So...
I'm back.
Most of my readership has some sort of dealings with me in day-to-day life, so the reason for my long absence is no mystery to a lot of you: I've had an incredibly busy several months, career-wise. I might have mentioned last semester that it was, at the time, the busiest term I've had since I started teaching- classes at three schools, an entire curriculum to design for one of them, three evening classes per week. My posting and presence, both online and off, dwindled considerably.
This term was busier still. I taught a total of 19 credits, again scattered among several colleges. It was almost entirely upper-level courses, two of which I'd never taught before, and one of those (Anatomy and Physiology II) at a college that had never offered it before and therefore had no supportive structure in place for it whatsoever. So not only was I contending with all the usual day-to-day concerns of teaching- lessons, grading, designing exams, fielding requests for help and letters of reference, and so forth- but I was also doing so around writing five new lectures per week, designing new lab assignments and acquiring supplies for them, and generally learning the ropes of dealing with a higher level o0f students than I normally cope with. On top of that, my History of Science course at Duquesne, which is the most time-consuming class in terms of grading (two papers and exams that are mostly essays), was bigger than it's ever been, at 41 students. And to top it all off, the schedule was brutal- morning classes every day, evening classes three nights a week, only one day a week when I didn't have to commute between schools at least once (and two days I had to go back-and-forth twice due to schedule timing). And naturally no one's spring breaks matched up, so there was effectively no time off, save for snow days in January, which served only to put me behind schedule at multiple colleges simultaneously.
Oh, and because I just wasn't busy enough already, I also took on two additional projects. Firstly, I was a co-instructor for an online Forensic Anthropology course. I didn't have much to do with it- mostly proposing a lesson topic, and grading the resultant assignments- but it was my first time teaching anything to do with my actual field of study since grad school, and that made me very happy, even though the head instructor was a total flake and getting any useful information from her about what I was supposed to be doing was a trial. Secondly, I was invited to be a guest speaker at the community college (my primary employer), presenting a talk on the life and influences of Charles Darwin for his 200th birthday, as well as helping judge a Darwin Day poster presentation there. Seeing as Darwin is a personal scientific hero of mine, and his ideas are largely responsible for my entire career, I jumped at the opportunity. The presentation was decently well attended (about two dozen people), and I felt it went very well. Not a major time sink, but I did have to devote some time and effort to designing the PowerPoint (not a tool I typically use in my classes) and whittling down my usual two-and-a-half-hour Darwinian Revolution lecture from my History of Science class to an hour-long presentation for general audiences.
The net result of all this busyness? Most other aspects of life vaporized. Recreational reading? I haven't finished a novel since Christmas, and have mostly confined myself to reading short stories and gaming books- things I could digest in little chunks without losing the thread of the story or getting sucked in and thereby losing too much time. Gaming? My players were immensely patient with me, even though I probably canceled one session out of every three. Visiting friends and family? I became a stranger to a lot of people this semester. Correspondence? My long-distance friends and loved ones have barely heard my voice for awhile now. Sleep and regular meals? I managed them, but not as often, as long, or as healthy as I would have preferred. And oh, yes, there was stress. I can't say I didn't come out of this with at least some psychological damage.
But there was some payoff. Financially, for one- I get paid by the credit, so teaching 19 credits meant a significant raise (at my best, I used to do 14 per term, and of late it's been 11 per term more often than not, since the community college cut hours for adjuncts, a policy they've thankfully reversed). I wish I could say that that helped Stacie and I recoup savings spent on the house last year, pay down debt, or make some significant progress towards other goals, but alas, most of the raise got eaten by car repairs, helping family in need (and no apologizing, Wendy), and recouping from the first two months of the years when, due to the nature of adjunct contracts, I don't get paid. But at least that meant we could field all those expenses when they came up, so the raise was helpful, even if we found ourselves largely in the same place financially speaking as before the Term from Hell. Alas, I have yet to be paid for either the forensics class or the Darwin talk (I expect I'll eventually get a check for the former but not the latter).
Professionally, there were some good dividends as well. I've got my name in as a good and reliable instructor at another college (Point Park University), who is now reliably offering me 6-8 credits per term, and more if I want them, and has a good chance of hiring me on in a permanent capacity once their Forensic Sciences major gets off the ground. My CV has been considerably expanded, and I've now got several additional courses fully planned out that I can use in the future. In the fall, I'll be assuming full control of the online forensics class I was only a partial instructor for this term, and that opens the door to other anthro classes in the future. I've been asked to do the Darwin presentation again next year, and possibly a talk on Neandertals this fall. And, for the first time since I've been teaching it, I got through the entire curriculum of my History of Science course without falling behind and having to cut at least one lecture.
