Tired. And also: John Green.

I am tired. Tired, tired, tired, tired. I am also ready for this semester to be over (6 more weeks!) because my brain is fried.

I have so much grading to do. Soooooo much.

What I’m saying is it’s a lot.

And that picture is an almost scarily accurate representation of both my desk at work and my kitchen counter.

Today was good, though. I met with some students since the end of the semester is looming and a lot of them are now in panic mode. It’s always interesting to have the conversation with them about how what they need to do is what I told them to do on the first day of class because now they’re looking for a magic bullet or fix. For some reason, it’s always extra credit even when they haven’t done the required work for the course.

I also say pretty early on for them to stop worrying about extra credit and instead to focus on credit since that’s what makes up their grade. Anyway, since I gave my students a slice of life challenge this semester, they had an opportunity to get a ton of extra credit, which some of them didn’t take. So. You know. As it goes.

The rest of tonight’s adventure was seeing John Green as part of his book tour for Turtles All the Way Down.

He talked a lot about his experience with mental illness and especially obsessive-compulsive disorder since the main character of the book has the condition. There was a singalong, which I was skeptical of, but that kind of worked. He and his brother also did a live recording–or at least gave a preview of–their podcast. I have to say that one of my favorite things about going was hearing people cheering so loudly for an author and wearing bookish swag and being excited about a book and its author. It just warms my whole heart.

It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad I went–especially because I got to go out for burgers and fries with my friend and her daughter afterwards. We talked about books and reading and the joys of being book nerds and all the things you would expect English professors who teach children’s literature and read a lot of YA (and went to a YA author event) to talk about. Her daughter also told us some riddles and funny stories. A+ night, would do again.

And now I am home, and I am sitting in bed writing this post. And praying I get the motivation I need to make it through this next batch of papers tomorrow.

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