"Your job will not teach you about life."

This is the craziest fortune ever. Clearly they know nothing about my job, which is all about life. More to this post later!

"Insecurity is your biggest hurdle."

Anyone who knows me knows that this isn't true. Except it is a little true when it comes to feeling prepared for my PhD exams. After a nice talk I had today, though, I'm feeling more secure about them.
Today was my first day back at work after a long, hot summer which ended with a road trip to California and back again. We pulled into town just in time for the kids to go to Tae Kwon Do class yesterday after a rather eventful trip.
I dragged my sorry butt out of bed this morning for convocation. It was lonely with my best friend on sabbatical in Mozambique, but I had a good time chatting to people, and ended up in a long discussion with a friend who is also a PhD student in my program, but a few semesters behind me.
Then I lunched with a friend who is ahead of me in the program, and she's the one who really encouraged me to go ahead and take me exams, trusting that I am more prepared than I think I am. I know she's right, as I'll never really feel ready, and the best thing is just to get done with them.
After a division meeting and a bit more catching up, I returned to a messy house- no showings this week, I hope, as I don't have the energy to unpack yet!

The daily grind

Every morning when I grind my coffee, I worry it's waking up the household- but it doesn't, really.
This week was back to work for me, and back to school for the kids. (I thought last week was back to work, so I actually had a nice week of vacation- no online classes even!)  It's tough getting up early and dragging myself in. I'm back to having headache/migraines (with auras) and I think it's partly from sleep schedules being messed up. If I wake up in the middle of the night and get out of bed as pregnant women are wont to do, I have trouble falling right back to sleep.
The kids were excited about school, and Leila comes home every day with a new reason her teacher is great. Ali has had a harder time. The first day he got frustrated because he wasn't able to finish his work and his "brain hurt." They were writing sentences, and that's hard for him. I talked to him about his teacher- he seemed to think she was upset by him not finishing. The next day went well because it was math work, but yesterday was hard again, and this morning there were tears that he didn't want to go to school. He doesn't like writing, but he says math is easy for him. Finally I asked if he wanted me to write a note to his teacher, and I did. I hope he gave it to her. I think he likes his teacher, though. Yesterday before we went home he went up to tell her something.
Monday I face my students- 8 weeks of face to face classes, and online classes that continue all 16 weeks. I need to work on an assignment schedule this weekend that gives me some breathing space in November!

Publish or perish

I watched a rather inane movie last night called Tenure. It is, not suprisingly, about a guy seeking tenure at the university where he teaches. He's a brilliant teacher but can't get published recently. Also, he has a goofy friend who leads him into trouble. Another professor comes along who is a brilliant scholar, but a poor teacher. He helps her out because he's a good guy and they are going to fall in love, of course. The upshot is that he is offered probationary tenure (is that even possible?) and told he has to take a year to really focus on scholarship. Not suprisingly, being the hero, he declines and becomes a high school teacher, having understood that teaching is his true gift and calling.

First of all, he should have gone to a community college because there is great respect for teaching there. But secondly, I don't think that universities can really disdain teaching talent that much. All in all, it was a little heavy handed.

The lead actor was Luke Wilson, and Gretchen Mol played his rival/love interest. They both did a good job- understated and real. Some of the supporting players went way overboard in caricaturizing academic types. It didn't help that the script was rather uneven.
The star? Bigfoot, who made a couple of cameo appearances.

Heigh ho, heigh ho

It's back to work I go- actually, I'm already back in my office. Oh the joy of rising early and slogging back to work. Whoever decided we should have a week's buffer between vacation and actually seeing students was a genius. I get to attend meetings, prep for classes, and acclimate back to the work world. Then there's a long weekend before I meet my new group of students.
The kids have been back at school for a week, and H has, mostly, been the one to deliver them there. Christmas was fun, if busy, with my family in California. New Years was pretty quiet- we celebrated by dancing around with glowsticks. And I need to download pictures. Maybe a few of them will make it up here.
Happy New Years to you all!

crawfish

As I walked across the bridge on my way over to my office the other day, I noticed what looked like a tiny lobster crossing it, too. I think it was a crawfish.
When I got home I told the family about it.
"But why did the crawfish cross the bridge?" H asked.
"To get to the other side!" I told him.
"Hey, that's a knock-knock joke," came from Ali.
(Well, to him any joke is a knock-knock.)
Can I tell you how nice it is to be working where I am now? People stop me in the hallway to tell me how happy, sincerely happy, they are to have me back here. Oh, believe me, me too!
I just got an email from one of the three people (3!!!) hired at my old college. She can't believe I used to do all that work by myself.

