Reprieve

The weather finally broke this week - the relief was almost tangible. But before it broke, we were the second coldest place on earth for part of Tuesday; the coldest was one of the research stations in Antarctica!

There's also a collective sigh of relief in the university as many of the major projects are being turned in, we've got only a handful of lectures left to prepare, and the seasonal gatherings/last seminars of the semester take place. I, at least, felt much happier with the way the semester was progressing this week, which I attribute to some interactions with colleagues, a marathon marking session that got a quarter of the major end of term projects out of the way, and the realization that everything except writing the final exams (and more marking) has been done for two of the four courses.

This got me thinking about the nature of academic life and wondering what it will be like to be a seasoned teacher. I know that everyone - from tenured folk down to first year adjuncts - feels a good deal of stress and anxiety during the semester that peaks mildly at the beginning of the semester, but pretty majorly in November. Such is the nature of the coursework; since you can't have students handing in assignments until later in the semester, after they've actually learned things, there's no getting around the bulge of marking that happens. And the beginning of the semester anxiety, though mild, is part of that whole 'getting to know you' phase that a particular class goes through where both the instructor and the students are figuring out how they'll work together. So some of the pattern seems inevitable.

[There are ways of lessening the end of the term marking bulge though. Presentations are often easier to mark since you mark while the student performs and then write up your comments at the end. Similarly, eliminating the ubiquitous research paper helps ease the marking load - in my poetry class, they have three poem analysis assignments scattered throughout the semester and a poet study proposal where they propose a short study of one particular poet, justifying their choice of poet by referring to his or her period/output/position etc. That's actually made it quite easy to mark for that class.]

But I wonder if I'll feel those ups and downs as intensely as the years pass. (Frankly, I kind of hope they won't be as intense, because they can be pretty exhausting.) For the first four years of teaching as a grad student, I taught writing in a fairly structured environment, so once I got past the first three semesters or so, things were just more of the same each semester after that.

Then the first two years after I left that program and taught, I was still teaching writing, just at a couple of different institutions, which meant I had some standard pieces that just needed to be adapted for different institutions or programs.

But over the last two years, I've started teaching literature as well - which I'm absolutely loving! - and in most cases, I'm developing everything during the semester from scratch. That's been pretty intensive. Rewarding. But intensive. This term in particular, I've been teaching 3 new preps, one genre course (the poetry one), a general education course (which has required me to present philosophical arguments as well as social science research in the classroom) and an upgrading course (which requires a huge breadth of material but also features some of the least prepared students). All of these have meant that I've felt a little overwhelmed more than once. That's why I wonder if I'll feel less stressed in subsequent years as I have all those experiences to draw from.

This coming term I was originally assigned just writing classes (though my favorite kind - tech writing). But now it looks like one might not run because it's underenrolled, so I was asked if I would take on a lit class. Another new one. I said yes, of course, because I'm a joiner, but also because I could see having some real fun with the class, even though I'll be pushing my boundaries yet again. Nothing's carved in stone yet, but it might happen. If so, I suppose I'm bringing some of the stress on myself, but also a challenge in developing yet more materials for presentation within the classroom.

But regardless of what happens next term, I do find myself wondering what it will be like 5, 10, 15 years from now when I've taught the Brit Lit II survey for 7, 12, 17 years. Will I be able to enjoy the facile expertise in teaching it because I've already done so so many times? Will I still feel stressed (aside from the marking bulge)? Will I get bored? What is it like to walk into a classroom knowing that you've done this successfully many, many times before? Is it reassuring? Or does it just seem repetitive?

Then again, the most important question might be: does it matter? Asking such questions presupposes that I will be teaching in that many years. Without a permanent position, it's hard to say where I'll be in x years. Maybe that's the only question I should be contemplating.

How did that happen?

I'm in a weird place right now. It should be good, but, pathetically, I can't relax and enjoy it because the slightly-paranoid voice in my head keeps telling me it can't be this good and either something's going to go wrong or I've forgotten something and will only remember at the last moment.

What's giving me the willies is the fact that it is a Saturday afternoon and I have everything prepared for this week and nothing left that needs to be marked.

Yes, I checked. It is the middle of November. If I was any doubt, I could look out the window at the big snow dump that doubled my commute all week.

That's what's making me a bit paranoid. How is it that I'm prepped several days ahead without any marking hanging over my head in the middle of November? I don't know that's happened before.

At the same time, I've had a very busy semester until this point, so maybe I should relax and enjoy it. What d'ya think? Yeah, I thought so too. But of course the cold and snow make me want to sit inside (or inside the hottub) rather than going out and enjoying the sudden relief from work.

Of course, as I think about it, there's a book review to do for December, a seminar to prepare (high-stakes and utterly different than anything I've ever done before), and a coursepack to revise and submit to the bookstore for next term. So I've got stuff to do.

But these things don't need to be worked on this weekend. Time to relax!

Two weeks too long

So many partial blog posts either partially composed in their little draft boxes, or still floating around the ether between my ears. Either way, I've not been writing.

Good news is that I'm finally caught up. In fact, that's why I'm blogging without guilt right now because all my lectures for Monday and Tuesday are prepped, and all I really need to do is finish reading the novel we'll be talking about in the one class. It's a re-read, so if I suddenly went blind tomorrow (or got some more of that horrible eye-jumping vertigo), I'd still be able to deliver. So I'm feeling good.

Of course now that I'm caught up we have out of town guests for two days plus a birthday party, which means I'll not be caught up for long. But it's good for now.

On other fronts, I've sent off the last of job letters and now the only thing that remains is trying not to stress about whether I'll get a call for an interview and continuing to check the job lists to see if anything new pops up. But for now, I've done what I can. I did find out someone googled me and found my academia.edu page, which I take as a hopeful sign that at least one search committee member didn't toss my application automatically into the rejection pile, but took twenty seconds to punch my name into a search engine.

Pathetic, yes, to be grasping at such straws. But I'm doin' it anyway. Hard not to.

I'm also looking forward to next semester when I'll only be teaching two courses and both of them are late in the day, so I'm hoping the exhaustion that's been dogging me will dissipate since I always feel better when I don't have to get up before 8am. Doesn't matter how much I sleep, but pre-8 am waking seems to tire me more than it should.

Can't even start thinking of the holidays, though I should, since ordering things sometimes needs several weeks lead time. So I suppose next week when I catch up again (after company leaves), it's time to start thinking about it.

I'm realizing these paragraphs are all terribly scattered and probably not very exciting. But that about sums up where life is right now. Getting by seems so appropriate at this point!