ROW80 Round 8: 3rd Update

Surprisingly enough, I have actually been quite productive this week. Really, it is surprising, because a) I've still been in a lot of pain with my knee injury, b) I bought a new book to read and c) I bought a new Nintendo DS game (I wasn't going to because I didn't want to distract myself and I thought I should save my money for knee-related expenses, but they had it on sale at work and I got some extra work from uni so I had to buy it :D). Any of these things on their own would usually be enough to have me procrastinating til the cows come home (MOOOOOO!), but somehow I'm managed to ration both my reading and game-playing time and mark just under two thirds of the assignments that were submitted last week. I am hoping to get all of them finished by Friday night, as that is when all the assignments for my other subject are due, so I'll have to get started on those ones next :) And, after my two classes on Friday, the semester is over, so I'll have a lot more free time, which I am sorely looking forward to.

Also, I somehow got myself nominated for a Teaching Excellence Award, which was pretty cool and definitely helped make a crappy week less crappy. I most likely won't win since I'm sure there are other academics out there who are more experienced and/or have more nominations than me, but it is a nice confidence boost. Even though I don't have much chance of actually winning, I'm still going to fill in the application (there are a bunch of forms to fill out) just on the off chance it was a slow year for nominations, because the award money could help me pay for knee specialist consultations/MRIs/surgery etc.

On the writing front; I didn't write anything today because I was marking, but I did get in a few hundred words on my main work in progress on Monday and Tuesday night. It sucks that I am unable to go to my normal part time job because of my knee, but I suppose it does give me a little extra time for writing (on the whole, I'd rather be able to walk without the use of a cane and earn money, though). One of my sidelined WiPs (a steampunk fantasy) has also been rattling around in my head again lately, seemingly vying for my attention to be my NaNoWriMo project. At this stage I'm still planning to work on Dark and Silent Waters for NaNo, but I may still dabble in the steampunk one if my muse takes me in that direction. Provided I have finished my first lot of marking, I am going to set aside Saturday as a creative day, where I will do nothing but draw, paint and/or work on my novel (either actually writing it or fixing up the outline, both need doing).

I think Judgemental Dog approves (sort of) of my game-playing and book-reading:

Click here to see how other ROW80ers are doing.