Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Zombiehood

It is finals week. I am writing exams and grading. Grading and writing exams. Finishing spreadsheets for hundreds of students. I have spreadsheets with thousands of entries.

I am a monotasker. When I get into a groove the task at hand fills me up. The task at hand displaces all else.

When I drive for hundreds of miles I reach my destination as a road zombie, only focusing on the distance, my head full of trucks, tail-lights, and music.

When I am a zombie I can barely speak. My eyes are glassy. My wild hair is wilder.

Right now I can only focus a few feet in front of my face. My head is full of numbers. I have posted carefully diagrammed keys to the last few quizzes and test on the walls outside of my office. I have been here almost 12 hours. I should go home.

I have two more exams to write, some more grading, and I need to finish writing equations in Excel to automatically drop some lowest scores.

I need to go home.

I am pulling zeros down a column so that my equations will work.

I need to go home

=(SUM(C2:P2)-MIN(D2,E2,G2,M2)-MIN(I2,J2,K2:L2))/4

I really should go home


I should


home



go

4 comments:

marc aurel said...

when I was young, I lived with a Virgo academic. She claimed that she thrived on long repetitive tasks that drove others to madness by boredom. I long associated those sort of tasks well done with supposed Virgo characteristics. I no longer believe in the magic of sun sign astrology, but I am left with certain psychological types of which she was one.

TitleTroubles said...

Aren't you glad that you now know how to use MIN and SMALL?

H said...

Yes. And Marc, I am a Scorpio Rooster like you, and no, I don't believe in it either. Psychological types? I think maybe part of mine comes from growing up without a TV. Reading is a lot less scattered.

marc aurel said...

Huh. Veery interesting