Hooray for unions
Winter is slowly returning here, after the unseasonably warm weather we returned to last week. We got a little snow on Sunday, and a little more yesterday--enough to lightly coat the ground, but not enough to create huge piles of snow and slush to wade through. The perfect amount, in other words. January and February are always the time when I really feel the length of winter; there's nothing to do but hunker down against the cold and endure. But it's not too bad right now.
I decided to take on a second TA job this term. I got through last term on just one, but only because I had savings from the previous year, and those are pretty well depleted. The new job is for a Soc of Work course, which is an area I've never studied. I'll have to do a bit of catching up, but hopefully it will be interesting. I've been asked to attend class since I don't know the field, but that will have to wait another week as this week and next, I'm guest lecturing a course on the mass media at the Scarborough campus. That particular course has proven to be a bit of a bad luck course--the original instructor went on sick leave at the beginning of the term, and the replacement instructor had to head home to Europe because of a death in the family. Happily, my only bad luck has been not being able to show my slides during the first lecture because I couldn't get the key to open the computer cabinet. (Happily, I don't believe in bad luck, and I do believe in coincidence.)
I may also have some RA work coming my way this term; it doesn't pay as well as TA work, but the experience can be useful. I may get a chance to edit a book coming from conference proceedings, but that isn't certain yet. I may also get to help with another book, though nothing that would get my name on it. It will be a bit more of a challenge to carve out space to work on my dissertation and my own publications, but maybe being busy will force me to be more efficient, something I usually only accomplish in short spurts, right before deadlines.
I decided to take on a second TA job this term. I got through last term on just one, but only because I had savings from the previous year, and those are pretty well depleted. The new job is for a Soc of Work course, which is an area I've never studied. I'll have to do a bit of catching up, but hopefully it will be interesting. I've been asked to attend class since I don't know the field, but that will have to wait another week as this week and next, I'm guest lecturing a course on the mass media at the Scarborough campus. That particular course has proven to be a bit of a bad luck course--the original instructor went on sick leave at the beginning of the term, and the replacement instructor had to head home to Europe because of a death in the family. Happily, my only bad luck has been not being able to show my slides during the first lecture because I couldn't get the key to open the computer cabinet. (Happily, I don't believe in bad luck, and I do believe in coincidence.)
I may also have some RA work coming my way this term; it doesn't pay as well as TA work, but the experience can be useful. I may get a chance to edit a book coming from conference proceedings, but that isn't certain yet. I may also get to help with another book, though nothing that would get my name on it. It will be a bit more of a challenge to carve out space to work on my dissertation and my own publications, but maybe being busy will force me to be more efficient, something I usually only accomplish in short spurts, right before deadlines.