The Sulky Adjunct Blues Turn into the Adjunct Whoo-hoos
So, I was hoping to line up a couple of courses at Small Catholic University del Bronx to supplement the two I have at Large Catholic University del Bronx. It seemed good: lady_frolick name-dropped me, and response was positive. Now, my self-esteem has been at a very low ebb lately, so in addition to being tres busy with my summer course (loved it!! loved the material, the message, and the students!), I was having difficulty shoring myself up to send out CVs for adjuncting. When SCUdBx didn't contact me, I started looking, but was considering other options, and also wondering if I could make do on the two lower-paying classes at LCUdBx (short answer: no. Exciting new expenses amassing, wanting security of more income).
Then former colleague teaching at Midtown Cop School emailed our chair, who is also Wonderful Advisor, with a few late openings, two sections of which were the class I taught and loved there a few years back. After a fairly minimal amount of back-and-forth, and lots of nice things being said about my application and suitedness for the class, I secured the two sections. I'm super-excited, as I get to revisit a syllabus I overwhelmingly loved, especially thematically, but that needed some swapping in and out of texts. And too, the fact that my good friend chelseagirl47 is also teaching there, a law and lit class (her field of specialization), I am more aware of what I need to cover in this course (Crime! Punishment!) and what I can spend less time on (What comes in between!).
So, fewer long texts, thematically divided between "The Romanticized Criminal" (something to consider in a class devoted to the lit of crime as well as of punishment), "The Criminal: Motives & Motiveless Malignity," "Revenge," "Detecting, Trying, & Punishing," "Divine or Cosmic Justice," and "Taboos & the Institutionalization of Moral Judgments." Awesomely, as I like to wrap up with taboos, a theater group at the school is doing Sweeney Todd in December: extra credit at least, but with a night and weekend class, I might even see about a class outing. It would pretty much bring everything together.
Meanwhile, I'm rather excitedly mapping out the first new comp class I've taught in a zillion years for LCUdBx, where I am teaching a course that should underscore elements of The Moshe Method but is a distinct class ands shouldn't overlap. We'll be working slowly, revising and reconfiguring and recycling, and I'm theming (yes, I made a verbal) the course around the idea of how we establish value and meaning. I won't tell the students that right off, but that's how pieces will fit together, how they'll learn that writing is a process. And I'll come out of the course with a fantabulous syllabus and sequence of assignments to add to my teaching portfolio.
On to other things, since I'm here:
And, I am not looking forward to the job search this fall, but I shall pull up the big girl pants, grow some self-esteem, and conquer the world. If I can finish Dickens and Steampunk articles, get a version of Anubis constructed for NAVSA as well as for the job search, and go see lots of Irish plays around which to build my early October conference paper (to show my wild diversity, again for the job search), of course. I love what I do, I just wish someone would let me do it and not force me to waste all this time convincing a cruel world that I'm good at it.
J and I have decided that I will go to NAVSA in Montreal on my own. I can save money rooming with MB-W, and devote my time to schmoozing. I need to renew my passport. Oops. Probably need to expedite. Held up by my loathing for passport photographs.
Appear to have lost more weight than I thought, although J is still miles ahead of me. I haven't ever owned a scale, so I have no idea what I weighed, but I do know that clothes I bought last summer and even the summer before that ended up not really fitting when I got them (I don't try on) and not at all since then are now fitting, typically flattering, and even a little big in some cases. This is good, as I like my existing suits.
Then former colleague teaching at Midtown Cop School emailed our chair, who is also Wonderful Advisor, with a few late openings, two sections of which were the class I taught and loved there a few years back. After a fairly minimal amount of back-and-forth, and lots of nice things being said about my application and suitedness for the class, I secured the two sections. I'm super-excited, as I get to revisit a syllabus I overwhelmingly loved, especially thematically, but that needed some swapping in and out of texts. And too, the fact that my good friend chelseagirl47 is also teaching there, a law and lit class (her field of specialization), I am more aware of what I need to cover in this course (Crime! Punishment!) and what I can spend less time on (What comes in between!).
So, fewer long texts, thematically divided between "The Romanticized Criminal" (something to consider in a class devoted to the lit of crime as well as of punishment), "The Criminal: Motives & Motiveless Malignity," "Revenge," "Detecting, Trying, & Punishing," "Divine or Cosmic Justice," and "Taboos & the Institutionalization of Moral Judgments." Awesomely, as I like to wrap up with taboos, a theater group at the school is doing Sweeney Todd in December: extra credit at least, but with a night and weekend class, I might even see about a class outing. It would pretty much bring everything together.
Meanwhile, I'm rather excitedly mapping out the first new comp class I've taught in a zillion years for LCUdBx, where I am teaching a course that should underscore elements of The Moshe Method but is a distinct class ands shouldn't overlap. We'll be working slowly, revising and reconfiguring and recycling, and I'm theming (yes, I made a verbal) the course around the idea of how we establish value and meaning. I won't tell the students that right off, but that's how pieces will fit together, how they'll learn that writing is a process. And I'll come out of the course with a fantabulous syllabus and sequence of assignments to add to my teaching portfolio.
On to other things, since I'm here:
And, I am not looking forward to the job search this fall, but I shall pull up the big girl pants, grow some self-esteem, and conquer the world. If I can finish Dickens and Steampunk articles, get a version of Anubis constructed for NAVSA as well as for the job search, and go see lots of Irish plays around which to build my early October conference paper (to show my wild diversity, again for the job search), of course. I love what I do, I just wish someone would let me do it and not force me to waste all this time convincing a cruel world that I'm good at it.
J and I have decided that I will go to NAVSA in Montreal on my own. I can save money rooming with MB-W, and devote my time to schmoozing. I need to renew my passport. Oops. Probably need to expedite. Held up by my loathing for passport photographs.
Appear to have lost more weight than I thought, although J is still miles ahead of me. I haven't ever owned a scale, so I have no idea what I weighed, but I do know that clothes I bought last summer and even the summer before that ended up not really fitting when I got them (I don't try on) and not at all since then are now fitting, typically flattering, and even a little big in some cases. This is good, as I like my existing suits.