Putting off until tomorrow

Today was our second straight day of snow cancellations. Conway schools and the University were both closed again. And the rain and hard freeze overnight left yesterday's fluffy drifts with a crust of ice. Streets were partly littered with big frozen chunks and partly coated with a frictionless black sheen.

The prospect of another very cold night following a day that didn't rise much above freezing led to an announcement this afternoon that the kids would have a third snow day this week. My employer sent out word that opening would be delayed two hours.

Because I only teach two classes, and one is team-taught, I haven't been put far behind in my classes by two unplanned days off. What has been lost is two precious days of evaluating applications to the program ahead of next Monday's deadline and next Friday's first interview day.

That means that we'll be scrambling for the rest of the week trying to push faculty to complete their part of the review process so we can complete our part and get invitations out to prospective students so we have some shot at filling our dance card on that first interview day. It was always going to be difficult, given the complexity of the process, the number of people involved, and the tight timeframe between deadline and showtime, but it hurts to lose two and a half days.

There's nothing like a snow day to remind you that the piper must be paid -- that leisure time now leads to crunch time later. The kids will have days tacked on to the end of the school year. I'll just have that much more stress trying to fit it all in to the originally allotted time.