Three Twelve Hour Days, Preceded by a Night away from home

This week was grueling and it hasn't even ended. Sigh...

On Sunday, after a quick 24h trip to Maryland to see our oldest son perform in a band festival...

(we drove there on Friday night and came back late on Saturday night and I still had to cook for the next day before going to bed!)

... I left home around 12 pm with the car loaded with food items.

I cooked Brazilian food all afternoon and served it to my students -- too bad only half of them showed up and I had tons of leftovers! I stayed overnight at a friend's house because I had to teach the next day. The best thing that happened Sunday was meeting a Brazilian woman who is a visiting scholar and who is staying at the place where I was hosting my students. She helped me cook and it was great to make a new friend!

Monday
After teaching and then spending hours working and never even making a dent on my never-ending "to-do-list" I drove back home in absolute record time (59 minutes -- really crazy).

Tuesday
Left home at 9 am, returned past 9 pm. Taught class, stopped at farmer's market, had lunch with friends, went to the dentist, had a meeting with this faculty fellowship group I'm part of, had a meeting with a struggling student, grabbed something to eat and went to a long (albeit interesting) reading of Dante's Divine Comedy in which I read in Portuguese at the request of the department chair (at U#1, not where I work full-time).

Wednesday
Drove to U#2, taught, had office hours in which I tried to keep on working on my to-do-list, went to yoga (thankfully!), then I took my new Brazilian friend (see Monday) and two other Brazilian women for dinner! It was great, but I didn't get back home until past 10 pm.

I'm sick and tired of 12 hour days and barely seeing my kids. :(

Today I had a more reasonable day (with a yoga/pilates class to boot!), but I'm stressed because I still have tons of things to do and they keep multiplying (typical end-of-semester woes, I know!)

I have so much grading to do that maybe I need to drink some strong tea and try to pull an all-nighter, but I'm sure I can't. :( My students will have to be patient with me.

The worst part of the story? Next week promises to be just as bad. :( Well, maybe a little less because I will only teach one day, but maybe worse because I will actually drive to U#3 to give the final exam in person (and to serve a meal for my students!).

Let's see how it goes... Sigh...