Epistle to the late night

Dear evening,
I very much enjoy your company at times such as this evening, when I love to unwind at the end of a day and contemplate ideas that I usually do not have time to.
But that’s not this evening. You may notice me at 1 am with a stack of student papers, not relaxing, not finishing a glass of wine and a book, and wonder at my behavior. Certainly, if I must rise a little over 4 hours from now, what in the WORLD am I doing now?
It’s called reading student work. It’s long past the hour at which I think my students would want my reading their work. Nonetheless, if I do not return their papers tomorrow, two disasters will befall the world. First, they will go more than a week without feedback. Second, I will then have two sets of papers to read, since they are turning in another batch tomorrow morning at 8 am sharp. In both cases, I will be both the victim and the perpetrator of the crime. I cannot complain about the quality of papers when I do not give feedback, and I cannot complain at the workload when I assign papers and then fail to read them promptly.
And now, if you will excuse me for my brief rant and then disappearance, I must get back to the papers.