Personal dividends? Lest it be thought this term was simply an exercise in overwork, let it be understood that I love my job. Teaching is deeply fulfilling to me, upper-level teaching more so, and I really liked working with the classes I did. I'll be the first to admit the quality of my work was not as high as it should have been this term- a casualty both of my busyness and the growing pains of teaching so many classes for the first time- but I feel like I did a good job, my students gave me overwhelmingly positive reviews, and, as always happens when I teach, I learned, both about the subjects I was teaching and about how to teach better. With each passing term, I feel more and more secure in this unplanned choice of profession, even though my heart still twinges every time I read an article about a new hominid discovery.
But, all that being said, I'm glad it's over. As much as I love my job, I don't want to live for it. I'm passionate about science and history and teaching, but more passionate about family, friends, and my creative projects, all of which were neglected to one extent or another these past several months. Now I want to start focusing more on those things, which are, at the end of the day, the things that matter. So to everyone who had to deal with my erratic schedule, whom I bailed on or wasn't there for, or who otherwise suffered from my professional advancement (especially my incredible wife, pghkitten, who made it possible for me to cope with all this), I'm truly and deeply sorry, and I promise I'm not becoming a workaholic. I don't want another term like this. I'll probably have one, whenever I get tenure and have my first semester as a full professor, but in general, I want to shape my future in such a way that times like this are the exception, and not the rule as they have been of late. I want my life to be focused on what I do when I get home, and I don't want the primary at-home activity to be getting ready for work the next day. And to all of you who were patient, supportive, and provided me with essential distraction, social time, and reminders of why I do all this- thank you. Your love and friendship makes his kind of punishing schedule bearable, and at the end of the day makes everything else worthwhile.
So what does my schedule look like from here? This summer, it's going to be blissfully quieter. I deliberately turned down extra classes in order to facilitate a lighter summer term- just two classes, both Tuesdays and Thursdays during the day, 9 AM to 4:30 PM. So I'm totally off Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this summer, and have no evening classes. I intend to spend the time seeing friends and family, doing fun things around the area (and a few little weekend trips, although financial concerns have already thwarted our annual pilgrimage to Otakon in July), tending to my weed-choked and long-neglected creative garden, and planning ahead for the fall. I'll make less this summer than I usually do, but the tradeoff in time, peace of mind, and reconnecting with the people and things I love is more than worth it. We've got two planned trips- our usual trek to Origins at the end of June, and a long weekend in Seattle at the beginning of June- and are entertaining the possibility of one or two other weekend expeditions, as time and funds allow.
As for this fall, at first blush it looks like I've not learned the lesson of this semester, since I'll be teaching 20 credits rather than 19, a courseload other instructors tell me is psycho (in more or less those terms). But it'll be a much more manageable schedule- only one new class (Intro to Physical Sciences for non-science majors, which I have all summer to design), most of my classes in the mornings, only two afternoon classes (Tuesday and Thursday labs), and one evening class a week (History of Science on Wednesdays). The forensics class is an online one, and therefore can be done on my own schedule, and demands far less time than a class that meets in person. Everything else is a class I've taught before and know my way around. So in other words, so long as I'm efficient this summer at planning ahead for my one new section, this fall should be a lot easier, and in any event the time distribution of courses means I'll have a lot more free time when other people are also free from their jobs. So it promises to be a lot less punishing a schedule, and a much more lucrative one (only one credit more, but more of them are at the community college, which pays better than Point Park). And ideally, barring large unforeseen expenses, Stacie and I can actually start reaping the financial benefits of my workload, paying down some debt and saving for the future.
This has been a long delve into the most dominant aspects of my life for the past several months, but it's by no means the full summary of all I've been about and done. I have had other things going on, and they bear discussion; this just seemed to me to be a necessary prelude to everything else, especially for those who aren't local and may have bene unaware of the reasons for my absence. Over the next week (I have a full week off before summer term starts!), I plan to make several other posts on other exciting things that I've had happening, including but not necessarily limited to (listed here as much for my own convenience as anything else): Gaming, genealogy, family, writing, conventions, travel, thoughts on the current state of the world and politics, gardening, plans for the summer, and life with kittens.
I'm back. And for a little while at least, I'm free.
