Faith, teaching, schedules, Louisville
All my non-religious friends, feel free to skip this part. I know you won't agree and that's fine.:
Every time I feel the hurt, the pain, the pure nausea that accompanies loneliness, I close my eyes and take a breath. As I inhale, I silently pray; I pray for a guidance, a sign, some mercy...something. Sometimes I feel like it gets heard and I feel better; other times, I feel like it's in vain and it brings a tear (or two or twenty) to my eye. But I pray. And I pray. It's gotten to where I'm praying four or five times a day (not including the silent prayers I just talked about). One of these days, I'll get the answer I need. What to do until then? Patience has never been my strong suit; maybe this is designed to teach me patience.
I keep ....getting signs but...I've come to a point where I'm not even sure I trust my own judgment anymore-are these signs...or is my imagination just inventing them? I make efforts but they get struck down so I just am kinda like "well this isn't meant for me," etc. But what about the things that present themselves to me...especially at my low emotional points? At this stage, I'm too ..fragile, too broken for lack of a better term, to take anything (short of things being explicitly spelled out ) as a surefire indication.
Rather oxymoronically, I'm happy. Or rather, I'm not unhappy. I just wish I knew why I felt so ...desolate inside, sometimes. Is this normal? I'm just tired of the cycles. I feel great for a few nights and I'm able to keep myself rational and occupied, but then I slip into despondency not too long after. Why? What is causing this? I draw a blank when I ask myself that question.
I dunno. Despite all this, I still have faith that things will work out for the best. It just really couldn't come soon enough, though.
On a less depressing note-teaching.
I finished teaching today. I gotta say it's been a good experience. I had a great set of students who, for the most part , engaged themselves in the material. The grades ended up being how I expected as well-there were a couple people who I wish had done better but...the numbers don't lie :-\. I was able to learn quite a bit from them, which is always good. I learned what works, what doesn't work. For instance, the things that work: labs where they work with partners or groups (not just reading things off a computer), lots of examples, spending more than one class period on a chapter. The things that don't help them absorb material: the labs that are just computer-based; study guides(? -may not be a popular viewpoint, but eh); grading homework liberally (I think I'm gonna be a hardass when grading the homework next semester). Also, I don't think I'm gonna cover Chapters 22 and 23 at ALL anymore. I thought my students understood it well enough, but their exam grades today kinda...proved otherwise. Maybe there wasn't enough time? I dunno. I talked to Dr. Srinivasan about it and he was basically like "Yeah, there's a reason no one covers those chapters" and I was like "I see that." So, this fall, I might just do 1-16 and 21. *Shrug* We'll see.
Schedule
So I got my schedule for the fall. It's pretty fuckin sweet. A lot better than what other people got, lol.
Monday & Wednesday
So yeah. Not too bad. I'm not feelin the whole getting up for a 9:00 class on Fridays but...I've had worse schedules (Fall 2006, I'm looking at you).
Coming home
So, I'm coming home for a few days, and I've never looked forward to it more so than now. I've been extremely homesick (I guess out of loneliness?) and I just...I need to get away. I need to forget everything. Not sure if it'll be possible though.
I'm not happy about the weather forecast. Louisville is supposed to have a high of 99 on both Monday and Tuesday and THAT AIN'T CUTE. My mom and I were supposed to go to Greensburg on Sunday, but it looks like that may not happen because it'll be so hot :(; my mom has asthma real bad so, if it's real humid and hot, she's not supposed to be out for a long time. Eh. I just wanted the trip. There's something strangely familiar and nostalgic about a road trip with mom-as if this past year never happened.
Sometimes I want to start over.
