Stuck in a Moment and I can't get out of it...

I'm listening to U2 and this particular song is playing, but it also is very reminiscient of what is going on in my life right now.

I have been TA a math course (is it really TAing if you give the lectures?) for a couple of months now and we regularly participate in a professional development seminar. They taped each of the new people and my tape is being shown next Monday.

I had a particularly grueling taping where one of my students said something that stunned me and I froze for just a second. Well, I haven't been able to get myself together because I really have been stuck in this moment and cannot get out of it.

I am sure that all of us have had those bad teaching experiences, well those of us who teach, but yesterday I also found out that the students were going to fill out evaluations about us. The particular class that I am worried about is the class in which that outburst has happened. I guess you can see how I would be freaking out.

Besides that, and mountains of grading I would like to get off of my desk of course, I am doing ok I suppose. I think today I am going to the library to grade papers and be in, almost, complete silence. My office, which I share with a number of individuals, is always packed and always loud. The times I get the most work done are those times in which I am alone in silence and everyone else is either taking a class or teaching a class, which one Tuesdays and Thursdays is limited to a small 1 hour period - not nearly enough time to put a large dent in my grading.

One day I may take a picture of the stack, or I will leave it alone and never take a picture because then I fear it will only turn into a "grading war". My biggest problem is that I feel students need a lot of feedback, so I like to grade a bunch of problems and do not see any way out now. I changed by grading schema so my students would benefit and they certainly have, but I do not know if they have benefitted enough to do 100% on their exams.

I will post more later about a conjecture I am making about my students and tutoring, but who knows when that will be. I hope to resurface sometime soon.