Most of my readership has some sort of dealings with me in day-to-day life, so the reason for my long absence is no mystery to a lot of you: I've had an incredibly busy several months, career-wise. I might have mentioned last semester that it was, at the time, the busiest term I've had since I started teaching- classes at three schools, an entire curriculum to design for one of them, three evening classes per week. My posting and presence, both online and off, dwindled considerably.
This term was busier still. I taught a total of 19 credits, again scattered among several colleges. It was almost entirely upper-level courses, two of which I'd never taught before, and one of those (Anatomy and Physiology II) at a college that had never offered it before and therefore had no supportive structure in place for it whatsoever. So not only was I contending with all the usual day-to-day concerns of teaching- lessons, grading, designing exams, fielding requests for help and letters of reference, and so forth- but I was also doing so around writing five new lectures per week, designing new lab assignments and acquiring supplies for them, and generally learning the ropes of dealing with a higher level o0f students than I normally cope with. On top of that, my History of Science course at Duquesne, which is the most time-consuming class in terms of grading (two papers and exams that are mostly essays), was bigger than it's ever been, at 41 students. And to top it all off, the schedule was brutal- morning classes every day, evening classes three nights a week, only one day a week when I didn't have to commute between schools at least once (and two days I had to go back-and-forth twice due to schedule timing). And naturally no one's spring breaks matched up, so there was effectively no time off, save for snow days in January, which served only to put me behind schedule at multiple colleges simultaneously.
Oh, and because I just wasn't busy enough already, I also took on two additional projects. Firstly, I was a co-instructor for an online Forensic Anthropology course. I didn't have much to do with it- mostly proposing a lesson topic, and grading the resultant assignments- but it was my first time teaching anything to do with my actual field of study since grad school, and that made me very happy, even though the head instructor was a total flake and getting any useful information from her about what I was supposed to be doing was a trial. Secondly, I was invited to be a guest speaker at the community college (my primary employer), presenting a talk on the life and influences of Charles Darwin for his 200th birthday, as well as helping judge a Darwin Day poster presentation there. Seeing as Darwin is a personal scientific hero of mine, and his ideas are largely responsible for my entire career, I jumped at the opportunity. The presentation was decently well attended (about two dozen people), and I felt it went very well. Not a major time sink, but I did have to devote some time and effort to designing the PowerPoint (not a tool I typically use in my classes) and whittling down my usual two-and-a-half-hour Darwinian Revolution lecture from my History of Science class to an hour-long presentation for general audiences.
The net result of all this busyness? Most other aspects of life vaporized. Recreational reading? I haven't finished a novel since Christmas, and have mostly confined myself to reading short stories and gaming books- things I could digest in little chunks without losing the thread of the story or getting sucked in and thereby losing too much time. Gaming? My players were immensely patient with me, even though I probably canceled one session out of every three. Visiting friends and family? I became a stranger to a lot of people this semester. Correspondence? My long-distance friends and loved ones have barely heard my voice for awhile now. Sleep and regular meals? I managed them, but not as often, as long, or as healthy as I would have preferred. And oh, yes, there was stress. I can't say I didn't come out of this with at least some psychological damage.
But there was some payoff. Financially, for one- I get paid by the credit, so teaching 19 credits meant a significant raise (at my best, I used to do 14 per term, and of late it's been 11 per term more often than not, since the community college cut hours for adjuncts, a policy they've thankfully reversed). I wish I could say that that helped Stacie and I recoup savings spent on the house last year, pay down debt, or make some significant progress towards other goals, but alas, most of the raise got eaten by car repairs, helping family in need (and no apologizing, Wendy), and recouping from the first two months of the years when, due to the nature of adjunct contracts, I don't get paid. But at least that meant we could field all those expenses when they came up, so the raise was helpful, even if we found ourselves largely in the same place financially speaking as before the Term from Hell. Alas, I have yet to be paid for either the forensics class or the Darwin talk (I expect I'll eventually get a check for the former but not the latter).
Professionally, there were some good dividends as well. I've got my name in as a good and reliable instructor at another college (Point Park University), who is now reliably offering me 6-8 credits per term, and more if I want them, and has a good chance of hiring me on in a permanent capacity once their Forensic Sciences major gets off the ground. My CV has been considerably expanded, and I've now got several additional courses fully planned out that I can use in the future. In the fall, I'll be assuming full control of the online forensics class I was only a partial instructor for this term, and that opens the door to other anthro classes in the future. I've been asked to do the Darwin presentation again next year, and possibly a talk on Neandertals this fall. And, for the first time since I've been teaching it, I got through the entire curriculum of my History of Science course without falling behind and having to cut at least one lecture.
