A 4-4 eats your brain

I've talked about this before, but today I had more confirmation that teaching the load I'm teaching right now eliminates my brain's ability to process and retain detail. I've taken a few days out of the past couple weeks to do some work on an article that I got a revise & resubmit request on earlier in the semester. I'd finished up the bulk of my revisions, and was reading back over the editors' letter to make sure I'd addressed all their complaints, and there it was: "Please notify us of your decision regarding re-submission as soon as possible." ACK! I got this letter in early September, and had not contacted the editors. What if I'd spent all this time for nothing?! I called Ross and freaked out for a minute, went to the vending machine in my building's basement to get some chocolate, and then sent a vaguely panicked and deeply apologetic email to the editor. I heard back from her tonight, reassuring me that I was still more than welcome to submit the essay. Whew.

But still. I'd read this letter at least three times, at various points, including last week when I began working on my revisions. And my eyes had just never seen that sentence. I don't read anything word-for-word anymore (a thought that would comfort my students with the weekend of paper-grading I have looming). Yet more proof that a 4-4 is not good for your brain.