Wow, this semester is off to an extra-specially confusing start

And I can't really blog about most of it, I suppose.

On the one hand I'd kind of like to keep a record, both to remind myself and as fiction-fodder, but on the other hand it might be really, really depressing and would probably suppress the bit of the brain that healthily blurs over the worst of some things (after all, writing things I need to remember on lists often makes them be remembered without ever consulting the list again...).

I will just note that despite feeling quietly optimistic that I was fairly healthy and had a managable reentry this semester, day 2, I was so stressed I completely forgot to go to meet my second year class (until it was over... oops!), day 3 I actually had a really scary moment in the middle of a lecture when I couldn't breathe in, and my voice went all gaspy a couple of times, day 4 I'm off sick because I can't speak.  And because I was so anxious this morning I was physically shaking and my digestive system was protesting violently, but that alone doesn't feel like sufficient reason to call off especially when it dumps a LOT of work on other equally stressed people.  Thank heavens for great colleagues and for my own increasingly cautious, possibly over-anxious thinking ahead, which meant that I had a plan in place, and have one for tomorrow In Case. 

I'm assuming it's just the old psychosomatic laryngeal spasm thing & will wear off.  Just a few leetle reasons to be stressed, like,

• we have to get all the dietary information to the field study centre last Friday (well, first thing tomorrow at the absolute latest) and need to review the health issues of all 180-ish students on the list, but the new more efficient online system for collecting all this information isn't working properly, can't do a bulk extract, and the only person who really knows how to make it work only works Monday-Tuesday.  So looks like we'll be paging through individual records rather than having anything efficient (and lacking in private information we DON'T need for risk assessment) at some point.  
• Plus although numbers are better - the range is now 170-188 - we still don't have final numbers of students.  
• Oh, and the coach company... don't get me started on who make a booking for a group of 48 students plus 3-6 staff for a 49 seat coach.... 
• or the fact that ordering the handouts (central print room has to be used for handout runs over a certain size, it's more economical) used to be a case of me doing a form and sending an email but now involves three layers of requisitions and approvals, and somehow led to a 45 page handout for 190 being printed and returned loose instead of collated and bound.  At least it was done quickly enough for me to send it back?
• or the gaping absence of 200 field notebooks, should have been delivered Monday, again a multi layer centralised requisition system has based a person in the office who I could ask in person then they made a call...
• ...and then there're all the students who are suddenly realising that when we said attendance at the pre-field trip briefing is compulsory and required to go on the field trip, we actually meant if you aren't there in class tomorrow you won't get to go on the trip, and are NOW complaining about how they didn't know they had to go to class and they have travel home booked, or a driving test, or or or... Guys, you got your timetable three weeks ago by email, last Monday (18th) on paper, and were told everything was required.  WHY IS THIS A SURPRISE???

Aaaand that's why I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to write stuff down, my whole upper body is tightening up and I can feel my throat closing...