Every time I feel the hurt, the pain, the pure nausea that accompanies loneliness, I close my eyes and take a breath. As I inhale, I silently pray; I pray for a guidance, a sign, some mercy...something. Sometimes I feel like it gets heard and I feel better; other times, I feel like it's in vain and it brings a tear (or two or twenty) to my eye. But I pray. And I pray. It's gotten to where I'm praying four or five times a day (not including the silent prayers I just talked about). One of these days, I'll get the answer I need. What to do until then? Patience has never been my strong suit; maybe this is designed to teach me patience.
I keep ....getting signs but...I've come to a point where I'm not even sure I trust my own judgment anymore-are these signs...or is my imagination just inventing them? I make efforts but they get struck down so I just am kinda like "well this isn't meant for me," etc. But what about the things that present themselves to me...especially at my low emotional points? At this stage, I'm too ..fragile, too broken for lack of a better term, to take anything (short of things being explicitly spelled out ) as a surefire indication.
Rather oxymoronically, I'm happy. Or rather, I'm not unhappy. I just wish I knew why I felt so ...desolate inside, sometimes. Is this normal? I'm just tired of the cycles. I feel great for a few nights and I'm able to keep myself rational and occupied, but then I slip into despondency not too long after. Why? What is causing this? I draw a blank when I ask myself that question.
I dunno. Despite all this, I still have faith that things will work out for the best. It just really couldn't come soon enough, though.
On a less depressing note-teaching.
I finished teaching today. I gotta say it's been a good experience. I had a great set of students who, for the most part , engaged themselves in the material. The grades ended up being how I expected as well-there were a couple people who I wish had done better but...the numbers don't lie :-\. I was able to learn quite a bit from them, which is always good. I learned what works, what doesn't work. For instance, the things that work: labs where they work with partners or groups (not just reading things off a computer), lots of examples, spending more than one class period on a chapter. The things that don't help them absorb material: the labs that are just computer-based; study guides(? -may not be a popular viewpoint, but eh); grading homework liberally (I think I'm gonna be a hardass when grading the homework next semester). Also, I don't think I'm gonna cover Chapters 22 and 23 at ALL anymore. I thought my students understood it well enough, but their exam grades today kinda...proved otherwise. Maybe there wasn't enough time? I dunno. I talked to Dr. Srinivasan about it and he was basically like "Yeah, there's a reason no one covers those chapters" and I was like "I see that." So, this fall, I might just do 1-16 and 21. *Shrug* We'll see.
Schedule
So I got my schedule for the fall. It's pretty fuckin sweet. A lot better than what other people got, lol.
Monday & Wednesday
- 10:00-10:50a - STA 200 Main Lecture
- 11:00a-12:00p - Office hours
- 1:00-1:50p - STA 700 (Foundations of Probability & Inference)
- 2:00-2:50p (or is it 3-3:50...I spotted a 'change of classroom/time' slip in the office today) - STA 665 (Analysis of Categorical Data)
- 11:00a-12:15p - STA 643 (Advanced Experimental Design)
- 11:00a-12:15p - STA 643
- 2:00-2:50p - STA 200-016
- 3:00-3:50p - STA 200-017
- 9:00-9:50a - STA 200-018
- 1:00-1:50p - STA 700
- Whenever the fuck - STA 665
So yeah. Not too bad. I'm not feelin the whole getting up for a 9:00 class on Fridays but...I've had worse schedules (Fall 2006, I'm looking at you).
Coming home
So, I'm coming home for a few days, and I've never looked forward to it more so than now. I've been extremely homesick (I guess out of loneliness?) and I just...I need to get away. I need to forget everything. Not sure if it'll be possible though.
I'm not happy about the weather forecast. Louisville is supposed to have a high of 99 on both Monday and Tuesday and THAT AIN'T CUTE. My mom and I were supposed to go to Greensburg on Sunday, but it looks like that may not happen because it'll be so hot :(; my mom has asthma real bad so, if it's real humid and hot, she's not supposed to be out for a long time. Eh. I just wanted the trip. There's something strangely familiar and nostalgic about a road trip with mom-as if this past year never happened.
Sometimes I want to start over.