24 hours in a Day is never enough!

Have you ever had a day pass by where you wish you can instantly freeze time and finish everything that you set out to do? That's exactly how I feel today.With only less than 2hours away to Tuesday the 17th Aug, I'm extremely exhausted, still have heaps left to complete, not to mention another 5-6 hours worth of paper work. Well, you may say, stop blogging and get back to your paper work...True...but I am in a state where I need to vent out my frustration and this seems a good avenue to do it.

The day started pretty well. Waking up at 7am with sun streaming into my room, it looked like its going to be a great day. In fact, it was not half bad, everything went smoothly according to my teaching schedules, meeting with students, emailing important documents until when I saw the clock and it showed 4pm! I was like, WHAT? 4pm? Where did most of the day disappeared to? Suddenly I had a panic attack, to my left was my thesis to proof read for a meeting with my Supervisor ( which I managed to push to Wednesday!) and to my right was a bundle of student scripts waiting to be marked!!!!! OMG!...I wish I had a clone.

As much as I love being in the academia world but I loathe marking papers. It just takes a chunk of my time and hate it when students give me half attempted papers, especially those who had done it last minute. It just doesn't make any sense at all. That's what I hate. Its like my head is rallying to fail them but being a compassionate person I am, I'm giving them extensive feedback so that they can improve. Writing those feedback takes time, heaps of time as you need to phrase the negative aspects as positively as possible so that students will take them as a constructive feedback rather then a "shoot me  down " feed back....get what I mean? That's the art of being a good teacher. You need to motivate them and also be honest without hurting their feelings. That's where most of my time goes. Although I have been told by my peers not to delve too much on these feedback, I just feel that it really works. Students see me as a advisor, a friend and a educational guide. I cannot just throw in feedbacks that lacks any sort of direction. These are 1st year undergraduates, they are as lost as the scripts that they have submitted. They need some form of guidance. I cannot be advising them on a one-on-one basis, that will take just too much time. A well thought and written feedback that will guide them and give them some sense of focus is better then having them repeat the same mistakes in the next assignment!!!!! which undoubtedly will add on the same problems that I am facing now.

Well that being said, being a research student myself and working is really a difficult balancing act. I just wish to finish my PhD and graduate but some how problems surrounding my research area is slowing down the progress...as mush as I want my students to thrive, I want to do good on my thesis as well...so yes, time is a challenge for me. As much as myself and quite a a lot out there who wish to have more then 24 hours each day, all I can say is "May the Force be with you"....

As for me back to my 5 hours of paperwork, coffee and sleepless night ahead ....

Signing of
M