20150330.0719

I have the feeling that this is going to be a good day. I have already knocked out a short freelance piece, and the money I had had coming from earlier freelance work has found its way to me. I am on my second cup of coffee for the day, and I look forward to several more (at least one more before I leave Sherwood Cottage for work today). The day's teaching is already planned out; I know more or less what I am going to be doing with my students today and for the rest of the week, so I have little about which to worry in that regard, although I have yet to set up the paperwork for the events. Payday will be tomorrow, so I have something to which to look forward. The weather promises to be pleasantly spring-like, so that I will have a nice walk to the office and drive afterwards, when the Mrs. picks me up from work so that I can drop her off at it.

I am glad that the day looks to be a good one. I get more done on good days than on bad, and I need to get things done. Grading is at least temporarily in abeyance, since I managed to clear my docket of it yesterday and another graded assignment is not due until Friday (and I need not look early at anything submitted early), so that particular time-sink is not in evidence. The job search is winding down for me; I have only a few applications left on my desk to review, and those jobs may no longer be live, but I shall check up on them. Of more pressing importance are issues for conferences. The deadline for SCMLA submissions is tomorrow, so there is still a little bit of time left to get ideas to me; see this. I will soon be wading through such submissions as I have to put together a panel. Also, there are things to do for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, for which I will be quite busy, as I am presenting a paper and presiding over a panel and a roundtable. I probably also ought to be seeing about hosting a business meeting of some sort, although that will need coordination with others...guess what I will be tending to.

I do not complain, though. This is the work to which I have devoted myself for some years, and I am glad to have the opportunity to do more of it. It may be helping me to secure a more stable job even now, and if it is not doing so directly, it is at least strengthening my ability to get said job in the next cycle. (I may well be drafting paragraphs to insert into later letters as a way of hedging my bets. I hope not to need them, but I would rather have them and not need them than the reverse.) And I do enjoy the work I do...most of the time.