AF: Hi Kids! Last Week

I'm super busy these days and am in the middle of creating a Powerpoint for a workshop I'm leading at CSULB.  Why am I working in the middle of the night?  Because I procrastinated a little.  Can anyone relate?

The pressure of a deadline helps get me going.  I COULD have started this a little earlier, but I was doing other important stuff.  So sometimes when people procrastinate, it isn't because they are lazy bums, and I tend to think that sheer laziness is not usually the reason for procrastination.  Besides, flat out goofing around is good for the soul.  Busy people have conflicting priorities.  Sometimes though, those priorities are off base -- gaming and messing around online doesn't measure up well when put on a list of priorities.  But reading?  Working on other subjects?  Pulling up the weeds that are choking the tomato plants?  Playing with a small child or a happy dog?  These things should be done.  Procrastination is not great, but it is a fact of life, and I understand that fact very well.

Anyway, I hope you continue working hard.  As you have surely noticed, the pace around here has picked up considerably.

If you are lurking and thinking to yourself..."I should start.  I want to take this class after all, but it's too late and she's going to yell at me," just put that aside.  Yes, I might yell at you, that is true, but I might not.  Depends on how busy I am at the moment.  And even if I do, big deal.  You can survive a little Fletcher yuckiness.  It's not the end of the world.

One time, my friend was VERY late picking me up at the airport.  I had been traveling for a long time, and I was tired and grubby, and I had to sit on my suitcase at the curb and breathe the exhaust of all the cars and buses coming and going for a long time.  It was awful.  But you know what?  I had forgotten all about it.  (Maybe the fumes from the exhaust killed my brain cells responsible for remembering my misery.)  HE was the one who recently reminded me, "Remember when I kept you waiting at the airport that time?" and I said, "Really?"  And he prompted me with a few more memory cues, and then I remembered, but the memory was vague.

My point is that I have such an extremely short memory for negative stuff.  Even if I get mad at you for starting late, or giving me some crazy excuse, I might grouse at you, but honestly, in 4-6 weeks, I won't remember it.  I never hold a grudge.  So don't worry about my grouchy moments.  They are few and fleeting.  Ask anyone who knows me.

I'll probably go to school and start working in 508 on the day your notebooks are due.  I'll post my hours as we get closer.

Carry on, young AP students.  FINISH the work.  Incomplete work is tossed to the drop pile, and then considered later, depending on HOW incomplete it is.

OH!  I remember what I wanted to say.  I threatened to drop kids from the blog who hadn't posted yet, but that move will require that I comb through August -- the posts are easy enough, but the comments take time.  I just haven't had a chance to do it, so even though I WANT to be strict, I'm too busy to be strict fairly and carefully.  So never mind.