Finally, I’ve waded through the entire backlog of grading for my genetics class, and have sent every student a personal email stating where they currently stand, what assignments are missing (I’m offering amnesty on all the homework), and what they can do to improve their grade this week — lab reports, for instance, can be revised to correct errors. There is still a gigantic take-home final looming ahead, which constitutes about a quarter of their total grade, and I’ve warned them about that. That does mean that this is only the lull before the storm, though, but at least I’ve got a couple of days to work on bailing out my lifeboat. I expect to be swamped by the end of this week and early next week, again.

It also means my class content for this last week is taken care of. I get to deal with students’ concerns about their grades, and also review the entire semester to prepare them for the final.

Now to celebrate this fleeting triumph by…uh, I dunno. What do we do to party anymore? I know, maybe get started on wrapping up my second class.