The Porter Bureau

Today was my first day of spring break. The fact that Spring hasn’t even started yet doesn’t seem to have daunted the good folks at the University of Maryland. And, to be honest, I could use the R&R… so long as it doesn’t snow while I’m working on my tan in the back yard.

Really, though spring break for the serious academic is a chance to catch up on reading, prepare for the final push at the end of the semester, begin researching final paper topics, and, of course, download back episiodes of the Daily Show.

Well, to make sure my spring break is as productive as possible, I have decided write a list of all the things I’m going to say that I will do over the next week. Such a list will help me to know exactly what I am blowing off at any given moment and what I should plan to blow off next. After spring break is over, I will return to my blog and report on just how many essential tasks I managed to avoid doing.

I give you, The List:

1. Revise my Woolf paper and send it to my narrative theory professor (I really need to do this one)
2. Taxes
3. Grade student quizzes
4. Email each of my students with a midterm update (yes, midterm has past–I need a break)
5.  Pay my parking ticket from when we went to DC with David, Diana’s brother                      
6. Pay Byron’s little league baseball registration (if I don’t do this one I’m in BIG trouble)
7. Email Professor Sangeeta Ray about setting up an independent study over the summer
8. Update my syllabus through the end of the semester
9. Read up on “Kaleidoscopi narratives” for Prof. Richardson’s class
10. Read selected Borges stories, including Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
11. Mock the sorry state of conservative “thought” on my blog (which is so hard to do when John Steward does it so well already)
12. Rant about the unconscionable state of the American healthcare system on my blog, paying special attention to how our system belies every argument in favor of the so called “free market” (anyone who believes that the “invisible hand” guides the US financial markets and not men and women who are slightly less criminal but slightly more culpuable than Bernie Madoff needs to lay off the weed–#11, check!)
13. Build a pinewood derby car with (for) Byron.

That’s enough for now. I may sneek in a few more items in the next few days. That will give me something to do while I’m trying to avoid the things already on the list.