'Twas the Night Before Fall Semester...

...and all through the house, only a keyboard was stirring--and sometimes, a mouse.

(Don't worry; I'm not going to write a parody of the entire poem or anything.)

So am I ready for the semester to start? Not completely, no. For one thing, I don't teach on the first day of school (too much chaos!), so I don't have to be totally ready yet. Also, the Dread Sked--or at least some major component of it--gets worse and worse every year. I'm at the point now where I pretty much just need to hear back from people who didn't take lessons over the summer, so I can figure out which of the multiple scenarios for certain parts of my week will need to be invoked. (Those unknown people drive the hard-to-schedule high school, which drives the college, which drives...me, all over the place.)

It's been a good summer--much better than last year, what with the knee surgery and filling in for an ailing colleague and all. And once everyone gets scheduled, it should be fairly fruitful as well; that's certainly my aim (OK, it always is, but prospects for this year are looking good).

Now I just have to convince myself that I'm tired, so as to start a school-year sleeping schedule again. And I think it might be working.