Loveliness

It's so nice to leave a job and have people say really nice things about you. Yesterday I thought I was going to lunch with two of the teachers at my old job, and when we got the restaurant several more were waiting for us as a surprise. They even gave me a gift- an 8gb flash drive, since I'd lost my drive earlier in the semester. At the end one of them gave a lovely impromptu speech about how much he'd loved working with me. I'm sure I'll see most of them around. It was just a nice conclusion and left me with a warm fuzzy glow. Later H showed up with the kids and moved me out of my office. So once I hand in my grades I'm all finished at that school.

Summer semester's end

The semester is winding down- all short five weeks of it. Today was my last Creative Workshop class, and my teacher spoke generously about my work and me. This was uplifting since I got into neither show that I submitted to this summer and have been feeling a definite lack of art mojo. Yesterday I went in to speak with him about my insecurities, and today he let me know I shouldn't have those. And, he added that I had a good energy in the class as a person. I think I talk too much sometimes, but I'm willing to give feedback to the other students while some of them are very passive participants. The professor thought I'd make a good college level art teacher if I get my MFA. Well....
So the art is good.
And tomorrow is the last day of teaching for the summer, and at this college as I move back to my former place of employment beginning mid August. Once more I'll be packing up and moving boxes out. (Actually, H does all the heavy lifting.) This time, though, I'll be moving into a new office and with a much lighter heart than last August when I was rehired and had to move back into the office I'd vacated two months before. However, for all that I'm very excited about the move, there's a part of me that realizes I'm leaving a place that is growing in very interesting ways. It sounds like they are hiring 3 people (maybe even 4) to do what I've been doing alone for the past 3 years. This will allow for the program to really grow and it'll probably be very innovative, especially with the new leadership coming in as well. (A friend of mine from where I used to work and am going back to is coming in as the dean).
Finally, as a great ending to the day, Ali decided he should go to sleep in his own bed. We did have a little fussing about the ba, but I explained that boys with bas didn't go to sleepovers. And then he told me he was going to whine about it some more and did. He was sort of lying here (getting off the bed and then me threatening him and then getting on is sort of) and then Leila couldn't sleep so I told her to turn on her light and read. He thought that sounded fun so he went into their room to do that. Of course, she didn't like it. Finally we worked it out for him to leave the light on and her to sleep. When I went in a short time later he was fast asleep with the light still on, and she was profunda with a pillow over her head. If we can keep this up, I'll be sitting pretty.

and the changes they be good!

So, the good news is that I finally got the job I wanted last year. I had an interview yesterday at the college I used to work at, and it went really well. Apparently, the people interviewing me were unanimous in wanting me to come on board- which is good, since they'll be my colleagues.
Hooray!!! Less stress, shorter commute, good friends.

Mulling and stewing

So, I've been stewing off and on this year over that subject that had me mulling last summer. It's made me wary of certain people I work with. I just had an interesting conversation with one of the teachers that I know is on my side (because he frequently tells me so) and he had a totally different take on what went on. Apparently, it wasn't an attempt to "get" me, at least from his perspective, and the person I thought was behind it must not have been, but I think someone else was.
Hhhmmmm. More mulling is called for.
(Why do we bother with politics at work? They are such a waste of energy.)

Happy Days

This morning I was singing as I got ready for work, full of the joy of the season where I don't have to go to work for 3 weeks!!!
I was working hard once I got here, and when I heard a knock on the door I shuddered, but I opened it to find a former student. She wanted to say "thank you" because she had gotten an A in her first college level writing class. The gratitude is because she learned how to write in her ESOL classes with me.
That's a nice, warm fuzzy for this freezing winter day.