Now that the Marking is Over, Routines Get Rebuilt
It’s a bright, sunny Monday where I woke up early and got to work on writing projects first thing, getting a bunch of stuff done before I sit down to write this blog post. It’s cool enough that I notice when I walk around without socks on, but not so cold that I regret this decision within an hour of waking up. Over the weekend I realised that the last three weeks have been rough on my mental health. This shouldn’t be surprising – end-of-semester marking is one of those gigs is custom-built to trigger all my anxieties: high stakes, tight deadlines, and you only get one shot to put together feedback that will help, and you want it to be clear because there’s no chance to explain or expand on things the way you do when critiquing stories for friends. All of this comes together to create a very muddied vision of what “doing a good job” looks like,