Shouldn’t I be more frantic now?

I’m traveling to California on Friday, and will be returning the Friday thereafter, leaving Finnur (aka The Hero) in charge of house and kids.   I have a TON of stuff I need to get done before the week is over (grade a final, assemble a poster for a conference, choose a book for next semester, fly to CA), but here I am, on a Tuesday night – and I’m not working. In fact, I just spent a good chunk of time watching today’s Google Chrome Event live from CA with Finnur. I also did not work last night (indulged in Sherlock instead, good stuff!).

Will this come back to bite me? Yes, for sure, but I think it’s fair to take a bit of time off after spending 4-5 days trying to hammer out a final.  Four-to-five DAYS?! Yes, indeed. Maybe it was hormones. Maybe it was the kids getting sick and me working from home for a couple of days to take some of the pressure off Finnur. Maybe it was just general tiredness after a long semester. Maybe it was just inexperience. Maybe it was just jangly nerves. Whatever it was, making a final drained me – and I’m not even sure the final itself turned out to be all that great.

In the end I think I ended up with mostly easy questions, pretty much straight from the book (“Please vomit your knowledge neatly on a piece of paper, thank you, and never think of it again!”) with a couple of tough nuggets thrown in for good measure.  (A side topic for future reference: “What is a good final?”)

But yes, a final was made, and the students (well, 15 out of 17) sat through it today.  I’ve yet to pick up the nerve to politely inquire what they thought of it.  Tomorrow I’ll go to pick it up from the exam-depository and start grading it – which will certainly (not) be oodles of fun.  Another option is to just focus on my poster tomorrow, and leave the grading for the 10 hour plane-ride to California – which is perhaps not the worst idea I’ve had all day.