Schedules and Lists

I was driven into high anxiety the other day when I, like many others, realized it is frickin' July!  And July is almost over!  Holy crap, where did the summer go?  In particular, where did my awesome, productive, I'm-going-to-kick-some-ass summer go?

Anxiety turned into my special brand of self-loathing when I looked over the program for the new teaching assistants orientation and saw names of people I started the program with as speakers invited to share their knowledge with us new teaching assistants.  At that moment, I turned into an insecure child.  I started freaking out that I'm just now getting this assistantship and how embarrassing it is to be sitting in a room with these people, including Art Garfunkel.  I've mentioned this before, but there is a guy in my program who looks exactly like Art Garfunkel.  It's uncanny. 

Anyways, I was inspired by Wayward Classicist's determined march into the daily schedule.  I, too, have tried to do this before but it was always a bit too haphazard and I am just not that great with time management skills.  I blame the internet.  This time I decided I need to write it out.  I got out a piece of paper and broke it  down from wake up time to bedtime, filling my day with reading, writing, grading, prepping, exercising, and husband time, to name a few daily activities.  It felt pretty good, so I decided to continue on that gravy train.  I decided to make a list.

Now, this is a big deal for me.  Along with my awful time management skills, I also have zilch organization skills.  Yep, I know, the perfect combination for academia.  Anyways, I decided to try this list thing and wrote down everything that is weighing heavily on me at the moment.  It was a long list but when it was all there in front of me...hell, it didn't look so bad!  In fact, it made me feel a lot better!  I think I like this list thing after all!

I have been on my schedule for the past three days and it has gone really well!  I'm sticking to it and feel much better when I go to bed.  The list thing has been great too; every cross off is an accomplishment and I don't even mind adding.  So far, so good. 

List: This is What's Up

Summer is taking away my motivation to participate in the blogsphere.  Not because I am super busy or always outside, but because it is so frickin' hot that I am taking a cue from my cats and am trying to do as little as possible.  So today we have what is going on in my school life, list form.   

- The Financial Aid Office is screwing up my class. 

They are also basically supporting my class, so I'm grateful that they are there and are providing me with students to teach.  However, they are slooooow with the moolah.  For the past few semesters, I have had students who are unable to buy the textbook for the course, which runs about $80-$90, for weeks until they get their financial aid. This is, of course, annoying.  This semester it is especially annoying.  The library has a copy of the book, but their summer hours are insane and inconvenient.  I think they are something like 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.  Most, if not all, of my students are nontraditional with full-time day jobs and families and can't take off work to run to the library during that three hour window.  Luckily, we are almost all set, but ugh, it has been tiring.

- I am in the process of putting together texts for my Qualifying Exams.  I emailed my advisor a rough list of texts with a note outlining what I want to do, and his/her response was basically, "So.....what?"  That was slightly disheartening.  Then I read through their (please don't make me use gender-neutral pronouns) comments, and things started to click.  I had one of those "ah-ha!" moments and I think things are a little more clear, so it's back to the drawing boards.

Thing is, this is such a huge undertaking.  I feel like there is so much out there and now I have to pick the perfect texts that showcase all these different topics.  It feels both way too broad and way too narrow. 

- I am grateful for this weekend because, man oh man, do I need that break from teaching.  I had two really good days followed by a bad day of teaching.  Mind you, not a bad class day but a bad teaching day.  I was just completely off my game.  My students this semester are much more inquisitive and involved than I am used to, which is great, but I find that I soon exhaust my ready examples.  So I was standing there, trying to come up with more examples off the top of my head and just flailing around like a chicken with its head cut off.  Then I was trying to explain a concept in another way, and it was completely clear and concise in my head...but something happened on the way down to my mouth.  As I was talking, I was thinking, "What the hell?  Why is this sounding so complicated?"  Ugh, just a bad day for me.

An Anatomy of a Classroom

I have taught at the Community College for about three years now and have only taught in two different buildings.  At both my undergrad and grad institutions, buildings are mostly named for really rich dudes who donated lots of money.  Or they are called State Hall.  Both universities have a State Hall.  Anyways, this is the first school I've seen that has a building just called Science and guess what kinds of classes are taught there?  You guessed right!

The building I usually teach in, aptly named Liberal Humanities, is undergoing a face lift this summer so my class was moved to a building I have never been in.  The building is called something like Health or Nursing, and the classrooms are a bit more like labs than the rooms I am used to.  I'm actually sitting in the class right now (or when I started writing this) and wow, what a difference.  First of all, the room is huge!  I have less than 25 students and more than 50 seats and still plenty of space!  The rooms in L.H. are tiny rooms, wider than they are long, with three rows of long tables and only one walkway.  It gets really cramped quickly, and it is difficult for me to get to individual students.  But today I've been all over the room!  Of course, when I walked in most students were sitting in the back half of the room, but that is to be expected.

What I was not so happy about is my seating.  In L.H. we usually have a podium, a low desk with a computer, an overhead thingamadoo, and a nice comfy chair.  Here is a real flippin' science room with the tall blacktop table with a sink, loads of drawers, a much more fancy overhead thingamadoo, a flat computer that I'm confused about...and a stool.  I was a bit hesitant at first because I'm in a skirt today and am giving an in-class essay, so I will be sitting most of the period.  However, to my surprise this stool is strangely comfy and the view is blocked.

Then there are the walls that only have three decorations: a huge Periodic Elements chart, a poster of Muhammad Ali, and what looks to be a screwdriver advertisement.  Mmmkay.

What is really different is the mess on this desk.  There are a ton of drawers filled with what looks like garbage.  Lots of old powerpoint handouts, scantrons, little atom models, binders...just a ton of shit.  Inside one of the doors, someone taped up a March Madness bracket...from 2001.

So far, okay.  I like the open feeling of the room and the space on my desk.  However, because of all the seating, most of my students are sitting at a table all by themselves.  When I want them to do group work, which is a lot, they groan a lot more than usual because they actually have to stand up and walk.  I know, awful. 

P.S.  Sorry for the absence, which I can only blame on teaching at night, the holiday weekend, and food poisoning.