10 more days

Recently my brother-in-law was talking about how hard it is to go back to work after being off for two weeks. I feel his pain. Possibly ten times over. I haven’t taught since May 5th, when I had my last class. So I have been ‘off’ nearly 12 weeks, if you don’t count doing research (which most people don’t).

If I did not own a calendar, the knot in my stomach would tell me that I have little time left before classes begin again.  The nightmares have started.  I dream that I wake up to suddenly realize that classes start TODAY and I haven’t even completed a syllabus, no less a lesson plan for the first class. 

Generally I am prepared for classes. Neville tells me that I prepare too much. It’s not like I haven’t heard it before.  It has been the general consensus of my colleagues as well. No matter how many times I’m told that I’m doing too much, and no matter how hard I try to just do whatever is necessary to get by, I just never feel prepared enough. I tend to spend every waking minute doing ‘just one more thing’ for my classes. (Come to think of it, that’s pretty much how I run my entire life.)

This is the fate of a professor who cares too much. I care whether or not my students enjoy class and whether or not they learn something. I care whether or not they like the textbook, and how much they have to pay for it. I care whether or not they stay awake during class and whether or not they study at home. I care whether or not they do well on exams. I feel responsible, to a certain extent, for how well they perform in the class. Of course, I do realize that they have to put in the effort as well (I’m not stupid — just caring), but that is my only relief in the entire caring nightmare of my chosen career.

This has created a conflict for me: It was very difficult for me to balance my teaching duties with my dissertation research and writing. I wanted to be prepared for my classes, and preparing for class is what I default to if there’s no ‘plan.’ So I had to be careful to make a weekly schedule with enough time set aside for the dissertation, or I’d wake up on Sunday to find the week gone without a word written in my research. 

This conflict created tremendous anxiety. The guilt over spending more time than needed in one area while not getting to another area eats away at me. It is the source of my nightmares. It is a good part of the reason my stomach aches the week before classes start. 

By now you’re saying “But Luna, you’ve finished your Ph.D. – the dissertation is no longer a factor,” and you are correct. That anxiety has given way… the dissertation is finito. Yet there is a new factor now. A wonderful, amazing, lovable, anxiously anticipated factor — Jaden.

For the first time in my life I can understand why people don’t want to work. I want to stay home and spend every minute that I can with him. I don’t want to have to leave him to go teach classes. I don’t want to have to prep for teaching and go to meetings and hold office hours. I want to enjoy every waking moment with my son when he comes home. Alas, I can’t. So the anxiety is here to stay.

I seem to consistently operate at a high level of anxiety. Maybe it is just my destiny… persistent high anxiety…. or maybe, just maybe, the real estate market will turn around and our situation will change. Until then, we remain unwilling land barons, and I face the start of the semester. The happy ending to this story is that I face it with a gigantic smile on my face, knowing Jaden will be home very, very soon.

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. )