Personal dividends? Lest it be thought this term was simply an exercise in overwork, let it be understood that I love my job. Teaching is deeply fulfilling to me, upper-level teaching more so, and I really liked working with the classes I did. I'll be the first to admit the quality of my work was not as high as it should have been this term- a casualty both of my busyness and the growing pains of teaching so many classes for the first time- but I feel like I did a good job, my students gave me overwhelmingly positive reviews, and, as always happens when I teach, I learned, both about the subjects I was teaching and about how to teach better. With each passing term, I feel more and more secure in this unplanned choice of profession, even though my heart still twinges every time I read an article about a new hominid discovery.
But, all that being said, I'm glad it's over. As much as I love my job, I don't want to live for it. I'm passionate about science and history and teaching, but more passionate about family, friends, and my creative projects, all of which were neglected to one extent or another these past several months. Now I want to start focusing more on those things, which are, at the end of the day, the things that matter. So to everyone who had to deal with my erratic schedule, whom I bailed on or wasn't there for, or who otherwise suffered from my professional advancement (especially my incredible wife, pghkitten, who made it possible for me to cope with all this), I'm truly and deeply sorry, and I promise I'm not becoming a workaholic. I don't want another term like this. I'll probably have one, whenever I get tenure and have my first semester as a full professor, but in general, I want to shape my future in such a way that times like this are the exception, and not the rule as they have been of late. I want my life to be focused on what I do when I get home, and I don't want the primary at-home activity to be getting ready for work the next day. And to all of you who were patient, supportive, and provided me with essential distraction, social time, and reminders of why I do all this- thank you. Your love and friendship makes his kind of punishing schedule bearable, and at the end of the day makes everything else worthwhile.
So what does my schedule look like from here? This summer, it's going to be blissfully quieter. I deliberately turned down extra classes in order to facilitate a lighter summer term- just two classes, both Tuesdays and Thursdays during the day, 9 AM to 4:30 PM. So I'm totally off Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this summer, and have no evening classes. I intend to spend the time seeing friends and family, doing fun things around the area (and a few little weekend trips, although financial concerns have already thwarted our annual pilgrimage to Otakon in July), tending to my weed-choked and long-neglected creative garden, and planning ahead for the fall. I'll make less this summer than I usually do, but the tradeoff in time, peace of mind, and reconnecting with the people and things I love is more than worth it. We've got two planned trips- our usual trek to Origins at the end of June, and a long weekend in Seattle at the beginning of June- and are entertaining the possibility of one or two other weekend expeditions, as time and funds allow.
As for this fall, at first blush it looks like I've not learned the lesson of this semester, since I'll be teaching 20 credits rather than 19, a courseload other instructors tell me is psycho (in more or less those terms). But it'll be a much more manageable schedule- only one new class (Intro to Physical Sciences for non-science majors, which I have all summer to design), most of my classes in the mornings, only two afternoon classes (Tuesday and Thursday labs), and one evening class a week (History of Science on Wednesdays). The forensics class is an online one, and therefore can be done on my own schedule, and demands far less time than a class that meets in person. Everything else is a class I've taught before and know my way around. So in other words, so long as I'm efficient this summer at planning ahead for my one new section, this fall should be a lot easier, and in any event the time distribution of courses means I'll have a lot more free time when other people are also free from their jobs. So it promises to be a lot less punishing a schedule, and a much more lucrative one (only one credit more, but more of them are at the community college, which pays better than Point Park). And ideally, barring large unforeseen expenses, Stacie and I can actually start reaping the financial benefits of my workload, paying down some debt and saving for the future.
This has been a long delve into the most dominant aspects of my life for the past several months, but it's by no means the full summary of all I've been about and done. I have had other things going on, and they bear discussion; this just seemed to me to be a necessary prelude to everything else, especially for those who aren't local and may have bene unaware of the reasons for my absence. Over the next week (I have a full week off before summer term starts!), I plan to make several other posts on other exciting things that I've had happening, including but not necessarily limited to (listed here as much for my own convenience as anything else): Gaming, genealogy, family, writing, conventions, travel, thoughts on the current state of the world and politics, gardening, plans for the summer, and life with kittens.
I'm back. And for a little while at least, I'm free.