Prepared… who, me?

When I finished defending my dissertation in May I really convinced myself that this would be the summer that I finally prepared in advance for the coming semester. By August 1st I would have all my lectures planned out, all my exams, quizzes, and homework assignments ready, my course websites designed, and my office cleaned. Here I am on August 5th, and not only have I not accomplished any of the above, but I have not even ordered my desk copies (textbooks), so I have no idea what my first class is going to cover yet.

I’m off to campus today, for the first real meeting before the start of classes this semester, which means that I need to be ready for take-off. After today, the first day of classes will arrive so quickly it will seem as if it were to happen tomorrow. This semester I am teaching two new courses that I have not taught before. One of them is new to the department and I’m the lucky one who gets to set the curriculum (in other words I get to make all the mistakes that everyone teaching it in the future will learn from).  The other is a twist on a basic finance course I taught in the past – but the last time I taught it was probably 2001.

Of course I have my excuses for not being ready for the semester; first I was food poisoned at a restaurant the night of my defense and ended up in the hospital and bedridden for a week, then the meetings and all the paperwork started for the change to Korea, and once that was finished (not too long ago) I started to catch up on all the visits with friends and family that I missed out on since 2000 while working on my PhD. As a matter of fact, this week I have a friend (or two) to see each day that I’m not on campus. So all is not lost. It just feels that way when weeks go by without me noticing.

As I look at my “to do” list with amazement I wonder how I’m going to do all of these things AND keep up with a 9 month old.  If the weeks go by this quickly now, how fast will they go when Jaden is home??? I can’t imagine…. maybe those of you in the know can give me an idea. Does time just fly by at Mach speed? It sure seems like it will.  

Funny how I want time to speed up now so that I can go to Korea to pick up Jaden, but at the same time I feel like classes are approaching too quickly. I’m sure once we return from Korea, I’ll want time to slow down again. As soon as someone has developed a time-bender, let me know – I’ll try it out for you. )