First post in ages! I'm 30 now.
So the first week of the semester started with wonky a/c in the full swelter of late summer heat (guess who’s under a heat advisory until tomorrow night?), a cavalcade of students wanting to override into my classes (I lost count of how many there were but I know it was more than ten, in between the ones who emailed, talked to me in person, or both emailed and talked to me in person), a boatload of things to do for the composition committee, my group’s proposal getting accepted to the biggest conference in my specialty, and the news that the online class I’m teaching for my other school in the fall is going to run for 15 weeks instead of then 10 I originally planned for.
Also I have textbook chapters due next week. Further rambling beneath the cut: this is looking more like a DW/LJ entry than a tumblr post. I may cross-post it for that very reason.
There was experimentation with the extra a/c in the room I teach in on Thursday (it lasted for most of the second class, then kept crapping out on the afternoon class after every five minutes, I taught two 75-minute classes back to back in that heat and drank two bottles of water) but basically all anyone did was whine this week about how fucking hellacious it was in all of the classrooms.
I have no idea where the cavalcade of students came from or why they all chased after me since I’m not the only one teaching the class in question. I do suspect there should have been another section because there was no freakin’ way that all of them were going to be able to get in otherwise. (Four sections, I’m teaching two, another lecturer is teaching the other two, all of them are completely fucking booked.)
I have a section of the handbook to suggest changes to and essays to read and probably some stuff that I’ve forgotten for the committee before we meet next week.
Our group’s proposal got accepted at the biggest/fanciest conference in our field! Now we have to not fuck up our research, which means I have to design some surveys and explain the procedure to the students I’m experimenting with. I may need to also inquire about IRB approval, but I don’t think so, since it would be voluntary information about schoolwork, not personal things. But it is for a national conference, so IDK. And we even got a not shitty time! We might be up against some fancy people in terms of the time slot, which means we’ll likely have a pleasantly small crowd.
TBH there’s an on-campus regional conference that I’ll probably try and present a modified version of the results at, too, but they won’t release the information for that until later this semester.
Even though I don’t teach on Fridays, today I went into the office and spent some time (I lost track of how long) and revamped the online class for the fall. I think I took care of almost everything, though I had to add three weeks worth of material and rework some other things, so I need to go over it again and check if I fucked anything up. Life is difficult when you don’t let anyone touch your stuff or let other people teach the class you designed. Once this one starts I’ll have six classes, which is a hell of a lot of students when you’re a writing instructor with no TA. And despite enrollment being down this semester, even our department’s four grad students are swamped, teaching two sections of comp each, when usually they’d only teach one.
I have also started taste-testing diet soda. It does not taste right, and I love soda, and yet the ridiculous sugar content of regular soda has made me mildly concerned, and I don’t drink coffee, yet work in a profession where caffeine is a necessity. I have not yet determined whether I hate Diet Coke or Coke Zero less. Both taste pretty fake-y, and as a vegan, I know fake-y things.
But fake-y meat, dairy, etc., is much more delicious than fake-y soda.
Also, the first two sections of my textbook chapters are done, but I need to do a hell of a lot more work on the third, since it basically doesn’t exist yet.
Things I’m not getting paid for include the research I’ll be doing for the presentation at the conference, the course revamp, which took a number of hours, and the committee work, though I haven’t done anything for that. Also the textbook, I’m not getting paid for that.
And yet all of that is super-necessary for my career if I want to have a good one.
Be kind to your professors, children, especially if they are junior faculty. We’re busy and tired and often just as broke as you, don’t pick on us.
Also I have textbook chapters due next week. Further rambling beneath the cut: this is looking more like a DW/LJ entry than a tumblr post. I may cross-post it for that very reason.
There was experimentation with the extra a/c in the room I teach in on Thursday (it lasted for most of the second class, then kept crapping out on the afternoon class after every five minutes, I taught two 75-minute classes back to back in that heat and drank two bottles of water) but basically all anyone did was whine this week about how fucking hellacious it was in all of the classrooms.
I have no idea where the cavalcade of students came from or why they all chased after me since I’m not the only one teaching the class in question. I do suspect there should have been another section because there was no freakin’ way that all of them were going to be able to get in otherwise. (Four sections, I’m teaching two, another lecturer is teaching the other two, all of them are completely fucking booked.)
I have a section of the handbook to suggest changes to and essays to read and probably some stuff that I’ve forgotten for the committee before we meet next week.
Our group’s proposal got accepted at the biggest/fanciest conference in our field! Now we have to not fuck up our research, which means I have to design some surveys and explain the procedure to the students I’m experimenting with. I may need to also inquire about IRB approval, but I don’t think so, since it would be voluntary information about schoolwork, not personal things. But it is for a national conference, so IDK. And we even got a not shitty time! We might be up against some fancy people in terms of the time slot, which means we’ll likely have a pleasantly small crowd.
TBH there’s an on-campus regional conference that I’ll probably try and present a modified version of the results at, too, but they won’t release the information for that until later this semester.
Even though I don’t teach on Fridays, today I went into the office and spent some time (I lost track of how long) and revamped the online class for the fall. I think I took care of almost everything, though I had to add three weeks worth of material and rework some other things, so I need to go over it again and check if I fucked anything up. Life is difficult when you don’t let anyone touch your stuff or let other people teach the class you designed. Once this one starts I’ll have six classes, which is a hell of a lot of students when you’re a writing instructor with no TA. And despite enrollment being down this semester, even our department’s four grad students are swamped, teaching two sections of comp each, when usually they’d only teach one.
I have also started taste-testing diet soda. It does not taste right, and I love soda, and yet the ridiculous sugar content of regular soda has made me mildly concerned, and I don’t drink coffee, yet work in a profession where caffeine is a necessity. I have not yet determined whether I hate Diet Coke or Coke Zero less. Both taste pretty fake-y, and as a vegan, I know fake-y things.
But fake-y meat, dairy, etc., is much more delicious than fake-y soda.
Also, the first two sections of my textbook chapters are done, but I need to do a hell of a lot more work on the third, since it basically doesn’t exist yet.
Things I’m not getting paid for include the research I’ll be doing for the presentation at the conference, the course revamp, which took a number of hours, and the committee work, though I haven’t done anything for that. Also the textbook, I’m not getting paid for that.
And yet all of that is super-necessary for my career if I want to have a good one.
Be kind to your professors, children, especially if they are junior faculty. We’re busy and tired and often just as broke as you, don’t pick on us.