I’ve heard that some of…

I've heard that some of the faculty (those who didn't stay with the program) had trouble getting themselves to respond to the packets in timely fashion -- we're supposed to write about five pages in response to each one, and get them back within a week. I can certainly see how one might procrastinate response -- you're not actually in class with the student, or in contact with other faculty, so I imagine it's easier to let deadlines slide by. But it's not an unreasonable amount of work, if you sit down and do it. Far more pleasant than many other jobs I've had, too. I hope I stay on schedule. I usually do make hard deadlines -- it's the soft ones that kill me. The 'I really should get this done at some point this year' deadlines...

I read the first of my students' packets yesterday evening; this morning, I've just finished the first student response letter and sent it off. I wasn't sure how that would go, but it was actually fun; one of the nice parts of this program is that you get to look at a lot of a student's work and really talk to them about what they're trying to do. In many ways, this feels more like the interactions I had with Katie, my advisor, as I was working on the dissertation project, than the typical first year fiction workshop classroom. Fascinating.

It's tempting to just keep going, but my fingers are getting sore, and I do want to do some revising of my own work today. So a break for an hour or two, for lunch and reading (finishing up the Alice Munro, gorgeous as always), exercise and groceries -- then revision, hopefully. Back to the student packets tomorrow; the plan is to do one a day this week.