Our first week of classes is done. I have four sections of Freshman Comp I and one section of Comp II. This is considered an "overload;" teachers are normally only expected to teach four classes total, but one of my colleagues had to go in for emergency surgery, so we divided up her classes to teach for her until she can recover enough to teach again (which will take at least five weeks). The end result is that I'm very, very tired.

On the other hand, I'm making some changes to my Comp I course structure, and just in the first week, the students are displaying much more enthusiasm than they have in previous semesters. If I can keep up even half this level of enthusiasm through the rest of the semester, it'll make the teaching go much more easily.