Funny Thing

is that today, after having finally made it real to leave the Ivory Tower, at least my small place in the servant's quarters of it, I had a former student stop by to ask for some advice. He is thinking of changing his major to English from (shudders) Computer Science.

About a year ago, I would not have been able to feel very enthusiastic about counseling a smart young person to change to English as a major. It felt pretty hopeless to even contemplate getting a good job in the field that I have devoted much of my life to.

But today, I felt really happy for his thinking. I came up with a few options that might work for him, and was almost sorry that I am not going to be here next semester. That, coupled with a conversation with another bright student who wants to be a nature zoologist later in the day about food, and books, and seeing that beginning place they are at makes me happy.

Happy. I'm still anxious, for sure, but now my enthusiasms are closer to those of the ones starting their quest, instead of me feeling mired in a place where I am not going anywhere.

And How Was Your Day?

I did something today that I haven't done in 10 years of teaching. I forgot about a class! I was almost 10 minutes late to the very last class of my comp students in the afternoon. I WAS working; I was hanging around on campus, actually waiting to go to that class, but I was grading portfolios for one of the OTHER classes, and I just lost track of the time & place. It was really embarassing. They were waiting around for their final exam prompt, (the exam is Monday) and one very good student came to my office and said "um, is class cancelled?"

Doh!!

I rushed over, did the whole "here's your test" thing and that was it. Not too big of a deal, but man, this semester I have been flakier than normal. It's mostly because I am way busy, and sometimes a little too busy. But I AM getting everything done, at least.

Anyway. I'm dog tired right now and Andrew is not yet back from his soccer game. We chose to NOT go with him tonight because of previous "dog tired" ness.

Anyway. Things are fine. But I can't WAIT til bedtime.

In Grading Jail.............

will surface sometime mid-next-week. ACK this semester has been a doozy!! I'm ALMOST done grading the 70ish research papers. NOW I have to start grading the 100ish portfolio/reading journals. Then I'll have final exams to grade.

Last Day Of Freedom

I know, that's a little melodramatic. Tomorrow, the fall semester starts & I'll be teaching again. 3 days a week, 3 classes on those days. Not at all a bad schedule, really. I plan to try to continue working on professional development projects on Tuesdays & Thursdays-- the novel, the scholarly anthology, the dissertation into book. So maybe I CAN do it all. :) Supergirl gets it going strong.

I'm looking forward to getting back to the classroom. As an adjunct, I have never taught over the summer. Those accelerated classes are taught by tenured faculty, for a number of reasons, one of them being there's just not enough of a demand to justify having adjuncts in summertime. But while it's cool getting all that time off, I kind of feel like the kids do-- all this summertime and my brain is mushy. What, exactly, is it I teach again? Luckily, reviewing the syllabuses & textbooks tends to get me back in the swing pretty fast. I'm a little bummed because last Fall I got to teach an American Lit survey course (since we were short the tenure track faculty member who taught that course) but this year I don't have anything other than Comp. Don't get me wrong-- I actually quite like teaching Composition courses.

First year students who take Comp classes are often in their first ever year of college, and in the Fall semester, they're often first time college students coming fresh out of high school. So they're so excited, and they're learning what kind of student they are. That first semester, if I can influence them at all, I feel victorious in the war against the "I don't ever read books" syndrome. And I also get a lot of "I don't like writing" students, and many (not all, no, but enough) of them change their view by the end of the semester. They at least don't hate writing and are much better at it, too.

Anyway. Academics are funny, because we really do cycle on this semester-to-semester schedule of life. Everything is renewed and often we see this as a chance to renew ourselves. Hence the haircut & trip to my favorite little shop for new clothes. It's a new start, and even though it means fewer days lying on my couch reading smutty vampire novels, I am very happy with the new work. It's fun to be useless for about a month, but after that I need to do something with my brain. So here goes: brain, re-engage.