretation of what he said (the more obvious one) was pretty harsh and critical, and it really knocked me for a loop. (The other interpretation is affectionate and teasing, and is more in character, but it felt like a real stretch to read the language that way).
So I've spent the last hour writing back to him asking for clarification, trying to distract myself with a good book (started Guy Gavriel Kay's Lord of Emperor's and I am *so* glad I caved and bought the hardcover yesterday so I have it today), and eating like a pig. Bread and curry and Toblerone. Ugh.
I did go and plant some flowers that have needed planting for days. That helped a little too. White pansies, red snapdragons, white alyssum, all in a long green planter on my doorstep. Soothing.
But I'm still trying not to cry, even though the more I think about, the more sure I am that I probably misinterpreted that letter. But there's still the unhappy student. And I finished reading the Herotica manuscripts but I have to write up my comments still, so I'm not going to get them in the mail today. And I don't know when my printer is arriving. And Bla-bla just sprang a really annoying change of codes on us today that is probably going to end up costing us at least a little money and is in any case a nuisance. And I didn't even enjoy the brief thunderstorm we just had, which is a pure shame.
All of which means that Mary Anne had better put herself to bed for a nice long nap.